LETTER: Eastern Cape avoids second Nongqawuse disaster

By so far refusing to join KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng’s orgy of destruction, the Eastern Cape has avoided a second Nongqawuse disaster.

Nongqawuse was the millenarian prophetess who said in the 1860s that the Russians would appear from the sea to liberate the Xhosa from the British if they slaughtered their livestock. Times were already hard, with lung sickness affecting their cattle, but the slaughter of 300,000-400,000 animals resulted in widespread hunger and famine, as I suspect KwaZulu-Natal is about to experience.

President Cyril Ramaphosa was not sufficiently decisive in his address last Monday. However, given his difficulties in working  out how much of the destruction could be attributed to  incompetence and how much was organised by the pro-Zuma faction within his ANC, who can he trust?

Instead of imposing a state of emergency on top of the state of disaster prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic, now is the time for Ramaphosa to form a government of national unity. This would allow him to select ministers on the basis of competence and  loyalty to SA.   

James Cunningham 
Camps Bay

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