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comment by cgod
cgod  ·  2386 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Mzansi by natives 3: The suspended revolution

What's up with the ANC assassinations I've read a bit about? Sounds like a real breakdown in the rule of law?





DWol  ·  2386 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'll be honest and say that politically motivated killings are not something I know much about, at least in terms of getting below the surface. Certainly in the past it was much worse, even with the "rule of law" associated with an iron fist minority government and pliable Bantustan leaders.

The proximal cause is essentially political infighting and maneuvering by internal ANC factions. Why it can happen in the face of laws and democracy? More difficult. On the one hand it's clear that the police don't actually have the power/resources to prevent this kind of thing happening. But on a deeper level, and in line with what I was saying above, the situation (or more accurately, the system) on the ground has not really changed much since the IFP/ANC/Third force "war" in the 80's and 90's. I guess what I'm saying is that the rule of legitimate law can hardly break down if it was never built up to begin with.

cgod  ·  2386 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The killings sound pretty distressing but when you frame them as a symptom not a cause it sounds even worse.

Thanks for your posts about SA, I wish there were more internation perspectives on Hubski.

DWol  ·  2385 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thinking about this a bit more I feel it highlights something that I've been struggling to make sense of - complexity. Our first tendency is to try and look for simple explanations which can boil down an event or thing such that we draw some conclusion from it. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that almost any problem which is an important problem is probably a wicked problem. One with multiple layers of complexity that take a lot of work and understanding to peel back.

(That's one of the things I wanted to do with these posts - start to peel back at least some of those layers to see what can be learned in looking at far-away issues with a bit more context than usual.)

The trouble with grappling with complexity is that it gets paralysing after a while - my work is in trying to make mining do better and it's a daily struggle to convince myself that I can even make a difference. Trying to imagine solutions to or even causes of internecine political conflict on the other side of the country is even harder.

How do we manage actually understanding problems on a fundamental level without becoming swamped by the complexity of it? For now I'm taking the route of digging deeper where I can - maybe there is light somewhere down at the bottom...