Private Security in South Africa Comes at a Cost

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It’s so normal to have private security in South Africa that I even forgot that most of the rest of the world doesn’t live like that.

As a South African, it's very, very easy to paint this a racially motivated episode of our history once again. However the truth is that economic mismanagement, government corruption and mind boggling poverty led to this. It's not racist to say the vast majority of looters and criminals were black South Africans, because they are / have suffering/ suffered the most, by far and thus made up the majority of rioters and looters. Also, something not explained in this video, is the very long story behind the Zuma corruption story, his and security forces involvement, a possible attempted coup, the floods etc etc etc....

I am Indian and living in Durban. We set up roadblocks on the main roads to drive the crowds of hundreds of looters at a time from the asking past our houses. How do we stop a group of 200 at our gate by ourselves? This is nonsense. How do you not even think of this?

This is a very very frustrating and poor representation of the riots that went down last year. I'm from Pietermaritzburg and understand the fear that we all faced of having people come into our suburbs to loot or steal. This wasn't a racial war of any kind. I spent a few late nights with community watches that consisted of whites, blacks, Indians, coloureds. This whole thing was communities against idiotic thieves that decided that they'd commit straight up crimes then label it as poverty. You won't steal a fricken TV or couch if you're hungry ne? VICE did a kak job with this one

This reporter was BEGGING for racism from her interviews but they outclassed and outsmarted her in every situation. this is what passes as "journalism" LOL.

I was living in Pietermaritzburg at the time of the unrest and let me tell you its terrifying. The police were completely outnumbered and if it wasn't for private security we would have been in deep trouble. I disagree with the race thing. I sat through 12 hour night shifts at a blockade with my neighbours of all races on many nights. If I needed their help they were all there for me. That being said the distribution of races in South Africa is proportionate to what you see in the streets. We have 59.3 million people with 48.6 million being black. Just statistically the majority of the looters would have been black. I am a fan of Vise but I feel like they missed the whole thing by a mile.

Dear Vice News: You guys made it very clear in this documentary that you have NO CLUE how things work in South Africa. The looting that happened in Kwazulu Natal had nothing to do with race and ethnicity but a corrupt president and political party that has looted South Africa of BILLIONS since 1994. Our people are tired of hearing the same narrative and our people are sick and tired of a small hand of individuals from every race, ethnicity and religion in this country who are trying to make it out that they're better and above the rest. It's a godforsaken shame that you didn't investigate the fact that there were CEOs of BIG companies who were part of this looting, it's a shame you didn't investigate how the looting destroyed families' incomes, how it destroyed the jobs for families who already sat with basically nothing. But no, make it another narrative for race because it sells. You should be ASHAMED for this piece. The mere fact that you guys come here and try and create more racial segregation that is slowly but surely becoming less of a thing here and people are starting to embrace one another comes to show that you guys do not have any idea what it is to be South African, what our way of life is and how we live our lives. We are not living in the West and we are not coming from the East. We as South Africans, stood up against a major mob that wanted to drive our country into a modern day civil war and prevented our country from erupting into complete unrest. So, please try and take your Western propaganda back to the US, stick it up where the sun doesn't shine and investigate the fact that you have a president that can't even speak 10 words without almost passing out in front of millions of people on live TV...

I am South African journalist who was robbed of my gear a few days ago, I can confidently say the crime in this country is too much, no one is safe.

This is poor journalism; all of her questions were loaded and she showed a lack of knowledge of the situation in SA. Of course the majority of fatalities were Black; the country is majority Black.

"There were reports that there was a disproportionate targeting black people during that time." Lady, have you seen what was happening and who was looting??

