The latest political action by the Democratic Alliance (DA) to challenge the employment equity regime through the court system may be akin to stirring the hornet’s nest. It is evident that it is a strategic move, but a folly in the context of a political party that is a partner in a coalition government – the government of national unity (GNU). 

Instead of learning to influence policy reforms in a new terrain and helping South Africa shape the nature of coalition politics, the DA has chosen to divide South Africa.

Like all political parties, the DA has the right to approach the courts or any of the Chapter 9 institutions to seek relief of one kind or another. The Constitution provides the space to do so. But political parties cannot abuse the right simply because they lost a debate. 

Of course, there is a relationship between law and politics. And. yes, the law can be a theatre or instrument to pursue politics.  But it is advisable for political parties to have a strategic gaze rather more than just the narrow confines of the law when dealing with political issues. Strategy is about the theory of change which must help each political party to pursue a certain vision for society.

I want to suggest that the DA has chosen yet another ill-advised political tactic which could prove fatal and undermine its strategic objectives and the interests of its constituency. 

All of this happens in the context where, in recent years, there has been a rise of lawfare in our politics; both inside political parties, parliament, and between political parties and government. I am yet to be convinced that this is the right way to evolve our democracy. The move by the DA follows in the footsteps of this suspicious trend — a trend where if you lose democratic debate, then you run to the courts. 

For their part, the courts are forced to develop the kind of sensitiveness, knowledge and skill to draw a distinction between pure legal matters and political debate. In many instances, our courts have acquitted themselves well in this regard. On numerous occasions, they have referred political debate back to parliament where it belongs. 

But can we say with certainty that this kind of smartness by the courts will always hold, without fail? Will the DA and others take the blame when democracy and the doctrine of the separation of powers weakens due to frivolous legal challenges that are essentially political in nature?  

I listened to DA federal chair Helen Zille at the party’s recent media conference. The substantive argument of the DA against the employment equity regime makes no sense, except that it is an appeasement PR strategy for the party’s constituency and some sections of business. I do not see how the party will win the substantive argument. 

At a substantive level, it is necessary to explain the political motivations behind the DA’s tactical blunder and what it communicates to the critical public. The move simply reaffirms the fundamental nature and character of the DA. 

First, it says some political parties in parliament, including the DA, do not believe in the Constitution, let alone upholding it. According to the DA, the Constitution is valid in so far as it benefits the interests of its constituency; anything else is unacceptable and even unconstitutional. In other words, the collective history, and experiences of generations of people do not matter, but the preservation of privilege. 

Second, the party reminds us that it remains the party of racial liberalism, not just liberalism. Historically, liberalism has always been predominantly racial liberalism, an ideology or system where — to cite academic CW Mills — “a racial contract among whites that denies equal personhood to people of colour” is what drives the fundamental strategy of the party. This is why the collective history, and experiences of the vast majority becomes nothing in the eyes of the racial contractors. 

Third, the rhetoric of “building one South Africa for all” is not aligned with the political practice and choices of the party. It is clearly an empty slogan. One cannot commit to building one South Africa without redress or internalising, as well as respecting the preamble of the Constitution. 

In the long-term, such moves by the DA will not benefit its core constituency or the party itself. On the contrary, a more inclusive, stable and equal society is beneficial for all. The global evidence for this assertion is contained in a book published 15 years ago titled The Spirit Level – Why Equality is Better for Everyone.

Fourth, there is no sign that the party has any meaningful strategy to undo centuries old legacies of slavery, colonialism and racism. The alternatives are simply not there. It is for this reason, for example, that the DA will never join the call for reparations at a local or global scale. 

On the contrary, the party is pursuing an alternative foreign policy which includes undermining official government policies on issues such as Palestine, Ukraine and the United States while claiming to be a GNU partner. Worse still, it does so through megaphone diplomacy. 

Finally, every political party exists to capture state power. In the context of our history and the strong dynamic of identity politics, the DA has no prospects of breaking the 22% political support ceiling so that it may capture state power in the foreseeable future, unless it commits class suicide. 

Therefore, the GNU arrangement is the highest it can aspire to. But the move against employment is eroding whatever little trust it may have garnered since May 2024 and it is alienating itself in the GNU. This comes hot on the heels of losing key debates on the National Health Insurance, Basic Education Laws Amendment Act and the Expropriation of Land Act.

Not a single party inside and outside the GNU is expected to join the court challenge this time around. To remain in the GNU, the DA will have to moderate its racial liberalism, unless it believes against hopelessness that it can break the 22% ceiling and lead a coalition or better still, doing so alone? 

It is pretty much clear that the DA uses privilege rather than rational reason to conduct politics in the GNU terrain. That’s the nature of racial liberalism. How else can anyone explain its regular violations of the Statement of Intent by punching above its weight and continuing its divisive role in the polity? 

The strategists surrounding the DA are not helping it. Instead of guiding it to expand the political and policy space in the GNU, their tactics are designed to weaken the GNU and cause a realignment of power ahead of the first anniversary of the GNU. Very soon, such a tactical blunder will have deleterious effects on the unity of the DA itself. It is a suicide mission. 

Meanwhile, if the other parties are serious about power and social transformation, they would also look at the GNU age as an opportunity, not only to increase their political fortunes but to consider, seriously, the idea of a second republic as suggested by historian and author Eddy Maloka. This they must do to demonstrate that they do not seek political power for merely reproducing themselves as political elites, but for the people. 

In the end, lawfare is the low road for any political party. The high road is the pursuit of strategy — but first, in so far as the DA is concerned, it must construct a progressive strategy, away from racial liberalism. Otherwise, it will remain just another fringe opposition party stirring the hornet’s nest.

David Maimela is a public policy specialist and political commentator. He writes in his personal capacity.

The judicial conduct tribunal into Eastern Cape judge president Selby Mbenenge heard on Monday that CCTV footage from the date of the alleged incident of indecent exposure was not stored — despite footage from the day before and after having been preserved.

The director of facilities and security management at the office of the chief justice, Prabagaran Naidoo, testified that he received CCTV footage from 14 and 16 November 2022  from the Mthatha high court.

The complainant in the matter, 37-year-old court secretary Andiswa Mengo, has said she is unsure whether the alleged office sexual harassment by the judge occurred on 14 or 15 November 2022. She testified earlier that she fled Mbenenge’s office in shock afterwards,  and expected CCTV footage to corroborate her account. But footage from 15 November, one of the dates on which the alleged incident is believed to have occurred, is missing.

The tribunal is in its second week after resuming this month from its initial sitting in January, during which Mengo endured eight days of cross-examination. 

Mengo says the sexual harassment occurred over Whatsapp and in-person, and an alleged flashing incident now in dispute. 

