Comrades, witches and the state: The case of the Brooklyn Youth Organisation
Date
1987-09
Authors
Ritchken, Edwin
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
On the 21 April 1986, in the Mapulaneng district of Lebowa, the
Brooklyn Youth Organisation (BYO) was formed at a public meeting
held on the local soccer field. Two leaders and a disciplinary
committee (DC) were elected. Each member paid twenty cents to
buy sjamboks for the leaders and the DC.
The BYO dedicated itself to eradicating what it perceived to be
social evil from society. It formed itself into squads to patrol
the area day and night. There were problems with criminal gangs
robbing and assaulting people at night. There were also problems
with Taxi drivers overcharging people late at night. The squads
escorted people from taxis to their homes. They prohibited the
use of knives in shebeen brawls.
The BYO prevented workers from going to work on an open-backed
lorry provided by a nearby wood mill. Such transport had proved
itself to be extremely dangerous. Proper busses were soon
supplied by the mill.
The BYO also organised park building programmes so that
"everybody should be proud of their location".
On May 1 the BYO organised the first total stayaway in Brooklyn's
history. They went on to organise a consumer boycott of a nearby
Checkers as "the money paid to Checkers was being used to fund
the South African Defence Force."
These activities were not perceived altruistically by all people
living in Brooklyn. Hundreds of old people fled into the
mountains at night and there were complaints of people singing
threatening songs late at night....This paper will attempt to understand the specificity of popular
mobilisation and organisation in the Brooklyn location of
Mapulaneng. While this will necessarily entail a study of the
witch accusations, to reduce mobilisation and organisation in
Brooklyn to witch accusations would obscure more than it would
reveal. The first section of this paper will offer a brief
discussion of previous literature on anti-witchcraft movements
and will derive an approach to be followed in this paper. The
second section will attempt to contextualise the status of
witch accusations as a belief and as a political strategy, by
outlining the process of mobilisation that constituted the BYO.
This section will offer a broad history of the political culture
that has been generated in Mapulaneng. An attempt will be made to
show how this historical process has shaped organisation
throughout Mapulaneng. It is through understanding the
relationship of the BYO against a broader political environment
that we can begin to unpack the ambiguous nature of the BYO. The
final section will then offer an analysis of the actual
witchcraft accusation and event.
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented September 1987
Keywords
Youth, Black. South Africa. Lebowa, Witchcraft. South Africa. Lebowa, Government, Resistance to. South Africa. Lebowa