The politics of mobilization for security in South African townships

African Affairs

Volumn 110, Issue 441, 2011, Pages 607-627

  Fourchard, Laurent ^a  

^a UNIVERSITÉ DE BORDEAUX   (France)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

APARTHEID; COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; NATIONAL SECURITY; NEIGHBORHOOD; POLICE FORCE; SOVEREIGNTY;

SOUTH AFRICA; WESTERN CAPE;

EID: 80053491476     PISSN: 00019909     EISSN: 14682621     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/afraf/adr046     Document Type: Article

References (101)

1. 'Anti-crime' organizations consider crime today as both criminal actions perpetrated by gangs and minor offences and ordinary violence that constitute the core of the acts reported to the police.
2. Homicide statistics, which tend to be among the best recorded crime statistics in any country, indicate that between 1997 and 2000 South Africa's murder rate was around 56 per 100,000 inhabitants. This declined to 37 per 100,000 in 2009, but South Africa still has one of the highest murder rates in the world. See Annual Report, South African Police Service, 2008-9.
3. Janine Rauch and Elrena van der Spuy, 'Police reform in post-conflict Africa: a report' (Institute for Democracy in South Africa, Cape Town, 2006).
4. Mike Brogden and Preeti Nijhar, Community Policing: National and international models and approaches (Willan Publishing, Uffculme, 2005), p. 1.
5. Ray Abrahams has suggested that vigilantism is 'the organized attempt by a group of ordinary citizens to enforce norms and maintain law and order on behalf of their communities in the perceived absence of effective official state action'. However, Abrahams has since reflected that a comprehensive definition is hard to reach given the diversity of vigilante movements throughout the world.
6. See Ray Abrahams, 'What's in a name? Some thoughts on the vocabulary of vigilantism and related forms of "informal criminal justice"' in Dermot Feenan (ed.), Informal Criminal Justice (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2002), p. 26.
7. Ray Abrahams, 'Some thoughts on the comparative study of vigilantism' in David Pratten and Atreyee Sen (eds), Global Vigilantes (London, Hurst and Company, 2007), pp. 419-42.
8. Public action looks at the interactions between a wide range of private and public actors involved in the management of public affairs, and how such action may be shaped by social movements and public contestation.
9. See Myriam Catusse and Frédéric Vairel, 'Question sociale et développement: les territoires de l'action publique et de la contestation au Maroc', Politique africaine 120 (2010), pp. 1-20.
10. Anneli Botha, 'The prime suspects? The metamorphosis of Pagad' (Chapter 2 in Monograph 63, Institute of Security Studies, 2001).
11. Raashied Galant and Fahmi Gamieldien, Drugs, Gangs, People's Power: exploring the Pagad phenomenon (Masjid, Cape Town, 1996).
12. Bill Dixon and Lisa-Marie Johns, Gangs, Pagad and the State: Vigilantism and revenge violence in the Western Cape, Violence and Transition Series, Vol. 2 (Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, Pretoria, 2001).
13. Two in Manenbeg, one in Heideveld, two in the centre of Mitchell's Plain, one in Eastridge, and one in Rocklands.
14. Rita Abrahamsen and Michael C. Williams, 'Public/private, global/local: the changing contours of Africa's security governance', Review of African Political Economy 35, 118 (2008), p. 547.
15. Béatrice Hibou, Privatising the State (Hurst and Company, London, 2004).
16. Jean-François Bayart, The State in Africa: The politics of the belly (Polity Press, Cambridge, 2007).
17. David Pratten and Atreyee Sen, 'Global vigilantes: perspectives on justice and violence ', in Pratten and Sen, Global Vigilantes, pp. 5-6.
18. Bruce Baker, Security in Post-Conflict Africa: The role of non-state policing (CRC Press, London and New York, NY, 2010), pp. 70-82.
19. Mutuma Ruteere and Marie-Emmanuelle Pommerolle, 'Democratizing security or decentralizing repression? The ambiguities of community policing in Kenya', African Affairs 102, 409 (2003), pp. 587-604.
20. Claire Bénit-Gbaffou, Laurent Fourchard, and Alex Wafer, 'Local politics and the circulation of community security initiatives in Johannesburg', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, forthcoming.
21. Lars Buur, 'Reordering society: vigilantism and expressions of sovereignty in Port Elizabeth's townships', Development and Change 37, 4 (2006), pp. 735-57.
22. Steffen Jensen, 'Above the law: practices of sovereignty in Surrey Estate, Cape Town' in Thomas Blom Hansen and Finn Stepputat (eds), Sovereign Bodies: Citizens, migrants and states in the postcolonial world (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ and Oxford, 2005), pp. 218-38.
23. Thomas G. Kirsch, 'Violence in the name of democracy: community policing, vigilante action and nation-building in South Africa' in Thomas G. Kirsch and Tilo Grätz (eds), Domesticating Vigilantism in Africa (James Currey, Oxford, 2010), p. 139.
24. Anthony Minnaar, 'The new vigilantism in post April 1994 South Africa: searching for explanations' in Feenan (ed.), Informal Criminal Justice, pp. 117-34.
25. Jeremy Seekings and Rebekah Lee, 'Vigilantism and popular justice after apartheid', in Feenan (ed.), Informal Criminal Justice, pp. 113-14.
26. Gary Kynoch, 'Crime, conflict and politics in transition-era South Africa', African Affairs 104, 416 (2005), pp. 493-514.
27. Lars Buur and Steffen Jensen, 'Introduction: vigilantism and the policing of everyday life in South Africa', African Studies 63, 2 (2004), p. 143.
28. Brogden and Nihjar, Community Policing, p. 16, pp. 156-7.
29. Monique Marks, Clifford Shearing, and Jennifer Wood, 'What should the police be? Finding a new narrative for community policing in South Africa', Police Practice and Research 10, 2 (2009), p. 146.
30. Jonny Steinberg, Thin Blue: The unwritten rules of policing in South Africa (Jonathan Ball, Jeppestown, 2008).
31. Interesting exceptions include Lars Buur, 'Sovereignty and democratic exclusion in the new South Africa', Review of African Political Economy 32, 104-5 (2005), pp. 253-68.
32. Kirsch, 'Violence', pp. 139-62.
33. Jeremy Seekings, 'Social ordering and control in the African townships of South Africa: an historical overview of extra-state initiatives from the 1940s to the 1990s' in W. Scharf and D. Nina (eds), The Other Law: Non-state ordering in South Africa (Cape Town, Juta and Co, 2000).
34. Gary Kynoch, 'Friend or Foe? A world view of community-police relations in Gauteng townships, 1947-1977', Canadian Journal of African Studies 37, 2/3, (2003), pp. 298-327.
35. Clive Glaser, 'Whistles and sjamboks: crime and policing in Soweto, 1960-1976' (unpublished paper, 2004).
36. See, in Nigeria, for instance, Laurent Fourchard, 'A new name for an old practice: vigilantes in south-western Nigeria', Africa 78, 1 (2008), pp. 16-40.
37. Kate Meagher, 'Hijacking civil society: the inside story of the Bakassi Boys vigilante group of south-eastern Nigeria', Journal of Modern African Studies 45, 1 (2007), pp. 89-115.
38. Claire Bénit-Gbaffou, Mariane Morange, and Sophie Didier, 'Communities, the private sector, and the state: contested forms of security governance in Cape Town and Johannesburg', Urban Affairs Review 43, 5 (2008), pp. 691-717.
39. Charlotte Lemanski, 'A new apartheid? The spatial implications of fear of crime in Cape Town, South Africa', Environment and Urbanization 16, 2 (2004), pp. 101-12.
40. Tony R. Samara, 'Policing development: urban renewal as neo-liberal security strategy', Urban Studies 47, 1 (2010), pp. 197-214.
41. This refers 'to the process of state formation and failure by a multitude of social actors who compete over the institutionalization of power relations'.
42. See Didier Péclard and Tobias Hagmann, 'Negotiating statehood: dynamics of power and domination in Africa', Development and Change 41, 4 (2010), p. 552.
43. Department of Community Safety, Western Cape Province, 'Safety audits' (KPMG report, Cape Town, March 2009).
44. Steinberg, Thin Blue, pp. 22-3.
45. Steffen Jensen, Gangs, Politics and Dignity in Cape Town (James Currey, Oxford, 2008).
46. This is suggested by one of the top senior officials in charge of community policing in the DoCS, who is also a member of the ANC.
47. Interviews, ANC local activists in Manenberg, and chairperson of the Neighbourhood Watch association in Heideveld, 27 August 2010.
48. Steinberg, Thin Blue, pp. 49-57.
49. Earlier vigilante organizations in District Six have still to be explored.
50. Interview, David Aefean, Peacemakers member, 12 December 2008, Manenberg.
51. Interview, Robin Roberts, Peacemakers member, 15 May 2009, Manenberg.
52. Interview, David Aefean, 12 December 2008, Manenberg.
53. Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Penal System of the Republic of South Africa (Viljoen Commission) (Republic of South Africa, Pretoria, April 1976), p. 37.
54. Irvin Kinnes, From Urban Street Gangs to Criminal Empires: The changing face of gangs in the Western Cape (Monograph 48, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, 2000), p. 22.
55. Interviews, several Neighbourhood Watch members in Rocklands, Mitchell's Plain, 22-23 May 2009.
56. Interview, Ree Salomon and Malik Fajodien, founding members of the NW of Rocklands, Rocklands, 22 May 2009. Interview, Norman Jantjes, social worker and promoter of NW in Mitchell's Plain in the early 1980s, 15 August 2009.
57. Jeremy Seekings, The UDF: A history of the United Democratic Front in South Africa, 1983-1991, (David Philip and James Currey, Cape Town and Oxford, 2000).
58. Interview, Soraya Simpson and Abel Fazlin, founding members of NWs in Manenberg in 1987 and 1993 respectively, 20 January and 15 May 2009.
