South Africa is not a normal country. Almost half of the labor force is unemployed; the number rises to 76 percent for young people, who have no hope for their future. South Africa has the highest inequality rate in the world, with extreme wealth living next to extreme poverty. It is a country in which violence, state dysfunction, and broken services are normal. It is a country that lacks a strong opposition party, despite the fact the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government is no longer able to govern.

For years, given these conditions, many have predicted imminent mass unrest. But it was not poverty, broken services, or unemployment that triggered the worst unrest in South Africa since the end of apartheid. Instead, it was the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma for contempt of court last Wednesday.

For years, Zuma, his children, and his criminal cronies have threatened to unleash violence and spill blood in the event of his imprisonment for one of the many crimes he stands accused of. Now, mass unrest across South Africa’s two most populous provinces has caused at least one hundred deaths, over a billion dollars of damage, and the destruction of the province of KwaZulu-Natal’s entire supply chain.