Reason to be alarmed

SIR — As is regrettably his habit, Steven Friedman offers readers a condescending little lecture on something presumably only he sees clearly (Alarmism can act as a self-fulfilling prophecy, September 7).

To be alarmed at recent developments in SA is a perfectly rational response. Friedman criticises this as alarmism, on the flimsiest of grounds. With reference to the president’s committee on parastatals, he asks: “No one thought to ask why he should need a committee to take over what he already controls.” Really? About the Hawks going after the minister of finance we should not be alarmed because Gordhan is still in office. So, until Gordhan is actually fired we should all just pour another drink?

Friedman spectacularly misses the decay of which the examples he mentions are the grotesque and morbid symptoms: the divisions in the ANC, the lack of coherence in policy, the failure to govern rationally, the sordid abuse of the state, the lack of ideas, the spectacle of incompetent ministers of state running rampant, the absence of political and moral leadership in the kingdom of chaos that is President Jacob Zuma’s.

We can be sure that ostriches hiding their heads in the sand do not suffer from alarmism.

We, on the other hand, should be seriously alarmed.