South Africa’s many troubles require immediate attention to stave off a further deepening of what has become a systemic disaster of state incapacity. A simple place to begin is education, where the challenge is significant. 

In January 2023, the South African government, for political and party gains, declared a “state of disaster.” Potential loss of the African National Congress (ANC) majority in parliament in the upcoming 2024 elections has forced President Cyril Ramaphosa to act. Electricity blackouts, euphemistically called “load shedding,” has enraged the public, and has incurred great economic costs. After 30 years of majority ANC rule, the celebrated liberation movement itself is facing accountability for the malaise.

“Disaster” normally denotes a shocking natural catastrophe, unexpected and traumatic – an earthquake, tornado, flooding, wildfire, accidents, an epidemic – over which humans have no or little control. In this case, the blackouts originated entirely from human mistakes. 

Mcebisi Ndletyana, a political scientist, traced the disaster over time, writing that a previous ANC leadership had ignored urgent advice to build more power stations. “Lights switched on every day and the newly built houses were electrified, evidence for the ANC to highlight their justification for being in power. This was exactly the reason why they were not persuaded … to spend money building new infrastructure.”

Beyond this self-infliction of political and developmental negligence, five “real disasters,” unresolved or caused by government, have dominated South African conversations across the political spectrum: gross inequality, violent crime, incompetent policing, worsening corruption, and failing education. Pessimism about the future and a sense of crisis pervades the country to different degrees: from fatalistic resignation to panic among the wealthy, clamouring for a Schengen visa.

Inequality foremost justifies the disaster label. South Africa has a Gini co-efficient of 0.64, one of the highest in the world. Unemployment, officially at 32 percent, but 60 percent among the 15-25 age group, adds to a tragic waste. A high violent crime rate, largely resulting from this impoverishment, falls also into this disaster category. Home robberies have only increased, and the daily murder rate has risen from 58 people in 2021 to 78 in 2022.

Meanwhile, police protection is widely questioned because of poor training, internal strife, and partial corruption. Private security agents outnumber the 194,000 police personnel. The police cannot even secure threatened whistleblowers, as the example of Babita Deokaran demonstrates. The former chief financial accounting officer for the provincial Department of Health became an icon among several other corruption fighters killed. An assassination industry is widely blamed. Hit squads, linked to criminal taxi cartels, can be hired for R10,000 to R500,000.

Corruption is exposed by a free media with committed investigative journalists. Rigged procurement contracts, blackmail of construction companies, bribes to politicians, nepotism, and truck burnings, form daily news. Even universities are implicated in “financial mismanagement” and fraud. At the University of Zululand, the distinguished educationalist Jonathan Jansen reveals in his 2023 book Corrupted: “A special investigative unit found hundreds of degree certificates (with a vacant space for the name) in the desks of several academics.” At the once reputable Fort Hare University, founded by liberal missionaries in the Eastern Cape in 1916, the corruption investigating Vice Chancellor, Sakhela Bulungu, escaped an assassination attempt when his driver was killed in February 2023. Electricity supplier Eskom’s CEO, Andre de Ruyter, survived poisoned coffee. He fled the country after publicizing internal corruption and after being accused of treason by a cabinet minister. What’s astonishing is the general apathy and numbness after such outrageous events occur. The editor of the insightful Daily Maverick, Branko Brkic, diagnoses the problem as “an acid cynicism that permeates the land.”

This cynicism can be found in the structural inequality of society, which starts with a failing education system. Only 18 percent of 10-year olds can read. Almost half of all township pupils drop out during their 12 years of compulsory schooling. This disaster exists because conditions are not conducive to learning. Most township “learners” belong to families with absentee fathers. Illiterate rural mothers often head households, where pre-school tuition is lacking. Domestic sexual violence reigns and too many girls endure teenage pregnancy. Township teachers of a similar background, themselves disadvantaged, hold low expectations and work with far too few resources in educating their vulnerable custodians. The very upbringing in a spatially segregated, disproportionally crime-ridden ghetto, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Conditions for a Turnaround

The obvious priority should be to attract more investments for job creation, even casual work. The unrealistic ANC dreams about an incremental demise of capitalism in the “second stage” of the “revolution” (the first stage was achieving political power) only prolonged the misery of a marginalised underclass. It is in the long-term interest of big business to participate in ameliorating inequality and soften resistance to higher taxes. Black and white tycoons need to use their leverage to prevent more unrest and repetition of looting. Many already collaborate with government in infrastructural projects and policy advice. Progressive taxation and inheritance taxes for the super-wealthy was advocated in vain by French economist Thomas Piketty and by some former Afrikaner nationalists, like Sampie Terre Blanche. The necessary outside support of a heavily indebted disaster state could be made contingent on such inequality alleviation.

Corporations and the tax-paying middle-class, particularly the 1.3 million civil servants and senior officials with bloated salaries, would have to accept a wage freeze and loss of benefits, such as free family air travel and car allowances. The majority of low-income earners is already burdened with a high VAT Tax of 15 percent for common essentials. If those who choose to live in the beautiful country contribute their part in financing a splendid lifestyle, they would also elicit support of likeminded foreign sponsors.

In politics, instead of conflating party and state through “cadre policy,” civil service appointments must be made on the basis of merit and not on party loyalty. Legislating racial quotas, according to national representation, causes the same malaise and needs to be abolished. 

Finally, racist hate speech – “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer” by EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters) leader Julius Malema – ought to be outlawed and prosecuted. A potential ANC-EFF coalition government rings the death knell of Nelson Mandela’s vision and interracial solidarity. The liberal opposition seem to underestimate the appeal of an articulate demagogue and engage in wishful thinking. An ANC split should be welcomed, as should resulting coalition governments.

South Africa could be a paradise for tourists, a global retirement home for seniors, and a role model for prudent governance and preservation of a scenic environment. The desert-like Karoo can house unlimited solar panel farms. Exported electricity could satisfy sub-Saharan needs and boost the budget. A peaceful democracy would entice some nostalgic exiles to return. With preservation of threatened wildlife and biodiversity in its renowned parks and oceans, South Africa could be the model for humanity and nature coexisting harmoniously. Forest restoration and re-wilding of a damaged ecosystem, as done in Europe, could simultaneously benefit local degradation as well as assist a burning planet. The assets of South Africa in social and natural capital outweigh the negative prospects, but only if appropriate policies are implemented.

Heribert Adam was educated at the Frankfurt School with Adorno as his PhD supervisor. Now an Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, he taught also at the University of Natal and the University of Cape Town and has published extensively on South African socio-political developments during several decades.

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