Casualties of Cola: THE MOVEMENT

Thabo Tsolo's house is a fading middle class property in a fading middle class neighbourhood in anold part of Johannesburg, with views of the same mine-dumps around which South African Brewerieswas born. On a Sunday in late November, Tsolos outdoor carport was transformed into a commandcentre. The Tsolo residence served as the unofficial headquarters of a movement called Golekane!(Tagline: Enuff is Enuff!) Inaugurated by Seipati Tsolo, Thabos wife, in 2012, Golekane! included atleast 140 former ODs, the widows of eight deceased drivers, seven current contractors, and sundrylawyers and politicians. Its one of innumerable hashtag-free, self-generated special interest groupsthat assemble in communities across South Africa every weekend. Democracy at work; revolution bya thousand cuts; epic whinge-fest: call it what you like, but Golekane! was formed to wrestle back ameasure of the agency that was lostSeipati would say stolenwhen Thabo Tsolo signed that contractback in 2009.

This, then, is the logical endpoint of the 28-year-old empowerment programme initiated by a beermonopoly during the apartheid regimes death rattle. Where in the old days ABI depots were thecentre of drivers social and political lives, one of the OD schemes more obvious objectivescrushingthe ability to organiseput an end to all of that. Seipati Tsolos collective emerged to fill the vacuum.The movement is occasionally riven by the squabbling characteristic of any group comprised of morethan two people, but for the most part its a driver-led, driver-organised response to what itsmembers believe were the injustices perpetrated by ABI and the half a dozen name-brandcorporations that assisted them in instituting and maintaining what Golakane! allege was afraudulent BEE scheme.

In the shade of the carport, beneath a baking sheetof corrugated iron, a rangy young man namedShaun Dlanjwa spat out preachers cadences toabout 70 rapt Golekan-ites. ABI, SABMillerthesepeople hate us, said Dlanjwa. So why do weromanticise them? The battle is about to begin, andwere not going to rest until we defeat them. As anEFF ward secretary and the intermediary betweenGolekane! and their legal representatives, he wasthere to bring members up to date on the courtproceedings, while simultaneously campaigning forJulius Malema.

He neednt have bothered with the latter item. Here, the EFF was an easy sell: almost everyonepresent was a member...

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Photo: Members of Golekane! prepare to march at an anti-corruption rally in downtownJohannesburg in September 2015. Their banner reads, "SABMiller/ABI Killer: down with BEE lies,owner-driver scam." Photo credit: Shaun Swingler.