Attempted insurrection, attempted coup, civil unrest, creeping counterrevolution, ethnic mobilisation, criminality and thuggery!
These are some of the words that have been bandied about by government leaders and governing party politicians to characterise the mayhem of the past week. The death toll has risen to more than 210 lives, and the government is trying to make sense of what really happened. In the process, fault lines have emerged.
Not only are ministers publicly contradicting each other — including President Cyril Ramaphosa — they are continuing to openly disagree about what took place last week. The week of disagreement reached its climax on Monday when Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, acting minister in the presidency and Ramaphosa’s ally, contradicted defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula’s attempt to downplay last week’s mayhem.
Briefing journalists on the latest developments in the lawlessness that engulfed parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, Ntshavheni — the small business development minister and Mapisa-Nqakula’s political junior in both the state and the governing party — was blunt, saying words to the effect that the official position is that there was an attempted insurrection, and ministers who contradicted that were on their own.
Mapisa-Nqakula has not only offered a different view, she has dragged her heels in deploying the army to provide backup to the police. On Tuesday she grudgingly retracted her insistence that last week was actually a “counterrevolution”, telling journalists, “the president has spoken, it was an attempted insurrection”.
The week of high drama also saw the president climbing down from his earlier remarks suggesting ethnic mobilisation was a factor in the attacks in KwaZulu-Natal.
Commendably, the citizens of seven provinces, including the DA-run Western Cape, refused to join in the mayhem. Leadership came from unlikely quarters, including community members who risked their lives to protect vital economic infrastructure and, yes, the much-maligned taxi industry.
In the middle of a crisis — the first deliberate, co-ordinated challenge to the postapartheid dispensation — the government’s ineptitude was laid bare. Having failed to prevent the looting, law enforcement agencies, especially the intelligence services, became bystanders as much of the looting occurred.
The government appeared more concerned with messaging, and later televised walkabouts and tough talk, rather than restoring order on the streets of black townships, the scenes of much of the looting.
Days after the disaster, law enforcement agencies still don’t have the full death toll, nor how these people died. Instead, there appears to be a perverse sense of relief that the police and army were not behind the deaths. In extreme cases the police have even been praised for exercising restraint in the face of provocation, neglecting the fact that the situation developed over weeks without an effective response, especially around Nkandla, the area of KwaZulu-Natal where former president Jacob Zuma hails from.
The state of the intelligence services is even more concerning. It is quite possible that Zuma, who is serving a 15-month prison sentence for contempt of court after refusing to appear before the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture allegations, will be allowed to attend the funeral of his younger brother Michael, who died a week ago. Whether the state’s security agencies will be better prepared for crowd control at the funeral than they were in the build-up to Zuma handing himself over to start his jail term remains unclear.
The state of the country’s intelligence services leaves much to be desired. Like other state agencies it has become just another terrain of the governing party’s internecine warfare. In the process their capacity to gather credible and professional intelligence has been decimated. Most senior posts are occupied on an acting basis, and the head of foreign intelligence, Robert McBride, is on suspension.
Quite rightly, the country has been seized with stabilising the law and order situation and humanitarian efforts to avert a crisis of hunger and starvation. These are necessary, but they have been implemented in a piecemeal fashion. Durable solutions are required to address the legitimate demands of ordinary people who have been failed by the governing party.
Reacting to the mayhem, the Thabo Mbeki Foundation pointed out the obvious, saying: “We recognise that our democratic state finds itself in a precarious position and that for many South Africans the democratic dispensation has not delivered on its promise of better socioeconomic conditions. A lot more and urgent work remains to be done in this regard.”
Growing poverty, unemployment and inequality, especially of the youth, are pressing challenges that require urgent attention to avert a full-blown national social explosion. This requires a single-minded focus on a speedy economic recovery. The October 2020 economic recovery document has been overtaken by events, including tardy implementation of agreed interventions, the Covid-19 pandemic, another hard lockdown amid a slow vaccine rollout and last week’s violence.
In the short term the country needs a plan to address the crisis of hunger and, at least, an urgent youth employment programme to give hope to young people that they have a stake in this economy. Bold decisions are required.
Urgent intervention is also required to strengthen the state’s capacity. There are many public services that can be offered in partnership with the private sector, such as the rollout of the Covid vaccine programme, but there are others — especially law enforcement, intelligence gathering and law and order — that cannot be outsourced.
The issue of whether the political executive leadership is fit for today’s challenges remains the elephant in the room.
• Dludlu, a former Sowetan editor, is executive for strategy and public affairs at the Small Business Institute.
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