Parallel states of emergency and disaster
12 July 2021
i) Protect property and lives
ii) Enforce Covid regulations and continue vaccination drive
iii) Develop urgent and credible poverty eradication plan*
The scenes of violence, looting and vandalism across the country, apparently in response to the arrest of former President Jacob Zuma, needs urgent government action - but not just military and policing action.
The South African tinder box of grinding poverty, indignity and desperation, ignited amid a public health pandemic in KwaZulu-Natal last week and now spreading to other provinces, poses the biggest questions asked of the State since the advent of democracy.
It exposes the fundamental failure by the State to incrementally reduce systemic inequality inherited from its apartheid predecessors. It also exposes the official opposition’s short-sightedness in defending privilege at the expense of sustainable social cohesion.