Naidoo told the tribunal he “can’t say” what happened to the missing footage. Footage from 14 and 16 November 2022 was transferred to the Midrand office of the chief justice  almost a year later, he said.

According to Naidoo, he received a call from Norman Mabuza, the Eastern Cape court’s head of security, after Judge Bantubonke Dakota requested to review footage from the 14th and 15th.

“In his affidavit, Judge Dakota says he viewed footage from 14 and 15 November. But the footage stored and transferred was of the 14 and 16 November,” counsel for Mengo,  Nasreen Rajab-Budlender said.

Naidoo acknowledged the discrepancy and confirmed that the only footage he requested to be downloaded and preserved was what Dakota had viewed. He said he realised the importance of the footage only after the story appeared in the media.

Naidoo also testified that each court has a control room where footage is stored for 45 to 60 days, and may later be transferred to the office of the chief justice’s central servers. 

Naidoo had asked that the relevant footage be couriered to his office in Midrand on a USB.

“Whether this evidence was tampered with, I cannot confirm,” he said, adding that he had told Mabuza at the time: “If a judge took time to view the footage, it might amount to something later on. So just save it and keep it.”

Naidoo admitted he cannot account for the missing footage of the 15th. 

Mbenenge has denied the allegation and claimed he could account for his movements on the day in question, including giving a morning lecture to students, a visit to a bank and seeing Mengo only later in the day in the company of another colleague.

His counsel, advocate Griffith Madonsela, pointed out that CCTV footage from 14 November shows Mengo walking past Mbenenge’s office twice without entering.

Dakota, in his affidavit, confirmed that in the footage he viewed, Mbenenge was seen arriving with a briefcase and leaving with it. He said she did not appear in the footage he reviewed.

Both counsel for Mengo and Mbenenge were surprised the footage was missing and said it would have supported either one of their cases. 

The tribunal continues this week with counsel for Mbenenge, advocate Muzi Sikhakhane SC, saying he is ready to call his client to the witness stand as early as Tuesday morning.

It was up to United States President Donald Trump to decide whether he would attend the G20 leaders’ summit in South Africa in November, International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola said on Monday.

“The G20 is for all leaders of the G20 … they are all invited to attend,” Lamola told a briefing about South Africa’s year-long presidency of the forum and preparations for the summit.

“Obviously the US president, as a member state of the G20, will be invited, but it is up to the US whether they attend or not the G20 in South Africa’s leaders’ summit.”

The remark came as a first contingent of 49 Afrikaners were en route to the US to take up Trump’s offer of special refugee status, extended for alleged racial persecution that he has stated as a reason for snubbing the summit.

In mid-April, Trump, in a post on Truth Social, asked rhetorically how he could be expected to attend the G20 in South Africa “when land confiscation and genocide is the primary topic of conversation?”

He continued: “They are taking the land of white farmers, and then killing them and their families. The media refuses to report on this. The United States has held back all contributions to South Africa. Is this where we want to be for the G20? I don’t think so!”

South Africa’s international relations department responded at the time by saying the government was compelled by the Constitution to protect the rights of all citizens, regardless of their race.

“We have to reiterate that from the perspective of the South African government, in terms of the executive orders that have defined the South Africans as refugees, we have stated in the statement we issued on Friday that in line with the international definition, they do not qualify for that status,” Lamola said on Monday.

“There is no persecution of white Afrikaner South Africans in South Africa. This has been proven by a number of statistics in our country, including the police reports, which don’t back that assertion of persecution.”

He said violent crime in South Africa affected everyone, irrespective of their race.

“We are glad that a number of organisations, even from Afrikaner structures, have denounced this so-called persecution.”

Lamola said the government encouraged more such discussions to clarify “on the world stage this disinformation that has now taken root”.

He noted that Washington opted to be represented by the charge d’affaires of the local embassy at earlier key meetings of the G20, including the meeting of foreign ministers in February.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio snubbed that meeting for the stated reason that the government was seizing private land, a charge that has been made by Afrikaner pressure groups and taken up enthusiastically by right-wing commentators in the US, as well as the Trump administration.

“I will NOT attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg,” he posted on X. “South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality & sustainability’’. In other words: DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] and climate change. My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism.”

Rubio’s decision was not communicated through the usual diplomatic channels. Instead Lamola learnt of it on social media. Though the two foreign ministers are yet to meet, the diplomatic ice was somewhat broken by a phone call between President Cyril Ramaphosa and Trump ahead of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy to South Africa last month.

Lamola noted that there had been some improvement in US engagement in the G20 in that the US secretary treasury, Scott Bessent, met South African officials during a second meeting of the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Washington in late April.

The narrative of Afrikaner persecution and land seizure was also put forth by Trump in his first term as US president. He tweeted in 2018 that white farmers were being killed on a large scale in South Africa.

Washington insiders have attributed this to a campaign by Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum and right-wing US commentators, among them Joel Pollak, who object to the government’s policy of racial redress and land redistribution.

That campaign found fresh ammunition this year in the promulgation of the Expropriation Act, which allows for expropriation of land without compensation in limited circumstances.

The presidency has said the furore was fuelled by disinformation, which it would be happy to clarify in discussion with the Trump administration.

Ramaphosa was asked both about Trump’s possible attendance at the summit and his claims of Afrikaner victimhood by reporters while he was attending the African CEO Forum in Côte d’Ivoire.

He said it was still a long way from November “and a number of discussions will be ensuing”.

“The G20 process consists of 130 meetings, the whole year, and we participate with a number of countries and the US also participates and leading to that summit, we will as South Africa hand over to the United States.

“One would hope that it will all happen seamlessly and in an ordinary and well-managed manner. So one will see how this whole process will all end up,” he added.

Ramaphosa was referring to the US leading the G20 in 2026.

It is customary that the country who takes over the presidency appropriates, at least in part, the themes of the previous presidency. Trump and Rubio’s pronouncements appeared to rule that out.

Ramaphosa on Monday said he was pleased that South Africa’s chosen themes of solidarity and equality were gaining support around the world.

“We expect that our key priorities will become top of mind in the discussions that are currently taking place leading up to the leaders’ summit in November.”

The success of South Africa’s HIV treatment programme — the largest in the world — has also created a slumbering threat: a considerably larger group of people who need to be treated for age-related illnesses such as diabetes, heart conditions and high blood pressure — also called noncommunicable diseases — on top of having to receive HIV care. 

Because antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) keep people healthy and increase their life expectancy, the scale-up of treatment in South Africa — public sector treatment started in 2004 and in 2025 we’ve got around 6 million people on ARVs — means that most people with HIV and who take ARVs correctly now live just as long as those without the virus.   

Bhekisisa’s data analysis shows the proportion of older people with HIV doubled over the past decade: people over 50 are now the second biggest HIV-positive group in South Africa today; 15 years ago, they were the smallest group.

