It's really kinda depressing.
You hold out hope that shit'll come right, that someone who knows what he is doing and actually has the best interests of the people at heart will find his way into power...
But you end up with race-baiters, "revolutionaries" and economic illiterates who don't really care whether or not the country burns, just so long as the colour of their skin is sufficient to deflect the blame that'll be scouring the ashes with a rusty machete, looking for a scapegoat when the fires die down.
Of course, no matter what goes wrong or how wrong it goes, they'll blame apartheid for any and all negative consequences of their decisions; and while they're surrendering their agency to the white man - an ironic price that they're more than willing to pay for the right to irresponsibility it'll purchase them - they'll still act as though they do not understand why so few take them seriously when they speak about African pride.
The ones who do understand - those like Thuli Madonsela and Desmond Tutu - just cannot speak loud enough to reach the poverty-stricken masses who've spent most of their adult lives being told that they're owed something - that, somehow, historical injustices entitle them to respect that they refuse to earn and dignity that they have no intention of living.
On top of that, the behaviour of these thieves and thugs in power serves only to shit on any hope of legitimate African pride.
You speak to the black poor in the townships, old soldiers and doctors - black people who lived through apartheid, and have seen life from both sides of the '94 elections, and more and more they compare the old regime to the new, with South African "democracy" coming off worse in the comparisons.
"At least the oppressive white man built something," they'll say - he could provide security, medicine and a reliable currency. You think it's only white right-wingers who say that? Far from it. In this race-centered debate, the whites were tyrants, but the blacks are thieves. The tyrants at least had a vested interest in keeping the nation somewhat intact - they wanted something to rule, and, misguided or not, they wanted a legacy. The thieves are happy to rob the country blind, and then move to fucking Dubai, to live rich off the millions they made bleeding their brethren dry.
You want to blame someone for African insecurity and the African man's sense of inferiority? Stop blaming the colonialists and stop blaming apartheid; start blaming the African leaders who, when given the chance to turn things around, choose rather to line their own pockets and let their people continue to suffer - leaders who wear their black skin with pride, while simultaneously giving the racists and the hopeful tyrants more ammunition in their war of perceptions.
