STEVEN FRIEDMAN: Political murders show how little has changed in SA
We are awash with explanations for the epidemic of violence — but few trace it to our apartheid past
Political killings are a symptom not of how much this country has changed, but of how much it hasn’t. As each week seems to bring awful news of another killing in KwaZulu-Natal, we are awash with explanations. Most seem to state the seemingly obvious: political disputes should not be solved with violence and we need politicians who understand that and conduct themselves accordingly. But few trace the violence to its roots in a past 23 years of democracy has not changed nearly enough. And so we fail to see political killings as warnings of the need for change not only in how some people in one political organisation in one province conduct themselves, but of how this society operates. The immediate causes of the violence are fairly clear to researchers and those who know the available evidence: victims are usually killed because they are in the way of people trying to get their hands on public resources. The epicentre of the violence, the Moerane commission investigating political ki...
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