The human face of violence: hostel dwellers speak

Abstract

In the latter half of 1990 there was a rapid spiralling of violence in townships across the Witwatersrand. Hostel dwellers were a key group of protagonists in the bloody internecine clashes which still continue. Very few explanations, however, have penetrated beyond superficial explanations of this group's involvement in the violence. This paper, which contains exerpts from interviews with hostel dwellers, seeks to unveil some of the reasons behind their participation, and so presents the ‘human face of violence’. It attempts to contextualise direct questions about the violence within, first, the broader historical conditions that have characterised the hostel community and, second, the broader political processes that have had an impact on the lives of hostel dwellers. While the small sample of interviews prevents any generalisations about the causes of the violence from being made, the interviews provide useful insights, as well as starting points, for a more extensive investigation of the subject.