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Multimedia journalist Muhammad Hussain was following a crowd of protesters when the police unleashed a cloud of teargas. Here’s what it’s like to be in the thick of an EFF march.
It smells like putrid eggs. Did the protesters bring eggs to shell the police with? My bias is showing. But then why are the protesters running and crying?
“It’s the police. They’ve teargassed us,” shouts a middle-aged man as he wipes his face furiously with the Economic Freedom Fighters T-shirt he is wearing.
This was my first experience with teargas and within seconds I was all snot en trane.
This was one of the scenes as the EFF and its supporters took to the streets of Tshwane in an attempt to occupy the Union Buildings. The march came after the North Gauteng High Court ordered the release of the Public Protector’s state capture report.
Earlier in the day, while court was still in session, many of the protesters split into groups and took to the blazing streets.
One group remained at Church Square, resting and singing songs; another protested for Coca-Cola to stop killing drivers; another called for President Jacob Zuma to fall; and another just sang and protested over everything from #ZumaMustFall to #FeesMustFall.
The streets around Church Square however were a hive of activity as the groups took to marching down different streets in an attempt to split the resources of the police. This tactic seemed to work because police cars and Nyalas kept speeding from one street to another, like a scene out of a Looney Toons cartoon.
With many focal points one moment stood out for me: As a group of protesters clad in red approached a line of five-o with two Nyalas as backstop, I stood between the two groups worrying more about my equipment than my safety. I had read the stories of how previous protests had turned violent by well-aimed sputum but in that moment I did not feel in danger from either the vociferous red wave or the stoney-eyed blue wall.
“High discipline comrades, high discipline!” shouted one of the EFF marshals. And in that moment my mind raced back to the students as they descended on Luthuli House last year.
There were many similarities. On that day the ruling party ate humble pie from a group of students demanding what they were promised. On this day the ANC’s president and the nation’s head of state ate humble pie for not keeping his promise as president of the republic.
Both groups, barring the odd verbal insults, were disciplined in their marches; both groups demanded justice. Both groups had leaders who coordinated their followers with passion and hope.
Yes shops were looted in Tshwane and yes both streets were filled with rubbish after the marches, but in the same breath both groups had people who were dedicated to cleaning up the litter. And in Tshwane the EFF marshals took no prisoners as they found suspected looters, held them to account and handed them over to police.
Yet the narrative that drove the bandwagon was that “both the EFF and the students are unruly and out for violence”.
In both experiences, while marching with the main group, I never felt in danger. Maybe it’s because there is strength in numbers. Or maybe it’s because, even with sachets of water thrown, insults hurled and half-eaten apples flung, the marshals at the fore kept to their duties and maintained the peace by discipling members and constantly checking-in with police to make sure the atmosphere never turned toxic.
It’s not the leaders I commend, it’s not the police I commend, it’s not even the protesters’ timid behaviour I commend, it’s the marshals of the marches I commend.
After EFF leader Julius Malema addressed the crowd, telling them that the police would not open the gates to the Union Lawns and that they would come another day to oust the president from the Union Buildings, a lad with a tyre around his neck and an expression of disappointment looked at me and asked “must I burn it and throw it at them [the police]?”
I replied: “Would you like to die for a president who constantly misleads you?”
Before we could go into finer points of civil disobedience, a marshal walked up to him and said “Let’s go”.
And with that the crowd dispersed.
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