POLITICS
JONNY STEINBERG: Violence slips under radar in endgame
'Who has the power and the authority to lead frightened people into the spotlight and assure them that they are safe?'
We are by now all obsessed with what will happen over the next two years. Who will lead the ANC after its December conference? And who will govern SA after the 2019 election? Yet, for all the words, thoughts and anxieties invested in these questions, there is an elephant in the room about which few people breathe a word. Will all of these matters not in the end be resolved by violence? There seems to have been a collective decision not to ask this question, as if avoiding the subject will make it go away. Think about it. Violence, or the threat of it, is a routine adjunct to political action in many spheres of public life. Prominent trade unionists arrive at the plenaries of national conferences with bodyguards in tow, fearful their rivals will try to assassinate them.In many ANC branches across the country, fists and sticks have long replaced arguments. And in party politics and local government in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, targeted killing is a political tool of choice. It is ...
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