April's diesel price increase could hit R10, while petrol hikes will exceed R5.
Image: AI / ChatGPT
THEY like to make war feel so far away. Like it belongs on your phone screen — something you scroll past between tweets and TikToks: A perturbing headline about Iran, horrific bodycounts in the DRC, another violently disheartening update from Gaza.
Oh, it is a map of a world that feels so distant, a life you can’t see, a war you think is “over there”.
But then, petrol goes up! And suddenly, it’s not far away at all, not anymore. Because in South Africa, things don’t stay “over there” for long. At first, it’s subtle — a few cents more per litre (or in our case, a whole ten rand). From there, it infects everything else: our food, household budgets, education, medical care, and beyond.
Suddenly, bread costs more, electricity stretches less, sanitary products are being rationed, and groceries start looking lighter than they should.
That’s how geopolitics works. It’s not just about faraway war zones or explosive headlines — it’s also about the small, annoying shifts that make you rearrange your daily life and silently scramble to keep up.
What’s too often left out of the conversation is who carries the weight. In South Africa, our society is dreadfully unequal. In turn, the burden of economic strain largely lands on households already stretched to their limits — most of which are run by women.
Oftentimes, rising costs land on women’s shoulders first. Even the slightest costly cent can result in entire households stretching costs for food, transport, school essentials, and healthcare, often with very little to spare. And because women earn less on average and shoulder more unpaid work, the burden is heavier from the outset.
A rise in fuel prices isn’t just a small inconvenience. It forces countless families across our society to adjust everything: You rethink school transport, trim groceries, delay purchases, and stretch essentials further than they should go. The sacrifices aren’t dramatic — at first — but they build up over time.
And in South Africa, there’s a hidden layer: Black Tax. One income rarely supports only one life; it often carries an entire family — parents, siblings, extended family, and beyond. Supporting relatives isn’t often a choice — it’s survival. When prices go up, that burden spreads through an entire network. One increase for a single person inevitably impacts several other lives.
At the same time, everyday expenses quietly become harder to manage. School uniforms that need replacing, outstanding stationery lists, and new sports equipment — for kids alone. Other basic household items — like cooking gas, toiletries, and sanitary products — are continuous necessities, even as prices climb. These pressures rarely hit the front page, but they’re real, persistent, and stack up before you even notice.
Healthcare is another pressure that quietly piles up. Almost every home has someone who needs care — a child, an elderly parent, or a family member living with a chronic illness. With healthcare facilities overcrowded and understaffed, families end up covering transport, medication, or extra help themselves. Higher fuel prices make even simple trips to the clinic expensive, and time off work worsens the strain.
What looks like a simple hike at the petrol station is actually a chain reaction across your life. It isn’t just about driving — it’s about stretching a household budget that was already tight. In our society, where over half of our population lives below the poverty line, small increases multiply, turning one hike into a broader cost-of-living crisis.
And while people are continuously losing their lives in Gaza, while entire communities across the Middle East are being devastated, the impact does not stay contained within those borders.
It travels.
Not in the same way, and not with the same visibility, but it reaches places like South Africa, where we are frequently told that we’re ‘far-removed’ and ‘wholly unaffected’ by any of the ‘Strait of Hormuz’ drama.
How distant is distant when a war half a world away forces you to rethink your commute, your grocery trip, your entire day? How distant is it if it dictates what you can afford to eat, pay for, or provide for your family?
In reality, we don’t witness these things from a distance. We experience them through bills, sacrifices, and constant adjustments. Across the world, it is undeniable that our societies are deeply connected, more than we like to admit, however, some bear the brunt far more than others.
Some nations pull the levers, while others — especially in the Global South — are left to deal with the tremors. And inside those countries, some households are shielded, while many more are left to drown under the pressure. In South Africa, it’s not the CEOs adjusting numbers — it’s households stretching every rand, adjusting everyday small decisions, sacrificing critical essentials, just to survive the month.
So no, this is not just about a war “over there.” Nor is it about oil, petrol, or the endless forces that run our society from a distance. This is about how that war shows up here, in our own society, in our own homes. The scary part is that the effects appear quietly at first, almost invisible — but then, all at once.
A conflict thousands of kilometres away is running your lives here, your daily survival silently controlled. And the kicker? There’s nothing you can do to fight it.
* Tswelopele Makoe is a gender and social justice activist and editor at Global South Media Network. She is a researcher, columnist, and an Andrew W Mellon scholar at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, UWC.
** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, IOL, or Independent Media.