August 2012 was a horrible month to be involved, in any shape or form, with Lonmin’s Marikana mine in North West. By August 15, 10 people — including two policemen — had been murdered in and around the mine as a six-week wildcat strike by newish trade union the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union intensified.
It was chaos. Workers were killed walking to mine shafts to report for duty. Intimidation was everywhere. Fear and loathing reigned supreme. The state was mostly absent, useless and powerless.
These conditions forced a shareholder of the mine, business tycoon and ANC national executive committee member Cyril Ramaphosa, to fire off several e-mails. To a Lonmin official he wrote: “The terrible events that have unfolded cannot be described as a labour dispute. They are plainly dastardly criminal and must be characterised as such. There needs to be concomitant action to address this situation.”
He advised then mineral resources minister Susan Shabangu that her “silence and inaction” about the happenings at Lonmin were “bad for her and government”.
Ramaphosa has been pilloried for 14 years for what he wrote. Few have sought to understand the conditions that prevailed in Marikana at the time. The state had totally lost control. Violence, death and fear dominated. Anonymous killers ruled.
Ramaphosa may or may not have always acted honourably in his business or political life. We can debate that. What is crystal clear about his e-mails that week, however, is that he understood this foundational concept in the running of a government: the state is the only entity authorised to create laws and legitimately use physical force. If the state cannot guarantee the basic safety of its citizens against armed groups, then risk analysts are correct in designating such an entity a “fragile state”.
Harassment, violence, arson and murder had been linked to these groups in various parts of the country in the run-up to the illegal and abhorrent deadline of June 30, set by anti-immigrant groups for undocumented and illegal foreigners to leave the country.
Ramaphosa understood this foundational concept in the running of a government: the state is the only entity authorised to create laws and legitimately use physical force
In Mossel Bay in May, about 55 shacks were burnt down and multiple people killed during violent anti-migrant protests. Two weeks ago, a woman told a March and March rally in Pietermaritzburg that Malawians had killed her relative. She did not provide any evidence. The mob went to the Jika Joe informal settlement, burnt shacks and murdered a 29-year-old man. He leaves a four-year-old daughter. Tens of thousands of desperate people have massed in places they believe are safe after being driven from their spaza shops, shacks, homes and communities across KwaZulu-Natal.
The South African state — the executive and its police, military and judiciary arms — has been absent in all these places. The leaders and perpetrators of these dastardly acts roam free and address meetings every day. The state’s absence means provinces such as KZN are descending into what the philosopher Thomas Hobbes termed a “state of nature” (continuous conflict, fear and insecurity) that renders life “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.
It feels alarmist and unpatriotic to say these things, but South Africa needs to take great care to ensure that it continues to move out of the “fragile state” category it frequently puts itself in. Ramaphosa and his cabinet’s failure to speak out forcefully that there can be no deadline or law enforcement carried out by rogues erodes the state’s legitimacy. The 2026 voter participation survey conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council earlier this year already found that 68% of South Africans were dissatisfied with how democracy is working. Now citizens are witnessing these rogue elements displace a democratically elected government. Such abrogation of duty should not be allowed.
All this comes as daily reports indicate that the authorities are failing to deliver essential public services such as health care, clean water, education and infrastructure to a significant portion of the population. Stagnant economic growth for 16 years compounds the crises of poverty, inequality and unemployment that bedevil the nation.
It is a recipe for disaster.
Ramaphosa has done an admirable job of trying to reverse the deep damage inflicted by the Zuma administration on this country in the 10 years to 2018. Failing to be present and ceding the state’s role to populists and agitators such as March and March, as has happened in the past three months, will eradicate all those gains and tip South Africa back into extremely dangerous territory.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.