South Africa a nation of losers!

THE Olympian drought has finally been broken by Khotso Mokoena who won a silver medal for the men’s long jump. Thank heavens because it was beginning to look as though we would return empty handed. Interestingly the media decided to respin the lack of medals story after a week of dismal non performance and tell us that going to the Olympics isn’t about winning medals… it’s about competing. Try telling that to the Chinese. Of course it’s about winning and we aren’t are we?

This isn’t because we’ve sent lousy athletes to the Olympics. We’ve sent the best we’ve got but they’re obviously not good enough. This could be because we prefer to spend the money looking after sports administrators and poncing around with “transformation” policies rather than spend money on our athletes.

Sport is very political in this country and fat men in blazers do very nicely thank you. But the money argument looks a little lame when you look at the successes of some of the other African countries. For example, Kenya took gold and silver in the women’s 800 metres and I doubt whether they have more money to pour into sports training than we do. So our woeful lack of success on the track, our inability to erect and man a stand to promote 2010 at Beijing and our embarrassing loss to New Zealand last week probably comes down to the fact that we are a nation of losers and proud of it.

Our national football team is ranked number 73 in the world I’m told and yet we’re hosting the 2010 World Cup (Julius Malema permitting). I didn’t even know there were 73 soccer playing countries in the world but supposing there are then that is a national embarrassment. Even by paying a coach a quarter of a billion a year (or whatever it is) we aren’t getting anywhere. What’s the point of having an expensive coach anyway if we are so lousy at the game? As the saying goes, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

It’s not only sport that we’re bad at though. According to Clem Sunter we’ve fallen from position 38 in the 55 top ranked industrial nations to position 53. We only have Venezuela and the Ukraine below us. That fall took place during a period of fair economic wind with pretty well everything in our favour. And yet we still managed to balls it up. If we fall off the 55 nations list says Sunter we won’t need to worry about things like Fitch ratings because we won’t qualify for loans.

I would respectfully suggest that the global economic climate has changed dramatically in the last few months so our progress up the ladder depends on two things. Either we become a contrarian country and outperform the global economy or we hope to hell that the countries ahead of us on the league table screw up more than we do and we rise up the ladder by default. Bearing in mind our national work ethic and the government’s desire to make business less competitive internationally by hanging the BEE albatross around its neck then I think we had all better hope for the second option.

We are a nation of bedwetters and also-rans and it’s all thanks to the ANC policy of constantly droning on about the struggle, racism, colonialism etc etc. Instead of rubbing their hands together in 1994, uniting the country and saying let’s get on with building a nation they’ve expended enormous energy helping themselves to taxpayer’s money, swanning around the world at our expense and blaming the past every time they cocked something up.

The entire ANC struggle vocabulary is designed to keep the people on the ground exactly where they belong… on the ground. The all purpose accusation of “racism” is used whenever there is a hint of criticism.

Our only hope is a complete change of government. How a nation feels about itself is very much like how a company feels about itself. If the management is competent and self confident then the workforce feels inspired and the company prospers. Visit a successful company and you can smell success at the reception desk. The truth is that SA Inc has been so badly managed over the years by a combination of dickheads and incompetents that it’s hardly any wonder we all feel gloomy. Would you let Alec Erwin rewire you’re house? Maybe the next lot will bring some much needed cheer.