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South African Research Chair in Social Change Report #2
_________________________________________________
COUNTING POLICE-RECORDED PROTESTS:
BASED ON SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE SERVICE DATA
Carin Runciman, Peter Alexander, Mahlatse Rampedi, Boikanyo Moloto,
Boitumelo Maruping, Eunice Khumalo & Sehlaphi Sibanda
© 2016 SOUTH AFRICAN RESEARCH CHAIR IN SOCIAL CHANGE,
SOCIAL CHANGE RESEARCH UNIT,
UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG.
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Contents
Executive summary .................................................................................................... 5
Authors ....................................................................................................................... 6
Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................... 7
Abbreviations ............................................................................................................. 8
Figures and tables ...................................................................................................... 9
List of appendices .................................................................................................... 11
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 12
1.1 Purpose ....................................................................................................... 12
1.2 „Rebellion of the Poor‟ project ..................................................................... 13
1.3 Data ............................................................................................................ 13
1.4 Preliminary analysis of crown incidents ....................................................... 14
1.4.1 First report ................................................................................................ 14
1.4.2 Key findings .............................................................................................. 14
1.4.3 Controversy .............................................................................................. 16
2. Definitions ......................................................................................................... 17
2.1 What is a protest? ....................................................................................... 17
2.1.1 A wide or a narrow approach? ................................................................. 17
2.1.2 Local definitions ....................................................................................... 18
2.1.3 Our own approach .................................................................................... 19
2.1.4 Police-recorded protest defined ............................................................... 20
2.1.5 Practical limitations .................................................................................. 20
2.1.6 Media-reported protests ........................................................................... 21
2.2 Protest foci .................................................................................................. 23
2.3 Defining disorder ......................................................................................... 26
2.4 Xenophobia ................................................................................................. 26
2.5 Summary ..................................................................................................... 27
3. Methodology ..................................................................................................... 28
3.1 Phase 1: identifying and counting protests .................................................. 28
3.2 Coding protest foci, violence and xenophobia ............................................. 30
3.3 Ensuring reliability and consistency ............................................................ 31
3.4 Summary ..................................................................................................... 32
4. Frequency and geographical distribution of police-recorded protests ............... 33
4.1 Estimating numbers of police-recorded protests ......................................... 33
4.2 Comparing crowd incidents and police-recorded protests .......................... 34
4.3 Police-recorded protests by eventuality classification ................................. 35
4.4 Estimated police-recorded protests per annum and per day ....................... 36
4.5 Total number of protests, 1997-2013 .......................................................... 37
4.6 Protests since 2013 ..................................................................................... 38
4.7 Geographical distribution of police-recorded protests ................................. 39
4.8 Estimated police-recorded protests per capita ............................................ 40
4.8.1 National .................................................................................................... 40
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4.8.2 Provincial.................................................................................................. 41
4.9 Summary ..................................................................................................... 42
5. Protest foci ........................................................................................................ 43
5.1 Motives assigned by the SAPS to protests ................................................. 43
5.2 Estimated numbers of protests by protest focus ......................................... 43
5.3 Analysing labour and community protests ................................................... 45
5.3.1 Labour protests ........................................................................................ 47
5.3.2 Community protests ................................................................................. 48
5.4 Estimated number of labour and community protests per day .................... 49
5.5 Geographical distribution of labour and community PRPs .......................... 49
5.6 Comparing community PRPs with media-reported protests ........................ 50
5.7 Summary ..................................................................................................... 52
6. Disorder and xenophobia in police-recorded protests ....................................... 53
6.1 Estimating orderly, disruptive and violent police-recorded protests ............. 53
6.2 Estimating orderly and disorderly PRPs by year ......................................... 55
6.3 Orderly and disorderly labour and community PRPs ................................... 56
6.4 Comparing orderly and disorderly MRPs community PRPs ........................ 58
6.5 Xenophobia in protests………………………………………………………….60
6.6 Summary ..................................................................................................... 60
7. Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 62
References ............................................................................................................... 64
Appendices .............................................................................................................. 67
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Executive summary
This report uses data on „crowd incidents‟ recorded by the South African Police
Service in its Incident Registration Information System, IRIS, to make an
assessment of levels of protest in South Africa.
It discusses the frequency of police-recorded protests (PRPs), which are defined
as a „crowd incident‟ with the characteristics of a „protest‟. A „protest‟ is taken to
mean a popular mobilisation in support of a collective grievance. A PRP is a unit
of protest lasting up to 24 hours.
We estimate that between 1997 and 2013 there were about 67,750 PRPs. This
equates to an average of roughly 11 PRPs per day.
Making allowance for under-recording, it is highly unlikely there were less than
71,000 protests in this period.
2012 had the highest number of PRPs, about 5,500, and 2004 had the lowest,
about 2,300.
Labour protests are the most common, accounting for about 46.0% of all PRPs
between 1997 and 2013. Community protests came second, with about 22.1% of
the total.
Geographically, for the 17-year period, Gauteng had the highest number of
PRPs and the Northern Cape the lowest.
Between 1997 and 2004 Free State had the highest number of PRPs per capita;
and between 2005 and 2013 the Northern Cape recorded the most per capita.
For the full 17 years, Northern Cape had the highest number of both labour and
community PRPs per capita. KwaZulu-Natal had the lowest number of labour
PRPs per capita and Limpopo had the lowest number of community PRPs per
capita.
Since 2005 the rate of increase in community protests has been greater than for
other kinds of protest.
80% of all PRPs that occurred between 1997 and 2013 were categorised by us
as „orderly‟, 10% as „disruptive‟ and 10% as „violent‟.
Since 1997 there has been an increase in the proportion of PRPs categorised as
„disorderly‟ (i.e. „disruptive‟ and „violent‟ combined).
Comparing community and labour PRPs, a higher proportion of the former were
disorderly. The proportion of community PRPs that we categorised as disorderly
has been increasing since 2005.
