Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation

Arranging Prejudice:
Exploring Hate Crime in post-apartheid South Africa

by
Bronwyn Harris

Race and Citizenship in Transition Series, 2004.

Bronwyn Harris is a former Project Manager at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the Ford Foundation, Development Cooperation Ireland and the Charles Stewart-Mott Foundation for generously funding this report.

Thank you also to the following people and organisations:

Contents:
 

The Race and Citizenship in Transition Series1

Bronwyn Harris, Nahla Valji, Brandon Hamber and Carnita Ernest

Race and citizenship are extremely complex concepts. In post-apartheid South Africa, they find expression on many different levels, including identity, conflict, nationalism, history, politics and inter-personal relationships. They occupy a spectrum ranging from everyday practices and interactions, to formal political and macro-economic forces. They also overlap with notions of reconciliation, justice and reparation, and, although they are separate notions with different histories, they overlap with each other. This creates an added dimension of complexity. Both race and citizenship can be (and commonly are) articulated and/or silenced to serve particular interests. Both can also feed into certain forms of violence, including xenophobia and racially motivated hate crime. Any analysis of race and citizenship must therefore acknowledge the complexity of their expression, representation and impact. Such complexity in the South African context must be assessed in relation to the country's apartheid history, as well as the processes of reconciliation best captured by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

Apartheid created race as a mechanism for violence. Race, in and of itself, was the social and psychological reality through which repression and violence functioned. Racism was institutionalised, legalised and internalised. South Africans saw the world in 'black' and 'white' terms and violence was commonly used to maintain this status quo. However, during the Mandela era (1994-1999), a new vocabulary emerged to describe the social order. This vocabulary spoke of nationhood, unity, racial harmony and reconciliation. South Africa was described as a 'rainbow nation'. Reference to race entered a sensitive and delicate terrain. This was a positive attempt to give South Africans a new language for speaking about – and to - each other. But, at the same time, it rendered the real, often violent, consequences of race invisible. In the Mandela era, there was little national debate on how race had influenced past human rights violations. There was also little recognition that race continues to shape identity and interactions – violent or not – within the present.

By contrast, the Mbeki era (1999-ongoing) has been characterised by a 'return to race'. This is partly a consequence of different presidential styles and roles – while Mandela had to stress forgiveness and underplay racial issues in order to consolidate a peaceful (and at times precarious) transition, Mbeki, as he stated in his 'two nations speech', has had to deal with economic inequality rooted in past racial practices. Additionally, the 'return to race' has been forced upon the society by violence: through the actions of white extremists like the Boeremag, as well as less political cases of racist hatred. Less violent expressions of/about race have also re-entered popular and political discourse: in 2000, the Human Rights Commission held hearings into racism in the media, and, in 2001, South Africa hosted the World Conference against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

Although race can be read across these two discrete eras - 1994-1999 and 1999-ongoing - it is important not to oversimplify or reduce the differences to how race has been articulated. Despite a general 'return to race' post-1999, there have been numerous contradictions and striking silences on the issue; for example, within the realm of violence and conflict, as well as Mbeki's own discourse (in 1996, he gave his inclusive 'I am an African' speech, which contrasted with his 'two nations' speech in 1999, but at the opening of parliament in 2001, he seemed to discard the two nations analogy in favour of a 'united' South Africa, irrespective of race). Also, while issues of race have partially emerged in the Mbeki era, the notion of reconciliation – particularly racial reconciliation - has become increasing invisible. The TRC finally completed its work in March 2003. Many have interpreted this as the end of South Africa's reconciliation process. However, incidents of racial prejudice, intolerance and violence, both within South Africa and internationally, suggest that the TRC was just the beginning and not the end of a sorely needed social dialogue about racial reconciliation.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)

South Africa did not 'invent' the truth commission. Since 1974 there have been more than twenty-five truth commissions around the world. But it was the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that captured the world's attention. This is partly due to international interest in the fight against apartheid. Also, the TRC was the largest and best resourced commission, and it was afforded extensive media coverage, both domestically as well as internationally. This ensured that the world was exposed to the Commission, and the openness of the process meant that the violence of the past could no longer be denied. The South African model also attracted scrutiny because it promised an alternative way of peacefully resolving entrenched difference through the unique 'truth for amnesty'2 deal upon which it was premised. Consequently, the notion of using a truth commission to deal with political conflict has gained momentum and many countries are now holding their own Commissions.

TRC Chairperson Archbishop Desmond Tutu said that without the compromises made during the negotiations to ensure majority rule in South Africa, the country would have gone up in flames. From this perspective it follows that the agreement by the African National Congress (ANC) to grant amnesty to perpetrators of apartheid violence was a pragmatic choice. Amnesty was the price, albeit a costly one for victims, for saving the innumerable lives that would have been lost if the conflict had continued. However, unlike in most transitional countries to date, amnesty in South Africa was neither blanket nor automatic. Conditions applied to the South African amnesty and the TRC was the vehicle for this process.

The TRC process began in December 1995 and finished in March 2003, when the Commission handed over the final 2 volumes of its 7 volume report. 7 116 people applied for amnesty. Almost 22 000 people came forward and told how they were victimised under apartheid. The TRC made a number of recommendations to the South African government regarding financial and symbolic reparations, issues of justice and ways to address relationships between South Africans. It is these issues that still need to be grappled with and addressed.

Evaluating the TRC

The public acknowledgement of past violations was perhaps the TRC's greatest success; as the brutal horrors of apartheid found their way, via the media, into the living rooms of every South African. An undeniable historical record has been created. However, apartheid history still remains contested and fraught with racialised interpretations; for example, many white South Africans continue to deny the impact of apartheid and many dismissed the TRC itself as a 'political witch-hunt' (cf. Thiessen, 19963). The role of the TRC - in both writing history and as an historical process itself – demands ongoing scrutiny.

At a narrower, more immediate level, a minority of victims did uncover suppressed truths about the past. In some cases, missing bodies have been located, exhumed and respectfully buried. For others, the confessions of perpetrators have brought answers to previously unsolved political crimes – crimes, which the courts, due to expense and inefficiencies, may never have tried. However, for many, the TRC began a process that it was unable to complete. Many of the victims who went before the TRC, with the hope that their case would be investigated, feel let down and no closer to the truth than before they publicly told of their suffering. Irrespective of the feasibility of investigating every case, victims' high expectations of the TRC have been dashed, and in their eyes, this has undermined its credibility.

Justice also remains a burning issue. Politicians may be able to justify the exchange of formal justice for peace, but it was difficult for victims to watch while the perpetrators received amnesty. Not only were many perpetrators 'let off the hook', victims feel let down and disappointed by the government's response to the TRC. Regarding financial reparations, the Commission recommended that the government should pay those victims identified through the TRC process R3 billion, in annual installments over a 6 year period (this total figure represents 0.001% of the country's annual R300 billion budget, which translates into R136 000 per individual). However, the South African government has only agreed to pay R30 000 per individual, in a once off payment. The Commission also recommended that business and other apartheid beneficiaries should pay a once-off wealth tax and that the country's inherited apartheid debt (which accounts for approximately 20% of the government's annual budget) should be restructured in order to free up money for development and redistribution. Again, the government chose to ignore these recommendations. This has left victims feeling betrayed. It also does not bode well for long-term reconciliation. As CSVR researchers, Polly Dewhirst & Nahla Valji (2003) note,

The 'miracle' of a new SA is hardly sustainable if it is built without restoring the dignity and humanity of the majority of its citizens, nor if it fails to address the economic inequalities which fuel social conflict.4

There are also debates about the broader merits of the TRC. At the very least the reconciliation project, with the TRC at the helm, has brought South Africa through the transition period with relative political stability. The humanist approach of Mandela and Tutu brought compassion to a brutalised country. Despite the horrors revealed by the TRC, glimmers of humanity shone through and provided hope for the future.

However for some, despite the merits of the TRC, 'reconciliation' is merely a euphemism for the compromises made during political negotiations - compromises that ensured continued white control of the economy. From this perspective, reconciliation is meaningless without structural change. A related, more cynical view is that the rapprochement between the old and new regimes was a strategy to consolidate a new black elite under the banner of reconciliation.

Many argue that the TRC missed the bigger picture by defining victims only as those who suffered intentional violence. Because the TRC focused on victims of gross human rights violations, such as torture and murder – it did not include the 'ordinary' victims of apartheid – the millions of South Africans who suffered from land removals, forced displacements, the migrant-labour system, Bantu education etc. As such the TRC did not engage directly with the institutionalised, structured ways in which racist policies affected and victimised people on a daily basis. Those who suffered more broadly from the economic ravages of apartheid and were not victimized directly by political violence were excluded from the TRC. An important question to ask is: what mechanisms do those, excluded from the apartheid state and then from the TRC, have for defining and consolidating a sense of citizenship in the 'new' South Africa?

Similarly, the degree to which the TRC used race as an explanatory variable in its understanding of the abuses it investigated remains questionable. In some cases, 'race' was generally collapsed into 'political motive', as exemplified by the amnesty decisions in the Amy Biehl, Chris Hani and St James' Massacre cases. However, this was done inconsistently and the relationship between race and politics was not clearly defined. Overall, the reconciliation process engaged less with 'black and white' issues then with inconsistent 'political' definitions of perpetrators and victims. This has had the after-effect of divorcing race, and racial identity, from the violence of the past. It similarly keeps race separate from understandings of violence in the present.

A related point is that, as a transitional justice mechanism, the TRC accepted and legitimated certain explanations for the violence of the past. In this way, it has played a key role in influencing the society's moral reactions to violence. This is specifically evident in the area of amnesty. The question needs to be asked, despite the compromises made to set up the TRC, has amnesty undermined South African citizens' sense of morality? Has it contributed to ongoing violence and impunity? Has it impacted upon how different race groups see each other? There have been various evaluations of the TRC, but none have taken into account the ways in which it has explicitly addressed race, morality and citizenship as components of past human rights violations and factors in contemporary social relations. It is precisely these questions that the Race and Citizenship in Transition Series has sought to address.

The different perspectives surrounding the TRC demonstrate the complexity of dealing with oppression and violence – and how past events shape the process of reconciliation.

