How To Live A Good Life In Failing South Africa.

It all starts with religion.

You keep underestimating Helen Zille, but she has lasted longer than any political leader of the ANC since 1994 and has left a real, indelible mark on South African society. You might disagree with her on many things (I certainly do), but her instincts are second to none.

As 2023 rolled around, Zille wrote a piece on Facebook about the role of culture in determining the success of a country. I believe that culture, if one defines it as the collective manifestation of human intellectual achievement, is a substantial contributing factor to the success of a society. Culture is a powerful driver of innovation.

Zille lists ten cultural attributes - which seem relatively straightforward.

These are good societal attributes, from speaking the truth to having a problem-solving mentality. The good news is that Zille will use 2023 to promote these cultural attributes as much as possible. We can only commend her for that.

But, we feel that Zille is missing one key aspect - and that is ethics, namely Christian ethics. Religion left politics long ago, and we are poorer for it. Modern political life is devoid of faith, which shows clearly in our contemporary political discourse. Modern politics is devoid of metaphysics, it is sapped of purpose.

We are not ardent believers, but anyone who believes in Western civilisation needs to understand that Christianity is the foundation of it. Anyone who has read Dominion by Tom Holland will realise that Christianity has influenced all Western norms and mores. Zille no doubt knows this but did not wish to alienate other faiths that might vote for the DA. We are left with modernity with duties by removing religion from the cultural equation. Which is fine, I suppose but insufficient for a great society.

We all desperately want everyone to be truthful, honest and hard-working, but we know many people are the opposite. So how can we change that? How can we, at scale, change the social mores of society? We argue that it is impossible. No laws or political forces can make people more moral, but there are social forces that can.

If we agree that the Balkanisation of South Africa is happening, economic and political activity is becoming fragmented into the far-flung areas of South Africa. That gives Zille a massive opportunity to find the underlying institution that is bringing a community together, whether the church or the business chamber and promote the cultural attributes as much as possible. All institutions have some code of conduct, and leveraging those may yield more significant results than attempting the same at scale.

Local order is far more critical than national order.

It would be best to control what you can before expanding it. Great companies and institutions know this principle well. South Africans need to learn it as well.