How Long Will South Africa Survive?: The Looming Crisis – R W Johnson

Description

Condition: Very good; bit of foxing on outer edges.

246 pages

In 1977, RW Johnson’s best-selling How Long Will South Africa Survive? provided a controversial and highly original analysis of the survival prospects of the apartheid regime. Now, after more than twenty years of ANC rule, he believes the situation has become so critical that the question must be posed again. He moves from an analysis of Jacob Zuma’s rule to the increasingly dire state of the South African economy, concluding that the country is heading towards a likely International Monetary Fund bail-out which will in turn lead to a regime change of some kind. Johnson’s analysis is strikingly original and cogently argued. He has for several decades now been a senior international commentator on South African affairs, known for his lucid analysis and complete lack of deference towards the conventional wisdom. He writes without fear or favour. This is a book for every South African.

With visionary South African president Nelson Mandela at the helm of his country’s affairs, every citizen saw a rosy picture and a bright future. Since his death, burial, and departure from the political landscape, there have been negative feelings. Therefore, R. W. Johnson’s book and its subtheme, How Long Will South Africa Survive? The Looming Crisis, are not accidental. The author, an emeritus fellow of Magdalen College at University of Oxford, was supposed to be the only South African Rhodes scholar who returned to the country after the fall of the apartheid regime; one wonders if there was a survey on that.