Tomorrow morning at 6am I am heading to our nation’s capital city and in specific, the Union Buildings.
The reason? We are gathering in protest against crime in South Africa.
I will be recording video and taking photos the whole day. I am going to be trying to get as close as possible and hopefully catch Desmond Dube in person (maybe!) for a chat. Many of my photos will hopefully be going on to Mail & Guardian’s News in Photo.
If you are there, look out for my SA Rocks T-Shirt. If you see me or the shirts (it’s me) come and say hello and walk with me.
Some things I am hoping for:
- Numbers – I hope we get as close to 1 million people as possible
- A Good vibe – I have been to mass protests before and I hope this one is peaceful, pleasant and happy
- Change – a change in mindset, a change in attitude and a change towards hope
- Focus – in my experience it is easy for these sort of gatherings to become a platform for any and all organisations to punt their causes. Let’s not do that. One focus, one cause
- A peaceful protest – Yes I have repeated that but its what I hope for the most
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June 9th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I hope march goes well and that it meets it’s objectives. One Million people?! Wow, that’s going to be real goose-bumpy stuff! Looking forward to all the news and pics.
June 9th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Ola! If I was in SA, I’d be right there marching with you Nic. Hope it’s a success, let us know how it goes! *Jen*
June 9th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
I took leave, I will be there I’ve had very committed replies on all my encouraging sms’s from the townships to the suburbs.
Change is in the air and it is very exciting to be part of it.
June 10th, 2008 at 2:11 am
Hey there everyone
i hope the march goes well and i wish i could be there to be a part of this moment with you.
Looking forward to the pics and video.
June 10th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Great idea. Apologies for the cynicism, but will our leader actually stand up and take notice? He has often stated that crime is not as serious as people make it out to be; so what will he do in reaction to the march? My prediction – nothing, as usual.
June 10th, 2008 at 11:32 am
@ST: It’s about reaching critical mass, my friend: 1 march tomorrow becomes 2 marches the next day and 3 marches the day after that. Remember, “Make the country ungovernable” from the 80′s and 90′s? That was done by individual people doing 1 small act each. Add all those acts together and you have a powerful force that can and did bring about change. Maybe that just sounds like hippy, tree-hugging goodness but it’s time that we got off our butts and showed the government that we are sick and tired of the lies, corruption and violence destroying our country.
June 10th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I admit I am one big mother of an idealist, but those who are after years of deafening silence from government side actually still waiting for them to suddenly jump up and take charge should wake up and smell the coffee. That is not going to happen, and by now we should be getting used to the idea of taking charge ourselves,together. I was at the march today and yes I was disappointed by the numbers, but It was a great experience to be surrounded by strong optimistic South Africans, the funky, sweet, funny, smart creative South Africans that you would all invite to your party if your place was big enough….,if that energy gets channeled, even from those odd 7000 people, mountains can be moved, oh and no, Mbeki is not going to channel anything or give an audible response to whatever we South Africans handed over to him, so lets just carry on from here keep our eye on the ball and don’t loose hope.
There was one thing that bugged me a bit….can the church stay out of it please, religion is a private thing and to think that we are not evolved enough to handle big moral issues like crime in a humanist but neutral way I find patronizing and irritating, not in the least because right there you kick out muslims, atheists, hindu’s, buddist…why would we want to do that?
p.s this is all about the millionmanmarch experience