After six weeks in the mountains,savannahs,coasts,cities and dorps of Africa one returns expecting that a lot has moved on and changed in the world. Oh well, we all have disappointments.
Let's take a quick sweep of what's afoot around the globe..........
UK: Back just in time to see the sandal wearers spring conference in Gateshead. Twiga had wondered why our old Labour,- that's Old Labour,- friends had been a bit quiet in their opposition role lately while simultaneously moving ahead of the Tories in the polls. The answer is of course simple. The Lib Dems have been doing the opposition bit for them so why should they open their mouths and spoil it? Still the untrained puppy in the house of government,the Lib Dems continue their incontinence on the carpet and to out-Labour Labour in their enthusiasm for "fairness" (something Dave keeps talking about too though he probably isn't too sure what it really means). They interpret the concept as being to do with the rich paying their "fair share" of taxes . Fine but as the top 10% of earners pay around 60% of the nation's taxes in any case aren't we there already? Might they not reasonably think that a Hong Kong type flat rate tax system would be much fairer, really fair even. There the more people earn the more they pay and the ratio of tax to income remains constant rather than being disproportionately or unfairly tilted against hard work and high achievement? With a flat rate way these people would still pay the bulk of the nation's taxes and subsidise the rest but in a way that incentivises them. That sounds very fair and simple so why not? Is punitive taxation just for the sake of being seen to be hard on the better off fair? It's difficult to see how it could be. UK Plc, led by Lib Dem and Labour politicians and with the aquiescence of Tory leadership trying hard not to be the nasty party ,seems to be heading dangerously back into the destructive and objectionable class war jungle. It's not healthy and it's not good for anyone.
USA: Talking of people doing other people's work for them, the Republicans publicly internecine process of choosing a Presidential candidate for this year's fast approaching elections is certainly working well for Obama and the Democrats. As more and more extreme conservative views, especially about women's rights to make their own decisions on contraception, abortion and pre-testing for foetal birth defects get trotted out by the day, more and more must be thinking this is going too far and will be left with only one voting option,-Obama. No wonder the President is looking rather relaxed at the moment.
SOUTH AFRICA: Any visitor to the opposition-run Cape at the moment will come away marvelling at how well the transition to New South Africa has gone. The infrastructure is largely well maintained, service everywhere is good, the tourism industry is high quality and increasingly manned by bright young black and coloured people while new roads are appearing at a rate unthinkable in Britain. That's how it looks.
Not far below the surface though things are not quite so rosy. There is still a huge unemployment problem,-increasingly not only for previously disadvantgaed blacks but also now for young whites to whom state employment is pretty much barred while quotas remove opportunities in the private sector. Population growth continues to run ahead of GDP growth. Murders of (well over 1,000 so far)and very unpleasant pressures on white farmers to quit strike a sour note and threaten long term large scale food production. Militant unions discourage overseas investment which sees largely non unionised, high work ethic Asia as a much better bet. The "real" ANC, the province of Winnie Mandela and the youth league in particular, is very different from the wise, statesmanlike, healing and unifying Nelson Mandela version. It itches to drive a populist racial agenda for Zimbabwe type land "redistribution", seizure of power from the provinces, intervention in business and life in general and would drive investment and any real prospects for future prosperity ever further away. The best bulwark against this will be the rapidly growing affluent black middle classes but they are a long way from having a numerical majority.
Problems therefore lie ahead and it is a race against time for enough black South Africans to have an interest in stability and prosperity to counterbalance the easily whipped up anger of those who do not see themselves as any better off than they were under apartheid. The race and haves/have not genie is much easier to take out of the bottle than to put back in and Winnie & Co are knowingly playing with fire.
Africa, for the image as well as economics of the continent, badly needs South Africa to be a success even if they don't love it too much. The issue isn't just for the one country alone.
