South Africa is too American to lead the continent

I'm going to tell you a secret. It's not a very well-kept secret, but it's one that most South Africans don't know. So here it is: the rest of Africa doesn't like us very much.Being a South African in Africa is like being an American in the rest of the world. We're looked upon with a mix of envy and resentment, our wealth and power relative to the rest of the continent ensuring that most of the time we get our way.

Every country I go to I find myself surrounded by symbols of South Africa's success: the DStv in my hotel room, the malls filled with South African shops like Shoprite, Mr Price and Nandos, the big billboard adverts for MTN and Standard Bank. Forget the Chinese in Africa. They just build things and take minerals.It is South Africans who are shaping the way that Africans live their lives. We are a cultural and economic juggernaut that is impossible to stop. We are the African superpower.