Police response distracts from genuine issues
Although the public violence charges have been dropped, the city’s hysterical response may have actually worked in a perverse way. For Lilllina Ruiters, who was arrested on the day, media coverage has focused exclusively on police brutality and ignored how the event was attempting to highlight the crisis of inequality and poverty in South Africa. And based on internet comments, it seems that some people approve of this disproportionate response.
The authoritarian responses in Cape Town or indeed in Oakland on the same weekend may seem less violent than the ferocious clampdowns in Syria and Senegal. But whether by bullets or teargas, states throughout the world are revealing how their response to a perceived sense of social crisis is to fortify the rule of power and privilege. You can petition and complain all you want, just don’t take it onto the streets.
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