The evolution of a revolution

There has recently been a lot of talk about a “spontaneous revolution”, a “people’s revolt” or an “unled revolution” taking hold in South Africa.

The collateral damage and domestic and foreign implications of such an event are too numerous to mention.

It is something our failing state and an already angry and violent nation can ill afford. The reality is that an uncaring state that leaves its citizens at the mercy of criminal gangs, coupled to a lack of basic services and a crumbling infrastructure, are bound to experience a backlash from its citizens.

We are already in the middle of an escalating criminal insurgency, an economic downturn, and international isolation status.

Backlash

The people’s backlash can manifest in numerous ways, including violent attempts to overthrow the government.

When political voices are silenced through poisoning, targeted killings, hijackings gone wrong and such like, thoughts of vengeance become common.

When a government tries to isolate itself from the larger geopolitical arena, it damages and endangers all of its citizens.

These thoughts can translate into anti-government movements intent on deposing a government and redirecting the state.

It is a fallacy to believe that a popular uprising or a revolution happens suddenly or spontaneously, as a lot of pre-planning takes place.

The causes are, however, primarily resultant from failed governance and policies aimed at economically disadvantaging or marginalising the populace.

When people have been stripped of their dignity, subjected to debilitating poverty, denied basic services, their rights as citizens trampled on, excluded from the employment market and feel abandoned by their government, they will express their boiling anger and frustration.

Any revolution is preceded by events such as national riots and protests due to a lack of basic services, national shutdowns and marches, rising armed criminality, sabotage of critical infrastructure, incidents of anarchy, and so forth.

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Imminent appearances

All of the above are preceded by numerous indicators of their imminent appearances. They all need people.

They also need someone or some small group to stoke anger and ignite the flames of discontent. They require some sort of support such as preparing and moving people and placards or weapons and explosives or Molotov cocktails.

All of the above are valid intelligence targets. The “sudden” appearance of a revolution or an uprising is, therefore, indicative of a massive intelligence failure.

These failures usually occur when the intelligence services lose focus of their mandates and act as private agencies for ruling parties or politicians.

As conflicted agencies, they focus on personal “intelligence requirements”, usually driven by revenge, greed and the smear intentions of political leaders and not on the intelligence required to advise, direct and guide the national strategy and its trajectory.

The intelligence deficits also reverberate across the domains of crime intelligence and defence intelligence.

Good intelligence is always actionable and is pre-emptive. To ensure collection of actionable intelligence across multiple domains, numerous methods, approaches and techniques are employed.

Popular uprisings

Whereas popular uprisings or national revolutions are mostly domestically driven, they also frequently have covert foreign support and backing, especially when the ends are to replace a noncompliant government with a more compliant government.

There are numerous characteristics common to all revolutions and they all start with growing dissatisfaction with a government and its policies.

To, therefore, allege these events are spontaneous, is merely a way to refusing to accept accountability for failures across numerous fronts.

READ MORE: Unled revolution is ‘possible’ in SA

-Barlow is founder and chair of Executive Outcomes