By the time I’ve finished writing this it will be out of date. Things are moving too fast. On one hand you want to ask the instigators of the violence and mayhem on the streets of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, “Is this all you’ve got?” On the other it is almost impossible to say with certainty that there is instigation here at all. There might have been at the start, when Jacob Zuma went to prison. But now?
Try to put yourself in the shoes of a powerful former intelligence official loyal to Zuma who might have, along with other Zuma supporters, decided that if the Boss went to prison you would let loose all hell. So you get a few guys to stop trucks on the N3 at Mooi River, douse them with petrol and set them alight. Two attackers per truck — one with a gun, one with a jerrycan.
That’s easy. But whipping tens of thousands of hungry poor and middle-class greedy into an orgy of pillage and looting that not one analyst I have read came even close to predicting, I would find really hard to credit to any of Zuma’s supporters. And what’s the point? A coup? Seriously? Not this way.
Nonetheless, my radio and TV are suddenly soaked with experts who knew this would happen even as a week ago we were congratulating ourselves on our defence of the constitution and rule of law as Zuma went to jail.
Today we wonder whether we have a functioning state at all. The police are absent, leaving residents terrified as the turmoil licks at the suburbs of Durban. A deputy minister trying to be seen visiting Gauteng looting sites on Wednesday morning was filmed answering questions while latecomer looters combed a wrecked store in the background.
A deputy minister trying to be seen visiting Gauteng looting sites on Wednesday morning was filmed answering questions while latecomer looters combed a wrecked store in the background
It’s a mess. President Cyril Ramaphosa, grotesquely poorly informed by his intelligence and police services, has hidden from public view but for a feeble television appearance on Monday in which he said nothing.
But what should he do? Calls for the imposition of a state of emergency seem overcooked, but this is not a ditch to die in. A state of emergency and state of disaster (the Covid-19 regulations) in place at the same time was probably not even thought of.
I called Tony Leon, who was there when the constitution was written. The state of emergency provisions, he said, were “written through a rear-view mirror” — they were there to prevent a repeat of the abuses of the apartheid police, not a future democratically elected leader.
In my gut, at the start of this sentence, I think a state of emergency is too much. But I don’t live in Durban. My wife hasn’t run out of petrol after picking up the kids from sports. Perhaps that is where we should all stand. Next to her and those children.
The other person there when the constitution was written was Ramaphosa himself. Has the aftermath of Zuma’s jailing surprised him? You hope it hasn’t and are appalled if it has. That Monday night TV appearance, the last time we saw him, he should have been more animated. He should have assumed the worst and announced he was sending ministers to KwaZulu-Natal, and others to Gauteng and surrounding provinces.
Political void
And, oh god, he should have announced the departure from office of the national commissioner of police, Khehla Sithole. We need a hero in that job. Instead we have Dagwood Bumstead. While some of you work on that, it is worth making clear that Ramaphosa, the son of a policeman, had many ways of reassuring South Africans he would work for their safety.
What the Zuma camp wanted him to do was shoot a lot of people and ignite a civil war. It’s smart to have avoided that so far. But between ducking the public and a massacre there’s a political void the size of a rugby field waiting for the right person to fill it. Ramaphosa hesitated and he may regret it forever.
In the end, of course, he will prevail. The state will “win”. The looting will stop. Food, fuel, medicine and service shortages will then combine with Covid-19 in parts of the country to cause indescribable hardship for people, some of who will have actively participated in the looting. It will be all our duty to care for them nonetheless.
Towards the end, I’m still torn about whether this has been a planned thing or spontaneous. The truth is probably in between. The attacks on infrastructure are a clear and thoughtful challenge to the state.
Ramaphosa’s hopeless police and their cowardly minister, Bheki Cele (who, playing both sides, kept a low profile as his home province exploded), must somehow find the instigators, arrest them and charge them. Let us see what happens. This isn’t over yet.
But it will be over and we will have to pick up the pieces of what remains. Some people say a failed state, but they don’t appreciate the depth of our human and financial resources. What would turn the story are quick and determined prosecutions of powerful figures. Send them to jail, where they’ll be looked after by the director-general of correctional services, whatshisname…
• Bruce is a former editor of Business Day and the Financial Mail.
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