I reported earlier how I came away troubled from a meeting I had attended two weeks back called by the Swellendam executive mayor, Councillor Nicholas Myburgh, to address a host of community-related issues.

Flowing from that meeting was a protest action this past Sunday 7 May 2017, which ended in the symbolic burning of a banner depicting Swellendam Municipality.

As has repeatedly been demonstrated, Suurbraak is a microcosm of the whole. This being so, I believe this current protest enables us to understand why this country is imperilled. I therefore urge you to read my earlier post (Canaries in the Suurbraak coalmine) as background to this report.

In order for this all to make sense I shall:

• briefly describing Suurbraak, its history and its people
• provide some background to some of the issues that surfaced during the protest
• provide a synopsis, from memory, of what happened during the protest
• try to pull together all the threads and show, as I see it, why this process holds significance for Suurbraak and South Africa as a whole

Continue reading Reasons for, report on, and thoughts about the Suurbraak protest →