The TRC was not alone in its attempts to build reconciliation in South Africa. A number of other institutions were set up to deal with the legacy of the past. These included for example the Land Claims Court and the Human Rights Commission. Other structures, such as the Independent Complaints Directorate, were set up to monitor ongoing abuses by the police. However the degree to which these institutions, and the TRC can be said to have consolidated reconciliation and effected transformation can, at best, be described as ongoing but desperately incomplete. There are ongoing police abuses, young people still express feelings of marginalisation, racism and racist incidents continue to take place, and the poor have not substantially benefited from the changes in the country.

Levels of Reconciliation

The process of reconciliation can be said to operate on a number of levels, i.e. the political, community and individual levels.

At the political level, reconciliation has been embodied in the compromises that lead to a political peace. This process can be said to be broadly successful, as it has brought political stability to South Africa.

At the community level, despite some successes by the TRC, reconciliation is largely incomplete, with many of the old racial and political divisions remaining in place. This is evidenced through high levels of residential segregation between black and white South Africans residentially. It is also expressed between different groups divided along political affiliation, such as ANC and IFP supporters, and xenophobic hostility between South Africans and foreigners, particularly those from elsewhere in Africa.

At the individual level, the question is far more complex and is bound to how individuals feel in relation to the process of reconciliation. Many individual victims feel that their needs have not been met by the TRC. At the same time, many of those who benefited from apartheid are still denying their complicity status. This is linked to the many who refuse any responsibility for reparations and redressing the past. There is also an expectation that the next generation will somehow begin with a 'clean slate' (Oakley-Smith5). The ongoing impact of a racist and violent past continues to play out through incidents of racist hate crimes and expressions of xenophobia. Hostility towards foreigners, particularly black Africans, commonly results in violence and is spurred on by overly zealous views of nationalism in the 'new' South Africa. In addition, many South Africans are finding themselves questioning their role in the country. This could be linked to the many young people who are leaving the country as they feel there is no future for them in South Africa.

A Crisis of Citizenship

We would like to suggest that there is a 'crisis of citizenship' in South Africa at present, which threatens the genuine reconciliation begun through processes such as the TRC. This crisis manifests itself in ordinary people asking where they belong in the new society. This crisis suggests that there is much work that needs to be done to consolidate the process of reconciliation and a sense of inclusive citizenship. The Race and Citizenship in Transition Series is a space for exploring this citizenship crisis, along with the related issues of race, reconciliation, violence and identity in South Africa. Key issues to be examined include:

The Race and Citizenship in Transition Series is funded by the Ford Foundation, Development Cooperation Ireland and the Charles Stewart-Mott Foundation.

Series Editors

Bronwyn Harris
Nahla Valji

 

Executive Summary

This report is part of a CSVR series on Race and Citizenship in post-apartheid South Africa. It grapples with the violent expression of prejudice and draws on international experiences of hate crime to investigate commonalities and differences with the South African context. It touches on social representations and public perceptions of hate crime and considers media reporting on incidents thereof. Although racially motivated hatred is the primary focus of the report, the notion 'hate crime' goes beyond racism and as such, offers an organising principle for discussing and 'arranging' prejudice, particularly when it takes on a violent form.

Hate crime is not a common term in South Africa. Given the country's history of legislated racism and the ongoing expression of violent prejudice, it is perhaps surprising that the relevance of hate crime – as a reporting and sentencing category - has not been extensively debated. However, this very history, along with the politics of transition and the changing nature of violent prejudice, suggest that a number of questions need to be asked before such an assessment can be made. These questions are raised via an exploration of key hate crime 'qualities', or attributes, that are commonly challenged or accepted within the literature. These include:

Please note that these 'qualities' cannot be accepted as factual. Rather, they are statements that have been synthesized from the literature in an attempt to capture and summarise a social discourse, or particular way of representing and speaking about hate crimes. As such, they allow for an engagement with stereotypes and assumptions about victims and perpetrators. They also raise questions about the criminal justice system and the definitions that are drawn on when articulating violence as a form of prejudice.

Through analysing these 'qualites' in relation to international literature and certain South African media trends (based on a database of hate crime incidents reported in the written press across the period 1994-2002, set up with the Media Monitoring Project) this report concludes that hate crimes do not take on one, homogenous form. Rather, particular incidents must be seen as occupying a spectrum of racism and violence. Within the complexity of such a spectrum, it is possible to identify various factors that facilitate certain manifestations of hatred. These offer focal points for further research, as well as the development of preventative strategies.

This report suggests that the term hate crime is a useful and important way for conceptualising and dealing with prejudice-related violence. But, it also warns that race, along with other social faultlines – new and old – needs to be constantly challenged and problematised, not marginalised, through the application of the term hate crime. This is important because hate crime speaks of identity: as a differentiating factor between individual victims and perpetrators and as a way to connect violence and prejudice with the social faultlines through which identity is created and sustained. Identity is a key factor in explaining violence of this nature and hate crime thereby situates violence directly at the interface between individuals and society. It recognises a social context and history but goes beyond macro-political and socio-economic factors to incorporate a less tangible dimension – that of psychology and power – as explanation. This is crucial in post-apartheid South Africa, where identity, including racial identity, itself is in transition.

That hate crime allows for the intersection of identity with violence, both of which can be conceptualised as 'in transition' within post-apartheid South Africa, is an important theme of this report. The flipside of this relationship is how to deal with hate crimes and their accompanying identities of violent prejudice. This is a theme that brings notions of reconciliation and peace building into the spotlight. Rather than seeing these as separate issues, hate crime creates a space to conceptualise racism as intricately related to reconciliation. It goes beyond the scope of this report to develop any singular or even coherent theory of hate crimes in transition. However, various reasons for racially motivated violence are explored and flagged for future thinking. When read alongside other reports in this series, it is hoped that issues of citizenship, race and identity will emerge as central features in the continuities and changes of violence during South Africa's period of transition.

Introduction

In the past week alone, three cases of racial attacks on and abuse and torture of black rural victims received prominence in the media … . The cruel painting of "trespasser" Moses Nkosi by an Mpumalanga farmer; the rape of a woman, 33, by her employer on a farm in Alldays, Northern Province; and the torture and killing of Jabulani Mabelane in Burgersfort by three men, including a senior policeman. He was electrocuted with a welding machine for allegedly stealing R200.
(Sunday Times, 1999, July 25)
Take the farmer given a suspended sentence for killing one of his workers after he accidentally drove a tractor over the family dog. Or the landowner whom police declined to charge for putting a bullet through the head of a black teenager he suspected of stealing fruit.
(Mail & Guardian, 1999, July 30)

Although the South African constitution outlaws racism, racial prejudice is a clear feature of the post-apartheid society. What is not entirely clear, however, is the ways in which racism is finding expression, including violent expression. How is it transmitted? Who are the perpetrators and the victims? How is the society dealing with specific incidents? Racial tensions, attacks and stereotypes play themselves out in various ways. In certain cases, 'old-style' actions of crass racism reflect continuity with apartheid ideology and violence. In other cases, 'newer' patterns of prejudice, for example, xenophobic actions against foreigners, suggest shifts in the targets and tactics of racism. Within South Africa's transition to democracy, race, racism and violence have not remained static. Rather, these expressions of intolerance have found creative ways to change with the political order.

The persistence of prejudice jars against the reconciliation enterprise best captured by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Although the Commission handed over its final report in March 2003, racial reconciliation remains an area of 'unfinished business' in South African society. Alongside unresolved and racialised relations of power, democratisation has introduced new expressions of citizenship and new discourses for interpreting the present and future, as well as the past. Shifting identities are caught up with the shifting nature of conflict. Racially motivated violence represents a point of intersection between identity and conflict. It also comments on the nature of reconciliation and problematises the internationally marketed ideal of an all forgiving, all tolerant – i.e. reconciled - new South African citizen.

This report is part of a CSVR series on Race and Citizenship in post-apartheid South Africa. It grapples with the violent expression of prejudice and draws on international experiences of hate crime to investigate commonalities and differences with the South African context. It touches on social representations and public perceptions of hate crime and considers media reporting on incidents thereof. Although racially motivated hatred is the primary focus of the report, the notion 'hate crime' goes beyond racism and as such, offers an organising principle for discussing prejudice, particularly when prejudice takes on a violent form. There are a number of limitations to conceptualising and understanding violence, identity and race through the lens of hatred. For example, there is the risk of reducing a highly complex history, context and set of socio-political forces to a specific inter-personal incident. There is also the risk of individualising particular actions and role players in a way that allows for society to distance itself from the factors that support the extreme manifestation of prejudice as a hate crime. Although these cannot be the focus of this report, the institutionalised and ordinary, daily nature of racism, together with the discursive practices that keep it in place, are recognised as setting the boundaries of this analysis. These boundaries will be engaged with through later reports within the series. It is also impossible to answer the many questions that a study of this nature raises. Indeed, this report must be read as exploratory, as the beginning of a process that asks certain questions, rather than necessarily answering them.

Methodology

As a theoretical piece, this report is largely based on secondary sources, i.e. South African and international literature surrounding racism and hate crimes. The literature has been reviewed, contextualised and theorised through a specific lens informed by CSVR's core research concerns, namely, violence and reconciliation. In addition, CSVR also commissioned the Media Monitoring Project (MMP) to set up a database of hate crimes reported in the written press across the period January 1994-June 2002. Although it is yet to be fully analysed, the database reveals certain patterns and trends in media reporting on the topic. At various points, this report touches on these trends and the social functions that are served by such representations, as part of a broader engagement with racially motivated violence in post-apartheid South Africa.

In order to construct the Media Database, MMP monitored and tested the news items against various propositions, or themes. A proposition is a statement (such as 'hate crimes are violent') that attempts to capture and summarise a social discourse, or particular way of representing and speaking about something (in this case, hate crimes). A hate crime proposition is not factual. Rather, it offers insights into the common, often stereotypical ways, in which victims and perpetrators of racially motivated violence are portrayed. For the database, certain propositions were developed out of the literature reviewed in this report as 'summaries' of key hate crime qualities, for example, 'hate crimes are perpetrated by young men' (see full list of qualities in the 'defining hate crime' section below). Through the monitoring process, news items were tested against the propositions to see whether they supported or challenged the discourses implicit to them. The outcome of this process is reflected at various points within this report. Please note that the number of news items that engaged with a given proposition has been broken into percentages to show whether the item supported or challenged the proposition. Beyond this, there is no statistical significance in these figures.