If this trend carries on, there could be three times as many HIV-positive people over 50 by 2030 as in 2015.

As people age, their chance for developing health problems like high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes rises — which means that people with HIV might live long lives, but not necessarily healthy ones.

With nearly two-thirds of all people with HIV living in sub-Saharan Africa, the continent will keep on bearing the brunt of the epidemic — despite massive gains in curbing new infections over the past 15 years — if health systems aren’t geared to handle the growing number of people who have both HIV and a chronic illness like heart disease or diabetes.

Experts have raised the alarm about this “inevitable price of success” more than a decade ago. Yet, write the authors of an editorial in a March issue of The Lancet Healthy Longevity, without thorough data on older people with HIV in African countries, putting plans for their healthcare in place will be hard — or not be done at all. 

And with many countries’ governments, including South Africa’s, scrambling to find the money to replace the thousands of data capturers for HIV programmes previously funded by the US government after the abrupt halt in aid, funds for tracking health conditions of older people with HIV will probably be a low priority. 

In the wake of funding cuts, employing health workers to capture and manage health data will be a hard sell, said Kate Rees, a public health specialist with the Anova Health Institute, during a webinar hosted by Bhekisisa and the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society on Thursday — something that, for a public health issue that might be ignored because its fallout isn’t immediately visible — could make the problem so much worse. 

What then, does South Africa’s picture look like and could policymakers focus forward to stave off a calamity in the making? 

Here’s what the numbers show.

The proportion of people with HIV and who are 50 or older is growing — and faster than increases in other age groups.

In 2015, the count in the 50+ age group was just over 700 000, which translates to about 12% of the total HIV-positive population. The age group 40 to 49 years, though, was about 1.3 million strong, which works out to 22% of the total. 

A decade later, the 50-plussers’ total had jumped by 1.15 million to reach 1.85 million and they now make up roughly 24% of the total number of HIV-positive South Africans. 

Although the 40 to 49 group’s total also grew by 1.15 million, proportionally they now make up 32% of everyone. 

In other words, the proportion of older people with HIV doubled in a decade, but the proportion of people 10 years younger grew only 1.5 times bigger — a result, experts say, of people with HIV living longer, new infections still happening in older people and fewer new cases in the younger group. If this trend carries on, there could be three times as many HIV-positive people over 50 by 2030 as in 2015. 

Speeding up, changing ranks

People over 50 are the second biggest HIV-positive group in South Africa today. Fifteen years ago, they were the smallest group.

Around 2012, the 50-plussers moved up one rank, surpassing growth in the under-20s group. But the number of HIV-positive people between 35 and 49 grew rapidly — so much so that by around 2012 they overtook the group aged 20 to 34 and assumed top rank. 

In the following years, the 50+ group increased too: people moved out of their late forties and new infections in that age group continued. By 2026 — about 10 years since their previous rank jump — people over 50 will already have been the second biggest group of the HIV-positive population for some time. 

The 35 to 49-years group will keep on growing in the next five years, modelled data shows, albeit more slowly than before. Because people are living longer, the older group will grow too as people move into their fifties, and because it’s been expanding for some time already, the group will edge closer and closer to top rank over the coming years. 

Living long but not necessarily healthy

This is where the warning lies. 

Data from 2020 shows that, when Covid-19 is ignored, one in seven deaths in people between 45 and 64 years old were due to health problems like heart attacks, stroke and high blood pressure that year. In comparison, only one in 20 deaths in that age group were linked directly to HIV.

Above age 65, a quarter of deaths were from these conditions. So few were linked to HIV in this age group that, proportionally, it was hardly a noticeable concern.

So, as the peak of the HIV-infected population shifts into an older age band, more and more people will probably have to be treated for noncommunicable diseases like heart conditions, diabetes, being overweight and high blood pressure — on top of receiving HIV care. 

In fact, in a large study in Mpumalanga, in which most people were in their late 40s to early 70s, about half had at least two age-related illnesses. 

For example, in this sample of just over 5 000 people, six in 10 had high blood pressure, with it being more likely the older someone is. About 10% of women had bad chest pain, called angina (which happens when the heart doesn’t get enough oxygen-rich blood) and up to 11% of people had high cholesterol.

High blood pressure combined with high cholesterol is bad for your heart. It can damage your arteries, and especially those that supply oxygen-rich blood to the heart. In turn, this ups the chance of fatty plaques building up along the walls of the blood vessels. This narrows and stiffens the arteries, meaning blood pressure builds up even more and the chance of a blood vessel rupturing increases. 

High blood pressure can lead to angina or a heart attack because the heart muscle gets too little oxygen and also cause a suite of other health problems called metabolic syndrome, which includes conditions like diabetes, stroke and heart disease.

Age-related health problems like heart disease, diabetes and being overweight are often linked to inflammation. This is a natural response of the immune system when tissues are damaged, like when we get older.

However, inflammation is even more common with HIV-infection — because of the body’s immune response, damage caused by the virus itself and also the effects of ARV treatment — and studies have shown that people with HIV who are older than 50 have double the chance of having conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure too than what is seen in younger HIV-positive people.

“In future, every clinic nurse will have to be Nimart trained,” said Ndiviwe Mphothulo, president of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society at last week’s webinar.

Nimart nurses — short for Nurse-Initiated Management of Antiretroviral Treatment — are specially trained in how to prescribe ARVs and how to manage long-term patients. 

But, experts say, the flip side is also true if South Africa is to deal with the ageing HIV epidemic — every Nimart nurse will have to be equipped to deal with noncommunicable diseases in this population too.

This story was produced by the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism. Sign up for the newsletter.

South Africa’s largest food producer, Tiger Brands, has agreed to settle claims from certain groups in the listeriosis class-action lawsuit, seven years after the country experienced the world’s deadliest listeriosis outbreak.

The 2017-18 outbreak caused 218 deaths out of more than 1 000 infections as a result of people consuming contaminated processed food products — mainly polony cold meat and vienna sausages — which were produced at the Tiger Brands facility in Polokwane and distributed from its Germiston facility. 

On Monday, Tiger Brands confirmed that attorneys representing its lead reinsurer QBE Insurance Group Limited had presented a settlement offer to the plaintiffs’ attorneys as “part of a roadmap to a possible overall resolution of the listeriosis class action”.

“The lead reinsurer, having primary conduct of the defence of the class action against Tiger Brands, has with Tiger Brands’ support and agreement authorised the insurers’ attorneys to make settlement offers to specific named persons,” the company said in a statement. 

It said these were members of classes of claimants who suffered damage as a result of listeriosis caused by genotype L1-SL6-ST6-CT4148 of listeria monocytogenes (ST6) — the outbreak strain. 

