BANTU MNIKI | High levels of uncertainty seem to be an ever-present factor in SA

By the time this article is published, the much talked about June 30 protests will have come and gone.

What will transpire during and after the planned protests remains to be seen.

Unfortunately, high levels of uncertainty seem to be an ever-present factor in SA.

They are driven by high crime levels, high levels of corruption, poor service delivery and a toxic political rhetoric.

A persistently slow- growing economy, poor health services, high unemployment, and a collapsing security and justice system, all make for a very uncertain environment.

Add to this, poor immigration control and corruption throughout the system, and you have a ripe environment for our current predicament.

Basically, what we are seeing is state failure in true colour.

While the state has put aside R600m to attend to the June 30 protests, this is only a reactive response pretending to be proactive.

A properly proactive response needs to respond to the daily realities of the people of SA.

This can only be done through a sustained effort to build a capacitated state that makes fighting and preventing corruption a priority.

This can be done only in the backdrop of a sustained effort to build a properly incentivised and properly regulated economy.

In some circles, the allocation of R600m for this security operation seems to indicate poor priorities on the part of the government.

This makes these otherwise important security measures potentially irritating to the very people who are being protected.

To the potential marchers, this seems like an allocation to protect foreign nationals against South Africans.

Sadly, some foolish politicians have failed to address this in a manner that mitigates against this perception.

Similarly, the state’s approach of collaborating with the private security sector is admirable considering the scale of the operation.

It is a semi-strategic approach that will allow wider coverage and better management of the planned marches.

It is proactive in the short term, but reactive in how it was shaped under duress.

While admirable, the government’s approach not only exposes the glaring shortfalls of our government, but it creates dangerous precedents if not managed wisely.

Ultimately, it is the role of the state to ensure the safety and security of its citizens.

This duty cannot and must not be outsourced.

The fact that SA’s private security sector dwarfs the police in sheer size and capacity is one of the tragedies of our democratic era.

Yet it is a direct result, as much as the immigration crisis, of the failures of our government.

While more affluent members of our society can afford to pay for private security, the ordinary citizen cannot do this.

That citizen, whose footprint is by far greater, depends entirely on the state.

This was made brutally clear during the 2021 riots.

The section of our population that bore the brunt of the 350 deaths was ordinary citizens.

It is that citizen who, for a moment, was sucked into the seductive lure of lawlessness, looting and chaos.

And the price was paid in blood, loss of property, loss of jobs and loss of trust and faith in the ability of Africans to manage their own economy.

The same distrust in the African which was the signature of the apartheid regime and colonialism before it reared its ugly head once again.

The face of this distrust was different, but the mechanics were the same.

And that African is us, the people of SA.

It is the same distrust in the ability of the African that has emerged now, as ominous as ever.

It is a haunting scourge that seems to take a devilish form and pursue our society like the forms that haunt us in our nightmares.

We can’t seem to shake it, perhaps in the same way we can’t seem to shake the political players who latch onto our fears and extract a steep price every time.

While the matters at hand, like illegal immigration, have the legitimacy of our lived experience, the political players who fan the flames of our misery for their political gains are pushing us to the abyss.

For these moments, we forget that we are all human.

Ubuntu becomes an academic gesture to be discussed only at affluent tables, while the ordinary citizen is stripped not only of dignity but of the entire legacy of their forebears.

Cry our beloved country!