After Looting in South Africa: The Rainbow nation youth take matters into their own hands
Many residents were left stranded as transportation was halted due to the recent lootings in the provinces of Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal in South Africa.
Local businesses shut down as equipment and products were looted. Many people were uncertain of their safety after the report on the number of black people who had died; either during the stampedes or murdered by Indians in Phoenix; was announced by South Africa’s Acting Minister in the Presidency: Khumbudzo Ntshaveni.
A young South African student told us that it felt as if the world was coming to an end.
This, after they could not leave their homes out of fear of being caught in the crossfire. The student who wishes to remain unnamed revealed that in their township, many shops were looted and when they heard of the many black people that had been killed in Phoenix which is a neighbouring town; they feared even switching on the lights at night to avoid being noticed by potential killers.
As the looting came to a halt, Emelda Masango who lives in Johannesburg’s Crown Mine suburb took to social media to volunteer to assist with cleaning up businesses that were affected by the looting.
Her post gained traction within 24 hours sparking the #RebuildSA campaign.
This saw the youth of South Africa come together to clean up at the affected businesses, homes and even streets.
What was refreshing was that the youth from different racial backgrounds were working together towards diminishing the rising racial war between Black and Indian South Africans.
The South African National Defence Force was deployed to monitor the volunteers and provide protection. This of course, raising mixed views from locals in Alexandra about the deployment of additional soldiers in an effort to quell the ongoing violent looting sprees.
The soldiers were seen monitoring the streets of Alexandra, particularly around the Pan Africa Shopping Centre and Alexandra Plaza, where many stores were looted in the previous few days.
South Africa is known as the Rainbow nation and seeing how the different races were able to rebuild what was broken and help save the country is truly admirable.
This is what Ubuntu (humanity) is all about, it does not choose colour and knows no bounds. South Africans pride themselves of this act working towards the betterment of others.