How quickly things change. Just 20 days ago, Brent crude was $72 a barrel, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was merrily going about the business of murder, and US President Donald Trump was taking time out from ballroom design (“the greatest ballroom every built”) to contemplate a “friendly takeover” of Cuba.
Then he had a bad vibe.
Now, oil has cruised past $110. The unfortunate Khamenei is no more (few tears will be shed). The Gulf is burning. The world is reeling. And even South Africa’s largest stock exchange, the JSE, has tumbled 14.8% in just a few days, wiping billions off our pension savings.
All because Trump had “a feeling … based on fact” that Iran was about to hit US targets, according to the White House’s Barbie Goebbels, Karoline Leavitt. And Divining Donnie’s sixth sense ain’t done yet: he’s said the war will end “when I feel it in my bones” (he actually said that to Fox’s Brian Kilmeade).
So it’s no small concern that Trump and his feelings are directing a trillion-dollar war machine with the restraint of Dr Strangelove’s Captain ‘King’ Kong.
On ‘The List’
All of which goes to say that when the world turns on one man’s intuition, a lot of people show more of an interest than they otherwise might in safe havens (and not just of the gold variety).
Which is why a 2024 listicle of the safest countries to be in the event of World War III has resurfaced on social media in the past few weeks. To be fair, the list is a thumb-suck from the Daily Mail, which Wikipedia editors once canned as a credible source. But, hey ho, South Africa is on it – alongside Switzerland (naturally), New Zealand (good on ya, mate) and Greenland.
That frozen island was included because “it has an estimated popular [sic] of 56,000 people, meaning it is unlikely to be targeted by any global superpower”. That prediction aged well.
But safety? South Africa? What of the Alcatraz-like Joburg residential compounds (to keep criminals out, not in)? Or the 6,351 people murdered in just three months to end-December? Or 50,000 grievously assaulted, or the 31,000 cases of aggravated robbery? Has anyone run this list past the Afrikaner refugees?
In fact, on the most recent United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime figures, South Africa is seventh in the world when it comes to intentional homicide, with about 44 murders per 100,000 people in 2022.
Just FYI, it’s beaten out by the likes of the Turks and Caicos (76), St Kitts and Nevis (64), St Vincent and the Grenadines (51) and the US Virgin Islands (50). Which is to say that you certainly shouldn’t be hanging out in the Caribbean when Trump’s vibes have him reaching for the red button. But South Africa may not be all that much better.
When it comes to holing up in style, South Africa is also hardly Switzerland, what with its broken infrastructure, Humvee-sized potholes, dry taps and Eskom-induced darkness. That’s some survivalist stuff right there.
The fairest Cape
When searching for the origin of the viral list, Google AI kindly pointed me to the safest of the safe: where you should hole up in South Africa in the event of a nuclear holocaust unleashed by Trump and his bestie Vlad the Invader.
The Karoo was there (extreme isolation and low population density; Tim Cohen was ahead of the curve on this), as was the Wild Coast (isolated areas, self-sufficient, far from major cities) and the Waterberg (moderate isolation and self-sufficient capabilities). Then, my favourite, the Cape winelands (relatively isolated yet productive agricultural areas).
Because surely you’d rather be sipping shiraz than sitting in Shiraz when Trump and his feelings properly lose the plot.
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Top image: Pexels-Blaque/ChatGPT/Currency collage.
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