These are claimants who contracted (or whose mothers contracted) listeriosis caused by ST6; claimants whose legal breadwinners, on whom they were legally dependent, died of listeriosis caused by ST6 and claimants whose legal dependents, who were in their care, contracted listeriosis caused by ST6.

The settlement offer, made on 25 April, includes an undertaking to pay the claimants’ proven or agreed compensatory damages in terms of section 61 of the Consumer Protection Act. “The offer is subject to certain conditions and has been made without admission of liability and in full and final settlement of the claims of the claimants.”

The listeriosis class-action attorneys said in a statement that they welcomed Tiger Brands’ “effective admission of liability for the world’s deadliest listeriosis outbreak in 2017-18, which claimed the lives of over 200 people, primarily children, and impacted more than 1 000 South Africans”.

Two law firms, Richard Spoor Inc. Attorneys and LHL Attorneys are the class attorneys. 

The attorneys commended Tiger Brands, its shareholders and insurers for agreeing to compensate victims, saying: “This reflects a positive move towards corporate accountability, responsible citizenship and justice for victims.

“The current proposal provides for full compensation to claimants for all proven damages, subject to a settlement mechanism that still needs to be finalised including how individual damages will be assessed and how claimants will be categorised under the settlement structure.”

The development is a breakthrough because it is the first settlement offer made since the class-action was certified in December 2018, Nilesthra Padayachee, a director of Richard Spoor Inc. Attorneys, told the Mail & Guardian.

“Even though the settlement … refers to a group of individuals, we are really hoping to achieve an overall settlement that will encompass all class members,” she said.

“It is the initial settlement offer, so there will be a greater conversation between us and the defendants. We are in the process of arranging a meeting with our class representatives to also canvas the offer with them. 

“But we do welcome it as a great first step. Essentially, what we need to do is decide between us on the settlement mechanism that will be created to finally be able to compensate the claimants.”

Tjaart Kruger, the chief executive of Tiger Brands, said the announcement represented an important milestone and followed on measures already taken in February to offer interim relief in the form of advance payments to identified claimants with urgent medical needs.

“It also demonstrates our commitment to continue to work closely with our insurers and their appointed attorneys to explore a resolution of the entire class action,” Kruger said. 

Tiger Brands said it and the insurers’ attorneys were engaging with the plaintiffs’ attorneys to ensure timely implementation of the offer and settlement of proven or agreed compensatory damages as soon as possible. 

“The next step to give effect to the settlement offer is for the offer to be conveyed by the plaintiffs’ attorneys to those claimants who qualify and then for the damages of those claimants who accept the offer to be quantified.” 

It is expected that the process to present the offer to these qualifying claimants will take several weeks and that arrangements to quantify their damages will follow over the ensuing weeks.

The class action, which is being managed in two stages, is still at the first stage during which liability is to be determined by the court. 

“Only if Tiger Brands is found to be liable will the issue of causation arise, in the second stage of the class action, as well as an assessment of compensation payable to qualifying claimants for damages suffered,” it said

The listeriosis class attorneys said Tiger Brands’ decision to settle claims was based on the “incredible investigative work of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), under the direction of Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi”. 

“Their scientific investigation, which conclusively traced the outbreak to Tiger Brands’ Polokwane facility, has been internationally peer-reviewed and praised. These findings have since been confirmed by world-renowned epidemiologists, including Tiger Brands’ own experts.”

Padaychee concurred. “The NICD’s investigation has yielded the evidence that Tiger Brands’ own experts have reviewed now and it’s on the basis of that that we believe this offer was made.”

Before any settlement can be finalised, it must be presented to the high court, which will determine its fairness as the ultimate guardian of class member interests. While this process will require time, the listeriosis class attorneys are confident that “Tiger Brands’ renewed and demonstrable commitment to the victims will ultimately lead to a comprehensive resolution of all claims”.

While this is a significant breakthrough, serious challenges remain, they added. 

“Many victims of the outbreak have not yet come forward and therefore have not yet been identified or located,” they said, noting that Motsoaledi had requested a full update and had “shown his commitment” to assisting with providing department of health records to help confirm and trace victims.

The health department welcomed the decision by Tiger Brands to finally settle the listeriosis class action “to bring this lengthy legal matter to finality and closure to the affected families whose loved ones succumbed to this deadly, but preventable and treatable, disease”. 

It acknowledged the roles of all parties involved including the NICD, Tiger Brands, Richard Spoor Inc and LHL Attorneys “who put the sufferings of the victims and their families at the centre stage during a protracted legal process”. 

The NICD is providing the medical records to enable decision-making in the process during the investigation of the outbreak. 

“The department is also appealing to those with enough evidence suggesting a causal link between the outbreak of listeriosis and the loss of their loved ones, to come forward so that their clinical records can be accessed for assessment to establish if indeed they have valid claims eligible for settlement, and also to find lasting closure after grief.” 

Listeriosis is a serious, but treatable, disease caused by the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. 

“The bacteria is widely distributed in nature and can be found in soil, water and vegetation. Animal products and fresh produce such as fruits and vegetables can be contaminated from these sources. 

“The outbreak highlighted the importance of consistent and strict adherence with food safety practices in the processing and handling of ready-to-eat foods, especially for mass supply,” the department added.

In South Africa, where economic volatility, high youth unemployment and tightening fiscal space continue to define the national mood, small businesses are often hailed as the engines of inclusive growth. 

But despite their potential, SMMEs (small, medium and micro enterprises) face a host of structural barriers, chief among them is the high cost of compliance. Financial audits, though crucial for credibility, funding and tax alignment, are often prohibitively expensive for small players operating on razor-thin margins.

Enter blockchain-based financial reporting, a digital innovation that promises not only to reduce the costs of auditing but to embed transparency, traceability and trust directly into the architecture of the enterprise itself. For South Africa’s SMMEs and start-ups, this is a structural revolution with real potential to level the financial playing field.

Audits are traditionally backward-looking. Financial statements are compiled, reviewed manually and reconciled, often months after transactions occur. The process is time-consuming, labour-intensive and expensive. For a small business juggling payroll, marketing, operations and growth, a full-scale audit can feel like a detour it cannot afford.

Blockchain challenges this model by creating a continuously updated, decentralised ledger of transactions that is both immutable and accessible in real-time. Once a financial event is recorded, whether it’s a payment, invoice or expense, it is time-stamped, cryptographically secured and visible to relevant parties. 

This system of “trustless” verification can dramatically cut the need for costly manual audits. According to Madzinga and Tinarwo (2023), this architectural shift can significantly reduce audit effort by up to 30% through real-time verification, thereby lowering audit fees and increasing accuracy.

For auditors, this doesn’t spell obsolescence, it marks a reorientation. Auditing becomes a process of overseeing system design, exception reporting and real-time analytics, rather than combing through reams of paperwork to catch historical errors. This aligns with the broader academic consensus that blockchain will shift auditors’ roles toward more analytical and consultative functions.

