TESSA DOOMS | Only normlessness gives credence to the calls for a national shutdown

On Sunday, March 19 2023, as South Africans held their collective breath on the eve of a proposed national shutdown led by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), questions about the true state of the nation was on the minds of many people.

Several debates emerged as we contemplated the impact of a national shutdown on the stability of a country already in crisis. The debates range from the political motives of the EFF to the line between calls to participate and threats of violence and the political prudence of a militarised state response.

Perhaps the real question, however, we have all quietly been grappling with is: Is this normal?

A call to shut down a country is not normal, or at least should not be.

It should not be normal for airports and transit system operators to debate whether to provide services.

There were people flagging concerns about the shutdown, but those who actively or passively supported the call did so because the "normal" state of the nation is equally worrisome. It should not be normal to have upward of 40% unemployment rate

. It should not be normal to go without electricity for so many hours a day.

For so many, things that should not be accepted in a society that values dignity, freedom and equality to occur, we have either normalised dysfunction or entered a state of French philosopher Emile Durkheim called anomie or normlessness. Normlessness occurs when a society cannot agree on or enact ideas and practices that are congruent with its shared values.

A normless society lacks vision, direction, morality and peace. Anomie is evidenced by the breakdown of solidarity in a society. Communities pulling apart, caring only for individual or narrow interest groups, rather than broader collectives. Discontent is the most common experience.

The attempt at a national shutdown and our varied response are clear signs that SA is fast approaching an anomic state.

working class nationally, is a threat to the ANC’s almost unchallenged political power. The protests of predominately unemployed people threatens to disrupt the operations of businesses . While suburbia lament the potential limits on the freedom of movement through roads blocked by protestors, marchers lament the trappings of poverty .

As the military is deployed to the streets to combat violence by protestors, supporters of the shutdown remind us of the many other ways the state routinely metes out structural violence on the poorest of the poor . People who warn of chaos and impending economic collapse that may result from the shutdown, are met with the anger and frustration of people who live in the daily chaos of a dysfunctional state  

SA is a country divided. We have never needed solidarity more than we do right now. The response by communities to the national shutdown is less a sign of the EFF’s political muscle and more a sign that a growing number of people are willing to make their “normal” problems, everyone’s problems.

Martin Luther King Jnr warned that “injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere”. The national shutdown is the embodiment of this idea. If we fail to build solidarity that calls for justice, freedom, dignity and a more equal society for all, we ultimately risk access to all these liberties even for the few. SA must use the obvious state of normlessness as an opportunity to build solidarity or risk complete societal collapse.