Here’s an example of what I mean:
“Despite Beijing styling itself as a supporter of Palestine, China and Israel have built a close economic relationship.”
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Economic relations tend to involve a fair amount of looking the other way and holding of the nose. China is very pragmatic. While Israel is probably comfortable in the knowledge that it enjoys blue-eyed boy status in America, keeping a foot in both camps is a wise strategy for Israel and does China no harm.
As and when the power struggle between US and China is resolved one way or the other, and let’s face it the direction of travel is abundantly clear, Israel will be in a good position to cosy up a bit more.
Unfortunately Palestine holds very few cards.
As amoral? For sure.
As morally depraved? IMHO Nowhere near it, yet, China would have to carry out a great deal more slaughter of Official Enemies, sponsorship of terrorism, and dare I say spreading of viruses (allegedly) to even make it into the same league.
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I have to keep hammering this basic idea: that we in the West mostly know nothing much at all about what China’s really like. We know a great deal about the Permanent Bullshit Blizzard’s perpetual stream of lies about China. We all have them by heart. And by dint of that constant barrage, since childhood, a lot of incautious people think that they do know real things about China; but they don’t, for the most part.
I’d give you good odds that there’s much in China which would give us pause if we were actually there, and were fluent in Mandarin, and getting extensive insight into the realities behind the West’s PBB. I never expect any state machine to be any better than it should be, despite all the lofty pronouncements, especially not any large state. But I feel tentatively able to give an odds guesstimate of the relative rottenness and steady disintegration of the big three: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. And for my money, the Anglozionst empire is easily the front-runner in the corruption and general sleaziness stakes at the moment. After a few decades of collapse, grovelling on its face in the chaos, and then making a slow, chastened recovery to a more modest position in the world, that rating may change. But at the moment, the non-agreement-capable Az empire is easily more rotten and unadmirable than either China or Russia. It’s always conditional though. No state is ever a lilywhite thing, it seems to me.
In the matter of zionistan-in-Palestine: I’ve long thought that the only thing that keeps the settler-entity even pretend-viable is its constant heavy subsidy and protection by the Swamp, this including the constant - but now ebbing - subjection by the Az empire of all the surrounding Arab states. I suspect that as the US imperial grip on SWEurasia weakens and eventually slips away, the Arab nations will go into a ferment of renewed opposition to zionistan; no-one at all - certainly not Russia or China - will support it in any really substantial way; and the Iranians, the Arabs and the Sino-Rus bloc will find far more things to agree about between themselves than anything the settler-entity can hope for. The zionistan criminal madness was never viable, and now its days, along with the wished-for but never established global hegemony of the US, are numbered.
I expect zionistan to go the same way as apartheid SAfrica. The successor arrangement will be some sort of Greater Palestinian state, which will promote a Truth and Reconciliation current there, just as happened in SA, as being the only realworld practical approach to the problems, so that the jewish Palestinians can continue to live in the land of their birth - Palestine - and get along fine (after a period of recovery and adjustment) with their non-jewish neighbour states, and with their Arab fellow-Palestinians (just as jewish Iranians are so comfortable about their situation in Iran that they resolutely refuse to leave it for - no-future - zionistan).
There’s a good deal of wilfully-lunatic, fanatically-held delusion to be drained out of the zionistanis first, though, before that becomes psychologically possible. But events are streaming inexorably in that direction, as the Anglozionist empire crashes and burns. Far from triggering Armageddon, I think the jewish Palestinians of the near future will accede in the end to remain in their place of birth: a homeland of the same rainbow status as SA now strives to create.
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Cyril Ramaphosa was at G7 and lo and behold eGoli enters a Delta Variant pseudopandemic
Strangely the worldometer registers overall daily falls in deaths in SA as a whole since that report was written -down from 460 per day to 220 :
I notice the article is pushing the jab - jus’ sayin’ 
cheers
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Events have kind of overtaken this in the last few days, it’s all gone very scary very quickly particularly in KZN and Gauteng. Dreadful.
Thanks for your post @KarenEliot , I have totally lost touch with many areas of the world for South Africa I always looked forward to comments from Margo on TLN but I haven’t seen any of her posts for ages.
I did notice this alarming report from sashimi-
Does this capture what’s happening there, there always used to be an undercurrent of “control of resources” in RSA which bracketed the frame - now I have no idea!
cheers
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It’s close, from what I can gather. The coverage in Daily Maverick is very good.
