South Africa has two characteristics that must be understood to get a perspective on how the country developed over the centuries.
The first is that South Africa is an extremely rich country in terms of its mineral resources.
The second is that South Africa also has one of the most abused populations in the world.
That was the theme of a talk at the Wanderers Golf Club by Moeletsi Mbeki at a meeting of the Rotary Club of Johannesburg New Dawn on Wednesday. Mbeki is a political commentator and former journalist and is, amongst many other positions, deputy chairman of the SA Institute of International Affairs.
The evening meeting was held to celebrate the 17th birthday of the club, as well as to induct two new members. A number of ex-members attended.
Mbeki, younger brother of ex-President Thabo Mbeki, said this abuse went on under Dutch colonial rule, followed by the British colonisation, then the Afrikaners, which culminated in apartheid and was perpetuated by the big mining companies and in latter decades, by the ANC government itself.
"If you abuse your population, you can never get development." he said.
South Africa is a New World country, one of only two in Africa, that started its industrialisation at the same time as the USA, but whereas the USA now has per capita income of $89000 per person, SA lingers far behind on just $6000. The irony is tha SA abolished slavery before the USA did, but then followed the path of exploiting the mineral wealth rather than developing the human capital.
Two new members were inducted to coincide with New Dawn's induction into Rotary International on 9 February 2009. They are Philippe Petit, also a journalist, a published author and board member at the Alliance Française, and Alastair Dry, the money man at St Katherine's Preparatory School in Parktown.
Debbie de Vries will be re-inducted soon after having made a welcome return returned to Rotary and to the club.
A number of past New Dawn members joined the festivities, most notably Peter-James Smith, a founder member, second president and the first New Dawn blogger. Also there were Lynn Collicott, honorary member Carl Chemaly, past president Carol Stier, past president Karlien Kruger and Ivone Vosloo.
The year started off with two notable speakers. Wendy Carstens spoke about her passion for the Melville Koppies and Andrea Campher of Standard Bank spoke about disaster relief.
Wendy is known as the saviour of the Melville Koppies, one of the last remaining bits of the grassland (there are more than 50 species of grass, she said) that existed before the discovery of gold and the subsequent development along the Witwatersrand.
Wendy said she had been involved with the Koppies for 30 years, but has finally stepped down and handed over to a committee that she says is every bit as dedicated as she ever was. She warned about the western portion of the reserve becoming a no-go area with vagrants making hiking there unsafe.
Dr Andrea Campher is a lawyer who works for Standard Bank. She hails from the Northwest Province and started a disaster relief unit within AgriSA in 2021. She said that seeing the devastation caused by the drought of 2015-2017, the worst since 1933, ''made me aware that I want to help people."
She said cycles of drought and flooding will always be there, but also spoke about other disasters, such as the devastating July riots in KZN in 2021, the current foot-and-mouth outbreak and seasonal wildfires.
"In South Africa not maintaining infrastructure makes things difficult for disaster prevention."
A Thought for the Weeks Ahead: When nations grow old, the arts grow cold and commerce settles on every tree. - William Blake (1757-1827)
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