In recent days, former president Jacob Zuma’s daughter Dudu Zuma-Sambudla has been tweeting in support of ‘another unrest’ like the one that followed her father’s arrest in July 2021. How can anyone who knows what happened last year possibly be calling for a repeat of the three dead.
‘I don’t feel anger. This thing is bigger than we think, when you look at the socioeconomic factors. Every time there is a protest, property is destroyed and no one is held accountable.’
Earl Coetzee
Unless we find a way to deal with our country s issues realistically, it s only a matter of time till we see similar unrest again.
A security officer walks through an entrance at Ndofaya Mall in Meadowlands, Soweto, under a gate with the words Free Zuma spray-painted on, during a clean-up operation, 20 July 2021, after rampant looting last week. Ten people died in a stampede at the shopping centre. Picture: Michel Bega
It s been nearly three weeks since the start of the deadly violence which erupted across parts of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, and in typical South African fashion, the country has simply started picking up the pieces and gone back to what passes for normal in this part of the world. Clean-up operations are in full swing, and we ve started making the calculations of how much the violence has cost us in monetary terms (minus the inevitable kickbacks and other taxes, of course). What can t be calculated is the amount of trauma suffered by those who lost