The Impasse of Violence: Writing necklacing into a history of liberation struggle in South Africa Riedwaan Moosage Supervisors: Ms. Nicky Rousseau and Professor Premesh Lalu June 2010 A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Magister Artium in the Department of History, University of the Western Cape. Plagiarism declaration I, Riedwaan Moosage, certify that this Masters thesis is my own work. I understand what plagiarism is and I have used quotations and references to fully acknowledge the words and ideas of others. Riedwaan Moosage 14 June 2010 i Acknowledgements It is fitting to begin by acknowledging my co-supervisors, Nicky Rousseau, History Department at UWC and Premesh Lalu, Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at UWC for their tremendous support. I am grateful for their patience, diligence, intellectual girth and generosity, compassion and critical insight that have been of benefit to my research and writing. I express my gratitude to the teaching staff of the History Department (UWC) including, Leslie Witz, Patricia Hayes, Ciraj Rassool, Uma Mesthrie, Andrew Bank, Susan Newton-King, Dave Scher and Sipokazi Sambumbu for always being available to assist me; whether a friendly chat, allowing me access to their personal libraries, allowing me to „audit‟ their classes, or as with Professor Hayes, willing to share a pot of tea as we chatted over one or other of the numerous questions I always seem to have. To the administrative staff of the History department, Janine Brandt and Jane Smidt, I am grateful for their encouragement and administrative support. As a fellow in the Programme on the Study of the Humanities in Africa (PSHA), I have benefited intellectually from the numerous reading groups, symposia, colloquia and conferences organised by the PSHA under the umbrella of the CHR at UWC. The CHR is also a space that organises and co-hosts the South African Contemporary History and Humanities Seminars with the History department where the work of various scholars has had positive ramifications for my work. For the generous funding support from the Ford Foundation, I am most appreciative. I wish to thank the cohort of PSHA fellows for their collegiality, including Zulfa Abrahams-Ellis, Jung Ran Forte, Jill Weintroub, Alana Birch, Ngonidzashe Marongwe, Charles Mulinda Kabwete, Mark Espin, Mzuzile Mduduzi Xakaza, Crystal Jannecke, Anette Hoffmann, Jade Gibson, Okechukwu Nwafor, Bridgett Sass, Vilho Shigwedha, Memory Biwa, Giovanna Trento, Christian Williams, Noeleen Murray, as well as Stanely Baluku, Jeremiah Arowosegby, Nana Abou Amfo, George Akanliy-Pare and Sara Ferrari. In particular, I wish to thank Paolo Israel, Heidi Gruenebaum and Steve Ouma Akoth for taking a keen interest in my project and providing critical insight into the varied issues that this thesis attempts to unravel. My thanks to Simona Sawhney and Michael Neocosmos, visiting professors and researchers at the CHR, who graciously discussed aspects of this project with me, offered ii their thoughts, and directed me to interesting readings that have assisted me in thinking through certain questions. I especially thank Professor Brian Raftopoulos, a mentor for PSHA fellows, for his critical and insightful comments as discussant for a very early draft of the Introduction to this thesis that I presented at the „War and the Everyday‟ colloquium (CHR) in April 2009, organised by Professor Patricia Hayes and Heidi Grunebaum. To Jacques Depelchin, also a visiting professor and researcher at the CHR, a huge debt of thanks is owed for not only reading and commenting on that Introduction presented, but also for subsequent email correspondence we have shared in which his insight has been most helpful and most appreciated. My thanks also to Dane Davids, Aidan Erasmus and Luyanda Mtyeku, administrative assistants at the CHR. To Lameez Lalkhen, administrator of the CHR, I express my gratitude, not only for her very capable administrative skills but more so for her friendship, her constant encouragement and motivation. To the cohort of postgraduate students at the History department (UWC), including Zuleiga Adams, I am appreciative of their support and encouragement. In particular, I thank Bianca van Laun, Waagied Charles and Noorun-Nisaa Delate for their friendship, interest in my project but more so for their numerous attempts at keeping me sane. In 2008 I was afforded the opportunity to be apart of an exchange programme at the Center for African Studies - University of Basel, Switzerland for a semester. I wish to express my appreciation to, amongst many, Veit Arlt, Professor Patrick Harries, Giorgio Miescher and Lorena Rizzo who were most hospitable. I also would like to thank the staff at the Basler Afrika Bibliographien where I began writing the proposal for this thesis. I was also most fortunate to befriend, amongst others, Luregn Lenggenhager, Sara Werlen, Timoteus Mashuna and Franziska Ruedi who made my stay in Basel a most rewarding one, intellectually and socially. To the