Stay safe on your journey and camping.
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If one considers the time line that this was an insurrection is plausible. Zuma was warned that he would be facing imprisonment for a few months now. He was then given a prison term and told to hand himself in the next day. He didn’t, and then handed himself in about a week later. The next day, Mooi River Toll Plaza (where I am from), erupts into chaos and shuts down the N3 which is the country’s most integral supply route. Not Nkandla or Ulundi or Zululand as a whole, but Mooi River, the seemingly most random place one could think of but if you think about it, it’s actually the perfect spot to cut off. Nowhere else on the N3 is in such close proximity to a large township, has such a small police force (its a damn small town) with almost zero reactive capability and the alternate route so close (The R103 passes literally 200m away from the N3 at Mooi River). It’s the perfect choke point.
Under the free Zuma protest, this rapidly spread using the Zulu nation as a vehicle, KZN being predominately Zulu and as such it spread across KZN like wildfire. Fake news and social media, especially Whatsapp, helped spread it. For example, the lady who works for me sent me a voice note saying white people were gathering in hundreds at Zuri Beach in Margate, armed, ready to attack and asked me if it was true as I am literally in sight of Zuri Beach. The voice note goes on to say that they need to attack and that the whites waited for 27 years for this moment. There are also numerous incitements that took place encouraging the attacks against malls, banks and infrastructure so as to bring down the White Capital Monopoly. And so it went on and key infrastructure was attacked including factories and warehouses as well as schools, pharmacies and clinics. The Ports of Durban and Richard’s Bay were shut down completely as well as the arterial routes into the inland and along the coasts.
Whether or not the allegations are true remains to be seen. Having reviewed the time line, having seen the scenes that played out, having heard and seen screen shots of the actual incitements and the calls for the carnage to spread across the country and then playing it back day by day I can see a certain strategic theme. That may be entirely coincidental but I am of the opinion that this didn’t just play out naturally and spontaneously when Zuma was jailed. Then again, the government is pitifully inadequate to the masses at times, is bloated and corrupt so this may indeed be a cover story to cover their own asses. I do tend to lean towards the former though, the time line and placings of the incidents are just too coincidental for me.
There were obviously those that couldn’t give a shit about Zuma or politics and they took the opportunity to grab and loot what they could. In essence though, one can see a certain logic in inciting this as it become a perfect cover for acts of sabotage such as the factories being burned and the closure of the road networks…
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So how is the situation now @wyld.at.hrt ?
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Sorry, away camping in the Kruger and signal is pretty poor here. Things have ‘normalised’ relatively quickly; supply was prioritised and the routes reopened by Friday afternoon. Thus in our area, and areas where malls and shopping centres were guarded and not looted, by Sunday/Monday everything that one could get two weeks ago was back in stock. Other areas need more attention as their distribution centres were razed but residents can go to other areas and get goods without too much hassle bar the journey.
That said, there is an enormous amount of damage to be rebuilt in people’s lives as well as on a community scale. Old social and economic wounds have been reopened and will take a long long time to heal. Again. One step forward, two steps back.
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Good to know things are getting normal and you and family are safe. Stay safe.
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There’s something oddly nostalgic about this news report
I had a remote hearing with Mrs Justice Ellenbogen today and you could hear the noise from this protest!
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Not sure why people are falling over themselves to stop people posting on SM?
No idea yet.
I was just about to post that. Sounds like multiple casualties. 
Well that was 20 years, and thousands of lives lost well spent
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The Taliban have reached Torkham which is strategic gateway to Pakistan via Khyber pass. That is it. Game over for Ghani’s govt. He will resign and handover power to the Taliban.
So many people lost thei loved ones in vain.
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The Afghan Army basically just gave up, didn’t it?
Talibans have lost over 80,000 combatants in last two decades. I feel,
- Fighting them is not the answer
- Whatever the media narrative, they have a very strong following among Afghans
Do you think their fundamental style of government will spread into adjoining countries then @Iftikhar . How strong is support for that type of Islamic fundamentalism in your country? Is there any aspect of sharia law in your country?
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Many Afghans hate Taliban, even the pashtuns. I say that from my own family’s perspective.
Let’s see what they do. They got help from Qatar. I also hear China will recognise the Taliban as the government.
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@Rambler Let’s set aside the Taliban issue for a while. The rightwing/fascist forces, which inevitably hides behind Islam, is on a rampage here for around a decade. And they are doing it with explicate support/collaboration of the ruling party which claims to be secular and even, wait for it, socialist. Their external supply line can be traced through India, Pakistan, UAE, and, oh yes, Saudi Arabia. Some of the things the government has done in recent years to appease them:
- Removed the statue of Lady Justice from Supreme Court
- Removed another statue from in front of Dhaka Airport
- Stopped building a statue of the PM’s father
- Removed poems by non-Muslims from curriculum
- Made religious studies mandatory till Class X (that’s probably O Level for you)
- Made ALL vaccinations optional
- Stopped promoting birth control measures/products
I don’t know what other atrocities have already been done because I don’t even try to know what’s happening here since that scam of an election in 2018.
I stand with the ordinary Afghans. For last four decades their options have been
- Inept, corrupt, puppet regimes
- Bloodthirsty, greedy warlords
- Taliban
A lot of people don’t like Taliban, why would they? But most people aren’t, probably, coy about the other two options either.
Like I said, I stand with the Afghans and I still dare to hope that those wonderful people will have sanctity in near future. 
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The U.S. learned nothing in Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh was popular with many Vietnamese as a bulwark against decades of colonial rule. You don’t need to know much about Afghanistan to understand many Afganis are pro-Taliban, for whatever their reasons may be. Twenty years, hundreds of billions spent to train and equip a “national” military. It folds in weeks. That is its own kind of election.
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