Apartheid's violent legacy

Lloyd Vogelman & Graeme Simpson

Over the past few months, South African society has seen some dramatic changes which have had the potential to fundamentally alter the political landscape in the country.

There was widespread anticipation of meaningful improvements in the South African human rights situation and an apartheid-free future. This anticipation was further fuelled by the release of Nelson Mandela.

Yet within just three months, the euphoria turned to deep concern and pessimism over the future, as violence exploded around the country. For many, shock and confusion has replaced expectations of a move towards national reconciliation.

The question frequently asked is why, at this time in South Africa's history, is violence of such a brutal nature dominating daily life?

It would be foolhardy to attempt to offer universal explanations of violence in South Africa at this time. Despite this, there are some common trends which run through much of the current violence. Not least among these common features, is the fact that the vast majority of victims of the violence are black people.

This fact has been conveniently emphasised by the use of handy labels to describe different forms of violence. One of the most common is "black on black" violence. One seldom hears of violence between whites being described as "white on white" violence. It is time this term was left behind as part of South Africa's racial legacy. Rather than offering an explanation of violence, this term does more to disguise causation by reinforcing racial stereotypes.

One of the most prevalent concerns about the current violence is the apparent inability of any one party or organisation to stem the tide. In particular, in the wake of F W de Klerk's initiative, many whites look to the ANC to bring the violence to an end. Others blame the "verligtheid" of the "new" National Party for the escalating conflict and call on government to refresh the repressive measures of the past few years. Both are equally short-sighted, for the violence which characterises South Africa today is rooted in history, rather than the machinations of any one contemporary player - it is the ghost of apartheid come back to haunt its creators.

Unrealistic

In this context, to expect the ANC, which has been unbanned for less than four months, or Nelson Mandela, to contain the upsurge of violence borne of apartheid, is simply unrealistic. The housing crisis, the crisis in education, deepening economic recession, mass unemployment, political upheaval...all these are the product of apartheid and National Party mismanagement.

In 1984, it was around these same grievances that the townships burst into flames. The National Party's solution was to depress the uprising. Instead of addressing these grievances, a lid was put on the boiling pot. It should come as little surprise that when the lid was lifted, the same social problems came to the fore and the pot boiled over once again.

In fact, it is the very structures of the anti-apartheid movement - the street committees, the civics, the trade unions, and the local leadership which the National Party was so determined to smash - that would now have the potential to offer any realistic hope of preventing excessive violence.

Instead, the legacy of apartheid has left us with organisations, with the exceptions of the trade unions, which command enormous popular support, but which are struggling to re-establish grassroots structures.

While poverty and social deprivation are prime contributors to the outbreak of violence, they cannot automatically be linked to widespread community violence.

There are numerous examples in history which bear testimony to the fact that communities with limited social resources can endure great hardship without this necessarily leading to widespread or particularly brutal violence. It is therefore necessary to look at other factors which help explain the current violence.

Another form of deprivation which exists in any community is "relative deprivation". This refers to the gap between what people have and what they want. There are two important factors which help to determine what people want.

• The first is a standard of living they have had in the past and which they are accustomed to. In this regard, it must be remembered that the 1980s was a decade of recession which resulted in an ever-contracting job market and unprecedented levels of unemployment. As people became poorer, the decline in their standard of living became a source of immense frustration.

• The second factor is comparisons individuals make with others. In middle class consumerist terms, this is expressed as "keeping up with the Joneses". But who, for example, do poverty-stricken black youth compare themselves to? Almost inevitably they compare themselves to their fellow white South Africans, and inevitably, they don't like what they see. They see an extremely affluent and politically privileged community which they believe built its wealth on oppression and cheap black labour, some of which was provided by their parents.

But comparisons are also made in relation to other members of the black community. For the poor and unemployed and a generation of youth that had little economically, socially and educationally, these members of the black community with jobs, cars, businesses or even university degrees are not merely a source of respect. They are also a source of envy and anger.

Collaborating

The anger is magnified when wealth is seen to have been obtained through collaborating with the apartheid system and at the expense of other members of the black community. This helps to explain the killing and necklacing of black community councillors, particularly during the 1984-6 period.

The shift by the State away from the strategy of repression together with the unbanning of the ANC, has provided black people with a strong expectation that the transfer of political power will soon be achieved.

Access to political power goes hand in hand with a belief that living conditions will be substantially improved. Any delay in meeting these raised expectations is likely to cause heightened frustration and increase the potential for violence.

Rising expectations do not in themselves lead to violence - unmet expectations are much more likely to do so. This problem may also plague a post-apartheid government. Failure to deliver on promises finally catches up with any organisation, party or government, be it in one year or ten.

In all societies the population grouping with the greatest investment in the future is the youth. However, for many black South African youngsters, a life of deprivation, limited opportunity, and little chance of economic enhancement makes them care more about the present than the future. This, together with some of the features that go with the psychology of youth, help explain why this population grouping is most likely to participate in violence.

Being young frequently comes with a sense of omnipotence, a feeling of enormous power to do things and to escape the consequences of one's actions. Youth is also a period marked by low frustration tolerance and a view of the world in terms of absolutes, with few grey areas.

When this psychology is compounded with a myriad of experiences, including being the victim of racism and social neglect, then it increases the potential for violence dramatically.

Violence expressed today by black youth can be traced back to at least one and a half decades ago. During 1976-7, numerous social commentators posed the question: what effect would the hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries have on those who witnessed or experienced them?

Some of the answers became apparent in 1984 and again more recently. Those who have their 20th birthdays this year were vulnerable, susceptible six-year-olds in 1976. They were 14 in 1984 and experienced police action, detention, necklacing and general violence.