The author of this piece is the son of my former dentist. Dr Poplak and family left for Canada but Richard returned later on
The image of the car in Malvern (Jeppestown is not strictly accurate) is from a street a few blocks from where my youngest sister (there’s four of us) attended school.
When I drive around Kent, dodging potholes, the early signs of the same insidious decay are not so well hidden I’m sorry to say.
Won’t let me read without paying or disabling adblock, neither of which I’m going to do. Would you be able to copy-paste, please K?
Sure thing, I hadn’t realised as I use Brave browser which has AdBlock by default.
This is what a failed state looks like
By Richard Poplak• 14 July 2021
A burnt car on Jules Street in Jeppestown, downtown Johannesburg, on Sunday, 11 July 2021. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)
Its roots are intertwined with almost three centuries of extractive corruption, mixed with austerity. There are no savings to be made in this arrangement, and all of it will be paid for with treasure and souls.
Richard Poplak
It’s been a fine week for connoisseurs of civil unrest.
Across Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, two massive conflagrations have conjoined to form a devastating wildfire. The first was the rage manufactured by an organised criminal network that found opportunity in the incarceration of a political figurehead. The second was the instability caused by the desperation of a people crushed in an ever-tightening economic vice.
Following the arrest of former president Jacob Zuma last Wednesday, and after incitement from his hype squad – including his daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla and a local radio DJ named Ngizwe Mchunu – KZN exploded into unprecedented mayhem, which is saying something for a province that experienced the worst of apartheid’s end-game violence. The scale of the ruin is already staggering, while the impotence of law enforcement has been a reminder of the disarray that defines the police and intelligence services, neither of which were prepared for the obvious upset following the former president’s jailing.
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Stupidity like this deserves a standing ovation. Sadly, South Africa is on its knees. Entire communities have been razed, but more significantly – at least for those trying to calculate what the future might hold – the violence has targeted vital nodes of distribution: logistics capacity in Mooi River; local food and dry good stores throughout eThekwini; large malls and warehouse facilities along the coastline and up into Pietermaritzburg. Sasria, the state insurance agency, is on the hook for these costs, which ultimately means that taxpayers serve as guarantors. The damage is likely to amount to tens of billions of rands, but that’s only part of the cost. It will be nearly impossible to rebuild what has been burnt.
Own the supply chain, own the country: this is a basic tenet of warfare. And make no mistake, there is a plan. The trouble in KZN is much more than a political protest or a spontaneous statement of local anguish. Under the cover of Zuma’s jailing, this was a large, local gangster network flexing its muscles, saying:
We are here. Stop us if you can.
The state’s reply was as anaemic as it was articulate:
We can’t. Help yourself.
Ethnic shmethnic
Zuma’s opponents – aka nearly everyone on Earth – like to remind us that the former president has no real power; that his support has faded away with his political prominence; that his kids are drunk lunatics and not the lethal social media influencers they take themselves to be. But his arrest has dragged up something dark and vicious from the underworld bog in which he remains a representative daemon. South African elites are reflexively horrified by any talk of tribalism, but when it works in the ANC’s favour – as it did in the 2009 national elections that saw the party win a large majority in Zuma’s previously unseduceable home province – it gets smiled away as a topic not to be discussed in polite company. As in most African countries, tribal divisions were diligently maintained by successive white overlords for decades, and the wounds never healed. Zuma has made a career of exploiting them: it’s been the source of his power all along.
(These observations shouldn’t be confused with a certain opposition politician’s view that Zuma is a charming if guileless traditional chieftain who doesn’t know from fancy Western-style constitutionalism or democracy. In fact, Zuma is a highly methodical grifter who knows exactly what he’s doing, and who is both a populist and an adept at strumming white liberal passions.)
For another thing, as the “war against corruption” makes nominal gains by jailing former presidents and humiliating the ANC’s D-team in court, the fight for control of the gangster economy becomes commensurately vicious. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain by torching the country. Listed corporate entities are being informed, in the language of blood and fire, that South Africa is no longer a cozy environment in which to run their monopolies. The ensuing vacuum is being filled by what economists term “new entrants”.
It is, for example, no longer safe to truck goods into KZN, which serves as the successful culmination of a campaign to dislodge “foreign nationals” from the trucking industry: As of today, all roads into KZN are controlled by the mob. It is no longer safe to run a Shoprite, or a Checkers or a Woolworths, even in tiny Johannesburg retail spaces. These warnings represent the birth pangs of a Russian-style hyper-capitalist shadow economy, which threatens to become the real economy – a vision Zuma and his cabal in the State Security Agency hoped to initiate under his presidency.