Xenophobia occurred in only about 1% of PRPs, but there is evidence
suggesting this is an increasing problem.
Comparing PRPs and media-reported protests (MRP), it is clear that the latter
underestimate the total number of protests to a considerable degree, but MRPs
can be used to discuss broad trends in protest activity.
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Authors
Carin Runciman is a senior researcher at the South African Research Chair in
Social Change at the University of Johannesburg.
Peter Alexander is a professor of sociology at the University of Johannesburg,
where he holds the South African Research Chair in Social Change. He is director of
the Social Change Research Unit, which houses the Chair.
Mahlatse Rampedi is a researcher at the Public Affairs Research Institute. He holds
an MA in Sociology from the University of Johannesburg and was, until March 2016,
a senior research assistant with the South African Research Chair in Social Change.
Boikanyo Moloto is an MA student in Sociology at the University of Johannesburg
and a senior research assistant with the South African Research Chair in Social
Change.
Boitumelo Maruping is an MA student in Sociology at the University of
Johannesburg and a senior research assistant with the South African Research
Chair in Social Change.
Eunice Khumalo is an MA student in Development Studies at the University of
Johannesburg and a research assistant with the South African Research Chair in
Social Change.
Sehlaphi Sibanda holds an MA from the University of the Witwatersrand and was a
senior research assistant with the South African Research Chair in Social Change at
the University of Johannesburg until June 2015.
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Acknowledgments
This report has been produced under the auspices of the South African Research
Chair in Social Change, which is funded by the Department of Science and
Technology, administered by the National Research Foundation, and hosted by the
University of Johannesburg (UJ). We are obliged to all these institutions, without
which our research would not be possible. Additional funding was provided by the
Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.
We are grateful to the South African Police Service for releasing the Incident
Registration Information System (IRIS) data on which the report is based. The South
African History Archive assisted in obtaining these records. Their experience of
formulating applications under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) is
a valuable resource for protecting open government in South Africa, and the PAIA is
a significant achievement of the struggle against apartheid.
We received help in translating Afrikaans from Laurinda van Tonder and
Esmé Grobler. Statistical advice was provided by Richard Devey from UJ‟s Statkon,
Lucinda Becorny gave us administrative support, Caroline O‟Reilly assisted with
copy-editing, UJ Graphics designed the cover and PostNet undertook the printing.
Jane Duncan, Patrick Bond, David Bruce and Murray Hunter have engaged
with us on issues around IRIS data and protests over a number of years and/or read
an earlier draft of this report. Trevor Ngwane provided important political and
conceptual insights, which have informed the analysis undertaken in this report.
Colleagues, students and associates at the Social Change Research Unit provided
camaraderie.
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Abbreviations
CPB Civic Protest Barometer
IRIS Incident Registration Information System
MRP Media-reported protests
PAIA Promotion of Access to Information Act
POP Public Order Policing
PRP Police-recorded protests
RGA Regulation of Gatherings Act
SAHA South African History Archive
SAHRC South African Human Rights Commission
SAPS South African Police Service
TRT Tactical Response Team
UJ University of Johannesburg
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
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Figures and tables
Figures
Figure 1. Crowd incidents and estimated police-recorded protests, 1997-2013 ............... 34
Figure 2. Estimated police-recorded protests classified as „peaceful‟ by IRIS,
1997-2012 (with trend line) ............................................................................... 35
Figure 3. Estimated police-recorded protests classified as „unrest‟ by IRIS, ..................... 36
1997-2013 (with trend line) ............................................................................... 36
Figure 4. Percentage of total crowd incidents by province compared
with percentage of estimated PRPs by province, 1997-2013 ............................ 40
Figure 5. Estimated PRPs per 100,000 people, 1997-2013 (with trend line) .................... 41
Figure 6. PRPs by protest focus, percentages,1997-2013 ............................................... 44
Figure 7. Percentage of PRPs by protest focus and eventuality, 1997-2013 .................... 45
Figure 8. Total number of estimated police recorded community and
labour protests, 1997-2013 (with trend lines) .................................................... 46
Figure 9. Estimated number of labour PRPs, 1997-2004 (with trend line) ........................ 47
Figure 10. Estimated number of labour PRPs, 2004-2013 (with trend line) ........................ 47
Figure 11. Estimated number of community PRPs, 1997-2004 (with trend line) ................. 48
Figure 12. Estimated number of community PRPs, 2004-2013 (with trend line) ................. 48
Figure 13. Estimated number of labour and community PRPs per day by year,
1997-2013 ........................................................................................................ 49
Figure 14. Distribution of labour and community PRPs by province, in
percentages, 1997-2013 ................................................................................... 50
Figure 15. MRPs compared with estimated community PRPs, 2005-13 (with
trend lines) ........................................................................................................ 51
Figure 16. PRPs categorised as orderly, disruptive and violent, 1997-2013 ....................... 53
Figure 17. PRPs categorised as orderly, disruptive and violent within IRIS‟s
crowd (peaceful) eventuality, 1997-2013 ........................................................... 54
Figure 18. PRPs categorised as orderly, disruptive and violent within IRIS‟s
crowd (unrest) eventuality, 1997-2013 .............................................................. 54
Figure 19. Estimated numbers of orderly and disorderly PRPs by year,
1997-2013 ........................................................................................................ 55
Figure 20. Percentage of PRPs categorised as orderly and disorderly by year,
