
By Francois J Marais
- Large parts of the African population is stuck in a bronze age, where a wheel is still a foreign concept. To ask those people to pay taxes, to vote in a democratic election, to farm in a sustainable method and that we have walked on the moon, is impossible. To explain to those people that world population has exceeded 7 billion and that global warming is a reality is also impossible for people whose wealth is typified by how many sons he has and how many herds of cattle.
- The concept to farm sustainably and to create a farming community that is beyond “subsistence farming” is too much to ask.
- South Africa, with its large European community, has developed a strong mining industry that has created a tax base that allowed the country to outstrip its neighbours and create an infrastructure that is the envy of the rest of Africa. This leads to an education base that allows SA to export educational excesses, reference the huge number of qualified SAFFIEs in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Dubai etc. SA has at least five ranked universities on the world ranking.
The point of the above is that should we remove the borders below the 10th parallel it will improve the flow of goods and people around the region but: unfortunately SA will be swamped by its neighbours to the North as there is nothing that will draw people to Lusaka, Luanda or Harare. The last 20 years have seen an increasing return to a tribal type of squabbling in those countries, even in SA and serious development have been left to the Chinese and the human capital, such as those countries had, have reverted back to pre-Uhuru.