Protests in SA

There seems to be an outbreak of protests all over the world and especially in Africa. Since 2004 SA has seen its fair share of protests against the quality of service delivery of the governments. It is intersting that the poor have found their voice and are calling atention to their situation rather than simply sitting back and doing nothing, but complaining.


The protestors, who are mainly groups of minors and youths are calling on the government to improve the provision of basic services and the local governments response to residents' complaints. These protestors are dissatified with the poor housing, roads, illegal dumping and water problems. Some of the protests turned violent and had to be controlled by the police. It has been reported that some locals took advantage of the protests, looted shops and damaged public property. 88 people have been arrested for public violence, but the protests have been calmed and many of them have returned to normal life. There was only one casuality reported, which was an injured cop who was hit in the head with a stone.

Also, recently thousands of students in Pretoria protested to have free tertiary education (university and higher education). Earlier they protested to have an increase in financial aid, however, their demands went unheard, so they have now resorted to protesting for free tertiary education.

In my opinion, protests are a good thing and a very smart way for minority groups who never get attention from people in power to finally get their voices heard. The only dangerous aspect is that you never know when a protest might turn violent! I hope that the SA government would pay as much attention to the needs of the local people as they would otherwise pay to those in power.