Culture

This is a generation that has grown up within a culture of violence.

They are a generation who have lived their lives without political rights. Parliament has meant very little to them. They have never seen parliamentary political parties as representing their interests and have never lobbied these parties to express their grievances.

They have never known a formalised institution which could bring a better life to them and their parents through non-violent means, as a democratic parliament can.

The reasons for violence are numerous, but why does it express itself so brutally in South Africa, for example in necklacing?

Firstly, one should never underestimate the effect that crowds have on individual behaviour. Crowds reduce self-awareness and in so doing, decrease moral restraint. In crowds people feel more powerful and have limited concern about the consequences of their behaviour. Irrationality is a characteristic of reduced self-awareness.

One could argue that the use of violence is rational as a method of self-defence, but the destruction of a body beyond functional utility certainly illustrates some level of irrationality.

Conformity

Conformity pressures also tend to increase in large groups. Thus there is a tendency to go along with the crowd either because of fear or a wish to be accepted.

This helps to reinforce the behaviour of those directly involved in the crowd killing since no-one objects to their behaviour. They thus believe their conduct to be socially acceptable and permissible.

In this culture of violence, calls for calm and condemnation of random brutal violence, although important and a vital contribution to the development of a non-violent culture, cannot solve the social problems which underpin the outbreak of violence.

Indeed, on occasion, the stronger the call for restraint, the stronger the rebellion against it. How then does one attempt to lessen the levels of violence in South African society?

People are less prone to committing violence when the future is something well considered. One of the ways to give people a stake in the future is to make it easier to fulfil their human potential.

This means not only ending racism, but giving people jobs, an education than empowers, adequate housing, channels through which social contributions can be made and which provide people with a real sense that they are capable of influencing political developments without resorting to violence.

One means to do this is the establishment of a democratic government. Social transformation cannot wait for the end of apartheid or a negotiated settlement, it is a process which must begin immediately. It is essential that the majority of South Africans are given a greater sense of control over their own lives.

One of the most important ways of achieving this is to attempt to rebuild local level organisations. It is only respected local leadership figures who share the same townships with the local residents, who can really win their confidence and who can assert a disciplined approach.

Even this is never sufficient unless there is effective, just and unbiased policing. In the South African context, this has been virtually an impossibility.

For the majority of South Africans, the "security forces", be they the SADF, the SAP, or the municipal police forces, have been associated with apartheid repression.

Police violence, detention without trial and hit squads alleged to have been involved in political assassinations, have not done anything to inspire the confidence of the people in law enforcement.

The loss of confidence in the forces of "law and order" makes people more inclined to take the law into their own hands.

Informal revenge replaces formal policing with the inevitable consequence of excessive brutality. The perpetrators are not only extracting justice - they are giving public warning of alternative systems of enforcement which are in operation, be it to stem increasing crime, or to extract personal revenge.

The only solution to addressing this phenomenon is the development of a police force which inspires the confidence of the public. Channels for conflict resolution need to be opened up rather than closed down.

A comprehensive welfare system is another necessity. Inevitably, South Africa is vulnerable to its economic history, and to local and international economic pressures.

These factors make provision of employment and the creation of wealth more difficult. A welfare system which takes care of the unemployed and the less privileged helps to offset the frustration and desperation that comes with economic impoverishment.

However, a welfare system of this sort requires enormous financial resources. The building of such a welfare net is therefore a vital task of those planning the post-apartheid economy.

What of crime? South Africa has more than 32 murders per day. In the Witwatersrand it is almost 10 a day. This is twice the average murder rate of New York.

Programme

Yet despite this heightened incidence of murder and the ever-increasing possibility that women will be raped in their lifetimes, there is no substantial anti-crime programme (as distinct from "an operation") in South Africa. Government does not have one, and the ANC also does not appear to have developed any comprehensive anti-crime programme.

Anti-crime programmes require not only long-term planning but also short-term solutions such as better policing, therapeutic and legal assistance for the victims and prison rehabilitation for the offenders.

The latter is almost non-existent or at best ineffective in South Africa. According to the National Institute of Crime Rehabilitation, 72% of our prisoners have been in prison before. This compares, for example, with 11% in the Netherlands.

In fact, such is the nature of our prisons that they may even be contributing to the incidence of crime. We are desperate for prison reform in South Africa, something which the major political players have not even begun to deal with.

It will probably have to take a massive explosion of violence in the prisons for serious attention to be given to the problem, and it is very likely that such an explosion will occur in the near future.

Finally, South Africans need to create a non-violent culture. Inevitably, as violence increases, people feel a need to defend themselves. A reduction of the threat will come with some of the suggestions that have already been made.

But there are other things that need to be done as well. We need to tighten up on gun control. Last year, over three hundred new gun licences were issued daily. More than half of white homes have guns.

However, a non-violent culture will take a long time to establish, especially in a macho society such as ours. This demands ongoing research, critical and self-critical evaluation, policy formation, national campaigns and, most importantly, action on all the issues raised above.

Revealed

It is understandable that we would prefer not to see the deeply disturbing perspectives of humanity which apartheid and the current climate of violence has revealed.

Every day we experience the violence and destructiveness of human beings and the powerlessness of victims. But we must face this situation and the foundation on which it is built.

To deny the roots of violence in South Africa is to make oneself vulnerable to the very dangers which we are currently struggling to explain and attempting to avoid.

Lloyd Vogelman is a founder and former Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

Graeme Simpson is a founder and former Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

In the Sunday Star Review, 17 June 1990.

© Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation