This video is FOR nuclear power, and we too are for it.

(Though we remain unpersuaded that “carbon emissions”- which is to say, emissions of carbon dioxide, the food of green plants – urgently need to be kept low.)

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DebkaFile reports:

Anti-government protests spread to Tehran today [Monday, July 27, 2021], after a week of raging demonstrations in Khuzestan over water and power shortages.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters across the capital began shouting such slogans as “Death to the dictator!” (supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ) and “Clerics get lost!”

Some took up on the watchword of the 2006 opposition riots that were brutally quelled:

“No for Gaza, No for Lebanon, My life for Iran.”

– allusions to Iranian support for two terrorist organizations: Hamas, ruling Gaza, and Hezbollah, disastrously holding Lebanon hostage.

Placards carried the words

“Today is the day of mourning, workers’ lives hang in the balance”

– as 31,814 new covid cases were recorded, the highest single-day figure ever, and 322 fatalities took the death toll to 89,122. Altogether 3,500 people were hospitalized in the last 24 hours, according to Iran’s health ministry, with a warning that the fifth wave has yet to peak out.

Deputy governor of Tehran Hamidreza Goodarzi admitted that there was “street unrest” which he attributed to long power outages, some spanning several days. He offered no information on how security forces were dispersing the furious protesters.

In the southern oil-rich Khuzestan, eight demonstrators were killed when the Revolutionary Guards were enlisted to break up protests against water shortages and electricity blackouts.

The lives of Iranians are unlikely to improve when Ibrahim Raisi is sworn in as president in August.

Who is Ibrahim Raisi? A monster who has earned the trust of the ayatollahs.

In 2019 Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Kamenei appointed him chairman of the judiciary.

He has the approval of the very powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

He is particularly remembered for his part in a great  binge of zealous cruelty in 1988, ordered by the founder of the republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Raisi was a member of an infamous “death committee” which condemned thousands of Iranians to be hanged from cranes for religious heresy and/or political dissent. 

According to DebkaFile –

Some activists voiced disappointment over the absence of words of support from the Biden administration or condemnation of the clerical regime’s harsh crackdown of dissent.

But they have no reason to expect anything helpful from the “Biden” administration. The Democrat-loyal state department is pursuing Obama’s policy, desperately trying to revive the rotten “deal” Obama made with the Iranian regime to help it become a nuclear power while seeming to restrain it.

Here we go! Arizona Trump Rally (top) vs. Biden’s “town hall” (bottom). #AmericaFirst #Arizona pic.twitter.com/FdgcjhUwH2

— Republican Party of Arizona (@AZGOP) July 24, 2021

Question: Who attracts the greater support, the more enthusiastic crowd, the more votes: Trump or Biden?

The pictures provide a clue.

At the Turning Point Action conference in Phoenix, Arizona, on Saturday, July 24, 2021, President Donald Trump told supporters that Democrats cannot win elections without cheating.

“The facts are coming out,” he said. “The truth is being uncovered and the crime of the century is being fully exposed.”

Turning Point USA, hosting the event, is a young conservative group.

Read more here.

Video of the event (very long) here.

This is a very interesting and convincing account of what has happened in South Africa as a result of a dangerous idea.

It is also a warning to America, threatened by the same dangerous idea.

We reproduce the article in full.

Rian Malan writes at the New York Post:

As South Africa erupted into chaos, my thoughts turned to the United States — a great country brought low by the same toxic and demented racial politics that set afire my homeland last week.

As I write, shell-shocked South Africans are trying to muster a response to an orgy of arson and looting. Cargo vessels are being turned away from some of our largest harbors, because it’s too dangerous to unload them. Hundreds of thousands face hunger thanks to the destruction of warehouses and disruption of food-supply chains. Tens of thousands of jobs and small businesses have been destroyed; the property damage is incalculable.

Former President Jacob Zuma’s refusal to be held accountable for corruption triggered this mayhem. Rather than face the prospect of imprisonment and disgrace, he seems to have attempted a preemptive coup against his successor.

