”disturbanceorproblemswhichinterruptanevent,activity,or
DisruptionaptlydescribestheimpactthattheCovid-19Pandemichas madeonthelivesofpeopleacrosstheworld.Contrarytowhatmany peoplenaïvelybelieved,withtheresumptionoflifetopre-covid conditionsinmanyareas,disruptiveeventshavenotceasedbut ratherseemtosimplychangeshape,neverrecedingfortoolong. Neverthelessitistheresilienceofthehumanspiritguidedbytheneed forjusticethatmustprevailtocounterdisruptioninitsmanyforms.
Inthiseditionweexploretheroleofthatcolonialismplaysinthe presentdayLGBTQ+spaceinpostcolonialcountries Thisisfollowed byapoemdetailingacomicaldisruptiveepisodeinKramer.Lastlywe exploreanopiniononthemediacoverageoftheRusso-Ukrainewar.
MahatmaGandhi
Best, VinayakPanday
process”
“Bethechangeyouwanttoseeintheworld”
The various conquests of the British empire led to the superimposition of its legal principles onto many countries. That is inarguable. One such law is section 377A of the Singaporean Penal Code, which criminalises sex between two consenting male adults, inter alia Whilst many laws criminalising homosexual intercourse is still evident in the contemporary era, the case with Singapore is striking, yet also fascinating. Section 377A and its contents are a recurring theme between former British colonies, and such oppressive legislation was either exacerbated or introduced through the colonial legacy that remains rooted in many societies today. I, due to word constraints, limit my discussion to restrictions on same-sex interactions between two consenting males. However I also acknowledge that injustices against LGBTQ+ individuals may occur in many, often inestimable, circumstances.
The Biblical book of Leviticus, recognised for how many continue to use certain verses to condemn same-sex relations, was incorporated by the Romans into its legislation when the Empire adopted Christianity in the 4th Century. In fact, Justinian’s law consolidated this, prescribing the punishment of execution for contravention thereof. The verse often referred to is Leviticus 18:22, which, in the New International Version, states: ‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman. ’ This eventually coalesced, amongst other Roman legal principles, into European law. In turn, European jurisdictions mandated criminal prohibitions, eventually giving rise to the British criminalisation of same-sex acts began in 1534, through Henry VII, who coined it the ‘buggery law.’ Sodomy, and therefore same-sex relations between two consenting males, became prohibited, and the ‘buggery law’ formed part of the seminal wording for the Indian Penal Code.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, a British politician, chaired the first law commission that drafted the Indian Penal Code, which eventually influenced its Singaporean counterpart greatly; part of it was section 377A which prohibited same-sex intercourse. In Singapore, the code shockingly refers to such sexual relations as any man who ‘commits…an act of gross indecency with another male person. ’ The law itself, per Singapore’s court of appeal, is no longer enforced against male persons, and there has not been a conviction in many decades. However, the fact that the law still exists is somewhat a statue that constantly reminds and haunts Singaporean gay individuals of the restrictions on their sexual freedoms and will remain as such until 377A is altered or repealed entirely Interestingly, even the number of the section itself, number 377, is repeated in Singapore, Pakistan, Myanmar, Malaysia and Brunei, all of which criminalise same-sex relations. In Sri Lanka, Seychelles and Papua New Guinea, the same key wording is used in the penal code to restrict sexual freedom. You may question the common denominator between the aforementioned countries, and the fact of the matter remains; such laws were influenced by the enactment of the Indian penal code, due to British colonial influence. In fact, I found that both homophobia and racism amalgamated during that period, as Macaulay himself incorrectly believed that the introduction of the Indian Penal Code, and thus section 377A, would ‘modernise’ its society. Rather than actually bringing ‘modern’ reform to the subcontinent, he set in stone a code that would affect the sexual freedom of millions of individuals; a code of colonial origin that would have to be legally challenged by the descendants of societies that actually embraced same-sex relations. In fact, such relations were featured largely in South Asian literature and Hindu temple art
in the Khajuraho temples, for example, depict images of women erotically embracing each other. We must acknowledge that in 2018, the case Navtej Singh Johar v Union of India led to the decriminalisation of consensual intercourse between same-sex adults. Nonetheless, such a ruling, which is relatively recent, should still be considered unnecessary; had it not been for the imposition of the Indian Penal Code by the British during the colonialperiod, sexual freedom would still have been enjoyed by the population, and landmark cases would not have been necessary to remove restrictions thereon.
