Funny how history repeats itself - even in countries as far apart as contemporary Russia and contemporary South Africa. Let me explain.
In 1989, as we all know, down came the Berlin Wall, and with it the Soviet system. Two years later, Boris Yeltsin stepped in as first president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (communists never say in one word what they can say in five). Yeltsin announced he would introduce a free market system, but the method of privatisation was such that to Russia's cost much of the national wealth was seized by a small group. Hail the oligarchs and minor millionaires.
Yeltsin held office from 1991 to the end of 1999, when he resigned suddenly (amid corruption, economic collapse, a personal popularity rating of 2%, and in 1993 a constitutional crisis). He handed over to Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB, who after some ups and downs in his career had been mixing in circles close to "entrepreneurs," Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich. In August 1999 Putin became Prime Minister and President on December 31.
At this point, the tale is best told by Stanislav Belkovsky, an independent political analyst. I must say I incline towards analysts (like black analysts in South Africa) who write from the belly of the beast - they often know just that little bit extra.
Writing in The Times (UK), on December 4 Belkovsky said: "The circles close to Yeltsin wanted to retain leverage and the enormous amounts of property that they had acquired during the privatisations of the 1990s, and they needed a president who would be totally reliable".
Putin, however, was "mainly interested in the funds that by 2000 hadn't yet been distributed among Yeltsin's ‘official' oligarchs- Gazprom, for instance - and in 2001 he brought with him a team of his old friends and business partners from St.Petersburg to Gazprom". (Beginning to sound familiar?).
"The board was soon headed by Dmitry Medvedev (Russia's current president). At the same time Putin's friends and partners took Surgutneftgaz, an oil company, under control. In 2000-01, Igor Sechin and company took over Rosneft, an oil company that later (in 2005-06) devoured the funds of the oil company Yukos, which was ruined under Sechin's management. Finally, the last decade saw the rise of Gunvor, an energy trading company whose turnover last year was $50 billion." Belkovsky in 2007 did his own estimate of funds under Putin's control: "it came to $40 billion".
Here we have the first example I referred to of how history repeats itself: a president and his cronies move in and plunder the state (Yeltsin died in 2007); then when the next president arrives it is the turn of his cronies to get their snouts into the trough. I am not suggesting that Putin gained personally - perish the thought! - but you see how the dynamics work?
To turn now to South Africa: For about 13 years, as the country's deputy president and then president, Thabo Mbeki presided over the great arms scandal, which delivered the first crop of South African oligarchs, plus varying lower levels of instant wealth. Again, perish the thought that Thabo gained personally from that Grande Bouffe. But it was Thabo who cut the parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts off at the knees when it insisted on investigating the arms scandal. And it was Thabo who presided over what ensued: saturation of the country by ever-spreading corruption.
Now, just as Russia had two oligarchial stages, South Africa has entered its second stage of corruption. This time Jacob Zuma has presided - for four years now: since his election as ANC president in December 2007, followed by his election as South Africa's president in May, 2009. At his heels have been his backers - also the new participants of La Grande Bouffe.
Unlike Russia, one of the targets in South Africa will not be privatisation, but say nationalisation of the mining industry, or looking to energy and electricity as milch cows, or to the new health scheme, if it comes off.
Much of Zuma's support comes from the youth, and they are not concealing their impatience.
They believe that just as Putin's followers found that quite a lot had been left over after the Yeltsin crowd's depredations, so quite a lot remains in South Africa, even after the Mbeki crowd's engorgement.
It would be a worthwhile exercise for an economist or someone with similar expertise to examine what would be left of South Africa's carcase after the second stage of corruption is over. Imagine if a third president then comes in - and finds the cupboard bare.
The brashness of the nouveau riche should not be underestimated. As demonstrated the other night, they can be quite innovative - sushi from a dolly-bird's naked belly.
Isn't it against this kind of background that not only empires, but also aspiring elites, have heard the bells toll? And, just maybe, they have recalled John Donne's poem?
Send not to know
For whom the bell tolls.
It tolls for thee.
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