What makes this shift profound is not just the technical architecture but the access it enables. In today’s economy, formal compliance is often the ticket to growth. Without it, entrepreneurs can’t access bank loans, apply for government tenders or attract investors. Yet, for many SMMEs, especially in townships and rural areas, the cost of accounting services alone keeps them locked out of formal financial channels.

Blockchain-based reporting tools, when integrated with mobile platforms and user-friendly interfaces, can help such businesses create verifiable financial histories automatically, with minimal overhead. Imagine a spaza shop owner generating a blockchain-secured income statement simply by using a mobile point-of-sale device. Or a freelance creative sharing tamperproof payment records with a bank to apply for credit. This is more than digitisation; it is economic inclusion.

South African start-ups, particularly those in tech, logistics and renewable energy, often rely on international investors and accelerators. But cross-border funding comes with strings attached — transparency, traceability and accountability. The traditional approach, hiring auditors, preparing reports, verifying bank statements, is not only slow but often distracts lean teams from their core innovation goals.

With blockchain, start-ups can maintain real-time ledgers visible to investors, regulators  and even customers. By integrating smart contracts and self-executing agreements coded on the blockchain, they can automate not just payments but compliance checks, tax deductions and milestone-based funding disbursements. 

For a Cape Town fintech looking to scale across Africa or a Limpopo agri-tech start-up pitching to a Dutch venture capitalist, this kind of digital credibility could be game-changing. Blockchain holds strong promise for enhancing trust between stakeholders and ensuring tamperproof assurance mechanisms, especially in high-stakes environments.

While the most dramatic benefits are likely to be felt by small businesses, the implications for large firms and public institutions are equally significant. Corporates could streamline internal controls, reduce fraud risk and shorten audit cycles, savings that can be redirected toward innovation, training and social investment. Real-time auditing can also reduce insider risk, particularly in sectors like procurement, mining and construction, where complex supply chains often obscure financial accountability.

In the public sector, blockchain-based reporting could transform how the government tracks budgets, monitors expenditure and audits departments. Although the adoption curve is steeper, the potential is enormous. 

Real-time visibility into departmental spending could not only reduce audit backlogs but offer a bulwark against corruption, something South Africa has learned, painfully, is not a theoretical risk. As identified in the literature, blockchain adoption in the public sector could foster a new era of financial accountability, especially when paired with capacity-building and digital infrastructure investment.

There are secondary gains, too. With integrated tax logic, blockchain systems can automate VAT calculations and submissions. They can allow businesses to access real-time dashboards showing profit margins, tax liabilities and risk exposures. And, as regulatory clarity grows, they can help build investor trust, not just locally, but globally.

Importantly, this is not about surveillance. Data permissions can be managed to protect privacy while still allowing selective transparency for those who need it, be it funders, banks or auditors. South Africa is not short on challenges. But it also isn’t short on creativity, talent and digital capability. The opportunity now is to rethink financial infrastructure, not just as a system for big banks and corporations, but as a shared utility for every entrepreneur, every co-op and every side hustle.

To get there, we need collaboration — from the South African Revenue Service to local fintechs, from regulators to township incubators. We need sandbox testing, education and low-cost blockchain platforms that meet people where they are.

Blockchain-based financial reporting is not a panacea. But it can shift the narrative, from gatekeeping to accessibility, from inefficiency to automation, from distrust to verifiable truth. And in a country where trust is both fragile and vital, that might just be its most powerful feature.

Yonela Faba is a University of Cape Town PhD student and writer with blockchain, finance and policy analysis expertise. He has a background in academia and banking. Linkedin: Yonela Faba.

As we wait in anticipation for the outcomes of the third monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting of 2025 on 29 May, and inflation data reflecting a positive trend, will the South African Reserve Bank consider prioritising economic growth when pulling the rate ladder in 2025. 

The Reserve Bank is often praised for its role in achieving price stability, but far less attention is given to its forgotten second mandate: supporting balanced and sustainable economic growth. In a country where unemployment remains stubbornly high at 32.1%, this secondary obligation demands renewed scrutiny.

Section 224 of the Constitution states the mandate of the central bank is to “protect the value of the currency in the interest of balanced and sustainable economic growth in the Republic”.

Although the Reserve Bank has largely been successful in protecting the value of the rand, it has been less so active in driving economic growth.

It continues to focus firmly on maintaining inflation within its 3% to 6% target band, even as broader economic conditions deteriorate. It operates a freely floating exchange rate regime, stepping in only to curb excessive volatility rather than to guide the rand toward any competitive level.

Although the MPC has begun to acknowledge the employment crisis more openly since the 2021 Amendment Bill discussions, there remains no formal commitment to targeting employment or the exchange rate directly. The Reserve Bank implemented several key amendments, particularly regarding exchange control regulations and financial stability. These included relaxing loop structure restrictions for South African tax residents, establishing the central bank as the resolution authority and introducing amendments to the Currency and Exchanges Manual. 

The March 2025 Statement of the Monetary Policy Committee reflects a cautious

continuation of this approach. While the Reserve Bank acknowledges extreme global uncertainty, including weaker US growth prospects and volatile commodity markets, it maintained the policy rate unchanged at 7.5%. It also notes marginally lower inflation

forecasts for 2025 as a result of lower oil prices, although it warned that risks to the inflation outlook remain skewed to the upside. 

Despite these more favourable inflation dynamics, growth for 2025 has been revised down slightly to 1.7%, with the risks to growth assessed as being firmly to the downside. 

The MPC also explored external scenarios such as the potential loss of African Growth and Opportunity Act benefits and global trade disruptions. In its downside scenarios, the Reserve Bank recognised the potential effect of weaker exports, a depreciated rand, higher domestic inflation, and lower growth. 

Despite acknowledging employment and growth risks, the focus of policy remained firmly on inflation expectations and maintaining cautious interest rate settings, with little reference to active support for employment outcomes.

The Reserve Bank maintains that unemployment is primarily structural, driven by energy insecurity, skill mismatches and rigid labour markets, and thus beyond the remit of monetary policy.

But such a stance overlooks how monetary decisions, particularly regarding the exchange rate and real interest rates, interact with these structural weaknesses. Rapid rand appreciation, often unrelated to productivity fundamentals, severely harms labour-intensive sectors such as mining and agriculture, while capital-intensive industries remain relatively insulated.

Productivity growth itself has become increasingly concentrated in a few capital-rich

industries, leaving low-skilled workers behind. The Reserve Bank almost certainly understands the rough boundaries of a competitive, employment-supportive exchange rate. Yet, without an explicit operational mandate to act, it remains limited to inflation forecasting and short-term currency stabilisation. 

