by tts-admin | Aug 7, 2023

Power blackouts in South Africa
Patrick Cleburn – V Dare May 4, 2023

On March 29, 2023, Lay Of The Land, a webzine saying it supplies

Reliable reportage and insightful commentary on the Middle East by seasoned journalists from the region and beyond

rather curiously posted SOUTH AFRICA AT WAR WITH ITSELF by Michael Witkin, a native of Cape Town South Africa who has been resident in America for some 40 years.

I surmise that this eloquent and devastating article could not find an outlet in the MSM or at least some less obscure webzine. H/T Lay Of The Land.

SOUTH AFRICA AT WAR WITH ITSELF https://t.co/t44oFlWyke

— 🦁Lay Of The Land (@LayOfTheLand5) March 29, 2023

This essay is a lesson for America. It is about Cape Town, on the southern tip of Africa, which was founded in 1653 by the Dutch—and so the oldest White settlement in sub-Saharan Africa. (The Dutch founded New York in 1624.)

The conventional wisdom after the end of white rule in South Africa in the early ‘90s was that because the Democratic Alliance, the only major party with substantial white participation, was elected to govern both the city of Cape Town and the province, it would be protected from the worst effects of black rule in the rest of the country.

On the basis of Michael Witkin’s article, the rest of South Africa is an extreme catastrophe.

A large part of the essay is devoted to ‘Ruin Porn,’ a genre which had a vogue pertaining to American cities about 15 years ago, but which has since been largely Cancelled. To anyone who knew Cape Town under white rule the pictures are chilling. Particularly poignant is Witkin’s lament:

I visited the Hebrew school that I had attended in Claremont, a suburb of Cape Town, as a young boy. A building now that has been totally defiled, abandoned and eerie…

I peered through the ubiquitous razor wire fence; a child’s swing swayed gently in the summer breeze. I remember a time when the nursery school playground bustled with the clamor of children’s laughter. Now all I could see were shadows and figures in the landscape wreaking havoc; with the stench of putrefying trash adding to the setting.

Witkin is particularly eloquent on the collapse of South Africa’s infrastructure services:

Besides the non-existence of South African Airways, which was one of the finest airline companies in the world, the postal service is almost nonexistent. The postal workers rifle through the mail opening up letters and parcels and help themselves to whatever they can find.

(In the late ‘80s SAA was one of the strongest long-distance carriers in the world. The Wikipedia article dealing with its demise is almost comical (at present). Amongst many other atrocities:

SAA has been accused of racism for rejecting white cadet pilots on the grounds of race, who met the educational and physical criteria. By filling out several dummy applications, journalists from the newspaper Beeld established that the online form had been programmed to reject any white applicants.

Witkin is (correctly) particularly exercised about the demise of ESCOM, the State monopoly electricity supplier:

Besides no airlines, no postal service and no trains, there is a dwindling electricity supply. They have rolling blackouts, euphemistically called “load shedding” which can last as much as 10 hours per day in Cape Town. Johannesburg is worse…

Without electricity there is no viable economy. Retail stores, restaurants, businesses and factories cannot operate….Little maintenance has been done and with a large increase in the population (mostly emigres from other African countries) they have not kept up with the need to build additional power plants.

I discussed the ESCOM situation in U.S. Giving $8 Billion To South Africa For Green Power—How Much For The Big Guy? ESCOM managed a 10-fold expansion under Apartheid South Africa (1948-1994) and had an impeccable overseas credit rating. There is remarkable multiracial agreement on the cause of ESCOM’s demise. From my essay linked to above:

Eskom board member and former Altron CEO Mteto Nyati warned that empowerment rules hamper Eskom’s performance…

He added that affirmative action is hampering Eskom’s ability to employ skilled people who can fix the company.

and

Eskom generation executive Rhulani Mathebula said Eskom’s biggest problem is fraud and corruption.

The problems include people stealing coal and diesel, damaging plants to get maintenance contracts, and delivering the wrong spares and equipment.

CONTINUE READING: https://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=271971