(Repost from 10 October 2020)
As the nation questions what the use of an unresponsive police service is, we here at Down South take a closer look at the nature of police on the African continent, after the Namibian news report on the 27th of May; reporting a rise in cases opened against police officers in the country for inflicting physical and mental harm on ordinary civilians. This is followed by the deployment of armed security personnel on unarmed youth protestors on the 10th of October.
But before we jump the gun, let us talk about the foundations of police in Africa.
It is no secret that, as with many contemporary but historically rooted institutional structures in Africa, the police arose from the colonial system. And as with any system that relies on mass oppression, there arose a need for a smaller group of civilians to maintain and communicate colonial order and repress dissidence (as wonderfully phrased by Jakob Zollman).
The development of a police force occurred in distinct phases: beginning with the import of European colonial military, tasked with the the duty of either protecting tribal nations that signed protection treaties or maintaining security at established trading posts. After an increase in national resistance movements, the second foundational phase began.
Many colonial governments called in armed reinforcements from their home nations, increasing their military presence to maintain their territorial stronghold and crush resistance at its helm. In Namibia, for example, the numbers still remained fairly low during the late 1800's with about 220 men were deployed in an effort to subdue the Ovaherero and Nama. The numbers rose exponentially, with 1 500 German troops recorded on October 3, 1904, as German Military general Lothar von Trotha ordered a genocide on the rebelling groups.
The last phase lead to the creation of the not-too distant ancestor of the contemporary African police force - the colonial police force. This police force was made up of both African and white colonial men. This came after a gushing realization that the involvement of African personnel was indispensable for maintaining any semblance of colonial rule. [A chat for another day]. After independence, the new government immediately began the task of replacing these forces with institutions that assume conventional roles of policing and defence, restructuring police forces and strengthening emphasis on human rights.
Police reform in post-colonial states was a real and effective thing - relying heavily on techniques of resocialisation and law reform. It succeeded in most countries, for many many years too. However, a contemporary focus on the global regression of liberalism is beginning to expose and highlight the emergence of brutalist trends in African police forces.
Fast forward to 2018, the creation of a joint police-military operation, shakes citizens not only because of its poor choice in naming but also due to the introduction of police-statesque dealings with citizens. Reports of boys being terrorized in streets, outside clubs and pubs and a macabre feeling of terror resonating through many urban communities, made Namibian political scholars and analysts such as Henning Melber ask the question "Should the military be invoked to deal with ordinary civilian crime?". A question that bordered on the fact that the military existed with the mandate to defend nation security at the borders and preside over states of emergencies or emerge to prevent terrorism. Operation Hornkranz ended in a blaze of glory and morphed into its sister operation, Operation Kalahari, which maintained its stinch for violence and resulted in the Murder of unarmed foreign national, Talent Fambaune.
A real outcry from the citizenry, highlighted the truth of the fact that although the reported cases were less than a 100, that was the most cases reported over such a short period of time. It was also the introduction of a reality that many born-free's were not accustomed to - rightfully so.
Cue: March 2020, Covid-19, declaration of a state of emergency and numerous lockdown regulations. Stay indoors, sale and public consumption of alcohol prohibited and deployment of police keep ensure adherence to lockdown regulations. This too, quickly turned into an example of how the police continues to sit in a purgatorial state between help and the reinforcement of social control. A purgatorial state where vendors can be forced by law enforcement to roll around in their own traditional brew. The story does not end here, just as these stories are not the only ones we live to see.
At the 8th October Protests, organised to avenge and demand justice for Shannon Wasserfall, another femicide victim in the country's obituary for women taken too early - protestors were met with iron clad officers unwielding and unable to answer the question, "Waar was Julle?" (Where were you[pl.]). On the third day of sexual and gender based violence protests - a radically violent turn is taken. Protestors are shot with rubber bullets and teargas and are dispersed using tactics that have been described as "apartheid-esque" by experts.
We are then forced to ask, atleast from a theoretical perspective- what is the use of a structure which simultaneously does something and nothing at all? A non metaphorical white elephant.
Lives, especially in indigenous African thought systems, are considered as the most valuable possessions of any community and thus, any structure masquerading as holding the protective agency should be held to its establishing premise. Yet it does not.
This is because before anything, the police is a body of officers representing the civil authority of government, placed into being in order to reinforced the authority of state above all else. The deployment and focus of any authoritative modus of law enforcement is directed by the state to fulfill state interests and thus prioritizes the superstructure above all else. The superstructure is the Marxist label for a societies culture, institutions and political structures - basically the larger and interconnected systems that we perceive in any country/community.
The individual disconnect occurs at the general population's uncovering of the truth of that particularly fundamental trait of the police - a phase that I like to call "the realization". The realization hits harder than most, especially in the African context because it highlights the apathetic appearance the bourgeoisie and other more powerful societal groupings in spaces that continue to suffer from abject poverty and a decline of material wellbeing decades after independence. And in covid-19, the backdrop that the current protests find themselves against is one of a hungry and devastated nation and 'the realization' occurs at a time where people are too distraught to ignore it. But most importantly, it is suffocating because it is followed by a reality like the one that was witnessed at the 10th of October protests - the reality of seeing theory staring right into your soul and having to run for your life.
It is not easy to discuss what step to follow next. American and other perspectives call for the disintegration of police forces and others remind us of the soft power of deterrence that the police still hold. However, it is undeniable how pertinent any structure's historical foundations manifest in current time.
want to know what's happening in Namibia? Follow the hastag #ShutItAllDown on all social media platforms.
until then,
Down South