The effect of British Imperialism on sexual freedom is also evident in our home continent. In fact, I find that had it not been for imperialism, many African cultures today would still enjoy the sexual freedoms that pre-colonial cultures did. For instance, strains of the aforementioned penal code can be seen in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, which, too, were previously under British control. Notwithstanding, many precolonial African cultures practiced same-sex activity, which is evident in the following instances. In Botswana, where same-sex activity was recently decriminalised under the landmark Letsweletse Motshidiemang v the Attorney-General, the term ‘koetsire’ is used by the Khoikhoi to refer to a man who participated in sexual activity with another man, and many San cave-painting depict intercourse between men In fact, prior to colonisation, Tswana society did not share the Western notions of sexuality and gender heterosexuality was not at the antipodal of homosexuality. Dikgosi, traditional Tswana chiefs, have even argued that homosexuality has long existed in their society, and should be accepted.
This pre-colonial mindset changed drastically after the formation of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, whereafter the vast importation of British legislation occurred. Despite the success of Letsweletse in decriminalising samesex relations, the attorney-general still appealed the High Court in 2019 to the Botswana Court of Appeal on the grounds that the Court a quo was erroneous in its ruling Another example is Namibia, where anthropologist Kurt Falk reported on homosexuality and same-sex marriage ceremonies among the Ovambo, Nama, Herero and Himba peoples. However, the prohibition of same-sex acts, albeit its criminalisation having nominally been declared unenforced, still remains illegal under Roman-Dutch law, which, unsurprisingly, was a product imported into Africa via colonialism. Thus, it is evident that the introduction of European ideals into the continent eventually led to the restriction of the sexual freedoms of Africans; a fact that only calls for the abrogation of such principles in contemporary Africa.
In South Africa, homosexual individuals still experience forms of inequality, despite the progressiveness of our country. The freedom aforementioned within Southern African peoples, which are also applicable in South Africa, was restricted by colonialism and apartheid. In fact, under the rule of the National Party, homosexuality was a crime punishable by imprisonment. However, South Africa has indeed progressed; for instance, the current Constitution, under its Bill of Rights, allowed for sexual freedoms, and the South African Constitution was the first constitution that explicitly prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Moreover, the enactment of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Discrimination Act and Employment Equity Act both protect South Africans against unfair discrimination with regards to public accommodation and services, as well against labour discrimination. Same-sex partnerships have also been allowed, under the Civil Union Act in 2006. However section 6, which has since been repealed by the Civil Union Amendment Act in 2020, allowed for marriage officers to object on grounds of conscience, religion and belief; South African LGBT newspaper Mambaonline reported that 421 out of 1130 marriage officers were exempted from performing same-sex marriages or unions, which arguably violates individuals’ Constitutional right, in section 195(d), which states that ‘services must be provided impartially, fairly, equitably, and without bias.’
Sexual freedom has been achieved, albeit through varying degrees, throughout the world, and moving towards a decolonised and inclusive society should involve the repealing of archaic laws that fail to allow such freedoms, and the allowing of samesex couples the same marriage and union rights as heterosexual ones. These objectives are crucial in achieving egalitarianism, not only in legal culture, but in the quotidian as well; the respective legalisation and abrogation of such will normalise relationships, and allow individuals, to put it simply, to truly understand that ‘love is love.’
The media are not observers. They are not independent and objective bodies that we have been led to believe. Rather, they are driven by political objectives to fuel specific ideologies, in an attempt to craft the masses into a world order that is of their respective government’s wishes. The coverage of the Russo-Ukrainian war as a heroic, patriotic defence of civilisation is unfortunately not afforded to the resistance by black and brown people against western neoimperialist invasions.
At the outbreak of the conflict, the Russian Federation stated that it was not an invasion, but rather a ‘special military operation’. This is reminiscent of the Israeli Apartheid State’s term of ‘military operations’ in the West Bank, yet western liberal media outlets & governments were quick to report the former as a ‘War’ and failed to afford the same term to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. For decades, settler colonialism and military incursions into Palestinian territory has occurred at the hands of Israel, but rather than face condemnation, military, financial and verbal support has been ever-growing from the West.
