Why South Africa is like a Mexican soap opera

Over the course of the ANC’s weeklong conference there will be plenty of talk about President Zuma’s alleged corruption, and attempts to unseat him.

There will be angry calls to nationalise South Africa’s mines, and seize all white-owned farms. And there will be more sober, sensible debates about how to make this a less unequal society.

It will all matter hugely – and at the same time – make little practical difference.

The ANC has been noisily pondering these questions for years but its leadership is now safely ensconced within South Africa’s growing, aspirational middle class, and it seems to have little appetite for revolution.

And so a fractious nation will rumble on.

For me, the most troubling thing today is not the messy politics, or the inequality, or the unemployment – which, when you include the informal sector, is not as high as often claimed.

The really shocking thing is this:

When it comes to primary school education – this country ranks among the very worst in the world. Below Bangladesh. Below Nigeria.

A generation is being forsaken, which makes the smiles of those graduating university students and their cheering families this week, all the more moving – and bitter-sweet.

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