But this is just part of the picture. The overarching truth is that an idea pushed South Africa to the brink. You guys know this idea, because it animates the sermons of critical race theorists trying to force you to take the knee and atone for your supposed sins. I am going to call it the Beautiful Idea, because it is beautiful in a way — but also dangerous.

The Beautiful Idea holds that all humans are born with identical gifts and should turn out to be clones of one another in a just society. Conversely, any situation in which disparity survives is in itself proof of injustice. This is the line promoted by CRT pundit Ibram X. Kendi, who blames all racial disparities on racist policies.

But what policies is he talking about? Kendi is reluctant to be drawn on this score, and with good reason: He can’t name the policies, because they don’t exist anymore. In your country, all discriminatory laws have been repealed, all forms of overt racism outlawed and replaced by laws that enforce preferential black access to jobs, housing and college admissions.

So Kendi must insist that an invisible miasma of “systemic racism” infects white people and propels them to act in ways so subtly racist that most of them aren’t even aware they’re sick until it is pointed out to them by diversity consultants.

Once upon a time, South African revolutionaries would have laughed at this sort of thing. Until the mid-1980s, the aims of our freedom struggle were the eradication of capitalism and the creation of a classless society where equity would be enforced at gunpoint by commissars. But the Soviet Union collapsed just as the African National Congress started its rise to power, forcing our new leaders to embrace economic policies of the neoliberal variety.

This didn’t set well with the hard left, which openly reviled President Thabo Mbeki (1999-2008) as a sellout. To mollify them, Mbeki set about building a black middle and upper class that would reap the fruits of neoliberalism and thank him for it.

The object of this new game was not to destroy capitalism, but to force it to open its doors to aspirant blacks. Starting in l999, Mbeki’s government enacted a phalanx of American-sounding laws intended to eradicate racial disparities of the sort that exercise Kendi. The old revolutionary songs were dusted off at rallies, but somewhere along the line, the Beautiful Idea replaced socialism as our ideological lodestar.

At the turn of the new millennium, Mbeki let it be known that he was displeased by the national rugby team’s slow progress towards full racial representation. Athletic failure, he suggested, was preferable to lack of full representation. Equity before victory.

At least initially, Mbeki’s scheme worked fairly well. Some blacks became billionaires. Many others joined the white suburban elite and sent their kids to private schools. Transformation of the civil service spurred the growth of a new black middle class, generally commanding salaries far higher than in the private economy.

But in the longer term, the economic consequences were devastating. In addition to paying taxes at Scandinavian levels, South African corporations were required to cede large ownership stakes to black partners, whether or not they brought anything to the table besides black skin and connections in high places

Firms were also required to meet racial quotas in hiring and ensure that management was racially representative, meaning roughly 88 percent black. Tendering for government business became increasingly pointless, because contracts were invariably awarded to black-owned firms, even if their prices were double, triple or tenfold.

Investment dried up. Brains drained. The economy stagnated, causing unemployment to surge to 11.4 million today, from 3.3 million in l994. The upshot: utter misery for the underclass, doomed to sit in tin shacks, half-starved, watching the black elite grow fat on the pickings of equity laws and rampant corruption.

This was an especially bitter experience for young black people, 63 percent of whom are now jobless, too broke even for booze and drugs to dull the pain. Last week, it proved easy for Zuma and his acolytes to tempt them onto the streets with the promise of loot.

And so we come to the moral of this story. It’s a warning about the practical consequences of ideas like those propounded by Kendi and CRT superstar Robin DiAngelo, who in the name of “equity” maintains it is racist to talk of work ethic or to expect all workers to show up on time, regardless of race.

It is exactly these values that have brought South Africa to its knees. We created a society where nothing was expected of blacks save “blackness.” Honor and diligence were not demanded of government appointees. Sloth was tolerated. Failures and corruption went unpunished. Blind pursuit of equity began to achieve its opposite: a staggering equality gap among blacks themselves, with a fortunate few benefitting hugely and the masses sinking into abject misery.