Through analysing the literature and the database trends, this report concludes that hate crimes do not take on one, homogenous form. Rather, particular incidents must be seen as occupying a spectrum of racism and violence. Within the complexity of such a spectrum, it is possible to identify various factors that facilitate certain manifestations of hatred. These offer focal points for further research, as well as the development of preventative strategies. It goes beyond the scope of this report to develop any singular or even coherent theory of hate crimes in transition. However, through the literature that is reviewed, various reasons for racially motivated violence are explored and flagged for future thinking. When read alongside other reports in this series, it is hoped that issues of citizenship, race and identity will emerge as central features in the continuities and changes of violence during South Africa's period of transition.

Hate Crimes

Hate crimes are usually defined as crimes motivated by prejudice or hatred. The term covers a range of actions (from property damage to physical violence) and it describes victims who are united by their perceived or actual membership of a 'hated group'.

Hate crime is the violence of intolerance and bigotry, intended to hurt and intimidate someone because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. (Community Relations Service (CRS), 2001, p.1)

'Group membership' is determined through the typical social fault-lines: race, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, age, physical disability or HIV-status. The one fault-line that does not appear within either the literature or the law is class. The reasons for this omission are beyond the scope of this report; however it is an important gap to bear in mind, particularly in the South African context, where race and class are so closely intertwined. This has implications not only in terms of how to define a victim but also in light of the broad socio-political debates on reparations and reconciliation within South Africa.

The concept of a hate crime is not common within the South African context, although crimes motivated by prejudice are. It is only with the country's transition to democracy that the term has taken on a limited form of currency. This report consequently explores the concept of a hate crime through the definitions and experience offered internationally. Much of the literature reviewed stems from the United States, the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, where the term is commonly utilised. This review considers various 'features' of hate crime and the challenges that the concept raises, both in terms of the key role players (victims, perpetrators, bystanders) and the criminal justice system. It also interrogates the utility of the concept in a post-apartheid context and explores the implications of re-naming and re-framing prejudice from a victim empowerment perspective.

Defining hate crime

What is a hate crime?

There are various ways of defining and understanding 'hate crime'. The term is not without controversy or differing perspectives and there are variations in definitions, both within and between countries. However, most definitions engage with, challenge or accept the following 'qualities':6

Please note that these 'qualities' cannot be accepted as factual. Rather, they are statements that have been synthesized from the literature in an attempt to capture and summarise a social discourse, or particular way of representing and speaking about hate crimes (in this way, they are directly related to the propositions that were developed in the media monitoring process – see methodology above). As such, they allow for an engagement with stereotypes and assumptions about victims and perpetrators. They also raise questions about the criminal justice system and the definitions that are drawn on when articulating violence as a form of prejudice.

These 'qualities' and the questions that they raise about prejudice are explored within this report. As the project is particularly focused on racially motivated incidents, this form of prejudice will be the primary focus. However, hate crime in general is explored for the overlaps and differences with a specifically racialised manifestation.

An act of prejudice

'Hate crimes' are commonly defined as crimes committed out of prejudice, or motivated through hatred, as the following definitions illustrate:

[Hate crimes are] violent acts against people, property, or organisations because of the group to which they belong or identify with. (American Psychological Association (APA), 1998, p.1)
[The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) defines hate activities as:] all of those which are based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race or group of one colour or ethnic origin, which justify or promote racial hatred and discrimination. (Article 4 quoted in Coussey, 2002, p.17)

These definitions describe crimes that are motivated by prejudice. In other words, the definition can be described as 'motive-driven'.

Hate versus Bias: A word on language

An alternative name for 'hate crime' (primarily within the USA) is 'bias crime'. Although the words 'hate' and 'bias' both directly describe the underlying motive i.e. prejudice, it is unclear as to why certain definitions use 'bias', rather than 'hate'. 'Hate' conveys a strong social, even emotional, message about the motives behind such actions. In this way, the term hate crime sends a disapproving - and thereby moralising - message about the perpetrators. 'Bias' similarly comments on the motive, but in a less 'emotional' manner. On the one hand, this could be interpreted as an attempt to dilute the emotion and accompanying moral commentary that 'hate' suggests. This could have political utility in that it escapes a position of high emotion. On the other hand, because it dilutes the judgment implicit to 'hate', this could have the effect of sanitising the motive and removing the social comment about prejudice that 'hate' transmits. For this reason, the term 'hate crime', rather than 'bias crime', is deployed within this report. Hate crime more clearly conveys a social message that: a) this is the violence of prejudice, and b) it is to be condemned. As such, the concept comments directly from a human rights framework on the im/morality of such violence. It also comments on the moral values of the society in which the term is applied.

A motive-driven definition

The reasons underpinning hate crimes (i.e. the motives) are all important to their definition. These motives are commonly presented as hatred, bigotry, prejudice and bias. Framed as a motive, hatred conveys information about the possible reasons, justifications, attitudes and logic behind a violent action of this nature (e.g. 'I hate women/blacks/HIV positive people … and so that is why I attacked X.'). In this way, prejudice becomes an explanation for violence. It comments on the psychology of violence and offers insights into the identity not only of the victim (who is chosen because of their membership of a group, that is, their group identity), but also of the perpetrator. This is because a motive-driven definition locates the concept of a hate crime within the perpetrator: indeed, what differentiates a hate crime from another act of violence is perpetrator prejudice. Prejudice consequently appears to be a prerequisite for a crime to be labeled a 'hate crime'. However, there are many challenges to proving and establishing prejudice as a motive. And, for certain manifestations of hate crime, it is very problematic to locate the definition within the perpetrator's possible intentions. These challenges will be discussed throughout this report.

While defining the perpetrator through motive, the definition of hate crime simultaneously describes the target of hatred. The opposite side of a 'perpetrator prejudice' coin is the identity of the victim.

Victim-identity

Within the definitions outlined above, prejudice determines the target, or victim, of a hate crime. Victims are targeted because of a particular physical feature (e.g. skin colour or appearance) or a quality that is perceived to be central to their identity (e.g. sexuality). Thus, specific types of hate crime (e.g. racist hate crime, xenophobic violence) can be isolated according to matching victim 'qualities' (e.g. race, nationality). These include crimes committed because of perceived or actual race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnicity, age, disability, sexuality, gender or HIV-status of the victim. Gibson & Gouws (2000) describe such qualities as 'identities based on ascriptive (and therefore exclusionary) rather than achieved characteristics' (p. 280). This is because they allow for the attribution of characteristics to individuals within, and based on, a designated group, rather than any personal or individual traits.

Ascriptive features also indicate something about perpetrator identity, namely, that perpetrators define and identify themselves in contrast to a particular ascriptive feature, through a process of exclusion:7 not-black (usually white), not-foreign (usually South African in the South African context), not-homosexual etc. In this way, as an act of prejudice, hate crimes comment not only on the individuals involved, but also on broad social categories. This is illustrated (and complicated) by the expansive nature of prejudice in cases where incidents are motivated by the victim's association with a 'hated group', rather than any personal ascriptive features. '[B]ias-motivated violence is by no means directed solely against immigrants and ethnic minorities, but also against anti-racists and native-born friends of immigrants' (Tirtanen, 1998, p.44). Thus, for example, a white anti-racist could fall prey to the violence of a white racist extremist. David Webster's assassination at the hands of the apartheid state illustrates this, as does the case of Zandspruit: In October 2001, more than 800 Zimbabweans and South Africans fled from the Zandspruit informal settlement in Johannesburg, after their homes were burnt (at least 112 were destroyed) and their belongings looted (Ndaba & Kalideen, 2001).

Zandspruit residents … said the community had agreed to chase away the Zimbabweans and burn down everything that belonged to them. They said the community were angry that the Zimbabweans were employed, while hundreds of local citizens were jobless. They also claimed that Zimbabweans were involved in a series of armed robberies, rapes and muggings. (Ndaba, 2001a)

While the violence was centred on Zimbabweans, South Africans, especially South Africa women, were also targeted for their association with Zimbabweans (through marriage or work):

South African citizens at the squatter camp threatened to wipe out all Zimbabweans living there. They also demanded that all South African women in relationships with Zimbabweans must leave. (Ndaba, 2001b)

In certain cases, group association, rather than physical appearance per se, would account for victimisation. But, at the same time, such an act sends out a message to the 'hated group' too. It is important to note that hate crimes are 'us and them' crimes, crimes about both individual and group identities.

Because ascriptive qualities comment on both the individual and the group, a motive-driven definition of 'hate crime' provides the basis for a typology of victimisation, i.e. a system of identifying targets of prejudice: black, foreign, homosexual, woman, disabled, HIV positive. It goes beyond the scope of this report to consider each such category in detail. Rather, the intention is to highlight the link between a motive-driven action (which is thereby perpetrator defined) and victim identity. As the American Psychological Association (APA) (1998) suggests, 'this kind of attack takes place on two levels; not only is it an attack on one's physical self, but it is also an attack on one's very identity (p.2).

Victim-identity is crucial to the legal debates that revolve around the category of hate crime. Coussey (2002) suggests that there are three legal approaches to 'dealing with racist violence:

In South Africa, the current legal attitude to racially motivated crime fluctuates between the first and second approaches: it is not a specific crime category per se but, if racial motivation emerges as an aggravating factor within a case, it can impact on the length of sentence (Sarkin, in personal communication). Coussey (2002) comments that 'the advantage of treating racial violence as a general offence is that there is no need to prove that the action was racially motivated. Such evidence is often difficult to obtain, and may make successful prosecution more difficult' (p.21). However, in many other countries (for example, the UK and the USA) it is the third option that determines the legal approach to hate crime, namely, having a specific category of hate offences. Such legislation is driven by the characteristics of the victim. This process is unusual in criminal law, according to Moody (2000):

In most criminal offences the characteristics of the victim are of no significance except possibly as factors which may be taken into account in fixing sentences. Certain offences are victim specific, such as sexual offences against children, or abuse of the mentally ill by their professional carers, but these are not the norm. Racist crime, therefore, represents a departure from the usual approach of the criminal law. (p.2)

Coussey (2002) explains that 'the advantage of having specific offences or increased penalties for racial motivation is that it makes it clear that the authorities regard them as particularly serious and unacceptable' (p.21). However, Moody (2000) notes that this approach can present difficulties – both legally and to the individual victim. One problem, she suggests, is that the definition commonly 'emphasises the characteristics of the victims and puts the spotlight on them. [With racially motivated crime, the] focus is on the race of the victim rather than the racism of the perpetrator' (p.3). This risks leaving the ascriptive features unchallenged and socially entrenched:

The prominence given to colour, race or ethnic origin in the racist crime legislation reinforces false notions of difference rather than saluting the diversity and fluidity which should be the hallmark of multi-cultural societies (Moody, 2000, p.3).

