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Travel is a beautiful thing. It gives you a chance to get some perspective, to appreciate your own, to look at others afresh, to raise your eyes above the melee of the noisy, sometimes inspirational and often depressing South African political scene.
Often, travel makes you realise how much trouble we are in. I have been travelling, and it isn’t pretty out there.
The world is upended. Those we once imagined stood for good, for the poor and the oppressed, are now champions of the world's worst dictators. Those who claim to stand for the poor are actively stoking division to line their pockets.
Populism is back in fashion. Leaders blame minorities and immigrants and those who are of a different colour to them as responsible for crime, for poverty, for lack of public amenities and for poor delivery of services. Across the globe now, this is the trend. The right-wing nationalists, everywhere from Italy to France to the US and right back here at home, are beating the drums of exclusion, hate and insularity.
The problem is leadership.
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