South Africa’s post-disaster choices: Social upheaval, Dictatorship or Renaissance?

9 Mar 2023

In what directions do societies move after major disasters? This is the theme of a research project that the Mapungubwe Institute has initiated. The research deals with local and global experiences as we emerge from the Covid pandemic and have to navigate the disaster that is the war in Ukraine.

Major disasters do not necessarily generate novel social fissures. They tend rather to sharpen existing contradictions and create a sense of urgency for their resolution. In trying to manage a disaster’s repercussions, three broad categories of journeys often play out.

The first direction is one of social upheaval that either results in new social systems or a complete collapse, with the mutual destruction of contending forces. This, in a sense, is what happened with the 1917 socialist revolution in Russia at the end of World War 1. On the other extreme is the dislocation that left ruins in the Machu Picchu citadel of the Inca in the Americas, and Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe in southern Africa, and other such civilisations.

The second possibility is the emergence of dictatorship either as an insidious creeping in of populism and social acquiescence or as an abrupt seizure of the political reins.

Many coups have been carried out on the African continent and elsewhere in the name of removing governments accused of failing to deal with the impact of one disaster or the other. Nazism emerged in Germany in the context of the socioeconomic consequences of the reparations imposed at Versailles by the victors at the end of World War 1.

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The third broad direction is one of reformation and renaissance.

Although many changes in social stratification, organisation and settlement influenced the advent of the European Renaissance, it occurred against the backdrop of a subsiding bubonic plague pandemic which had caused the deaths of more than 70 million people in Asia, Europe and Africa in the middle of the 14th century. The renaissance was associated with technological and architectural innovation, artistic creations, the deliberate study of ancient Greek and Roman knowledge, critical engagement with religious texts as well as interactions with other civilisations including in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

It should be acknowledged, though, that social development is complex, and elements within these categories of journeys may flow into one another.

In some instances, societies may start off by plodding along the same pre-disaster path, but gradually trend in one of the three directions. What is critical is that social agency plays a central role, as a mass response to prevailing conditions and as a reaction to leaders’ political and intellectual choices.

An appropriate interpretation or a misreading of factors that led to the disaster and of conditions before the disaster – and debate on how society can embark on a better path – influence the direction in which societies move.

South Africa

Humanity as a whole is grappling with these issues at various levels of intensity in the post-Covid era. It is understandable that this is more intense in South Africa, given the depth of the social problems in our society – not helped by the damage being wrought by Eskom’s load shedding with its dire economic, social and psychological effects.

The difficulties facing South Africans range from low investment and unemployment rates to the high cost of living, serious dysfunction in many municipalities as well as the soaring murder rates, gender-based violence and other crimes. Add to this a seeming sudden surge in pitbull attacks and itinerant big cats, and things can seem quite awful!

Does this, though, mean that we should succumb to fatalistic pessimism? Aligned to this is a narrative that South Africa has, since 1994, been incapable of high rates of economic growth and job creation. This is to ignore the fact that, in the 20 years before 1994, per capita growth had in fact declined by about 11%; while it increased by about 33% in the 21 years from 1994. Unemployment during the period of high growth in the 2000s was reduced from 31% to 23%. However, per capita growth declined by about three percent between 2014 and 2019; and the unemployment rate is today at about 33%.

Profound changes

Do the difficulties mean that we should underplay the profound changes that have taken place since the attainment of democracy – a form of acontextual presentism?

Besides access to many social services that Blacks in particular didn’t have, Black people are today the majority in skilled and professional categories and their proportion in senior and top management positions is increasing. There has also been an improvement in gender participation across most areas of social endeavour, especially in the public sector.

As recent protests have underlined, there are many problems in tertiary institutions. But the number of students in these institutions has doubled since 1994; and, from less than half in 1994, African students now constitute about 75% of this cohort.

Acontextual presentism also includes an approach that underplays the fact that, for over two years, Covid scuppered many of the plans to deal with declining per capita growth and State Capture.

Progress is being made in the operations of such agencies as the National Prosecuting Authority and the South African Revenue Service. But the pace is slow and the impact hardly visible to citizens.

In her recent letter, Busi Mavuso of Business Leadership South Africa applauds “impressive achievements” such as “the long-delayed auction of spectrum, shifting the regulation around private generation of electricity, improving the ease of access to visas for both tourists and workers, improving the process to access water use rights”. But these are too few, their impact is hardly felt by citizens, and there will be long time lags before many take effect.