Even if it wanted to intervene more aggressively, South Africa’s foreign exchange reserves, standing at about $60 billion, would constrain any sustained effort.

A more realistic approach would be for the Reserve Bank to integrate employment outcomes more formally into its decision-making. Just as inflation forecasts anchor monetary policy today, labour market forecasts should be treated as essential inputs. 

Greater coordination with fiscal authorities would allow for more nuanced responses, safeguarding vulnerable sectors without abandoning the Reserve Bank’s core inflation-targeting credibility.

Reviving the central bank’s economic growth mandate is not about compromising price stability. It is about recognising that lasting macroeconomic credibility depends on building an inclusive, resilient economy. In a country where exclusion is already dangerously entrenched, ignoring employment risks turns monetary policy into an exercise in managing symptoms rather than curing the underlying disease.

Cairo Mathebula is a political commentator. Her work primarily focuses on inter-African trade and economic policy. Neo Mosala is an analyst, writer, and Allan Gray Orbis Foundation fellow and is completing her master of management in finance and investment.

As the world grapples with economic uncertainty, supply chain disruptions, food insecurity, climate change and the urgent need for sustainable development, the role of Africa — both the private and public sectors — in shaping global solutions is critical.

This was the view of Anthony Costa, head of secretariat for B20 South Africa, based at Business Unity South Africa (Busa), under South Africa’s G20 presidency.

Costa spoke to the Mail & Guardian ahead of the Africa CEO Forum 2025 that kicks off in Abidjan on Monday, where President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to speak at the opening ceremony.

Africa’s largest private sector meeting, themed “It’s time to strike a new deal: Can a new deal between state and private sector deliver the continent a winning hand?”, will bring together 2300 business leaders, investors, policymakers and professionals from around the world. The two-day event includes seminars, debates and high-level meetings aimed to highlight the role of the private sector in the development of the continent.

The B20 — the official business group of the G20 — is designed to amplify the voice of the private sector and develop policy recommendations for the world’s largest economies.

Costa previously worked in the Private Office of the Presidency leading the President’s Investment Mobilisation Programme, and participated in several  initiatives between government and the private sector.

He will participate in a session along with South African leaders such as Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe, Minister of Electricity and Energy Kgosientsho Ramokgopa , African Development Bank (AfDB) presidential candidate Swazi Tshabalala, Brand South Africa chief executive, Neville Matjie, the deputy minister of trade, industry and competition, Zuko Godlimpi, and RMB Corporate Client Group head Nana Phiri on Tuesday.

The session titled, “Unlocking the AfCFTA [African Continental Free Trade Area] dividend through regional value chains and public private partnerships” will showcase South Africa’s strategic efforts to strengthen regional value chains through infrastructure and industrial development, foster multi-stakeholder public-private partnerships and to leverage the country’s G20 and B20 presidencies to attract sustainable investment and drive inclusive growth.

As secretariat head, Costa coordinates a process that culminates in the B20 Summit, scheduled for 18 to 20 November in Johannesburg.

But the real work takes place ahead of summit, involving dozens of virtual and in-person meetings across eight task forces, each focused on a critical area for business policy. They are: finance and infrastructure, trade and investment, digital transformation, employment and education, integrity and compliance, energy mix and just transition, sustainable food systems and agriculture, industrial transformation and innovation.

Costa emphasised that the B20 was not just a South African or African process, but one rooted in the shared interests of the G20 nations.

With participants including the US Chamber of Commerce and multinational corporations, the B20 process provides a platform for global engagement — but one Costa believes must better represent African realities.

He said the US Chamber of Commerce remained committed to the B20 despite global jitters regarding President Donald Trump’s tariff wars. He said the tariff crisis had led to businesses realising the inherent risk in relying on a single supply chain and that diversification is vital.

“We’ve created a task force specifically focused on industrial transformation and innovation, because we believe there’s an opportunity to redefine what manufacturing and economic growth can look like in the 21st century — not just metal and machinery, but advanced, diversified, sustainable systems,” he said.

Key to industrial development is moving beyond extraction toward beneficiation, where raw materials are processed and value is added locally.

“We’ve been talking about beneficiation for 25 years, but now we have a real opportunity,” Costa said.

“Critical minerals are central to the global energy transition, and Africa holds many of them. But we can’t beneficiate everything in every country — we need smart policies that make economic sense, and intra-African trade is key to that.”

According to the UN Trade and Development, intra-African trade remains low — at about 16% of total African trade — but integration efforts such at AfCFTA, aim to improve this.

“Look at the European Union — it took decades but it shows what’s possible. We’re still in the early days. We need governments to adopt policies that are not protectionist, but are in support of local production, and to do so when it’s economically sensible, you can’t finish everything in every country, but it’s about finding the right balance” he said.

“Probably the game changer is intra-African trade, because it makes a much stronger economic case to produce on the continent, if your market is here.”

Costa’s vision for growth is also focused on the role of public-private partnerships (PPPs).

He said that for infrastructure, energy and innovation, the partnership between government and business is non-negotiable, and South Africa has some successes in this area.

“The sector is key to economic growth but it can’t succeed in isolation. Government needs to provide for investment, in many cases, in public infrastructure. It’s not a purely private endeavour by definition, and so you need to have frameworks and mechanisms that enable private investment.”

He pointed to South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme as a success story.

“It was expensive at first, but it allowed investment in solar and wind and we’ve seen prices come down dramatically, and added clean energy to the grid that we otherwise would not have anticipated. That’s a successful PPP.

“I think we’ve struggled to really make progress on other public private partnerships in South Africa, and so the national treasury is particularly working on creating a new framework to try and make it easier. The big opportunity is investment in grid transmission and a lot of work is taking place,” he said.

Other success stories include investment by the South African National Roads Agency in toll roads such as the N3 and N1 and more recent cooperation between government and business in tackling the country’s energy and logistics crises.

As Costa heads to the November summit the challenges facing Africa and the global economy are many and dire: geopolitical instability, climate change, rising trade barriers and slowing growth.

But Costa remains optimistic that the B20 process can help forge a new path. To do so business must continue investing, growing productivity and supporting development — especially in areas like food security.

“We recognise that global food systems are under pressure from productivity and a climate perspective, as well as from a trade perspective — the international trading system is fragmented, there is a rise of tariff barriers. Business needs to find ways to continue to invest to become more productive.”

Costa said the Africa CEO Forum was an important event, because it gave the country the opportunity to engage with the continent’s business leaders and policymakers.

“Traditionally, South African business hasn’t necessarily participated in Francophone Africa to the same extent it has in Anglophone Africa, but in recent years we have seen more engagement and this is a great opportunity.”

He said this isn’t just about South Africa; it’s about ensuring African businesses and voices are part of shaping global policy — from trade to technology to development.

