Spring Day chaos is chickens coming home to roost

Strange world we live in. On Tuesday, I drove into Thembisa around 3.30pm. I was on the phone talking to a friend from KZN. I made the remark that the Spring Day tradition of splashing water on unsuspecting people is in full swing despite the township’s well-documented water shortage. My friend asked what game this was because she had never heard of it. And I was like, “Never ever?” It turns out something I thought the whole world knew is not a global phenomenon after all.

I had a few mishaps over the years with this. In the early 2000s I had my Nokia phone in my jeans when three full buckets of water were poured on me on Spring Day. It was useless trying to run away because I’d just be inviting more of them. Luckily, no damage to my trusted Nokia phone, but I remember thinking back then, “Who came up with a ‘fun’ activity that gives joy to people by causing grief to another?”

I’ve always taken it for what it is: community-sanctioned bullying. And this is where we need to take accountability: Community-sanctioned bullying is okay in this country if it achieves what WE or OUR group wants.

It’s been that way forever: whenever there was a “stay away” to protest against something, we forced people to stay away because “we are fighting for them”. The whole community approved whatever punishment was meted out to those who ignored the “stay away”.

These have morphed into “national shutdowns” these days. Everyone must obey; we justify burning tyres and placing rocks on the streets to stop anyone who dares to travel during a “shutdown”. And it’s okay, because “the community is angry”, and we can’t control what a “community that is tired of the status quo” can get up to.

It is the same kind of mentality that has morphed into community-approved online bullying of anyone who disagrees with the “angry” mass online. You disagree with the methods used to achieve the objectives of solving the immigration problems we face? “You don’t understand the pain faced by ordinary South Africans! You do not love South Africa! In fact, why don’t you just take these foreigners into your own house, to your own province and leave us alone to fix our South Africa!”

There is not even room for the possibility that all you disagree with are the methods they use. And the community agrees with your silencing. Because it’s for a good cause, you see. They are trying to fix things for you, so you must agree to being silenced and threatened!

And then the kids from the community do as they have done for the past few decades on Spring Day, bullying defenceless kids and adults who are simply going about the business of living. Something that was once “innocent fun for kids” has morphed into brutal bullying, which resulted in a damaged hearing aid worth thousands and the shooting of a teenager. And people are now horrified that some are splashing water on others “for fun!” And now we must join in this “community anger” towards these kids (and adults).

Where is the logic? Where is this community anger when an ambulance cannot drive through a street blocked by boulders and burning tyres because, oh, wait for it, “the community is tired and angry!” The morality of this community’s anger is transferable: It is okay when it is for my cause, but diabolical if I’m opposed to it. We need to look inward; we cannot have our cake and eat it.