Municipalities think protesters are ‘criminals’‚ but ISS says name-calling isn’t wise

Who is the average protester? According to our local governments‚ they are between the ages of 18 and 35‚ unemployed and sometimes criminals.

South African Local Government Association (Salga) policy analyst Justin Steyn revealed this at an Institute for Security Studies (ISS) seminar.

Steyn was quoting the findings of a 2016 SALGA survey that aims to uncover the perceptions of municipalities in metropolitan‚ local and district municipalities in Gauteng‚ the Western Cape‚ Mpumalanga and Limpopo around protests.

Steyn said that local governments perceive protesters to be mainly young and unemployed. In the survey municipalities said that 69.5% of protesters were between the ages of 18 and 35 and 71% of protesters were unemployed.

Many municipalities interviewed also raised concern of crime in protests with 14.4% of protesters perceived to be criminals.

Some answers from municipalities said:

- “There is a criminal element that emerges from protest action.”

- “Shops were looted by hooligans that were attached to the protest.”

- “There is a criminal element and opportunism‚ like when there is a strike by informal traders to claim a market space‚ there will be elements that loot. It starts of (sic) as service delivery but degenerates into looting.”

Steyn also said that local governments found that communities were service-hungry and that service delivery was sometimes used as an excuse for a protest by those with ulterior motives.

But manager of the ISS Crime and Justice Information Hub Lizette Lancaster said it was not wise to point fingers at so-called criminals.

“We have to be careful in calling people criminals. Society makes criminals. There is international research that shows we have the potential to be criminals… We need to stop with name-calling‚” she said.

Nomfundo Mogapi‚ director of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation‚ said that the root causes of protests need to be addressed.

She said that some of these are poverty‚ unemployment and inequality which speak to the livelihoods‚ dignity and sense of self-worth of people.

– TMG Digital