Zuma was right, send young people to the military

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

- SIFISO MAHLANGU

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The idea of sending young South Africans, particularly men between 18 and 30, into military service may seem harsh or outdated to some.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.