With less than seven months until the Johannesburg Summit, the pressure is on — but so is the potential.

“We aim to produce recommendations by mid-year so that they can be shared and debated widely before the November Summit. The final outputs are made public to allow for policy engagement — not just with G20 governments, but with business associations, the World Trade Organisations and others,” he said.

“I think we see South Africa’s G20 presidency, and with it both the B20 and the other engagement groups, as an opportunity for us to really put forward, to curate a process that allows issues relevant to Africa and the developing world to be heard, but it also speaks to markets across the G20 to receive feedback and attention, and to do so in a way that we create a legacy and have an impact,” he said.

“We do not have a lot of time left in seven months from the end of November … we will have to think: what have we done from a global perspective? What is the legacy we’ve created as South Africa?”

The African CEO Forum was founded by Jeune Afrique Media Group in 2012 and is now permanently co-hosted by the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank.

It’s Graduation Season again. This is one of the highlights on the academic calendar, when institutions showcase the scholarly achievements of their graduates. In the life of a student, this moment is a rite of passage to transition from “gown to town”; from tertiary institution to the world of work. 

For many graduates, the euphoria will unfortunately be short-lived. After all their sacrifices, struggles with funding and  accommodation,  as well as the challenges that come with higher education, they will now face the cold, harsh reality of the marketplace. Here different rules and norms apply. It’s complex, rapidly changing and highly competitive. Few graduates are prepared for this, which exacerbates the already serious youth unemployment crisis in the country.

“The world doesn’t care about what you know. The world only cares about what you can do with what you know and it doesn’t care about how you learnt it.” This quote by New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, should be a wake-up call to graduates and higher education faculty alike. After 12 years of secondary schooling and about four years of tertiary education, key questions must be addressed. What are graduates capable of doing with their learning? What problems can they solve? What value do they bring to society?

The marketplace thrives on entrepreneurialism, innovation, critical thinking, decisiveness and problem-solving abilities. But, at most tertiary institutions teaching is still done in passive, old-fashioned, teacher-centred, and discipline specific ways. Rote learning is common and there is little emphasis on innovation or entrepreneurial thinking. This affects employability and therefore it’s not surprising that unemployment among graduates is on the rise.   

The Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the last quarter of 2024 showed no substantive change in employment levels. Youth aged 15 to 24 and 25 to 34 continue to have the highest unemployment rates at 59.6% and 39.4% respectively. Even though the graduate unemployment rate decreased by 1.1 percentage points from 9.8% in Q3:2024 to 8.7% in Q4:2024 these are still unacceptably high numbers of unemployed graduates. 

What’s even worse is for job-seekers with just a matric school leaving certificate. They are even more vulnerable with unemployment rates of about 38.2%, while the NEETS (not in employment, education or training) aged 18 to 34 are up from 8.6 million to 8.8 million compared to the same quarter in 2023.  

High youth unemployment casts a blight on the country’s prospects, because we are not preparing the human resources that the country will need in the future both from skills capacity or in terms of growing a tax base to fund future development needs.

Education is costly in time, labour and infrastructure and places a significant burden on the public purse. So when graduates and youth struggle to find employment it should ring alarm bells and prompt urgent, decisive action from all stakeholders — government, education institutions, learners, corporates, parents. 

New minds — new thinking and new ways of doing must be prioritised. This is not only to access employment, but to keep pace with the rapid developments in technology, work processes and sustainability issues such as climate change. Hence educators at all levels need to critically evaluate what they teach, how they teach and, more importantly, how their content aligns with the needs of the modern world. 

From its Latin roots, education derives from “educare” which means “to bring up” or to “nourish”. So activities in the class and lecture rooms must nurture and harness the natural creative talents latent in each human being and complement these with academic and technical knowledge. It was the late Albert Einstein, not only a brilliant physicist but also an astute social commentator who once defined education as, “what remains, once we have forgotten everything we learned at school”. Einstein understood the essence of education — education that transcends rote and book learning; education that presents its value in what we’re able to do to create a better world. 

Even though human development is systemic, education should be at the forefront because of the time and resources invested in it. Therefore didactics and epistemology should be updated to align more closely with industry trends and innovations. The explosion of smart technology in the 21st century and its rapid evolution is having a huge effect on the world, economically and developmentally.  This shows a clear need for urgent investment and development of skills conducive to a knowledge-based economy. 

Although there has been significant promotion of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects, what needs to be reviewed is when and how these are taught. The logic and rigor of these subjects must be instilled much earlier in a child’s life and often through activity-based learning rather than boring theory. After all, Scaled Composites (kit aeroplanes), Square (online payment digital platform), Dry Wash (waterless cleaning gel) and BrickArms (Lego accessory maker) were all started by individuals in their own capacities and driven by their own needs. 

Today the Maker Movement is a global community of doers where some garage projects from hobbies and interests have transitioned to businesses and scaled to become multi-billion dollar enterprises. Open source design software, 3D printing, funding from venture funders like Kickstarter and online markets like Etsy,  have democratised manufacturing and brought enterprise into the home where anyone with determination can access it.

Therefore learning should be less theoretical and more applied. Laboratories and workshops can rapidly be transformed to become “maker spaces”. 

“Purpose-driven engineering” at the University of KwaZulu-Natal is one such example. Civil engineering students are encouraged to apply their learning to solve problems in their communities and, by doing so, nurture applied learning, problem-solving as well as task management skills. These will serve them well in their future jobs as professional engineers.

To shape a truly transformative and meaningful educational experience requires intentional engagement informed by social and professional objectives. Teaching and learning should be vibrant, expansive and aligned to the latest social, economic, political and environmental developments. It shouldn’t be limited to the textbook. It requires a dynamic transactional partnership with industry and broader society. This will stimulate curiosity, initiative and accountability.  

When we look into the eyes of our graduates, we need to see a future in the making; one of hope. We need to see the confidence in young minds who are capable and willing to tackle the big challenges to build a more sustainable future for themselves.

Dr Rudi Kimmie is the interim director of the Aerotropolis Institute Africa (UKZN).  He writes in his personal capacity.

A tentative ceasefire has been declared between India and Pakistan after one of the most intense cross-border escalations in recent years, with both sides claiming victory and the underlying tensions far from resolved. Those tensions run deep into the region’s history — back to the very moment of India’s birth as an independent postcolonial state, when the British drew borders not to liberate but to exit, quickly and violently. In 1947, the partition of British India tore through Punjab and Bengal, slicing apart villages, families, and centuries of shared life. Cyril Radcliffe, the man assigned to divide the land, had never set foot on the subcontinent. He drew the new boundaries in just five weeks, with no knowledge of the people they would divide. 

The Punjab partition on both sides was particularly brutal: more than a million people were killed in pogroms, reprisal attacks and mass forced displacements. Trains arrived full of corpses. Families were severed. Children went missing. Entire villages were razed. The violence was not spontaneous; it was a political catastrophe born of imperial haste and communal mobilisation.