staff at the UWC Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archive, I express my appreciation for their assistance with my research and for always having smiling faces and taking a keen interest in my project. Indeed, there are a number of individuals that have contributed to this thesis in one way or another including William Ellis, Suren Pillay, Mark Hoskins, Seelan Naidoo, iii Madeline Fullard, Mahmood Patel, Radim Hladik, Lynne Cupido, Quentin Williams, John Marlow who assisted with Afrikaans translations and my sister Nurshen Surtie for assisting with archival research. To those whose names I have not mentioned, my sincerest apologies but more so, my deepest gratitude. To my „family‟ who have “suffered my writing” (whilst tempted to footnote this, I borrow the phrasing from Premesh Lalu), I am most grateful for your understanding, your patience, your motivation, your compassion and your unwavering support. To Tsahai Negatu I say amesege‟nallo‟. Writing this thesis, however, would not have been possible without the support of my mother, Faeeza. Words fail in expressing my appreciation, my gratitude and all that I am able to say is jazakallah khair for everything… iv Tyres are still burning. Tyres can burn for a very long time. The smell of burning rubber fills the air. But this time it is not mingled with the sickly stench of roasting human flesh. Just pure wholesome rubber. Zakes Mda, Ways of Dying, 199. v Contents Plagiarism declaration i Acknowledgments ii Introduction The spectre of necklacing 1 Ground clearing I 5 Ground clearing II 11 Brief chapter outline 18 Chapter One On the apartheid state discourse in relation to the practice of necklacing 22 Apartheid state discourse on violence 23 Constitutive elements of a discursive war 27 Concerning „black-on-black‟ violence 36 Chapter Two On the „official‟ non-state discourse in relation to the practice of necklacing 49 „Official‟ non-state strategies on (violent) resistance 51 Between „condemning‟ and „condoning‟ 54 A prose of ambivalence 63 Tracing ambivalence 74 Chapter Three Making sense of the practice of necklacing 81 On political violence and the practice of necklacing 83 On crowd/collective violence and the practice of necklacing 89 On witchcraft, ritual and the practice of necklacing 96 Towards writing necklacing into a history of liberation struggle 105 „the problem of understanding‟ 110 vi Chapter Four “A difficult legacy”?: Writing necklacing into a history of 112 liberation struggle in South Africa Forgetting to remember necklacing 114 Can necklacing be owned? 119 History – violence – nation 131 Necklacing as signifier of “subaltern pasts” 138 By way of a conclusion The refusal of necklacing to be forgotten 143 Appendix 151 Chris Hani‟s “comment on the necklace” Bibliography 153 vii Introduction The spectre of necklacing It is ironic though isn‟t it? History has swallowed the necklace. In ten years time it will be a faint memory; in twenty it will be the subject of an MA dissertation at 1 the University of the Western Cape (Luke Alfred, 1996). Necklacing - the practice of placing a petrol soaked tyre around the neck of an individual before setting it alight - was most pronounced during the mid 1980s in South Africa. During 1985-1989, South Africa experienced intense resistance to apartheid, largely led by the exiled African National Congress (ANC) and the United Democratic Front (UDF). The practice of necklacing was a form in which political violence was manifest and emerged predominantly in townships. Initially, those targeted were allegedly persons suspected of collaboration, either as spies or as functionaries of the apartheid state. Later however, the lines became blurred between those suspected of collaboration and the use of the practice in deflecting the motives of murders not politically motivated.2 While the Eastern Cape was the epicentre of necklacing, the practice spread to other regions of South Africa. It is estimated that somewhere between 400 and 700 were killed in this way 3 between 1985 and 1989. Yet despite the significance of the practice of necklacing in the 1 L. Alfred, „A Story of Burning Flesh‟ in New Contrast, Vol.25, No. 2 (June 1997), 24. My emphasis. Alfred had written this memoir of sorts in early 1996 with specific emphasis on a necklace killing that he had witnessed in May 1986 through his binoculars. Whilst Alfred‟s “story” also concerns a dictionary that he was commissioned to compile of South African language in the mid 1980‟s and the decision by the publishers to omit the word „necklace‟, his statement is “ironic” in relation to my project. It opens a myriad of possible interesting discussions that relate to why UWC was mentioned as the institutional site for research into necklacing. 2 Amongst others, a case in point would be of the much publicised, “first white man that killed a black policeman by the „necklace method‟”, George Henry Burt case. Burt had reportedly first shot Sgt Johannes Buti Ndimande numerous times thereby killing him (6th June 1986).