Cheers to kakistocracy

The silver lining of ineptitude [View this email in your browser]( December 1, 2021 [Mail & Guardian]( [Mail & Guardian]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [YouTube]( Hi there, As we near the end of this year holding out for a booster shot, it is with consternation, bewilderment and, sometimes, amusement that we field questions about the government’s attempts at population control through inoculation against Covid-19. According to members of the do-your-own-research crowd, aka Googling-to-confirm-my-beliefs, the Ramaphosa administration is behind a grand plot to kill off South Africans using vaccines. Let us suspend belief and sense and look into these claims. How would a government that had to rely on the media — social and traditional — to figure out what was happening during the deadly violence that followed former president Jacob Zuma’s brief stay as a guest of the department of correctional services. We’re not joking. Last week, KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala [said the government used social media and mainstream media for updates]( on the July unrest as it was unfolding.This is not terribly surprising given that there were no police officers to stop people strolling into their local KFC and ripping out the deep freeze. Although there is a lot the government must answer for — to take one of many examples, why so few people have been brought to justice for pre-1994 crimes, the muck that’s been raked up at the many commissions held since the dawn of democracy and the plague of corruption we and others have reported on — it’s naive to believe it could pull off something so sinister, let alone so clever, as culling the population with a Covid vaccine. Police intelligence is a lovely oxymoron. The national police commissioner, Khehla Sitole, told the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on Tuesday that [the modus operandi of the July unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Gauteng caught the police unawares]( and there was no intelligence report stating that violent unrest was coming. “A report that was explicit to say ‘Yes, an unrest [is] coming in terms of this modus operandi’ was not picked up by intelligence,” Sitole told the hearing into the unrest, which left more than 300 people dead and caused billions of rands worth of damages. During Sitole’s testimony it became evident that Police Minister Bheki Cele was privy to only parts of the police intelligence gathered about the unrest. The absence of an intelligence report has been highlighted during previous evidence from Cele, Zikalala and former defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula. Appearing for the second time before the commission, Sitole conceded that he had received an intelligence report “about developments as far as the unfolding unrest was concerned”. Asked when he received it, Sitole said he could not provide a specific time, “because the intelligence briefing takes place as the situation arises. Some of the intelligence briefings are done verbally. And some are done formally in writing.” Provincial police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi also testified on Tuesday. He told the hearing that on the eve of Zuma’s arrest, crime intelligence was unable to provide the police in KwaZulu-Natal with information about the unfolding security threat they confronted. Mkhwanazi said the police focused on possible protests around Nkandla, where Zuma has a home. He had earlier suggested that Mapisa-Nqakula was lying when she spoke to the media about the provincial police’s handling of the unrest, which began as an orchestrated protest over Zuma’s arrest. Mkhwanazi, already fuming from having been accused of what amounted to dereliction of duty by going on paternity leave, was prepared to talk, threatening to spill things that “would make the ex-defence minister sweat under the collar”. The HRC panel, however, asked him to stand down to privately caution him against revealing sensitive information about state security and operational matters. Mkhwanazi, still in a pique, was adamant that claims by Mapisa-Nqakula that he was uncooperative were rubbish. “I will outline the timeline. Other witnesses have spoken a lot about me and about my family and some of them have given my child a name — bundle of joy. I do not know what it means. This has created an image to South Africans at large that there is one Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, who is in charge of 18 000 police officers in the province and seems not to have known what he was doing at the time. This has been presented by very senior government officials and leaves me no choice but to stand here before South Africans and express exactly what happened,” he said. So, these are the kind of people some believe are master puppeteers, steering some grand vaccination plan to sneakily kill you? Those who couldn’t even abscond with personal protective equipment contracts without getting caught in so apparent a fashion? The ones at the beck and call of multinational companies, who will shuck and jive for a quick buck? Those who, sight-unseen, research-pending, ordered Covid drugs from Cuba that cannot be used? The people who can barely keep the water and lights on? Surely our critical faculties are not so far in decline that we would mistake the diligence and work ethic of the country’s scientists with that of the government. In a perverse sort of way it’s comforting to know we’re governed by chaos rather than some shadow, parallel state. Cheers to kakistocracy. Yours in solidarity Kiri Rupiah & Luke Feltham [Subscribe now]( Enjoy The Ampersand? Share it with your friends [Share]( [Share]( [Tweet]( [Tweet]( [Forward]( [Forward]( [Share]( [Share]( Copyright © 2021 Mail & Guardian Media LTD, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in to receive communications from the Mail & Guardian either at our website or by taking out a print subscription. Our mailing address is: Mail & Guardian Media LTD 25 Owl St BraamfonteinJohannesburg, Gauteng 2001 South Africa [Add us to your address book]( Want to change which mails you receive from Mail & Guardian? [Update your preferences]( to tell us what you do and don't want to receive, or [unsubscribe](. *If you are a paying subscriber, we recommend updating your preferences rather than unsubscribing, as you may miss important information relating to your subscription.