THERE was major unhappiness at the Mahogany Ridge that the City of Cape Town got a court order to stop the march on the CBD and forced the protesters to abandon the demonstration. As one of the regulars later put it, "Bugger these people" - only he didn't say "bugger" - "but now there was no excuse for not going to work. There went my long weekend. The bloody terrorists had won."
It was perhaps wrong to refer to the would-be marchers as such but emotions had been running high all week. Hell and mayhem were coming to town. Looting and destruction of private property was virtually guaranteed, along with blockades on the major highways and flung poo everywhere.
Such was the concern that a group of "prominent Capetonians" released a statement slamming attempts by activist to "promote a climate of hate" and destabilise the province through violent protests.
In fact, so prominent were these citizens - they included archbishops Desmond Tutu and Thabo Makgoba along with all the other usual suspects - that Cosatu's provincial leader, Tony Ehrenreich, was moved to describe them as "great people" in a statement all of his own.
Mind you, not everyone was "great." As Ehrenreich pointed out, there were "the others who have always been comfortable with the apartheid generational disadvantages in SA. They all speak about the threat to our democracy when a march goes wrong or people throw faeces. They seldom speak with the same power and authority about the threat posed to our democracy by the huge and growing inequalities and desperate underdevelopment. The people who protest are in the main desperate citizens who feel that they are not being shown any regard - not just through nice sounding words, but in actual delivery to their basic needs."
How comforting to be labelled an uncaring person because you don't want to be showered in chemically treated runny matter. Thanks a bunch, Tony. It's like being called a racist because you're concerned your rather simple president appears to have been led up the (very expensive) garden path by a wily architect vis-a-vis renovations to the country home.