Moody's (2000) concerns can be reframed as a moral dilemma, one of particular relevance to the South African context where race has so long structured social, political and legal relationships: How can a society address and punish racism without reproducing old patterns of racist relationships or reifying race itself? Can the concept of a 'hate crime' avoid its own terms of reference? And is it possible to engage with the prejudice of a perpetrator without 'bringing the victim under the spotlight' too? Moody (2000) recognises that a victim-focus may be 'inescapable' (p.3). However, hers are key considerations when evaluating the concept of 'hate crime', especially from a victim empowerment perspective.8 If unmanaged, a focus on ascriptive features could re-victimise victims by uncritically reproducing the very qualities and discourses that contributed to their initial victimisation.

Another concern that Moody (2000) raises with a victim-driven categorisation of hate crime, is that of 'leaving out key groups' (p.3). She notes that in the United Kingdom, for example, anti-discrimination legislation does not extend to 'vulnerable groups, which are neither racial nor religious, such as gays and lesbians' (p.3). Similarly, the Lambda Anti-Violence Project observes that in the USA, '[c]urrent federal law covers crimes committed on the basis of race, religion, color or national origin. However, there are no federal protections for crimes based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability'. Although the South African constitution shields a range of vulnerable persons, these international experiences highlight the danger of pre-determining categories of vulnerability. One reason for this is because potential victims can 'fall through the legal cracks'. Similarly, victims may change over time, with the emergence of new forms of prejudice, for example, HIV positive victims or victims of Islamophobia in the wake of September 11. This calls for legal flexibility, as well as social understanding about the changing nature of victimisation. It also warns that prejudice itself is flexible and capable of adopting new forms and targets.

The flexibility of prejudice, as well as (legal) attempts to deal with it, is reflected historically through the expansive nature of the term hate crime. The category has become more inclusive over time. Tracked through the literature, race-based hate crime is the oldest, the largest and currently (within an international context) the least contested category. Internationally, 'newer' forms of recognised prejudice, such as those motivated by sexual orientation, disability and HIV-status, are more contentious and controversial. This has created what might be termed a 'prejudice hierarchy', in which race is less contested than other forms of prejudice. In graphical form, this hierarchy might take on the following shape, with 'race' as the least contested category and more recently recognised forms of prejudice reflecting higher levels of contestation:

Graph 1: Prejudice and its contestation within the international context
 

Another graphical representation of a prejudiced hierarchy might look like that in Graph 2: The least contested form of prejudice – race in the international context – sits at the pinnacle of the hierarchy, whilst the more recent forms find themselves at the bottom of the pyramid. This has many implications, including those in relation to the social and legal treatment of victims, the sentencing of perpetrators, and the availability/direction of resources for research, intervention and advocacy. It also has implications for determining whether a crime will qualify as a hate crime or not (Valji, editing comments, 2003).

 
Graph 2: Hierarchy of Prejudice

Because the concept of hate crime is so new to South Africa and race politics remain particularly volatile, it is difficult to assess whether racial hate crime will be more or less contested than other forms of classified prejudice. This is an important research question, which needs future exploration.

 
Graph 3: South African prejudice hierarchies

A South African 'prejudice configuration' will not necessarily evolve in the same way as international trends. This is because the concept of hate crime in South Africa has not had to unfold and adapt to 'newer' forms of prejudice over time. Instead, the notion can be imported wholesale as a category comprised of both older and newer manifestations of prejudice. On the one hand, this suggests the possibility for a 'prejudice flat line', as opposed to the 'prejudice hierarchy' that has evolved internationally, i.e. a typology system where all forms of prejudice are afforded 'equal' status.

On the other hand, given South Africa's particularly racialised past, it could result in an inversion of the international norm where racially motivated prejudice is highly contested as a concept within the society, whereas other forms of prejudice may not receive as much attention (just because they are rendered invisible, does not mean that they are accepted, though). Another possibility is that awareness about South Africa's apartheid history and the wrongs of the past could result in people being more, rather than less, willing to recognise race-based violence (Valji, editing comments, 2003a). In this case, the South African trend might reflect the international norm.

International norm/one possibility for South Africa

Posssible South African response

Or else, all forms of prejudice could merely be received at higher, lower or similar levels of debate/contestation as their international counterparts. These are important points for comparison within the international context and they need to be investigated.
 

The complexity of prejudice threatens to render any classification systems of hate crime too restrictive and narrow in defining, and thereby addressing, victims. It runs the risk of 'leaving victims out'. At the same time, however, this very complexity and the expansive quality of hatred also threaten to create a 'catch-all' category for accommodating anyone who does not fit into other legal categories. Too much definitional flexibility could undermine the political utility of, and social message against, crimes of prejudice if the category is so big as to become meaningless. It could also detract from understanding the dynamics, causes and characteristics specific to particular manifestations of prejudice. As Bjorgo & Witte (1994) suggest, '[o]ne difficulty with the concept of hate crime is that it tends to widen the scope so much that the specific features of racist violence may get neglected' (Bjorgo & Witte, 1994, p.15). Practically, this could impact on the development of intervention and prevention programmes if they are solely designed around the unspecific notion of prejudice. The challenge, therefore, is to find a balance – from research, legal and intervention perspectives - between the qualities of specific forms of hate crime and the more generic category of prejudice.

The historically expansive nature of the category hate crime raises the key questions:

These questions suggest that hate crime is a political concept that cannot be divorced from the socio-political climate in which it emerges and is sustained. In the South African context, the changing legal and political nature of prejudice is particularly noticeable over the period of transition from apartheid to democracy. This is not only at a level of racial politics and identity. As Gear (in personal communication) observes, some of those who were designated 'criminals' in the past, for example through the category of homosexuality, are today potential 'victims' of prejudice. Through this legal shift from criminal to victim, particular social groupings are currently afforded specific constitutional protection.

While the (internationally-defined) category of hate crime has expanded to accommodate new victims over time, there has been little interrogation of experiences within and between the different victim-categories. Instead, hate crime victims are represented monolithically, as a uniform group, at least within the law. Moody (2000) terms this a 'problem of assumed symmetry' between victims of hatred (p.4). She suggests that it emerges from an assumption that prejudice is experienced equally and in a qualitatively similar way between victims from different victim-groupings. Focusing on racially motivated hate crime, she notes that 'there is an assumption of symmetry between the experience of different racial groupings who suffer racist crime' (p.4). For her, this assumption is faulty:

Yet we all know that racist crime committed [in the United Kingdom] against black and ethnic minority victims by whites causes more pain, is more damaging to the health of their communities and is more likely to undermine social harmony on a national scale than when the victim is white. (Moody, 2000, p.4)

Moody (2000) challenges assumptions of victim homogeneity from a British perspective. Whether and how the assumption of symmetry translates to the South African context needs to be examined across various levels, including that of national reconciliation, as well as between individuals and within communities. For example, in the South African context, what might be the impact on racial reconciliation if the experience of a black victim were privileged over that of a white victim, or vice versa? The current debates about farm(er) killings, in which white farmers are portrayed either as victims of racial attacks or victims of crime, give some insight into the complexity of ranking (and racialising) victim experience (cf. Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Farm Attacks, 2003).9 It is important to explore the implications of moving beyond a framework of victim homogeneity. Is it possible to quantify and 'rank' victim-status? How would this impact on legislation and sentencing? Will it create and sustain a hierarchy of prejudice? Is one person's experience of prejudice more or less hurtful than another's? How is this measured? These questions bring to light notions of subjectivity and personal experience.10 They also suggest that an analysis of prejudice cannot be divorced from the very categories (class, race, sexuality, age, etc) that define it, especially at points where these categories intersect and overlap. Hence, in a particular incident of racially motivated violence, for example, what is the impact/influence of class and gender, as well as race? This is an important question when juxtaposed alongside another quality (of certain forms) of hate crime, which is that incidents are not isolated; they take place in a context and as part of daily life, and are commonly an accumulation of taunting, hate speech, bullying and ongoing conflict (see section on isolated incidents below). An interrogation of the 'big' categories of prejudice and how they define and intersect with hate crime would thus benefit an analysis of hate crime as part of 'everyday living'. This is also important in terms of understanding coping mechanisms and accessing justice, as well as dealing with the trauma of an actual incident. Do particular forms of prejudice (and their manifestation as hate crime) co-exist with, and feed, others and how? At the same time, does prejudice simply 'add up' through the accumulated categories, for example, poor+woman+black+foreign? How can a formulaic approach to hate crime be avoided? And, how do individuals and their actions fit into these bigger categories of understanding conflict and prejudice?

These questions need careful interrogation when applied to the South African context, with the specifics of an apartheid history and the contemporary nuances of transition. Simpson (in personal communication) points out that during the apartheid era victims were primarily defined – from a progressive perspective – by reference to racial marginalisation. He notes that democratisation has, however, lifted this political mantle and asks "what does this mean for victims today? How will victims be defined in the new South Africa?" If prejudice, rather than racial marginalisation per se, is to become the mantle for referring to victims (through the concept of hate crime), Simpson questions what will happen to other layers of analysis, for example class and gender. To this must be added race itself. Although gender and race are typical categories of hatred, class is not commonly used to define motive. Similarly, in seeking to understand an incident of victimisation, it may be the intersection and cumulative contribution of various 'isms' (e.g. racism, classism, sexism), rather than one alone, which explains and defines the victim experience of a hate act. Considering the specifics of the South African context also raises related questions about importing a concept – that of hate crime- from 'developed' countries to those undergoing political and social transition, commonly termed 'post-conflict societies'.11 Simpson (in personal communication) suggests that from a victim empowerment perspective it may be valuable to compare points of difference between what the concept of hate crime means for a 'society in transition' versus its meaning in the 'developed world'.