Most black South Africans recognize this. By 2021, only 3 percent of them cited racism as a serious problem, according to a survey by the Institute of Race Relations. The same survey found that 83 percent of black South Africans were in full or partial agreement with the following statement: “Politicians are talking about racism to excuse their own failures.”

Which brings us to the slender silver lining in this dark story. Many black South Africans who oppose this lawlessness were out in force last week, manning roadblocks to keep the mobs away from their homes and businesses.

I can hear their voices on the radio, clamoring for change. By the sound of it, they want a country where human outcomes are determined by the content of one’s character, not by pigmentation or friends in the ruling party. Martin Luther King would appreciate their message. Kendi & Co. wouldn’t.

Edward Chang writes at American Greatness:

The battlelines … in South Africa today fall along racial lines—whites and Indians defending against mostly black rioters. …

It’s an alarming situation for South Africans, sure, but why should Americans care about what’s happening there? …

Because, Chang argues –

The United States, along with much of the West, experienced tremendous mass social unrest unseen for generations in 2020. Ignited by the [death in police custody] of George Floyd, race was the central issue underpinning the unrest and has dominated nearly every sphere of American life since. As in South Africa, dozens died, with an estimated $2 billion in property loss incurred. In some places, like the Pacific Northwest, the unrest never ended. …

Crime is a grave concern [in the US], one both the local governments and the Biden Administration seem at a loss to address, in no small part due to their support for last year’s unrest and ambivalent attitude towards law and order. …

A small but increasing number of analysts believe the United States is entering or already engaged in a low-intensity conflict, pointing to … lingering political discontent, increased crime, economic uncertainty, and rampant illegal immigration … The worst may be yet to come.

South Africa seems far away from the United States … but given it, too, was once a developed, industrialized country with a distinctly European character, Americans ought to view the current situation as a warning: nothing is too big, powerful, nor prosperous to fall. As warehouses burn and food supplies run out, with no hope of relief, it appears South Africa as it exists today might have reached its last line of defense.

It’s not the end for America, but if the end can be seen anywhere on the globe, it’s in South Africa.

If America were to go the way of South Africa, it would mean the end of Western civilization.

But surely Americans will not let that happen.

PAUL ALLARD HODGKINS

KNIGHT TRUMPIST

Breitbart reports this:

A man who engaged in non-violent protest at the Capitol on January 6 was sentenced to eight months in prison this week for obstructing an official proceeding, while hundreds charged in violent riots last summer have seen their cases dropped.

Paul Allard Hodgkins, 38, of Tampa, Florida, was sentenced Monday after he pleaded guilty to a single felony count of obstructing an official proceeding, after he was identified in videos and photos inside the Senate chamber carrying a Trump 2020 flag.

Absurdly –

U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss told Hodgkins, “Although you were only one member of a larger mob, you actively participated in a larger event that threatened the Capitol and democracy itself. The damage that was caused that way was way beyond a several-hour delay of the vote certification. It is a damage that will persist in this country for several decades.”

Mona Sedky, an assistant U.S. attorney argued, “Imposing prison time “will send a loud and clear message to other would-be rioters that if and when they’re caught, they will face a serious sentence. So there won’t be a next time.”

Will it indeed?

Let’s see what clear messages against rioting are being sent from the courts:

Hundreds of people who were arrested in connection with riots last summer have seen their charges dismissed.  There were 485 arrests in Manhattan, but 222 had their cases were dropped and 73 got lesser counts. Another 40 cases involved juveniles and were sent to family court, and 128 cases remained open. In the Bronx, of 118 arrests made, 73 cases were dismissed, 18 cases remained open, and there were only 19 convictions on counts like trespassing that carried no jail time.

There  were already more than 300 arrests on federal crimes since George Floyd’s death – violent crimes including arson for throwing Molotov cocktails and burning police cars, and injuring law enforcement.