1997-2013 ........................................................................................................ 56
Figure 21. Estimated number of orderly and disorderly labour PRPs, 1997-2013 .............. 57
Figure 22. Estimated number of orderly and disorderly community PRPs,
1997-2013 ........................................................................................................ 57
Figure 23. Estimated number of community PRPs categorised as
disruptive or violent, 2005-2013 ........................................................................ 58
Figure 24. Percentage of community PRPs and MRPs categorised as
disorderly, 2005-13 ........................................................................................... 59
Figure 25. Percentage of community PRPs and MRPs categorised as orderly,
2005-2013 ........................................................................................................ 59
Figure 26. Estimated percentage of PRPs with evidence of xenophobia,
1997-2013 ........................................................................................................ 60
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Tables Table 1. Protest foci definitions ....................................................................................... 24
Table 2. Number of incidents sampled and number of PRPs in sample,
by eventuality classification and year ................................................................ 29
Table 3. Examples of protests difficult to classify ............................................................ 30
Table 4. Estimated numbers of PRPs by eventuality classification (peaceful
and unrest) and year ......................................................................................... 33
Table 5. Estimated total PRPs per year and estimated average number of
PRPs per day, 1997-2013 ................................................................................. 37
Table 6. Crowd-related incidents, 2010/11 to 2014/15, and total crowd
management incidents, 2010/11 to 2012/13 ..................................................... 39
Table 7. Estimated numbers of PRPs by province, 1997-2013 ....................................... 40
Table 8. Estimated number of PRPs per 100,000 people per province,
1997-2004 and 2005-2013 ................................................................................ 42
Table 9. Estimated number of labour and community PRPs per 100,000 people by
province, 1997-2013 ......................................................................................... 50
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Appendices
Appendix 1. Rebuttal to SAPS statement
Appendix 2. Examples of protest foci
Appendix 3. Calculation of police-recorded protests (PRPs), peaceful and unrest
Appendix 4. Calculation of police-recorded protests (PRPs), peaceful and unrest,
by protest foci
Appendix 5. Motives used by the police, in PRP sample
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1. Introduction
1.1 Purpose
This is the second report analysing data made available by the South African Police
Service (SAPS) Incident Registration Information System (IRIS). It provides an
estimate of (a) the number of protests and (b) the kind of protests recorded by IRIS.
The actual data we have used tabulated „crowd (peaceful)‟ incidents‟ and „crowd
(unrest) incidents‟. We use „crowd incidents‟ to mean the sum of „crowd (peaceful)
incidents‟ and „crowd (unrest) incidents‟. 1 Since there is considerable confusion
about the matter, we wish to emphasise from the outset that „crowd incidents‟ cannot
be equated with „protests‟, that „crowd (peaceful) incidents‟ are not necessarily
peaceful and „unrest‟ is not the same as „violent‟.
Our estimates are based on disaggregation of data contained in detailed
records of 156,230 crowd incidents documented by IRIS over the years 1997 to
2013. We cannot do justice to this enormously rich source, which can provide other
researchers with evidence for their projects. For clarity‟s sake we distinguish
between „crowd incidents‟ and „police-recorded protests‟ (PRPs). The latter are
selected and analysed by us on the basis of definitions we developed.
In addition to counting numbers or protests, our report also estimates the
proportion of protests that fell within one of nine protest foci (one of which was
„community protest‟) and it estimates the approximate percentage of protests for
which there is (a) evidence of xenophobia, and (b) that fell within each of the
following categories: orderly, disruptive and violent. Our calculations are based on
samples selected from the record of all incidents, with the methodology discussed in
the Section 3.
While PRPs provide the best indication of total protests, they inevitably
understate the number that actually happened. The data is dependent on monitoring
and capture by police, who will have missed some protests and failed to record
others. This was a particular problem in the years 2007 to 2009.
1 SAPS Annual Reports use the terms „crowd-related incidents‟, „peaceful incidents‟ and „unrest-
related incidents‟, and, while IRIS data is organised by calendar year, the Annual Reports are
presented for financial years. The number of „crowd related‟, ‟peaceful‟ and „unrest related‟ incidents
was very similar to, respectively, „crowd‟, ‟crowd (peaceful)‟ and „crowd (unrest)‟ incidents, however,
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1.2 ‘Rebellion of the Poor’ project
Our quest for information about crowd incidents arose from an initial study of „service
delivery protests‟, which we soon realised were better conceptualised as „community
protests‟ and regarded as part of a broader „rebellion of the poor‟ (Sinwell et al 2009,
Alexander 2010). We launched the Rebellion of the Poor project, and this has led to
further publications (Alexander 2012, Alexander & Pfaffe 2014, Alexander, Runciman
& Ngwane 2014a and 2014b, Ngwane 2011). Hitherto we have concentrated our
efforts on archiving and analysing media-reported protests (MRPs) and on
undertaking more than 300 qualitative interviews, which were collected from all over
the country. The new data allow us to triangulate with these sources, showing us, for
instance, that we made insufficient allowance for labour protests, though, following
the Marikana Massacre, we had already begun conceptualising a parallel „rebellion
of workers‟ (Alexander 2015).
Over the years we have had fruitful engagements with other scholars,
benefitting considerably from their data and insights (e.g. Atkinson 2007, Booysen
2007, 2009 and 2015, Botes et al 2007, CDE 2007, Dawson 2014, Dawson &
Sinwell 2012, Duncan 2014, Friedman 2012, Mottair & Bond 2012, Nyar & Wray
2012, Omar 2006, Paret 2015, Pithouse 2007, Saul & Bond 2014, Seekings &
Nattrass 2015, Vally 2009, von Holdt & Alexander 2012, von Holdt et al 2011).
