The Diesel That Made Me Ask a Much Harder Question

By Andre Eksteen

I am currently working on the planning of a large industrial project. It is the kind of project where numbers are not theoretical. Every line in the spreadsheet eventually becomes something that must work in the real world. Steel must move. Machines must turn. Trucks must run.

And all of it runs on diesel.

The plant we are designing will consume approximately 4,586 litres of diesel every single day once it becomes operational. At the moment diesel sits around R18.60 per litre. That means the daily fuel bill for the plant, at today’s price, will be roughly R85,000 per day just to keep the engines running.

For most people diesel prices are simply numbers that change once a month when the government announces the new fuel adjustment. They glance at the price board, shake their heads, and drive away.

But when your operation runs thousands of litres every day, the price of diesel stops being a statistic.

It becomes survival.

It determines whether the project works or fails.

That is why the war now unfolding in the Middle East forced me to reopen our five-year projections and run the numbers again.

If the conflict continues for more than three months, the models show that diesel could realistically move toward R28 per litre.

If the war escalates and supply routes begin to tighten, there is a strong probability that diesel could climb to R30 per litre or higher.

At R30 per litre, the daily diesel cost for our project jumps to about R137,000 per day.

More than R50 million per year just to keep the machinery turning.

That is what a war thousands of kilometres away can do to a project here in South Africa.

But while I was working through those numbers, another thought began to grow in my mind.

Because diesel is not the only thing that moves when the world goes to war.

Freedom moves too.

And that question began pressing itself forward more and more strongly.

What happens to Christian freedom in South Africa when the world begins dividing along geopolitical and religious lines?

It is a question many Christians in this country have quietly started asking.

And it is a question that can no longer simply be brushed aside.

Because the signs are already visible.

For years South Africa has tried to present itself as neutral in global conflicts. Pretoria often speaks the language of neutrality and mediation.

But neutrality is not determined by what governments say.

It is determined by what they do.

Over the past few years South Africa has steadily drawn closer to regimes that openly oppose the Western world order, including Iran.

When the head of the South African National Defence Force travelled to Iran and publicly expressed solidarity with Iranian leadership, the message travelled far beyond the meeting rooms where it was spoken. Later there were attempts to soften the political implications and say that the visit did not represent official policy.

But the world saw what it saw.

Iranian naval vessels participating in exercises off the South African coast sent a similar signal to the international community.

In geopolitics, symbolism matters.

And the symbols have been accumulating.

Then there are the words spoken by leaders themselves.

Former international relations minister Naledi Pandor made headlines when she stated that Muslims are peaceful people but are permitted to engage in jihad when necessary.

Whether the remark was meant in a theological or political sense almost does not matter anymore. The words travelled around the world exactly as they were spoken.

And they raised a quiet question among many Christians in this country.

If the state begins to speak this language, who will speak for us?

Because history shows that when governments begin drifting ideologically, religious freedom is often one of the first things to weaken.

South Africa still statistically identifies as a country with a large Christian population.

But statistics often hide deeper realities.

Christian influence in public life has been shrinking steadily for years. The language of government increasingly avoids Christianity while openly embracing other ideological narratives.

And that brings us to something that happened in Parliament just yesterday.

Julius Malema stood up in the National Assembly and launched a direct attack on forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan, accusing him of criminal conduct and effectively calling for action against him. The language was aggressive and inflammatory, the kind of rhetoric that in any healthy democracy should immediately trigger outrage and correction.

But what made the moment truly disturbing was not the attack itself.

It was the silence that followed.

This did not happen in some political corner where only one party was present. The entire Government of National Unity was sitting in that chamber. Ministers from the ANC, the DA, and the rest of the GNU partners were there. They heard it. They saw it.

And yet the moment passed.

No collective outrage.

No unified defence of basic democratic principle.

No clear statement that public intimidation of private citizens is unacceptable.

People will say that the ANC should have controlled the EFF.