About one-third of the cases were for crimes in Portland, including assaulting a deputy U.S. marshal with a baseball bat, setting fires and setting off explosives at the federal courthouse and throwing rocks at officers. [But] federal prosecutors in Portland have moved to dismiss almost half the cases. Of 96 cases the U.S. attorney’s office filed last year charging protesters with federal crimes, including assaulting federal officers, civil disorder, and failing to obey, prosecutors have dropped 47 of them. Only 10 people have pleaded guilty to related charges and two were ordered detained pending trial, but none had yet gone to trial. The penalties levied against any federal defendants largely consisted of “community service, such as working in a food bank or encouraging people to vote” [!].

Four rioters who took part in pro-BLM riots last summer did receive jail time, however, but for setting fire to the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct headquarters and causing $12 million in damages. There was an estimated $1 billion-plus in riot damage after Floyd’s death — the most expensive in history.

The message this record conveys is clear enough, but it is not a warning against rioting.

The message is: “Vote Democrat and support BLM to help destroy America.” 

Fertile, mineral rich, naturally glorious, splendidly developed, constitutionally orderly South Africa, with equality under the law and a relatively free economy, is fast becoming just another African hellhole.

It is now in a sharp and probably irreversible decline caused by the misrule and corruption of the ANC (African National Congress), which has been in power since exclusive white rule ended in 1994.

Its first black president, Nelson Mandela, was a communist who saw the sense of keeping the country capitalist. It seemed set fair to prosper – even though free enterprise was hampered by labor-protection laws made to conciliate the powerful trade unions.

The ANC, Mandela’s party, promised jobs and good housing for all. But unemployment grew, largely because of the laws protecting black employment, and shanty-towns remained, worsened, and proliferated.

As the ANC continued to rule in callous arrogance (and still does), the power-stations became unreliable and electricity cuts ever more frequent; roads were not repaired; water-supplies and the postal service became unreliable; hospitals were closed; education was rotten. The government looted the country. Civil servants and politicians took bribes for favors. (Recently, Covid relief money never reached anyone to provide relief, it simply “disappeared”.)

Mandela was succeeded in 1999 by Thabo Mbeki, whose deputy president for six years was Jacob Zuma. Mbeki dismissed him in 2005 because his reputation had become scandalous for rape and corruption. Zuma was nevertheless elected leader of the ANC in 2007, and as such became president of South Africa in 2009. His presidency ended in 2018 and Cyril  Ramaphosa’s began.

After he left office, sixteen criminal charges were brought against Zuma for fraud, racketeering, money-laundering in connection to illegal arms-dealing. He tried to get them struck down but failed. He refused to appear before a commission investigating government corruption when ordered to do so by the Constitutional Court. So on June 29, 2021 he was sentenced to 15 months in jail for contempt of court and given until July 7 to turn himself in. When he did not, the police went to his home to arrest him. They found huge crowds of his supporters surrounding his house.

Jani Allan, ex-South African journalist now living in the US, describes the scene, writing at RT:

Thousands of his supporters traveled at the weekend to Zuma’s home village of Nkandla in Kwa-Zulu Natal, to form a human shield to prevent him from being arrested … Zulus wearing traditional garb and carrying shields and knobkerries toyi-toyi’ed and sang ‘struggle’ songs.

But Zuma surrendered to the police and was taken to jail.

On July 9 , the high court of  the province heard and rejected his challenge to the fifteen-month sentence, which he brought on the grounds that he was 79 years old and jailing him in the midst of the Covid epidemic was tantamount to a death sentence.

Protests against his imprisonment erupted, and quickly became violent. Looting, arson, and massive destruction followed, not only in the province of KwaZulu-Natal but also in Guateng, in and near Johannesburg.

