By ELSIE EYAKUZE

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Congratulations. If you are reading this column, the world has not yet perished in a nuclear war in spite of the best efforts of one Kim Jong Un and his partner in intellect Donald J Trump.

For those of us lugubrious types that are always looking around for signs of the beginning of the end, let’s just say it has been an “I told you so” kind of week.

For those of us who have been complaining incessantly about the dangers of allowing spoiled and incompetent men to lead countries without adult supervision, it has also been an “I told you so” kind of week.

I am writing this from South Africa in the aftermath of Jacob Zuma’s survival in the face of a vote of no confidence. As much as the press tried to hype up the story and posit that Zuma might be vanquished by piddly common sense and parliamentary efficacy, we all knew Bra Jacob wasn’t going anywhere didn’t we?

A fellow citizen of the lands North of The Limpopo was lamenting the vote’s outcome to me while being quite jovial about the fact that South Africa at least attempted to remove their president using legal tools.

When I asked him why, he made a poignant statement: South Africa is our youngest democracy. She’s our Sub-Saharan baby girl and we have had high hopes for her. She was our...exception.

It is 2017. I think we made a terrible mistake approaching South Africa with that attitude. Exceptionalism is a ruinous curse to bear, if you are young individual or a young nation.

South Africa is coming up xenophobic with economic self-harming tendencies and an alarmingly inaccurate perception of her specialness. In other words, we spoiled her. And I blame it on our modern obsession with exceptionalism.

A couple of years ago I wrote a long love letter to Tanzania trying to build the argument that we were exceptional. Stop laughing: This is par for the course for a hopeless romantic.

Besides, we of the late 20th /early 21st Century have been raised on the premise that one must be exceptional or else! Since my President Magufuli came to power, I have been incessantly bombarded with enthusiastic praise for his ways from fellow Africans of the Southern and Eastern persuasion.

The amount of enthusiasm that fellow Africans muster for Tanzanian presidents does not vary across regimes or individuals. They loved Nyerere (still do). They loved Mkapa. They loved Kikwete. I am not sure they knew about Mwinyi, oh well. But you get the point.

This complete lack of perception reflected back at us probably gave me the courage to think Tanzania could be unique. Little did I know that exceptionalism is a mirage.

The impetus to be “unique” and other specious adjectives is deviously designed to distract us from the reality of human nature and the lessons learned over our species’ brief, bizarre and baffling history. Plus ca change, plus ca reste le meme.

Luckily, a friend who was enthusiastic about President Magufuli recently offered Tanzania the most refreshingly back-handed compliment.

“Now you know how the rest of us feel” she offered, referring to the contradictory “joys” of living under a Strong Leader. And just like that, all my interest in and regard for so-called exceptionalism disappeared. I have a deep appreciation for boring old standard slow-but-dependable bog standardness.

Even if I fault the press’ obsession with dysfunction, we are currently plagued by too many “special” people as it is. The aforementioned Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, who between the two of them and heir unresolved Daddy issues might just kill us all come to mind most immediately.

And going down the list of other leaders and countries that stand out, the word “exceptional” seems to be attached to situations that are going badly.

As with South Africa, this is probably the result of buying into one’s own hype and losing one’s sanity as a consequence. Never has boring predictability seemed more attractive to me than in this particular, exceptional year.

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report. E-mail: [email protected]