Witch accusations, rapes, and the use of myths in modern South Africa
By Tina Hamrin-Dahl
As the African National Congress (ANC) constantly reiterates, South Africa is in a period of "nation building", and a new, inclusive historical identity must be forged from the multiple histories of its peoples. The task is daunting, not only because of the diversity of the population, but also because its histories were so systematically suppressed and distorted by the apartheid regime.
During the last twenty years of the 20th century, with the transformation of political relations, uncertainty and flux demanded concepts that were open to multiple combinations rather than closed by any overriding imperative of a single identity or single order. Perhaps the fluidity of identities, borders, and orders is a marker of our current global reality? In that case, there are fewer and fewer "givens" and more and more "negotiables":
"This state of affairs can lead to permanent conflict or to the recognition of limits, potentially opening the way to greater pluralism and democratic negotiations among multiple actors."[1]
On another level, can family affairs, circumstances often called "linked siblingship", cause problems that are witchcraft related. Women are accused of being witches, when relatives are jealous in those relationships, in which a woman expects assistance from her brother for her children and household. Many women in female-headed households depend on their brother's contributions.[2] Burke, who has studied witchcraft cases among the Tswana, points out that:
"..female relatives from the mother's side were the most frequent culprits. Following these women in frequency were unnamed "villagers", also usually female."[3]
In present South Africa, there are different kinds of witch accusations, and it might be so that:
"..accusing a family member or neighbor shows a societal willingness to confine witchcraft to a smaller, more familiar sphere, where it can perhaps be better controlled and is less threatening than attributing it to systemic, untamed violence".[4]
Perhaps accusations that involve one's family represent an attempt to reconfigure the dynamics of desperation, with youth challenging the older generation in a context where many are poor and jobless.
There are many questions to be asked, when it comes to witchcraft, and if we look at early modern Europe, the appearance and disappearance of witchcraft concerns are:
"..relevant to understanding the cultural contestations of capitalism in both European and comparative terms".[5]
But as Austen has pointed out:
"The comparison of African and European witchcraft studies is complicated by the fact that the former are mainly based on ethnographies of contemporary village culture, while the latter focus on written records of now-vanished urban elites who imposed themselves upon rural society".[6]
When it comes to comparative religion and research, the seventies and eighties saw the beginnings of the literary criticism and post-colonial studies revolution in anthropology of religion, particularly in the manner in which we think and speak about religion. This trend dovetailed with the continual and painful self-examination already ongoing into the predilections and prejudices of anthropologists through the last hundred fifty years. A new brand of historical anthropology arose, usually involving colonial and post-colonial studies and a review of the history of previous anthropological study in a particular area, the errors committed, the manner in which the study itself has reflected back upon the subjects. (As they concern religion, such works were more often written by anthropologists in religious studies departments.)
The phenomenon of witches and witchcraft – both in Europe and in Africa – have long attracted the attention and interest of many disciplines. Anthropologists, historians, church historians, historians of law and jurisprudence, historians of religions, folklorists, psychologists, sociologists etc. they have all done their share:
"The historians of different disciplines, who concentrated their studies on the world-view of the Church, on the ecclesiastical authorities, secular lawyers and authors of academic treatises on demonology, saw, implicitly or explicitly, the 'lever' of change in the ideas themselves and located the centre of social pressure in the ruling classes.”
The historians in Europe borrowed ideas and methods from social anthropology and tried to analyse the European witch-hunt from a sociological approach. In the 1970's, the perception of witchcraft was in other words as an idiom of social relations, that in many ways obscured the role of interpersonal conflicts:
"In the study of witchcraft it is imperative that we pay close attention to the details of people's narratives. It is essential to recognise the emic status of witchcraft as a reality, and to acknowledge the importance of circumstantial evidence and paranormal modes of cognition. These cannot merely be swept under the rug of 'social tensions'."
Historical anthropological studies of witchcraft are nowadays often based on case studies that are embedded in local contexts, shaped by local interests, and coloured by local perceptions:
"The agenda for social analysis has shifted to include not only eternal verities and lawlike generalizations but also political processes, social changes, and human differences."
Considering witch accusations, local knowledge is of course very important. When it comes to the Venda, there is a saying: "All women are the same and all women are witches". Perhaps women here are seen as secretive due to their absence from the public speaking arena? Women talk among themselves, so they have secrets, and death is an occurence filled with secrets, and older women are supposed to know about those secrets, so they are often blamed if someone dies. Consequently the majority of people accused of practising witchcraft, among the Venda, tend to be old women. According to extracts from judgements, the physical appearance of old women often lends itself to accusations of being witches. Their inability to defend themselves physically also makes them easy targets.