1.3 Data
The IRIS records, on which our analysis is based, were obtained with assistance
from the South African History Archive (SAHA), which requested them through a
Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application. SAHA will make the data
available to the public through its web site. We are obliged to SAPS for its co-
operation.2
The records are in the form of 36 Excel spread sheets. Half of these cover
„crowd (peaceful)‟ incidents and half „crowd (unrest)‟ incidents. There are two sheets
for each of the 17 years 1997-2013 and two for amalgamated data. Each sheet is
divided into nine columns. These have the following headings. 1) „Date occurred‟ (i.e.
date the incident occurred). 2) „Eventuality classification‟ - either „crowd (peaceful}‟ or
„crowd (unrest)‟. 3) „Province‟ (South Africa‟s nine provinces). 4) „Residential‟ (where
the incident occurred). 5) „Environment‟ (the kind of place where the incident
occurred, e.g. public road, there are 74 options). 6) ‟Motive‟ (what the incident was
about, e.g. demand wage increases; there are 72 options, sometimes more than one
for a single incident). 7) „Incident number‟ (every incident has a unique number). 8)
„Notes‟ (a brief narrative report on the incident). 9) „Number‟ (the „notes‟ spread over
numerous rows, so for a single incident there might be, for example, 20 lines). The
2 SAHA‟s application reference number is SAH-2014-SAP-0018.
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„notes‟ are open ended and particularly useful in determining whether an incident
was a protest, and, if so, what kind of protest.3
Recently, we received some IRIS data for 2014 (via SAHA). Unfortunately this
is just in summary form. It does not provide information for each incident and, thus,
does not include the „notes‟ that have been so important in our analysis.4
We have interpreted the data as best we can, but will amend our analysis if
we receive new information from SAPS.
1.4 Preliminary analysis of crowd incidents
1.4.1 First report
This is the second of two reports on IRIS data by the Social African Research Chair
in Social Change. The first, entitled South African Police Service (SAPS) Data on
Crowd Incidents, was co-authored by Peter Alexander, Carin Runciman and
Boitumelo Maruping. For simplicity, we refer to this as Report #1. The reader is
encouraged to read this document for a clearer understanding of IRIS data. It
includes many examples of incident „notes‟, presented mainly to understand
„motives‟ and the distinction between „peaceful‟ and „unrest‟. A 66 page appendix is
available separately from the published report, and this, as well as Report #1, can be
downloaded from the web site of the South African Research in Social Change.5
1.4.2 Key findings
Key findings in Report #1 include the following:
1. IRIS was developed to assist Public Order Policing (POP) with strategy and policy,
not to maintain a record of protests.
2. Incidents are recorded at local level by uniformed public order police.
3. In addition to crowd (peaceful) and crowd (unrest), POP regularly record three
other types of incident. This reflects the reality that much POP work is related to
other duties, particularly „crime prevention‟.
3 Unfortunately, it was not possible for SAHA to release this information immediately because it often
includes personal information. We informed SAHA about potential problems in this regard, and have
not disclosed names of any individuals in this report. 4 We also received data for 1996, but there were only 10 crowd (peaceful) incidents and 3 crowd
(unrest) incidents recorded in this year. There were no crowd incidents recorded in 1995. The
implication is that IRIS only began recording crowd incidents seriously in 1997, but, given they
registered a few in 1996, the data for 1997 probably covers the full 12 months, which is what we
assumed. 5 Available at bit.ly/1JVgQri.
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4. Contrariwise, metro and station police have primary responsibility for the policing
of most public order events. POP units are on „standby‟ or „in reserve at the scene‟,
unless they are required to „intervene‟. Arrests, push-backs and use of tear gas are
all examples of interventions.6
5. If there is an „intervention‟ an event is recorded as „crowd (unrest)‟; if not it is
recorded as „crowd (peaceful)‟. According to the police, „interventions‟ are made to
maintain public order, and it is not necessary for violence to have occurred.
6 In recent years, SAPS has been manually capturing information on community
protests and xenophobia, but we do not have details.
7. IRIS also records „incident type‟. Again, we do not have details, but we know that
there are 23 „types‟ of incident. These include „barricade‟ and „strike (stay way)‟, but
also „assembly (church)‟ and „assembly (sport)‟.
8. For the period as a whole, 90% of the incidents were recorded as „crowd
(peaceful)‟ and 10% as „crowd (unrest)‟.
9. The number of recorded incidents plummeted after 2006, largely due to the re-
organisation of public order policing, and then rose steeply in 2010 because of
further re-organisation and policing of public order, related, in part, to the FIFA World
Cup. This underlines the reality that IRIS statistics chronicle police activity rather
than public events per se.
10. Looking through the „notes‟ it was clear that not all „crowd (unrest)‟ incidents
were violent and that some „crowd (peaceful)‟ incidents were violent. This
corresponds with our understanding of the definitions of „peaceful‟ and „unrest‟.
However, it seems that some incidents were wrongly recorded.
11. North West and Northern Cape provinces recorded considerably more incidents
per capita than other provinces. We do not know the reason for this.
12. „Motives‟ were often absent or obscure, but by sampling and assessing „notes‟
we were able to place motive options within one of ten categories. These included
those we called „labour related‟, ‟community related‟ and „recreational, cultural and
religious‟.
13. With „crowd (peaceful)‟ incidents, „recreational, cultural and religious‟ came top
for 9 of the 17 years and „labour related‟ came top for the other 8 years. With „crowd
6 In addition SAPS‟s paramilitary Tactical Response Team (TRT) units undertake some public order
duties. During 2013-14 they participated in 654 crowd management-related incidents. See SAPS
Annual Report 2013/14. We are grateful to David Bruce for drawing this to our attention.
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(unrest)‟, „community related‟ came top for 9 of the years (including every year since
2006), and „labour related‟ was top for the other 8 years.
1.4.3 Controversy
In an addendum to Report One we showed that SAPS, the Minister of Police and the
President had conflated „incidents‟ and „protests‟, using this misreading to justify a
mammoth increase in spending on POP. The report was not well received by „SAPS
Management‟, which issued a statement accusing us of „deliberate misinterpretation
of facts‟, of having „manipulated‟ information in order to suit a particular view, and of
accusing SAPS of „lying to MPs‟. None of this was true and the statement was
issued without the report having been read by „SAPS Management‟. We
immediately issued a rebuttal, and this is included as Appendix 1. At the time of
writing we have not received a response from SAPS or from the Police Portfolio
Committee, to whom the controversy was referred.
