Lawlessness and crime threaten national sovereignty – The Mail & Guardian

Acts of extortion should not be seen as isolated incidents, but as the outlines of a larger picture of dysfunction and mismanagement.

The upsurge in reports of extortion and demands for protection pay signals a culmination of a long-simmering culture of criminality, lawlessness and state failure. This manifestation of criminality points to a broader breakdown of law and order that has been long in the making. Extortion reflects poor leadership and mismanagement of the state.

South Africans are being put like frogs in a pot on a fire, enjoying the gradual warmth of the water until it is too late to jump out. It is not just about extortion and protection money; the grim picture contains a host of seemingly unrelated quirks that society has become accustomed to. The President has since come out strongly, declaring that people are fed up with being terrorized by criminals and that the police are at the forefront of the fight. Meanwhile, the Minister of Police told the National Assembly that the four provinces of Gauteng, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal account for 73% of crimes, including extortion, illegal occupation of premises and theft of shares. Extortion has exploded, affecting citizens, businesses and public institutions alike. In the Eastern Cape, for example, several schools, petrol stations and eateries have been forced to close to avoid confrontations.

Why should people believe anything the President and the Police Minister have to say? Extortion is not the only crime that has become widespread and entrenched. We know the ropes under this ANC government. New crimes and vices loom on the horizon and instead of being nipped in the bud, they become normalized and a permanent feature of society. They include illegal mining, human trafficking, hijacking of buildings, kidnapping, illegal immigration, drug trafficking, illegal cigarettes, construction mafias, roadblocks and corruption in internal affairs. There is one special feature that the post-apartheid government possesses: the inability to prevent, arrest and reverse crimes. Once a new crime or bad behavior has emerged, it is only a matter of time before it becomes institutionalized. The government is merely going through the motions of holding public office.

Unlike other countries, the concepts of national sovereignty, national security and protection of citizens are not high priorities in South Africa. The government is unable to read the environment, lacks discernment and cannot decide what may be of national interest, short or long term. There is more to the ANC’s bloodless performance of 30 years than meets the eye.

The last time a new negative phenomenon was eliminated was urban terror during the first democratic government after 1994. The Institute of Security Studies noted in 2001: “Between 1994 and the end of 2000, more than 400 criminal detonations and explosions occurred in South Africa. Most occurred in the context of internal gang warfare and vigilante actions against criminal gangs and suspected drug dealers in the Western Cape.”

A societal problem like drug abuse has led to many communities having to live with drug addicted youth, the nyaopes or pharas, each of these nicknames being assigned to specific parts of the country. The phara nation of tik, nyaope and whoonga dependent youth is a new abnormality. And there has been zero effort to reverse this devastating phenomenon, no national dialogue, no awareness campaigns.

The existence of government incompetence rears its ugly head beyond South Africa’s borders. Corruption in the Department of Home Affairs was once flagged by the British in the 2000s, and the South African government showed no sense of urgency in addressing the issue. The United Kingdom subsequently responded to the sale of South African passports to foreigners by corrupt Home Office officials by introducing a visa for people travelling on a South African passport around 2009. There was no subsequent intervention by the South African government to reverse these developments. As of 2024, Ireland has followed suit by ending visa-free travel for South African passport holders — more than a decade since the British raised the issue.

Communities have also become accustomed to living with criminal gangs of illegal miners, the zama zamas, and their value chain of crime, which includes cross-border gun crimes, cash-in-transit robberies, explosives, ATM bombings and illegal cigarettes. The zama zamas’ illegal activities were felt across the border in Lesotho when dust-stained banknotes entered the mountain kingdom’s monetary system, nearly collapsing the economy. When a group of young women were allegedly gang-raped by illegal miners in Krugersdorp, President Cyril Ramaphosa downplayed the seriousness of the crime as just another incident of gender-based violence. The Lesotho government sent a letter of apology to South Africa, with the prime minister calling the incident an act of terrorism. Earlier this week, it was reported that illegal mining gangs have taken over the historic town of Pilgrim’s Rest in Mpumalanga.

Society is thus subject to a gradual and cumulative normalization of lawlessness and crimes of all kinds. Moreover, once the state no longer has the monopoly on violence and there are numerous competing actors who can coerce society, that state disintegrates. For the sake of its citizens and posterity, South Africa needs a new caliber of leaders and political parties who can distinguish between everyday operational problems and routine policing of common crimes, and strategic and high-level issues relating to national sovereignty and security.

Dr Mabutho Shangase is a senior lecturer in political studies and international relations at North-West University. @nativconscience