Violence against women
Violence against women in South Africa is common in all groups, whether we call them racial, class or ethnic. In addition to linking this level of violence with the apartheid regime and resultant poverty, inequality and racism, the effects of militarization on South African society are important in creating stereotypes which link masculinity with violence.[11]
In KwaMashu, the second largest township outside of Durban, a gang called bhepa span (from a Zulu word meaning crude sex), focused on raping young girls. In 1995, they gang-raped a local high school teacher while her students looked on. In connection with this, Leclerc-Madlala notes that the high incidence of rape in KwaZulu/Natal might relate to a belief that having sex with a virgin can cure from the HIV/AIDS virus.[12]
In a survey conducted by the Commission for Gender Equality, it is obvious that the problem with violence against women in South Africa is not limited to incidences of gang-rape.[13] Further on, only one out of every 10 boys interviewed in Gauteng schools opposed sexual violence.[14] Wojcicki, who studied sex-work and violence in the "new" South Africa, realized that many South African men compared women with children and rationalized, that in the same way it is necessary to hit a child if he/she misbehaves, a wife also needs to be controlled through discipline and violence.[15] According to Mager and Mokwena, South African men have been taught to define their power in terms of their ability to affect their will over women:[16]
"Now old taboos are going, and people are coming forward with family support to report rape," says Dr. Adrienne Wulfsohn, director of the Albertina Sisulu Rape Crisis Center near Johannesburg. But, she adds, "we need to fundamentally change the justice system."[17]
Lack of a central official database on sexual violence generally and against children specifically, makes it impossible to know exactly how prevalent sexual violence is. Until a moratorium was declared on police statistics in 1999, the police Crime Information Management Centre provided data on reported sexual violence cases. Although the data was not absolutely reliable (it was not children specific, the data capturing system was weak and all people who have suffered sexual violence do not report the incident to the police), it provided a sense of the prevalence of the problem. The moratorium has since been lifted in 2002:
"No one knows quite how common sexual violence is. Typical claims prior to the present initiative were that one woman in three in Johannesburg has been raped. Increased policing, health and social services have been unable to offer a solution, or even quantify the incidence of sexual violence."
In 2001, the Human Rights Watch, reporting on sexual violence in South African schools, reported that:
"..on a daily basis in schools across the nation, South African girls of every race and economic class encounter sexual violence and harassment at school that impedes the realisation of the right to education."[19]
Rapes and witch hunts have very much with the suppression of the women's voices to do. An investigation of the politics of witch hunting in the 1980s and 1990s is a task of great analytical complexity:
"The witch-hunts of the 1990s are multifaceted social dramas, bearing a variety of meanings for different constituencies, within which political actors compete for influence".[20]
Necklacings and gangsterism
If we go back in time, according to the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), 672 people were burnt (half of whom were necklaced) between the beginning of 1984 and June 1987. The Herald newspaper in July 1990 stated that there had been 428 necklacings since 1985, and that between October 1989 and February 1990 there were 29 necklacings and 476 murders by other methods of burning.[21] According to the SAIRR, between July 1987 and June 1989, 15 people were burnt out of 661 political deaths. Between July 1988 and June 1989, 5 people were burnt out of 237 political deaths. Thus necklacings and other burnings appear to have faded away as the nationwide uprising against apartheid was suppressed in 1987, but increased at the end of 1989.
Now it is a fact, that burnings began to be evident at least 7 years prior to the first widely reported necklacing in 1985. In Lebowa, during December 1976 and January 1977, 14 suspected witches were burnt to death. Two of the victims were thrown on fires, the rest were locked in huts and burnt alive.[22]
According to Anderson, these burnings gained a gradual acceptance, and that by 1983/1984 this had become the standard means of disposing of witches. Various burning procedures were deployed. Some victims had petrol poured over them and lit, some were burnt in the open on a pile of wood, and others were locked inside their huts and burnt alive.[23] Thus the initial victims of burning would seem to have been witches, with the later inclusion of traitors and collaborators.
