The th!nc Foundation

     In her book Shock Doctrine The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein introduces how conditions for shock therapy as an economic intervention could be created to create a context within which disaster capitalism could thrive. The mooted state of national disaster discussed by the governing African National Congress is one such mechanism to create conditions within which the 'shock doctrine' could predominate public policy interventions to deal with the 'apparent state of our energy disaster'. This rendition digs in.  Shock therapy is a group of policies intended to be implemented simultaneously to liberalise the economy, including liberalisation of all prices, privatisation, and stabilisation via tight monetary and fiscal policies. Naomi argues that shock therapy "centres on the exploitation of national crises (disasters or similar) to establish controversial and questionable policies, while citizens are too distracted (emotionally and physically) to engage ...

       The Democratic Alliance (DA), South Africa's official opposition party, and others are in court over the ANC's cadre deployment policy. Whilst the DAs action is plausible to the extent that it will put into judicial test the correctness or otherwise of a cadre deployment policy in democratic order such as the one we are creating, there are deeper issues South Africans need to also ponder about. The preoccupation with lawfare as a strategic bulwark against majority rule, and a mistrust of the hands that command South Africa's executive authority, might have unintended consequences than what the court victories are achieving. This is notwithstanding the glaring service delivery failures which create a throw-the-baby-with-the-water public policy engagement attitude. There is a visible gap between a nation in an anarchic war against itself. Occasionally, opportunities for a scorch earth policy are optimised daily, and this rendition bursts.  The pulse, cade...

South Africa has experienced unprecedented electricity load shedding since 2018 and has yet to show any hope of a quicker recovery, given its commitments to 'alternative energy sources'. This might go in history as the most energy-vulnerable era of South African life since the dawn of democracy. The reasons for the current situation have been ventilated enough; any repeat of why we are here is now an excuse for failing to do something about it.   President Ramaphosa's response to the energy crisis, since he entered the National Executive of South Africa as Deputy President, was meant to be his crowning achievement. It would have demonstrated the correctness of deploying to the National Executive leaders with a private sector ethic since the dawn of democracy in 1994. Coordinating the 'war room' on the energy crisis, and pointedly ESKOM was supposed to be the first pilot site to demonstrate the execution prowess of private sector leadership even in contexts that are ...

     Over the last few years, in fact, in the previous fifteen years, South Africa experienced a slide in the capacity and capability of the state to meet its executive and constitutional obligations to its citizens. The post-apartheid reconstruction and development component of the democratic order being created has been replaced, first by a period of eroding the institutional leadership of organs of state, the declining reconciliation spirit aimed at building socially cohesive communities, the growing trust deficit between the various establishments undergirding power centres anchoring the reigning political order. In this vortex of political mistrust, quest to complete the unfinished revolution, and belief in the invincibility of identity politics based mobilisation of racial or tribal power to establish enclaves of their own affair's management regimes, leaders from the diverse, and somewhat difference-institutionalised, communities must attune their conduct of politi...

    As the arc of political hope for the future bends towards delusion for those that celebrated the outcomes of NASREC 2.0, if you like the 55th ANC Conference, the question is, have the tendencies that lost the elections left the ANC. While every hegemon tends to believe it can endure challenges by generations, those that constitute a generation will never stop pursuing what distinctly defines them from other generations. South Africa is politically in the middle of an unprecedented social movement led by a generational mission to achieve 'economic freedom in our lifetime'. This mission was ignited by a Julius Malema-led ANC youth league at its National Conference held in ...., at Gallagher estates. The mission was couched to be a sequel to the 1949 ANCYL generational mission of political freedom in our lifetime, which Nelson Mandela and others lived to accomplish.   The movement to pursue economic freedom in our lifetime mission has the advantage and liability of havin...

    Often, we hear those wiser than many declare that you begin to change, grow, and transform only after you've stepped outside your comfort zone. We only understand what they mean until we encounter personalities that embody this truism. In the life of an academically focused human being, the journey of going through various exit points of the education system is always a self-invitation to enter the next new occurrence and chase the next summit. Grade seven exit is about entry into grade eight and exit at grade ten to enter tertiary education and pursue various other portals.  To such focused persons the pursuit of an end that relies on the capacity to control all cadences to the end state constitutes the thrill that attracts their adrenaline for various pursuits. I got invited to a graduation ceremony of a distant friend and yet a claimable brother and relative. Attracted by the person’s character as defined by what is on record in public spaces and is citable as know...

  The creation or building of a political order is an idea that develops over a sustained period of time and is in all instances a conglomeration of various interests into a few 'national' interests or 'elite consensus' on diverse interests. It is an outcome of an inner circle, surrounded by several layers of rings often made up of landowners, business elites, economists, intellectuals, politicians, and those with a monopoly on violence. To concretise and impose their will, interests, and consensuses, those in the various circles establish think tanks, form political parties, and ensure dissemination of their messages through appropriate media outlets, platforms, and systems.   A political order is simply a constellation of ideologies, policies, and constituencies that shape a society's politics over a sustained period of time. If it succeeds to go on for a period exceeding 60 consecutive years, it settles as a background of permanence for anything political about s...