SA sits on a ticking social timebomb

The spreading cancer of xenophobic attacks, with an opportunistic criminal element clearly taking advantage of people’s frustrations to foster atrocities, brought to mind Aeneas in the temple of Juno at Carthage as he watched a picture of fighting in the Trojan War. He sighed with painful words: “there are tears for things, and what is mortal touches the mind”.

Anyone who has lived and observed township life in the past few years could easily see that it was only a matter of time before such things would happen. The situation has long been getting desperate, tottering towards the edge.

There is, of course, no excuse for people who hurt others for whatever reasons, so I’ll not enter on any post hoc exercise to justify prejudice and hatred. It is criminal, and should be treated as nothing else. But we have a responsibility to understand the causes of people’s anger as a measure of prevention.

Economics go to the fundamentals of human relationships. They can foster a brutalising effect on a society that feels itself excluded from meaningful participation as responsible citizen activities. Indeed when one takes a look, especially at South African townships, one sees the atmosphere of disillusionment that is gradually impregnating the youth with bibulous sentiments of social revolution. Until now they vented their sentiments in social iconoclasm and frustrated criminal activity. But things are worse.

Early last year I recalled in a website article similar incidences of xenophobia in Port Elizabeth and KwaNobuhle township in the Eastern Cape in 2005. It was clear to me that it was a matter of time before the fire flared.

The big question is this: what will happen when those who were responsible for attacks (actively or inactively) see that foreign migrants are not really the fundamental cause of their poverty and financial misery. South Africa is a sitting duck to the rise of a careless radicalism that may foster tragic consequences of a Zimbabwean scale.

We’ve seen what happens at ANC conferences: the unruly, drunken loutishness and vulgar mayhem by the participants. Do these have any political roots? No. The roots are material, with greed and a sense of entitlement up on the scale of wrong attitudes.  Much has been promised, and even more was expected, sometimes irrationally, by the ruling party. As it is becoming clearer that no manna will be falling from heaven, people are getting agitated.

I believe the xenophobic attacks were just a very small part of what’s in the offing if nothing fundamental is done soon. South Africa will see a wave of social revolution if the anger of economic exclusion in the township is not solved and better managed before it degenerates into tragic pyrotechnics.

It is easy to lament or condemn the clumsy aggression of populist movements, but much harder to accept that most of the time they emerge as a result of political and economic decomposition that leaves millions to live on air, with scant support. Neglected and polarised people tend to give their alliance to promises of instant remedies by populist movements and are easily seduced by simplistic solutions, often with tragic consequences.

What is needed now — besides a constructive national plan to address the problem of refugees in our country — is for the government to treat the situation in our townships as a national emergency.  I’m talking about finding means and programmes that will give people back their dignity and assuage frustrations by providing them with training and jobs they need.  Let ministries such as public works, social services and trade and industry get their heads together; let them urgently open offices within reach in townships where people can sign up for such programmes.
The 18th century propagandist Thomas Paine said: “Whatever the apparent cause of any riots may be, the real one is always want of happiness. It shows that something is wrong in the system of government, that injures the felicity by which society is to be preserved.”