Young and old men have quite different ideas about witches. The aged are thought to have secret powers of their own, female entrepreneurs are blamed for the AIDS epidemic and since older females make money through their entrepreneurial activities, they are accused of being witches.[24]
In this sense, witchfinding may be understood as an attempt by young males to preempt the mystical power of their elders and the structures of gerontocratic authority, by constituting a kind of masculine “imagined community”. Just as the police and army earlier controlled movement along national highways in search of South African “spies”, “subversives”, and women “black marketers”, so the diviners, playing upon images of state military prowess, sought to regulate movement within novel ritual space in order to reach out the “real” internal enemies.[25]
Necklacings and burnings in general have been retribution for a vast array of misdeeds. The phenomenon does not simply belong in the political arena, it is a punishment used also against criminals, rapists, murderers, shebeen-owners, other ethnic groups, witches and wizards. The virtual paralysis of the education system has pushed many youngsters into the streets where they acquaint themselves with the alternative norms and values, and the required survival skills. In fact, the South African education system has been unable to provide clear connections between schooling and the job world, and has remained ineffective in enhancing the social advancement of black youth. The education system has also been the main site of struggle for many black youths.[26] Since the Bantu Education system kept funds low for black schools in urban areas and certain subjects, such as mathematics, only were taught in Afrikaans, protests and revolts spread across South Africa after 1975.[27]
According to Anderson, burning tyres were used as early as 1981, and a newspaper report in 1984 describes how a witchdoctor and two women were burnt alive on a truck with a large tractor tyre placed over them.[28] Youth are often the more prominent actors, but there are many reports of elders as passive supporters as well as being directly involved. Necklacing takes place for different reasons at different places and from 1985 until the present day burnings and necklacings are found in both rural and urban areas.[29]
Clearly, several witch hunts are performed by youth gangs. To understand the present wave of youth gangs, it is important to locate them within a specific historical period. Gangs first emerged on the Rand with the discovery of gold. These were an index of marginalisation and impoverishment experienced by workers working in Johannesburg at the turn of the century. Gangs also emerged in the 1950s following the establishment of the urban townships. These were part of the tstotsi subculture which claimed the vast majority of township youths as its adherents. Following the rapid economic growth of the 1960s and the establishment of Bantu education, the problem of gangsterism was contained to a large extent. Another wave of gangsterism was in the mid to late 1970s with gangs like the "Big Fives" and the "Haizels" and the "Vardos". The gangs continued to exist in the post-1976 period. These gangs coincided with the rise of the city slicker streetwise Mapantsula subculture of the 1970s. Several gangs emerged after the period of continued political resistance in the mid-1980s. These were marked specifically by gangs such as the "Jackrollers", "Amajapan", "Amaninja". These gangs were also accompanied by the rise of notorious gangsters, like "Makhusha", "Jeff Brown" and "Morambula".[30]
A witch burning in Mlungisi
One example of "witch burning" executed by an excited youth gang is the death of Nosipho Zamela in 1985, in the Eastern Cape township of Mlungisi in Queenstown. Between 1983 and 1986 Mlungisi was in a state of violent turmoil. A consumer boycott of white-owned shops brought the police and army to the township. The Mlungisi Massacre involved the shooting of Mlungisi residents inside a church hall, while they were holding a meeting to receive a report-back by their leaders from a meeting they held with authorities of the municipality and with members of the white business community. The Mlungisi leaders were given an ultimatum: the boycott must be called off. The leaders decided to have a meeting about it, at ten o’clock on the same day as the boycott was supposed to end at twelve o’clock. Soon army trucks and personnel surrounded the church were the meeting was held, a voice announced over a loud hailer that the meeting had to disperse in five minutes. The order was ignored. Moments thereafter, teargas was fired into the church and a stampede followed during which people tried to escape. Police vehicles followed the stream of people running, shooting at random with bird shot, teargas and real ammunition. Fourteen people were killed and many injured. Three of the victims were buried two weeks after the incident, and eleven were given a mass burial on the 7th of December 1985. Nosipho Zamela, also a Xhosa, was burned as a witch on the 8th.
On the day when strong emotions were at play in Mlungisi, when the final night vigil for the eleven dead was held, Nosipho Zamela was seen being dropped off from an army truck in front of the house where the vigil was held. Soon thereafter a rumour started circulating that she was "sleeping with Inkatha", which was a reference to the police who were patrolling the streets of Mlungisi and who were believed to be Zulu-speaking.
The strategies used by the police at the time were very crude, and most were designed to shift the focus from their own brutality to "black-on-black" violence. They were known to set up individuals by driving around with them in the township, and then release them while arresting others, giving the impression that is was these individuals who identified the people arrested.
