The festive season provides a much-needed break for South Africans to put their feet up and relax after another year of toil. But too many mark the holidays by trying to drown their sorrows with liquor or by going over the top in their celebrations. In South Africa, as in many countries, alcohol is traditionally regarded as an essential element of the festivities.
Consumed in moderation, it can help to create a sense of joie de vivre. Sadly, indications are that the festive season is too often viewed as an opportunity to overindulge, with serious repercussions for families, children and society at large. A distressing video shot in the Eastern Cape, which shows children as young as six drinking alcohol in full view of parents and caregivers, has prompted shock and outrage and exposed a lamentable failure to protect the most vulnerable in society.
The provincial department of social development is said to be studying the video with a view to identifying those involved and taking action against them. All strength to its attempts to bring the culprits to book. Unfortunately, experience suggests little will change.
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A distressing video shot in the Eastern Cape, which shows children as young as six drinking alcohol in full view of parents and caregivers, has prompted shock and outrage and exposed lamentable failure to protect the most vulnerable in society It is not the first time that evidence of underage drinking in the province has hit the headlines. In June 2022, 21 young people died at Enyobeni Tavern in East London in awful circumstances after having drunk bootleg alcohol spiked with methanol, which is usually used in industrial cleaning products. Incidents like these are the tip of an iceberg of widespread alcohol abuse, a social ill made all the more rampant by the hopelessness engendered by high unemployment, poverty and social breakdown.
Given these underlying conditions, South Africa as a society is particularly vulnerable; stricter interventions to curb alcohol abuse are long overdue. Such measures include, but are not limited to, a crackdown on illegal taverns, illicit alcohol production, binge drinking and underage consumption. The authorities need to step up their game.
But legitimate alcohol producers, who earn billions in profit, ought to shoulder more of the social burden. According to the advocacy group Rethink Your Drink, South Africans spend an average of R400m a day on booze. In the days leading up to New Year, however, sales almost tripled to R1bn a day — which is money that will now not be spent on school fees, books and uniforms for children returning to school this year.
According to the South African Medical Association, increased festive-season alcohol consumption drives a surge in casualty admissions, putting further strain on already overburdened hospitals and health-care workers. The scourge of drinking is also a killer on our roads, with at least 170 drunk-driving arrests on Johannesburg roads since December 22 and 73 in the Western Cape. In KwaZulu-Natal, officials arrested 95 motorists last weekend, among them police officers, municipal officials, nurses and teachers — people who one might think would know better.
Alcohol and its harm on society cannot be laughed off. Excessive drinking is up there with crime and gender-based violence as a serious threat to the well-being of all South Africans, requiring more focused interventions to curb it.
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