They doth protest too much

Tyres. Check. Rocks and boulders large enough to block roads. Check. Stones, assortment of other projectiles. Check. Pissed of attitude mixed with healthy ignorance. Check. Feeling peeved with the powers that be? Check. Got all of the above? Yes? Then you ready to go and spark up your very own 'service delivery' protest. Staging violent protests are South Africa's forte. The country, and more specifically the down-trodden, have perfected the art of throwing stones, burning tyres, committing arson, dancing in circles, singing and demanding things. The great majority of the country has been doing this for decades so why would they be experts in the field of protests. Name it, they'll demand it. Why? Because they often don't have it and they are sick and tired of promises. By 'it', of course, I'm referring to basic services, like running water. If you lived in a shack minus electricty, no water, sharing a toilet with 5 other families, filling a bottle with petrol and striking a match becomes the only voice which you believe will be heard amid suffocating poverty and stifling political arrogance. But let's never, ever forget, where there's a violent demonstration, there's also a politcal party lurking in the shadows, sometimes right out on the front line. No province knows this heady, precarious mix of pathetic politicking and genuine civil grievances better than the Western Cape. It's the land of the DA and the ANC and its pals will do almost anything to destabilise the province at the expense of the proverbial 'people' and their grievances. Take the recent explosion of violence in Grabouw, where a bonafide issue, that of inadequate education, was hijacked and morphed into an all-out race war. Do you think the individuals shown in photographs stoning, kicking and beating people because of their skin colour had an inkling of an idea of the real catalyst of the unrest? I'd bet a whole bunch of money if anyone had the balls to have intervened, to stop those 'protesters' to ask: Do you know what the real problem is in your community? You'd be met with blank stares, the smell of liquor and quite possibly an intolerant klap. I'm not for a second saying other politcal parties aren't capable of fomenting violent protests to further their own myopic means? Where's there's politics, there are always looming problems? However, where there's petty jealousy and resentment among rival parties (the Western Cape and it's DA/ANC rivalry) there's always going to be ambiguities around the cause of protest action? It's not so easy to simply dismiss yet another violent march in an informal settlement as the have- nots yet again venting their anger over still not having anything. Look behind the curtain and there'll more than likely be a 'political leader' instigating uneasiness, playing on communities frustrations in the name of his/her party. Why? It has nothing to do with taking on a cause in the interests of the people. It has everything to do with idiocy and narrow-minded ulterior motives, where genuine issues are lost in the dirty details of politics. Political groupings with think nothing of instigating all out chaos. They trade on the poor and trample on the real issues.