Nosipo was taken from her home some time during the morning of December 8 by marshals from her street, who were followed by a crowd of about sixty youths. She was confronted with the alleged charge of sleeping with the police, therefore being a bitch. Most of the morning was spent walking her through the streets and demanding that she identifies other women who were supposedly sexually involved with the police. The search for other women yielded nothing and the marshals from the street, who were now joined by marshals from other streets, increasingly became angry, accusing her of making fools of them. Many people in the crowd started shouting obscenities at her. Some of the men started poking her with sticks and sjamboks in her vaginal area as they continued to shout at her. Women's voices were also heard accusing her of grooming herself for the benefit of Inkatha and using "blood money" to buy clothes. One of the witnesses remembered a young man who was a marshal saying: –"You didn’t want to sleep with us, but you made yourself available for Inkatha!"
An argument over how she was going to be punished ensued after a man’s voice called out: –"She must be burnt!" The marshals from her street argued against the burning of Nosipho, but they were silenced and threatened by a group of marshals from another area. More people gathered on the way and there was singing and toy-toying. They shouted: –"Let the one who sold her own die" and –"Let her fry!" The burning necklace, a tyre soaked in petrol, killed her while the people were singing and dancing doubt.[31]
The witches
Witches represent behaviour that deviates from the accepted norms of a society, they are evil and create disharmony in social relationships. To call someone a witch is to say that she is a traitor, that the person stands in an antagonistic relationship to the rest of society.Witches provide an explanation for hardships as well as an active way to remove the agents of oppression.[32]
In as much as a community councillor is necklaced as a symbol of a system of antagonistic relationships (apartheid) and in as much as the public nature of this punishment serves as an example for all to see and learn from, so the burning of a so called witch served the same function for the people living in Mlungisi.
The fact that at the start of these burnings witches appear to have been the dominant victims, and that only later did collaborators begin to receive the same punishment is of secondary importance. Given the situation in South Africa during the mid-eighties with much political unrest and frustration, the transferral would seem almost inevitable, and from the mid-eighties "apartheid's spies and puppets" and "witches" often became interchangeable.[33]
Thinking about the earlier mentioned victims in Lebowa:
"There can be little doubt that the events of January 1977 represented some kind of rupture, both in the way matters of witchcraft were perceived by the press and the public at large, and in the more fundamental significance that the incidents concerned seemed to herald for patterns of witch murder in rural Transvaal." [34]
Andrew Spiegel studied "use of tradition" in apartheid South Africa and many chiefs used it as a source of political legitimacy, and since so called witches, diviners and witchfinders also invoke tradition, their affinity with the chiefs can be placed on an ideological level.[35]
According to Hilda Kuper, the Swazi complains that the law has made "smelling out" witches illegal: "They argue that the white man’s law protects women and witches." [36] Procedures are often established to protect those who are accused of practising witchcraft, since the law is against witch-finding. But when people see the authorities protect accused witches, this makes them believe that the people occupying powerful positions within the state are using witchcraft for their own purposes. Witchcraft and modern politics are closely related:
"..state authoritarianism reinforces this link by creating an atmosphere of undeclared competition that makes politics and occult forces hard to distinguish." [37]
“The reality of such beliefs, as an intellectual attempt to explain, manage and compensate for undeserved misfortune, cannot lightly be dismissed as an idiom that masks ulterior motives, and is aimed at intimidating political opponents. On the contrary, witch-hunting must be understood in the first place as an attempt to eliminate misfortune. Those who support and organise action against witches therefore perform a valuable social service, and attain political legitimacy. Despite important changes in the forms of witch-beliefs and in patterns of witchcraft accusation, there have been remarkable continuities in its political implications over time.”
Witches and politics
Often the victims of a necklacing are killed after a generally structured process. An accusation is made, either of suspected witchcraft, murder, rape or collaborating. If it receives wide support a witchdoctor is consulted to verify the accusation or to name the accused. While only a few people are directly involved in the trial and burning, they are often witnessed and passively supported by large crowds. The actual burning is also largely ritualised, victims are often stabbed, beaten, hacked with axes and stoned. They may be dead or alive when the actual burning takes place.[39]
In 17th century Scandinavia:
"Punishment of witches came about when unfortunate relations occured between people, for example, with an unequal distribution of material goods, or when disharmony occured because of anger or vindictiveness. Imbalance with the supernatural forces led to discontent in everyday life."[40]
When people crossed the borders between important categories in the social structure, they moved into dangerous areas. To gain health and to be productive one needs to be in balance with the supernatural forces, in South Africa, mainly the ancestors.
With new different power systems, the whole concept of learning, authority and power is affected. To have authority means most of all to have inherent power which exceeds the power of others. In Zimbabwe, many people would like to have well-paid jobs and nice houses, but:
"..a person who was successful in these respects could easily be suspected of having made use of uroyi [‘witchcraft’] to reach his or her goals and was...[therefore] likely to live with a fear of becoming a victim of uroyi..."[41]
Burke, as well as Staugard, notes that most Tswana identify jealousy as the motivating factor for witchcraft.[42]
Sakkie Niehaus, who resently wrote about witchcraft and the sexuality of evil in the South African lowveld, shows that gender questions are the burning issues:
“Gossip, derogatory statements, and scandal-provoking stories about unacceptable sexual conduct sanctioned certain moral ideas. These open-ended narratives could be a prime site of resistance... Ordinary people could use rumours and scandals to ridicule and humiliate the reputations of dominant persons who abuse their rights to exercise power... in the lowveld accusations of witchcraft are a hallmark of intra-gender struggles. Insubordinate wives, obstinate daughters-in-law, and elderly infertile woman, as well as vulnerable men fell victim to these accusations.”
Rosenthal, who studied the violent past in South Africa, writes about the democratic future and she points out the importance of building a women's movement in the democratic transition. While writing about "engendering cultural citizenship in the New South Africa", Rosenthal says:
"[M]y argument is that a new national subject – a post-apartheid citizen – is engendered in the context of these gender politics".[44]
On the political agenda, gender has come to the fore as an important issue and women discuss the importance of voicing "women's concerns" in the transition toward creating a more equitable democracy with regard to race and gender. But what about the majority of woman living in the rural areas? Part of the problem with women's lack of participation in the public sphere seems to be about ethnicity. When it comes to Xhosa:
"It was the determination of the ANC Women's League, which has more than 700 branches countrywide, to fill at least one-third of the ANC election list with women that is to a large extent responsible for this high percentage of women in Parliament".[45]
Among Venda, the situation is different: "Women may and do own property and play an important part in all aspects of life, but usually behind the scenes".[46]
After the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990, there was unrest between Letaba and Limpopo:
"In village after village, youths went on the rampage burning and killing suspected witches. In the process, under the cover of the indignation of the youth, many old rivalries, enmities and personal scores were often settled. It became easy for witchcraft accusations to be bandied about and once the stigma of practising witchcraft had stuck, individuals became easy targets for witchhunts by the village youth."[47]
What is particularly ritual-like about witch-hunts is:
"..the performative features by which an elaborate cast of people publicly dramatize a contest of values, compelling observers to align themselves with the larger community or risk identification as the enemy. The performative event helps to shape social attitudes by giving dramatic form to polarized positions; people must choose, and in doing so they are drawn into the event itself".[48]
In South Africa during the 1980s and 1990s, the crisis in capitalism manifested itself in the growing impoverishment of black communities, both urban and rural. In particular, it was punctuated by the marginalisation of a significant proportion of the black youth, manifest in growing youth unemployment, the education crisis and social breakdown, with the consequent collapse of a civic culture.[49] Therefore, the rise of youth gangs and wanton youth violence is equally intricately connected to the crisis of capitalism.
Looking at different ethnic groups, in such a scenario, competing forces would have to accept the limits of their hegemonic pretentions and, instead, learn to live with difference as an irreducible part of building more open and democratic institutions. A kind of new "politics of disarmament", which would go beyond the "stabilization" of a polarized society. It would open up new ways of ordering political life that might reduce the propensity of the cycle of power and resistance to repeat itself, without implying that political conflict would disappear. A politics of disarmament would need to rebuild trust and solidarity within and between communities by crossing "cultural" and political structures that continue to propagate poverty and violence.[50]
It is true that gang activity in the townships often makes the task of social regulation and law enforcement almost impossible. Concretely, the predatory nature of gang violence is a source of serious concern and paranoia to the white privileged minority. Whilst it is probably true that the present gang culture embodies elements of cultural resistance which have a potential of being an affront to the dominant classes, they remain a menace to the poor and the oppressed, and more significantly, often they serve to specifically obstruct progressive political mobilisation:[51]
“The era of the jackrollers heralds a serious threat which is evidenced in the horrific forms of violence and social decay incubated in the barrack-like townships which vociferate the historical tragedy of apartheid. Soweto is indeed the centre-stage of unfolding macabre social drama, and sections of the black youth continue to play a leading role. The world of academia can no longer choose to see the youth only when the act is in unison against their oppressors. Nor can it also afford to romanticise and mystify criminal youth formations and thus ignore their potentially counter-revolutionary nature.
