by 
We’ve been through a horrid week here in South Africa, the darkest week since 1994 when South Africa turned its back on apartheid and became a truly democratic country.
Our rainbow nation was, and still is, under siege from undemocratic forces defending their utterly corrupt positions in our nation. The looting, attacks, arson and general chaos started 10 days ago when the previous State President, Jacob Zuma, turned himself in to start a 15-month jail sentence for contempt of court. They reached a peak on Monday, and only started to taper off on Tuesday and Wednesday, when 25000 troops were deployed to quell the unrest and restore order.
The horrid looting and attacks took mainly place in the two most populated Provinces, Gauteng and Kwazulu-Natal, where I live. By the latest count no less than 161(!) shopping malls got looted (some also burnt down), as well as 11 big distribution centres and 161 liquor stores. Many trucks were set alight. There were even attacks on medicine manufacturers, and cell phone towers were disabled. And there were even plans to set a hospital alight, and Bloodbank offices and COVID19 test centres were damaged or destroyed. Just as out vaccination efforts started to gain momentum.
These, and others, were attempts of rank sabotage indicating that this was not just spontaneous looting. This was indeed a planned insurrection by the dark forces trying to get the present State President, Cyrill Ramaphosa discredited or out altogether. And to prevent Zuma from serving lengthy prison sentence, as he is not just sentenced for Contempt of Court, but is also in the docks for massive corruption in an arms deal that was took place in 1998 and 1999.
And there is still the State Capture investigation that is fingering him. During his tenure he has installed in all spheres of government cronies that allowed him to tuck into the state coffers and get government tenders. There were even three Indian nationals, resident in SA, the Gupta brothers, who got involved in the appointment of ministers here.
The estimated damage in our province is over R20 billion, that is US$ 1.3bn. More than 200 hundred people were killed in a week’s time, some of them trampled during the looting, some the victim of their own arson and bombing efforts. Here in our town just outside the provincial capital we heard stun guns and shooting the whole of Monday. Unlike in the US, only rubber bullets were used by the police, clearly not enough to scare the truly thousands of looters away. Where citizens brandished real guns and bullets, shops were left alone.
This was an attempt to derail the country. Incendiary words from the Zuma family, together with planned sabotage acts, many of which were thankfully foiled, showed that our country, in 1994 still the hope and shining example for Africa, was on the cusp of a coup d’état.
And we’re not yet out of the woods. There are rumours of new turmoil for tomorrow. Zuma will have to testify in the Arms Deal corruption case via Zoom, from prison, but doesn’t want to. He wants to be in court live. Previously, when he was still a free man, he refused to come, and wanted to answer questions via Zoom.
However, there are silver linings as well. The whole episode makes the law abiding citizens stand together in neighbourhood watches, road blocks and night patrols. Two days after the looting our town looked cleaner than it has looked for a long time as volunteers got going with the clearing up of the mess.
As a result of the turmoil the main highways were closed and foodstuff and fuel started to run short, with long queues in front of filling stations and those shops that were not looted or burnt. However, yesterday a 2.5 mile long convoy of no less than 185 trucks, guided by drones to spot any trouble ahead, left Johannesburg for our province over night, which arrived here early this morning. Off-loading was done in a record time by volunteers, so that shops could be open today for business.
And then the most remarkable thing happened: before the trucks went back all truckdrivers came together and prayed. Apparently they had done the same before they left. And there has been a countrywide wave of “prayer awareness” the past week. Some of the planners and instigators have been arrested, as well as almost 3000 looters.
So out of this evil came something good. God clearly uses everything and everyone to further his plan with the world, even those seemingly working against him.
And now for something completely different and only slightly related. In that same category of ungodly people and events working for the good of God’s Kingdom falls the lighter note I want to close off with.
It is about that most illuminating masterpiece for of CS Lewis, The Screw tape Letters. In it, the devil teaching his demon nephew, Wormwood, how to keep people away from the Christian faith, or, if they are Christian, how to make them move away from the faith. Lewis is, literally, delightfully playing the devil’s advocate in this book. Very instructive, and with a strong sense of humour. British humour. This week, among all the misery unfolding around us, I found out that there is a narrated version of the book. Guess who is doing the reading? Think British humour. Think Monty Python. Yes, it is none other than John Cleese! The man who prominently featured in Monty Python and The Holy grail and The Meaning of Life. And yes, the very same Cleese who made The Life of Brian, a parody on a would-be messiah in the time of Jesus, too uncomfortable close to Jesus himself.
This man is an atheist averse to the Christian faith. And yet he is reading the Lewis’s classic exactly as one expect it to be read. With a diction that is unmistakably Cleese. One wonders what made him do it. In the mean time, whilst we are trying to figure that out, he is doing God’s bidding in an unexpected way.
Find the first part of the narrated book on the link below.
And please do not forget to pray for South Africa in its time of need.