LETTER: Much more than amaPanyaza to worry about

Tristen Taylor’s article refers (“Bleak future beckons as state loses monopoly on legitimate use of force”, February 14). I agree that as the SA state weakens, other actors become bolder in exploiting the vacuum around the use of force.    

Fortunately, the amaPanyaza, Gayton McKenzie’s so-called militia, and the MK military veterans remain relatively harmless minnows for now. The ones who worry me are, first, the taxi industry enforcers, who put down the July 2021 riots. In the next emergency they are just as likely to act against the state.

Then there are the vigilantes who apprehend, judge and murder unfortunates who have, in their view, injured “the community”. And the “hit squads” that assassinate municipal councillors and other public figures in KwaZulu-Natal and police officers countrywide.

And what about the groups that sabotage Eskom infrastructure? The most dangerous may be the SA National Defence Force Special Forces — they’re apparently equipped by the Russians, so are they now following the Kremlin’s instructions in a grotesque version of state capture 2.0?

When President Cyril Ramaphosa recently alluded to the threat of regime change, one immediately thought of the CIA, which US economist Jeffrey Sacks recently accused of just that in Pakistan. However, the president could just as easily have been alluding to pressure from another quarter.

In a world where order has disintegrated, anything is possible.

James Cunningham
Camps Bay

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