Thandiswa Mazwai says racial tensions will remain if apartheid spatial planning is not addressed

Singer-songwriter Thandiswa Mazwai has criticised government's deployment of the army to find and reclaim goods — particularly groceries — looted during the unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng earlier this month.

The singer criticised what she believes is the irony of it all: that government was allegedly able to loot billions without being caught but deploys soldiers to retrieve stolen goods from people living in informal settlements.

“Also, the irony of a government looting billions of rand without a trace but being able to deploy forces to go get back a bag of Iwisa from a mkhukhu! I can’t stand this place!” she tweeted.

Thandiswa also weighed in on what some people have labelled the "Phoenix massacre". The singer believes racial tensions still exist in the remnants of apartheid spatial planning.

The Ingoma hitmaker said our sense of community is divided along racial lines, and there's a ticking time bomb in society when there is systemic oppression of black people. 

“Apartheid spatial planning means community is defined along racial lines. So often when people speak of their community they mean their kind, their race, so protecting your community is protecting your race. Phoenix massacre was a reminder of what’s festering.

“This will always be a threat in a racially charged society that hates black people. There is a ticking time bomb, a Molotov cocktail of race, inequality and poverty issues, dangerously mixed with megalomania,” said Thandiswa.

The musician is often critical of the powers that be.

Taking to Twitter earlier this year, the star shared her thoughts and analysis of the ANC since the party came into government in 1994.

“What a shame for the suffering masses who thought a black government would bring liberation from the shackles of colonisation and apartheid. Sies ANC!” she wrote.