SA may be on the tipping point, but we can pull it back from the brink

Is South Africa on the precipice of an African Spring?

In the movie Chocolat, the narrator talks about “a sly wind coming in from the north” which brings with it a sense of unease and imminent change.

Last week at the memorial service for Jessie Duarte, Thabo Mbeki warned that South Africa might be seeing an African Spring.

Referring to the Arab Spring, he said: “A street hawker was abused by the police, and that enraged the country; that’s how that massive uprising happened in Tunisia, the problems were brewing beneath the surface and it needed a little spark.”

Then came the warning:

“One of these days it’s going to happen to us, you can’t have so many people unemployed and poor, one day it is going to trigger an uprising,” he said.

Aids crisis aside, I have always had respect for Thabo Mbeki - especially regarding his phenomenal intellect.

So, when Mbeki speaks I tend to listen carefully.

I think many of us have been feeling a deep sense of foreboding over the last few months. There seems to be something in the air. Like the sly wind from the north, it seems different, something beyond the usual criticism and even cynicism that is so endemic in the South African political and social narrative.

It feels more intense, like a volcano that is starting to rumble, warning of an imminent eruption.

Of course, there is very little in the political domain at the moment to get excited about – to the contrary. The daily revelations of more corruption, a seemingly lack of vision from the government and a president whom (until Monday evening)  had gone very silent are truly depressing.

In his book “Tipping point”, Malcolm Gladwell describes a tipping point as a moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.

Like Thabo Mbeki, I’m concerned that we are getting dangerously close to our own moment of critical mass when things can boil over.  Two years of COVID restrictions, rising food and petrol prices, high unemployment and interest rates are stretching people to the limit.

With a seeming lack of commitment and leadership from the politicians, it also feels like there is very little light at the end of the tunnel.

Many in the ANC and the Presidency argue that they remain passionately committed to the right principles - of justice and fairness. I don’t deny that.

The problem is that there is very little proof of that materialising in the daily life of ordinary citizens.

Thus people are experiencing a growing gulf between their life experiences and the talk or language of the political leaders. The governing party in particular seems to be so embroiled in their continued internal battles that they are unable to hear the ominous rumblings getting louder.

What really worries me is how easily this can result in uncontrollable unrest. We live in a very violent country, where the instinct to destruct is always just beneath the surface. As we saw last year, once this volcano of violent destruction erupts, it is extremely difficult to contain.

So, are we at that tipping point?

I believe we are close, but thanks to the enormous resilience of people in this country we are not there yet.

However, politicians need to figure out what the trigger points are and they need to do so fast.

It goes without saying that unemployment, lack of economic growth and ongoing corruption have to addressed. We also need to sort out the education, transport and health system – and of course, Eskom.

Yet, this will take time – perhaps too much time. So what can be done to prevent us from tipping into massive unrest in the interim?

It is frequently the  accumulation of a number of relatively small things (against the background of the bigger challenges) that finally push people over the edge.

It is for example, the lack of interest at police stations when people want to report a crime. It is the endless lines at Home Affairs and local clinics where people are often dismissed by staff who could not care less.  It is the lack of running water and sewage while the local politicians are fighting about who should wear the mayoral chain and drive around in posh cars.

Many of these only take some political will and a bit of effort to fix. It won’t stop the volcano from erupting, but it will buy some time, when people can at least see some signs of a caring state.

Of course, it is not all up to the government. Businesses also have a role to play and ultimately all of us have to roll up our sleeves. As South Africans, we have an enormous capacity to pull ourselves back from the edge of the abyss. We have done so many times in the past. We can and must do it again, because this country and her people have too much potential to let it all fall apart.