With increasing illegal mining, unregulated street vendors, unregistered retail outlets in townships and several other signs of government decay, the urgency of the situation in South Africa cannot be overstated. The continued disregard for laws and systems paints a picture of a country increasingly in peril, with grave implications for the stability of the constitutional and democratic order. Immediate action is needed to restore order and prevent further decay.
Given the distressing reality, the conclusion that South Africa might be a dual state is not far-fetched. One state consists of documented citizens; the other of those living, trading, and enjoying public service benefits without any official record of being in the country. The first is run by the dictates of a democracy operating within the supremacy of the law, the second by the arbitrary whims of a parallel and lawless state. The parallel state has developed its own political economy, informal criminal justice system, management processes and economic value chains outside the formal and lawful state. It corrupts and co-opts the public service system. Those with parallel state power make it all but impossible to enforce any norms. They can run a mining industry under the eyes of the authorities without restraint until there is a complainant. They run rogue units within state agencies and harass whoever is at variance with their interests. They have rules for themselves and separate ones for the rest of us — “we the people”.
Members of this other state settle together so that they become a substantial political majority where they live. With little to lose as a community, along with their lived experience of fragile to failed states, they have mastered the art of building ideological and moral legitimacy to live a life that undermines the norms and standards of the state that hosts them.
In a constitutional order founded on the rule of law, the lawful state creates expectations about behaviour that make it possible to hold all citizens accountable. This accountability is essential to maintaining the integrity of the state and its institutions.
While the government of national unity has heightened sensitivity to the rising dictatorship of the criminal underworld, it has not yet decisively dealt with its origins within the political elite.
The integrity management systems of the criminal justice system are the first institutional mechanisms that a parallel state attacks to usher in a regime characterised by anarchy. The inconvenient truth is that state anarchy is favoured by a corrupt elite in society. Most fragile and failed states are the outcome of an appetite for anarchy and a penchant to make accountability systems unworkable.
While the government of national unity has heightened sensitivity to the rising dictatorship of the criminal underworld, it has not yet decisively dealt with its origins within the political elite. Those who can buy their way to surviving the engulfing anarchy will live in their self-serving tailored state, including gating themselves in, privately schooling their children and accessing private health care.
The lawful aspects of the former apartheid state, when stripped of their racist character, could have sustained strong state capacity and capability. In dealing with the oppressive practices of the past, the post-1994 democratic state, with its natural focus on human rights and freedoms, might have created a law and norms enforcement vacuum.
The depth of functional decay has penetrated state organs to such an extent that the future of government, where it exists, is now questioned. Where it is arguably absent (such as in Stilfontein, Pilgrims Rest, Hillbrow in Joburg, Sunnyside in Tshwane, and many other occupied spaces), an “if you can’t fix it, ignore it” attitude prevails. The post-apartheid state, though not a failed state yet, is a state in crisis with profound fragilities.
By leaving this state of affairs to linger for too long, the government became an enemy to itself, as it had political power but was devoid of governing capabilities. This condition signifies the onset of a “failed state” in overall terms, and has created pockets of an inarguably “failed state” experience in some jurisdictions. The zama zamas are an example of this.
If the criteria for a failed state are strictly applied, several municipal jurisdictions and other areas of life where lawlessness prevails might already be in an apprenticeship phase. In locations where the normative state has already failed, the anarchic state, anchored by a sophisticated underworld political economy and hierarchy, has taken over.
The disintegration of the enforcement of laws and regulations in municipal health, company and intellectual property, immigration control and other areas key to social stability manifests a state incapable of deploying its power effectively. A national security emergency dialogue or response is overdue.
• Dr Lucky FM Mathebula is a public policy analyst and the founder of The Thinc Foundation, a think-tank based in Tshwane.
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