In a society where the arrest and detention without trial of Palestinian teenagers is the norm, where is the condemnation from the West? Why does the pillaging and razing of Ukrainian villages deserve more attention? It seems to be that the distinguishing factor is race, when it is a white population that is threatened, that is where a line can be drawn. Ukrainian civilian’s hurling Molotov cocktails at Russian armoured columns are hailed as defenders of their land, while Palestinians who do the same are labelled as terrorists.
According to The Washington Post, in the Cold War period, the United States had attempted to change other sovereign countries governments 72 times, 66 of which were covert operations. In the past three decades, the US has invaded or bombed: Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya in the Middle East alone. This is excluding wave after wave of sanctions against regimes such as Iran, or continued military support given to Saudi Arabia in their relentless crusade against the Yemeni people. Despite this, there has not been a public outcry from Western Governments and news outlets. There were no hard-hitting sanctions or international isolation that ensued.
On the contrary, the media fuelled US imperialist actions, spewing out propaganda in support of the United States determination to wage a war on the Global South. Western governments often supported the US as part of coalition forces, indicative of the never-ending neo-colonialism that plagues Post-Colonial states. However, when it is the Russian Federation who violates the sovereignty of another nation, the fallout is swift and devastating. This is not to excuse the actions of the Russians in Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine, but rather to highlight the hypocrisy that exists in not holding the United States to the same criteria
War has been raging on in Ethiopia, Syria, Kashmir, Somalia and Yemen for years, yet hardly as much coverage has been devoted to the plight of these people. An attitude of ‘selective attention’ has been adopted by the West, if they do not look like them, they are undeserving of their attention and help. Prior to the outbreak of the Russo-Ukraine conflict, anti-refugee sentiment had been growing at alarming rates in Europe, with many countries such as Hungary and Poland refusing to accept refugees from the Middle East Yet, when it is blonde-hair, blue-eyed people that are fleeing conflict, the issue is different. Previously antirefugee governments welcomed the Ukrainian people with open arms, because according to news reporters and members of various European parliaments, these refugees were different. A foreign correspondent for CBS is quoted as saying the following:
A place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilised, relatively European- I have to choose those words carefully, too-city where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen.
The dominant narrative is that because they are white and ‘relatively civilised’, they should be afforded more attention because it is only supposedly black and brown people that are capable of being involved in or fleeing conflict. They would hope for it not to happen in Europe, but in the Global South war and violence is assumed to be the common norm amongst the ‘uncivilised’ populations. The cradle of civilisation, Mesopotamia, was in the Middle East Across Africa and Asia some of the most influential developments in Science and the Arts arose from these ‘uncivilised’ people Furthermore, what would constitute a people being ‘uncivilised’? Every group of people is known to have historically complex social and political hierarchical structures, yet if they do not look like or talk like Europeans, they are deemed ‘barbaric’ and ‘ savages ’ .
The Western media often seems to forget that the reason why conflict has been raging in places like Somalia, Afghanistan or Iraq is largely due to the fault of the West. Any deviation of a post-colonial state that was not in alignment with what the West determined to be ‘right and just’ was swiftly punished with an invasion, assassination or overthrow of the government. A westernfriendly government was promptly implemented, often at the detriment of the people. Yet this fact is hardly ever recognised when reporting on these ‘uncivilised’ countries takes place
What would explain the deviations in treatment when it comes to condemnation, sanctions and news coverage of different conflicts? The media is complicit in selectively choosing who is newsworthy and who should be cared about. When American bombs are dropped on black and brown bodies, the silence that follows from the international community is deafening. Yet as soon as the location shifts to Europe or a country with a predominantly white population, it is a different story. National monument’s around the world lit up in the colours of the French Tricolour following the November 2015 Paris attacks, yet when has the Eiffel Tower ever lit up in the colours of the Yemeni, Syrian or Palestinian flag? Why is it that when a truck was ran through a Christmas market in Germany that #PrayforGermany was trending, yet when the Global South is bombed into oblivion by the West, not an eyelid is batted? The answer, is that in a Western Eurocentric world order, whiteness is the currency which is most valued.
