South Africa, Covid-19 and the Social Contract

By Mbongiseni Buthelezi, October 2020 Covid-19 has exposed the deep fault lines that characterise South African society. When the crisis broke out and a hard lockdown was instituted in March 2020, it became clear that food poverty is a stark reality for many people. The army was deployed to police the population, making state violence plain to see as videos and stories of brutality by police officers and soldiers hit the headlines. The lockdown also exposed the extent to which gender-based (especially intimate-partner) violence is a daily occurrence for many women. And after months of lockdown and gradual easing of restrictions, amid much criticism and protest, it is clear that if the country’s economy was fragile before, the crisis has brought it to its knees. In response, the government has attempted to strike a balance between responding adequately to the health emergency and keeping enough economic activity going to maintaining livelihoods. The balancing act has not always been successful: many mistakes were made, illogical decisions taken and enforced, and inadequate explaining of these decisions to the population done along the way. Government action and inaction was met with scepticism and downright cynicism by a population that has become highly disillusioned with politics, politicians and state institutions since the heyday of state and social reconstruction in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The scandal that broke out in June – large contracts were issued to companies linked to politicians belonging to the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and bureaucrats to supply personal protective equipment (PPE), sometimes at vastly inflated prices – simply confirmed for many that the ruling alliance is deeply corrupt. Nevertheless, we have also witnessed action taken in earnest against some of those implicated. This was a change from years of political elites who were deaf to calls to stop the decay of state institutions, and held vested interests in destroying