![South Africa protest fire.jpg](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmTnvapTJZT4aKjre4597XGzh9UmNNtyHXZxpwsAx5qyeb)
Pic https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2016/10/28/why-do-south-african-protests-often-turn-violent 

The revolution has arrived in my town. 
I live in a small seaside holiday town on the south coast of Africa filled with exclusive millionaire’s mansions and world class sea views. But just up the road a few kilometres, is the National highway, the main artery that runs all along the south Cape coast, from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth and Durban. And on that highway, at the junction with my peaceful little resort town, is a huge tightly packed mass of tens of thousands of working class black Africans in houses the size of shoe boxes – those who have houses. The rest are in tin shacks that they have bound together themselves to make a home to live in, maybe with wooden wall posts and roof support. And every so often this past year, this third world township has been rioting.

The culture of protest
Actually it’s more than every so often. The past two months of this year, we have had regular weekly or even occasional daily street demonstrations and the blocking of the entire National highway that I mentioned, just next to the township. The people come out from the shacks and little homes and they walk all over the highway, blocking it completely. They even burn tyres and place rocks to prevent any traffic at all. They basically shut down the delivery transport system for the south of Africa. There are no trains down here anymore for the public or delivery of goods, only in the main cities. There are these 14 seater mini-bus taxis that are so popular in Africa. So if the road into town is blocked, then the workforce can’t get into work and the shops and schools and taxis just close down. Even the supermarket – the one left open – will be on skeleton staff with the managers helping at the tills.

 https://twitter.com/Snazo_Gulwa/status/1098169707608395777  - video link of the highway protest

Town planning loophole
This is going on today as I write this, in my town. The strategic positioning of it on the main artery makes it a target, as well as the fact that the divide between rich and poor is most obvious in this very town. The masses have become expectant of their government to provide hand outs of free homes and water, which some are getting and the rest pay very little. However, electricity prices have pushed people to the edge of their tether – that and lack of basic services. The infrastructure is still third world for many, despite the first world suburb within sight by the seaside.

People power is having its voice heard
The culture of expectancy as well as a robust trade union and progressive Constitution, allows for open and free peaceful protest. As a result the police simply look on. Occasionally they may intervene, and it can get quite hairy too sometimes with rubber bullets and tear gas. But generally these regular protests are somehow permitted, and they achieve their two basic aims, firstly of shutting down commerce and any action, and second, gaining huge public attention to their demands. Strikes in the various labour sectors are also an ongoing issue to the corporations and first world capitalists. In this way the masses, the workers, the people still have a say in their country, thanks to the liberal democracy enshrined by Nelson Mandela after the Apartheid era.
 
The problem is that there is a township just like mine every few km all the way along the entire stretch of highway for thousands of kms. Every town has one along this route and throughout the country, so the crippling  rioting fever is able to spread. Sometimes it’s the town 25 kms from mine. Today's it’s my turn. And it’s not going away. In fact it’s only getting more prolific. Fueling the flames of discontent in the poor labour force, the working class, is the return of “load shedding”, where electricity is stopped every day for two hours because the grid cannot provide enough power with the increasing demand. Poor infrastructure planning has created a slowdown of sorts. 

Black market for coal crippling the power houses
That and major theft or corruption among coal delivery trucks who supply the coal to fuel the dirty old power stations. There is a bustling black market in rerouted coal truck deliveries, which steal the coal by bribing the truck drivers handsomely and then sell it back to the power station somehow, so it’s paid for twice. The police or authorities do nothing about it. At best the small fish are getting caught, not the big players. They might all be in on it. 

World revolution is hitting a street near you
Anyway the main point is that France is not the only country having an uprising of sorts by the yellow vests, the proletariat. It’s global. The system is crumbling and the elite are drawing up the drawbridges, leaving the mob to protest outside the citadel walls. But the mob won’t be pacified so easily any more with mere bread and circuses. When the bread starts running out and the currency starts losing value, not even football and gaming can distract us. Especially when the electricity also blacks out regularly. 

The future is uncertain
In my more than 50 years in this beautiful, sunny country to the south of the dark African continent, I have seen social suffering brought on by tyrannical rulers, I’ve seen peaceful, non-violent revolution, along with an official “Peace and Reconciliation” period and hearings. But now, 25 years after the old regime was toppled and Apartheid fell for good, there is still a more restless discontent brewing due to the continued hardship and deprivation experienced by the masses, now under the rule of their own African brothers. Where this will lead is uncertain, so the future is thus uncertain. Especially for a white descendant of the European colonizers in an African homeland. At least I have my solar panel if the power goes out, but when the mob starts blocking the supplies and peaceful protest leads to looting and land invasion, I will need to be prepared for the worst, as they say, while hoping for the best. I can hear sirens in the distance right now...