The recent civil unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng which saw shopping malls being ransacked, looted and vandalised has made me ask myself how can our communities self-destruct like this?
The absence of the sense of feeling at home among those who were in the forefront of the vandalism and destruction of the same infrastructure that improves the quality of life in these townships is the bigger problem here.
It goes without saying that anyone would protect their home with all their might against any threat simply because it is their home and they’re emotionally connected to it.
This is what we saw with Eldorado Park residents when they formed a human chain to protect their shopping centre against the marauding looters coming from neighbouring settlements.
One of the locals was even hit on the head by a brick thrown by the looters who wanted to bring down the shopping centre this week.
Similar stand-offs against the looters were seen in Pimville, Soweto, where residents guarded the Maponya Mall, the only major shopping centre still standing in the sprawling township, and in Atteridgeville where locals also took a stand to guard the malls in the township.
All these people had one thing in common – the sense of feeling at home.
Thabiso Masebe, one of the members of Kasi Brothers, a brotherhood movement in Atteridgeville which has been protecting the Nkomo Village Mall in the township, summed it up nicely when he told me: “I’m not just protecting Nkomo Village, I’m protecting my family and Atteridgeville.”
In another part of the township, more than 100 unemployed young men, did the same to protect Altyn Mall and Mnandi Shopping Centre. They all said “we are protecting our own”. Armed with just whistles, they put their bodies on the line.
Just like those who came out to loot and destroy who claimed that they were pushed by hunger, being poor and unemployed, some of these locals are in the same situation or worse but opted for a different stance.
This is all because they know that without these shopping malls, which took years to be brought to their communities, their families and relatives would need to take a taxi or two to be able to do just groceries shopping. Even more significant, without the malls the already high rate of unemployment in the township would shoot up to new levels.
Many of the people who rose up to defend the malls were raised in those townships and have no recent strong ties with rural villages that they call home. The township is their only home. They are not people in transit and warmly appreciate the better life that such facilities as malls have brought to their communities.
However, this is not case everywhere as many townships in urban areas of SA have seen mass influx of new arrivals from rural provinces who mostly live in informal settlements or backyards of old sections of the township. They go back to the village at the end of the month and during holiday seasons. They came to live in the township for convenience as they look for opportunities in towns and surrounding industrial areas...
Some, especially men, would settle in haphazard set-ups in hostels which were built during apartheid, which now operate outside the law.
The Gauteng townships which experienced the looting frenzy this week include Alexandra, Vosloorus, Tembisa, Soweto, Diepsloot and Mamelodi. These townships share many things in common, among those is their huge populations of postapartheid economic migrants.
Many in this population sector are people in perpetual transit, forever in pursuit of what makes ends meet.
They have no emotional connections with places they live in apart from their weekly wage or monthly pay cheque or from hustles of informal trade. Should the pay cheque dry up, or the service of their hustle hit hard times, they'll move on to the next better destination.
• Mahlangu is senior reporter
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