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Anticipating a large-scale protest detonation requires identifying both sparks and powder kegs. Sparks are incidents or events that concentrate the public mind around a grave social injustice and drive a moment of great public anger. Powder kegs are the socio-economic context into which those sparks fall. When both sparks and acute levels of socio-economic distress are prevalent the protest risk outlook escalates.

Frans Cronje told The Common Sense that a lot could be learned from Mao Zedong’s famous 1930 essay, A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire. Mao wrote the essay during the Chinese Civil War at a time when communist forces were isolated, weak, and under pressure from the ruling Kuomintang government. Many within the communist movement believed defeat was likely and that small rural uprisings could never spread into a national revolutionary movement.

Mao rejected that argument. He wrote that China’s social and economic conditions had already created the underlying material for a much wider explosion. His famous line was, “All China is littered with dry faggots [dry brush and grass] which will soon be aflame.” His point was that the spark itself was not the main issue. The deeper issue was that society had become so unstable and combustible that a relatively small trigger could rapidly spread into something much larger.

The relevance to South Africa is not ideological but diagnostic. In the South African context, the spark may be a viral message, a sustained power outage, a police overreaction to a smaller protest, an anti-immigrant march, a looting incident, or a serious crime that focuses public anger on a perceived injustice. But the fuel is deeper. It lies in food and fuel pressure, winter hardship, unemployment, weak local government, and declining confidence in the state’s ability to maintain order.

Those conditions have preceded the three major eruptions of violence in South Africa over the past 20 years. These were the 2008 xenophobic riots, which led to army deployments and refugee reception camps, the similar unrest in 2015, and the 2021 riots.

In 2008, xenophobic violence broke out in Johannesburg before spreading to other areas. Foreign nationals were attacked, homes and shops were looted or destroyed, and the army was deployed as thousands fled their homes. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other agencies helped establish refugee reception camps for displaced people.

In 2015, a similar wave of xenophobic violence erupted, particularly around Durban and Johannesburg. At least seven people were killed, more than 5 000 people were displaced, and the government again deployed the army to volatile areas.

The 2021 unrest followed Jacob Zuma’s imprisonment and spread mainly through KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng – against the context of acute socio-economic distress caused by the government’s COVID-19 lockdowns. It included looting, arson, attacks on shopping centres, disruption to supply chains, and the deployment of troops. The presidency’s expert panel later said the unrest was widespread, violent, and that police failed to stop the rioting and looting.

Frans Cronje’s firm monitors three conditions that have historically aligned before major outbreaks of violence.

The first is food price inflation, which acts as a stress indicator for poor households. Cronje said rising staple and fuel prices were present at the time of previous outbreaks, but warned that official inflation data may lag the pressure already being felt by households.

The second is cold weather, which places additional strain on vulnerable communities, especially people living in informal settlements with limited heating options. The 2008 and 2015 riots occurred in May and April, while the 2021 unrest took place in July.

The third factor is incitement to mass violence, including anti-immigrant activism and intimidation.

Cronje said all three conditions are beginning to align again. Fuel and staple prices are rising, temperatures have fallen across much of the country, and incitement activity appears to be escalating.

Considerable levels of social media-based incitement appeared prevalent across online channels and that some of the activity appeared organised.

His firm has also added a fourth risk factor. This is the possibility that the African National Congress could suffer major losses in the November local government elections, cutting some political actors off from municipal patronage networks.

It said this did not mean violence was imminent or inevitable. Effective law enforcement could still reduce the risk by acting against incitement and maintaining order.

However, the firm warned that a simple spark could trigger unrest – and that the epicentres could likely be in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

The firm said investors and businesses operating in South Africa should monitor the situation closely and stress-test their contingency plans.

It warned that if unrest did break out, “there will likely be only two or three days of warning before its sweeps across key provinces”.