The explosion that at Marikana mine left 10 dead to union violence and 34 dead to police gunfire oddly caught the government by surprise. It was as if social discontent is not a seething issue in South Africa, surging constantly against the breakwaters of complacency.
But it seems that neither the government’s intelligence networks nor the governing party’s political savvy predicted this, or had a coherent plan on how to deal with it. That is, presuming one discounts the often self-serving whispers doing the rounds of a state conspiracy against the breakaway union, at least until the judicial commission has been presented with evidence supporting that dark conjecture.
Complacency prevailed despite the fact that unrest has grown steadily, especially regarding failed service delivery. At local government level there have been heaved rocks, councillors hounded from sacked homes and burning tyre barricades, to which the police have responded with rubber bullets and teargas, escalating to live rounds and deaths.
Such township unrest has differed from Marikana by being geographically dispersed and with fewer fatalities. On the other hand, it is this profound dissatisfaction bubbling below the surface all around the country, that makes it particularly dangerous.
A Marikana-scale eruption could have happened at any of the literally hundreds of unruly service delivery protests that have taken place over the past couple of years. It almost certainly will happen soon, unless government gets a grip on the problems.
In this regard, a new book on the failure of local government should be ringing African National Congress alarm bells. In The Failure of Decentralisation in South African Local Government: Complexity and Unanticipated Consequences University of Cape Town academics Andrew Siddle and Thomas Koelble kicked off by doing the kind of primary social science research that in the apartheid years used to pour out of fiercely independent English-language universities keen to discern and shape the gestalt of a future, free, South Africa.
After liberation, however, intellectual rigour quickly retreated before the imperative for party loyalty. For a long while criticality was unfortunately subsumed in pro-ANC claquery. As the authors note, ‘commentators on SA local government have until fairly recently and with a very few exceptions … tended to be excessively congratulatory and rather unrealistic in their assessments and expectations of local government’.
In the ANC’s new dispensation, decentralised local government was where it was all meant to be at. It was to be the frontline of a participative, efficient and responsive democracy.
That’s not, as we know, how it has turned out. Local government, especially outside the metropoles, teeters on the brink of collapse, with potentially disastrous consequences. But ‘national government’s responses to what is indisputably a crisis have been largely piecemeal or ill considered,’ they write.
What makes Siddle and Koelble’s book important is that the empirical work was conducted mostly in some 70 smaller, rural, poorer municipalities. That’s precisely the areas where local government failure is most acute and hence are potential Marikana-type flashpoints.
Although the UCT researchers sketch the outline of a local government framework that they think might work – somewhat less decentralisation, with central agencies empowered to step in and deliver when and where municipalities can’t – they readily concede that the problems of dysfunction are not going to be solved easily. Should things remain unchanged, ‘dire consequences’ will follow and it is likely that the higher tiers of government, already straining to carry out their own mandates, will be saddled with more responsibilities.
Crtically, they write, ‘a crisis of expectations prevails… Time is running out and, in many quarters, patience has long since evaporated’. Those, not coincidentally, are the leitmotifs of Marikana.
The Failure of Decentralisation in South African Local Government: Complexity and Unanticipated Consequences, by Andrew Siddle and Thomas Koelble, UCT Press.
@Change, just to knock your illusion, not only do the majority of South Africans continue to vote for ANC, continue to grow its numbers, organisationally, its leaders fill stadiums, it also enjoys unprecedented support from those who are still at school. Suggest its time to change those rose-tinted glasses.
“The usual suspects, from leafy suburbia, wishing for the state to fail, will not just have a front row seat, but will be dragged unceremoniously onto the stage – kinda like the French Revolution.”
Tantamount to hate-speech, Dave Harris adds his invective to the false accusations, racism, hatred and incitement to violence of Tofolux.
No one is ‘wishing’ for a failed state. The usual serpents should look around them: We are already poised on the brink of one due to the incompetence, incapability, stupidity, corruption, self-enrichment and greed of the ANC – and unfortunately, those, who are blind and gullible enough to continue voting for them – and so allowing them to continue raping the country’s resources and stealin g from the poor.
Events at Marikana can turn even more ugly. Julius Malema continues stirring. (How did he gain entrance to address any defence force unit? It is against the law.) Another two miners killed yesterday. They didn’t live in leafy suburbs. They were black. Killed by blacks.
