In only a few hours, municipal workers managed to sweep up the streets, put rubbish in black bags and restore order to the centre of town.
There are still bits of glass in the gutters and many people have full garbage bags cluttering up their garages and backyards.
In only a few hours, municipal workers managed to sweep up the streets, put rubbish in black bags and restore order to the centre of town.
There are still bits of glass in the gutters and many people have full garbage bags cluttering up their garages and backyards.
The physical detritus of the recent Samwu strike will surely all be gone within the next four or five days, but the psychological scars of the ten-day action could remain with us for a long time.
Race relations that have been steadily improving in recent years took a serious knock back into the past as strikers aggressively sang racist songs and beat up anyone who tried to defend their property.
It was not surprising that the ANC-aligned Samwu should shout hate speech slogans in the centre of town, after all, the most strident ANC leader in the country has repeatedly incited his comrades to kill people of a particular race group.
The strike has also revealed poor leadership in City Hall where the Mayor did nothing to put an end to the rampaging vandalism.
From the vantage point of our newsroom overlooking Garbage Square, we never saw the Mayor come out and defend the interests of the residents of Grahamstown.
Surely he should, at the very least, have urged the offenders to obey the law and respect the rights of fellow citizens?
If the destructive attitude of the strikers and the lack of backbone of the mayor are disappointing, the astonishing reluctance of the police to do their job and enforce the law is deeply distressing.
In a country infected by crime, it was shocking to see dozens of people wilfully breaking many laws while police officers, with their brand new ranks, simply standing by and enjoying the outing.
The pathetic excuses given for allowing strikers to wreak havoc and threaten whomever they please have seriously undermined the little confidence the citizens of this town had in the police force, or service or whatever it may be.