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2. Definitions
Definitions are a critical component of our analysis. The key concept is „protest‟. We
also distinguish nine kinds of protest, and provide definitions for the categories
„orderly‟, „disruptive‟ and „violent‟, and for „xenophobia‟.
2.1 What is a protest?
There is no neat definition of „protest‟ that is generally accepted. All definitions are
conditioned by particular circumstances and particular concerns considered by the
writer(s). We are no exception. We regard our approach as provisional, and may well
want to amend it in light of further analysis. Other writers might reasonably adopt a
different definition, with inevitable implications for the calculation of total numbers.
We invite other researchers, SAPS and the public to offer their opinions. However,
we can learn from the way other scholars have approached he problem.
2.1.1 A wide or a narrow approach?
Writing about Italy from 1965 to 1975 (a period in which there was an exceptionally
high level of popular resistance), Sidney Tarrow (1989: 359; see also Tilly 2008: 13),
one of the leading scholars of protests and social movements, informs his readers:
I collected information on „protest events‟, a category which included
strikes, demonstrations, petitions, delegations, and violence, but
excluded contentious behaviour which revealed no collective claims
on other actors. I defined the protest event as a disruptive direct
action of collective interest, in which claims were made against some
other group, elites or authorities.
His „protest event‟ is what we are calling a „protest‟. Note that he first explains his
practice and then his definition. The approach is one that transparently begins with
his personal concerns, which, at least by implication, were linked to a particular
context. Collective claims and collective mobilisation are critical components of the
definition. We will turn, later, to the problem of what, practically, one can measure
using police data.
In a more theoretical and recent volume, Karl-Dieter Opp (2009: 38) begins by
acknowledging that: „the present state of theory and research in the field of protest
and social movements does not allow us to judge definitions by their theoretical
fruitfulness.‟ He then proceeds:
If it is presently not possible to judge which definition is best, one
should choose a wide definition. … [one] that describes all the
phenomena that social movement scholars are interested in. This
would be a working definition whose fruitfulness has to be tested.
18
Such an approach should, then, incorporate the kind of definition utilised by Tarrow,
but others too. There is, though, one idea that resonates with all writers in this field of
inquiry, says Opp, the idea of „collective action‟. He further recognises that social
movement scholars have been interested in such action regardless of whether it is
organised or spontaneous. However, despite his support for wide definitions, he
imposes a limit; one conditioned, perhaps, by his European experience and the
dominant literature. He argues:
Protest is defined as joint (i.e. collective) action of individuals aimed
at achieving their goal or goals by influencing decisions of a target.
While we are content with the emphasis on both „collective action‟ and his
agnosticism about planning (though even „spontaneous action‟ contains some
element of leadership), the requirement that the goal can only be achieved by
influencing others is unhelpful from our perspective. We want a definition that would
include, for instance, land occupations, collective conflicts with bailiffs and looting.
While in principle we favour a wide working definition, which is appropriate for this
early stage in our analysis, we will also impose our own limitation.
2.1.2 Local definitions
One approach to local concerns is that adopted by Karl von Holdt (2011: 5). Learning
from rich ethnographic description, he concluded:
Subaltern protest took the form of crowds that shifted shape as the
forms of direct action shifted from public meeting to marches to street
battles with police to the burning down of selected targets or the
looting of foreign-owned shops.
This is a recognisably South African description, one that provides a basis for von
Holt to conceptualise „crowds within crowds‟. He specifies that he is writing about
„subaltern‟ protest, which is useful if taken as a relative term. Opponents of „e-tolling‟
blocking a motorway are „subalterns‟ relative to the state, but would be excluded if
the term is restricted to working-class communities. On analytical and political
grounds we have argued against eliding community protests and xenophobia killings
(of the kind that occurred in 2008), but we recognise the importance of investigating
both the attacks on foreign shopkeepers that sometimes occur in the midst of
protests and, also, public concern with broader xenophobic attacks (see von Holdt
and Alexander 2012).
Jane Duncan (2014: 122) was interested in developing a definition of „protest‟
at the other end of the spectrum from spontaneous uprisings. This assisted her
analysis of municipal records of protest organisers‟ agreements with local authorities
and, in practice, the police. She needed to distinguish a protest from other
19
„gatherings‟ that people negotiate in terms of the Regulation of Gathering Act (RGA).
For her:
The term protest is understood here to refer to expressive conduct
that conveys a particular grievance, with the intention of drawing
attention to the grievance and having it addressed.
There is an echo here of Opp‟s definition because it fits her particular
questions. But she uses the term „grievance‟ which is less purposeful than „goal‟ - or
„interest‟ for that matter - though it could incorporate both. Her approach is no less
South African that of von Holdt, and we doubt that either would be prescriptive if
pushed to develop a wider definition. Indeed, in correspondence, Duncan suggested
that we would require something broader because we are looking at many forms of
protests (albeit limited by our data).7
2.1.3 Our own approach
We are fortunate in being able to draw on a wider spectrum of data than either von
Holdt or Duncan. In advancing our own definition we take cognisance of the literature
discussed above as well as our sense of public perceptions in South Africa. We
define „a protest‟ to mean:
A popular mobilisation in support of a collective grievance.
„Collective‟ is the easiest word to justify. It is explicit with Tarrow and Opp, implied in
von Holdt‟s use of „crowd‟ and assumed by Duncan because the RGA defines
„gathering‟ as „more than 15 people‟. „Grievance‟ is unlikely to raise many hackles, at
least in South Africa. It suggests some sense of being wronged, or injustice, without
this necessarily being clearly specified, and is better suited to spontaneous action
than „interest‟ and „goal‟.
