AmaBhungane at 15 - looking back, looking ahead

Dear reader, 

I write to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the first article published under the amaBhungane banner on the 19th of March.

A reminder: that first story, on 19 March 2010, was “Zuma Inc” and it was in this story that we first identified the Guptas as persons of interest around the controversial new president.

Plans for marking our 10th year in a significant way went out of the window with the Covid-19 outbreak, but it is worth recalling what I wrote on that anniversary. 

“In the time of the coronavirus, when we’re unsure about next week, never mind next year, or the next decade, it is hard to take a long-term view.

“Globalisation has lifted millions out of poverty, but it has also produced unprecedented global fragilities, of which the current virus outbreak is just one symptom, and among which the global climate crisis is the most serious threat – likely to trigger secondary crises of increasing severity in the decades ahead.

“The social contract between states and citizens has been weakened – and the ability of political parties and governments to act as instruments of social cohesion and redistribution, rather than merely in the interests of elites, has been undermined, especially by the influence of money in politics.

“But the current crisis has also shown the value of institutions that can sound the alarm, tell the truth, and push back against selfish elites and grimy politicians.

“An independent and vigilant media is a core ingredient for restoring the health of our country and our planet.”

Ruggardisation

• The world is changing faster than we are, but still slowly enough for most of us to continue with Business as Usual, particularly as the alternatives are not obvious. Our biggest hurdle is recognising and persuading others to accept that Business as Usual is not an option.


• Trump has actually helped by kicking away some of the ideological and practical supports that still made it possible to believe the world as we know it will continue much the same.


• What are the implications? We need to focus on ruggardisation– what Nassim Nicholas Taleb has called anti-fragility.


• This was very starkly evident during the shock of Covid, when, for the most part, the rich parts of the world put up the walls and looked after themselves. Barring a successful global political alternative, that process is likely to accelerate. It is also likely to include the three big empires: the American; the Chinese; and the Russian.


• While some opportunities to play off great power rivalries in order to protect ourselves may emerge (as they did in the Cold War), the new neo-imperialism is likely to be more brutal; more like the 19th-century version. As a recent article put it, “Rather than posing as their moral and strategic opposite, America is becoming more like China and Russia — a regional great power whose statecraft is increasingly amoral and purely self-interested.” It feels like we are returning to a world where, as Thucydides said in 400 years BC, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”


• So, we need to think about ruggardisation at multiple levels: as individuals and families; as organisations and institutions; as communities; as countries and as political blocs.


• At a national level, this means a radical approach to prioritisation. Not surprisingly, this also aligns quite well with the priorities of the poorest and weakest among us: the need for physical security and protection; food; shelter; basic healthcare.


• At the moment, we in South Africa are struggling with the logic and consequences of massive internal power and wealth disparities, which means we are to a large extent reproducing the paradigm of the rich putting up walls and looking after themselves.


• Reversing these trends is only possible if there is a process at scale, which means it is one that is inevitably largely state and community controlled and managed.


• We are now appallingly bad at this; the state is weak and captured, and lacks skills, integrity and credibility. There is also the problem of people with guns simply taking what they want and determining outcomes in their favour. This is already happening all over the country already via the construction mafia and other forces etc.


• We can imagine we have to become (in some ways - particularly with regard to maximum self-sufficiency) more like Cuba, but while minimising the potential for anarchy, social breakdown; democratic backsliding etc, and so on. Policing this change – ie, punishing those who steal and cheat, whether by force or not – is going to be very important. Hence our concern with reforming the criminal justice system and the SANDF.


• We are going to have to face a managed economic deglobalisation; hopefully combined with an effort to form global international political alliances for greater global equity in dealing with these challenges. More likely, we are going to have to work out how to deal with the Empire.

Challenges ahead