Better late than never, as they say.
Speaking of late – Julius Malema, whose Economic Freedom Fighters have evolved into an effective shakedown crew in Johannesburg, Tshwane and beyond, has tried to tweet himself into the national free-for-all. “No soldiers on our streets! Otherwise, we are joining. All fighters must be ready… they won’t kill us all,” exclaimed Julius, who has a knack for avoiding personal involvement in the violent protests he initiates. Meanwhile, in the Eastern Cape, taxi industry leaders and Premier Oscar Mabuyane have been in talks to protect the province from looting. These new racketeering alliances are the future of South Africa: the gangster economy has become fully integrated into the remnants of the “real” economy. Hoods, assassins, ex-spooks and drug dealers are now partners at the table.
It no longer matters how much a CEO bench-presses, or how many minutes he dedicates to Mandela Day, or how much viognier his wine farm produces. A new age is upon us.
Lockdown and out
Case in point: Gauteng is currently a working diorama of Hell. At the Madala Hostel in Alexandra; at the Jeppestown Hostel in the CBD; at hotspots throughout the southern townships, ancient ethnic resentments have been jump-started, and the mayhem has been instantaneous. The method has worked before, during the xenophobic attacks of 2008 and 2013. Out-of-work, idle young men are an ever-present, highly efficient delivery mechanism for extreme violence.
And yes, while this may have started as a #FreeJacobZuma mega-event, it has morphed into something much more widespread and uncontained. The people free-shopping in stores and malls form part of an economic underclass that has been humiliated for generations. It is almost impossible to generate a socioeconomic reality more inequitable than South Africa’s, largely because no other country has been insane enough to try. Political systems tend to fail when a quarter of the population is out of work. In South Africa, that number has reached nearly 50%, while almost three out of four young people do not have any prospects of employment.
That Zuma’s State Capture project contributed to this situation is almost beside the point. South Africans are facing a second successive winter under lockdown, where the deprivations have become unbearable. The government’s inhumane response to the Covid-19 pandemic has loosened something in the streets, and the pent-up response is now fanning out across the country. The economic Brahmins insist that there was no way to pay for comprehensive social relief programmes, so even the pathetic R350 Covid-19 social relief grant was suspended. This is an obscenely cruel austerity regimen, the result of successive self-imposed structural adjustment packages that are nearly indiscernible from the famine campaigns of the colonial era.
The government’s parsimony has had inevitable consequences: people are enraged. None of this justifies the violent behaviour of the small minority torching malls, looting storefronts and annihilating SMEs. But the point is that the #FreeJacobZuma movement and the resultant chaos have dovetailed with much larger grievances. Big chunks of the country have been rendered ungovernable. It doesn’t help that Police Minister Bheki Cele is more effective as a meme than as a functional human being, and remains locked in a bunfight with the National Police Commissioner, Khehla Sitole. The police on the streets – themselves underpaid, under-trained working people – have never had the trust of the people, and now they’ve become the face of the loathed lockdowns. Because of this, and for the third time in two years, the army is now roaming South Africa’s poorest communities, ready to shoot and impervious to the nuances of causality. Meanwhile, well-armed white militias have emerged from the gloom to protect property that has been abandoned by the cops or security companies, firing off live rounds at unarmed black people – not a particularly sustainable way to engender racial harmony.
This is what state failure looks like. Its roots are intertwined with almost three centuries of extractive corruption, mixed with austerity. There are no savings to be made in this arrangement, and all of it will be paid for with treasure and souls.
Pay to play
Establishment armchair analysts have insisted, throughout Cyril Ramaphosa’s tenure, that he is fully in charge of the machinery of the state, and is impervious to any genuine threats from the mouth-breathing factionalists in his party. Ace is aced. Zuma is in orange. But Ramaphosa is the weakest ANC leader in the party’s modern history. At this point, should the National General Conference go ahead, the big ANC meet-up could have existential consequences for his presidency. The current civil unrest will be held up as proof of his incompetence, and it will cost a fortune in both cash and political capital for him to retain his post. The assertion that he’s a shoo-in is laughable.
