Against Vigilantism

How have opponents of vigilantism challenged it? To answer this question, the chapter examines a commission of inquiry that emerged out of a social movement combatting vigilantism in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, and conducts a discourse analysis of the commission’s final report. The chapter argues that the commission’s focus on police efficiency has the effect of expressing faith in the procedures of the state’s judicial institutions to reduce vigilantism. This faith, however, overlooks the contradictions between the ends and means of law, first highlighted by Walter Benjamin; that is, the justice that law seeks and the inherent irregularity of the violence used to achieve it. In other words, for the commission, state violence becomes the solution to citizen violence—an ironic desire in a country long familiar with the horrible unpredictability of state violence.

Taking Charge

Vigilantism is often understood as a substitute for state authority. If that is the case, why does the South African state encourage citizen crime-fighting, given risks that patrollers might resort to illegal violence? This chapter shows that the state promotes citizen crime-fighting to combat feelings of disempowerment produced by the fear of crime. It does so by examining two moments in a community policing program in Sebokeng. The first was a public spectacle relaunching the program where government ministers exhorted citizens to “take charge” of crime while suggesting citizens may need to occasionally violate legal procedures to do so. The second was a night of patrolling with a community policing group where initial fidelity to legal procedures gave way to targeting the homes of specific alleged criminals. The chapter shows how patrollers sometimes experience their strongest feelings of agency as they violated the state’s procedural protections for suspects.

Rights in Translation

If as is often argued, vigilante violence is caused by failures in policing, why would crowds attack suspects under arrest? To answer this question, this chapter examines a 2006 case in which two suspected rapists were dragged from a police car in KwaMashu and stoned to death. Interviews with residents reveal claims that the state’s procedural protections for suspects perpetuate insecurity, as suspects may be released following arrest and continue preying on residents. That is, even under circumstances when the state performs its duties, like arresting suspected criminals, some residents interpret such institutional effectiveness as potentially leading to state “failure” because the suspects are subject to juridical protections that could allow them to continue committing crimes and perpetuate local insecurity. By recognizing these ambiguous meanings of rights, we can explain vigilantism in cases where state institutions function effectively and account for why citizens would challenge the state’s legal processes through acts of vigilantism.

Spectacles of Statecraft

Why was the democratic state unable to monopolize violence despite massive judicial reforms? By considering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, one of the most important early state-building institutions, the chapter shows the state has had difficulty disciplining relations between citizens such that they would turn to the law to resolve disputes rather than violently doing so themselves. Specifically, it examines the Victor Kheswa hearings in Sebokeng where, despite Kheswa’s alleged involvement in one of the worst massacres in South African history, his mother was put on stage as a victim of human rights abuses. The chapter argues that by proclaiming Kheswa’s mother as a victim, the TRC went against local notions of justice, as she was widely considered to be an enabler of violence, not a victim. This infelicitous performance mirrored the state’s challenges in getting citizens to turn to the law for justice, as many citizens considered suspects’ procedural rights as putting the law on the side of criminals.

The People’s Justice

What are the historical antecedents of post-apartheid vigilantism? Much literature explains contemporary South African vigilantism as a legacy of counterrevolutionary attempts to suppress youthful insurgents under apartheid. By contrast, this chapter argues that there is an important legacy from revolutionary vigilantism. Based on archival and interview data on one of the Durban area’s bloodiest conflicts—the war between the politically radical Comrades and the amaSinyora youth gang in KwaMashu—the chapter shows revolutionary vigilantism was based on contradictory social ties among young men that broke down amid competition for the future of the South African state. The chapter argues such revolutionary vigilantism has had lasting effects on the networks and practices through which vigilantism is practiced today.

Vigilantism and the Contradictions of Democratic State Formation

This chapter argues that vigilantism is a response to processes of democratic state formation—particularly the extension of procedural rights—and is enabled by dense civic ties. It also shows how vigilantism is a metaphor for processes of democratic state formation, which unsettles common theoretical assumptions that democratic states are directed toward protecting citizens. By seeing states as inherently protective, the chapter argues that scholars overlook the ways in which that protection may be premised on vigilante-like procedureless police violence against groups of citizens deemed dangerous—in South Africa predominantly young men of color. Rather than protective, these men often experience the state as terrorizing.

Introduction

The brief introductory chapter lays out the questions for the book, connects vigilantism to broad questions about democratic state formation, and suggests the power of understanding vigilantism in South Africa as a means to understanding politics in emerging democracies generally. It shows how existing explanations are inadequate for understanding vigilantism in varying parts of South Africa. The chapter also sets up the narrative that follows in subsequent chapters, which tracks vigilante violence from the late apartheid era, through the early democratic state’s attempts to monopolize violence, citizens’ resistance to these efforts, and ultimately to the state’s mimicking of vigilantism today.

Lawmaking and State-Making as Vigilantism

As apartheid collapsed, South Africa set out on one of the most ambitious police reform projects the world had ever seen. However, in 2008, senior state officials began calling for restrictions on police violence to be lifted with the effect that high rates of police violence have become a primary crime control strategy. This chapter examines this shift in the context of the South African state’s failure to bring the country’s persistent vigilante violence under control. It does so in two ways. First, the chapter examines the contradictory ways in which South African state officials navigate the tensions between advocating for the post-apartheid rights regime while arguing that such rights may inhibit the state’s ability to fight crime. Second, it examines how young men in Durban’s underworld experience the state, showing how rumors of procedureless police violence creates an image for them of the state as a large-scale vigilante organization.

The Racial Geographies of Criminal Panic

How are the politics of crime in South Africa’s predominantly white suburbs and predominantly black townships similar or different? Through an analysis of what organizers billed as the largest anti-crime protest in South Africa’s history—a virtually all-white affair at a Pretoria rugby club—the chapter shows similarities between the areas in the claims made about crime, and particularly about how the post-apartheid rights regime enables insecurity. However, the chapter reveals two important differences between the suburbs and townships. First, it shows the more directly racialized language through which fear of crime is expressed in the suburbs. Second, it shows how vigilante violence is differently practiced in the different areas, as it is aimed primarily at “outsiders” in South Africa’s suburbs rather than “insiders” in the country’s townships.

The Risks and Rewards of Vigilantism

Why would anyone participate in vigilantism given its risks? By examining the case of a KwaMashu street committee leader who was shot allegedly because of his crime-fighting work, this chapter shows that forceful crime-fighting offers emotional rewards. To the street committee leader, participating in the street committee meant being a good community member, a good African National Congress member, and a good citizen. Therefore, vigilantism emerges amid robust associational bonds often connected to high levels of social capital and reductions in violence. However, the chapter also shows that such informal crime-fighting is premised on a contradictory form of social capital that has equally contradictory effects on violence. Ironically, the street committee leader’s civic commitments made him comfortable with violence against neighborhood residents who violated the moral tenets of the local imagined community.