An understanding of 'victims', who they are and what this means – to themselves, legally, socially, politically, and in terms of prejudice – is crucial to hate crime definitions. Even although it seems inevitable that victims do come under the spotlight of these definitions, it is important that key questions have been and continue to be raised around a victim-focus. It is similarly crucial from a victim empowerment perspective to acknowledge that neither prejudice nor victims are static. At the same time, it is important not to lose sight of those who are consistently victimised and remain vulnerable to ongoing prejudice, in old and new guises. The relationships and interconnections between victims and perpetrators, society and prejudice, need careful examination in order to reach a clear understanding of the term hate crime; and also, to evaluate and assess its utility as a legal and political category within the South African context.

Hate crimes are 'message crimes'

Hate crimes impact not only on the individual victim, but on the whole 'hated group'. For this reason, the American Psychological Association (APA) (1998) explains that they are 'message crimes' (p.4):

They are different from other crimes in that the offender is sending a message to members of a certain group that they are unwelcome in a particular neighborhood, community, school, or workplace. (APA, 1998, p.4)

By communicating a social message, hate crimes serve a threatening and warning function beyond the particular incident and those directly involved. Bjorgo & Witte (1993) define racist violence as,

any violence in which victims are selected because of their ethnic, 'racial', religious, cultural or national origin. The victims are attacked not in their capacities as individuals but as representatives of such groups which [in Europe] are normally minorities in terms of numbers as well as in terms of power. Buildings, properties and institutions may also be attacked because they represent these groups or their interests. (p.6)

The Lambda Anti-Violence Project suggests that,

[h]ate crimes are a form of terrorism that have a psychological and emotional impact which extends far beyond the victim. They threaten the entire community.

By likening hate crime to terrorism, this definition introduces an interesting discursive link between the two, because it is commenting on the consequences and impact of crimes driven by prejudice.12 Because they target social categories, the effect of hate crimes moves beyond any given victim, in a similar way to the broader social intentions of terrorism: 'the subjects of terrorist attacks generally have little intrinsic value to the terrorist group but represent a larger human audience whose reaction the terrorists seek' (Botha, 2001, p.16).

Intention and Effect

While there is overlap in the consequences of hate crime and terrorism, it is important not to draw the parallels too closely, particularly on the issue of intention. The impact of a crime motivated by prejudice may include fear, community disturbance and social control. However, this does not mean that (for the individual perpetrator, unlike the terrorist) such an effect was deliberately intended. Indeed, the extent to which social planning and deliberation underpins any particular incident is an area for exploration. In this vein, intention may provide a useful criterion through which to sub-categorise and refine the concept of hate crime (for example, perpetrators motivated by a specific socio-political agenda, versus those who are less deliberate in their intentions). Unraveling the notion of intention depends very much on who the perpetrators are and what motivates them. The issue of intention similarly raises questions about the nature of prejudice. While hatred is commonly presented as a 'crime of ignorance', what are the ways in which prejudice can be pre-meditated, planned and expressed? To what extent is prejudice thoughtless?13 Valji (editing comments, 2003a) notes that the issue of intention is particularly interesting in South Africa, where racism has been socially entrenched. 'What about where a crime is clearly perpetrated through a dehumanisation of the victim because of racist socialization, yet the perpetrator does not consciously acknowledge that they are 'racist'?' She notes that 'much of the violence of the apartheid state forces was particularly brutal because black people were subconsciously seen as 'subhuman' but perpetrators would be unwilling to admit that racism played any role'. Seeking to understand intention also raises questions about the role of the media and the ways in which hate crimes are phrased and publicised. If social control and fear are intended, then how are they conveyed? What mechanisms are deployed by perpetrators to reach beyond a particular incident? More generally, what social devices feed fear and control, whether or not the intention is to send such a message?

Vigilante Messages

The message quality of hate crime highlights its overlap with vigilantism. This is because one function of vigilante violence – which can be defined as the violence of taking the law into one's own hands - is to send a social warning: vigilantism 'strives for … control, by instilling fear within the audience. It warns the victim and onlookers … . It also generalises beyond the actual incident [that is being punished] to future possibilities' (Harris, 2001a, p.19). This social warning expresses itself through the methods and modus operandi of many vigilante activities. These are commonly visible, harsh, bodily forms of punishment, including sjambokking, stoning and body painting. While it goes beyond the scope of this report to explore the similarities and differences between general actions of vigilantism and hate crime, it is important to note that there is an overlap. The visible and violent methods of the Ku Klux Klan - lynchings and burning crosses, for example - clearly illustrate this. In South Africa, as elsewhere, violent forms of hate crime can be defined as vigilante in nature and certain vigilante manifestations are motivated by prejudice. Consider Box 1.14

Box 1: Hate crimes and vigilantism

The murder of Gugu Dlamini, an AIDS activist and educator, represents an example of prejudice-motivated vigilante action in South Africa. In 1998, she was beaten and stoned to death by a crowd purely because she publicly disclosed her HIV-positive status, an action that was framed as 'degrading' to her community. Following her death, community members continued to apply tactics of intimidation and fear to other AIDS activists working within the area of KwaMancinza. For example, consider the following article:

AIDS worker lives in fear, Bareng-Batho Kortjaas (Sunday Times, 10 January 1999)

BARELY a month after the killing of an AIDS educator, her close friend and fellow activist is now being targeted with death threats. Gugu Dlamini, 36, was killed by a mob because she is alleged to have degraded her community by confessing that she had the AIDS virus. Now her friend … is living in fear after receiving threatening calls warning her that she will follow Dlamini "to the grave" if she does not stop urging those who are silent about their HIV status to go public …"A man called me and said it was not my problem that people had contracted the virus. He said because I had a big mouth about AIDS, I was next on the hit list," she said … the calls continued on a daily basis and with different voices. I realised my life was in danger. I am now living in fear of being killed. "What makes it worse is that they say nasty things - like I became HIV positive because I was a prostitute, slept around with white men and deserved to contract the virus because I was promiscuous. "This is driving me crazy, more so because it shows their ignorance about AIDS," she said …

The messaging quality of hate crimes suggests that there are different thematic levels through which to explore the concept:

In certain cases, these levels overlap and complement each other, for example when individual perpetrators are motivated out of ideological beliefs that have an explicit social message. Barend "Wit Wolf" Strydom is one such example (see section on lone wolf perpetrators below). In others, the message may be located at one specific level. For example, Bjorgo (1998) notes that in Sweden, certain killings with 'right-wing extremist or racist dimensions [were so defined not because of] the presence of a racist or political motive, but [because of] the identity of the perpetrators' (p.6). Rather than being defined by a specific incident or the relationship between the individual perpetrators and victims involved, racially motivated hate crime in these cases 'could be seen as part of the more general mode of violently aggressive behaviour of the perpetrators and the racist subculture to which they belonged' (Bjorgo, 1998, p.6). In the South African context, this is an important point. It represents a challenge for neatly defining and identifying racial motivation. If the concept spans beyond any particular incident and is located instead within the identity of the perpetrator (and the victim), is it possible to divorce race from any interpretation of violence between different race-groups in the South African context? How can particular incidents be contextualised within a broader culture of both racism and violence?15 What does the notion of 'racially motivated' mean in a society where violence is the norm, the primary 'solution' to problems (cf. Simpson, Mokwena & Segal, 1992; Hamber, 1999)? These are challenging questions, not only in relation to racially motivated hate crime, but also to other forms of prejudice, including xenophobia, Islamophobia and gender-based violence.

What is the South African message?

Within South Africa, actions of prejudice are not commonly framed as 'hate crime'.16 The concept has very limited social and legal currency and there are no alternative labels, i.e. there is no one concept for arranging, exploring or punishing 'prejudice' per se. Why this is so remains to be explored (and is a central theme within this report). Possibilities include:

  1. The general prevalence of violence within South Africa. Prejudice-motivated violence is just one form of violence, and the causes of violence itself remain under-explored and poorly interrogated within popular social discourse.
  2. An automatic assumption that prejudice does underpin many violent actions in South Africa (and hence it may not be overtly articulated).
  3. A lack of engagement with apartheid history and silence within contemporary South Africa about prejudice, particularly racially motivated actions. The reasons for such silence are varied and may include political correctness and a failure of the reconciliation enterprise to keep prejudice on the socio-political agenda. The dynamics of political transition may also have created a set of social conditions that are very different to those in 'developed' countries where the term hate crime is currently applied.
  4. A lack of strategy for coping with and tackling prejudice.
  5. The fragmented nature of prejudice itself. Prejudice is a massive category, which has different manifestations and expressions. This, as Moody (2000) and Bjorgo & Witte (1994) suggest, risks rendering the concept of 'hate crime' unwieldy and so big as to be meaningless.

In the absence of a common label for crimes of prejudice in South Africa, it is important to ask: what social message, if any, is being conveyed about and against prejudice? Is it possible to send one consistent message? And is this desirable?

Hate crimes are violent

It is commonly asserted that hate crimes – more than many other forms of crime - are violent in nature (cf. APA, 1998, Stop the Hate). The American Psychological Association (APA) (1998) notes that while hate crimes may constitute attacks on property, as well as verbal abuse and economic exploitation, the predominant trend within the USA is one of physical violence:

According to the FBI … about 70% (of hate crimes reported during 1996) involve an attack against a person. The offense can range from simple assault (i.e. no weapon is involved) to aggravated assault, rape and murder. (pp.1-2)

Stop The Hate similarly lists violence as a central characteristic:

hate crimes involve a higher level of assaults against persons than crimes generally … [and they] are more violent than crimes generally.