From this vantage point, in the middle of a pandemic and amid bouts of mega-violence caught on camera, it is difficult to see how municipal elections, scheduled for October, can proceed. Should they be postponed, South Africa enters a cryogenic freeze in which Ramaphosa’s ever-expanding executive will face off against circling opponents in his party.
The president is already forced to run the country through a sort of expert-advised plutocratic technocracy, where his official Cabinet members are little more than decorative dashboard ornaments. When they do speak, they’re embarrassing disasters. The security cluster is in such chaos that Ramaphosa may have to take control of the SANDF himself. This is the destiny of most tinpot presidencies.
And so, in the very near future, in order to maintain something resembling stability, Ramaphosa will have to face up to the fact that the state will need to re-establish the monopoly of violence. But this will require the murder of people in the streets on an industrial scale. Neither he nor his backers have the stomach for this. There is an alternative, of course, but it may be even more unpalatable to the government and its backers than mass slaughter – the drafting of a new social contract that delivers a fair deal for all.
The future is available only to countries that understand that basic subsistence is a human right – a right that can and should be guaranteed by the state. Should the current corporate/government rent-seeking arrangement continue, and should the Ramaphosa technocracy fail to understand that the present moment represents an opportunity to change tack, then the gangsters will carry the day.
Gauteng and KZN offer a warning. The post-apartheid elite-driven looting spree is over. Others are looting now, and it’s as bad as it looks on TV.
M
Cyril RamaphosaFailed stateJacob ZumaSA lootingtribalism
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All Comments 38
Jcdville@Gmail.Co.Za Stormers
14 July 2021 at 05:48
Thanks for your factual honesty in appraising the situation
Brian Cotter
14 July 2021 at 07:28
Good article. Support of Cyril to lead and make the correct decisions needed by all, including state of emergency. Drop all political point scoring immediately by DA and be part of Cyril’s team to get us out of this mess. Remember that if Mrs Zuma was elected ANC president where we would be today.
Paul Krynauw
14 July 2021 at 07:35
Spot on, as always. Signs of the ex-USSR remnants, like Khazakstan, run by local mafias after the counter revolution. Be prepared for convoy ‘security’ supply chains
Tracy Bailey
14 July 2021 at 07:49
Thank you for this Richard … when I, for one, am speechless
Gail McMillan
14 July 2021 at 08:26
Thank for this I insightful analysis Richard. For me, this situation shows that we cannot afford not to introduce a universal basic grant asap.
Georg Begemann
14 July 2021 at 11:51
I agree although it won’t solve everything UBI, would be a good start.
Hiram C Potts
14 July 2021 at 08:24
Thanks for an excellent & sobering article. I’m afraid that the looting spree has continued unabated even under Cyril’s watch; billions in Covid relief funds etc. The chickens are roosting…
Hugh Davison
14 July 2021 at 09:30
Looking for ways beyond Poplakulism: What would this new social contract delivering a fair deal to all look like?
Karl Sittlinger
14 July 2021 at 10:20
Especially if the state kitty has been emptied by ANC thieves? One needs money for income grants…
David Le Page
14 July 2021 at 16:06
The state has the power to create the funds necessary. All it needs is the will. Doing so may risk inflation, yes, but seems like a risk worth taking given the circumstances.
It’s a terrible mistake to think that a national budget should be managed on the same principles as a household budget.
Jillschlachter
14 July 2021 at 10:07
You mention that ‘the army is now roaming South Africa’s poorest communities’. The fact is that they are not. They could at least be present at every door to every mall in the hotspot areas – but the fact is that they are not. That 75,000 (plus/minus) were deployed to enforce Covid regulations while 2,500 have been deployed to protect our infrastructure and economy, bears analysis. It certainly looks like the intention is to allow the country to become ungovernable. Why does Cyril allow this?
Georg Begemann
14 July 2021 at 12:00
One has to be careful when ordering an army out effectively against their own people. Military training is VERY different to Police training. Simply put, the Military does not issue rubber bullets to their members.
Szivos David
14 July 2021 at 14:33
The army is a blunt instrument. Its a hammer that hits everything that looks like a nail.
The “keep people off the streets” order has a completely different meaning in a police station and in the barracks.
Furthermore one has to ascertain that the army generals have their loyalty in the right places otherwise those soldiers may march a completely different direction.
Miles Japhet
14 July 2021 at 10:19
Tragically true. The ANC has failed us all monumentally.