Jered Shorkend
A year ago, I hazarded a necropolitical analysis of the July 2021 unrest. I sought to show that the necropolitical heuristic would foreground perspectives, and avail conclusions, that otherwise escaped or featured too weakly in the dominant treatment of the event I concluded that the events of that month implicated something severely deeper than an insurrection attempt by the RET faction of the ruling party and that, in all likelihood, we will see this sort of instability again and soon. This quarter’s edition of Altum Sonatur, entitled ‘Disruption’, presents an opportunity to evaluate this analysis with the benefit of a year of hindsight. For this article’s purposes, this hindsight comprises the release of the South African Human Rights Commission’s preliminary reflective report on the event; and of President Ramaphosa’s Expert Panel report on the same. Below I summarise my arguments at the time and consider them alongside selected parts of the reports.
I opened with a summary of Necropolitics Necropolitics was hazarded by historian and theorist Achille Mbembe in his 2003 essay and 2019 book of the same name It regards social relations in terms of the exercise of power to ‘subject life to the power of death'
It is a spectral exercise that, in addition to life and death, allows for the creation of unique social spaces between the two. Examples of these ‘death worlds’, as Mbembe calls them, include colonial plantations and Nazi concentration camps. These spaces engender 'unique forms of social existence in which vast populations are subjugated to conditions of life conferring upon them the status of living-dead ' They compel life at its ‘outer edge’ where ‘living means continually standing up to death … a sort of inversion between life and death, as if life was merely death's medium.' If enslaved persons and camp inmates lived ‘lives mediated by death’ at the respective behest and for the respective benefit of white plantation owners and Nazi officials, then formal apartheid becomes another obvious example. The relationship between the colony and metropole another.
Against Mbembe’s heuristic I quoted some South African inequality statistics. They included a Gini coefficient of 0.63 – 0.69, between four and nine points higher than that of revolutionary France; a true unemployment rate of 42%, nearly twice that of Weimar Germany; and a youth unemployment rate of 63%, more than twice that associated with the Arab Spring I included an excerpt from academic commentator Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh’s Democracy and Delusionthat ‘[t]he radically disproportionate share of South African wealth is still in a small group of mostly white hands Wealth disparities among the white population are also significantly lower [whereas] wealth disparities inside black and coloured communities are high, given that few have seen tremendous wealth while the clear majority languish in landlessness and poverty. Incredibly, 80% of the black population owns no measurable portion of South African wealth ' I cited journalistic work describing life for some of 55.5% of the population living below the upper-bound poverty line. It discussed dehumanising stasis, environments conducive to hazarding petty theft and narcotic use, and death in stampedes for ‘jobs that offer drudgery, exploitation and exhaustion for meagre rewards’. Lastly, I relayed Mpofu-Walsh’s and two other commentators’ observations that the bulk of July’s ‘looters’ targeted subsistence items such as foodstuffs and basic furniture.
Applying fact to theory, my argument was this The causal background of the July unrest ran deeper than the aggregate totality of ruling party factional battles, unemployment, service delivery and the like. It was a Republic has conferred upon 55.5% of its population, to varying degrees, the status of the living dead; that the country celebrated for rejecting the death penalty in S v Makwanyane in 1996 had by 2021 sentenced more than half of its residents to death mediated by life. To run with the analogy of late academic Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa – who famously described the border between the United States and Mexico as a site '...where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging…’ – July’s events represented the grating and bleeding of the tectonic plates of democracy and ‘death world’ that underlay our national project. It was not that insurrectionists leveraged poverty and desperation so much as it was that our necropolitical crisis emerged through the widening cracks in our fragile social geology. And that it will do so again presented with the right crack. I concluded that a serious treatment of the root causes of July’s events entails the centralisation of this necropolitical crisis in our discourse about it.