This video presents a grossly biased view of the background to Indian/African relations by starting at the 1949 riots. It completely omits a few fundamental points: 1. Indian indentured labour was introduced to Natal in 1860 as the local African community were economically independent of the colonial economy 2. By the early 20th century, the combined population of African and Indian South Africans outnumbered the colonial settler population. The British government resorted to its tried and trusted tactic of divide and conquer ( eg in Natal, plantation owners employing Africans as overseers of Indian labour). By sowing division and racially motivated tension between the African and Indian population, the 2 would never unite against the British government and its policies (this policy was implemented in the middle east and India - resulting in today's Arab Israeli conflict and the partition of India) 3. The 1949 riots were an expression of African anger at the discriminatory and exclusionary policies implemented by the Durban City Council. Indian traders (a minority of the Indian population) were excluded from conducting business in the (whites only) central business district so they instead expanded into areas designated as "African only". They consequently became the most visible representation of discriminatory policies implemented as a result of lobbying by the predominantly white owned businesses operating in the Durhan CBD at the time (Indian traders had no representation in this process), making them prime targets for outbreaks of violence. 4. While this video mentions the death toll after the riots, they fail to mention that thousands of Indians were displaced as a result of their homes being destroyed in the riots. 5. The majority of the Indian population lived in poverty (like the African population) at the time of the 1949 riots. Indian South Africans (even those born in the country) were not regarded as citizens. Official government policy was repatriation of all Indian South Africans to India. Thus, no provisions for basic amenities were made in residential areas designated for the Indian population (South Africans of Indian ancestry were granted birthright citizenship in 1960 - 100 years after their labour built the economy of the Natal province) 6. Indian South Africans were not regarded as having a higher social status than Africans. As Indians moved out of thr agricultural sector (usually upon the expiration of their term of indenture), they moved into semi skilled industrial jobs and were replaced by African labour within the agricultural sector, creating a gap in the socio-economic opportunities available to the different race groups. 7. This gap widened during the apartheid era when communities of Indian South Africans pooled their resources to open and run local schools. This allowed a small portion of the Indian South African population to move into professional roles outside of agriculture and industry. 8. The Group Areas Act enforced physical segregation between races groups, even in a post apartheid South Africa many of these areas demographics have not changed significantly. Building a mutual understanding and respect between race groups in South Africa (all race groups, not just Indian and African) has been all but impossible due to this physical separation 9. While apartheid may have ended, apartheid era racial designations (white, African, Indian, Coloured) do remain as a means of measuring redress among formerly disadvantaged groups. Thus the prejudices associated with these terms remain with the country despite the fall of apartheid Please note that the term coloured is not considered derogatory in a South African context. It refers to the mixed race descendants of former Dutch settlers, malay slaves and first people's, who are predominant in the Western Cape (the part of South African first colonized by the Dutch) Race relations in South Africa have a long and complex history. This video shows no understanding of any of the subtle nuances that define race relations in a post apartheid South Africa. Instead, it seems to perpetuate some of the deep rooted prejudices that exist in South African society. It vilified Indian South Africans for perceived acts of racial profiling but ignores the social media activity calling for violence against the Indian community (e.g. a Twitter page that was created around the time of the 2021 looting called "Indians must fall" subsequently deactivated by Twitter for its violent and racist content). Wait - how did a video about "private security" turn into a piece on racial profiling in South Africa? Kinda hard to take Vice News seriously after this one.

As usual Vice don't tell the story of what happened, instead they decide on what happened then gather the interviews to support their version of events. As a former journalist I can easily see this story is far more complex and multi-layered than this overly simplistic and one-dimensional presentation by Vice.

SA seems like a wild place where the rule of law has fallen so badly that the private sector has taken over.

In south Africa the security guards are like cops, and the police are like security guards.

" if you loot I will shoot " ...that was a banger 🤣❤️love sa Owen's 😭one of a kind

The reported is incredibly ignorant and has already constructed her narrative and is now trying to make the reporting fit rather than doing actual investigative reproting.

Protect yourself or your property in SA and you'll be called a racist.

Indians are some of the most productive people in SA. A real asset to SA, and their homes were attacked unprovoked, way before any blockades were put up, and the police ran out of bullets, so the police could not protect anybody. I recall how the Zulus reportedly went to their witch doctors for muti (medicine) to protect them against bullets, but when the muti failed to work, they teary-eyed claim they were "brutalized". Really? They executed a premeditated attack on the people they're now accusing of brutalizing them. WTF!?! And this reporter laps up their BS because it fits the narrative she's trying to promote.

Ive experienced crime at least twice in South Africa. I had to learn self defense. I had to learn to cross the road when i see any man of any race approaching. I am Black and I have been acted against by Black people. I think the issue is class, government corruption and a lot of PTSD from apartheid as well as lack of personal accountability across all groups.