Hawker’s sacrifice hijacked

drought caused the war,” Seager said.

“We’re saying that added to all the other stressors – it helped kick things over the threshold into open conflict. And a drought of that severity was made much more likely by the ongoing human-driven drying of that region.”

Of course, conditions in South Africa are very different to those in Syria. Nonetheless, there is a very real risk that the drought will exacerbate underlying political tensions, especially on the touchy issue of land reform.

According to AgriSA, the commercial farmers most likely to struggle financially as a result of the drought – the ones most likely to go out of business – are new black farmers who have taken up farming as part of South Africa’s land redistribution process.

These farmers are unlikely to have the financial reserves necessary to tide them over until more prosperous times.

The drought could set back the process of land reform by years, if not decades. This, coupled with rising food prices and growing unemployment predicted by the finance minister, could well spark a period of widespread political unrest.

If South Africa is nervous, other countries in Africa may have even more reason to fear. Ethiopia, for example, could be in real trouble.

Its autocratic government justifies the suppression of civil rights by pointing to impressive economic growth and poverty alleviation strategies that are working. But what if the economy stops growing?

What if people start sliding back into poverty as a result of the drought? As in Egypt, where Hosni Mubarak’s regime only came under serious pressure once he stopped holding up his side of the social contract, Ethiopians may become intolerant of an autocratic government if the cost of living rises too dramatically.

At the moment, it is mostly farmers, meteorologists and humanitarian agencies raising the alarm about the extreme weather that El Niño is bringing to Africa.

As the weather worsens, it’s worth remembering that these kinds of events have the potential to destroy more than just crops. IT IS hardly surprising that when Faida Hamdy wonders whether she is responsible for all that happened after her moment of fame she is overwhelmed.

Hamdy was the council inspector who five years ago confiscated the vegetable stall of a street vendor in her dusty town in central Tunisia. In despair, the young man, Mohammed Bouazizi, set himself on fire. Within weeks he was dead, riots had overthrown his president, and the Arab Spring was under way.

As the world marked the anniversary this month, Syria and Iraq remained in flames, Libya had collapsed and the twin evils of militant terror and repression continued to stalk the region.

“Sometimes I wish I’d never done it,” Hamdy said, in her only interview. Her voice was shaky as she spoke of the traumatic five years that have transformed the Middle East but seemingly changed little in poor, provincial towns.

Bouazizi’s death triggered some deep nerve in the Arab world. Corruption, stifling bureaucracy and repressive police states were holding back a largely youthful population across the region, who had little way to make their frustration felt other than by extreme actions.

After Ben Ali boarded a plane for Saudi Arabia with a large chunk of the country’s gold reserves, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak was next to fall. Then Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was forced out and killed, after protests turned into civil war and then international war. By October 2011, Syria was in flames. Today Libya, Syria and Iraq are failed states and Egypt is on the brink after a social uprising turned into a conflict between Islamism and secular governments. Religious sects also turned on each other.

Now Bouazizi’s sister, Samia, is the first to say her brother’s death had been hijacked by politics and ideology.

“My brother died for dignity not for wealth or an ideology,” she said.

Hamdy agrees: “Mohammed Bouazizi and I are both victims. He lost his life and my life is not the same. When I look at the region and my country, I regret it all. Death everywhere and extremism blooming, killing beautiful souls.” — The Daily Telegraph