Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4rdrl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-24T10:09:48.527Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The ANC's Dilemma: The Symbolic Politics of Three Witch-Hunts in the South African Lowveld, 1990–1995

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Isak A. Niehaus
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

This essay investigates the symbolic politics of three witch-hunts in a chiefdom of the South African lowveld during the 1990s. In the last years of apartheid young men, known as Comrades, assumed the forefront of political struggles. Comrades embarked upon witch-hunting campaigns to banish evil and misfortune, and thereby to attain legitimacy as a political movement. Since the unbanning of the ANC in 1990, a situation of pluralistic political structures emerged. Branches of the ANC and ANC Women's League were launched, Civic Associations were established, and chiefship was gradually reconstituted. As adults assumed positions of political leadership, the influence of the Comrades diminished. Witch-hunts of the 1990s are multifaceted social dramas, which involve different modes of participation and bear a variety of different meanings for political audiences. As such they reveal changing relations of alliance and opposition between the different political structures. I argue that through time, growing schisms have developed between the ANC and the Comrades, who have continued to be the most vociferous participants in witch-hunting. Local ANC leaders have been unsuccessful in resolving the conflicting demands of villagers (who demand their assistance in the eradication of witchcraft) and those of their political superiors (who require that they oppose witch-hunting).

Résumé:

Résumé:

Cet essai s'interroge sur la politique symbolique de trois chasses au sorrier dans un royaume du lowveld sud africain dans les années 90. Pendant les dernières années de l'Apartheid, de jeunes gens, connus sous le nom de Camarades, assumaient l'avant-garde dans les luttes politiques. Ces camarades s'étaient embarqués dans des campagnes de chasse au sorrier pour éliminer le mal et ainsi, obtenir une certaine légitimité en tant que mouvement politique. Depuis la levée de l'interdiction de l'ANC, en 1990, une situation de pluralisme politique a vu le jour. Des branches de l'ANC et une ligue des femmes de l'ANC ont été créées, des associations civiques ont été établies, et la chefferie a été progressivement reconstituée. L'influence des camarades a diminué à la suite du contrôle des postes politiques par les adultes. Les chasses au sorcier des années 90 sont des drames sociaux à plusieurs facettes, avec différents modes de participation et différentes significations. Ainsi, ces chasses révèlent un changement des relations d'alliance et d'opposition entre les différentes structures politiques. Je soutiens qu'avec le temps, un fossé de plus en plus grand s'est creusé entre les Camarades qui ont continué d'être les participants les plus bruyants à la chasse au sorcier, et l'ANC. Les dirigeants locaux de l'ANC n'ont pas réussi à résoudre les exigences divergentes de villageois ( qui exigent leur participation à l'éradication de la sorcellerie) et ceux de leurs supérieurs(qui requièrent qu'ils s'opposent à cette chasse au sorcier.)

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , December 1998 , pp. 93 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Auslander, M. 1993. “‘Open the Wombs!’: The Symbolic Politics of Modern Ngoni Witchfinding.” In Modernity and Its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa, ed. J., and Comaroff, J. L. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 167–92.Google Scholar
Baumann, G. 1992. “Ritual Implicates ‘Others’: Rereading Durkheim in a Plural Society.” In Understanding Ritual, ed. de Coppet, D. European Association of Social Anthropologists. London and New York: Roudedge.Google Scholar
Bloch, M. 1989. “The Ritual of the Royal Bath in Madagascar: The Dissolution of Death, Birth and Fertility into Authority.” In Ritual, History and Power. London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Bundy, C. 1987. “Street Sociology and Pavement Politics: Aspects of Youth and Student Resistance in Cape Town, 1985.” Journal of Southern African Studies 13 (3): 303–30.Google Scholar
Chidester, D. 1992. Shots in the Streets: Violence and Religion in South Africa. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Comaroff, J. 1974. “Chiefship in a South African Homeland.” Journal of Southern African Studies 1 (1): 36–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delius, P. 1996. A Lion Amongst the Cattle: Reconstruction and Resistance in the Northern Transvaal. Johannesburg: Raven Press.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1963. “Techniques of Sorcery Control in Central Africa.” In Witchcraft and Sorcery in East Africa, ed. Middleton, J. and Winter, E. H. London: Roudedge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Geertz, C. 1983. “Centres, Kings and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power.” In Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Green, M. 1994. “Shaving Witchcraft in Ulanga: Kunyulewa and the Catholic Church.” In Witchcraft in Contemporary Tanzania, ed. Abrahams, R. Cambridge: African Studies Centre.Google Scholar
Green, M. 1997. “Witchcraft Suppression Practices and Movements: Public Policies and the Logic of Purification.” Comparative Studies in History and Society 40: 319–45.Google Scholar
Hallpike, C. R. 1969. “Social Hair.” Man (n.s.) 4 (2): 256–64.Google Scholar
Hammond-Tooke, W. D. 1981. Boundaries and Belief: The Structure of a Sotho Worldview. Johannesburg: University of Witwatersrand Press.Google Scholar
Haralambos, M. 1980. Themes and Perspectives in Sociology. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Janzen, J. M. 1978. The Quest for Therapy in Lower Zaire. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kertzer, D. 1989. Ritual, Politics and Power. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Leach, E. R. 1958. “Magical Hair.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 88 (2): 147–64.Google Scholar
Lodge, T. and Nasson, B. 1991. All Here and Now: Black Politics in South Africa in the 1980s. Cape Town: David Philip.Google Scholar
Mageo, J. M. 1994. “Hairdo's and Don'ts: Hair Symbolism and Sexual History in Samoa.” Man (n.s.) 29 (2): 407–32.Google Scholar
Marwick, M. 1950. “Another Modern Anti-Witchcraft Movement in East Central Africa.” Africa 20 (2): 100–12.Google Scholar
Niehaus, I. A. 1993. “Witch-hunting and Political Legitimacy: Continuity and Change in Green Valley, Lebowa, 1930–93.” Africa 53 (4): 137–60.Google Scholar
Offiong, D. A. 1983. “Social Relations and witch-beliefs among the Ibibio of Nigeria. Journal of Anthropological Research 39 (1): 81–95.Google Scholar
Perry, J and Perry, C. 1991. “Where Were the Guests?: Republic Festival 1981.” In Tradition and Transition in Southern Africa, ed. Spiegel, A. D. and McAllister, P. A. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Press.Google Scholar
Richards, A. 1935. “A Modern Movement of Witch-Finders.” Africa 8 (4): 448–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritchken, E. 1995. Leadership and Conflict in Bushbuckridge: Struggles to Define Moral Economies Within the Context of Rapidly Transforming Political Economies. Ph.D.diss., University of Witwatersrand.Google Scholar
South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR). 1988. Survey of Race Relations, 1987–1988. Johannesburg: SAIRR.Google Scholar
Spiegel, A. D. 1989. “Towards an Understanding of Tradition: Uses of Tradition in Apartheid South Africa.” Critique of Anthropology 9(1): 49–74.Google Scholar
Van Kessel, I. 1983. “‘From Confusion to Lusaka’: the Youth Revolt in Sekhukhuneland.” Journal of Southern African Studies 19 (4): 593–614.Google Scholar
Willis, R. G. 1968. “Kamcape: an Anti-Sorcery Movement in S.W. Tanzania.” Africa 38 (1): 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar