Mobilising frontline social workers against increasing violence in South Africa

By Dr. Ndangwa Noyoo

Presented at the Association of Schools of Social Work in Africa ( ASSWA ) Conference 14-17 October 2012

Ingwenyama Lodge, Mbombela, South Africa

This paper examines violence in South Africa 18 years after the attainment of political liberties and citizens’ socio-economic rights as enshrined in the Constitution.

Violence affects every facet of society either directly or indirectly and is visible at the family, group, community and societal levels.

Introduction

2

The nation is almost under a state of siege with the former spheres experiencing a sense of near paralysis because of fear that is generated by violence.

There is a need to reinsert the social work profession into the equation of stemming violence in the country through its unique body of knowledge, methods and skills.

3

A window of opportunity has presented itself with the impending implementation of the White Paper on Families.

Thus there is a need to mobilise a critical mass of frontline social workers for the eventual implementation of this White Paper.

4

Arguably, many of the violent acts committed in the country are by-products of dysfunctional societal systems, especially families.

Violence can effectively be reduced via psycho-social and developmental methodologies and approaches as opposed to merely policing, enforcement and legalistic mechanisms.

5

The National Development Plan (2011) notes that an effective and efficient response to violence and violent crime requires a holistic approach to community safety that takes into consideration and responds to specific triggers or causal factors. This approach is often considered too complex, time consuming and long term, it requires co-ordinated efforts, high levels of analysis of crime patterns and trends using crime intelligence and leadership to command and direct policing responses. Other departments, local government and civil society need to intervene.

6

This materialised when Europeans gained a foothold in southern Africa at the Cape of Storm or later known as Cape of Good Hope.

In securing this part of Africa for European occupation, violence was meted out to local people with devastating effects.

As elsewhere, at the time, violence was tremendously important in the shaping of cultural and therefore political identity in regard to South Africa’s colonial interaction (Lester, 1998).

Historical and political roots of violence in South Africa

7

This is not to discount the highly volatile and violent conquest amongst the indigenous people. Of significant was the mfecane in the nineteenth century which saw the rise of the Zulu Nation and King Shaka.

Mfecane which means the great scattering in Nguni languages was the result of the changes that occurred in Shaka’s time. The entire southern African region was destabilised. Many chiefdoms were scattered by warfare or fled in all directions from the growing power of Shaka and other rival chiefdoms (Ngwane, 1997).

8

European rivalries such as the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 saw high incidences of violence on both sides but with Afrikaners suffering more via the British’s “scorched earth policy”. The concentration camps and the policy of internment had dire consequences for Afrikaners especially women and children.

Africans suffered more atrocities at the hands of both parties in this conflict. This history is only being related in present times and for generations, this conflict was only known as the “Anglo-Boer war”.

9

The colonial era was marked by violence against indigenous people through unjust laws. One significant law, the Land Act of 1913 and subsequent laws that followed, set the stage for the forced removal of communities from their ancestral homes or areas they had resided for generations to barren and unviable communities in the so-called Bantustans.

10

With apartheid being proclaimed in 1948, state-led violence became a prominent feature in South Africa until the dawn of democracy in 1994.

What makes the apartheid state unique from past colonial authorities was the manner it militarised the South African society. Here the military became a social institution hinging on a set of social relationships organised around war, and taking shape of an armed force(Cock, 1990).

Apartheid and state-led violence in South Africa

11

The apartheid state also had what can be termed as agencies of violence. These were the following:  Death squads, assassinations and disappearances - for instance, the murder and disappearance of prominent anti-apartheid activists;

Legal police killings – these were sanctioned in South Africa in 1961, when 69 African protesters against the pass system were shot by police in what came to be widely known as the Sharpeville Massacre. This was followed by the Soweto revolt, initiated on 16 June 1976, when 10, 000 students in Soweto protested against Bantu Education and met with police violence.

Detention without trial – this was sanctioned in the 1960s and dramatically increased in the 1980s;

Torture – this was widely used in South Africa (Cock, 1990:59-63).

 

12

Countering such state-led violence could only be through equally violent means by those who were under oppression and fighting for freedom. After years of exultations, petitions, picketing and other non-violent means of resistance, the main liberation movement against apartheid rule, the African National Congress (ANC), adopted the armed struggle in 1961.

13

uMkonto we Sizwe (“the spear of the nation”) or MK was formed on 16 December 1961. In the initial stages only military targets and installations or infrastructure of strategic or economic importance, for example, electricity power pylons were targeted for sabotage by the MK.