The first theme – poverty and inequality
referred inter alia to what it called ‘mall culture’: ‘It was noted that as much as malls provide much needed employment, they are, however, is extractive in nature as the ownership of profits does not necessarily belong with the residents. Similarly, questions around the rate and nature of employment of people who reside in townships in malls was raised…’. More broadly, it warned that ‘[t]he fight between the “haves” and the “have-nots” will not stop until some sort of bridge in the inequality gap is achieved.’ ‘One participant mentioned that if there were instigators to the unrest then such instigators used poor people as pawns in their chess game ’ . Better social policy and povertyalleviation initiatives were recommended. The second theme – social cohesion – opened with the inertia of the racism and social animosity of apartheid. ‘[P]eople of certain races were barred in certain places during the unrest as they were regarded as ‘looters’. Areas such as Phoenix in KZN resorted to the use of private security bodies to set up roadblocks and to prevent access to the areas. These mechanisms led to violent incidents between largely African people seeking to pass through the area during the looting and community and private security at the time. The events have focused attention on racial tensions between African and Indian communities which continue to attract attention.’ Initiatives for ‘national healing’, ‘spiritual renewal’, and broader dialogue were among the recommended measures.
Having relayed my argument’s skeleton (if you will excuse the pun) as best as I can, I can turn to the two reports. The first is by the South African Human Rights Commission, which held a public imbizo in the immediate aftermath of the unrest. Its goal, broadly, was to establish the unrest’s root causes and corrective steps for the future. It identified several themes: poverty and inequality, poor social cohesion, deficient government leadership, government corruption, an uncoordinated and unprepared national security apparatus, the general erosion of the rule of law, and lockdown fatigue. My focus is the first two
The second report is by President Ramaphosa’s Expert Panel appointed to investigate the matter. It opens ‘The looting, destruction and violence have come and gone, but we found that little has changed in the conditions that led to the unrest, leaving the public worried that there might be similar eruptions of largescale unrest in future. The question, many argue, is not if and whether more unrest and violence will occur, but when it will occur. The fear of many is that not only will a repeat of such violence find ground in the all-too-familiar contexts of negative political contestation, where certain interests take advantage of the levels of poverty, inequality, lack of service delivery and social tensions to advance their cause. There also is a worry that the violence has left behind a sense of uncertainty and vulnerability because of the ineffective response of the security services and an appetite for lawlessness by those who might feel emboldened by the apparent lack of state capacity. This bleak prospect can be avoided if there is a clear understanding of what happened, and better planning and coordination leading to a coherent approach in dealing with the mounting social and political challenges that our society is facing.’ This theme, for the most part, underlay the rest of the report.
The two preceding paragraphs implicate my claims in three ways. The first is the identification of ‘mall culture’ as a contributory factor to the unrest. It buttresses, I submit, the argument that something more structural (and extractivist) is at play than the aggregate totality of unemployment and poor service delivery. That this was not identified as the sole or chief element in the poverty and inequality theme is neither expected nor fatal to the point. Secondly, poor social cohesion is identified as a ‘remnant’ of apartheid worstened by the first theme of poverty and inequality. This linkage of the two themes is welcomed but, I submit, does not go far enough
South Africa’s democracy and death world (to remain with Mbembe’s terminology) have come to intersect in an interesting way: they tug in illogically different directions. Democracy inhabits and dominates the macrosocial. From presidential speeches, to matric history textbooks, to the language of statutes and judgments, (and to substantive reality for a privileged few), South Africa’s is a story of the triumph of democracy, reconciliation, healing, and nation building. The death world inhabits the microsocial and the economic. I have described its contents elsewhere in this article. The intersection of these forces are elsewhere well-studied. For brevity’s sake, beyond commenting that the two reports represent a missed opportunity to highlight this intersection, I shall move on. Thirdly, and lastly, the recognition that a recurrence of the unrest is likely given that its root causes remain unfettered, I submit, buttresses the conclusion that July-style unrest, as a necropolitical crisis, lies in waiting for the appropriate social geological crack. Ruling party factionalism and complacent security apparatuses presented the first. What will present the second is anybody’s guess.
The conclusion that follows is this. The call for an interrogation, from a structural point of view, of the 2021 July unrest and the discourse surrounding it is to be reiterated. Such an interrogation is arguably more appropriate now than a year ago because of the availability of factual reports, such as the two cited above, from which to draw, and against which to measure, theoretical inferences. The call that the starting point for such an analysis be the necropolitical heuristic is, for the same reasons, also reiterated.
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