Stef Viljoen Viljoen
14 July 2021 at 10:23
I thought it was a bit harsh, maybe even extreme? Having said that, Richard has been doing this job for a while so he will have better insight than I do.
Rowan Govender
14 July 2021 at 10:38
“The current civil unrest will be held up as proof of his incompetence, and it will cost a fortune in both cash and political capital for him to retain his post. The assertion that he’s a shoo-in is laughable.”
There is no one else that has his image though. Even with his blunders, who else in the ANC will actually draw the voters in? If they get rid of CR the ANC may as well toss the opposition the elections.
Rowan Govender
14 July 2021 at 10:39
Also, it’s not just “white militias”. As great an image as that may be, communities across the board have united to defend what is theirs.
Karl Sittlinger
14 July 2021 at 13:14
Also had to laugh at that…
ELSA GODDEN
14 July 2021 at 15:02
If not Cyril, weak as he is, then who? I don’t see much talent around in the rotten carcass of the ANC.
Karsten Döpke
14 July 2021 at 11:14
The simple truth is that the majority of South Africans have had sub standard or no education which means they are mostly unemployed or badly paid therefore have a bleak future, and nothing Ramaphosa has done in the last three years has improved their lot. This situation and the violence of the last few days is firmly in the lap of the completely inept and deeply corrupt ANC.
Ingrid Obery
14 July 2021 at 11:32
Spot on, but I don’t think they have what it takes to make this difficult decision.
Peter Metelerkamp
14 July 2021 at 12:28
As ever from Richard, this is trenchant, eloquent, and rich writing, which gives rise to many thoughts.
However, from a position of undoubted and admitted ignorance, there are a couple of questions on which I would appreciate more clarity. I will pose my questions in separate posts to allow for the word-limit.
First, who exactly are “the gangsters” who will carry the day – do you mean Magashule, etc. and Zandile Gumede in the ANC? It seems to me that Zuma, steeped in the toxic culture of the Angolan camps, acts as an example – we won, so why don’t we just take what we conquered? Are his followers and those who fly his standard doing the same? Or, a generation after the ANC “won”, is the struggle now over different things? Clearly there is a lot of money still to be made in tenderpreneurship. But how does this relate to someone taking from a business in which there isn’t the slightest prospect of their having a stake?
Peter Metelerkamp
14 July 2021 at 12:29
Following my first post, how in view of the disparities on the ground which are currently protected by “the constitution” is real social transformation to be achieved? “Basic subsistence” can mean entrenched dependency on the provider, or be a platform for fuller participation in civic life. I’m thinking not only of material capital. That (e.g. land) can be expropriated and redistributed/transferred and even rebuilt where it has been destroyed (the rail network). But even that can only happen if the state (or as in Russia, the Party) are sufficiently strong and ruthless, and has the plight of South Africa become so desperate that people really want to pay those costs? But there is also impermeable capital – literacy, numeracy, etc. How can that be created and is there any real wish to create an informed society? The “developed” world shows that misinformation can hold sway even when most of the population are nominally “educated”. So “basic subsistence” can also mean Bread and Circuses, which merely shifts the front line…
Peter Metelerkamp
14 July 2021 at 12:30
Thinking forward, I understand (again admitting my woeful ignorance) that Bolivia has managed a massive shift towards a “fairer” society. But I also gather this has been by having, and using, a state monopoly on hydrocarbons? What would the equivalent be in South Africa and how would it be achieved? Presumably this would have to entail seizure of the “commanding heights”? Even so, how is the state to guarantee “basic subsistence” without overwhelming (if not actual monopoly) firepower? And how would that power be reconstructed from the ruins of the remaining state? I’m thinking of examples of postcolonial circumstance the hobbling polities of the rest of Latin America and Africa, in which inequality teeters alongside instability? They have their armies and police as agents of elite terror funded by a small tax-base to maintain distance from the abject. Inequality and dependency work precisely because they reduce the destitute to helplessness: a “failed state” financed Sally Mugabe’s shopping flights…
David Le Page
14 July 2021 at 16:09
We have a massive renewable energy resource. But it’s a mistake to think that prosperity is built from resources. In fact, resource abundance usually hinders equitable social development: “The resource curse, also known as the paradox of plenty or the poverty paradox, is the phenomenon of countries with an abundance of natural resources (such as fossil fuels and certain minerals) having less economic growth, less democracy, or worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources.” (Wikipedia)
Peter Metelerkamp
14 July 2021 at 12:30
Finally, is Ramaphosa not himself a creature of sleight-of-hand whereby Capital decided to buy off political victors in order to bring them into the fold (a la Federale Volksbeleggings)? So where is the actual struggle? It may seem to be between looters and property-owners, or between internal factions of the ANC, but may these be inchoate proxies for a more globalised conflict (as we’re seeing in Cabo Delgado)? Where is the seat of corruption?