„Popular mobilisation‟ implies something more than mere individual action,
and this is taken for granted in all definitions considered here. However, we wanted
to avoid „collective action‟ which could refer to any kind of „collective‟, not necessarily
action by „subalterns‟. It would be sufficiently broad, for instance, to include the
police who may have had a collective grievance against workers at Marikana, and
then shot and killed 34 of them. „Popular‟ should be taken to mean „of the people‟
rather than well supported. Some protests are small and others are opposed by most
of a population (which could be a small community).
„Popular‟ serves a particular purpose. It should be taken to include action
against „foreigners‟. While, structurally, foreign residents are generally in a weaker
position than South Africans, violence is directed against people who are „taking our
jobs‟ or whose businesses are thought to have an unfair advantage. In practice,
7Personal correspondence to Peter Alexander dated 14 April 2015.
20
violence might be stirred by local shopkeepers and police might turn a blind eye, but
we can only discern this if we include „xenophobia‟ in our definition (at least in our
initial working definition). However, we distinguish between instances of anti-
foreigner action that occur in the context of a broader mobilisation, perhaps a
community protest, and the xenophobia that is the purpose and focus of action (see
below). On the other hand, we wish to exclude certain kinds of mobilisation. These
include conflict between, in particular, different gangs, taxi associations and „factions‟
(a largely rural phenomenon). These are sociologically significant in South Africa,
and frequently involve bloodshed, but they are conflicts between collectives that are
broadly similar in terms of power, even if one or other has a strongly felt grievance.
2.1.4 Police-recorded protest defined
A police-recorded protest, PRP for short, is (i) an incident recorded on the IRIS
database as either „crowd (peaceful)‟ or „crowd (unrest)‟ with (ii) the characteristics of
a „protest‟. Incidents are recorded on a daily basis, so a PRP is a unit of protest
lasting up to 24 hours. That is, if a protest recorded on the IRIS database as a crowd
incident lasts for five days, it is treated as five PRPs. To summarise:
A police-recorded protest is a popular mobilisation in support of a
collective grievance that has been recorded by the South African
Police Service as a „crowd incident‟ (and thus lasts up to 24 hours).
2.1.5 Practical limitations
Inevitably there are limitations to what gets counted. The recent SAPS (2014: 5)
National Instruction on Crowd Management specifies the primary function of POP
units as „policing … major events and public gatherings or demonstrations‟. Here
„major events‟ includes sporting occasions and such like, and protests are likely to be
treated as „gatherings or demonstrations‟. The distinction between „demonstration‟
and „gathering‟ - which is taken from the RGA - is principally one of scale:
„demonstrations‟ are restricted to congregations involving 2-15 people, and
„gatherings‟ involve 16 or more people. Conveners of gatherings are required to give
notice of their intended action to the local authority, and POP has advance notice of
these events, so able to record them. It is not necessary to give notice of
„demonstrations‟, and as a consequence there is a greater chance that these will not
be noted by POP, and hence IRIS. Since the interpretation we present here is taken
from the 2014 Instruction, procedure adopted before this date might have been
somewhat different, but custom would have been shaped by the RGA, a 1993
statute, so broadly similar.
The definition of a „gathering‟ specifies that it is an „assembly, concourse or
procession … in or on any public road or any other public place or premises wholly
or partly open to the air‟ (SAPS 2014: 3; also see RGA). If protests not „open to the
air‟, even „partly‟, are excluded from POP‟s interest, this would disqualify many of
Tarrow‟s strikes, petitions, delegations and meetings exhibiting „contentious
21
behaviour‟. But, in practice, strikes commonly involve some kind of march, picket or
toyi toyi in an open-air space (though the student of labour action would need to
consider the record of strikes as well as crowd incidents). Popular petitions, as
distinct from those written for newspapers, are generally delivered in an open space,
as is the case with memoranda, and this is a common feature of South African
protest culture. Delegations are mostly excluded from the statistics, but those aimed
at expressing a grievance are often accompanied by some kind of protest outside a
building. Similarly, meetings held in a community hall ought to be excluded, but
people enter and exit the meeting from the open air. Moreover, large meetings are
usually held in sports stadiums. In practice, IRIS records many incidents that take
place inside a building, perhaps because the overriding concern of public order
policing is to maintain public order. However, we only included a meeting as a
protest if there was evidence that a collective grievance had been expressed (so
councillors reporting to ward members, imbizos etc. were mostly excluded).
One further matter should be highlighted. There is a separate IRIS entry for
each day a protest takes place. For example, if a strike lasts four days and workers
hold a picket outside their workplace every day this ought to be recorded by IRIS as
four separate incidents. Of course, things do not always work out this neatly.
Incidents might not be recorded (as was often the case from 2007 to 2009), or they
might be wrongly or only partially recorded, leaving us without evidence of a protest
that may have occurred.
2.1.6 Media-reported protests
In this report we also refer to media-reported protests, MRPs for short. An MRP is a
protest recorded on our own Rebellion of the Poor database, a database of
community protests recorded in print media sources from 2005 onwards. This is the
most extensive catalogue of its kind, but it is not the only one, and it is worth
clarifying differences with the other two.
The first organisation to record community protests was Municipal IQ, a
private research consultancy. Since 2004 it has maintained what it terms a Hotspots
Monitor. This has two significant limitations. First, it is concerned only with what it
calls „major protests‟, that is, a protest involving more than 100 people.8 Secondly, it
is only interested in protests that „pertain to local government service delivery issues‟
(Municipal IQ 2014). That is, target audience rather than scholarly inquiry has set
boundaries of analysis. Municipal IQ recorded 909 protests between 2004 and 2014.
Municipal IQ (2014) states: „Where protests are sustained over several days or
weeks, these are recorded as a single entry‟. This differs from the practice adopted
by other researchers - including SAPS and ourselves - who record daily reports, so,
if a protest occurs over three days and there are reports of the event for each of
these days, most researchers record three protests but Municipal IQ only lists one.
