NEVA MAKGETLA: The moral panic around corruption
Untested accusations and emphasis on punishment can lead to harassment of the innocent
The Section 89 panel’s report on the Phala Phala theft epitomises SA’s moral panic about corruption. As in most moral panics, the identified evil is real, but the reaction is overheated rhetoric, exaggerated virtue-signalling, untested accusations and an emphasis on punishment, rather than a problem-solving discourse rooted in evidence.
Moral panics notoriously lead to harassment of the innocent — think QAnon, the criminalisation of dagga and satanic panics. A politicised reaction to corruption also risks undermining governance and, with it, the chance of using collective action through the democratic state to solve the real challenges facing SA — above all, the deeply exclusionary and unsustainable economic system. ..
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