(Debate in NCOP on the recent public violence, looting and destruction of property)
The images of explosions, billowing smoke, chaos and anarchy that South Africa and the rest of the world witnessed last month during the widespread unrest and violence that swept through the country raised an inevitable question: Is this the new face of South Africa?
In addition, the image of a fire consuming everything around it, and ultimately itself as well, seems to represent the ANC government and what it has done to this country over the past 27 years.
The ANC held up poverty, inequality and racial tension as excuses for the looting and violence. But no mention is made of the ANC's incompetence, which has a direct negative impact on everyone in the country.
To get to the root of the problem, the following questions must be asked:
• Who is constantly fanning the flames of racial tension through, among other things, dangerous political rhetoric?
• Whose fault is unemployment?
• Who wants to destroy the already critical economy by furthering the agenda of "radical transformation" by any means possible, from legislation to riots?
• Who provides financial aid to struggling businesses based on racial grounds at the expense of the general economy and labour certainty?
Could the answer to all these questions possibly be those people who are part of the greater body that turned a blind eye when rumours of tension and unrest started circulating, that did not act in time to prevent the violence that nearly destroyed the country?
According to estimations, the damage that the few weeks of unrest did to the GDP amounts to R50 billion. The country simply cannot afford it. And amid the current economic and social quagmire, which is the ANC's own making, the government decides to give an amount of R350 to unemployed persons under the guise of a monthly emergency relief grant. It comes down to a method of buying votes and keeping the people dependent on the government.
Another burning issue that once again came to the fore during the recent unrest is that of possessing a firearm for self-defence and the Minister of Police (Bheki Cele), who is a strong advocate for disarming the citizenry, only decided to pay a visit to the looted areas, surrounded by bodyguards, once the ashes had cooled completely.
This very same Minister is so strongly opposed to the private possession of firearms that it raises the following question: Could the chaos and backlog with the processing of firearm licence applications be a subtle attempt to disarm the citizenry by means of deliberate administrative red tape?
South Africans will, however, not give up that easily; particularly not when it comes to a government controlled by the ANC. The future will remember the current Minister of Police as one of the many blemishes on the record of the ANC's term as ruling party.
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