59. Jensen, 'Above the law', p. 229.
60. Department of Community Safety, 'Safety audits'.
61. Interview, CPF chairman, in Mitchell's Plain police station, June 2009.
62. See, however, Jensen, 'Above the law', p. 230.
63. Several authors suggest that control of the organization passed in 1996 to Qibla, a radical Islamic group opposed to the ANC.
64. See Botha, The Prime Suspects?.
65. Galant and Gamieldien, Drugs, Gangs, People's Power.
66. Dixon and Johns, Gangs, Pagad and the State.
67. Andre Standing, 'The threat of gangs and anti-gangs policy' (Policy discussion paper, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, 2005), p. 116.
68. Western Cape Provincial Government, 'Bambanani against crime' (public information pamphlet, Western Cape Government, Cape Town, 2007).
69. Interviews, several Bambanani members, Manenberg, 15 April 2009.
70. Interview, CPF chairman in Mitchell's Plain police station, 15 June 2009; Interview, official in DoCS, 21 July 2009, Cape Town.
71. Night patrols in Eastridge, Mitchell's Plain, 21 April 2009.
72. Interview, Public Relations Officer of the Police in Mitchell's Plain, Rocklands, 22 May 2010.
73. 'Take your street, own your street, is the rallying cry', Plainsman, 4 March 2009.
74. 'Mbeki and Zuma call for street committees', Cape Argus, 5 April 2008.
75. Seekings and Lee, 'Vigilantism', pp. 113-14.
76. Steinberg, Thin Blue, pp. 49-61.
77. Lars Buur, 'Democracy & its Discontents: Vigilantism, Sovereignty & Human Rights in South Africa', Review of African Political Economy, 35, 118 (2008), pp. 571-84.
78. Claire Bénit-Gbaffou, 'Police-community partnerships in responses to crime: lessons from Yeoville and Observatory, Johannesburg', Urban Forum 17, 4 (2006), pp. 7-32.
79. 'Enquiry to probe Zille allegations', Plainsman, 3 October 2007.
80. Interviews, several street committee members, Westridge and Rocklands, 21 April 2009.
81. For similar arguments elsewhere see James Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, depoliticization and bureaucratic power in Lesotho (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990).
82. Péclard and Hagman, 'Negotiating statehood', p. 552.
83. Christian Lund, 'Twilight institutions: an introduction', Development and Change 37, 4 (2006), p. 697.
84. Lars Buur, 'The sovereign outsourced: local justice and violence in Port Elizabeth', in Blom Hansen and Stepputat (ed.), Sovereign Bodies, pp. 192-217.
85. Thomas Blom Hansen, 'Performers of sovereignty: on the privatization of security in urban South Africa', Critique of Anthropology 26, 3 (2006), pp. 279-95.
86. Jensen, 'Above the law'; p. 237.
87. Jensen, Gangs, Politics, pp. 184-92.
88. 'Police station statistics reveal that 85 percent of violent crime takes place at weekends, 80 percent of serious assault and armed robbery cases take place within 500 meters of a shebeen, and most perpetrators and victims are drunk' - Jonny Steinberg, 'Crime', in Nick Sheperd and Steven Robins (eds), New South African Keywords (Ohio University Press, Athens OH, 2008), p. 29.
89. Interviews, NW members in Manenberg and Heideveld, 20 January 2009 and 27 August 2010.
90. This was successively the case with the civic guards (1940-52), illegal civic guards (1952-1960s), parent courts, Ilizo Lomzi ('eye of the community' in IsiXosa), Peacemakers, Legkotla and Magkotla (in the 1970s).
91. See Colin Bundy, 'Survival and resistance: township organization and non-violent direct action in twentieth-century South Africa' in G. Adler and J. Steinberg (eds), From Comrades to Citizens: The South African civics movement and transition to democracy (Macmillan Press, London, 2000), pp. 26-51.
92. Laurent Fourchard, 'The limits of penal reform: punishing children and young offenders in South Africa and Nigeria (1930s-1960)', Journal of Southern African Studies 37, 3 (2011) (forthcoming).
93. Glaser, 'Whistles and sjamboks'.
94. Béatrice Hibou, La Force de l'obéissance: Economie politique de la répression en Tunisie (La Découverte, Paris, 2006).
95. This is how the Eastridge watch members explained these calls to me. Eastridge, 28 August 2010.
96. Buur, 'The sovereign outsourced', p. 208.
97. There might be some differences among neighbourhoods, however. Seekings and Lee indicate that vigilantism is likely to be more sporadic and more violent where there is less cohesion, as in Langa and Kayelitsha.
98. Seekings and Lee, 'Vigilantism', pp. 113-14.
99. Steven Robins, From Revolution to Rights in South Africa: Social movements, NGOs and popular politics after apartheid (James Currey and University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, Oxford and Pietermaritzburg, 2008).
100. Buur, 'Democracy', p. 577.
101. In 2006, this reserve accounted for one-fifth of the South African police force, or 30,000 of the total 156,000 police members.