Durban University of Technology’s (DUT’s) International Centre of Nonviolence (ICON) held an online dialogue called: Experiencing and Responding to Violence in KZN, on Thursday, 5 August 2021 via MS Teams.

The dialogue forms part of ICON’s webinar series and discussions which were led by ICON staff and graduates of the Leadership Programme. ICON is under the helm of Crispin Hemson, who is the Director of ICON. He said that the purpose of such a dialogue is to be an open platform to speak, be heard and to listen to others regarding the recent unrest action in South Africa which had unfolded.

“It’s a very sensitive area and we aim to be both sensitive and inclusive. I think the idea is that disagreement is free but we would ask that everyone practices respect for all who are involved whether you agree with them or not to act on the bases of respect,” he stressed.

He further said that the next aim of the dialogue is to create some value from situations like violence and conflict and to treat it like an opportunity for listening and learning.

“Our own reactions are significant and we need to be looking critically why we are reacting the way that we do to provocations, and so much that has happened has been very provocative. We have given particular attention to people from our leadership programme, ICON in accordance with people like Dr Jairam Reddy, the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Conflicts (ACCORD) and other people at DUT,” he said.

He added that the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA) had been running an innovative leadership programme for a number of years and ICON have been quite impressed by the number of responses by the alumni of that programme, and many have been called to speak.

The facilitator of the event was ICON’s Patience Marutswarika. The dialogue began with a particular image of a young woman, holding a broom after the looting, and within that context, the question posed to all attendees was what were their thoughts upon seeing the picture?
One of the leadership alumni’s, Nkululeko Zungu, said she was speechless when she saw the picture, but also proud of the fact that she also knew the lady in the picture, a WESSA volunteer who stayed within the KwaMashu area.

“What comes to mind when I see the picture is that she is a very quiet person who loves birds and would definitely have not went looting. People like her, myself and anybody who cares for the environment ended up volunteering to say that I would clean up and I would take the first initiative to make sure that I collaborate with other stakeholders and clean and rebuild my community,” she said.

Another leadership alumni Smarte Anekiwe spoke on the motivations that got people cleaning up the streets in their area and communities, saying that many people had the desire to get their communities back to shape and came together to clean as the environment was severely affected.

Another attendee spoke on the essence of the goodness that people have, relaying that there might be certain elements that are within one’s self and might be external to one’s self that might stimulate one to do things that are incorrect.

Adding to the conversation was DUT’s Sarah Kieswetter, who said as academics and educators they can hold some space within DUT classes and have open conversation’s with DUT students about what happened. She indicated that academics and educators needed to check in with their students and their wellbeing.

For Lukong Stella, his thoughts were that in as much as these unexpected events happen, and measures are engaged and dialogues and discussions held, foreigners who have made South Africa their host country and living in host communities are not included in these discussions, despite the fact that they also suffer the brunt of these kind of actions.

Hemson also suggested on making DUT a place where everyone talks about their lives, the things one really does not know about each other, maybe things one has not even seen within one’s self.

An interesting point was also made by one of the leadership alumni’s on Lamontville residents, expressing that the residents embarked on looting also because they felt that petrochemical companies based in the area were not doing enough for the community.

ACCORD’s Professor Jairam Reddy spoke on the question of violence, saying that when the looting had happened and realising the level of poverty in the country, most people understood that and were sympathetic, although the looting that people had witnessed wasn’t very pleasant.

“The violence that accompanied the looting was something difficult to accept and to understand. If we look at the degree of violence that occurred with the burning of some buildings like 250 schools and so on and so forth, that is beyond the question of looting and there is something deeper than the degree of violence. The violence that we saw two weeks ago was not the beginning of our violence, going back to even the post-Apartheid history, whether its student or taxi violence, the default action seems to be that whenever we have a problem we would react to it violently. And there are many other countries that are also poor and that don’t have the same degree of violence that we have, and in particular the brutality of violence evidence, for e.g. in Gender-based Violence,” he said.

He said the question that needs to be asked is why is it so and if it is has its roots in colonialism in apartheid? Prof Reddy stressed that these are deep roots and needed to be understood as to why South Africa have that degree of violence in this country, and that is the reason ICON is in the area, and the question now is how can it inculcate the question of non-violence.

Hemson thanked everyone for joining in the dialogue and spoke of DUT proposing a short course for community facilitators with the aim of running leadership programmes in different communities with those facilitators, as a way ahead.

Pictured: A snapshot of image of a young woman, holding a broom after the looting.
Waheeda Peters