by Pedro Tabensky, Pambazuka
There are at least two ways of dealing with the abject problem of
poverty: one promising and the other not. One way involves conceiving of
poverty as a problem and the other endorses the view that the poor are
the problem. One requires ingenuity and care, and the other thirsts for
violence. Unfortunately, it is the easy option that demands ever-greater
levels of violence against the poor. So there is a bias in favour of
State sanctioned brutality (sanctioned, minimally, insofar as very
little indeed is being done by the State to combat the trend, but also
sanctioned more proactively by the Bheki Celes of our land).
The violence stemming from choosing the easy option is inscribed on the
body of the Chairperson of the Grahamstown branch of the Unemployed
Peoples’ Movement (UPM) —Ayanda Kota — and on many other disenfranchised
bodies across the land as a consequence of our increasingly brutal
police force, as reported by Amnesty International and by the
Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD). In an open letter addressed to
Nathi Mthethwa, the Minister of Police, in response to the brutal
murder of Andries Tatane, Frans Cronje, of the South African Institute
of Race Relations (SAIRR), states that: ‘What the South African police
are effectively engaged in is no longer a simple matter of law
enforcement. Rather, your officers are now at the coal face of the
political struggle of poor black South Africans to be liberated from
poverty.’
I should mention in passing, for it is not my primary target here, that
the DA has little to be proud of; for police brutality and other forms
as well, are a common occurrence in the Western Cape. Take, for
instance, the police oppression in Hamburg in 2010, where the police
systematically shot rubber bullets into protesters’ faces with the
consequence of several eyes being lost. And one mustn’t forget
Blikkiesdorp and the open toilets debacle. So, one should avoid thinking
that the solution to the problem is to vote DA.
It is safe to say that in South Africa today, and Grahamstown is no
exception, there is an epidemic of bruises, including deadly ones.
Consider the lifeless body of Andries Tatane after being attacked by a
pack of bloodthirsty member of the SAPS.
One good way of measuring the quality of a democracy is to assess the
behavior of its police, and we are increasingly measuring up very badly
indeed. One could speculate that those police who have moved beyond the
bounds of human decency are bad apples in a basket of largely good ones,
but this sort of move only has a genuine exculpating function if the
state shows clear signs of doing something unambiguously decisive to put
a stop to the violence meted out against those who are tired of broken
promises. If the state doesn’t, then one is entitled to assume that
those accused of being bad apples, and who may very well be a minority
in the police force, are being used as scapegoats. Added credibility is
given to the scapegoat hypothesis if one considers that all politically
motivated violence occurring today in South Africa is meted out against
those who oppose the current dispensation. I am yet to hear of a case in
which the police act with impunity against the ANC Youth League when it
acts, as it far too often does, against those who voice their
discontent about the state of our democracy.
Given the urgency of the problem of increasing police violence, and
given that the violence is directed against those who are tired of being
lied to, mere verbal endorsement that there is a problem will not
suffice. In fact, verbal endorsement without decisive action should be
taken as further evidence in support of the hypothesis that the state
actually condones what is happening, as is using the bad apple argument
in light of the escalating crisis.
The fact that a hugely disproportionate number of black men live in
prisons in the US, and the fact that black men are regularly harassed by
the US police, is an expression of the living legacy of Jim Crow. And
we shouldn’t be surprised that in the Chile of Pinochet the police
became a branch of the oppressive apparatus. In a chameleon-like
fashion, as soon as the dictatorship ended, police behavior came to
mirror the new democratic ethos. The biggest thugs suddenly became soft
teddy bears seemingly working for a new kind of future. And as soon as
the façade of quasi-perfect democracy crumbled and student unrest
threatened to destabilize the status quo, founded on some kind of
not-so-noble lie, the Chilean police rapidly changed its colours once
again in accordance with the demands of the state.
Police forces tend to uncritically react to the needs of those in power.
And if those in power are brutal, then there will be a strong tendency
for at least a significant minority of the police to act like a pack of
wolves. This is not to say that all or most police will act in this way,
but a significant number will. So, police force behaviour tends to
mirror the moral integrity of a democracy and, given that the
transgressions of the police are relatively easy to observe, it is an
ideal place to look for signs of decay. Police forces across the globe
are mirrors against which the true colours of their employers are
revealed. Detective Zulu and his gang’s alleged pummeling of Kota,
insofar as it exemplifies a trend, helps us see what the ruling
coalition is increasingly coming to stand for.
But not only do the police reflect the general ethos of our current
dispensation. In 2010 our local ANCYL violently sabotaged a meeting
organised by the Unemployed Peoples’ Movement (UPM) aimed at shedding
light on why thousands of Grahamstown East residents had no water for
months. The municipality did nothing to make things better for local
residents until residents themselves started to take matters in their
own hands and exercise their democratic rights to protest. The evidence
is mounting in favour of the view that our municipality — reflecting the
national trend — does not care about the plight of the poor.
The cynical distribution of food parcels during municipal elections is
further evidence of lack of care. And lack of care in the face of
extreme poverty amounts to a form of violence, which complements SAPS
thugery, and lends further evidence to the hypothesis that our democracy
is in decay. Typically, the Makana Municipality acts only insofar as it
can entrench its power. Neither they nor the police do anything when a
citizen such as Kota is threatened by the ANCYL. And the man who led
this violent intervention at the water shortage meeting — Mabhuti
Matyumza —is now employed by the Makana Municipality and was previously
communication officer of the Makana SAPS. He was not penalised for his
actions as he should have been despite the fact that information about
this reprehensible event was widely circulated. In fact, there are good
reasons — relating directly to the politics of co-option that has become
the mark of local and national politics — to suspect that he was prized
for his behaviour.
Soon after the sabotaged water shortage meeting, and as recently
reported in the Mail & Guardian and by myself, Ayanda Kota and
others were arrested when peacefully trying to stop the police from
discharging ‘sweets’, as one of the police officers who were present
referred to rubber bullets, at protesters in Phaphamani who were
outraged at the illegal banning by the Makana Municipality of a protest
scheduled to take place in town.
In light of what I have argued above, the savage attack against Ayanda
Kota seems to be an expression of the sad state of our democracy. His
bruised body tells us the story of a democracy in decline. Regular
threats directed at Kota by members of the ANCYL and by members of other
state aligned organisations and even attempts by ANC operatives to
bribe him gives further credence to the story of decay. Strong and
reasonable dissenting voices are the bread and butter of true
democracies, but working for a true democracy is a much harder task than
merely perpetuating a mediocre one that serves the few by crushing the
many. It is thanks to social movements that we rid our country of the
tyranny of apartheid and it will be significantly thanks to these
movements that the highly imperfect democracy we live in today will one
day come to flourish.
