Now that the dust around the civil unrest and mayhem over the past week is beginning to settle, we have to urgently attend to the legitimate socioeconomic issues that were raised by the riots.

 At the outset, we have to condemn the mayhem that erupted in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. Similarly, we have to express our dismay at the tardy, fragmented and woefully inadequate response by law enforcement agencies, especially the failure of intelligence services...