Violence in these definitions appears as a key feature of hate crimes. It is implicit to the concept; a quality that defines and separates hate crimes from their less violent crime counterparts. This understanding complements the idea that hate crimes are 'message crimes': indeed, what better way to communicate a social message, instill community fear and strengthen control than through the visibility of physical violence?17 Even in those cases where a social message is not deliberately intended by individual perpetrators, an incident of racially motivated crime still holds the potential to provoke community violence and fear. The Community Relations Service (CRS) in the USA explains that,

[o]f all crimes, hate crimes are most likely to create or exacerbate tensions, which can trigger larger community-wide racial conflict, civil disturbances, and even riots. (CRS, 2001, p.1)

Hate crimes can expose long-standing community relations of friction and hostility, or create new social divisions, lending to racial polarisation and community-wide reaction. Racialised violence in the English towns of Oldham (cf. Ritchie, 2001), Burnley (cf. Clarke, Burnley Task Force, 2001), and Bradford (cf. Denham, 2001) illustrates this. Sparked by particular incidents between Asian and white residents, racialised violence quickly extended outwards on a community scale, during mid-2001, to involve and absorb many other residents.18 Extensive property damage and a number of injuries were reported in each town.

Hate crimes can be catalysts for community-level conflict. They can similarly galvanize organised groupings (e.g. anti-racist groups) into action. Certain anti-racist movements in the international context are known for their violent responses to prejudice. In his review of racist violence in Scandanavia, Bjorgo (1998) explains that '[v]iolent confrontations between neo-Nazis and militant left-wing antiracists have been a recurrent pattern in Sweden as in other countries' (p.6). Commenting on racist trends in Norway, he notes that,

in several communities, there were spirals of violence between nationalist skinheads and militant antiracists, where the latter were sometimes no less violent than the former. The neo-Nazis have tended to use bombs, Molotov cocktails and firearms, whereas Norwegian anti-racist militants have usually restricted themselves to sticks, stones, fists and boots, possibly because the antiracists have usually been numerically stronger. During the mid-1990s, the means of violence have become more extreme [on both sides, to include bombings, arson, shootings and vandalism]. (Bjorgo, 1998, p.8)

Although there are militant anti-racist groups that deliberately deploy violent tactics in their confrontations with neo-Nazi and right-wing organisations (especially, it seems, within the Western European context) it is important to recognise that groups falling under an 'anti-racist' banner are neither homogenous nor automatically violent. Rather, they are splintered and fragmented, comprised of, amongst others, 'non-confrontationists, the non-violent confrontationists and the militant confrontationists' (Peterson, 1998, p.103). Indeed, violence itself (and its rejection or promulgation) can be used as a variable for categorising different anti-prejudice positions, as well as racist groups. Grouping anti-racists into violent or non-violent categories suggests that violence can be an instrument of ideology within the prejudice/anti-prejudice ambit, and, in certain cases, is a conscious choice. It can also be seen as a factor of morality, a tool for justifying various positions on the morality scale (e.g. the use of violence is one way of exploring and arranging the various bodies that comprised the anti-apartheid movement). However, even ideology and morality can, according to Bjorgo (1998), give way to personally motivated and emotionally driven responses. He notes that revenge is a common motive for ongoing spirals of violence between racist and anti-racist organisations: '[h]atred and personal grievances quickly replace political considerations and [for certain organisations] scruples against violence' (p.10).

Prejudice can prompt attacks and counter-attacks between bodies that are self-consciously and ideologically constituted. The very act of a hate crime can also draw automatic (and potentially violent) lines within communities without any ideological or political deliberateness. This is because (potential) victims are delineated and identified through ascriptive features. And these, because they are so 'visible', can easily create the lines along which to draw social divisions and fuel community tensions. Not only do ascriptive features automatically create 'victims' (and, to an extent, 'perpetrators'), they can also force people – ideologically - into groups with which they do not necessarily identify; Yesilgov (1993) observes that '[i]ndividual members of groups which are the potential victims of anti-racist violence, are often by definition perceived as being anti-racist themselves' (p.179). In this case, it is the perceptions of others, of society, that actively thrust group membership upon certain individuals, who are seen as anti-racist, as well as (potential) victims. Such membership can be commensurate with individual beliefs. But, for those who do not have an articulated ideological position, it can impose and facilitate a sense of morality, which is guided less by belief than by society. About these individuals Yesilgov (1993) asks '[d]o they oppose racism as an ideology or are they 'anti-racist' because it threatens them?' (p.179). Although the distinction may be invisible in practice, this is an important question. It challenges assumptions of ideological solidarity (or even basic political awareness) within anti-racist discourse. It also raises questions about morality in a society where anti-racism is legally, politically and ethically prioritised, where anti-racism represents morality. For those who are not consciously motivated through principle and belief, the socially imposed label of 'anti-racist' creates an artificial, externally imposed morality. This allows victims and potential victims, by virtue of their group membership, to be simultaneously beneficiaries of a moral order. Indeed, it is their very potential to be victims that lends them a socially granted 'moral high ground'. For many, a socially prescribed morality need not be at odds with their daily experience and practice (or if it is, the effects of victimisation may far exceed any abstract 'benefits' that pertain to a moral framework). However, Yesilgov's (1993) question does introduce the possibility for prejudice and discrimination amongst (potential) victims themselves: 'this does not necessarily mean that these victims of racist violence cannot themselves advocate racist beliefs and ideologies' (p.179). In essence, he is challenging the notion that victims, or potential victims, cannot also be perpetrators of prejudice. This is important in the South African context, especially when looking at the new manifestations and forms of prejudice across the process of political transition. Xenophobia represents a clear example of Yesilgov's (1993) point, for it is South Africans from across the racial spectrum who display hostility towards (usually African) foreigners (cf. Harris, 2001b).19

When analysing conflict between social groupings, it is imperative to differentiate between planned violence and revenge attacks on one hand, and more spontaneous or provoked events on the other, for example, marches and rallies (either for or against racism) that turn violent. Planned violence can take on various forms, such as targeted assassinations, copy-cat killings and incidents of revenge. In South Africa, the assassinations of Hendrik Verwoerd and Chris Hani can both be interpreted as violence motivated in relation to prejudice. In the case of Chris Hani, prejudice (caught up in politics) was the key motive. In the Verwoerd example, anti-prejudice (caught up in politics and personal mental illness) was the primary impetus.

Chris Hani

On 10 April 1993, Chris Hani, secretary-general of the South African Communist Party, was assassinated by Janus Walus, a Polish immigrant to South Africa. The murder was planned together with his co-accused, Clive Derby-Lewis (a founder member of the Conservative Party (CP)). The assassination was generally seen as political; a right wing bid to destabilise the country's process of transition towards democracy and black majority rule. Both men were sentenced to death in 1994 (commuted to life sentences when the death penalty was abolished). They applied for, and were denied, amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, on the grounds that they 'failed to meet two requirements of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, namely full disclosure of the facts and sufficiently proving political motivation for the killing' (Bothma, 1999). At the time, and in a subsequent court challenge, they maintained that the Amnesty Committee was inconsistent in its decisions. 'The assassins and their families believe that they have been treated unfairly and that double standards have been applied to deny them amnesty while granting it to applicants whose legal claim is no stronger. Derby-Lewis's wife, Gaye … says: "If there is a single thread through the amnesty process, it is glaring inconsistency"' (Laurence, 2001). Drawing on cases where amnesty was granted – e.g. those involved in the Amy Biehl killing and the St James Church massacre, and Sibusiso Ngcobo, a member of the IFP, who was granted amnesty 'in spite of the IFP's commitment to non-violence' (Laurence, 2001) – Gaye Derby-Lewis said: 'There is no legal or moral consistency in the decision' (Bothma, 1999). The high court, however, found that 'its task [was] not to pass judgment on whether the amnesty finding … [was] consistent with findings in earlier amnesty committee decisions. Rather, it [was] to assess whether the findings [were] consistent with the amnesty provisions of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act'- this it found (Laurence, 2001).
Hendrick Verwoerd

On 6 September 1966, Hendrick Verwoerd, then Prime Minister of South Africa and the 'father of apartheid' was stabbed and killed by Demitrios Tsafendas, a 'coloured' Mozambican immigrant to South Africa. Tsafendas suffered from schizophrenia and, at the time, his actions were represented as symptomatic of his mental condition. He was sentenced to death and remained on death row for nearly 30 years (Carte Blanche Interactive, 2001). However, recently revised information suggests that his actions were motivated by politics, along with his own social position as a 'coloured' person in Southern Africa (although he was given a job as a parliamentary messenger because he appeared to be white). Biographer Henk van Woerden (author of A Mouthful of Glass) suggests that: 'Demitrios Tsafendas was almost emblematic of a situation in South Africa and I'm referring – and I know its sensitive – to the position of the coloured people. To those of mixed race in South Africa. He was emblematic of the struggle for identity' (quoted in Carte Blanche Interactive, 2001). He also explains that '[t]he records that I have looked at suggest without a doubt that at the time he murdered Verwoerd, he was completely compus mentus. When asked for his motives, he said: 'I didn't like the man, I dislike what he's doing to the country, I don't agree'. It was politically motivated' (quoted in Carte Blanche Interactive, 2001).

In certain cases, the actual motives behind a particular assassination may be less important than public perceptions about the cause. For example, in May 2002, Pim Fortuyn, Dutch leader of the far-right Pim Fortuyn's List Party, was assassinated in the Netherlands. Whether this was motivated in direct response to his anti-immigrant, anti-Islamic politics or not (at the time of writing, the motive has not yet been established), this is the common perception. And out of this perception, as a consequence thereof, his assassination resulted in civil unrest and further (more spontaneous) violence and displays of prejudice within the Netherlands.

Hundreds of angry demonstrators, some wearing swastikas, took to the streets outside the Dutch parliament and threw bottles and stones at riot police who were called to disperse them … . A handful of extremists shouted "Pim de Fuhrer", comparing him to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. (Mail & Guardian Online, 07/05/2002)

In South Africa, public reactions to prejudice-related assassinations and other high profile hate crimes have, in certain situations, also resulted in further violence. For example, in Vryburg, various incidents of racism and violence at Hoerskool Vryburg resulted in high levels of community polarisation. This spilled into racial tensions beyond the school. 'Following one particular incident at Hoerskool Vryburg, there were newspaper reports of open conflict between black and white police officers' (South African Human Rights Commission, 1999a, p.2). Bail hearings, trials, sentencing, funerals, anniversaries of death – these all signify the consequences of a particular hate crime, and, at the same time, hold the potential to initiate new manifestations of violence, both planned and more spontaneous in nature.

