Abstract
The nature of the political structure and democracy of South Africa is still understudied. Nicholas Smith has done the study of a very important feature of South Africa’s democracy—citizen trust in state’s law, police and the judicial system—is, therefore, a welcome intervention. According to the South African Police Service (SAPS) 2017/18 crime statistics, 846 people were killed as mob justice. The figure can be higher because the motives in all the killings cannot be established. Furthermore, the statistics mentioned that 66 per cent people do not trust the police and that 46 per cent do not have belief in the judicial procedure. Through the nine chapters in this book, Smith grapples with ‘Contradictions of Democracy’ in terms of why even after the post-apartheid era citizens do not have trust in the judicial system, police and even the government elected by them. In this regard, Smith has done the study of two townships—KwaMashu (15 km from Durban) and Sebokeng (60 km away from Johannesburg).
In Chapters 1 and 2, the author examines the nature and structure of vigilantism in the context of cases of vigilantism in South Africa. He mentions that ‘over 800 people might die in any given year as a result of vigilantism (p. 04)’. The vigilantism is seen to be a response to processes of democratic state formation—particularly the extension of constitutional rights and the strong civic structure and network. With the help of examples, the author elaborates that many scholars have mentioned the vigilante phenomenon as a response to the state’s failure to provide meaningful access to social rights. In other words, vigilantism in South Africa represents that theoretically South Africa is equipped with all the tools to establish the democracy but has failed to implement these empirically at the grass-root level.
Smith points out that various scholars have mentioned the legacy of contemporary vigilantism rooted during the apartheid period. On the basis of his study, he underlined the Durban area’s bloodiest conflicts—the war between the politically radical Comrades and the amaSinyora youth gang in KwaMashu. In Chapter 2, he established the fact which shows that the revolutionary vigilantism is based on the contradictory social ties among young men that broke down amid competition for the future of the state. Based on this, he established the fact that revolutionary vigilantism has had lasting effects on the networks and practices through which vigilantism is practiced today. Furthermore, he found that citizens regularly take the law in their hands mostly to engage with criminal violence and to redefine the moral basis of law.
In Chapter 3 Smith explored why post-apartheid South Africa is unable to solve this sort of violence even after being equipped with all the legal and pro citizen-centric provisions. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has had difficulty disciplining relations between citizens. Moreover, Truth and Reconciliation Commission failed to anticipate citizens’ suspicions as neutral arbiter. While examining Khetisi Victor Kheswa’s case in detail, Smith mentions how Kheswa’s mother was proclaimed as a victim of human rights violence rather than the enabler of violence. In this case, TRC went against the local native. Such incidents decreased the citizen’s trust in the judicial system, which many citizens considered suspect.
Vigilantism can be easily found in a state where there is an issue of policing. Many times, it has been witnessed that a person is considered a good community person if he has punished criminals. Apart from this, Smith mentioned that close-family circles and relationships also facilitate vigilantism. He examines a 2006 case ‘Rape Suspects Stoned to Death’ in which two suspected rapists were dragged from a police car in KwaMashu and stoned to death (p. 81). These incidents reveal the state’s social, legal and security situation. Along with this, it also exposes the procedural protection and social attitude towards the suspect. This also raises the question on the state’s role and responsibilities towards citizens. These incidents invariably perpetrate crimes and local insecurity.
In this scenario, an important question arises. Why did the South African state fail to discourage the citizen from taking the law into their own hands? South Africa as a state encourages citizens to eliminate the issues of criminal threats and to restore peace and security. In this regard, Smith examines two community policing programs. Firstly, in the Gauteng province (Sebokeng), the government relaunched the community policing program ‘Take Charge’ of crime in their neighbourhoods in 2015. Secondly, night patrolling with a community policing. With such models, the South Africa government tried to encourage the citizens to participate in community policing patrols and to feel empowered in controlling crime and to show their loyalty towards their democratic state.
Interestingly, while examining one case of KwaMashu, a street leader killed for his crime-fighting effort, Smith observes that such persons are treated with an emotional reward—they are recognised as a committee leader, a good community member and a good citizen. Thus, vigilantism has given rise to robust associational attachments, which in turn have helped to reduce the violence. However, the author problematises this reduction in violence by examining the situation of white suburbs and black townships. He reveals that suburbs have hired private security companies, a situation that lends a racial language to the fear of crime.
South Africa witnessed social movements to combat the vigilantism in Cape Town. Due to this, the government constituted a Khayelitsha Commission. The commission focused on police efficiency and the state’s judicial system to reduce vigilantism, finally coming up with twenty recommendations that can be classified into two categories—how the police should theorise the practice of policing and how to put those theories into practice. In 2008, post-apartheid South Africa witnessed the world’s most ambitious police reform. This reform has been done in the context of the state’s failure to bring the country’s persistent vigilante violence under control.
Post-apartheid South Africa has witnessed many issues in sustaining and maintaining the true colours of state-building and in establishing democracy in true sense. In this process, South Africa has gone through many contradictions, tensions, and ambiguous desires for a democratic state. Even at that point in time, the laws resisted the acts of vigilantism. However, we can see that the vigilantism in South Africa is a response to the extension of the country’s robust rights regime.
On the basis of 20 months of remarkable ethnographic research based on the two townships near Durban and Johannesburg, Smith suggests that the politics of vigilantism represents state formation rather than state failure. However, if Smith had included two more regions—Cape Town and Port Elizabeth—it could have given a more comprehensive and insightful image of the vigilantism in South Africa.
These minor issues aside, this book has brought new life to a crucial yet largely neglected subject, offering readers new arguments about what drives vigilantism in South Africa. The author has done his study from various dimensions to investigate the true nature of vigilantism. In the course of an engaging narrative, Smith focuses on several detailed incidents and examples of how vigilantism works in South Africa and how it relates to state formation and community building.
Overall, this is an insightful and compelling book on the subject of democracy and vigilantism in South Africa. Smith explores fundamental questions about political order, the rule of law and democratic citizenship with conviction and ease. This excellent book is a must-read for scholars of democracy in South Africa as well as all the scholars interested in democratic development and state-building in Africa.