Revolution Chapter Four

 

(Iage: tEVE)

Chapter 4 – The First Council Meeting

The first full meeting of the Council for National Renewal convened at the Union Buildings on 18 September 2026, eleven days after the coup. The atmosphere was both solemn and invigorating. For the first time in decades, South Africa’s central chambers were filled not with political loyalists but with scholars, professionals, and civic leaders drawn from every province and community. The media were not permitted to attend, yet detailed minutes were later published to mark the session’s historical importance.

The agenda was formidable: the rationalisation of government, emergency law enforcement, and the immediate restoration of administrative efficiency.

Dr. Harvey Jacobs opened the proceedings with characteristic restraint. He reminded the Council that they had acted not as usurpers but as custodians of a failing state, and that legitimacy could be earned only through service, not declarations. “If we repeat the mistakes of the past,” he said, “then we will have proved our critics right—that South Africans can overthrow tyranny only to rebuild it in a different shape.”

Dissolution of the Cabinet

The first resolution passed without opposition. The bloated 75-member cabinet, a relic of years of patronage politics, was formally dissolved and replaced by a streamlined team of 30 ministers overseeing newly merged departments. Each ministry was to be headed by a subject-matter expert rather than a party functionary.

Jacobs described the old system as “a monument to political corruption,” explaining that cabinet expansion had long been used to reward loyalty, silence dissent, and maintain internal control within the ruling party. By multiplying ministries, the ANC had created sinecures—positions that drained the public purse while paralysing decision-making. The Council’s new configuration, by contrast, aimed for efficiency and clear accountability.

For continuity, departmental directors and senior civil servants were temporarily retained, though political appointees would face review. The Public Service Commission was empowered to audit all senior posts and identify incompetence or nepotism.

Law and Order

The second resolution, designated Priority One, concerned the restoration of public security. With crime spiralling and faith in policing almost destroyed, the Council resolved to rebuild the justice system from the top down.

Sakena Moloketsi—a legal scholar and former public advocate, admired nationwide for her integrity—was appointed Minister of Justice and Police. Her brief was sweeping: to unify the criminal justice institutions under a single operational command, to purge the police and prosecution services of corrupt officers, and to restore swift, impartial justice.

Under Moloketsi’s leadership, the Council declared that the right of appeal in criminal cases would be temporarily suspended, a drastic but necessary measure. Appeals, she argued, had become a “shield for the wealthy and the corrupt,” enabling endless delays and manipulation. Instead, cases would be handled by special fast-track courts with oversight from panels of senior jurists.

Combating Infrastructure Theft

Another resolution targeted what was euphemistically called infrastructure vandalism—the systematic theft of copper cables, railway lines, and power components. The Council redefined such crimes as economic sabotage carrying severe penalties.

The scrap-metal industry was placed under emergency regulation; dealing in copper was temporarily outlawed. As Moloketsi explained: “There is no incentive to steal what cannot be sold.” Enforcement teams combining police, military engineers, and private-security personnel began nationwide raids on illegal scrapyards and transport hubs within weeks.

The Campaign Against Organised Crime

The Council also approved Operation Phoenix, a coordinated effort to neutralise the violent gangs that dominated the Cape Flats and other urban townships. Under strict oversight, the SANDF and police conducted systematic house-to-house searches to confiscate illegal firearms and narcotics. The approach—firm but lawful—was accompanied by amnesty provisions for those who voluntarily surrendered weapons.

Parallel initiatives targeted extortion syndicates, construction-site mafias, and the so-called “water gangs” that had hijacked municipal supplies. The objective was simple: to restore the state’s monopoly on force, without descending into repression.

Social Measures

While security occupied immediate attention, the Council recognised the need to offer tangible relief to the impoverished population. To stabilise communities and buy time for structural reform, the Council authorised the introduction of a Basic Income Grant (BIG) of R1 500 per month for all adults, effective from January 2027.

Jacobs described the measure as “a bridge between despair and dignity.” It would not solve unemployment, but it would prevent starvation while new economic engines were built. The grant would be financed through redirected subsidies, debt monetisation (to be debated later), and the recovery of stolen state assets.

