Zuma was right, send young people to the military, Sifiso Mahlangu writes

By any rational measure, South Africa is teetering on the edge of internal collapse. Crime has become as routine as sunrise.

Murders occur at a pace that would shock even war zones, and law enforcement is either overwhelmed, outgunned, or just outright absent. As citizens lock their gates tighter and private security companies multiply, the unspoken reality is sinking in: the state has failed to keep its people safe.

The statistics speak for themselves. According to the South African Police Service’s reports, violent crimes — including rape and murder—have spiked alarmingly. The daily body count doesn’t merely reflect societal decay; it screams it.

And if we don’t take radical steps to address the root causes of this chaos, the consequences will be catastrophic. Former President Jacob Zuma, often a polarising figure, may have been right about one thing: we need national service, and we need it now. The idea of sending young South Africans, particularly men between 18 and 30, into military service may seem harsh or outdated to some. But consider this: what’s more dangerous? A young man being trained, disciplined, educated, and empowered in the military — or that same young man, jobless, angry, and abandoned, roaming the streets with nothing to lose?

Right now, thousands of South African youth are living in a pressure cooker. No jobs. No skills. No land. No purpose. And most dangerously, no hope. What we are witnessing is not just unemployment; it’s a national security crisis. Idle hands are already becoming tools of crime syndicates, drug lords, and radical elements. The evidence is everywhere — in the hijacked buildings of Johannesburg, in the booming illegal drug trade, in the growing number of gang-related murders.

We are causing instability with our inaction. There’s a growing sense that something explosive is coming. Sandton City, the shining monument to South Africa’s upper crust, may well be the site of the next insurrection. And no, the underpaid, overworked, and undertrained SAPS won’t stop it. Nor will the unregulated private security industry, whose loyalty lies with whoever signs the check, not the Constitution. When the dam breaks, it won’t matter how high Cyril Ramaphosa’s walls are in Hyde Park. 

Those walls might protect him, for now. But history shows us that when the masses rise, no fortress stands forever. We must act preemptively and decisively. National service is not just about marching drills and rifles. It can — and should — be a route to skills development, patriotism, and nation-building. Imagine a military that trains electricians, mechanics, medics, engineers, and IT technicians. Imagine if, instead of loitering in townships or becoming foot soldiers for crime, our youth were building bridges, fixing water infrastructure, and defending the country’s cyber borders.

Contrast this with the growing obsession among South African youth with becoming TikTok influencers. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting a digital career, it speaks volumes about our societal values when “content creation” is more aspirational than civil engineering. And yet, those same influencers are powerless when Eskom strikes again. What can a ring light do when there’s no power to turn it on? What’s the point of going viral if you’re living in a country on the verge of collapse?

The global geopolitical situation is also shifting rapidly. With increasing instability in international trade routes, rising political polarisation across continents, and the return of Cold War dynamics, South Africa will not be spared. We cannot depend on the global North to solve our internal problems. No IMF bailout or World Bank grant will rebuild a society that rots from within. If we don’t take the initiative to fortify ourselves — economically, socially, and militarily — we will be trampled by the coming storms.

Supporting engineering and hard sciences should be a national priority. These are the fields that build nations. Roads, power plants, water treatment facilities, communication networks—none of these are built on viral dances or trending audio clips. If we reallocated even a fraction of the energy we pour into celebrity culture toward science, technology, and education, we might begin to halt our national slide.

It’s easy to scoff at the idea of conscription in 2025, to dismiss it as outdated or militaristic. But ask yourself this: Is it more dystopian to have a generation building a disciplined, skilled society under structured national service, or to have them lost in crime-infested ghettos, drifting between prison cells and drug dens? If you believe the latter is better, you are either delusional or comfortably removed from the realities most South Africans face.

Zuma, for all his political sins, saw a truth that many current leaders refuse to confront: South Africa is in danger, and soft policies will not save us.

Ramaphosa’s administration must stop tinkering at the edges and start making bold, decisive moves. That means declaring internal crime and youth unemployment a national emergency. That means national service — military or civil—for all school leavers.

That means pivoting funding away from vanity projects and into infrastructure, education, and engineering. And yes, that means telling the hard truth to a generation raised on dopamine hits and ring lights: TikTok won’t save you from a crumbling nation.

South Africa is on a knife’s edge, and the clock is ticking. Either we act with urgency, or we will find ourselves living in a failed state, ruled by fear, policed by thugs, and abandoned by hope.

The choice is ours — for now.

* Sifiso Mahlangu is the editor of The Star