SA has never been in worse shape

Jon Qwelane

This country has never been in worse shape, even under the hated system of apartheid!

A true "state of the nation" review would shock many people:

• Turmoil abounds in the ranks of the judiciary, where judges are at one another's throats.
  
• The police service is a hopeless mess: the chief of the police is on trial for payola and for defeating the ends of justice. In short, he is accused of flouting the very laws he is supposed to uphold. Just the other day, the police were firing at each other, after some had used official vehicles to blockade a national highway.
  
• The head of the prosecuting authority has, in effect, been dismissed and there is an unconvincing hearing to determine whether he is the right man for the job.
  
• The head of the intelligence services has been dismissed.
  
• The public information system that is the SABC is a circus of a shambles; its shenanigans are simply unspeakable.
  
• The head of the health services continues to talk twaddle about HIV/Aids.
  
• Education is in a sorry state, and the authorities are keeping mum about the crippling illiteracy of the country's youth: only this week it was revealed that many children use SMS-speak to write answers to examination questions (I suppose something like "da gr8 lakes in da Afrika cntnt is cool, hey!").
  
• Savagery of unparalleled proportions since 1994 is being meted out to immigrants from Africa.
  
• Unemployment is at its highest ever, and the cost of living is astronomically high.

One could go on and on... so what is the solution?

We have never had it so bad, and even those who normally claim - falsely, of course - that I "hate" their president would be hard-pressed to deny this self-evident truth. And I am not lamenting the demise of the past order when I say, as I do here, that even under apartheid things overall were not as bad as this.

Politically correct "logic" will claim that I am not being truthful but, believe me, lots of people out there are saying apartheid was "much better compared to what we are going through right now".

But what do you say about the restive state of our judiciary? And what confidence will a visitor to this country have in the policing of our communities, when the law enforcement officers themselves go out to break the laws with impunity?

There are those in this land who brag that they are building "world-class" facilities and institutions, but where in the world is a commissioner of police on trial for graft - and the head of state renews his employment contract regardless?

The solution to all this mess is in a new order altogether. And yes, I have heard your condemnations loud and clear: I will be voting next year, and I will also encourage a whole lot of other people to do the same.

As I have said before, the men and women with the bombs may have been good liberators, but hard experience convinces me that they are not necessarily good governors.