South Africa – once a proud nation and the shining light of Africa, despite a troubled racial history – is now a sinking ship. It’s not the Titanic (not yet), but we are leaking faster every day and too busy with infighting to bail out the water or patch the leaks. Is it really all that bad? Well, prepare for inflation taking a short hike straight up next year if Eskom gets its way with a 20% tariff hike (officially 19.99%, which is the same but less open and honest); watch our SOEs waste multiple billions of Rands in bailouts; enjoy the spectacle as the recently leaked emails expose the majority of our “leaders” as corrupt and crooked.

Do you wonder why Eskom is asking for an insane 20% price hike? After all, a hike in electricity will push up food prices and the breadline (causing more South Africans to starve), increase the costs of every family with access to electricity, and push away the refining and manufacturing businesses that we as a nation so desperately need. Eskom getting a price hike of about three times our inflation rate would all but cripple our economy – an economy already in recession.

That 20% price hike, interestingly enough, corresponds rather closely to the extravagant coal prices that Eskom pays to Gupta-owned companies – read about the clear Gupta influence here. When Eskom is willing to pay the Guptas about 20% more than their competitors – for substandard coal, even – the reasons for the 20% electricity tariff hike becomes all too clear. This is just one way the Zuptas (the Guptas’ and Duduzane Zuma’s companies, and old Papa Laughing Zuma turning the thumbscrews on Eskom from on high) are stealing our tax money in broad daylight, with ANC support.

The rot doesn’t stop there, but a full listing of the many Zupta disasters would fill a novel, not just an article. If you are curious, here are a few places to start: the multi-million SABC business breakfast scam; the Cabinet appointments made by the Guptas; the infamous Saxonwold shebeen; Zuma’s daughter’s (short-lived) million-rand job straight out of college; the Zuma family’s arrangements for a Dubai escape route; the Guptas’ illegally granted SA citizenship; etc.

Between Zuma, his extended family and his close Gupta friends/masters, South Africa has already lost billions of Rands – money which rapidly disappears to Dubai or India instead of being used to create the jobs that nearly a third of the South African public are cruelly denied. This is a leak we cannot afford, and we need to patch it soon. That means getting rid of Zuma, revoking the Guptas’ illegal citizenship and crooked contracts, boycotting the Zupta businesses, criminal investigations into the corruption (including the infamous delayed charges of Jacob Zuma). Even worse, our demented president is trying his hardest to steer us straight into the nuclear deal iceberg, which would surely sink us in debt.

Next up, BEE. Black Economic Empowerment – sounds good, right? Help black South Africans achieve their potential, help empower them. Sadly, that is not what BEE (or the “BBBEE” repackaging) is about, at all.

The big thing to realise about BEE is that its main focus is not to create jobs. BEE gives a massive advantage to companies that are black-owned, but doesn’t care in the least how many people or what colour people those companies employ: that means that BEE makes it easy for rich people like Duduzane Zuma to rake in money, but the poor and the unemployed never see a cent of that. Say a fully black-owned company bids on a government tender. They quote a price 24% higher than a bid by a mostly white-owned company, so they get the tender thanks to BEE. They need the same number of employees and the same supplies, so no new jobs are created by that 24% extra charge and the extra money goes straight into the pocket of the rich black owner. The rich just get richer – and inequality gets worse, not better.

BEE is a game of a few big winners (look at Cyril Ramaphosa for an example), and millions of South African suckers who were misled by the lies and spin doctoring of the ANC to believe that BEE was in any way reducing inequality or creating jobs.

While the Zupta parallel state is a parasite that carries some very clear blame, and BEE is a symptom of the greed of the ANC and the “black elite”, the third problem I am going to touch on is more directly our fault, as South Africans. Runaway, festering, hate – in all flavours from xenophobic attacks to reckless arson to racial violence. The ANC, the EFF and other groups that live off of that hate fan the flames, but we citizens provide the fuel.

The more recent xenophobic attacks saw backlash elsewhere in Africa as people reacted by attacking South African companies in their own countries. If South Africa does collapse under the weight of the parasitic Zupta empire, perhaps we will see South African refugees hunted and slaughtered – attacked just as they attacked refugees from various countries on our continent. Perhaps some people believe South Africa will never fall (despite evidence to the contrary), so I’ll discuss the more immediate consequences.

In Coligny recently, the mere suspicion of a race-related killing was fanned into a consuming flame by people only known by fake names (suspected but not proven to be ANC agents). Many houses owned by white citizens were burnt down, shops were looted, cars were destroyed. Aside from that economic damage (partially absorbed by insurance companies, but still horrific), the crazed mob of Coligny attacked dozens of small businesses in the area owned by refugees and migrants.

Imagine, if you would, the horror of losing a business and a home you worked many hard years to build, all because some idiots got drunk and angry, and figured that looting your shop is “okay” because you are “not South African” by their arbitrary definition. Consider, also, that every small business looted and torched kills jobs, maims the economy, and wastes valuable infrastructure and capital. Such senseless attacks quite literally burn down a bit of our future each time.

This spiralling, runaway hate will kill us all if we let it. Attacks, terrorism, mobs, riots, perhaps even a civil war. Do we really want to go this way? Most South Africans, black and white and other, really just want a chance to get a decent job and raise a healthy family, without having to worry about discrimination, theft, violent crime, corruption… This hate is not innate – it is a thing that spreads like an infection; someone has to teach a child this hate. With so many people trying to fan the flames – race is an ANC staple around election time, as it is for the EFF and other hate-mongers – it is up to every South African to find a way out of this hate, before we burn down our already fragile economy and nation.

If South Africa were a boat, we would have some serious and worrying leaks. There is an iceberg ahead – a crooked nuclear deal that skips acquisition procedures so as to wastefully expend tax money more quickly. We have saboteurs inside: the Zupta empire is stealing everything they can find, even if it screws up our engine (economy) or other important systems (SOEs, NPA, Cabinet, etc.). Most South Africans are stuck on this ship, since none of our neighbours want to welcome our xenophobic and violence-prone citizens into their own countries.

If we cannot stop fighting and start fixing, we’ll sink to the home of all failed states, and that would be like hell on earth. If we let ourselves be hoodwinked by the get-rich-quick schemes of the ANC, like BEE, we might not even realise we are sinking. If we insist on hitting the nuclear deal iceberg, we’ll sink in debt before it is done – if it ever gets done – and it would be too late to save our nation.

We’re running out of time. It won’t be all over tomorrow, but every day we wait will make it that much harder to try and recover. I still remember a time, not too long ago, when about R7 bought a US Dollar. I remember a time when SAA was a proud South African institution. I remember a time when our economy was actually growing. It’s up to us to decide if it’s too late to go back.

Visit A Vigilant Voice for more articles by Lelouch Giard