Saturday, 31 January 2015

South African youths recently swept through an intersection in the heart
of Soweto township, breaking into immigrant-owned shops and grabbing
whatever they could — soda, a loaf of bread, sometimes even the shelves.
Nearly 40 years ago, at the same intersection, young blacks marched to
protest the white racist rulers of the time, drawing a bloody crackdown
that shocked the world.

The recent looting and unrest that hit Soweto and other areas around
Johannesburg was not as bloody as the anti-apartheid demonstrations and
the ensuing bloodshed in 1976. But it alarmed a nation built on the
ideals of racial reconciliation and underscored that, two decades after
apartheid was replaced by the promise of a "rainbow nation," many South
Africans remain marginalized by a lack of economic opportunity.

Resentment against foreigners stoked the looting and rioting in late
January that killed six people and forced many shopkeepers to flee.

Joyce Piliso-Seroke, 81, was arrested in 1976 for trying to help the
marching students, some of whom burned buildings linked to the apartheid
state. The anti-government movements that once aired frustrations
against white minority rule now control the state but don't have answers
for the younger generation, she said.

"It's complete silence now in the country," Piliso-Seroke said,
referring to the lack of effective prescriptions for fixing education
and providing employment.

The weeklong disorder was sparked by the shooting of a 14-year-old South
African boy by a Somali shop owner who believed he was being robbed.
The rioting has died down and minibus taxis daily clog the road at the
Soweto intersection. On the sidewalk, overturned crates and a discarded
door form a stand where bruised bananas and leafy spinach, pieces of
bright cloth and plastic buckets are sold. A decades-old dilapidated
shopfront faces a recently built supermarket chain.Read full story here abcnews