As the looting and violence spread across the country from its original outbreak in KwaZulu-Natal, there has been much discussion over the motives: were they initially a response to the jailing of Mr Zuma, or more desperate and “opportunistic”?
Obviously poverty, unemployment, hunger and what are called “social inequalities” are primal and potent factors, but the basic words have revealing roots, which, in the whirligig of time, have become ironic.
“Loot” is an Anglo-Indian word, deriving from Hindi “lut” meaning “booty” or stolen property. In was taken into English around 1788, and become coverted in a verb about 50 years later.
Joe Orton’s dark comedy, simply entitled Loot, was an improbable theatrical hit in the 1960s.
Now it is a basic term for stealing, whether on a large indiscriminate…