Partition was not simply the creation of two states. It was the violent birth of religious nationalism in South Asia. The demand for Pakistan, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League, had initially emerged as a response to the Congress’s failure to accommodate Muslim political identity within a united India. But what was tactical soon became existential. And in the process, new majoritarian identities were forged on both sides of the new border. The very idea of India as a secular republic came under attack not only from the Muslim right but from its Hindu counterpart, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) — the organisation from which the BJP would later emerge.

On 30 January 1948, less than six months after Partition, Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse. Godse was a former RSS member and editor of a Hindu nationalist newspaper. He believed Gandhi had betrayed Hindus by pushing for peace with Pakistan and insisting on the rights of Muslims within India. In his own words, he killed Gandhi not out of hatred, but out of political conviction. That assassination was not a footnote to Partition — it was a culmination of the violent ideological rift that had opened up in the region. It revealed that the project of religious nationalism, once unleashed, would not stop at borders or treaties. It would seep into the very imagination of the nation.

The state of Jammu and Kashmir, though majority-Muslim, had a Hindu ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, who delayed accession until he sought Indian military assistance in the face of an armed incursion by Pashtun clans mobilised from Pakistan’s North-West Frontier province. His decision to join India provoked the first war between the two new nations in 1947-48. That war ended with the Line of Control, a jagged military ceasefire line that cuts through Kashmir to this day. It does not follow rivers or mountains — it follows war. It divides lives, languages, kinship networks and histories. The Line of Control remains one of the most militarised borders in the world, a space of bunkers, barbed wire, and surveillance drones. It is the bleeding edge of the unfinished violence of Partition.

What we are seeing now is the reactivation of a partitioned wound, a wound that the rulers of both India and Pakistan exploit and weaponise for their own ends.

In the wake of this year’s 22 April attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir — which left 26 civilians dead, most of them Hindu pilgrims — India responded with a military operation named Sindoor. The choice of the name for the operation was not incidental. Sindoor, the red powder applied by Hindu women to mark their marital status, is not just a religious or cultural symbol. It is a deeply gendered marker of purity, belonging and sacrificial duty. To name a military operation Sindoor is to summon not only the language of possession and honour. In a country where women’s bodies are often the terrain on which religious identity is violently policed, this choice reveals much about the state’s ideological orientation. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s deployment of such imagery aligns perfectly with the fascist project of Hindutva, where the Indian nation is imagined as a Hindu motherland under siege from minorities and militarism is framed as devotional duty.

The operation itself involved the bombing of alleged militant camps across the Line of Control. But, as with so many military operations in South Asia, it is not clear what exactly was achieved — except, perhaps, a surge in nationalist fervour on Indian television and the silencing of domestic dissent. In response, Pakistan launched what it called Operation Bunyan-ul-Marsoos, a phrase lifted from the Qur’an meaning “a wall of solid lead”. The religious framing of Pakistan’s retaliation is no less symbolic than India’s. It calls forth images of spiritual defence, of a righteous fortress holding back invasion. In both cases, religious metaphor is used to elevate state violence into sacred obligation.

The cycle is as predictable as it is dangerous. Each side performs strength for its own people, invoking blood, soil and god to mask the failures of governance. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, facing unemployment, rural despair and growing global scrutiny of his authoritarianism, finds in conflict the perfect distraction. The Pakistani military, long the most powerful institution in the country, reasserts its role as the guardian of the nation even as economic crisis and political instability threaten to unseat it. In this dance of shadows, it is the people who pay. It is Kashmiri children who flinch at the sound of drones. It is poor and working-class families who bury their dead. It is women, always, who bear the weight and heat of honour-based nationalism on their skin.

To understand how we arrived here, we must return not just to Partition but to the Cold War, to the entrenchment of militant infrastructures funded by states and intelligence agencies across borders. Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group India holds responsible for the Pahalgam attack, was born in a context where Pakistan’s military sought strategic depth in Kashmir and where the United States turned a blind eye so long as the fight aligned with its own regional interests. The more recent face of this militancy, The Resistance Front (TRF), emerged after the revocation of Kashmir’s special status by India in 2019. The TRF presented itself as a local, secular force but has been widely linked to Lashkar’s networks. It was a rebranding, a tactical shift in a long war of proxies. That war has always been waged not just between nations but between ideologies — secularism versus theocracy, democracy versus militarism, but more often, elite nationalism versus popular emancipation.

What is striking about this current moment is not only the violence but the symbolism. That symbolism is a language, and in the Global South, we must learn to read it. When Modi invokes ancient Hindu symbols to justify airstrikes, he is not merely speaking to voters. He is attempting to rewrite the secular fabric of the Indian republic itself, bending history and myth to serve the logic of Hindu supremacy. When Pakistan replies in Quranic verse, it too is using the divine to authorise state power, even as journalists are jailed and dissent is choked. These are not strategies of defence. They are strategies of domination.

Tariq Ali, writing recently in Counterfire, reminds us that war between India and Pakistan has always served elite interests and rarely the people’s. He notes that in every conflict since 1947, it is the poor who are sacrificed and the powerful who emerge stronger. That analysis remains true today. As military budgets swell, public health collapses. As nuclear rhetoric builds, schools crumble. The people of South Asia deserve better than to be pawns in the nationalist theatre of men who never fight on the front lines.

And beyond the subcontinent, the rest of the Global South should take heed. The India-Pakistan conflict is not a local affair. It is a reminder that borders are often lines carved into the earth with colonial violence, that militarism still shapes the post-colony, and that solidarity among the oppressed is always under threat from nationalist mythologies wielded by rapacious elites. Every rupee spent on war is a rupee not spent on rebuilding public education systems, on confronting the debt regimes imposed by international finance, or on expanding worker-controlled alternatives to extractive economics. Nationalist and religious fervour is an all too effective form of social control. The Global South is not only linked by diplomacy or trade, but by a shared inheritance of violence and a struggle to end it.

The ceasefire now in place is not a sign of peace but of pause. Both India and Pakistan have claimed victory, yet neither has offered a path forward for the people most affected by this crisis — Kashmiris, civilians living near the Line of Control and the working poor across both countries. What has been gained is not resolution, but rearmament. The temporary silencing of missiles will probably give way to louder internal repression, intensified surveillance and renewed investment in militarised nationalism. In the absence of structural change, accountability and demilitarisation, this ceasefire merely resets the cycle. The challenge before the region — and before the Global South more broadly — is not how to manage nationalist conflict, but how to dismantle the political economies that rely on it.

Vashna Jagarnath is a historian, political risk and DEI consultant, labour expert, pan-African and South Asian political analyst and curriculum specialist.