“No to looting!” : in South Africa, residents mobilize to clean up after the riots

Published on : 07/21/2021 – 13:54

“Does anyone need help with cleaning / sorting?” This type of message floods the Facebook group Clean Up Durban, created on July 14 to coordinate the efforts of volunteers mobilized to clean up their city after the violent protests and looting that rocked South Africa at the beginning of last week. The group now has more than 7,600 subscribers and several dozen cleaning operations to its credit in less than a week.

Participants post videos on social media to encourage others to join. They call for union and solidarity, under the hashtag #unitedurban:

^{Video filmed during the Queen Nandi Drive cleanup in Durban was posted on TikTok on July 16.}

An unprecedented wave of violence since the end of apartheid has more than 200 dead in South Africa. Protests erupted after ex-President Jacob Zuma surrendered to justice July 7, sentenced to 15 months in prison for refusing to appear before an anti-corruption commission last February. Many shops, warehouses and factories were looted, especially in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, where Jacob Zuma is from and where Durban is located.

“You have to unite to do positive things, not negative things”

Kieran Bauristhene, 32, is a site manager at a factory in Westmead, west of Durban. He organized a cleaning operation on Saturday July 17 in this industrial area where he has worked for 12 years and was shocked by the extent of the damage caused by the looting:

On Wednesday, when the looting stopped, I decided to come and see the situation. (…) It was a total mess, I had never seen such a level of destruction. The road was blocked by looted products, there were shopping carts on the road. And the more there was a smell… the food was starting to rot. Under these conditions, the employees could not return to work. I figured it was better to clean ourselves rather than wait for others to do it.

Hundreds of people came to help on Saturday. It only took us two hours to clean everything up, when I was sure it would take us two days! All kinds of people came: factory workers, old people, people who came with their children, families. People of all ethnicities participated.

You have to come together to do positive things, not negative things. I don’t approve at all [ces pillages], it’s completely illegal. It’s sad that people feel so desperate to do this. But that doesn’t set a good example for the rest of the world, or our children.

“The least we could do (…) was clean up what other members of the community had broken”

In the township of Ntuzuma B, a poor area north of the city, several residents participated in the riots. The community nevertheless mobilized on Sunday July 18 to clean up. With the participation of the secretary of the neighborhood committee, the municipality, the police and the taxi industry, the operation was coordinated by Nonkululeko Nonkanyezi Zungu, 25, contacted by the Observers editorial staff:

On Saturday we saw that everyone was cleaning everywhere as we sat still. Yet we have infrastructure to repair. We decided that the least we could do to show investors and the world that we are not proud of what happened was to take responsibility for our actions by cleaning up what others did. community members had broken up.

We want to say no to racism, no to looting, and yes to the protection of our infrastructure, yes to a resilient community.

Residents who gathered to clean up also encouraged those who participated in the looting to voluntarily return what they took, as requested authorities. Many people have left refrigerators on the side of the road to allow the police to take them back, says Nonkululeko Nonkanyezi Zungu.

^{The video was posted on TikTok by Razeen Dada. He participated in the cleanup of Queen Nandy Drive in the industrial area of ​​Riverhorse after hearing about it on Whatsapp.}

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa came witness the cleanup and reconstruction efforts in Johannesburg’s Soweto township on July 18. He took part in the operation, under the watchful eye of the cameras.

The destruction of hundreds of shops and supermarkets put pressure on the poorest populations: for several days, many faced a food shortage and fuel. According to forecasts by the American bank JPMorgan, the South African economy could lose three points of GDP during the next quarter.