Greetings from South Africa, a nation on the eve of total lockdown which begins in the next few hours. Covid-19 has arrived and we are in a state of emergency, with a three week lockdown about to commence in coming hours.
Now remember that this is Africa, the most vulnerable and impoverished continent on the globe. I may be in one of the top economies on the continent, along with Nigeria and perhaps Egypt, but I am also in the nation with the highest income inequality or wealth gap possibly in the world. This means we have the poorest living beside the richest, in different suburbs of course, but nevertheless not far from each other. And as the lack of work, income or cash begins to bite, the poorest become desperate, and I fear the worst case scenario may unfold – riots and looting.
Crime is already one of the highest in the world here. Mass marches occur regularly so the people are easily mobilized by union leaders. Also looting takes place sometimes during these mob protests. Shops will be attacked, windows smashed and goods looted. The other African foreign nationals are usually the first targets, like the little Somalian shops that sell staple daily items in the poorest suburbs. Also the liquor stores are prime targets for raiding and looting. Such is the mentality here.
And then of course come the white skinned locals as targets. Us descendants of European ancestry, fourth or fifth generation or whatever, are all at a vast minority or 1 to 10 in South Africa, and as the descendants of the former colonisers and Apartheid era, we are immediate targets of crime. After all most European Africans – if you can call us that – generally appear to have more wealth and better houses. That’s true of most of the wealthiest, they are of Euro descent, but not all of us. I am living a very simple life here in sunny South Africa, earning the equivalent of the lowest minimum wage, on par with a gardener or housecleaning lady. And I have a wonderful life, because I know how to live very simply with very little luxuries, while appreciating the sunshine, beaches and nature.
However, I am still a European African and so fall into the demographic of the oppressor or of the elite or the rich. That is how the country has evolved based on it’s past social and political history. And so I am a target, or at least I feel like one. Can you imagine a daily life with the constant background stress that you could be attacked, robbed or even your home raided by a hungry enraged African mob, or even just a couple of criminals armed and dangerous and ready to loot your little cottage? This is how it feels daily here. And now with total lockdown and no one earning money, It could get very worrying, if you see what I mean.
I have no burglar bars on my windows. It is very easy for someone to just throw a stone, smash the glass and enter at will in my rented cottage. And this global economic collapse and pandemic is the perfect catalyst for triggering looters. It could drive the poor in spirit and money quite crazy and they may get desperate. Even my own work has totally dried up as it involved travel, and no one is traveling. So I am out of income, and my bank account is just about empty. But I appear wealthy as a Euro African, and I have a laptop, smart phone, etc which are targets for criminals.
So things are looking worrying from so many angles now for a nation like South Africa, and others where poverty is rife. If even the wealthiest nations are going to suffer economic collapse, then what to speak of the poorest. And here the poorest are the vast majority and they can erupt into mob madness and crime very easily, feeling almost justified due to being oppressed by the Europeans here for almost 50 years before Apartheid ended. And even though it ended over 25 years ago, still the income inequality doesn’t appear to have changed and the masses are still poor and we have one of the highest unemployment figures in the world.
This place is a powder keg ready to erupt into crime and violence. And now Covid-19, work shutdown and total lockdown could be the fire that lights the fuse to the powder keg, resulting an a further wave of crime, or civil unrest. I pray the lockdown actually keep people indoors and unable to go out and commit crime but even with the army deployed on the streets, the country is huge and there are many places that are rural and remote, where criminals could just cross the bush unnoticed and arrive at my doorstep, lockdown or not. Perhaps this is my paranoia emerging, but it is based on a life growing up in the crime capital of the world, and already having fought off one knife-wielding attacker bare handed one morning in a house once before. So I speak from experience.