It is ironic that the re-entry of previously banned political organisations into the daily political scenario promises to further sideline the youth. The youth, as a collective force and the one-time engine of the South African struggle, now faces insurmountable political, economic and social problems. The failure of the present and indeed future governments to place youth issues onto the agenda could swell the ranks of the growing alternative force which is presently being nurtured in the township streets.”
As Russell Hardin points out:
"One of the most important ways information affects groups is in giving group members an understanding of their common interests."[53]
After apartheid, a new, educated elite had access to important positions. At the same time, youth gangs were at risk and the risk in society, they both impacted the discourse and were affected by it. And there is a connection between witchcraft and the power of youth. Therefore, the emphasis on the historicity of these discourses and practices has to be magnified. Geschiere noticed that also in Cameroon:
"Witchcraft is seen not as a more or less fixed, traditional residue but, rather, as a constantly changing set of notions reflecting and reinterpreting new cicumstances."[54]
According to the Comaroffs, "signs and practices of witchcraft are integral to the experience of the contemporary world."[55]
Concluding explanations
The omnipotence of witchcraft derives from the context of a constant tension between the different groups of the society. The emergence of new inequalities constitutes big problems and often changes are understood in terms of discourse on witchcraft.[56]
In South Africa, the youth are accused of killing alleged witches. Youth blame elderly women of preventing them from getting work through their witchcraft and in several cases, they burn the women. For example, 442 cases were reported to the police in the first six months of 1998.[57] Through deadly violence they express their anxiety about producing and reproducing wealth. An explanation of the economy of the occult is appealing, because it takes into account the great wealth differentials and the inequity in opportunities to ever access any of this wealth. Why women, who are likely as poor or only moderately better off than their attackers, are accused of witchcraft remains unanswered.[58]
There is a presumption of malice, and women not being sick, while people around them show illness, are often suspected. According to Adam Ashfort, AIDS = "evil spirits", and there is a high prevalence of misfortune because of the present AIDS epidemic, this makes suspicions of witchcraft all the more plausible:
"If misfortune is widespread, as in the AIDS epidemic, the plausibility of witchcraft interpretations is enhanced and the legitimacy of public power in turn diminished. Under apartheid, this evil was apparent and obvious. It was responsible for the suffering of all black people. In the post-apartheid era, the meaning of misfortune is not so easy to construe. Yet misfortune is every bit as palpable now as it ever was, and with the increasing death toll from AIDS will be even more so".[59]
Lisa Vetten and Kailash Bhana made a preliminary investigation into the links between violence against women and HIV/AIDS in South Africa:
"..rape may directly increase women's and girls' risk of contracting HIV. Typically, rape does not occur in circumstances where a condom will be used. The violent nature of rape creates a higher risk of genital injury and bleeding (increasing the risk of HIV transmission), while, in case of gang rape, exposure to multiple assailants may also contribute to the risk of transmission".[60]
When it comes to witch accusations and necklacing, crisis in masculinity and the centrality of violence in male identity, might play an important role. Black township youths have been historically marginalized by apartheid, leaving them as alienated outcasts within their own wider society. Black township youths have historically been excluded from the key resources of power and authority in the society. Particularly for young post-adolescent males, this leaves them frustrated, emasculated and generally disempowered, it is a generation of young people who have been actively marginalized and brutalized by society.[61]
But witch accusations in present South Africa often have a ritual form that might do much more than reflect and refract historical processes. It might indeed give shape to just such processes, in a very much more constitutive sort of way. To grasp those in many ways difficult phenomena is hard, but we can search for a reasoning that the ritual encodes in symbolic form: the structures of relations that compose the social order. If it could be considered that those underlying structures does not exist as such in themselves, then it would be the work of ritual practice, in this case witch burning, not to encode them but in fact to create them. But maybe those witchburnings are far too fragmented, disordered and detotalized for a structure and this kind of collective violence is the outcome of a very specific series of geohistorical developments connected to labour migration and the way women were exploited in the apartheid era, in fact, manners that were similar in many ways to those of their precolonial forebears. Then witch burning is, among other things, the outcome of a history of detotalization rooted within the development and transformation of capitalism in South Africa.
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