So the questions seem to be who and what will emerge from demonstrations of “people’s power” expressed so widely, albeit negatively, incoherently and “self-destructively”? Ramaphosa and his, not really “technocratic” but more properly plutocratic, regime may survive in name, but their substance will presumably become thinner? Or may it even be strengthened as clusters of private redoubts, as the “old” state – cities, roads, civic institutions, the environment – rusts away?
None of which makes the front lines any more comfortable, or denies the urgency of the situation for those living so directly with it… Again, I must emphasise that these are thoughts generated by ignorance, and I would value enlightenment from Richard.
Dave Martin
14 July 2021 at 13:15
- This article is incorrect on so many levels. Having spent time in truly failed states like DRC and Liberia, South Africa is nowhere near that state. Despite the chaos, SA is currently one of the most functional states in sub-Saharan Africa. The photo at the top of the article shows functioning traffic lights and street lights. In a failed state there is no electricity, only portable household generators. SA is a failed state when petrol is only transported to Joburg by bicycle from Maputo.
Similarly, it is easy and simplistic to say that there should be increased grants to the poor, etc. Without doing the arithmetic, one is doomed to talk nonsense. Where is this money going to come from?
Even when I’m in Africa’s most functional states – e.g. Ghana – they are in awe of our social grants, free healthcare, free education, RDP houses, free water, free basic electricity, etc. SA offers so much more to its population than any other African country. We need to acknowledge this.
Our biggest challenge is not absolute levels of poverty, if that were true, the whole continent would be on fire.
The problem is… (cont…)
Dave Martin
14 July 2021 at 13:21
2. The problem is inequality. Until we lower the standard of living of the rich, we will always be an explosion waiting to happen. We need to stop fooling ourselves that inequality will be solved by enriching the poor. Just do the maths on a country where GDP/capita is R7000 per month and where professionals feel underpaid when earning R50,000/ month. For every professional earning R50k requires 6 people to earn R0 to balance the equation. We need to recalibrate what the rich (black and white) think is a “normal lifestye”. More Toyotas, fewer Mercedes, more apartments, fewer swimming pools, etc. We are a poor country that cannot benchmark elite salaries against rich countries like Australia and Canada which are ten times richer.
Even with the most optimistic GDP growth forecasts we are not going to grow ourselves out of this problem. Salaries at the top are consistently increasing by more than the GDP growth rate. If we want a South Africa that’s worth living in, the wealthy classes need to reflect on how their attitudes fuel inequality.
John Cawood
14 July 2021 at 13:57
Hey Dave, 50k per month attracts about 10.5k in personal income tax assuming you have already paid 7.5k to retirement funding before tax. Rental or bond for said professional will be entry level at 15k. Feeding a small family plus school fees for 2 plus electricity and water will guzzle the rest. Your ‘Greedy’ professional will have nothing left to buy and run his Toyota, notwithstanding any luxuries like insurance, entertainment, medical aid and any thought of savings. The spouse will have to buck the unemployment trend and bring in the extra 25k required to meet basic cost of living.
Byrongibby
14 July 2021 at 14:47
I don’t agree. Following on from John Cawood’s reply, taxes scale with income and 40% PIT is pretty high. Why should we, the otherwise productive, law-abiding citizens put up with wanton corruption and criminality when we can just emmigrate to countries like Australia and Canada? It’s a global market place, I don’t think you nor Mr Poplak understand that very well.
Gavinjohn
14 July 2021 at 14:58
Let’s sort out the violence first, then the corruption, then the governance and then the inequality.
Carsten Rasch
14 July 2021 at 16:26
Leaving inequality till last is exactly what the ANC has done, the result of which is burning right in front of your eyes.
Dave Martin
14 July 2021 at 16:51
If you accept the simple maths showing that in a country with GDP/capita of R7000/month, when one person earns R50k, it means, 6 others must earn R0, then surely you can see the absurdity of complaining that you can’t survive on R50k when this necessitates 6 others to survive on R0.
