South African podcaster is disgusted about looting! Thomas, welcome to Africa

His platform, The 360 Experience Podcast, is reliable and politically informative. He speaks truth to power. But today I was surprised to hear him complaining about the looting of a truck delivering liquor at a local shop. I thought we had covered that topic long back, when Blacks demonstrated against the incarceration of Jacob Zuma, who was sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment in 2021. Black South Africans could not take it; they were incensed about Jacob Zuma's incarceration: the demonstrations were violent.

Criminals turned demonstrations into looting and destruction; they took advantage to effect chaos and loot better. Armed with sticks, as weapons of mass destruction, they plundered shops, looted, destroyed infrastructure, barricaded main roads, and destroyed dozens of delivery trucks. Demonstrations spread like fire from KwaZulu‑Natal to Gauteng and Johannesburg. Many people were arrested, some died of bullet wounds, some were caught in fires of burning shops, unable to escape.

There was gross violation of human rights meted out by the SA police in curbing demonstrations that went unchallenged by activists. President Ramaphosa gave an order for the army to intervene. The presence of the army on the ground was ruthlessly violent to the looters. He had done that in Marikana: when it comes to business disruptions, mostly white‑owned, the president is ruthless. He did not disappoint.

The demonstrations were not about the incarceration of Zuma; they were relaying a strong message to the ANC government: it was about poverty and destitution evident in mostly densely populated Black areas in South Africa. Thomas knows this: his daily podcasts lament about a South African revolution that turned out not to be a revolution. The ANC betrayed the aspirations of the revolution. South African independence means nothing to the Black majority. They were given the right to vote and never beyond.

There is nothing of content in the new 1994 South African constitution with groundbreaking and meaningful changes in the lives of Black people. There is no way out for Blacks in South Africa. Unlike in Zimbabwe, where people have land to lean back on in times of absolute destitution, in South Africa there are millions of Black people without land.

The place Thomas was referring to in his podcast is an informal settlement, homes with "shake‑shake" constructions. He should have known better that in such informal settlements, where there is abject poverty known to Black South Africans only, a chance to loot in that environment is possible; given a small chance, citizens will maximize the loot to benefit for some days. He should have understood the situation better; instead, he ridicules them, brandishes them as rogues and criminals without morals. What morals on an empty stomach is Thomas talking about?

Abjectly poor people live in the now. Chronic empty stomachs don't know the morals Thomas was referring to. But his podcasts constantly allude to a deranged ANC politics that betrayed the aspirations of the Black population; rightly so. Days ago, his podcast was exposing an ANC official caught on camera distributing loaves of bread to potential voters; code‑named "one loaf of bread for a family." This must be ANC empowerment initiatives for the entire legislative period. It is also called addressing ubuntu. This is how Africans are insulted by their own leadership. Just saying.

When election period comes, ANC will distribute T‑shirts as a variation to bread distribution. Amazingly, Thomas lost track in combining his daily political analysis with the current looting in question. The "one bread for one family" initiative was so embarrassing that the ANC had to distance itself from its own empowerment project. Black empowerment projects failed dismally because of looting from the top echelons of ANC. Why is Thomas disgusted about looting a delivery truck when looting by ANC leadership is considered normal?

Thomas must be welcomed to Africa. Looting of that magnitude can only take place in Africa and nowhere else. Thomas is talking values of Western countries and not African when he denounces daylight looting. How does he want Black Africans to survive in a cruel capitalism like the one in South Africa? Thomas disdains the presence of Black foreigners in his South Africa. They must all be packaged back to where they came from. He sounds xenophobic.

"All of us must thank Jacob Zuma for introducing African Republic of South Africa and not some outpost of European values." This comes from a Sowetan column, an interesting read; it embodies facts, satire, and irony. Since South Africa became independent in 1994, xenophobia destroyed Black African lives. African migrations to South Africa were met with hostility and arrogance. The people of South Africa have low opinions of Black Africans north of them. Thomas has no nice words about Africans from the north of Limpopo. Seeing the looting firsthand, Thomas now knows he is indeed a Black African. That happens in Africa.

Thomas does not need schooling about how ANC failed Black Africans; he knows this to the point. The ANC leadership failed dismally to negotiate an economic settlement to better the Black population equally. The trickle‑down economy in South Africa failed according to planning when independence was negotiated between the apartheid government and the ANC liberation party. This created what Naomi Klein eloquently termed "the USA California on one hand and the DR Congo on the other hand." This meant the widening scissors of poverty and richness, supposed to be contentious and certainly not the migrant worker. Somehow, Thomas thinks differently: deeply opinionated, he thinks migrants are to blame.

A simple question would have been: why are Blacks abjectly poor in a rich South Africa? How are the nation's resources shared by the government they trust to remove poverty in the lives of predominantly Blacks? South Africa's ANC has always been a corrupt party from the day they took over power from apartheid South Africa. The corruption started when some comrades in the ANC, in collaboration with elements in the apartheid regime, murdered Comrade Thembisile Chris Hani. The economic negotiators slept on the wheel. Today, when Black Africans loot to survive, they are called rogues and criminal elements: include Ramaphosa going down, please.

When we start name‑calling—who is a criminal and who is not—we must correctly start with the Phala‑Phala famous farm: inside the spacious home are bank accounts opened by President Cyril Ramaphosa. Why has such a high‑profile case not yet reached the courts of South Africa? Thomas is disgusted about looting of liquor: looting out of destitution. Ramaphosa does not give an "F" about Black people. Thomas is not disgusted about a whole president who opens a bank account with his sofa and mattress. Ramaphosa is not even embarrassed about the depth of poverty in Black South African communities.

To distribute bread as an empowerment initiative is the highest ANC insult Black people could endure. Mandela must be turning in his grave. Think about how many revolutionaries died freeing South Africa. If they could wake up for a moment to see how South Africa is today, and how their sacrifice came to nothing: was there need for Tata Nelson Mandela to spend 27 years in imprisonment so that after 30 years of independence, Black Africans loot to make ends meet? The realities in South Africa are painful to comprehend.

ANC government has turned into a mafia organization, once a party with liberation etiquettes. The "new dawn" that Ramaphosa sloganeered when he took office did not dawn; instead, he is involved in serious scandals of hiding money in sofas and mattresses in his Phala‑Phala farm. His political speeches mean nothing to poor and destitute Black South Africans. His aspirations remain hollow slogans. He uses political power to protect himself and his cronies.

Again, it was under Ramaphosa's administration when 34 miners were gunned down; they demonstrated against poor wages. Ramaphosa called them criminals; this coming from an ANC leadership that fought for the betterment of Black workers. The Marikana massacre will always be a reminder of the devaluation of workers' rights. It will sit in the conscience of ANC leaders and members forever. Ramaphosa and the ANC leadership are now managers of white capital: the moral veneer. South African government is sitting on a powder keg about to erupt, will erupt, has erupted.