The Big Read: It's our ubuntu they're looting

On Friday I visited Meadowlands, Soweto twice. Meadowlands had been on my mind first thing that morning: a picture in the Business Day newspaper showed young and old people looting a "foreign-owned shop", with one of the looters making off with the cash till.

There were a lot of shameful pictures from Soweto that morning. The Times front-page picture showed policemen walking nonchalantly away from a shop that was being looted. There were similar images in other media.

I was visiting Meadowlands to see my grandmother's sister. She is an elegant, sprightly, humane person who in her 80s still has more energy than most people I know. She reminds me, by her actions, why humanity is beautiful: courteous, happy, hard-working, caring, loving and generous.

As I drove into Soweto I tried to make sense of the Meadowlands of this fine lady and the anarchy around the township that was being reported by journalists.

There are so many elements to the story, eliciting so many emotions. Here are some of my thoughts, jumbled and confused:

The police and politicians kept telling the public that the looting was pure criminality, not xenophobia. I think we should be honest with ourselves. The targeted shops were owned by foreigners, particularly black foreigners such as Malawians and Somalis. Bangladeshi and Pakistani owners are not - neither now nor in 2008 - targeted as volubly as their darker counterparts. I cannot avoid a terrible thought: we hate ourselves, we hate our blackness and our black brothers.

The evidence is incontrovertible: the police, in large numbers, are aiding, abetting and even partaking in the looting in Soweto. Images in newspapers and on TV and social media show again and again South Africa's finest walking away from scenes where they should be helping. The testimony from shop owners is chilling. In yesterday's City Press a shop owner tells how he had to bribe police to escort him to his shop. Other stories tell of policemen helping people to queue up to "loot in an orderly manner" by getting inside shops four at a time. I am reminded of Rwanda, where Hutu policemen aided in the killing of their Tutsi neighbours.

Driving into Meadowlands I counted about six spaza shops that were open and trading. They are "South African owned", I presume. There are many young men and women hanging out on street corners. This is not unusual - unemployment is high here. Life seems to be going on as usual. I am reminded of my journalism classes and my lecturer saying never to use the tired, worn, contradictory expression "calm but tense". It is calm in Meadowlands. It is a far cry from the picture in that morning's Business Day. Yet I must also say there are many Meadowlands, including the senseless attacks on fellow black shop owners, and the peaceful, calm of my grandmother.

My cousin, a staunch SA Commercial, Catering And Allied Workers' Union organiser, says to me: "Ask anyone who organises in the retail and wholesale business what they see with these foreign-owned business and they will tell you that workers are treated inhumanely at these places. Everyone who works there is paid slave wages."

Does that justify the looting? He says definitely not. He blames the government for not regulating the shops properly, and the police for failing to enforce labour and other laws.

A friend tells me that in Dobsonville on Friday morning looters were standing at street corners selling stolen goods. No one did anything. No one ever does anything.

"What is sad is that the same looters will be paying to get into taxis to shop at expensive shopping centres. They never ask themselves who those shopping centres belong to. They don't realise that they are killing the economy in their own neighbourhood," she says.

The reports and footage of women and men saying foreigners steal their work are ubiquitous. Yet local business people are very happy with these traders. They pay rent, says my childhood friend who rents a shop to a Bangladeshi trader. They pay on time, and they pay without squabble.

We have been here before. In 2008 we saw fellow citizens murdering Mozambicans, Zimbabweans and other foreigners. What have we learnt from that? What did we do this week that showed we had learnt from those shameful events?

My first visit to Meadowlands on Friday was in the morning. I went back at about 6.30pm, as the sun set over Soweto. My grandmother's neighbours milled about, going about their usual activities. It reminded me of something that gave me hope: we are not all like those looters. We are a decent people, a peaceful people, a people who carry the spirit of ubuntu within us. We must not allow the looters to overwhelm and define us.