THE ruling party has unsurprisingly come over all aggrieved and wounded animal-like at the Democratic Alliance's plans to march on Luthuli House on February 4 to highlight the failure to create jobs.

ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu has been quick to point out that DA leader Helen Zille and her supporters could be in for the same sort of treatment they received when they marched on Cosatu's Braamfontein offices in May 2012.

And how well we remember that bloody day. Beleaguered trade unionists, set upon by a cheerful horde from the suburbs armed to the teeth with a memorandum about the youth wage subsidy, were forced to defend themselves by throwing rocks and attacking anyone in a blue T-shirt until the riot police arrived.

Back then, Mthembu had warned that this would happen. And on Wednesday he was at it again. "To us," he said, somewhat enigmatically, "this march by the DA is extreme provocation to the ANC. It can't be anything else. What happens if our members come to protect Chief Albert Luthuli House? We should remind them what happened when they marched somewhere."

And, as if that wasn't a clear enough threat, the ANC Youth League has vowed to meet the DA head-on. They seem eager, in the post-Julius Malema toothless phase, to demonstrate they've lost none of that legendary appetite for radical confrontation. According to national convener Mzwandile Masina , the league will be mobilising to to barricade Luthuli House with a human shield of supporters. "We will make sure the DA meets us on that day," Masina said.

On a more positive note, it must be said that the ANC are quite correct in suggesting the march is a publicity stunt. It is heartening that, some 20 years into our democracy, the ruling party appears to fundamentally understand that, in exercising their constitutional right to assemble in such a manner, the marchers indeed wish to draw attention to a situation they believe to be in dire need of, um, attention.

In this case, as Zille has pointed out, she wishes to lead a march of at least 6 000 members. "Each DA supporter will represent 1 000 unemployed South Africans, who will benefit from the six million real jobs that the DA will create if elected to national government," she said. "We are taking the fight to Luthuli House to highlight the failure of [President] Jacob Zuma's ANC to cut corruption and create jobs."

Here at the Mahogany Ridge there is strong opinion that this is a bit of a half-arsed idea and a wasted opportunity. For a start, the math is a bit complicated. Who has the time to impress upon the youth league that 6 000 multiplied by 1 000 is six million?

Also, as issues go, unemployment is, frankly, such a tired, hoary election-year chestnut. In the run-up to the polls, all politicians lie through their teeth, promising the earth when it comes to jobs. Zille and company are no different.

What the DA should instead be marching about is six-year-old Michael Komape, the Limpopo Grade R pupil who drowned in a school pit toilet on Monday when its rotten seat disintegrated and he fell in.

Michael's parents later described how, after searching the school grounds for their son, they were told by another boy he had fallen into a toilet. What they saw there was so terrible that Rosina Komape fainted on the spot. "He was there in the toilet pit with his hand raised above all that grime," her husband, James Komape, told reporters. "It looked more like he had raised his hand as he struggled and cried for help."

The horror of it all is simply unspeakable. But what's even more shameful is the suggestion from the authorities that no-one was at fault here. As the Limpopo Education Department's Phuti Seloba told City Press: "Lots of children have graduated from this school but never fell into those toilets. This was just an accident. We're now investigating if this could have been avoided and how."

I know. I had to re-read that a few times myself as well.

But, just to show they're not without some sensitivity, Seloba also revealed the department was going to help the family with the funeral arrangements and, for good measure, added some guff about how a sanitation programme to eradicate pit toilets at schools by the end of March had been in progress for a while and that mobile flushing toilets were being installed at the school.

It's not good enough. We should be taking to the streets in rage and baying for Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga's blood.

This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.

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