Sift what good you can from the shutdown protest

The #NationalShutdown protest organised by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) revealed two simultaneous occurrences that are both true.

Firstly, an issue dividing South Africans of different races is how much weight to give minority parties when they protest against the government’s failure to provide services and other reasons.

Read: EFF marches to demand president’s resignation

Supporting the reason for a protest that cuts across basic service delivery and accountability issues must not be mistaken for supporting the EFF. Similarly, standing against such protest action cannot be seen as standing against the need to hold our leaders to account.

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The danger with this type of protest is that the message may be shot down because of the messenger, but some risks could be catastrophic if calling government to order and demanding responsibility is deemed acceptable only when championed by those agreeable to our politics or views. How else will change be effected?

The support we give or do not give to new and minority parties, regardless of who leads them, matters. This is especially true when making decisions of significant public importance, like voting. Keep that in mind when the national elections come.

Secondly, the ANC-led government has shown that it can, if it so chooses, act decisively in taking the welfare of the citizens into account.

There was no load shedding for two successive days, and the security cluster demonstrated a preparedness unlike any we have seen.

This prompts the question: why is the welfare of the people never prioritised? Also, why does it seem impossible to establish (post-1994) a state with credible governmental organisations committed to efficiently using resources to serve the people?

Anyone interested in the country’s future citizens, whether related or not, should be deeply concerned about South Africa’s trajectory under the governing ANC.

Most have discarded the assumption that Cyril Ramaphosa the rational businessman would be a rational president deploying business logic in politics. Government is not like the markets, with short-term objectives easily dealt with by conducting cost-benefit analyses to pinpoint the problem and prescribe solutions.

I do not doubt that the president has found that navigating government and party politics riddled with comrades’ expectations while prioritising the welfare of almost 60 million people is a unique challenge.

Sarcastically, Eskom provides a helpful example of what I have come to categorise as the inability to distinguish between a technical problem and a coordination problem.

The former can be explained as a broken or burned transformer, and the solution is predefined: replace it. The latter however is a malfunctioning substation, and fixing it requires being alert to its multiple roles in the power grid. It calls for the alignment of multiple, varied, undefined, and at times incompatible components to make it work.

It seems South Africa is at a stage where its democracy has a coordination problem.

Some, whether as a political party, individuals or civil society, differ regarding the country’s direction.

The government’s preparation for the #NationalShutdown has also shown that providing public service is possible, and so is preparation for unforeseen occurrences.

Revealingly, in the days leading to the protest, the government demonstrated that it responds to incentives; in this case, the presumed possible threat to property and individual rights.

Against this backdrop, of decisive action for the sake of citizen welfare, South Africans cannot tolerate the dismal service government has been rendering – especially considering that when the state fails and governmental mistakes are tolerated, it affects everyone, and often with far-reaching consequences.

I have tied in the EFF’s organised protest because at the base of its criticisms outside the politicised bickering are legitimate issues such as the provision of reliable electricity, essential services and reminding political leaders why they are in office.

The one crucial question to ask is what if nothing is done?

What if the blame that is going around obscures everything else? What if, in pointlessly engaging in what-ifs, we overlook the veracity of the message because it was delivered in what can be seen as the unpalatable tone of the messenger.

Then, as diverse South Africans with an interest in the welfare of the future, we will not know how to effect change during the 2024 national elections.

There will be many parties, some led by individuals with whom we differ fundamentally. Are we going to maintain those who have presided over a government that has failed the citizen on a grand scale?

There are of course reasons to be sceptical about what we witnessed on Monday, 20 March 2023, especially since the protest was deemed unnecessary or ineffective.

However, there is also reason to be positive: many South Africans care about the future generation and there are many who yearn to make a difference, however small and at times uncomfortable. What will your role be?