Violent protest, looting and chaos put us on a path to anarchy
FORMER constitutional affairs minister Valli Moosa tells of a meeting some years ago between then president Nelson Mandela and a delegation from Bushbuckridge, which ended abruptly with the great man sending the poor sods away with a flea in their collective ear.
Bushbuckridge had for some time seen the sort of gratuitous violence that we’re now accustomed to, with residents protesting against the incorporation of their area into Limpopo province. They wanted to be under Mpumalanga, which was nearer and where most of them were employed.
The protest leaders wanted a meeting with the president. But Mandela kept insisting that Moosa, as the responsible minister, should deal with the matter. Eventually, however, he relented.
And so a meeting was arranged. The leader of the delegation had hardly started speaking when Mandela stopped him. Before they could get into the meat of the discussion, Mandela said, would he care to explain who would pay for the damage that had been caused during the protest?
Stunned silence. The starry-eyed burghers of Bushbuckridge were speechless.
Mandela said they should go away and let him know when they had found an answer to the question. They left with tails between their legs.
They had travelled hundreds of kilometres for a meeting that had taken months to arrange, only for it to last just a few minutes. But a very important principle had been reaffirmed: there is no place for violence or intimidation in a democracy.
It is a principle that has now been ravaged and discredited. Violence has become the norm; it’s almost celebrated. It has been allowed and encouraged to become an integral part of the culture of protest. It’s only when protest is accompanied by wanton violence and destruction of property that protesters are apparently able to draw attention to their grievances. Officials rush to violent protests the way moths are attracted to light bulbs. And they arrive waving a white flag.
Too often a settlement is reached not because one side is convinced by the validity or legitimacy of the other side’s case, but simply to avoid even more chaos. It’s like negotiating with a gun to one’s forehead.
Violence has become too commonplace. This week, train coaches were torched in Cape Town. In Johannesburg, striking garbage collectors let loose a truck, which smashed into parked cars.
University campuses continue to burn, weeks after the government had meekly caved in to students’ demands. Conscientious students are not able to sit exams because venues have been set alight, probably by hotheads who haven’t achieved their year marks.
Parliament, repository of the collective will of the people, has in recent weeks been rendered dysfunctional by striking workers. They’ve disrupted sittings of the assembly, barged into committee meetings and destroyed documents. The country, its democracy, is being held to ransom by a few hotheads over an insignificant wage dispute. Where will this madness end?
It’s extraordinary that innocent people going about their legitimate business are inconvenienced by issues that have nothing to do with them. And we shrug our shoulders and move on.
What’s more unsettling, though, is the resounding silence from officialdom. It’s as if violence has been accepted as part of the scheme of things. This week the often comatose Mildred Oliphant finally roused herself to rail against the iniquities of labour brokers at the Cosatu conference.
There was nary a word about the violence often perpetrated by its affiliates.
The violence is wanton, wilful, brazen. The perpetrators get away with it. The rest of us are embarrassed and immobilised by it and prefer to simply get on with our lives. But somebody is left to pick up the pieces. Often it’s a bankrupt municipality that has to find the money to fix the mess, or an unsuspecting motorist earning an honest living who has to fix a damaged car.
The demonstrators will be back tomorrow protesting against the lack of services, the very facilities they destroyed yesterday. And they’ll wreak even more havoc. It’s another day in sunny South Africa. Life goes on.
The coyness about condemning such looting seems to be born of either a familiarity with the prevalence of violence or the feeling that you should not be criticising what you cannot understand.
How dare you dictate how the poor should express their pain when you don’t know how it feels to wear their dilapidated shoes? Such a view is not only misguided, it’s patronising.
We’ve learnt to intellectualise violence, to romanticise it. Violence is simply wrong. It has no place in a democracy. It destroys not only physical structures, property and lives, it deforms our reality and corrodes our collective soul. It’s a slow, determined, march to Armageddon.
A scorched earth is what future generations will ultimately inherit if this descent into anarchy is not stemmed, and promptly.
It was popular in the past to mourn a fallen hero by saying his blood would water the tree of liberty. What are we watering with all the blood being spilt, now that freedom has been gained?
The ANC fought for national liberation, which has now been achieved. The SACP, on the other hand, sees a revolution as its ultimate goal. That probably partly explains why violence is condoned in certain circles.
Standing between us and total anarchy is a harassed, derided and rudderless police force that is already hard pressed to curb rampant crime. It’s about time politicians earn their keep. They can start by coming down hard on violent conduct.
Officials rush to violent protests the way moths are attracted to light bulbs