THERE we were, happily minding our own business after dinner at the local Fine Fare and Wine, examining the important issues of our village. It was shortly after Pres Ramaphosa had a lucidum intervallum (ask an older lawyer, who qualified before Latin was too hard for legal minds) and allowed civilised adults to have a taste of wine with their dinner – beer if you are Big Ben. Then, of course … you know the story, Luke the Dude spoke up.
“So what is it,” interfered he, “did we have a failed coup in our liberated kakistocracy or did all those empowered shoppers in KwaZulu and Gauteng just become gatvol at the same time?”
Bob the Book slapped his forehead. Jean-Jay said “Merde!” Big Ben downed his pint – all while The Prof drew deeply on his unlit pipe and then considered, “Well now, disturbing as we may well find it, young Lucas here has a valid question. One to which there has not been a cognitively satisfactory reply.”
Well, that’s The Prof for you. Always ready to defuse a possible spark, albeit by confounding the locals. Had he been present in the less urbane provinces last month, neither insurrectionist nor unpaying shopper would have been revolting. They would have been too confused to think about it.
“Oi! Boyo!” Colin the Golfer responded to Luke the Dude, “Work it out for yourself. How revolutionary must you be to nick a flat-screen TV and some capitalist sneakers, eh?”
“Boys, boys, boys,” charitised Irene the Queen. “Have a heart. If I had hungry children at home, I would also steal food …”
“On the nobbin, Dearie,” interrupted Colin, “how hungry must you be to eat a flat-screen TV, eh?”
“If I may,” smiled Stevie the Poet, “how about answering Luke the Dude’s question? It is begging an answer, after all.”
“I do not agree,” contributed Big Ben. “My president has said it was a failed coup, so that’s what it is. We know the answer. What greater authority do you need than the democratically elected leader of the country?”
“Useless!” revolted Jon the Joker.
“What do you mean!” challenged Big Ben, raising himself to his full, light-bulb tickling height.
“Useless!” repeated Jon the Joker. “Keep in mind that neither facts nor logic depends on your size or volume and consider that our president might have a very good political reason for his preferred opinion. Just a possibility.”
“Is that so!” challenged Big Ben – unconvincingly, for it was indeed so.
“Let’s look at what we know,” persevered Stevie the Poet. “The available facts are not conclusive. We have a bitter, ongoing ANC faction fight between supporters of Pres. Ramaphosa and his incompetents on the one hand, and on the other hand, those dependent on jailed ex-president Jacob Zuma and his deplorables – Ace Magashule, Carl Niehaus, Bheki Cele and All Looters Continua …”
“That does not contradict the failed-coup narrative; the ‘comradely’ confrontation in fact enforces it,” opined Bill the Beard, who knows things.
“Bear with me, my learned friend,” implored Stevie the Poet, “that’s not the full story. As we also know, our country has been in a downward spiral since the palace revolution when Zuma usurped Thabo Mbeki as ANC leader in December 2007, a fortune-turning event disastrously coinciding with the Great Recession of 2008.
“The whole world was hit, the US badly so. But when Obama became president early in 2009, he engineered a recovery (with no support from the Republicans), getting his economy up and running and on a growth trajectory that lasted well into the Trump presidency. When Zuma became president at about the same time as Obama, did he achieve anything like that here?
“On the contrary. From the 5% growth of the Mbeki leadership, South Africa went into a long economic decline throughout the Zuma years and beyond. State capture and the deterioration of essential infrastructure such as Eskom, the roads, the railways and the ports have tightened the spiral.”
“Whoa!” complained The Beard, “Tragic and true, but not a coup. What does all that have to do with last month’s explosion and destruction?”
“Everything,” smiled Stevie. “Economic failure has consequences. And unremitting economic failure has terrible consequences. A weak economy does not generate the jobs needed. You know the stats. One in three people looking for a job cannot find one. Among younger people, to age 34, almost half are unemployed. No income means hunger and desperation.”
“Add to that,” contributed Miss Lily, “the mismanagement of the Covid pandemic. While ANC central command had harmless people arrested on beaches, no one in their well-fed midst gave a thought for the thousands of South Africans living hand to mouth – and then having even that taken away in the ham-fisted lockdowns.
“The minister responsible for the welfare of the people, Lindiwe Zulu, was genuinely surprised. She had never thought that people would go hungry so quickly… The ANC actually tried to stop the DA in the working Western Cape from feeding children during lockdown – children desperately dependent on their school meals.”
“Correct,” nodded Stevie, “ANC cadres live an entrancingly good life – big houses, fancy cars, well-stocked pantries, wall-to-wall TV screens, all paid for by the taxpayers. And in their comfort trance, no concern that there is another world out there where South Africans struggle from day to day to keep their families fed and clothed.”
“Yes,” harrumphed The Prof. “I can see where you’re going. Desperation and a sense of betrayal smouldering ever hotter as nothing gets better year in and year out and no relief is in sight. That is an explosion waiting for a spark.”
“As you say, Prof.” winked Stevie, “we’ve seen the explosion and we don’t know how it will end – or not end. As we speak, there have been no arrests of the 12 grand conspirators Government claims to have spied. Yes, there was a spark and yes, the veld was bone dry.
“And that’s how this combustion became a runaway fire.”
