12 July 2021 is a day that will remain etched in my memory forever.
It was the day when civil unrest, rioting and violence broke out across South Africa, casting a shadow on the Rainbow Nation. It was the day that I stood and watched from my balcony as Makro and Value Centre in Springfield were looted. Hordes of people were screaming jubilantly, ecstatic with their new-found treasures. Cars came to a grinding halt on Umgeni Road, their occupants jumping out, looting, and loading their vehicles…and then I watched in horror as the Value Centre, a complex that I visited since childhood, went up in flames!
It was not the only shopping complex that suffered at the hands of the criminals. Social media footage showed us that the Reservoir Hills Mall, City View (the old Game City), malls and shops in Pietermaritzburg, Phoenix, Cornubia, Stanger and Tongaat had all borne the brunt of the lawlessness that swept across our province.
Our economy, what little was left of it after the crippling ramifications of the past year, burnt to the ground…but it’s not just our economy that was reduced to ashes…it was our hopes, our dreams, our beliefs that have perished. Our faith in being protected has diminished…it has died a painful, violent death. I had never experienced that level of anxiety in my life, the sound of gunshots going off all around me…the fear, heartbreak and utter disbelief at everything that was going on…
South Africa has one of the best constitutions in the world…but that night I went to bed feeling like I had been failed. Of course, we didn’t sleep that night…neither did we sleep the following night. Sleep was a luxury, almost as much as bread and milk had come to be!
BUT…from the hurt, pain and devastation that had wreaked havoc across the land, something stirred within the smouldering ruins...something ignited the true spirit of the African soil...a flicker of hope, one voice, then two...then another and yet another and communities came together. The colours of the prism joined together, as was the original intention, and the Rainbow Nation stood as one. They patrolled the community, they helped the elderly, they fed the hungry, they sourced essentials for the children, they cleaned up the streets and the malls and started to rebuild!
They came together...man, woman and child...Black, White, Coloured and Indian...irrespective of religion or political belief...even the superheroes came out to help!
They stood together as South Africans...racism burnt down in that inferno.
Over the years, we seem to have forgotten the tenacity and resilience of the South African people, but now our memories have been jogged awake! We stand together, stronger than ever before and remember the opening words of the Freedom Charter..."We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: that South Africa belongs to all who live in it..."
Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika