ICYMI: MAVERICK LIFE: How violence is shaping South Africa
On Wednesday 13 July, a couple of days into the riots and looting that President Cyril Ramaphosa described as “acts of public violence of a kind rarely seen in the history of our democracy”, images of citizen-on-citizen violence started popping up with increasing frequency on social media. By this stage, it had become clear that the police were overwhelmed and, as the president would admit two days later, “did not have the capabilities and plans in place to respond swiftly and decisively”.
By the following day, the Minister of Police Bheki Cele was on the news confirming 20 deaths, and downplaying accusations of racism and racial profiling among community policing forums. “The primary problem here is criminality, there is a secondary problem which is the racial connotations that has happened… There are things like this that have happened in places including Umhlanga and Amanzimtoti where you are stopped because of who occupies the car. It is true.
It is arguable that for many South Africans, the wave of rioting and looting alongside the perception of crime, becomes then a confirmation of these long-seated fears, that indeed, they are under siege, and amplifies that sense “of living amongst other people who will potentially violate their rights”.
conducted in 2008, was found to be lower than anticipated at 2.3%. “The Sash researchers proposed that their South African respondents might express their distress somewhat differently from commonly assumed patterns, presenting with higher levels of depression and somatic problems, but also potentially with sub-clinical features of PTSD and what might appear closer to general stress patterns,” writes Eagle.
Besides acts of “vigilantism”, and as a week of rioting and looting came to a close, South Africans participated in other forms of social cohesion, as many gathered to clean up their neighbourhoods. However, this too would likely be transient. What follows once the streets are cleaned and the neighbourhoods return to relative safety? What of social cohesion as a tool against violence and crime?
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