LETTER: State is not omnipotent

Your editorial on the recent unrest misses the point on the real issue facing this nation in mortal crisis — the problem is not merely an inept governing party, presided over by an equally inept presidency, but rather the mistaken belief by the current power brokers that the state is omnipotent, that it can control events (“Violence exposes a weak state with illusionary power”, July 14).

A young reporter once asked that insipid British premier Harold Macmillan what concerned him most. “Events, my dear boy, events,” was his reply. The events that have besieged this country cannot and will not be solved by edicts coming from the Union Buildings in Pretoria.

The ANC needs to come to the realisation that it has lost its monopoly on persuasion. It has squandered the legacy left by Nelson Mandela to be seen as legitimate. What this country now requires is a mutual leadership of all the political parties, business and community leaders to establish a new coalition to take the country out of this crisis. `

We cannot allow the ANC and its adherents to continue in the same old way and expect a different result. John Maynard Keynes probably said it best: “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.”

John Catsicas 
Via e-mail

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