That violence can result from a particular hate crime does not mean that it is inevitable. Victims, their families, and affected communities do not usually resort to violence in response to an incident (and care must be taken to avoid re-victimising victims by painting them as potential perpetrators). Similarly, perpetrators are not always violent. In many situations, there is no violence either within a particular hate crime – see characteristics below - or in response to a violent incident. In these cases, it is crucial to establish why, to look at the factors that contribute to peace, or at least, to avoiding conflict, as much as those that facilitate violence (in this regard it would be interesting to embark on a comparative study of three cases: a) a non-violent hate crime and its effects, b) a violent hate crime where no further violence results, c) a violent hate crime which provokes further violence).

In cases where conflict does result, it is important to move beyond a generalised concept of 'violence' to one which recognises that there are various levels for its expression. These include:

Any typology must also recognise the complex nature of violence – particular hate crimes may differ in terms of,

Although hate crimes are commonly presented as more violent than many other forms of crime, this is not as straightforward as it may appear from the definitions and media representations. Rather, there are differing perspectives and interpretations. These reveal a complex relationship between violence, prejudice, and social understandings and justifications for various actions. Rather than conceptualizing hate crime as one monolithic category, it is useful to place it on a spectrum with physical violence and injury on one end and language on the other (see characteristics of hate crime, box 3 below).

Talking about it

One level of contestation is that of language, of the ways in which violent actions are phrased and justified. Virtanen (1998) comments that,

[v]iolence comes closer to the experience of the victims of violence than that of the perpetrators. Perpetrators of what others consider violence usually try to avoid the term violence, preferring fight, struggle, self-defence, or war in their rhetoric. Some perpetrators also place their acts of violence in the context of more or less elaborated political ideologies or discourses within which their actions appear not only acceptable but even commendable. (p.40)

How language is used, and who uses it, to label and interpret a violent incident is important. Not because it should detract - objectively and morally - from the actual event of violence (although it commonly does) but because it offers insight into the expression, experience and justifications of prejudice. Language tells about perpetrator identity (for example, perpetrators may see themselves as 'moral guardians' or 'freedom fighters') and the role of the perpetrator's community (they may receive tacit or overt support from a wider social or ideological network). In their analysis of life history constructions and mass violence (as told around the experience of the Indian Partition), Sonpar & Singh (2002) suggest,

One route to understanding these phenomena appears when we shift away from victim-defined violence such as murders, rapes, assassinations, riots, massacres to the perspective of perpetrators. Here we find acts of violence framed in terms of reference of faith, duty, dharma, just war, crusade, jehad, purification. (p.1)

Language also tells about the victim's experience and perceptions of violence and prejudice. In the 2000 British Crime Survey (BCS), Clancy, Hough, Aust & Kershaw (2001) suggest that,

[w]hilst people from ethnic minorities are no more at risk of violent crime than others [in Britian], they are much more likely to perceive a racial dimension in the crimes they experience. (p.vii)

Clancy et al.'s (2001) point highlights the importance of victims' perceptions and interpretations of events. The perception that a violent incident is racially motivated – whether or not it is - could account for the higher than average violent content of hate crimes. However, this is very difficult to quantify, validate or reject because perceptions hark back to questions about perpetrator motives and how to understand these. Similarly, Clancy et al.'s (2001) point does not explore the complexities that go into developing and sustaining perceptions. For example, they do not link victims' perceptions about a particular incident to a general climate of racism; a climate Oakley (1996, cited in Bjorgo, 1998) terms the 'everyday racism' (p.39) that can affect victims constantly and can precipitate or underpin a particular event. This is particularly relevant to the South African context, given the country's long history of institutionalised racism and racialised relationships. Consider Box 2:

Box 2: Painting Thieves - fighting crime or disguising racism?

In South Africa, alleged criminals are frequently apprehended and violently punished for crimes such as theft and rape. Disguised under a veneer of crime fighting, certain of these actions do seem to be linked to motives of prejudice. But, it is often difficult to directly extract 'racial motivation' from 'crime fighting' motives. Consider the following example:

Woman painted Green Ndivhuwo Khangale (Sowetan, 24 May 2002) 'A Soweto woman who tried to use her sister's credit card to purchase clothing … allegedly had enamel paint poured over her by the store manager on Wednesday …' (Khangale, 2002).

In this media article, no explicit details are given about the race of the perpetrator. The article is, however, accompanied by a large photograph of a black woman covered in paint; she is the victim. In addition, the names of both perpetrator and victim are printed (Afrikaans and 'white-sounding' for the manager, Sotho and 'black-sounding' for the 'Soweto' victim). The overt explanation for the incident is the allegation of credit card fraud. However, in an accompanying media piece, the 'Human Rights Commission said the action … could be an expression of racism' (Kweza, 2002). These details invite the reader to draw conclusions of racial motivation. In an era of political correctness and democratic reporting, assumptions of racism are commonly concluded through names and places, rather than being explicitly stated. While this signals an important move away from crass labeling within the media, it is problematic in cases of hate crime, where the race of both victim and perpetrator are central to understanding the incident; indeed, race motivates the incident. Omitting race when it is a key variable of explanation insulates the racist nature of such incidents and thereby prevents racism from being tackled head on.

Although race is not overtly mentioned in the woman painted green article, the incident certainly speaks of high levels of dehumanisation in South Africa. It also compares with other such 'painting' incidents, which have received recent media attention. In this phenomenon, black victims, mostly accused of shop-lifting or trespassing, are painted by (usually) white perpetrators. Although these incidents are widely represented as racist in motivation, they can be complicated by the 'actors' involved. For example, consider the following extract:

Fury greets sentence in painted-girl case Rapule Tabane, Moshoeshoe Monare & Sapa (Independent Online, 2001, April 05). 'The acquittal of a former [white female] … store manager and the conviction of her [black male] subordinate for painting a black teenage girl white has drawn sharp criticism … Jody Kollapen, senior commissioner at the HRC said …"The person who did the painting was an employee of the one who supposedly instructed him; so we have to look at power relations in this case, not just at the actual perpetrator."… Justice Minister Penuell Maduna's spokesperson, Paul Setstese, said …"it is necessary that the court should, particularly in racially motivated cases, send a message that inhumane treatment will not be tolerated …'

As in cases where a victim of racial hate crime can be of the same race as the perpetrator (e.g. xenophobic incidents) or of a different race to their perpetrator's expressed racial target (e.g. white anti-racists being attacked by neo-Nazis), so, this incident reveals, perpetrators can also be of the same race as their victims. At the same time, this case suggests that it is possible for perpetrators (in this case, the black male paint-pourer) to be simultaneously victims of a bigger system of racialised power relations. The concepts of dehumanisation and relations of power are crucial in understanding the painting phenomenon in contemporary South Africa. And these cannot be divorced from the country's history of racism, both at an institutional level and, less formally, between individuals on a daily basis.

The complexity of the relationship between violence and prejudice poses a central challenge for utilising the concept of racially motivated crime in post-apartheid South Africa. On the one hand, race is implicit to many forms and manifestations of violence, even in cases where it is not actively articulated (or where the perpetrator may be of the same race as the victim). On the other hand, the temptation is to read race into expressions of conflict that are not necessarily motivated by prejudice. The challenge is how to find a balance which neither racialises every incident unquestioningly nor renders race invisible but rather accurately reflects the racial (or not) dynamics involved in each case. This is important not only in terms of current incidents but also for how South Africa's history is framed and re-written (cf. related reports in the Race and Citizenship in Transition Series.). Language gives insight into ways of understanding the past and speaking about the future.

Box 3: How did the media speak about racially motivated violence during South Africa's period of transition?

As part of the research process, CSVR commissioned the Media Monitoring Project (MMP) to set up a database of hate crimes reported in the written press across the period January 1994-June 2002. The database reveals certain patterns and trends in media reporting on the topic. The media items contained in the database are based on the following keywords:
Racial violence
450
Racial tensions 321
Racial crimes 177
Racial hatred 214
Racially motivated 259
Race conflict 367
Racial attacks 426
Racism + population 137
Racism + deaths, murders 527
Racism + influences 232
Racial hatred 68
Racial interaction 104
Racial Friction 182
Total Race Search 3423
Xenophobia 625
Illegal immigrants 808
Unwanted persons 1018
Foreigners 80
Total Xenophobia Search 2531
Total Overall Search 5954

(MMP, unpublished, pp.3-4)

According to these keywords, the overall print media search yielded 5 954 items for the period January 1994-June 2002 (8.5 years). Many of these items do engage with prejudice and violence.

BUT, compare these numbers to the wider context:
Bird (in personal communication) estimates that South African print media (excluding community-level media) produces approximately 15 000 items (covering the full spectrum of 'news') per week. Over an 8.5 year period, this amounts to 4 080 000 items. 5 954 items (i.e. the full extent of the Database) thus account for 0.14% of the total number of items represented in the print media across the period under review i.e. South Africa's period of transition to democracy.

Much of this time coincides with the life of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). A highly public institution, the TRC received extensive media coverage, BUT only 14 items on the CSVR-MMP Database directly engaged with the TRC. Given that the TRC was focused on South Africa's racist past and that it received extensive media coverage, this is a striking figure. It suggests that the TRC was being spoken about in the media and society with language that did not engage directly with racist violence. It also suggests that the Commission itself was speaking about the past with a different discourse to the keywords identified in the Database (cf. Fullard, 2004).

Language, experience and interpretations of prejudice can contribute to labeling the violent quality that is so frequently held to comprise hate crimes. Another reason for seemingly high levels of violence is that hate crimes are generally under-reported; in many cases, it is only very violent experiences that prompt victims to 'speak out', whilst less violent forms go unspoken (cf. APA, 1998; Sampson & Phillips, 1995). Under-reporting appears to be a key quality of prejudice-motivated crime. There are various reasons for this and these complicate the close association of 'hate crime' with 'hate violence'. They also argue for an expanded category of 'hate crime' characteristics (that is, expanded beyond 'violence' to include a wider ambit of prejudice-related actions).