Governance Reform

Before adjournment, the Council reaffirmed that the old system of patronage governance would be dismantled gradually but decisively. Municipalities, long the epicentres of corruption, were placed under temporary provincial administration. Procurement rules were simplified; digital transparency portals were introduced to track every government contract in real time.

The session concluded with Jacobs’s closing remarks, now immortalised in the archives:

“We have taken power not because we sought it, but because power was abandoned by those entrusted with it. Our first duty is not to rule, but to repair.”

The meeting ended with a sense of grim optimism. Outside the Union Buildings, the gardens were quiet, guarded by soldiers whose discipline contrasted sharply with the chaos of previous years. The capital felt newly alert, as if a great machine long frozen in decay had begun, at last, to move again.

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Revolution: Chapter Three

 

(Image: Ideogram)

Chapter 3 – The Coup

The operation that would later be known as The September Intervention unfolded with a precision that surprised even its architects. For months, fragments of the plan had been tested through simulations and contingency exercises. When the order was finally given in the early hours of Monday, 7 September 2026, every participant knew their role and the moral justification behind it: the preservation of the nation itself.

At 3:00 a.m., convoys of unmarked vehicles moved quietly through Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Cape Town. Units composed of sympathetic elements from the SANDF, tactical police divisions, and contracted private security teams converged on key installations — the Union Buildings, the SABC headquarters, National Treasury, and the South African Reserve Bank. Communications networks were secured; mobile and internet access were temporarily disrupted to prevent disinformation and counter-organising.

By dawn, all principal government ministries were under Council control. The transition was so swift and bloodless that most citizens awoke unaware that a seismic change had occurred. Senior ANC officials, including the president and cabinet members, were escorted from their residences and placed under house arrest in locations prearranged for safety and transparency. The announcement would come later that morning, but the state was already in new hands.

At 7:00 a.m., Dr. Harvey Jacobs arrived at the SABC studios in Auckland Park. Dressed in a simple dark suit, he appeared calm but solemn. His prepared speech had been revised multiple times through the night, the final version stripped of rhetoric and composed in the tone of necessity. Shortly after 8:00, the SABC, eNCA, and all major radio networks broadcast the message live:

“Fellow South Africans,

In the early hours of this morning, your Defence Force and your Police Service, acting in concert with civic and business leaders, have taken temporary custodianship of the Republic. This step has been taken to prevent the total collapse of the state, to restore law and order, and to begin a process of national renewal.

The previous government is under protective custody. There has been no bloodshed, no arrests for political opinion, and no interference with civil life. Our objective is not to destroy democracy, but to safeguard the nation so that true democracy may one day return, cleansed of corruption and fear.

Effective immediately, the Constitution is suspended, and a State of Emergency is declared. The Council for National Renewal will assume executive authority until the country is stabilised and a new framework of governance is established. Essential services will continue uninterrupted.

I appeal to all citizens to remain calm, to go to work, to protect one another, and to remember that we are one people bound by a shared destiny. We act not for power, but for peace. In the coming days, I shall address the nation again to explain the road ahead — The Way Forward.

May wisdom guide us all.”

The effect of Jacobs’s broadcast was electric. Within hours, the announcement had reached every corner of the country. There were isolated protests — particularly from diehard ANC loyalists and left-wing student organisations — but the overwhelming mood was one of weary acceptance, even relief. Ordinary citizens, long disillusioned by endless scandals and failing institutions, greeted the news as a strange kind of deliverance.

In the days that followed, the Council’s rapid actions reinforced that sense of order. Checkpoints were set up at major intersections, curfews were imposed in high-risk zones, and the looting that had erupted sporadically in the previous weeks was brought under control. The media, now operating under a temporary information directive, reported cautiously but consistently on the return of stability.

Behind the scenes, Jacobs and his close advisors worked around the clock to consolidate authority without provoking international outrage. Diplomatic cables were sent to Washington, London, and Brussels assuring foreign governments that South Africa remained committed to democratic principles and the protection of investments. To the astonishment of many observers, the global response was muted — a combination of fatigue with the ANC’s misgovernance and a pragmatic recognition that stability served everyone’s interests.

By mid-September, the initial crisis had passed. Government salaries were paid on time, electricity generation stabilised as technicians returned to work, and the rand, after a brief dip, began to recover.

The Council then turned inward, facing the formidable task of governing. The First Full Council Meeting, held at the Union Buildings on 18 September 2026, marked the beginning of what historians would later call The Reconstruction Era. There, in the cabinet room stripped of party insignia, the fifty members — half men, half women — pledged to steer the nation towards renewal under the guidance of reason and justice.

The coup, in retrospect, had been the easy part. The rebuilding — The Way Forward — would test their ideals and the endurance of an entire people.

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A Hand with the Dishes

 

(Image: Reve)

I phoned him a week ago and we exchanged pleasantries.

“All well. Except, I’m in the dogbox of late.”

He went on to recount how he had fallen out of favour with his wife. Her sister from England had been staying with them for ten days.

“You know how I pull my weight around the house? When I retired, I took on some of the household chores, like washing the dishes. Well, one morning, the wife had gone shopping, I was at the sink dealing with the aftermath of breakfast, when my sister-in-law came into the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. We talked about the weather and her plans for the day, and then, after a while, as if to make conversation, she said, ‘You know, whenever I come into the kitchen, I find you standing at the sink washing up. It’s as if that is all you ever do. It’s kind of sad.’

‘Sad?’ I said, a little irritated. ‘So, you think I lead a wretched existence, do you?’

‘No, not at all,’ she said, trying to back-peddle. I would never describe your life as wretched. Who uses that word anymore? It sounds biblical.’

‘I think it sounds Dickensian,’ I said. It was at this point that the idea popped into my head.”

“What idea? Is this what got you into trouble?”

“Yes. You see, I wasn’t particularly flattered by being described as sad. It wasn’t good for my ego, so I said to her as I scoured the porridge pot, ‘You know, it’s funny, but when Barbara was with us  a year ago….’”

“Who is Barbara?” I asked him.

“She is my wife’s other sister; the youngest. Anyway, I told her that when Barbara was staying with us, she had also found me rather pathetic, forever in the kitchen washing up. This was when I threw discretion to the wind and fabricated a scene for her. I told her I said to Barbara, ‘If you feel sorry for me, and would like to brighten up my humdrum day, you could come and give me a little pleasure while I stand here with my hands in soapy water.’”

“Jesus! How did she react?”

“Who? Barbara? No, in reality I never propositioned her.”

“Yes, I get that. I mean the other sister. What did she say? Or do?”

“She was silent for quite some time, then I heard her push back her chair and she came and stood behind me. I think she was trying to control herself before saying or, rather, snarling in my ear, ‘Not only are you sad and pathetic; you are DISGUSTING!’ And she flounced out of the kitchen.”

“She told your wife, I take it?”

“Of course. I attempted to pass it off as a misunderstanding, and that I had meant it as a joke, but that got me nowhere.”

I tried to visualise what he had just described.

“What would you have done if she had reacted differently? If she had taken you seriously and been sympathetic and agreed to    er   give you a hand with the dishes?”

“Mmm. That’s a tricky one. What would you do in such a situation?”

We acknowledged that one would be faced with a difficult moral dilemma, and tacitly agreed to drop this line of speculation, for there were other matters to discuss.

 

Revolution Chapter Two

 

Chapter 2 – The Architects of Change

The inner circle that would eventually engineer the September Intervention took shape quietly and methodically during the first half of 2026. What had begun as a loose collection of academics and civic leaders slowly hardened into a disciplined network of planners and analysts. Its members did not see themselves as conspirators but as custodians of a collapsing republic, forced to do what those in office could not or would not attempt.

At the centre of this network stood Dr Harvey Jacobs, already well known from his lectures, essays, and television commentaries. His mixed heritage and lifelong commitment to social justice lent him credibility across communities; his students described him as a man who could speak the language of Soweto and Stellenbosch in the same breath. He had spent years warning that South Africa’s democracy was eroding from within—that corruption, policy incoherence and patronage had replaced accountability. In his view the coming breakdown was not ideological but structural: a state so weakened that it could no longer maintain order or deliver services.

Jacobs’s public essays had attracted the attention of several prominent figures in business and civil society. Among the first to seek him out was Andries Marais, a mining executive who had seen his company reduced to a shadow by electricity shortages and export bottlenecks. Marais argued that without decisive action the entire private sector would soon follow. Others joined—retired judge Naledi Motaung, former defence strategist Colonel Sipho Nkadimeng, economist Professor Nigel Cooper-Smith, and the lawyer-activist Sakena Moloketsi, whose earlier work on constitutional reform had earned national respect.

They met discreetly in Johannesburg and later in Pretoria, under the guise of a “national dialogue forum.” Over months of discussion a consensus emerged that the political system was beyond internal repair. The ANC’s hold on the state was maintained through networks of dependency—employment in state enterprises, municipal contracts, and the promise of patronage. Any government that tried to govern honestly from within that framework would be destroyed by it. Only a decisive external intervention, they concluded, could break the cycle.

Their deliberations remained theoretical until March 2026, when several senior officers within the South African National Defence Force quietly approached Nkadimeng. The officers—career professionals marginalised by politically connected superiors—offered their cooperation should a plan for national stabilisation become necessary. Around the same time, executives of large private security firms indicated willingness to maintain order if the state faltered. These parallel contacts convinced the Forum that a coordinated intervention was not only possible but already half-prepared by circumstance.

The group adopted a provisional title: The Council for National Renewal. Its early meetings focused on defining legitimacy. Jacobs insisted that any future action must present itself not as a seizure of power but as a guardianship—temporary, procedural, and justified solely by the need to restore the rule of law. The Council’s minutes, later released, recorded his words: “If we are to act outside the constitution, it must be to save the constitution’s purpose, not to destroy it.”

Funding and logistical planning followed. Business donors, fearful of collapse yet unwilling to appear partisan, channelled resources through charitable foundations. Retired intelligence officers mapped communications nodes and transport corridors; sympathetic engineers provided information on national-grid control points. The Council’s analysts identified key ministries where immediate control would prevent administrative paralysis: finance, energy, defence, and broadcasting.

As plans advanced, international legitimacy became a priority. A small delegation—two businessmen, a former diplomat, and an academic adviser—travelled quietly to Washington, ostensibly to attend an investment conference. While there, they met with policy figures linked to the President. The delegation sought no overt endorsement, only an assurance that any South African transition aimed at restoring order and market confidence would not be condemned. They returned with cautious encouragement: the message was that the world would accept almost any government that could guarantee stability and protect trade.

Back in South Africa, Jacobs laboured to forge unity among the Council’s disparate members. Afriforum and business associations pushed for a swift, decisive coup centred on property rights and deregulation. Civil-rights organisations argued for a social compact rooted in justice and accountability. Jacobs positioned himself between these factions, arguing that the success of any post-coup administration would depend on moral legitimacy rather than force. “If the people do not believe we act for their good,” he warned, “they will turn on us before the year is out.”

Throughout the winter, the Council refined its blueprint. The plan called for simultaneous occupation of key communication centres, airports, and government complexes, coupled with a media announcement framing the operation as a constitutional rescue. ANC leadership would be confined, not harmed; Parliament suspended but intact. Essential services—electricity, policing, banking—would continue under emergency management.

Each member understood the risks. Failure would mean treason charges; success would still require confronting the enormous task of governing a broken state. Yet there was a growing sense of inevitability. Each week brought new evidence of governmental paralysis: unpaid public servants, collapsing hospitals, and the postponement of yet another municipal election.

By late August the decision was effectively made. The Council’s final meetings, held in a farmhouse outside Paarl, were sober affairs. Jacobs appeared withdrawn but resolute. He told his colleagues that moral courage consisted not in certainty but in action taken despite uncertainty. “History will judge us not by our hesitation but by what we build after the noise stops,” he said.

When the government confirmed its intention to delay the elections “for administrative reasons,” the Council set the date. The intervention would commence before dawn on the first Monday of September 2026.

The architects of change had completed their design. All that remained was to bring it to life.

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