But that is no longer the whole truth.

This happened in a Parliament governed by the GNU, and the GNU allowed it to happen in full view of the nation. The GNU as a whole allowed this and looked the other way. 

When political intimidation is tolerated in the highest chamber of government, it sends a message far beyond that room.

Because intimidation never stays confined to politics.

Today it is a forensic investigator.

Tomorrow it could be a journalist.

The next day it could be a pastor who refuses to bend his message to political ideology.

Freedom does not usually disappear overnight.

It erodes quietly, moment by moment, while those who should defend it sit in silence.

Now place that reality next to South Africa’s economic vulnerability.

Over the past decade the country has quietly lost much of its domestic fuel refining capacity. Several refineries have closed or remain inactive.

In the past South Africa imported crude oil and refined it locally.

Today we increasingly import refined fuel directly.

That may sound like a technical detail, but it has enormous consequences.

Countries that refine crude oil locally retain a degree of independence in their energy supply.

South Africa no longer has that flexibility.

Instead we rely heavily on global supply chains to deliver finished fuel products.

If geopolitical tensions ever escalate to the point where sanctions are introduced or supply routes are disrupted, the consequences could arrive very quickly.

Fuel shipments could become more expensive.

Shipping insurance could spike.

Supply chains could tighten.

And diesel prices could move far beyond what most people imagine.

But price is only the first stage.

Shortages can follow.

And when energy becomes scarce, economies begin to strain.

Transport slows.

Food prices climb.

Businesses close.

Inflation spreads.

And when inflation spreads through a society already struggling with unemployment and inequality, something else begins to happen.

Social tension rises.

Food prices begin to climb, slowly at first, and then faster than people can keep up. Transport becomes more expensive. Fertiliser becomes more expensive. Farming becomes more expensive. Moving food across the country becomes more expensive.

Before long the price increases reach the shelves.

And when the price of food rises, the poorest households feel it first.

But price is only the first stage of the problem.

When fuel becomes scarce and supply chains begin to strain, food itself can start becoming harder to move and harder to produce. Trucks slow down. Storage costs rise. Distribution networks begin to crack under pressure.

And when food stops moving, shortages begin to appear.

History has shown this pattern again and again.

Energy crises lead to inflation.

Inflation leads to food price shocks.

Food price shocks lead to unrest.

And when shortages become severe enough, the word that begins to appear is one that no modern nation ever wants to hear again.

Famine.

Civilisation always feels stable until the day the shelves begin to empty.

Because when people cannot afford food — or cannot find it — society changes very quickly.

History teaches this lesson over and over again.

Economic pressure creates political pressure.

Political pressure creates ideological pressure.

And ideological pressure almost always finds its way into religion.

South Africa contains a large and growing Muslim community alongside a historically Christian majority whose influence in public life has clearly been shrinking.

Under normal circumstances these communities coexist peacefully.

But geopolitics has a way of injecting outside narratives into local societies.

Conflicts in distant regions begin shaping identities here at home.

Political leaders start speaking the language of global alliances.

Communities begin emotionally aligning with events happening thousands of kilometres away.

And suddenly a war that once felt distant begins echoing inside your own country.

That is the real danger.

Not just the war itself.

But the ripple effects.

Because when economic crisis, geopolitical alignment, and religious identity begin colliding, societies can change very quickly.

The thought struck me while staring at those diesel projections.

What if the real cost of this war is not just measured in rands per litre?

What if it is measured in freedom per generation?

For someone calculating the cost of 4,586 litres of diesel every day, the war in the Middle East is no longer abstract.

It is a number in a spreadsheet.

But beyond the spreadsheet lies another calculation.

The calculation of where this country is heading.

The calculation of which alliances we are building.

And the calculation of whether the faith that built so much of this nation will still be free to speak in the years ahead.

Because diesel prices may rise slowly.

But the loss of freedom often arrives faster than anyone expects.