Hate Crimes are under-reported

Sampson & Phillips (1995) note that a common hate crime trend is under-reporting; most incidents are only reported 'because the victims "could not take any more" and wanted the racial crimes to stop' (p.v). Similarly, Dunbar (cited in Mjoseth, 1998) comments that even in 'the most serious cases of hate crimes, like sexual assault and assault with a deadly weapon, people are much less likely to go to law enforcement agencies [in the USA]' (p.2). This suggests that reporting occurs as a last resort or an extreme measure, not as a first or automatic step in the experience of racialised victimisation (reasons for this under-reporting are explored below). It also implies that many hate crimes are not 'once off', isolated incidents but rather exist in a context of repeated victimisation and less violent yet persistent forms of harassment. See Box 3 for the Characteristics of Hate Crime.

Box 4: Characteristics of Hate Crime

Although there are different 'types' of hate crimes, including random, isolated incidents of violence, the more common acts appear to take place on a regular basis. These are typically carried out by perpetrators who are known to their victims and who harass them frequently. Harassment in these cases usually occurs within the workplace, at schools, or within the victim's neighbourhood/living area. Stop the Hate suggests that hate crime attacks 'are often preceded by a series of confrontations and incidents that escalate in severity'. These may involve property attacks, verbal abuse and physical violence. The [British] Commission for Racial Equality (cited in Peabody Trust, 2002) explains that, within the victim's living environment, the most common acts of harassment include:

  • 'Unprovoked assaults
  • Property damage
  • Discriminatory slogans, graffiti, excrement, eggs, paint, rubbish and/or other offensive substances on or in any part of the home
  • Arson or attempted arson
  • Verbal abuse
  • Threatening and/or abusive behaviour including spitting and failure to control dogs
  • Repeated unfounded complaints to the landlord about a resident
  • Threatening letters or phone calls of a discriminatory nature.
  • Participation in any activity which is calculated to deter the person from occupying or enjoying their home' (Peabody Trust, 2002).

In the South African context, victims of xenophobia report very similar experiences, namely ongoing abuse and harassment, verbal insults, bullying, destruction of documentation, extortion, spitting, pushing, threatened violence, and physical injury (cf. Harris, 2001b). For many foreigners, it is the 'smaller' but more consistent events of victimisation that leave them feeling isolated and discriminated against. Victimisation can take place at the hands of 'ordinary' perpetrators (i.e. South African citizens) but also through institutions and figures of authority. As the Roll Back Xenophobia Campaign (1998) recognises:

there is more to xenophobia than killings and attacks in the streets of South Africa. Extortion and abuse at the hands of some sections of police and civil servants, and discrimination in areas of education, health care and labour markets are but examples of institutions and segments of society where xenophobia manifests itself (National Plan of Action, p.1).

In most cases it seems that the characteristics of hate crime extend beyond physical violence, or that a particular incident of violence represents an accumulation of 'smaller', regular victimisation tactics. This translates to the experiential level of the individual victim (verbal abuse, bullying etc), as well as a broader context of discrimination that facilitates particular abuses. For example, the Leadership Conference Education Fund/Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCEF/LCCR) (1997) situates violent incidents of hatred within a general context of discrimination, prejudice and intolerance. The report comments on ongoing racial and gender discrimination (in terms of salaries and managerial positions) within the USA workplace: 'the barriers against women and minorities often reflect the crudest and cruelest discrimination, even in major corporations' (p.1). It suggests that 'the prejudice and raw hatred revealed in [hate] incidents is only one element of a combustible mixture of social problems that produces hate crimes' (LCEF/LCCR, 1997, p.2).

What characteristics were described by South African media?
In order to construct the Media Database, MMP monitored and tested the news items against various propositions, or themes. A proposition is a statement, such as 'hate crimes are violent', that attempts to capture and summarise a social discourse, or particular way of representing and speaking about something (in this case, hate crimes). A hate crime proposition is not factual. Rather, it offers insights into the common, often stereotypical ways, in which victims and perpetrators of racially motivated violence are portrayed. For the database, certain propositions were developed out of the literature reviewed in this report as 'summaries' of key hate crime qualities, for example, 'hate crimes are perpetrated by young men' (see full list of qualities in the 'defining hate crime' section above). Through the monitoring process, new items were tested against the propositions to see whether they supported or challenged the discourses implicit to them. The outcome of this process is reflected at various points within this report. Please note that the number of items that engaged with the particular proposition has been broken into percentages to show whether the item supported or challenged the proposition. Beyond this, there is no statistical significance in these figures.

The Media Database findings suggest two general trends in the reporting of hate crime characteristics in South Africa: On the one hand, events were represented as 'dramatic and violent' and 'a large portion of the incidents … [suggested that] people were subjected to life-threatening injuries and even death, with murder and death accounting for numerous incidents' (MMP, unpublished, p.29). This trend is also reflected in the following propositions

Propisition Number Support Challenge Neither
"Racially motivated incidents are violent" 490 74% 17% 9%
"Racially motivated incidents result in death" 230 87% 3% 9%

On the other hand, language 'presented as the second most widely noted event … tending to negate the contention that all racial incidents are physically violent in nature, and simultaneously confirming the prominence of non-violent racist incidents' (MMP, unpublished, p.29).

Reasons for under-reporting include:

Limitations in the reporting categories available

In countries where 'hate crime' is not a recognised offence or reporting category per se, victims of prejudice rarely have a clear legal conduit for documenting their experience. This is not because there are no alternative legal protections for the common expressions of prejudice; even in countries without specific hate crime legislation, there usually are (e.g. the South African Constitution and the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (2000)). However, where these protections are not arranged into a coherent crime-reporting category, it does make it more difficult for victims to lay charges that summarise their experience. This limitation is further compounded by the range of hate crime characteristics and the cumulative impact of daily harassment and racism: if represented in isolation and as discrete, a-contextualised events, it is challenging to capture and document the victimising quality of the less visible actions, for example, a verbal insult or offensive piece of graffiti. Even in countries that do subscribe to hate crime legislation, the 'smaller', less violent manifestations of prejudice are difficult to criminalise. These consequently go undocumented, despite the fact that 'minor assaults and 'non-physical' actions such as jostling, spitting, verbal and written abuse – unprovoked and repeated – constitute racial harassment that more forcefully contributes to the "everyday racism" that affects victims' lives' (Oakley, 1996, cited in Bjorgo, 1998, p.39).

Fear and shame

Another reason for underreporting is the 'shame of being repeatedly victimised [and] fear of reprisals' (Sampson & Phillips, 1995, p.v). The American Psychological Association (1998) notes a 'reluctance of many victims to report such attacks' (p.3).

In fact, they are much less likely than other victims to report crimes to the police, despite-or perhaps because of- the fact that they can frequently identify the perpetrators. This reluctance often derives from the trauma that the victim experiences, as well as a fear of retaliation. (APA, 1998, pp.3-4)

Because hate crimes usually take place within a context of regular harassment and victimisation, it is unsurprising that victims fear revenge or intensified harassment if they expose the perpetrator/s. This fear may be compounded in countries that do not offer the legal protections of hate crime legislation, or where weaknesses – perceived or real – in the criminal justice system lend themselves to low conviction rates and non-deterring punishments. In addition, the prejudice that motivates a particular perpetrator may reflect in broader social attitudes and pockets of community support. For example, Bjorgo (1998) explains that,

One of the features distinguishing xenophobic violence from ordinary criminal violence, is that the perpetrators of violence against unpopular foreigners may often find audiences which are sympathetic to their way of acting. (p.17)

By reporting one incident, victims may merely expose themselves to prejudice from other quarters. This may be reinforced by the legally tenuous, marginal status of particular victims, for example, undocumented foreigners or homosexuals in countries where homosexuality is outlawed. In such circumstances victims risk not only further prejudice and shame, but repatriation or criminalisation if their 'illegal' status is discovered through the reporting process. Additionally, in South Africa, the economic vulnerability of certain victims, for example farm and domestic workers, might also result in dismissal or further abuse for reporting an incident.

Given that hate crimes attack the victim's very identity, i.e. 'who' they are, reporting shame is also not unexpected. In conservative areas, victims may have to confront their own sense of shame (for example about 'being' homosexual or HIV positive) or that of their family. This is often compounded, not only by the actual perpetrator's actions, but by community attitudes and an unsympathetic and/or unprepared criminal justice system.

The Criminal Justice System
Police attitudes, actions and secondary victimisation

Prejudice can manifest within the very institutions intended to protect victims of hate crimes (individually and institutionally). For example, the American Psychological Association (APA) (1998) suggests that

some people do not report hate crimes because of fear that the criminal justice system is biased against the group to which the victim belongs and, consequently, that law enforcement authorities will not be responsive. (p.4)

Negative police attitudes and institutionalised racism within the criminal justice system may result in a lack of police responsiveness or a failure to investigate certain incidents thoroughly, if at all. The high profile case of Stephen Lawrence, in the UK, offers one such example (see Box 4).

Box 5: The Stephen Lawrence Case

On 22 April 1993, Stephen Lawrence, a young black man, was murdered in south-east London by a group of white youths. After a full hearing in 1997, an Inquest jury unanimously found that the murder was racially motivated, 'a completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths' (Macpherson Report, 1999, chp. 1). In the initial investigation, a number of errors and poor policing actions resulted in a 'bungled' process, such that the prime suspects were ultimately acquitted of all charges (Macpherson Report, 1999). Through pressure applied by Stephen Lawrence's parents and the wider public interest generated by the case, a high profile Inquiry – resulting in the Macpherson Report (1999) - was conducted into the role of the police and the circumstances surrounding the investigation. The Inquiry found that: 'There is no doubt but that there were fundamental errors. The investigation was marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officials. A flawed MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] review failed to expose these inadequacies' (Macpherson Report, 1999, chp. 46, para. 1). The Inquiry suggested that both 'institutional' and 'unwitting' racism contributed to the failure of the initial investigation. It 'recommended a series of measures that would subject the police to greater public control, enshrine rights for victims of crime and extend the number of offences classified as racist [in the UK]. Freedom of information and race relations legislation will also apply to the police' (Guardian Limited, 1999). The Inquiry's findings and recommendations have impacted on policing practice, as well as definitions and classifications of 'racist incidents' within the UK.

Authorities may actively target victims reporting a particular incident, thereby compounding their initial experience of victimisation. This, together with passive/neglectful practices of discrimination, is known as se