R. W. Johnson, emeritus fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, who lives in South Africa and has written extensively about it, writes at Quillette:

The explosion of violence followed the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma on a charge of contempt for refusing to appear before the Commission of enquiry into the wholesale looting of the state which took place under his presidency. Nobody seriously doubts that Zuma stole millions, probably billions of Rands and he still faces a long list of charges for racketeering, money-laundering and sundry other crimes. But Zuma still has a large following among his Zulu followers and effectively threatened to make the country ungovernable if the government dared to jail him. …

Once the rioting and looting of shops and hijacking of trucks on the highway began, with the police clearly scared and ineffective, word rapidly spread that you could go “shopping without money”, creating huge excitement among the ranks of the millions of poor and unemployed Zulus who inhabit the townships and squatter camps around Durban and Pietermaritzburg, and from there spreading into every small town of the province. Most of the looters and miscreants were unconcerned about Zuma’s fate. They simply heard along the grapevine that trouble was going on and realised that opportunity was staring them in the face.

They flocked in huge numbers to the shopping malls and began to loot them. Quickly the spree spread to Johannesburg, home to many more Zulus—though many others joined in. It was a whole-of-community thing: most of the looters were poor and on foot but not a few arrived in cars, sometimes very expensive cars. Some even came with vast trailers to haul away freezers, fridges, and cookers. Huge queues of cars swamped the freeways, all heading for the malls, and other forms of criminality blossomed—protection rackets, attacks on and thefts from other motorists, anything that offered a quick buck.

In a sense this had been coming for a long time. When the ANC was first elected in 1994 its posters promised “Jobs, jobs, jobs!” but paid little heed to that once they were elected. In 1995 the average number of unemployed, according to official figures, was 1,698,000 or, if one took the expanded definition of unemployment, including those who had given up looking for a job, the figure was 3,321,000. With only a few exceptional periods to the contrary, that figure has grown steadily and hugely to surpass 11.4 million today. Since the unemployed have little or no income, this has also meant a huge growth in both poverty and inequality. The ANC has routinely deplored poverty and inequality but it has generally tried to pretend that this is part of the “apartheid inheritance”. As the figures show, this is the opposite of the truth.

If you assume that each of those 11.4 million has two or three dependants, we are talking of households comprising 30 million people—half the entire population or even more. They are, for the most part, sitting in shacks, cold, hungry, without alcohol (banned as part of the COVID lockdown), insecure, with nothing to do and with almost no hope of a job. It is a picture of pure misery. These are the greatest victims of ANC misrule. Many of them are young people who have never worked in their life and who have given up hope that they ever will. For the young women among them prostitution is almost their only hope of an income. One looter, when interviewed on TV, frankly admitted that he stole every day because otherwise his 15 year old sister would “have to sleep with a grandad”. 

In practice the plight of the unemployed and poor has been ignored. The government is far more concerned with the “haves” within its coalition—the BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) capitalists, the public sector workers and the trade union bosses. …

Government is attentive to the trade unions of those in work but all it has for the unemployed is crocodile tears. … South Africa’s tight labour laws greatly privilege those in employment, giving the unemployed little opportunity to compete for jobs. Moreover, the huge weight of endemic corruption together with inept policy choices means that South Africa is now in its seventh consecutive year of falling real per capita incomes. People are getting steadily poorer and COVID lockdowns have increased the misery, costing many jobs.

If people who are ignored and treated like this are told that the time has arrived for shopping without money, how can one be surprised that they respond in such numbers and with such enthusiasm? That sort of shopping is fun and exciting and you end up with food, drink, and a new TV. …

There are also clearly political elements trying to make the country ungovernable by attacking key pieces of infrastructure—there have been attacks on reservoirs, over 120 attacks on electricity sub-stations, and the road leading to the Sapref refinery in Durban (which produces one third of all South Africa’s petrol) has become so dangerous due to continuous attacks on vehicles that the refinery has had to close down completely. Already there are huge queues at garages and a major fuel crisis is building. Moreover, as soon as a shop, warehouse, or factory has been looted it is set on fire. None of these crimes produce money and the destruction of such buildings is bound to cost jobs and lead to many more people going hungry in future. …

There is general indignation that the police have been so passive, usually just standing by and watching the looting going on. They are, of course, hugely outnumbered, though they are armed. There are many cases of the police themselves operating protection rackets and demanding “favours” from the public. …

Ramaphosa finally ordered 2,500 troops in to support the police but they make no difference: they too stand passively by as looting goes on, for the government is clearly terrified of the optics of a black government firing on poor black people. In any case, South Africa is a big country and the troops are far too thinly spread. Yet the looting goes on day after day and right before the government’s eyes the country is being destroyed, investor confidence is being undermined, and any hope of South Africa emerging from its economic crisis is vanishing. While only two provinces are affected, Gauteng is the country’s economic heart, producing 40 percent of its GDP, and Durban is the major port. The highway between Durban and Johannesburg is the country’s main economic artery and that has been closed for many days now.

