Violent Cultures, Acting Citizens and the Passive State: Contesting Political Morality in South Africa

ABSTRACT

In this article, I discuss how the use of violence has become a mechanism for mostly poor citizens in contemporary South Africa to contest the moral functioning of government and state institutions. More essentially, the article locates the place of violence within the broader state-society relationship. I argue that this interaction between the state and ordinary citizens in South Africa reveals the everyday appropriation of violence by the poor to foster an ‘effective’ social and political contract with the state. By taking cues from the everyday social struggles of the poor that manifest themselves through social protest, this article argues that the use of violence in such struggles is largely an outcome of a weakening moral order on the part of political authority. My evidence for this claim is purely qualitative and ethnographic. I engage with this evidence in this article to reflect on the agency of the figure of a ‘violent citizen’. In this reflection, I show how this agency is shaped mostly by everyday moral concerns related to the normative practice of government and party politics especially at the local level. On the overall, my aim in this article is twofold. Firstly, I seek to highlight how violence is often appropriated in the moral struggles of ordinary citizens in South Africa. Lastly, I also seek to refute the narrative that violence as it is used in the popular struggles of the ordinary citizens in South Africa is largely a ‘criminal’ activity.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Lawrence Ntimane and Elvis Macebele for their help throughout the entire fieldwork process. Lawrence and Elvis not only helped with logistical issues but introduced me to local activists, politicians and traditional leaders in the area.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The findings of this article are drawn from those of a wider study on popular politics and political subjectivity in contemporary South Africa. The main round of fieldwork was conducted in one of South Africa’s protesting communities (Malamulele) from March 2014 to September 2014. Subsequent rounds of fieldwork were conducted between June and August 2015. At the centre of the protests in this community was the call for a separate self-governing local municipality in the area. Data collection proceeded mainly through in-depth interviewing and long periods of participant observation. A total of 68 participants were interviewed and among these were ordinary citizens and community activists. The ethnography presented in this article therefore is an outcome of a long process of engagement with ordinary citizens and community movement leaders. The interviews conducted ranged from formal to non-formal interactions with participants in different settings (for example private homes, offices, local pubs and other public places). As part of fieldwork, several community meetings and gatherings were observed and fieldnotes were taken during the process.

2. I use the word ‘culture’ in this context to refer to a set of norms and values that are foundational to the everyday functioning of a particular institution or social order.

3. For a discussion on the meaning(s) of the National Democratic Revolution(NDR), see for example, http://www.ancyl.org.za/docs/political/2009/NDR%20Presentationb.pdf.

4. It is imperative to state that this observation is not at any rate new in any discussion on political protest in South Africa. For example, Karl von Holdt and colleagues’ study on insurgent practices in different communities across South Africa speaks to the reason why communities in South Africa protest. Chief among these is the call for attention (See, von Holdt et al. 2011).

5. See Pippa, Norris 2010 for a discussion on ‘democratic deficit’.

6. See, Ngoepe 2016.

7. Olifant 2016.

8. ‘Buses torched as residents protest over ANC election list in Cape Town’, Eyewitness News. Retrieved from; http://ewn.co.za/2016/06/30/Buses-torched-as-residents-protest-over-ANC-election-list-in-CT, 09 November 2016.

9. It has to be stated that in some sections of literature on protest in South Africa there is debate on what constitutes a ‘violent protest’. Duncan (2016) dismisses the more common journalistic conflation of property destruction with violence. She argues that ‘when property is damaged but no one is injured or killed in such protest’ (143), it might not be worthwhile to describe such a protest as violent. Duncan makes such a stance to highlight how police in South Africa have often disabused the notion of ‘violence’ as a way of curtailing people’s right to protest mainly through forceful reactive police interventions. I tend to disagree with Duncan’s assertion and as such in the context of this article, violence is taken to refer to any acts of destruction that result in damage to property or injury to any person, including loss of life especially during moments of protest. This violence is distinct from other forms of violence that are witnessed in many South African communities such as xenophobic violence and what one can call ‘community justice violence’. As this article will show, the difference lies in the fact that protest violence is largely about contesting the conditions of moral indignity within local communities.

10. See, http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2016/08/14/ANC-to-address-perceptions-of-arrogance%E2%80%9A-self-service-and-corruption-to-regain-lost-support

11. My use of the notion ‘sovereign power of the people’ has origins in the work of Kalyvas (2008). It is also important to state that Kalyvas traces the genealogy of this idea on sovereignty from among others Carl Schmitt and Hannah Arendt.

12. See Duncan (2016) for an expansive discussion.

13. See for example, ‘Loving your enemies’, Sermon delivered at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, 17 November 1957.