To the best of my knowledge I’ve never written about politics on this site and I don’t think I will again. But I felt like this post was something I needed to do.
Every weekend I try to spend a half hour or so reading the news over coffee with varying degrees of success, depending on how willing my kids are to let me do this. This past weekend I filtered for “South Africa” in my Pocket list and the excerpts below are more or less the stories I read as they were listed. I know that there’s some bias in the selection (negative headlines tend to do better than positive ones), but I still think that this is a pretty realistic perspective of what life is like in South Africa for most people.
The condition of our toilets is not satisfying at all. Most learners don’t feel free of using the toilets as they have cracks and some don’t have all the needed walls. This is a problem as they use the bushes. I was not aware of World Toilet Day.” – Principal at a Limpopo school (name withheld for fear of victimisation).
Tsesane, T. and Teffo, S. (2020). Op-Ed: SA’s shame: Over 3,000 schools with pit latrines – almost 500 in Limpopo alone. Daily Maverick.
Learners in many South African schools don’t have clean and safe toilets. We cannot even guarantee this basic dignity for our children. I had a quick look for related news and this isn’t an isolated account; it’s a widespread problem.
One of South Africa’s first significant National Health Insurance (NHI) contracts became an alleged looting frenzy, with close associates of Zweli Mkhize, the health minister currently on special leave, adding massive mark-ups on invoices for questionable communications services rendered to the Department of Health (DoH)…Digital Vibes ultimately pocketed R150-million from the DoH.
Pieter-Louis Myburgh for Scorpio. (2021, June 16). SCORPIO: Digital Vibes scandal: Meet “Dr” Pelo, the National Health Insurance’s literal R1.1-million cash cow. Daily Maverick.
In the meantime, while we can’t provide basic sanitation for our children we nonetheless have a Minister of Health who spent R150 million on a marketing campaign. And speaking of the Minister of Health…
When health officials sounded the alarm, three babies were dead at Dora Nginza Provincial Hospital in Gqeberha because of hospital-acquired infections in a shockingly overcrowded neonatal unit, where one nurse sometimes had to look after 28 babies. Since then another three babies have died in preventable accidents in the ward… Earlier this year, Meth admitted that R3.5-billion of the department’s substantial payroll was allocated to nonmedical personnel – this in an environment where the heads of clinical units were effectively barred from appointing clinical staff by the provincial cost-containment committee, which is shrouded in mystery and which has refused to make many medical appointments… The Eastern Cape has one of the highest death rates in the world, more than 500 per 100,000, but last week provincial health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said a report detailing the causes of these deaths had not been presented to the department yet.
Ellis, E. (2021). DM168 ANALYSIS: Mkhize’s legacy of shame: Baby deaths, doctor and nurse shortages, a collapsed Eastern Cape health system. Daily Maverick.
I don’t even know how to start saying anything about this.
We have a national energy supplier that can’t keep the lights on. A national airline that can’t keep planes in the air. And a national health system that can’t provide basic services to citizens. There doesn’t seem to be a plan to address the large-scale looting of state-owned entities by corrupt thieves and the worst part is, we seem to have developed a sense of learned helplessness. I’m weary. I’m tired of hearing friends and family repeat the mantra of “What can you do? Welcome to Africa.” I don’t think I’m being unreasonable when I say that I expected more from our elected officials.
I’m not sure why I wanted to write this post. I’ve always been prone to an optimistic outlook; I tend to think that things aren’t as bad as they initially seem and that, given enough time, most things will turn out alright. I thought that even the criminals who stand in for politicians in South Africa wouldn’t take so much that things would literally fall apart. And yet here we are.
Despite the longstanding claims that we’re living in a failed state, I’ve never believed that this was true. But over the last few years I can’t help but think we’re moving in that direction. The State is unable to provide basic services to people; not health, not education, not electricity, and not waste disposal. I can’t think of a single area of State responsibility that isn’t tarnished by gross negligence, corruption, or incompetence.
I think the time has come to start looking for hope elsewhere. I don’t see much of it here.
Comments
3 responses to “Time to look for hope somewhere else”
Your comments, Michael, remind me of insight I have learned from antiracism academic and activist, Ibram X. Kendi’s book ‘How to be an Antiracist’. In that book, he emphasizes that to change a system, we need to change the people who run that system (elected officials or corporate leaders), and to hold them accountable. That is why I am working in the U.S. to ensure that our voting process is open, fair, and safe for all. I would be interested in what of Kendi’s work might be applicable in South Africa!
Thanks Michael, these are sad realities but let’s continue doing what we can in our sphere of influence to stem this tide of ultimate collapse.
Hey M, You echo the sentiments of many of us out there. Its hard…really hard these days to remain optimistic But always remember there are good people out there…we just need to seek them out and stand together!