Anarchy or civil war will not differentiate. Will it extend to pro-Zuma and anti- Zuma supporters? – or ‘coconuts’ – or those of the noxious ilk of Dave Harris and Tofolux? – or ANC politicians who with fake, fruadulent promises have let the country sink –(like the redundant, rusty submarines bought for millions of rand by people with greedy hands and smeared palms)– in order to fill their own fat ANC pockets?
The Trouble With Being ‘Ungovernable’
or
Be Careful For What You Wish -
You Might Get It
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - –
No work, no play
No job, no pay
No money, no food
Nowhere to stay
Only one syllable between ‘Uncontrolled’ and ‘Uncontrollable’
Only one syllable between ‘Ungoverned’ and ‘Ungovernable’
But there’s no counting the lies that lie between
Democracy and Anarchy
@ Toffylux
Ah yes, the majority rhetoric, the bane of democracy for the minorities. The majority of South African voters are ignorant and illiterate and certainly have little insight into the excesses, wastages, and sheer incompetencies and incapabilities of the ANC government. The vast majority are unaware of the more than R13 billion stolen by corrupt government officials and even the majority of loyal aware ANC supporters seem to be blinded to this blight on our political landscape. The current ANC leadership are trading on the past and the credit is running out, just as your values have become suspect. The ANC and the NATS before them are proof that you can run a country for years without it serving the majority.
@The.Crit.Cyn, Sure when the numbers are on the table, then they are ”ignorant and illiterate”. I think their ”ignorance and illiteracy” now gives you credibility to make outlandish statements such as the ruling party and your apartheid gov. Your selective memory forgets that one of your Presidents aka Dr Gold should have been jailed for corruption. Your selective memory forgets about the Information scandal, the Swiss Bank accounts, the murders of the Smit family, Bankorp, Masterbond, Albert Vermaas. Container fraud, rhino horn and elephant tusks sales by officials. etc etc. Worst of all, it forgets how much poeple benefitted. In any case, despite the priviledged education, if this is your analysis, then clearly the program of benefication was doomed. But then again, the ”illiterates and ignorant” could have told you this.
@ Col Cit, wow the anger and resentment will give you heart palpitations. The chorus singing will not get you any more brownie points. If you are going to add, subtract or unpack the debate, I will suggest some coherence and cognitive ability will add some value.
@ Tofolux
After nearly 2 decades of ANC ‘majority’ rule, it is now introducing ‘serious security measures – stopping short of a state of emergency’.
Whereas political Thought Leader comments centre on the gross inefficiency, corruption and lack of leadership in the ANC , you avoid it and retaliate by hurling personal and racial insults with the rest of your undiluted nonsense.
Does you include the Indian community in your ‘brownie awards’? – and what about the Chinese? Does your definition of ‘Black’ include the thousands upon thousands of illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries? Does it include those who still vote for the ANC – as well as those who are leaving or have left the ANC – and those bitterly divided between pro-Zuma and anti-Zuma camps?
On which side of the broken ANC fence do you stand, when you have no leg to stand on?
As many people of colour do not think as you do and are opposed to your expressions of racial hatred, your continued demonstrations of personal and racist attacks only serve to benefit opposition parties.
@Critical Cynic, the speaker of parliament who is black, when asked about having direct elections in SA, went on record by saying the blacks in SA were too ignorant and uneducated to allow direct elections. He also said that the people could not make rational decisions about running the government because they were too poor. When you said the same thing Tofolux has flip out and is saying you are racist.
@Col Zit, your pre-occupation with racial classifications betray deep seated inadequacies and an urgent need to be accepted. Those on whose behalf you now speak, has a particular history. This history has judged them very harshly and it is correct that it should. History will continue to judge you harshly because not only are your comments extremely anti-black, it shows that you have a particular belief that you are different. It therefore begs the question, are you different? Also. oppositional politics in this country is weak. The majority knows that those who support oppositional politics, falls into the category of the masser-servant construct. Not only is this embarrassing, it is quite farcical.
@Tofolux: “Col Zit, your pre-occupation with racial classifications betray deep seated inadequacies and an urgent need to be accepted.” Hahahaha. Rich!! You truly don’t get irony do you.
Oh, and is masser-servant your new favourite phrase? Are you going to over-use it like “you and your ilk”?
@David, actually it is amazing how relevant they are almost 100years after it was pointed out by by our visionary icons. It is also amazing how obvious the superiority complex is embedded in the minds of those who think that oppressing and insulting human beings, is a joke.
Tofolux: Again, do you understand irony? Read your comments. Please.
Nothing like someone else proving your point. Even better when it’s the person you’re trying to impress the point upon. Thanks Tofolux. Cheque’s in the mail.