With the forces of law and order so weak and inactive, vigilante militias have sprung up to protect many suburbs and, typically, to protect their local mall or supermarket on which that suburb depends. Often these vigilante groups are multiracial but usually they depend on white ex-members of the security forces. They are armed and determined to stop looting spreading to their homes. …

Already food and fuel shortages are developing. No one is going to resupply malls that have been burned or, indeed, any shop that is vulnerable to looting. So even if the looting stops as the looters run out of targets, there is bound to be a major hunger crisis—which could drive people to even more desperate acts: the big worry is attacks on private homes. But ATMs have been destroyed, pharmacies ransacked, and drink shops pillaged so there will be shortages of medical and other supplies as well. …

The Rand has dropped sharply and could fall more.

What the riots point to is the colossal failure of ANC governance. It has emphatically not brought a better life for poor Africans.

The outlook is for terrible crises of hunger, and shortages of fuel and medical supplies. A great deal of social infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed—some 400 malls were attacked, including many pharmacies. The ANC is more divided than ever and the economy has taken an enormous blow. Without doubt real incomes will continue to fall.

This is what the ANC has achieved after 27 years in power. … For years in opposition it boasted of how it would improve the life of the African masses, but it has found that the task of governance was a whole lot more difficult than it imagined and it is steering South Africa steadily towards the status of a failed state.

Update

Breitbart reports:

South Africa’s “looting death toll” from violent rioting reached 337 on Thursday July 22, 2021. Public health officials confirmed 79 deaths in Gauteng province and 258 in KwaZulu-Natal.

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Dr. Karin Morrow is a general practitioner in Durban, South Africa. She described on Twitter the recent violent rioting and looting that has destabilized and terrified the whole country. The pretext for the protests that became an insurgency was the arrest of the former president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma. According to AP, at least 215 people have died in “the unrest”.

We quote her account as edited by the South African journalist David Bullard:

Friday July 9th  

This was the day the planned anarchy began. Apart from the torching of trucks at the Mooi River Toll plaza there were burning tyres in the Durban CBD [Central Business District],  blocked streets and sugar cane fields set alight. All this was celebrated on Twitter by Dudu Zuma Sabudla whom I reported, as did many others, but no action was taken. KZN [KwaZulu-Natal] premier Sihle Zikalala didn’t help matters by siding with [former President] Zuma and demanding a presidential pardon. That would have encouraged the looters no end. Our mayor remained invisible.

Saturday July 10th

A brief lull and there were predictions that the N3 [freeway] would be cleared but truckers were warned to be wary. Not a word from our leaders. In the evening a black patient of mine messaged me saying she had heard that the whole of KZN was going to be shut down next week and could she get her prescription now and make an appointment for a month end consultation. I told her I lived in a bubble and hadn’t heard this and jokingly suggested that she should offer her services as ‘intel’ to Pres Ramaphosa.

Sunday July 11^th 

This was the start of the real chaos, which was to become a daily occurrence during the week. Co-ordinated simultaneous looting and arson attacks were launched on various buildings including a liquor warehouse in Pinetown. Gunfire rang out that night along with shouting and screaming from Mayville/Cato Crest which is 2km as the crow flies from where I live. Frenzied WhatsApp messages went out asking what was going on?

Monday July 12^th 

The frenzy of last night was explained this morning with photos of the gutted small business district of Mayville. Businesses were set alight and the police shot at. But things were about to get much worse. Today was to be Durban’s apocalypse. Warehouses, shopping centres, liquor outlets, factories, schools, storage units, pharmacies, water reservoirs all attacked and most destroyed. Even a blood bank was destroyed. The lack of chronic medication is going to be a major problem in the coming days and weeks.

