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Future Tense: Reflections on My Troubled Land
'From the vantage point of years in active politics, Tony Leon provides a lucid analytical balance sheet of SA Ltd 2021. Eschewing political correctness, Leon tells it as he sees it.' – Judge Dennis Davis'Anyone who wants to understand South Africa today – a country so beautiful, yet so broken – simply has to read this book.' - Niall Ferguson, author of The Ascent of MoneyIn his riveting new book, Future Tense, Tony Leon captures and analyses recent South African history, with a focus on the squandered and corrupted years of the past decade. With unique access and penetrating insight, Leon presents a portrait of today's South Africa and prospects for its future,based on his political involvement over thirty years with the key power Cyril Ramaphosa, Jacob Zuma, Thabo Mbeki, Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk. His close-up and personal view of these presidents and their history-making, and many encounters in the wider world, adds vivid colour of a country and planet in upheaval.Written during the first coronavirus lockdown, Future Tense examines the surge of the disease and the response, both of which have crashed the economy and its future prospects.As the founding leader of the Democratic Alliance, Leon also provides an insider view for the first time of the power struggles within that party, which saw the exit of its first black leader in 2019.There is every reason to fear for the future of South Africa but, as Leon argues, 'the hope for a better country remains an improbable, but not an impossible, dream'.
- GenresSouth Africa
330 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 3, 2021
44 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 10, 2021
A no holds barred account of how we got here.
March 30, 2021
Brilliantly written, sharp analysis of how we got here, in this very beautiful and troubled land. Reads like a thriller; and yes, I am not objective - but I do strongly feel this is a fantastic read.
April 6, 2021
Gripping and sobering read.
August 17, 2022
Tony Leon, a South African politician who led the opposition DA party against the liberation movement turned governing party, the ANC, writes with insight and experience on the parlous state South Africa currently finds itself in. Without going into detail about the multitude of government failures ( which every South African knows only too well), Tony Leon takes a big picture approach, analysing the failure of the ANC to capitalise on the foundations laid by presidents Mandela and Mbeki in the early years of democracy. Although these were flawed, Leon shows us they did contain the seeds of opportunity for the country to grow and thrive, but a blend of massive-scale fraud and corruption, outdated ideology, unachievable policies and incompetent cadre deployment have since squandered the promise of prosperity for most of the population ( but not the political elite), leaving very little hope that the ANC will be able to change the trajectory of decline. Although a lot of the information Leon includes is already in the public domain, he is able to synthesise this and put it into new perspectives - admittedly his own liberal ones as that is where his own base is. He is also able to include insights and information gained through his own experiences as a politician and a diplomat. These offer a clear understanding of why the ANC seems to be on an unstoppable slide to its own, and the country's decline despite its shiny new beginnings.
Leon also looks beyond the ANC and is brutally honest about the shortcomings of his own party, the DA, and offers some interesting insights into some major blunders he believes they have made in recent years by losing focus on the goals they could achieve and aiming for the dubious possibility of becoming a party for all South Africans. Given their core liberal ideology and middle class base, it is unlikely that they would ever win over the majority of the population who tend to see it as a quintessential ‘ white’ party opposed to their working class ‘black' interests.
The two large take-aways I got from reading this book were firstly, the revelation (to me, maybe not to others), that the ANC is not just blundering its way incompetently through governing ( though it is doing that), but has adhered to long-term timelines for policies and strategies formed well before liberation, that are based on their somewhat outdated pre-liberation ideology of nationalisation which effectively places all power ( land and subsidiary property, banks etc.) into the hands of the state. The ANC, Leon shows, though it is pretty evident anyway, sees itself as being synonymous with the state as party leaders continue to behave as if they were the state. State capture, as revealed in the Zondo Commission of 2018-2022, provides clear evidence of this and the extent to which they almost succeeded.
The second take-away was the embarrassing approach to foreign affairs taken by the ANC officials/government. Having been the ambassador to Argentina from 2009 to 2012, Tony Leon has an inside view of how contradictory, hypocritical and often idiotic our foreign policies are, especially towards western governments which they condemn wholesale as being colonialists, yet whose support the ANC earnestly solicited in the apartheid years and from whom they now seek and enjoy many trade benefits. As any future 'colonialism' or internal interference is likely to be digital rather than physical, South Africa would do well to rather watch out for China and Russia, their current allies, as digital control is far more likely to come from them given their past record of digital domination over their own citizens and unceasing attempts at hacking western governments and businesses.
At times during the book, I felt Tony Leon was a bit too unquestioningly sure of the ultimate truth of his own viewpoints but as he is a seasoned politician, I guess that comes with the job.
Leon also looks beyond the ANC and is brutally honest about the shortcomings of his own party, the DA, and offers some interesting insights into some major blunders he believes they have made in recent years by losing focus on the goals they could achieve and aiming for the dubious possibility of becoming a party for all South Africans. Given their core liberal ideology and middle class base, it is unlikely that they would ever win over the majority of the population who tend to see it as a quintessential ‘ white’ party opposed to their working class ‘black' interests.
The two large take-aways I got from reading this book were firstly, the revelation (to me, maybe not to others), that the ANC is not just blundering its way incompetently through governing ( though it is doing that), but has adhered to long-term timelines for policies and strategies formed well before liberation, that are based on their somewhat outdated pre-liberation ideology of nationalisation which effectively places all power ( land and subsidiary property, banks etc.) into the hands of the state. The ANC, Leon shows, though it is pretty evident anyway, sees itself as being synonymous with the state as party leaders continue to behave as if they were the state. State capture, as revealed in the Zondo Commission of 2018-2022, provides clear evidence of this and the extent to which they almost succeeded.
The second take-away was the embarrassing approach to foreign affairs taken by the ANC officials/government. Having been the ambassador to Argentina from 2009 to 2012, Tony Leon has an inside view of how contradictory, hypocritical and often idiotic our foreign policies are, especially towards western governments which they condemn wholesale as being colonialists, yet whose support the ANC earnestly solicited in the apartheid years and from whom they now seek and enjoy many trade benefits. As any future 'colonialism' or internal interference is likely to be digital rather than physical, South Africa would do well to rather watch out for China and Russia, their current allies, as digital control is far more likely to come from them given their past record of digital domination over their own citizens and unceasing attempts at hacking western governments and businesses.
At times during the book, I felt Tony Leon was a bit too unquestioningly sure of the ultimate truth of his own viewpoints but as he is a seasoned politician, I guess that comes with the job.
March 26, 2021
An honest, well informed book about South Africa by an excellent author. Tells the truth as it is.
January 8, 2022
Leon writes compellingly but at times falls victim to letting personal slights inform his macro political analysis. Ends up being a multi chapter telling of what’s wrong with South Africa. He convincingly lays out the problems but I’m not sure does the same for the solutions.
May 19, 2021
Mr. Tony Leon weaves a captivating if not often depressing account of the present state of his country - present tense. However, he harbours a forlorn and improbable hope that things could be better - future tense. A well researched and eloquent read.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews