SA in dire straits: crucial for state to act

THE COUNTRY is in flames. Waves of crime and disorder are sweeping the land – but at the same time communities are rising up to express their anger and outrage at the government’s failure to effectively address the safety and security needs of the most vulnerable in our society.

These include whole townships being held hostage by gangsterism, foreign migrants who are being scapegoated for supposedly grabbing limited job opportunities away from unemployed South Africans, and women, especially young women, who on a daily basis face all kinds of gender-based brutality by men – beatings, kidnappings, rape, murder.

The appalling rape and murder of young UCT student Uyinene Mrwetyana saw community anger reach boiling point, and result in widespread calls for a national shutdown to protest out-of-control femicide in this country.

Thousands of students from universities and schools in Cape Town marched on Parliament last week to demand government action.

According to statistics, a woman is murdered every three hours in South Africa – EVERY THREE HOURS!

The struggle for a crime-free South Africa is part of the struggle for a South Africa free of poverty and inequality. How can this be achieved in a country where the official jobless rate has risen to 29%, with over 6.5 million people unemployed?

This has got nothing to do with foreigners. This is the direct result of the neoliberal policies being forced down on us by the owners of global capital and their local agents.

The policy priorities of the country’s rulers are not to address the interests and needs of the people, but to keep the country a safe haven for foreign investment.

Thus, for example, it’s far more important to keep the inflation rate below 6% than it is to stimulate local jobs growth – or to keep corporate tax rates low than to impose a wealth tax.

We must demand the peoplecentric transformation of our economy, away from one which secures the prosperity of a capitalist elite to one which is caring and all-inclusive; one which delivers jobs, houses, services, community facilities and crime-free neighbourhoods.

Under the current dispensation, it’s a fact that most South Africans live lives of unrelenting hardship.

Violent crime, overcrowded shack-and-backyard dwelling and the lack of services: these are the daily realities for most South Africans.

There should be an immediate allocation of adequate levels of state resources – human and material – to the urgent task of ridding society of all forms of crime.

Transformation of the educational system must be an ongoing high priority. More than 50% of children who enrolled for Grade 1 in 2007 did not make it through to matric in 2018.

Youth unemployment (that is, unemployment in the age category 15 to 24) exceeds 55%. What a damning statistic.

We are the same nation that defeated apartheid. We can defeat neoliberalism as well. |