Predicting a major political shockwave has been standard fare among South African pundits for some time. The sheer depth of the socioeconomic crisis in the country, best encapsulated in a broad unemployment rate of 42 percent, made it something of a safe bet.

Recently that shockwave arrived, but in a form that was perhaps less expected. It’s trigger was not the increasing prices of necessities or the failing provision of basic services. Instead it was the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma, the man arguably most responsible for the parlous state of those services. Its embodiment was not mass occupations or demonstrations against an indifferent government. Instead it was the widespread looting of shops and malls, tinctured by outbursts of ethnic violence and outright criminality. It was not civil society organizations or radical opposition parties that led the unrest, but a faction of the ruling party itself.

This has made it far harder to grasp the political meaning of these events and to anticipate their consequences. Amidst a flood of analysis and reporting, interpretations of the unrest, not least within the Left, continue to diverge sharply.