By: Arthur van Nel
The legitimacy of any government is not singularly derived from its ascend to power by democratic means, pursuant to free and fair elections. Its legitimacy must also have a foundation in how it discharges that power, once attained.
Spontaneous public revolts – a litany of which were unled- in our contemporary history the world over, is replete with examples of how democratically-constituted governments were overthrown by its people who simply did not have the patience to wait for the next electoral cycle. In other words, there was a confluence of too many instances of misrule over a too short period of time across a too wide range of salient aspects that defines the nucleus societal life.
Put another way, there exist in contemporary history abundant proof of a population’s collective breaking point. It would be remiss of any government to rule as if there exist no proverbial cliff, over which an overtaxed, under-serviced and fatigued population cannot be pushed. Even in the fluid body politic of a country like SA, forever precariously balanced on the precipice of going up in flames, there is something called “enough” and it is my thesis that we have entered that zone in which the constituent elements for a spontaneous public revolt are in place.
If I’m a mechanic or plumber and has only a hammer in my entire toolbox, I’m forced to hit something when I receive a callout. My intervention will never be guided by a correct diagnosis but by the limitations of the tools available to me.
Lockdown, in my humble opinion, is the only tool in the government’s toolbox and therefore, constrains it to act in a manner that is both hopelessly predictable and dangerously narrow. Notwithstanding the diagnostic outcomes that accurately explains sluggish economic growth, deepening unemployment, widening inequality, collapsing public infrastructure, pervasive poverty and chronic underspending, thé array of tools to intervene with smart policy choices, backed up by competent execution, remain a pipe dream.
Permit me to add to this already toxic and explosive cocktail, the mysterious rise and fall of the spread of COVID, and it’s attendant contradictions of inexplicable science, the government’s hammer (lockdown) was again on full display in the family meeting last night. Anyone who attempts to unmask , pun intended, the mystery behind the virus’ existence and spread, is branded a conspiracy theorist and that narrative further drives lazy intellectual engagement in this country. Again, the debate rewards the loudest and not the smartest.
Here’s the problem:
a) brutality by the South African armed forces on largely unarmed, mostly black and vulnerable victims, have exponentially increased since the first lockdown,
b) the expanded definition of unemployment hovers now at just under 40%, with youth unemployment exceeding 60%,
c) Eskom continues to be the national embarrassment under the tutelage of De Ruyter who, bizarrely, is divorced from Eskom in the critique of the analysts who, quite ignorantly, refuse to explore if the CEO may not actually be delivering on his neo-liberal mandate to collapse the power utility such that it is disposable to private sector interests in the manner that SAA was now handed out on a R3 billion platter after the fiscus dumped more than R30 billion into it,
d) the cumulative effort and funding invested in the COVID pandemic was never assembled towards economic growth, even in a pre-COVID dispensation, meaning that it was never deemed a crisis that required uncommon effort,
e) the R200 billion SME fund (part of the R500 billion stimulus package) was recalled after only R18 billion, or 9%, of it was spent by the unreconstructed, anti-black banking sector on beneficiary companies that are as yet not disclosed,
f) the sheer havoc that increased lockdown levels cause to a fragile economy, regardless of its questionable scientific assumptions, while the same quarantined population watches thousands of fans in soccer stadiums during Euro, is perhaps the final nail in the coffin. No one has ever cared to explain the science behind a limitation of 50 people indoors versus any other number of people. Unless, of course, it’s a function or funeral of an aligned person, like a struggle stalwart or a royal funeral, then not only are thousands allowed, government participates in those functions, often represented by high-ranking officials.
Clearly, hypocrisy is no driver of the spread of the virus. It is this Animal Farm-type hypocrisy that fuels civil disobedience. What is the scientific basis, for example, for a church to reduce its attendance to 50 on Sunday? Rationality being the test, even in review or declaratory orders sought before the courts, how did the Ministerial Advisory Committee arrive at 50 congregants regardless of the seating capacity of any particular church? Law-abiding citizens and compliant organizations are forced to break the law, not only for its irrationality but also in rebellion to hypocrisy.
Let me illustrate this complexity further: a restuarant seating 200 people can continue business as normal because those 200 patrons arrived there uncoordinated. But for a coordinated function, in the exact same restuarant, the limit has to be 50. What am I missing?
Those of us who dared to challenge the vaccination rollout programme’s targets were called all manner of names by pseudo-intellectual interlocutors who froze in the face of the avalanche of justifiable questions we raised. Our country now boasts the slowest vaccination programme of all medium-sized countries in the world. If it’s not expired vaccines we buy, then our vaccine purchases are embargoed. But we have a tool with which to hammer the population if all else fail – increase the lockdown alert level.
I’m no social scientist, but I fear that the latest round of lockdown imposition may just be additional strides made towards a place where the population has no choice, but to head to the streets and shut the country down. While the Stellenbosch Mafia have taken full control of the neo-liberal economic policy regime adopted by the sixth administration, they, through their intracate shareholder schemes, are also the prime beneficiaries of milking the state and making obscene profits while everyone else is grinding out an existence.
The problem with breaking point, is that it’s threshold is undefined. And therein lies its danger.
*Arthur van Nel is an entrepreneur, social justice activist, essayist and author.
