Kosheek Sewchurran is an associate professor and director of the EMBA programme at the UCT Graduate School of Business.
There are no words to intellectualise the tragic circumstances we have seen unfold in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. In such times, it is natural to cast about for reasons – an explanation for why this is happening and who is responsible – although this is never a clear-cut process.
It is too easy to find someone – typically the president, or ex-president – or a group – disillusioned and disenfranchised people – to blame, but this is to accept lazy thinking and forget that “the purpose of a system is what it does (Posiwid)”. This systems-thinking heuristic was coined by Stafford Beer to explain emergent behaviour.