Meanwhile, silence from our Premier and mayor and the eThekwini Twitter site had temporarily shut down.

I watched mobs of looters surge over the ridge and down into my suburb of Glenwood to strip the local shopping centres. Davenport Centre and Berea Centre along with smaller shops along the way were all smashed and looted. The looters returned up the hill towards the informal settlement and the university residence pushing trolleys of stolen goods, carrying bags on their heads, pulling crates of beer along the road and one even carrying a typist’s office chair.

I drove up to collect my elderly parents who live close to the settlement. The roads were barely passable, strewn with rubbish and broken glass with looters still weaving their way home with their spoils.

I drove past my local Woolies [Woolworths] which had been smashed and emptied. I saw my first police in several days.

The air was acrid with the many fires burning and fine ash rained down as we heard constant gunfire in the distance.

Our local community finally realised that nobody was coming to protect our lives and our homes so civilian volunteers gathered at a central point and patrols were set up for the night and the following day. These would be termed “vigilante militias” by smug woke journos and academics sitting in nice safe Cape Town.

That evening we watched Pres Ramaphosa’s underwhelming address to the nation as the looting of the Queensmead Mall in Umbilo unfolded on the screen behind him….and not a policeman to be seen.

Tuesday July 13^th 

The destruction has spread to the large warehouses like Massmart and other buildings in what used to be the business district but is now a war zone. There are aerial shots of long queues of cars, many of them upper end of the market vehicles, all waiting to load up and transport stolen goods. So much for this being all about the starving unemployed just trying to survive. Durban residents started with the clean up process of their suburbs and it was uplifting to see how good people could come together in times of adversity. Our political leaders were still conspicuous by their absence apart from the DA’s [Democratic Alliance] John Steenhuisen (a Durban man) who gave some very welcome support on the ground to traumatised residents. By contrast, the EFF’s [Economic Freedom Fighters] Julius Malema was using social media to tell his followers to cause more mayhem.

There are food and fuel shortages and medicines are difficult to come by. Long queues are forming and decent citizens are patiently standing in those long queues and shopping for those who are unable to do so. There’s no fighting…..I guess traumatised people who have been under attack become rather docile. Some even managed to crack a few jokes to keep spirits up.

My phone has been pinging all day with patients who need new prescriptions to take to an unlooted pharmacy if they are lucky enough to find one.

Finally, the day takes its toll and I break down with the first (and I hope last) anxiety attack of my life triggered by watching yet more TV coverage of my home province being destroyed. I collapse in a sobbing heap, feel hopeless and can’t move. My family honestly believe I am dying because I can generally cope with most situations. I take the same tranquilisers I prescribe to patients who suffer anxiety attacks and they seem to help. 

Thursday July 15^th 

Sporadic looting and arson has continued while the community continues to clean up and queue for what little food is left in the neighbourhood. There’s anger at the lack of adequate police presence and the Premier was chased away from Ballito, north of Durban, when he appeared and ordered residents to remove their barricades. The SANDF [South African National Defence Force] finally arrived which was a welcome sight but far too little too late. In other news, dead fish and crayfish [large lobsters] are washing up on  beaches having been poisoned by the spillage from a burnt out chemical factory. So we now have a toxic ocean to add to our toxic land.

Friday July 16th

My first day back at the surgery this week and my receptionist came in. She lives on the Bluff which managed to repel repeated attempts by looting hordes thanks to a well armed community militia. Very busy issuing new prescriptions but our COVID vaccine roll out has ground to a halt. Is there even any vaccine left in KZN?

Durbanites are strong people but this week we have been severely traumatised. Apart from the ever present threat of COVID there will almost certainly be a wave of stress related illnesses that will hit us. There may be an uneasy calm now but, but as with any post traumatic stress disorder, there is a huge anticipatory anxiety. If it happened once with such impunity and ease it can surely happen again. The question is…… when?