8 Personal communication with Ronesh Dhwarj, Research and Policy Analyst SABC, 13 September
2015
22
A second database is the Civic Protest Barometer (CPB) maintained by the
Multi-Level Governance Initiative located in the Community Law Centre at the
University of the Western Cape. This is less limited and more helpful than the
Hotspots Monitor in three respects. First, it looks at „organised protest action within a
local area which directly targets municipal government or targets municipal
government as a proxy to express grievances against the state more widely‟ (Powell,
O‟Donovan and de Visser 2014a).9 That is, it recognises that community protests are
not just about local government service delivery issues. Secondly, within this
definition, there is no attempt to distinguish „major‟ from „minor‟ (an impossible task
given the paucity of information in most media reports). Thirdly, sources of data are
specified and extensive. These include (a) nine newspapers archived by Lexis Nexis
and (b) a listing of community protests drawn from online sources and published in
the South African Local Government Briefing (Powell, O‟Donovan and de Visser
2014b). The CPB captured 1,206 protests occurring between 2007 and 2014.10
Our own database was designed to run alongside qualitative research as part
of an attempt to understand a phenomenon, South Africa‟s „rebellion of the poor‟
(Alexander 2010, Alexander & Pfaffe 2014).11 The community protests we record are
not limited to the CPB‟s definition of civic protests, and while, in practice, a high
proportion do target local government this is not always the case. An advantage of
our broader focus is that it contextualises „civic‟ or „service delivery‟ protests, and can
pave the way to greater complexity of analysis. For newspapers we have used the
SA Media online archive, which covers a greater range of print newspapers than
Lexus Nexis, including some in Afrikaans and some published in smaller towns. Like
the CPB we make use of South African Local Government Briefing’s listing of
protests. The editor of this publication cautions that it only monitors protests related
to municipal responsibilities, but we have found that it is an excellent resource and
actually covers a wide range of protests. We have also received additional
information from the South African Broadcasting Service, which picks up on reports,
sometimes from small towns and rural areas, which are not necessarily broadcast.12
This data is particularly useful for the period before 2007, that is, prior to when the
Briefing’s monitor started. For the years 2004 to 2014, our database records 2,386
9 The meaning and significance of „organised‟ is unclear.
10 Personal communication with Dr Derek Powell, Associate Professor and Project Head of the Multi-
Level Governance Initiative, 10 September 2015. 11
Powell, O‟Donovan and de Visser (2014) propose that there is no quantitative association between
poverty, defined economically, and protests, regarding this as an argument against the „rebellion of
the poor‟ notion. To clarify, our own analysis is not about „poverty‟ as such. It is concerned with „the
poor‟, a term we use sociologically and which cannot be reduced to a quantitative variable. 12
However, a major limitation of all media-based protest databases is that they have an urban, and
even a big-city, bias. A further problem is that SA Media does not archive the African-language press,
which mostly appears in isiZulu. However, we ran our own check through many issues of Isolezwe,
the only daily African-language paper, and located only very few additional protests. Given resource
constraints we have continued to focus our work on English and Afrikaans medium press although we
acknowledge the limitations of such an approach.
23
protests, with 2,219 of these occurring between 2007 and 2014. These, then, are
what we term MRPs.
2.2 Protest foci
In this report PRPs have been classified into one of nine protest foci. The purpose of
this is to provide an indication as to what people are protesting about and the types
of demands being raised. Selection of foci was determined by insights gained from
the Rebellion of the Poor project and experience of working with data derived from
our first sample of incidents (see section 3.1). Definitions of the foci are generally
self-evident and provided in Table 1. Examples of protests categorised under each
focus are provided in Appendix 2. However, two foci require further comment,
„community‟ and „xenophobia‟.
We use the term „community‟ to identify protests in which collective demands
are raised by a geographically identified and defined „community‟ that frames its
demands in support and/or defence of that particular geographical community. A
potential limitation of this approach is that it can give the appearance that
„communities‟ are homogeneous and we are acutely aware that it is very often only
certain sections of a geographically-defined community, most often the unemployed,
that mobilise in these protests. However, we argue that this term is better able to
capture analytically what are frequently referred to as „service delivery protests‟ in
the media. We argue that the label „service delivery‟ protest frequently serves to
conceal the complexity of issues that communities raise, which include, importantly,
criticisms of the quality of South Africa‟s democracy (see Alexander et al 2014).
In practice, there were two stages in our selection of community protests.
Initially, community protests were defined as those that involved geographical
community participation excluding those related to education, crime and transport.
This was done to assist us in drawing attention to protests around education, crime
and transport, which, based on our earlier research, we regarded as under-reported
in the media. This gave us 650 community protests in our sample of 2,095 protests.
Then, secondly, education, crime and transport protests were re-analysed using the
same definition of community protest applied in the Rebellion of the Poor database,
our MRPs in other words. That is, a protest was now defined as „community‟ on the
basis of broad community participation, regardless of demands raised. This yielded
735 community protests in the same sample of 2,095 protests. It increased the
overall percentage of community protests by just 4%, from 31% using the previous
narrow definition to 35%. While aligning our PRP and Rebellion of the Poor database
definitions had little impact on analysis of protest foci, it provided the possibility of
comparing PRPs and MRPs, the benefit of which will be seen later. In the analysis
presented in this report we utilise the second, broad definition of community protests.
„Xenophobia‟ was also used as a protest focus. For our analysis of foci, anti-
foreigner sentiment had to be the main issue being raised. However, in order to
24
avoid under-recording of xenophobia, we later located cases where there was any
evidence of xenophobia and analysed these separately. See Section 2.4 below.
Table 1. Protest foci definitions
Protest focus Definition
Community Geographically defined communities raising collective demands around
any issue.
