- New Frame: Durban food riots turn the wheel of history
Posted by sashimi
on July 13, 2021, 11:22 am
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12 July 2021 (quote) South Africa's social crisis has erupted as the people Cyril Ramaphosa and Jacob Zuma deem expendable, those who bear the brunt of the past and of the social costs of Covid-19, appropriate the bread of life. At the time of writing the riots engulfing Durban and other towns in KwaZulu-Natal, and also present in parts of Gauteng and the Eastern Cape, have the kind of scale and velocity that makes definitive statements unwise. There are sure to be local differences in how things are playing out, and new developments can and will happen at any moment. The full consequences of the decision to send in the army, made just as this article went to press, are not yet clear. But one thing is: Durban has been engulfed by food riots. New Frame spoke to grassroots activists across the city on 11 and 12 July and without exception every one of them said the riots are about food, not Jacob Zuma. It is food shops that have been consistently targeted, and food that has been appropriated at a massive scale. Of course, the spark was lit by the displays of impunity and acts of disruption and arson carried out by Zuma supporters, but this was the spark to the tinder. With mass impoverishment, unemployment and hunger, the only surprise is that this did not happen earlier. The scale of the riots is not the only new development. The protests that have regularly been organised from shack settlements across the country since 2004, and in Durban since 2005, have generally taken the form of road blockades - of disruption rather than appropriation. Now there is popular appropriation of food on an extraordinary scale. Across the country the waves of popular protest from 2004 have typically taken place close to shack settlements or other places where impoverished people live, which are usually on the urban periphery. In Durban, unlike in other cities, the hilly topography has enabled land occupations in or close to spaces of elite residence, commerce and education. This has meant that in this city what has been termed "the rebellion of the poor" does not always happen in the urban periphery. But the riots currently underway have, for the first time, targeted shops and malls in the centre of middle class areas such as Glenwood and Hillcrest. When road blockades first began to be a regular feature of our politics, people would generally flee when attacked by the police. If there was a fightback, it usually took the form of stones lobbed from a safe distance. In recent years that has begun to change, particularly during evictions, with people using makeshift shields to hold their ground. Police officers or other armed personnel in the employ of the state have been severely assaulted when captured. Right now, people in crowds are firing back at the police. This is a significant new development. Another new development is that in at least one area, Glenwood, these riots are starting to draw in students and people from among the middle classes. Historically, when students and a chunk of the middle classes throw in their lot with impoverished people, extraordinary social turmoil and change - for good or ill - becomes possible. The police have lost control in many areas. Where they are present they are often reported to just be standing by while food is appropriated. In at least one case the police have taken food for themselves. It seems likely the army will crush the protests, although quite possibly at a very high social cost. But the fact that with enough people on the streets, and gathered with sufficient resolve, the police can so easily be overwhelmed will not be forgotten. ... Zuma and Ramaphosa to blame Zuma's kleptocracy, which was violently repressive and deeply unpopular, offered nothing to the majority. In recent days and weeks, its defenders have been its beneficiaries, people in and around the kleptocratic faction of the ANC. But the idea, more or less ubiquitous in much of the elite public sphere, that Cyril Ramaphosa is a credible, or even redemptive, alternative is profoundly wrong and profoundly dangerous. It was Ramaphosa's government that plunged already desperate people into an even more desperate crisis when the initial hard lockdown was imposed without meaningful social support. It was Ramaphosa's government that policed that lockdown with militarised and frequently lethal violence. Food is a basic human need, but Ramaphosa's government failed to support the millions of people who went hungry with anything approaching an adequate response. The Covid-19 grant was paltry, didn't reach huge numbers of people and was then - inexplicably, callously, recklessly and outrageously - removed. Zuma and Ramaphosa are both responsible for the crisis that has now exploded into riot. Whatever the trajectory of the riots, and whether they are crushed by the army, burn themselves out in a few days or continue, cohere around a central demand and gather more force, they have happened and it is now clear that there can be no fantasies of business as usual. (/quote) -- Cont'd at https://www.newframe.com/durban-food-riots-turn-the-wheel-of-history/ |
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