‘Leadership vacuum and poverty led to unrest’

SOUTH Africa lacked leadership, Professor Paulus Mzomuhle Zulu, from the University of KwaZulu-Natal Sociology and Political Science Department, has said.

Zulu was speaking yesterday at the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) hearing into the July 2021 unrest in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

He said communication during the unrest was largely through social media and that ordinary looters did not have the equipment to break into business premises.

“The businesses were opened for them by people armed with tools such as grinders and crowbars. It was carried out with expertise.”

Zulu said the crowd was divided into three segments. People living from hand-to-mouth who did not have pantries to store food and collected enough to feed themselves for a few days, the not very wealthy who collected edible and long-lasting items and those who owned vehicles that collected hardware to keep or to sell.

He said the unrest coincided with the arrest of former president Jacob Zuma and that social scientists wanted to get to the roots of the insurrection.

“We have reached a position of near anarchy and an anomaly in the social system in South Africa with a disjointed government at the centre.”

According to Zulu, the country has a moral system that has decayed almost to the bottom and a social system that has been polluted over decades. He said we have not been able to create a South African nation ideologically and materially.

“The majority of looters were allegedly indigenous Africans. The spillover of looters from the warehouses into Phoenix would have been sufficient cause for racial conflagration.

“I do not think one could say racial or long-lasting racial animosities caused incidents in Phoenix. In the same breath, long-lasting racial distrust could easily be aggravated by the material events that took place in Phoenix.

“Twenty-eight years into democracy, Durban is becoming a slum. Government needs to be morally and ethically revamped. One cannot deal with looting or the unrest in the context of a dysfunctional state.

“The magnitude, the organisation and targets are unprecedented. Who are the architects behind it? The configuration of the architectural forces could date back to 1994.”

Abahlali baseMjondolo spokesperson Sbu Zikode said the unrest had brought shame to South Africans and was disgraceful. He said some of those involved in the looting did an introspection about their actions and found it was immoral and against traditional values.

Zikode said the anger of the poor can go in many directions. He said the looting was a result of starvation and not support for Zuma.

“We have warned that we were sitting on a ticking time bomb. Poverty and hunger were a bomb. Zuma’s people lit the fuse.”