Africa – coping with the 'new normal'.

At the time of writing this editorial, there was the spectre of the global economy grinding to a halt as a consequence of the impact and response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of the participants described how they saw the fragility of the state in the current epoch not just in the state's inability to provide homes, health facilities and employment for the people, but in its aloofness from the people and their needs. Some speakers asserted that it was not clear who was the target for the state - the virus, or the workers and peasants that the state is expected to serve. As one discussant put it: 'it is not clear whom the state is fighting: Covid-19 or the poor, as the state via the oppressive apparatus continues to brutalise and terrorise those living in informal settlements'. [Extracted from the article]