Community leadership in the xenophobic violence in Alexandra
Date
2013-09-10
Authors
Gqibitole, Mveleli Gladwell
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Abstract
Through the employment of document analysis, qualitative interviews and qualitative direct personal discussions this study’s main object was to examine the role that the Community-based Organisations (CBOs) or Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Church-based Organisations (CBOs) or Faith-based Organisations (FBOs) as well as the Alexandra community leadership played during the 2008 Xenophobic Violence in the Alexandra Township. The selection of Alexandra for this study was based on the fact that the place is where the bloody violence is said to have started on 11 May, 2008 and had subsequently spread to six other provinces of South Africa. The role of the community organisations cited above as well as the community leadership of Alexandra was looked at carefully to check how they might have contributed either to the escalation of the said violence, or to putting it down.
The study found that there was an array of factors that sparked the terrible social upheaval. However, the qualitative interviews conducted with eleven persons who held leadership positions in different CBOs/CSOs and in CBOs/FBOs in Alexandra during the time of that violence as well as the qualitative direct personal discussions held with five persons who had specialized knowledge of that incident revealed that these community organization and local leadership were unable to stop the violence for three consecutive days. Almost all the respondents admitted that they were unable to control the violent throngs of people that came out of a community emergency meeting held on 12 May at the Alexsan Kopane Community Centre to convince the residents that the violence against the foreign nationals was not the way to go in dealing with the social problems of Alexandra.
The theoretical framework which underpins this study is the Trait Theory to Leadership, which lists a number of critical traits and skills that successful and influential leaders possess. One of this study’s findings was that the community leadership that was active in Alexandra at that time lacked most of these critical traits and skills, for if they possessed them they would have been able to stop the violence forthwith.
To help avoid the recurring of the xenophobic violence in Alexandra, the study recommends, inter alia, that the Alexandra Renewal Project should continue with its programme of upgrading the living conditions and human developmental potential of Alexandra as that may, inter alia, reduce the high level of unemployment and de-densify the place. Another significantly important recommendation is that the government, community leaders and institutions of higher learning should launch comprehensive empowerment programmes whose focus should be on imparting leadership expertise to community leaders and members, which will transform them to leaders with good leadership qualities instead of remaining ordinary leaders who are unable to deal with various social problems that emerge in their communities from time to time.
Description
Thesis (M.M. (Security))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, 2013.