Last week my partner’s parents returned from a week in Eswatini, where a tyrant king can at least keep the lights on and the water flowing, to their home in a tree-lined, high-end suburb just five minutes from the JSE. What they found was not the comfort of home but a stinky reminder of just how far the rot of state failure has spread. 

No power from Wednesday to Sunday afternoon. No hot water, no refrigeration. And, as if scripted for ironic effect, sewage was spilling down their street from a burst pipe, filling the air with the stench of decay. ..

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