The ANC’s blind adherence to ideology

THE ANC has painted South Africa into a disastrous corner. This was not out of malice, but stupidity, a failure to get to grips with how the real world works.

Successful governments in the democratic world all function in the same basic way. Every successful governing party has the ability, once in power, to adapt its ideals to reality.

In contrast, almost every recent failure of this government can be traced to it invariably choosing form over substance, posturing over results, and avoidance rather than sweating the hard yards.

Take the successive waves of ugly xenophobia that have periodically swept the country and are right now simmering close to an explosion of violence. The most recent trigger has been the West Rand rape of eight women, allegedly by a group of Lesotho men – so-called zama zamas – who enter South Africa illegally to mine, also illegally, shafts and seams that are no longer economically viable for commercial operations.

In response, starting in Gauteng and spreading to other provinces, residents in mining communities have formed vigilante gangs to hunt down the zama zamas. At least one has been killed, and this week, the police rescued another 19 from an angry mob.

The origins of the problem can be traced back to 1994, when the ANC took power for the first time. One of its first actions was to switch off the daunting cordon of electric fences that kept illegal border crossings to a minimum and instead deliberately allowed them to fall into disrepair. This, it explained, was an act of African solidarity, a payback for the sacrifices made by South Africa’s neighbours in hosting ANC guerrilla forces during the liberation Struggle.

The result has been an explosion in illegal immigration. No one truly knows the numbers involved.

In 2011, Stats SA estimated that 6.2 million foreigners were in South Africa. In 2021, it revised this to 3.95million. Since the total population in 2011 was less than 52million and is now more than 60million, there’s a lot of justifiable scepticism about the official figures.

While the numbers may be in dispute, the results aren’t. Our poorly trained and abominably led police force, already overwhelmed by homegrown criminality, simply can’t cope, and the baddies know it.

This week, the SA National Defence force was placed on standby because “South Africa is gradually deteriorating into unrest due to criminality”. According to the order, 100 Mamba light armoured vehicle drivers have been placed on standby at 21 SA Infantry Battalion’s Johannesburg base, as well as an initial 200 infantry, “in anticipation of deploying in co-operation with the SA Police Service”.