What is the cost of lies? It is not that we will mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that, if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognise the truth at all. What can we do then? What else is left but to abandon even the truth and content ourselves instead with stories. In these stories, it does not matter who the heroes are, all we want to know is who is to blame.”
These are the words of Valery Legasov, Russia’s top scientist and deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, in Moscow, recorded on April 26, 1988. He was found dead in his apartment the next day. He allegedly committed suicide, but he left no suicide note – only a series of tape recordings detailing his disillusionment with government’s attempts to suppress the key details of an international disaster. The eve of his death marked the second anniversary of Legasov having received a distress call – on April 26, 1986 – to head to Chernobyl to be witness to the world’s worst man-made disaster, the Chernobyl nuclear explosion. Legasov’s quote opens the first episode of HBO’s mini series, simply titled Chernobyl.
Chernobyl exemplifies the damage that can be caused by a State that controls every ‘truth’ or ‘fact’.
This made me ponder just how truthful, or factually accurate, the picture of South Africa’s economic realities that is presented to us actually is. South Africans are accustomed to bad news. Economic bad news. One can argue that, as a coping mechanism, South Africans believe that things will eventually improve – what goes down must come up.
Undeniably, South Africa’s economic woes are entering the realm of insurmountable. Of concern is that there is not a single driver of South Africa’s economic woes – rather, there are many. Worryingly, the nature of the drivers of South Africa’s economic woes is not unknown. Even though these drivers are well known and well documented, it appears they are not being acknowledged by the powers that be. Consequently, they cannot address that which they do not acknowledge.
There is the fallacy that those who are successful in business could serve in government and attain the same success. If the way success is attained by those in business is indeed the desired blueprint for South Africa’s economic growth, why is the attainment of such wealth not studied in meticulous detail? We need to understand exactly how they achieved their success.
Staying on theme, a nuclear plant does not explode – rather, the reactor in a plant begins to melt, which sets off a chain of events. What would cause the South African economy to melt? The frontrunners must surely be unemployment, youth unemployment, in particular, the perpetual mismanagement of South Africa’s State-owned enterprises and the lack of inward investment. Who would invest in this country when South Africans are not willing or able to invest in their own country? The issue with the ability to invest is that the investment would emanate from public sources, the likes of pension funds. Will those who attained their wealth in South Africa reinvest it in the country?
It is time that the truth about South Africa’s imminent economic disaster was told.
As a harrowing reminder, in his last quote in the last episode of HBO’s Chernobyl, Legasov states: “It is always there, whether we see it or not, whether we choose to or not. The truth doesn’t care about our needs or wants. It doesn’t care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions. It will lie in wait for all time.”