Because those R0 earners are going to destroy your quality of life.
99% of South Africans are living on less than R50k. It is clearly possible. Just not at the levels of comfort you expect. A 2 bedroom flat in Wynberg CT can be had for R9k. Get just a hospital plan or use government health care. The point is, that what you expect as your minimum standard of living that you are entitled to is just not the norm in a developing country like ours. If you visited our economic peers like Peru, Indonesia, Colombia, Bosnia, etc you would never find professionals expecting the level of luxury that South Africans expect. We are an outlier. Which is why we are also an outlier at the bottom end with way more people surviving on less than $2/day than our peers.
J LOMBARD
14 July 2021 at 15:38
A new social contract that delivers a fair deal for all? Therein lies the rub. A few pointers by the author will be enlightening. Nevertheless, thank you for a brilliant essay. The spectre of the mob running the country is frightening (perhaps it has been happening for some time now?)
Carsten Rasch
14 July 2021 at 16:41
“… a fair deal for all” would have been the solution 27 years ago, and no doubt there was that intention at the start. But its too late for that, unless we go back to START, without collecting the money. We need to rethink our political system, our politics, and just what we as South Africans are prepared to give – because ‘giving’ is going to be the bottom line – and take, because there has to be a cut-off point. Its worth keeping in mind that the Republic is a colonial construct. It might be time to change the basics and work a new deal, participate in a new CODESA. Because sure as fluck, the old one ain’t working no more.
Starry Eve Collett
14 July 2021 at 19:01
I think deep down we are still clinging to Cyril, hoping that his robot speech was just a bad hair day…
Louwrens Potgieter
14 July 2021 at 19:49
As always, sharp insight into a complex situation worked into brilliant writing. Thanks Richard.
Retief Joubert
14 July 2021 at 20:17
A bridge doesn’t fail once it collapses, it passes the point of failure long before then, while still standing. The final catastrophic collapse comes when the structure is stressed to elevated levels that it should be well able to withstand normally. We’ve been living in a failed state since before Covid. No single state entity delivers fair value to it’s shareholders, the citizens of this country. The true cost of services in the country is staggering when calculating the value vs the cost. Massive spending such as 32nd highest global education budget as % of GDP, yet delivers unemployable numerically illiterate matriculants. Our govt fails to create value due to the trefecta of corruption, ignorance and incompetence. This permeates and suffocates functionality at ALL levels of govt, from the highest executives to the lowest civil servant. But no protests against that.
This round of looting has been a good curtain raiser for when the state runs out of money for pensions and social grants.
The social contract has failed indeed, but not because of the nature of the contract Mr Poplock, but because govt failed to deliver value to the people, and the people failed to hold govt to account.
The political crisis cannot respond to the economic crises and vice versa. The state failed long ago, this is the slow motion collapse.
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1 Like
Thanks for that K. SA is in a real mess. Where does it go from here? Failed state?
Apols for all the additional comments etc that got pasted in. Android tablet is great for reading and snappy back and forth but useless for real editing. Deleting more than a few lines is utter torture.
What now?
I suspect that citizen militias will be a major factor, private security firms like Armed Response are major players in parts of ZA.
In Pietermaritzburg for example local residents set fire to a shanty town and I guess the people who were squatting there will now be homeless. It is midwinter of course, and can be very harshly cold at night.
The cops are corrupt, idle, poorly paid, demoralised, poorly equipped. The defence force much the same. This is due to state capture by mafia, basically, and Zuma was very thick with these people.
I do wonder if there is something else going on. Cyril Ramaphosa was at the G7 last month, to be patronised by Biden and who knows what else.
ZA has been through protracted covid restrictions and when day to day survival is such an utter grind for so many people their morale must be rock bottom.
Will post-furlough UK head the same way? The rapid and hugely oppressive consolidation of state power suggests someone somewhere thinks it might.
1 Like
Politicians never fail to dissapoint. With South African politicians however, they seem to somehow overwhelm me with disgust. From a rabble rousing union leader, to a millionaire, then a minister involved in the police hunting down and murdering striking miners, to a NWO lackey at Davos.
As a born South African, words fail me. Thanks for posting.
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Jy is heeltemaal welkom @PatB.
I too remember Cyril fondly from COSATU/Democratic Alliance days but he has travelled a very long way since then, as you say.
SA history is an object lesson in how Britain spread it’s toxicity, testing ground for concentration camps, and all the rest of it.