Ashes to Ashes: an elegy of South Africa
The smouldering smoke in the skies of “a place of tall buildings and busy streets,” as Alan Parton described Johannesburg in his classic novel; Cry the Beloved Country, is a tell- tale sign of a country that was. The chaos, looting, thuggery, anarchy and utter lawlessness has taken a diabolical twist. Images of despair, helplessness and hopelessness beaming across media platforms, are an elegy, of a giant in its last breath. Indeed, it has taken its notorious name; Gangsters Paradise. Unfortunately, history serves to remind us that, the history of South Africa, is a history of violence. From Jan van Riebeeck to Cyril Ramaphosa, the story of South Africa has been the story of violence. Sometimes necessary, at times, very unnecessary.
It is therefore, not an exaggeration to say, South Africa is violence, and violence is South Africa. Violence has deep historical roots in South Africa. But if violence has figured prominently, it usually has not proved too difficult to make sense of it: the violence of conquest, the violence of frontier wars, the violence of apartheid and of the struggle against apartheid, the criminal violence of gangs and the ritualized violence of faction fights. Violence gave them freedom and “Rainbow Nation,” and it seems, it is violence that is going to wipe all that away.
The extent and intensity of the current violence is, however, more difficult to comprehend. The very nature and purpose of this proliferation of violence is intensely controversial: it is hotly disputed on the two ANC factions, whether this proliferation of violence should be understood as “ethnic” conflict with deep cultural and historical roots, or as a power and ideological struggle between contending political factions, or as the sinister work of a “third force” behind the scenes, or as a consequence of poverty, social disruption and the general lack of political authority, or as some combination of all of these. In the context of the struggle against apartheid and from the perspective of the “liberation movement”, pain and suffering, detention and torture, even death, could make definite political sense. This was not only the case from a participant perspective, in the sense of activists who were personally prepared to go to gaol, be tortured or even to die for the “struggle”. The significance of such sacrifices could also be understood by sympathizers, as well as by critics or opponents. Even the use of the brutal “necklace” killings could to some extent at least be understood, though certainly not justified or condoned, as extreme expressions of collective outrage when used against known political enemies or traitors. The point is, South Africa still has to ‘ unlearn’ violence.
The escalation of violence was conceived as a regrettable but unavoidable function of the deepening popular resistance against the apartheid state and the illegitimate minority regime. Making the country “ungovernable”, with all which that entailed in practice - from the targeting of collaborators to the social costs of rent and consumer boycotts, was an intelligible aim as a prelude to taking power and the coming of ANC government.
Therefore, if there is an escalation of violence in the South African conflict, there is always little problem for participants and observers alike to make prima facie sense of it.
Unfortunately, the ongoing unabated violence, is not only polarising South African society, but building up to a dramatic climax that the country may never recover from. I suppose had the two factions, Thuma Mina and Radical Economic Transformation ( RET) shelved their egos, we could be telling a different story. But as with all politicians, it is always all about them and their interests. As things stand, industries, factory, and shops are being reduced to ashes.