Johannesburg - At what stage will South Africa have its own Arab Spring? We’ve forgotten how the mighty elites of north Africa and beyond spent 2010 to 2012 fearfully peering through the barred gates of their secure enclaves as the people took to the streets.
We’ve forgotten how the once-untouchable Muammar Gaddafi, the self-styled leader of a United Africa, was shot like a dog in a storm drain by rebels who overthrew his once-impregnable regime. It’s a lesson that seems lost on our rulers, ensconced in their ministerial compounds with solar, generators and JoJo tanks and cossetted by blue lights if they ever have to venture out.
There’s no leadership. We have a minister of electricity who literally has lost his spark – load shedding is at Stage 6 as officials look to find ways of squeezing the amount of power available down to just about five minutes of electricity in every 24 hours to avoid tripping the grid.
And, in the City of Joburg, which careens from one Mickey Mouse mayor to the next, from the smallest imaginable party (Al Jama-ah which has only got three members but two have been mayor so far this year), you can get water, but you can’t get power. Or you can get power but you can’t get both. But it is possible to get neither.
The City of Joburg took to Twitter this week to post a picture of waterless shampoo, voicing its approval: “We appreciate retail stores that recognise the importance of water conservation. Showering every day is overrated. #JoziSaveWater #SaveWater.” As the normally supremely sanguine ‘GoodNews Guy, Brent Lindeque tweeted back in disbelief: “Is everything okay at home @CityofJoburgZA?”
It’s a fair question. We are asked to use less power – when it’s on – and pay more for the privilege. We’re asked to drive on roads that are unroadworthy. Crime is through the roof: angry residents locked the police station in Graskop, Mpumalanga, with a chain and a padlock in protest last week.
The issue with water isn’t new for people living in Joburg, if it isn’t the power cuts preventing the reservoirs from being filled, it’s the infrastructure bursting all over the place and flooding homes and destroying what’s left of the roads. But, according to Joburg Water, showering every day is overrated. What’s next? Flushing toilets? A typhoid epidemic certainly won’t be overrated.
The greatest tragedy is that all this is avoidable, but there’s simply no political will to fix anything – except cling to what’s left of the gravy train.
In 1789, Marie Antoinette – on hearing that French peasants were starving to death – is said to have uttered: “Let them eat cake.” It cost her her head, literally. In 2010, Tunisian fruit vendor Mohammed Bouazizi set himself alight in desperation, sparking a conflagration that raged all the way to Syria and into the Gulf.
In 2023, Joburg Water said showering everyday was overrated. It’s going to be interesting to see how this one plays out; the frog can slow boil for only so long.