The riots that broke out in South Africa in protest of racial abuse on Wednesday, almost 16 years to the day that Nelson Mandela walked free from prison, have revealed just how distant the former president's dream of a Rainbow Nation remains from reality. The protests came in response to a video distributed on the Internet showing four white university students abusing black campus service staff by forcing them to perform a series of degrading acts, including eating food mixed with urine.

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The 10-minute film then moves on to a series of scenes in which black cleaners - four women and a man - are shown drinking bottles of beer in a race that the commentary describes as "down-downs," then taking part in a running race. In a final scene, what appears to be pet food is shown being mixed with garlic in a bowl. One of the four students then takes the bowl to a toilet, and is filmed urinating in it. The bowl is then heated in a microwave, divided into five plastic cups and handed to the cleaners, who are kneeling on the floor. The students shout at the cleaners to eat it. Two immediately spit it out; the three that eat it are then presented with a bottle of whisky. The video ends with an on screen message, also in Afrikaans, which translates as: "That, in the end, is what we think of integration."