Independent on Saturday

Lesson one: you’re on your own, baby!

WILLIAM SAUNDERSON-MEYER @TheJaundicedEye This is a shortened version of the Jaundiced Eye column that is published on Politicsweb. Follow WSM on Twitter @TheJaundicedEye

THE unrest has been like a flash flood scouring a mountain. It has opened deep crevasses in some places and at others uncovered the occasional granite outcrop.

What has happened will substantially affect everyone’s future, including those who were completely bypassed by the looting, burning and killing.

The first lesson we all need to take is one of life and death.

These events are a stark reminder that in terms of the physical safety of you and your loved ones, as well as the preservation of your property and tools to earn a living, you are entirely on your own.

The unrest highlights that South Africa now meets one of the most important criteria of a failed state – an inability, or refusal, by the state to carry out its primary function of protecting its citizens.

When confronted, the government rolled over and played dead.

In several KZN towns, the SAPS barricaded themselves in their stations and had to be protected, as well as resupplied with ammunition, by the citizens they were supposed to be protecting.

The other unlikely “protectors of democracy” were the taxi mafia.

After decades of using assassination and arson to eliminate commercial competitors and to wring concessions from the government, taxi bosses were momentarily cast as heroes when they intervened, out of self-interest, to prevent looting during the later stages of the unrest.

It was a disquieting reflection of where the real balance of power and credibility of intent in South Africa lies.

One could watch on television how three taxis containing half a dozen men were easily able to interdict a rampaging mob from attacking a shopping mall. A much larger force of nominally better armed and trained SAPS officers had about as much deterrence value as an array of display mannequins.

The real heroes, though, were a patchily-armed citizenry.

They saved not only the bacon of the communities they were protecting, but, contrary to the lurid warnings of many, the militias appear to have been generally well disciplined and restrained.

Unpalatable though it may be to an anti-gun lobby that has broad media support (as well as generous funding from philanthropists living in safe Western countries), it would be insanity for the government to proceed with its stated intention to disarm South Africans.

A more rational solution for a government facing violent insurrection is to constrain firearm ownership within some kind of state security structure.

South Africa’s previous system of Commandos – a volunteer, part-time force that was part of the army but often deployed under the authority of the police – was enormously successful in maintaining security, especially in rural areas and at key points.

Despite the political stigma for the ANC of the Commandos being a Boer innovation dating back more than a century, the system has much to commend it. It’s a low-cost way of bolstering an SANDF and SAPS, both of which are woefully understaffed.

It’s also an alternative to racebased vigilantism.

Area-based commandos, pulling all races into a disciplined, SAPS-led force, would make far less likely the allegedly racial confrontation between African looters and Indian homeowners, that last week left 20 dead in Phoenix.

On the other hand, if communities like Phoenix are disarmed, it will only mean that the next conflict between the defenders and invaders will be decided by who has the most illegally acquired firepower.

The unacknowledged motivation behind the disbanding of the Commandos in 2003 is that the ANC fears a white “counter-revolution”. It’s an understandable, but nevertheless illusory, fear.

Since 1994, the most potent efforts at “rebellion” from the white Right have been a hare-brained plot involving the Boeremag shelling Cape Town from a submarine.

In contrast, last week’s “insurrection”, one of the most destructive and deadly single events in South African history, was triggered by disenchanted ANC supporters, including 12 senior party members identified by the ANC national executive as the ringleaders.

To find the biggest threat to the South African state, do the arithmetic.

The death toll in the Boeremag rebellion was zero and the ringleaders will spend up 30 years in jail; the death toll in the ANC rebellion is 250 and counting.

As to the likelihood of swingeing prison sentences for the traitors? Probably zero.

METRO

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2021-07-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

http://independentonsaturday.pressreader.com/article/281754157348267

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