In the 1980s this strategy changed with the call for the “intensification of the armed struggle” and “making the country ungovernable”. This was adopted by the Kabwe conference of June 1985 by the ANC in exile in Zambia.

14

There was a renewed flaring up of political violence in the 1980s. During this period violence was driven by township residence opposition to apartheid. The struggle centred on actions against the state in adherence to calls for banned organisations to make the townships ungovernable.

The conflict and violence centred on such activities as rent, services and consumer boycotts, workers strikes, disruption of schooling, protest marches and mass mobilisation. With the implementation of two successive states of emergency in 1985 and 1986 by the apartheid state, and consequent clampdown on open political activity, funerals became rallying occasions for mobilising communities against the state (Minnaar, et al., 1998:14).

15

Therefore violence was also relied upon by the progressive forces that were fighting for freedom. It became an instrument against oppression and for liberation.

For instance, arson attacks escalated, especially in the period 1984-6 with hundreds of businesses, homes, churches, halls, some government offices, and cars and buses were destroyed in townships throughout South Africa. At least 2000 people, many of them under the age of 18 served sentences for “public violence” during this period.

16

The phenomenon known as “necklacing” which involved the placing of a motor-car tyre around the neck of a victim, filling it with petrol and setting it alight, was really a gruesome act. There were almost 400 incidents between 1984 and 1987.

Victims included community councillors, policemen, suspected informers and collaborators, and women suspected of witchcraft (Cock, 1990:64-65).

17

Xenophobic violence  Service delivery protests Wage disputes and strike actions Crime is becoming highly violent whether it be robbery, sexual offences, etc.

The perpetrators are getting younger and younger.

Contemporary trends

18

There is a need to mobilise a critical mass of frontline social workers for the eventual implementation of the country’s White Paper on Families once it is approved by the Cabinet. It is currently in draft form .

The Draft White Paper is premised on two crucial thrusts: promoting family life and strengthening families in South Africa.

A call to action

19

Once these twin processes have been addressed, the argument goes, many of the social ills currently besieging the nation, such as high incidences of violence would have been nipped in the bud.

Research by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR, 2010) shows among other things that the core of the problem of violent crime in South Africa is a subculture of violence and criminality characterised prominently by firstly, young men who are invested in a criminal lifestyle and often incorporate multiple forms of violent crime. Secondly, the common use of weapons, including firearms as well as knives or other instruments of “sharp force”.

20

The childhood experiences of many children and young people in South Africa involve multiple levels of adversity including poverty, unstable arrangements, absent, indifferent or violent fathers; environments where alcohol or other substances are abused, and abusive parents or relatives (CSVR, 2010).

 The Draft White Paper views the family as a key development imperative and seeks to mainstream family issues into Government-wide, policy-making initiatives in order to foster family well-being in SA.

21

It seeks to enhance the socialising, caring, nurturing and supporting capabilities of families;

Empower families and their members to identify, negotiate around, and maximise economic, labour market and other opportunities; and

Improve the capacities of families and their members to establish social interactions which make a meaningful contribution towards a sense of community, social cohesion and human solidarity.

22

Functional families contribute to societal stability at micro, meso and macro levels, i.e.

1. Stability at the individual personality level – families provide emotional gratification for adults and enable them to socialise their children;

2. Stability is attained at the level of the family unit itself;

3. At the macro level stability is in relation to the family and other social institutions.

Strategic interventions: Guiding Principles

23

Government interventions will focus on the individual, family and community. The key aim is to promote healthy families, to preserve and nourish families whose quality of life is helping to prevent and reduce problems associated with family disintegration, and to strengthen families. For this to happen, frontline social workers will need to be marshalled to respond to various challenges, and for purposes of this paper: the fight against increasing violence in SA.

Conclusion

24

Cock, J., (1990). Political violence. In McKendrick, B. and Hoffman, W. (ed.). People and violence in South Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 44-72.

Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) (2010). Why South Africa is so violent and what we should be doing about it. Unpublished.

Lester, A., (1998). From Colonisation to Democracy: A New Historical Geography of South Africa. London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd.

Minnaar, A., Pretorius, S., and Wentzel, M., (1998). Political conflicts and other manifestations of violence in South Africa. In Bornman, E., van Eeden, R. and Wentzel, M. (eds.). Violence in South Africa: A variety of perspectives. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).

Ngwane, Z. (1997). Zulu. New York: The Rosa Publishing Group, Inc.

The Presidency (2011). National Development Plan. Pretoria: The Presidency.

References

25