And so, understanding context does not mean that South Africans should be understanding and grateful for the current state of affairs. Such is the nature of progressive realisation of rights that, once granted, a right does become a given in the social psychology. This applies especially to young people, who have grown up in an environment in which many rights have become the default of South African life.

However, failure to recognise the progress made since the attainment of democracy and the efforts since 2018, including during and after the Covid pandemic, can have the effect of questioning the very utility of the democratic dispensation.

Combined with resistance to the campaign to end State Capture and combat corruption, as well as surreptitious efforts to undermine a democratically elected government, the situation does become complex. Therefore, some measure of care and level-headedness is required as we seek to answer that existential question: in what directions do societies move after major disasters?

Fraught geopolitics

In the global terrain, the challenge is how to pursue the country’s interests in the midst of fraught geopolitics. We must appreciate that the world can be a very cruel and lonely place. With growing mercantilism and “great power” confrontation which, as many argue, is bound to get worse, we cannot expect any favours.

Worse still, history teaches that, when cold and hot wars among major powers become the norm, rules are thrown out of the window, with those who do not conform either way being undermined and punished. And so, EU rules on false codling moths in fruit and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms, and the US African Growth and Opportunity Act can mutate to grow Ukrainian and Taiwanese legs.

Lest we forget, much worse happened during the Cold War. Besides the millions who perished in all manner of interventions by the “west”, ask the families of Lumumba (Congo), Sukarno (Indonesia) and Allende (Chile), or about Mandela’s arrest in 1962 – to name just a few instances – to appreciate the dangers.

But before becoming starry-eyed, also ask, particularly on current issues, whether the South African government has to strain repeatedly to explain an issue that arises in interactions with their Russian counterparts: that we can only consider new nuclear generation if and when the country can afford it – and this within the law.

And also ask whether Transnet would be experiencing paralysing problems with locomotives and spare parts due to the standoff with the state-owned Chinese CRRC Corporation arising from the company’s conduct during State Capture.

What is the lesson from this? It is that, if the global tensions are not resolved – and if Bertolt Brecht’s 1941 warning about the womb that bore the beast of war comes to pass in the current age – the machinations are bound to become more ruthless. It is thus necessary for South Africa to shed any modicum of naivety and credulity, and navigate the minefield of volatile geopolitics collectively, in the country’s interest.

Strange as it may sound, this is the mindset that underpinned the approach among South Africa’s adversaries in the early 1990s: that the negotiations would be conducted among South Africans and not mediated by any external force.

What direction for South Africa?

And so, in what direction will South Africa move as it tries to climb out of the Covid-19 and other disasters?

This depends on the quality of leadership – political, business, working class, religious, youth, women and otherwise – and the social agency of the broad mass of South Africans. The starting point should be an honest appraisal of the situation before, during and after the pandemic.

Ideas on how our society can embark on its renaissance are contained in many policy documents, most of which are broadly agreed among the social partners.

There are of course some gaps.

On the energy front, for instance, mobilising Eskom workers to become partners in addressing the operational and security challenges is fundamental. It is instructive that the plan to confront the energy crisis hardly mentions workers. This ignores the fact that they are the operators of Eskom’s grid and can at least become the eyes and ears of society in dealing with theft and sabotage. Trade unions operating in state entities need to be engaged on a security compact.

Further, there has not been much focus on demand management: if the estimation is accurate that geysers consume some 30-60% of household energy consumption, could more be done by households and the tens of thousands of businesses who keep the geysers permanently on?

At a strategic level, choosing a sustainable way forward also requires a mindset to methodically pursue long-term goals. If the assessment of party performance in future elections is accurate, how should society prepare for such outcomes in a manner that prevents instability and a national political implosion?

Can alliances be forged around objectives of the National Development and Reconstruction and Recovery Plans?

What changes should be considered in the post-2024 review of the country’s electoral system, so as to ensure stability and a dogged pursuit of the country’s constitutional ideals?

These are just some of the immediate and strategic issues to which South Africans should dispassionately apply their minds. Then, the choice on our post-disaster direction will be a South African renaissance. DM

Joel Netshitenzhe is the executive director of the Mapungubwe Institute (Mistra).

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South Africa

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South Africa

South Africa

Profound changes

Fraught geopolitics

What direction for South Africa?