It’s a cold yet sunny winter’s day in Soweto as two pit bulls roam around the yard of a beautiful double-storey house in the heart of Pimville.
A relaxed mood is in the air as three men seated on a balcony are engaged in a conversation when Sowetan’s team arrives.
Wearing a pair of camouflage pants with a pistol holster wrapped around his leg, Nhlanhla Lux welcomes the team with a warm smile.
Before July 12 not much was known about Lux, a Soweto resident who, along with other residents, stood up and lodged a resistance front against the riots that swept across the sprawling township and other parts of Gauteng province.
The riots would culminate in the mass destruction of properties and infrastructure, thousands of arrests and the deaths of over 300 people in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
The resistance that Lux and other Soweto residents lodged ensured that Maponya Mall remained the only untouched shopping mall in Soweto while the likes of Jabulani Mall, Dobsonville Mall, Protea Glen Mall were looted to the point of oblivion.
Lux’s phone rings and an unknown individual on the other end speaks to him about effecting a citizen’s arrest later that day.
“As part of Soweto parliament, we have representatives in every township in Soweto,” Lux says.
“We assist law enforcement authorities with operations. We do what we can to help our communities.”
This was a day after Maponya Mall, which is just under 3km away from his home, had opened business after the mass riots.
Lux, 33, is a complex young man who has worn many hats over time. Having matriculated at the affluent St David’s Marist school in Inanda, Johannesburg, where he studied on a full sports bursary, he enrolled for politics at the University of Johannesburg before studying aviation at Superior Pilot Services in Midrand.
Numerous articles have been written about Lux over the years about his career in the aviation sector. He decided to start his own airline company, Native Airways, which catered for private chartering purposes.
“I have put Native Airways on hold at the moment,” he says, “I realised that operating in a space where I don’t have control of the means of production is problematic. I want to build an airport in Soweto.”
The aviation company he started with five others offered personal jets and helicopters as well as skyline advertising.
“We flew both domestic and international routes for individual, political and business needs.”
Social media commentators have questioned how Lux was able to obtain a beastly McClaren sports car he drives around the township.
“I bought it the same way as anyone buys a car,” he explains. “That’s not the only car I have, I also have a 325is, which is more revered [in Soweto] than a McClaren.”
Between May and June, protests over power outages in parts of Soweto flared up, during which public infrastructure was destroyed.
Lux, along with dozens of Soweto residents, marched to Eskom to address the issue as they believed the power cuts were unlawaful as they were outside Eskom's loadshedding schedule.
“We needed to confront Eskom. When we got there they expected a memorandum. We told them that we are going to leave a delegation of young people. If there is a problem in any of the townships, a member of that delegation will sit with the officials until the problem is resolved.”
Lux's social media pages are littered with pictures he has taken with public figures such as former president Kgalema Motlanthe, ANC treasurer Paul Mashatile, arts and culture minister Nathi Mthethwa and celebrity groups such as Mafikizolo and the late Soweto rapper Linda “Prokid” Mkhize.
Lux says it is his involvement in community affairs that has led to him meeting these public figures.
“There have been people who find pictures on my social media platforms and make it seem like I am hiding something. [Former] president Motlanthe is originally from Ndofaya (Meadowlands), and he is someone who I met when he was opening a school for science and technology in a village in Limpopo.
"I saw the work he was doing through his foundation and asked him as a young activist from Soweto can he grant me the space and time to learn more about activism in his foundation. He said his foundation does not involve itself in politics but he can help me understand how it operates and what I can learn from it.”
Motlanthe's biography however points to him being born on the East Rand and was raised in Alexandra before his family moved to Meadowlands, Soweto, when he was 11. Lux have also indicated in another interview that part of his childhood was in Meadowlands, where the family of his mother lives.
The 33-year-old points to his encounter with the former president as something that inspired him to forge ahead with his focus on helping communities around Soweto.
Soweto parliament, according to Lux, has a representative in each part of the massive settlement, which helps it to facilitate assistance in any way it can.
“There was a fire in Meadowlands where people’s homes were gutted. We sat down among ourselves to see how we can assist those people because they are our people. They would have had to wait for eight weeks for the government to do something about their situation when in actual fact, they needed immediate assistance,” he says.
He is also a member of a paramilitary body that was part of Operation Dudula, a controversial movement that sought to drive foreigners out of Soweto on June 16.
In a video Lux, dressed in his camouflage outfit, could be heard telling residents that they needed to protect their own business interests and protect the township economy from foreign nationals.
“I know it is reflecting the view that foreign nationals must leave so that the township economy can go back into the hands of Sowetans. But there are ways of doing it,” he says, without offering further explanation, save to say the operation was meant to tackle a range of issues affecting the community.
Dudula in Nguni languages means to repel or push away.
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