Ruminations on Looting, Impunity, Defiance and Hope

Aweh fellow Ruminants & Groupies in day 479 of Re-Modified Lock Down Level 4 and still alcohol free.

Period as a semi-retired pensioner: 98 days

The topic of today’s Ruminant Pink Friday ™ unfortunately needs to be about a personal perspective on the scary events of the last week in South Africa.

Much has been written about this by people more learned and more impressive than me and then also a few who are not. I will give a very personal perspective. My comments fit into two categories. First, my own, politically incorrect views on what is happening. Second, a message of defiance and hope.

So, let’s start with my politically incorrect views. The ostensible spark for the lunacy of the last week was the long overdue imprisonment of the former president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma. The foul stench of nation destroying corruption and impunity has followed this man for two decades and has been laid bare by investigative journalists, the public protector, the courts, and the Zondo commission amongst others.

Yet, as with many other countries in the world, he is a populist with a cult like following who somehow manages to portray himself as a champion of the poor and disadvantaged and some of them believe him. The reality, of course, is that nine wasted years has left the poor and disadvantaged significantly worse off.

The protests degenerated into feral looting and destruction running into many billions of Rand which the country can ill afford. Some poor communities have destroyed the shopping malls and other infrastructure in their areas. It is doubtful that they will be reconstructed anytime soon and will most likely lie in ruins for a long time as a reminder of the madness. These poor communities will not benefit from this and will bear the brunt of the suffering to come.

I made an exception on Tuesday night, and I watched Cyril Ramaphosa addressing the nation, wringing his hands, and apologising to the nation for what was happening. As a colonialist I would urge him to look at how David Cameron responded to the 2011 riots and looting which has eerie similarities to what is happening in South Africa. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/aug/09/david-cameron-full-statement-uk-riots. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-14492789 He had this to say to the looters:

“And to the lawless minority, the criminals who’ve taken what they can get. I say this: We will track you down, we will find you, we will charge you, we will punish you. You will pay for what you have done.”
―David Cameron

Many of the criminals were looting in broad daylight on national television and made no attempt to hide their identity. It would not be that difficult to identify them, find them and prosecute them. Will it happen?

It is essential that key supply chains infrastructure such as the N3 highway from Durban to Johannesburg are protected and opened because vital supplies rely on this route.

The poorer you are the less options you have, and many will have no choice but to remain in their damaged communities. Higher up in the wealth spectrum there will be a new wave of emigration with some people leaving with little more than the clothes on their back. At the top of the wealth spectrum South Africa is estimated to have 36 500-dollar millionaires and a number of these will also leave. Each millionaire who leaves South Africa will leave South Africa poorer.

Now to my message of defiance and hope. Business organisations, local communities and local community activism is the bedrock of any society and is the route to a more functional society. Taxi drivers, who often get a bad rap, are starting to stand up against looting and anarchy which they know is not in their best interests. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-13-unlikely-heroes-taxi-drivers-come-to-the-rescue-of-eastern-cape-businesses/

Local communities across the nation have already geared up to push back and protect their communities and I will relate a very personal example. For twenty years we have owned a beachfront holiday home in the small village of Southbroom on the South Coast of Kwazulu Natal (KZN). The house is situated right in the middle of the current rioting and looting madness within the district of the bankrupt UGU municipality. It was never in my life plan to own a holiday home but that is a story for another day. And yet Southbroom is an amazing and beautiful village with an extraordinary and dedicated local community which ensures that the village works. The local community is small, and tourism is essential to the community. The local community together with the police, the community policing forum and the local security companies quickly rallied together to ensure that no marauding mobs came to Southbroom. This is made easier by the geography of the town which only has two entrances.

There has been an extremely rapid emergence of an engaged and savvy civil society. The role played by the local communities in stabilizing KZN, in the absence of a police and military capability, means that they have now become important actors on the stage of South African politics. This has certainly been their finest hour. They are unlikely to relinquish that position of credibility to a blatantly weak state but will probably be willing to work with legitimate law enforcement agencies. This is likely to see an invigoration of community policing forums as each community is strengthened from within.

A beachfront house is not for the maintenance faint hearted and so several years ago we decided that we would also let out the house to defray the considerable expenses. https://www.booking.com/hotel/za/dinvorae.en-gb.html.  The original house was constructed fifty years ago, and it has inevitably required renovation and modernisation which we have tackled in phases. It has never been “all done” and there has always been more to do. Although we have generally received good and rave reviews about the house there has been a consistent grumbling about the bathrooms not being in keeping with the rest of the house. The bathrooms are as they were when the house was constructed in the early seventies.

I was rather hoping that seventies bathrooms would come back into fashion and be regarded as retro chic, but the guests thought otherwise. This week we pulled the trigger on another renovation project. It is our intention to attend to the remaining grumbles of our guests and to try and make the house close to perfect.

Instead of spending money on this house we could have moved the money offshore or used it for emigration expenses and there are many who would regard investing money in KZN now as an act of lunacy. They could be right. It is possible that the situation could further deteriorate into chaos and that tourism collapses and the house becomes essentially valueless.

This investment is both an act of defiance and a belief in the power of the local communities to prevail in the best interests of everyone. 

Whatever the arguments, we all belong to the same society, and we all have a stake in making it better. There is no ‘them’ and ‘us’ – there is only us.

See you in Southbroom!

Thank you for all the helpful suggestions and comments. Please keep them up.

Regards

Bruce