Sorry, people. A certain government seems to have mistaken the dystopian novel we published a year ago for a textbook, and based their entire political strategy on events set in a fictional South Africa in 2028.
“What was it like? It was a colossal cluster f@ck the likes of which nobody had ever seen before. Or since. Hundreds of innocent civilians, men, women and children, desperately trying to find food and clothing after they’d been told not to stockpile. Then the strikes hit, fanned by greedy union leaders and unscrupulous politicians, and the supply chains ran dry. People had nothing.
“The booze and cigarettes, we hadn’t expected that, either. No warning. The insiders stocked up. Politicians, hangers-on, black marketeers, they drained the bottle stores. Stashed single malt like it was going out of fashion.
“But when the food ran out… It didn’t matter who you were. How much money you had. It just wasn’t available.
“Of course, we still got our three meals a day. Military, police, government workers, the strikes didn’t affect us. Nor did the lockdown. We had food. We still received our salaries. Hell, we even still had beer in the canteen.
“The people didn’t like it. You can’t blame them. There we were, enforcing new laws that didn’t make any sense. Laws we didn’t believe in, or understand. But while we were enforcing them, the new laws didn’t seem to apply to us. They knew we had stockpiles. More than we needed.
“So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when they broke in, started looting the military bases and the government warehouses. Except, it did. The powers that be, they’d been so bloody arrogant, so cock-sure of their authority, that they hadn’t even considered this possibility.
“Of course, under a state of emergency – well, let’s face it, when the curfews were imposed, it was pretty much martial law. Soldiers on the streets, doing whatever the hell they liked. Cops stealing booze and drinking it themselves. Politicians throwing lavish parties and posting photos all over social media. It drove the people over the edge.
“You’re probably too young to remember, but the last straw was when that one minister, the one who used to wear the traditional robes, she made a public announcement that if there was no bread or pap, people should eat cake.
“Next thing we knew, they were coming through the fences, over the razor wire, and we were ordered to use live ammunition.”
Extract from Big Day Out, available on Amazon and everywhere else good books are sold.
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