Apartheid’s Afterlives: Violence, Policing and the South African State

Abstract

White minority rule in South Africa was maintained through different forms of violence. Controlling and exploiting the black population required an extensive and interlinked bureaucratic, judicial and coercive apparatus that directly subjected black South Africans to state violence and marginalisation. Inevitably, this system provoked resistance. At the same time, the maintenance of white security and privilege fostered violence within many black communities, including crime, vigilantism, and communal conflict. Given the direct connection between racial politics and the violence that plagued South African society, many expected that violence would decline appreciably with the demise of apartheid in 1994. The reality, of course, has been more complex, and, despite significant change, violence continues to play a central role in many aspects of South African life, especially in the lives of the poor. This article examines ruptures and continuities in patterns and forms of violence from the apartheid past through the first 20 years of democracy. Situating post-apartheid violence in its historical context highlights one noteworthy departure, in that the politicised violence of recent years differs radically from the insurrectionary violence of the 1980s and the civil conflicts of the early 1990s. In terms of constants, the state’s failure to provide effective law enforcement in poorer, primarily black, areas and the corresponding tendency of private citizens to police their communities largely mirrors developments from the apartheid past.