RUSSIA: No surprises from the elections there and Putin's footwork in returning to power. Although all the evidence says the elections were skewed, the other evidence says that this was unnecessary as he would have won fairly easily anyway. The national love of a strong man remains despite past brutalities and present misdeeds. The country has a long way to go before the majority chooses a western style of debate and democracy. In the meantime Russia will continue to support other regimes with an intolerance of opposition and a liking for repression of opposing voices,- eg Syria.
THE EU AND THE EURO: The two stagger on in their mutually suffocating embrace. Reality is that the Euro was always a dodgy German/French creation aimed at securing control of the economics and thereby the politics of the EU. One size visibly doesn't fit all 27 countries of widely varying cultures and economic models spread over a large geographical area. Supporting an artifical creation to try to make it work despite the facts of life is imposing huge and expensive strains on the future of the EU itself. The solution would seem to be a Euro and a non Euro zone within the EU and for the overall objective to move away from political union (=Franco/German domination) for which nobody has ever voted, back towards a much simpler and less centrally controlled free trade area. Apart from anything else this would reduce the huge unproductive overheads of the vast Brussells burocracy. Massive savings would flow from simplification of processes, reduction of runaway salaries and allowances, abandonment of the alternative Strasbourg setup, the reduction of working languages to two or three and a host of other common sense but "politically sensitive" moves. Trying to please everyone is almost impossible and incredibly and impractically expensive. No business would saddle itself with or survive such expensive and productivity deadening overheads.
AFGHANISTAN: Over 400 British deaths now notched up and inevitably more to come. For what? We have already said this is an unwinnable directionless war with fictitous objectives (keeping terror off British and American streets wasn't it?). The problem now is that leaders on both sides of the Atlantic are terrified of a withdrawal resulting in the overthrow of the hugely corrupt and duplicious Afghan government. This would prove what most people instinctively know,-ie that the whole intervention has been a waste of lives, time and money,- and the nations' TV screen will be full of military Mum's saying "My son died for nothing other than keeping the politicians' faces. Therein could lie electoral disaster for some although in the UK the blame would have to be spread across all parties and leaders. That would mean Blair, Brown and Cameron and many members of their cabinets and shadow cabinets.
The fact is that collapse of the current Afghan government is likely whenever withdrawal takes place. Its leaders will be lucky to escape with their lives. A period of Taleban rule is highly likely before the Afghans themselves decide whether or not they will put up with that long term. The various tribes, clans and groupings don't really like being governed or told what to do by anyone and only a very loose form of central government, and certainly not control, is acceptable. Any vision of Westminster type parliament or a US style Congress is laughable. Some kind of national council or forum will emerge although not in a form which we would describe as necessarily numerically democratic or even majority rule. The only thing that unifies the country is a hatred of occupation by any form of foreigners. The British learned that in the 19th century, the Russians in the 20th and the British and Americans are relearning it in the 21st. If only more of our leaders had listened during their school history lessons. One would have thought that at least Fettes in Edinburgh (Blair) and Eton (Cameron) would have dinned it into their pupils better. Maybe history was programmed into the immediately after lunch slot?
SOMALIA: Pirate activity appears to be down, possibly as result of more ships carrying their own armed security people. Sensibly nobody is saying much about who is doing what but it is reasonable to assume that, EU naval vessels apart, shoot to kill and "Don't ask, don't tell" are more prevalent than before. The Kenyan army has been pressing Al Shabaab and there is an objective to drive the terrorists out of Kismayu. Al Shabaab have declared war on Kenya and Saturday's bomb in a Nairobi bus station can be seen as a declaration of intent. Kenya's tourism business in particular holds its breath. Meanwhile Mogadishu, uneasy though it is, has begun to resume some appearance of normality.The rapidy expanding Turkish Airlines has begun a twice weekly scheduled service from Ankara to the city. There is no pleasing everyone though. Al Shabaab have accused the Turks of bringing in goods to compete with local traders and out of date foodstuffs to poison the population.
That is a quick update of some things picked up in a scan around the world's horizons. There's much more happening out there and at home of course and we will revert to some of them as they come into post holiday focus. The world is never boring.
