There is plenty we don’t know.
We don’t know, for example, the extent to which the violence and looting in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng is the inevitable result of grinding poverty and hopelessness, ignited by the jailing of a man who was genuinely loved by millions and who endlessly promised better days, and how much is a carefully planned attack on the state, opportunistically guiding the anger of the marginalised towards targets it has selected.
We don’t know why former president Jacob Zuma’s son, Duduzane Zuma, instead of calling for a cessation of the violence and theft, was at pains to ask “the people that are protesting and looting, please do so carefully and please do so responsibly”.
We don’t know why “food riots” have, in startlingly many cases, turned to very thorough destruction of very specific targets, from community radio stations and clinics to port infrastructure.
Given the relative ease with which these targets have been attacked, we don’t know whether President Cyril Ramaphosa has full control over the police and military. The notable absence of both at certain flashpoints has inevitably given rise to parallels with the highly suspect wait-and-see approach of American authorities during the January 6 coup attempt in the US, but we don’t yet know whether this is a sign that the SAPS and SANDF are hamstrung by factional battles or simply understaffed and badly deployed by a confused and hyper-cautious security cluster.
It’s important to remember that, political string-pulling aside, it is absolutely in the interests of the very poor to take as much as they can for as long as they can. I believe in the necessity of laws and public order, but I don’t know that I wouldn’t be doing exactly the same in their position.
We don’t know if this is almost over or whether it is just getting started, or if generalised looting and extremely specific destruction will now join truck-burning and xenophobic violence as perennial traumas.
No, there’s plenty we don’t know.
But until we have more information, we can think about what is being said and done, and in whose interests those words and actions are.
For example, it is, at least theoretically, in the interests of certain factions or entire parties to set the country ablaze, not because they are diabolical, nihilistic arsonists, but because they understand this is the only chance they have at attaining power. Mzwanele Manyi, Zuma’s current sock-puppet, is fomenting violence online to get paid, but it’s worth remembering which side of this Julius Malema and the EFF have been on, and why.
Having said that, it is also in the interests of the state to blame everything on a Zuma-aligned plot. This allows the faction of the ANC now in power to ignore the fact that thousands of desperately poor and hopeless people have taken part in the looting. By attributing everything to a third force, the ANC can kick the can down the road a few more years, hoping there are a few more ticks on the dial of that time bomb we hear so much about.
To that end, it’s important to remember that, political string-pulling aside, it is absolutely in the interests of the very poor to take as much as they can for as long as they can. I believe in the necessity of laws and public order, but I don’t know that I wouldn’t be doing exactly the same in their position.
Finally, it is in all our best interests to be very, very cautious about drawing any conclusions from what we read or see, especially if it comes from anyone senior in the ANC; and to remember, above all, that this is a party entirely absorbed in a life-and-death struggle with itself, which will use anything — and anyone — to stay alive long enough to win another election and ignore the burning buildings for another five years.
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