Given the effects of the July 2021 riots in terms of lives lost (about 350), businesses damaged and destroyed, jobs shed and damage to the economy estimated at R50 billion, money our faltering economy could scarcely afford to see go up in flames, it would be prudent to expect that, three years later, the instigators of the violence would have received their comeuppance and been contemplating the error of their ways while reclining on a cot in jail.
Instead, here we are, still waiting for them to sort out legal representation, while two appear to have spurned this court with the same contempt for justice displayed when, unhappy with Jacob Zuma being jailed, they incited people to loot, burn, break and destroy.
In the process they not only destroyed businesses and livelihoods, but also confidence in several arms of the State, in particular the police, who were powerless to stop the carnage, and the intelligence services, which failed to anticipate or warn of the danger.
We now add the National Prosecuting Authority to that list of casualties.
It is not nearly enough for the instigators to have been arrested and occasionally seen the inside of a courtroom in the intervening period; the victims are still waiting for a justice which will only be meted out at the end of a trial which it appears is still far from beginning.
To rub salt into the wound, the NPA appears hesitant to charge politically-connected individuals like Zuma’s daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, whose tweets during the riots celebrated the mayhem.
If the country is to ensure that such an episode is never repeated, it has to demonstrate that there are swift, severe consequences for such action.
The glacial pace of the court proceedings makes a mockery of the trauma experienced by those affected.
The wheels of justice are expected to grind slowly, but in this case the mill appears to have stopped altogether.