SA on a 'tipping point'?

Sociologist Malcolm Gladwell coined the phrase "The Tipping Point", in his attempt to explain how a body which exists for so long in a seemingly stable environment can rapidly and without warning change into an unrecognisable state of existence.

Gladwell argues that in such a case of sudden and accelerated change the body was in fact not stable, but rather balancing on a "tipping point" awaiting the slightest alteration in its environment to tip it over to where the momentum for change becomes unstoppable. Gladwell's theory sounds like advanced physics, I know, but in practical terms it explains how a democratic country can be seemingly stable one day and in tatters the next. The fact is, despite appearance, it was never truly stable, it was merely waiting for some change in environment to expose its' instability. This leads me to the point of my article: Is South Africa stable or merely balancing on a Tipping Point?

Consider the following:

# Our presumed future president, Jacob Zuma, was once tried for rape and might just make history by becoming the first man to be elected president whilst under criminal investigation (for his role in the Arms Corruption Scandal). Nice credentials for a future president!

# Our current President, Kgalema Motlanthe, is being sued for trashing a house he once rented.

# Our National Police Commissioner, Jackie Selebi, is in the process of being charged for fraud and corruption.

# Our Top Prosecutor, Vusi Pikoli, who issued the arrest warrant for Jacki Selebi was in turn suspended by former president Thabo Mbeki.

# Our minister of intelligence's wife is being linked to an international drug trafficking syndicate as one of the "mules" she financed was arrested in Brazil.

# One of our Supreme Court Judges, Nkola Motata, is under investigation for crashing his car into someone's backyard whilst under the influence.

# The then Ekhuruleni Chief of Police, Robert McBride, is also under investigation for crashing his car into someone's backyard whilst under the influence. Maybe he and Motata can share lawyers?

# The then Chief Whip for the ANC, Toni Yengeni, was sentenced to four years in jail for defrauding parliament but then got an ANC presidential pardon after six months.

# The Scorpions Forensic Criminal Unit which was tasked with identifying and booking corrupt officials (such as those mentioned above) was disbanded last year by our ruling government and the head of the unit, Gerrie Nel, arrested for corruption by none other than Jackie Selebi.

If this indicates the ethics amongst our senior government officials, we could be right in assuming it multiplies at every other level below which basically implies the entire government which runs our country is as corrupt as the holes found in Swiss cheese. So maybe our country is not as stable as we had hoped. Maybe, just maybe, we are in fact sitting on that proverbial Tipping Point and the change that will send us spiralling off into the abyss is the April elections whereby Jacob Zuma gets elected president.

I think we have to acknowledge the possibility that Zuma's appointment may very well start a chain reaction of small but inevitable changes in our county's stability which in turn spiral and gain momentum to the point whereby a decade later South Africa issues its first R1bn bank note. Sounds dramatic I know, but is it unrealistic? I guess only time will tell.