The geopolitical year ahead is easy but scary to predict.
It will be full of noise and fury, which sadly will this time signify a lot. It will be full of anarchy, uncertainty, upheaval, disruption, division, hate, strife and perhaps even war.
Not since the end of the Cold War have we stood so close to strife and hate between man and his neighbour, between country and continent. Alliances are not fraying — they are collapsing. Treaties forged decades ago are being torn up. Multilateral agreements are being thrown in the dustbin while pacts are torched gleefully. Global organisations built over decades, responsible for everything from climate change to poverty, are being summarily defunded.
There are no international rules or regulations that stand on firm ground. No high-minded principles can be said to be unbendable. No rule is clad in iron.
That means that every small, weak, vulnerable and poor country in the world is subject to the whim of the powerful nations of the globe. Like Ukraine in 2022, a powerful dictator can swoop in and turn peace into war, life into death, calm into chaos. Ask Greenlanders how they are feeling today, and you will get the picture.
The certainties of the past 35 years are gone. The place we are in now is of heightened threats.
On Robben Island during his 27 years of incarceration, Nelson Mandela was inspired by the poem Invictus by English poet William Ernest Henley, in which he wrote: “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”
Today, we may well find that there is not that much that we can control or master in global terms. In the era of US President Donald Trump, nations have to really be special to be the captains of their soul. It is a world in which only the Trump doctrine is right.
In an interview with the New York Times last week, reporters asked Trump if saw any limits to his global powers. He answered: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
Then he added: “I don’t need international law.”
Where are the leaders? Where are the Mandelas and Churchills of this world who could rise above their own narrow interests and see a bigger picture?
— Justice Malala
This is the norm for 2026. Fasten your seatbelts. The turbulence will be significant. The frightful moments will be many. The day, month or year it will all come to a stop is unknown. For those who actually believed that we may have come to the period when the “endless wars” are a thing of the past, a new reality is dawning: we will be here for a long time to come.
Where are the leaders? Where are the Mandelas and Churchills of this world who could rise above their own narrow interests and see a bigger picture? European leaders are today mealy-mouthed, cowering in fear, afraid to speak lest they receive a tongue-lashing from across the Atlantic.
South Africa’s friends in the Brics nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and a few others — only ever speak on issues directly shaping their interests. Some, like Russia and China, are themselves fierce proponents of might is right. Russia is pummeling innocent people in Ukraine and China is threatening Taiwan. Friend or foe, the powerful are saying to the world: might is right. In such conditions, instability is inevitable.
How will South Africa fare in this new world, in this upended global context? It will depend largely on what the country wants and on what kind of leadership it will maintain to pursue these goals.
We need to confront a truth that we, collectively, seem loath to face up to: the country has failed spectacularly since 2009. Everything from the economy to the criminal justice system has failed. We must not flinch: South Africa could be a paradise of prosperity. It is not — nearly half its adult population doesn’t even have a job. If we cannot acknowledge this reality then we are doomed to remain in the doldrums.
To this end, even in a world that is in turmoil, we must state clearly that our priority should first and foremost be the eradication of poverty and unemployment among our people, followed by the securing of our economy and finally the continuation and deepening of our democratic project. Everything South Africa does should be single-mindedly in pursuit of these priorities.
The geopolitical forces tearing through the globe right now will sweep South Africa away in their wake unless we begin to make some very tough decisions about what we are and what we want. We need to go back to a proper understanding of the word diplomacy, which is defined as “the art of dealing with people in a sensitive and tactful way” to achieve our goals.
This is the year that we have to learn diplomacy and practise it. In a world that is upended, that’s all that stands between us and the road to poverty and perhaps worse.
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