Labour Workers raising collective demands related to labour issues. Includes, but
is not limited to, strikes and pickets.
Education Learners, students, parents or educators raising collective demands
around education, whether basic or tertiary.
Crime-related Any actor raising collective demands around crime and/or policing.
Commonly includes protests at bail hearings.
Transport issues Any actor raising collective demands around transport. Commonly involves
protests around fares.
Party political Political parties raising collective demands. Includes protests where there
is evidence of factional fights within political parties.
Xenophobia Collective action where hostility to and/or attacks on foreign nationals
appears to be the primary motivation.
„Customary‟ Collective action related to disputes around traditional governance. For
example, a community dispute with a chief.
Other Miscellaneous incidents of collective action that cannot be classified in any
of the categories above, mostly because IRIS data provides insufficient
information.
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
2.3 Defining disorder
As our initial research on the IRIS database made clear (see Report #1), SAPS‟s
classification of incidents as either „peaceful‟ or „unrest‟ should not be understood as
indicative of level of violence within an incident. Rather, these so-called „eventuality
classifications‟ primarily reflect whether or not there was some form of police
intervention. Thus, in order to gauge the extent to which protests are violent, we had
to undertake our own analysis based on reading the IRIS notes for a sample of
protests.
The CPB also deploys a simple binary distinction, classifying protests as
either violent or non-violent. In a recent report, violent protests were defined as those
„where some or all of the participants have engaged in actions that create a clear
and imminent threat of, or actually result in, harm to persons or damage to property‟
(Powell, O‟Donovan and de Visser 2014: section 5). This drew on an earlier
assessment, which clarified that a protest would be defined as violent if it showed
„the potential to cause clear and imminent harm‟ (2011: 4, our emphasis; see also
Powell, O‟Donovan and de Visser 2014: note 5). A list of actions regarded as violent
was provided. This included „intentional injuring of police … the burning down of
25
houses … instances where the police disperse protesters … or tyres are burned to
blockade roads‟ (De Visser and Powell 2011: 4).
This approach relies, to a significant extent, on a researcher‟s assessment of
potential for violence rather than evidence of what actually transpired. That is, it
introduces an unnecessary level of subjectivity, which impairs the robustness of the
analysis. Furthermore, from the list of violent actions, it is clear there is no
conceptual distinction between, on the one hand, substantial damage to property
and injury to persons, and, on the other, disruption caused by a road barricade. By
including police violence against protesters, the proportion of protests regarded as
violent is further inflated, and it is perhaps unsurprising that 83% of the 2014
community protests recorded by the CPB were defined as „violent‟ (Powell,
O‟Donovan and de Visser 2014: 5).
Our own approach has rejected a violent/peaceful dichotomy, arguing that this
is analytically obtuse and obscures the reality that road barricades and the like are
intended to be disruptive rather than violent (see Alexander et al 2014). Such action
may be frustrating for non-participants and it might be a precursor to violent conflict,
but, on its own, it does not actually result in injuries or lasting damage to property.
The characterisation of disruption as „violent‟ serves, in many cases, to delegitimise
protesters‟ grievances, and it misunderstands the dynamics of protest action. As with
an unprotected strike, disruption challenges the established order and calls the law
into question, but it does so without transgressing the Constitution‟s support for the
right to unarmed and peaceful assembly. It may cross a legal boundary, but does so
without contravening moral sensibilities opposed to harm and destruction. Disruption
can be seen as part of a tradition of civil disobedience that includes the British
suffragettes, Mohandas Gandhi‟s participation in the struggle for Indian
independence, the US Civil Rights Movement, and the ANC‟s Defiance Campaign.
In this report we distinguish between violent, disruptive and orderly protests.
We define violent protests as those involving injury to persons or damage to
property. This is line with the approach adopted by Charles Tilly (2003), perhaps the
most prominent scholar in this field of inquiry. It avoids normative bias, is relatively
simple and easy to apply, and provides considerable possibilities for international
comparison. It is, however, open to criticism. As Paret (2015) argues, our definition
provides limited scope to examine who is involved in violence, protesters or police,
and implies equivalence between death of a person and minor damage to a building.
We acknowledge that, because of the reality of much protest violence and the
character of IRIS data, we have had to lump together violence initiated by the police
with violence initiated by protesters. For instance, it is quite common for police to fire
rubber bullets into a peaceful gathering and for protesters to respond by throwing
stones and, perhaps later, by setting fire to a building. In our analysis, this would be
classified as violent protest, even though the protesters were reacting to police
violence. Consequently, we caution against making moral judgments about
protesters on the grounds that their protest has been listed as violent. Unfortunately,
the data we are working with prevents us from undertaking the kind of fine-grained
analysis that Paret requests.
26
Disruptive protests are identified through use of tactics such as blocking a
road, commonly achieved by placement of rocks and/or burning of tyres. Such action
stops the free flow of traffic and might prevent people from going to work. It is never
authorised, breaches established order and may be regarded as illegal. Orderly
protests consist mostly of pickets, marches and public meetings. These are tolerated
by the authorities and often negotiated in advance. By definition, disruptive and
orderly protests do not result in injury to people or damage to property.
In our present typology, „orderly protests‟ are equivalent to those we
previously called „peaceful protests‟ (Alexander et al 2014). We wanted to avoid
confusion with SAPS‟s use of the term „peaceful‟ and we wished to reject the
implication that disruptive protests are not peaceful. Our new approach leaves open
the possibility of distinguishing between violent and peaceful protests (the latter
including both orderly and disruptive action), and between orderly and disorderly
protests (the latter including violent and disruptive events). As will be seen in the
discussion that follows, we have sometimes found that „disorderly protest‟ can be a
useful measure of the extent to which protest action transgresses established order
and becomes what may be characterised as defiant or rebellious.
2.4 Xenophobia
The problem of „xenophobia‟ was highlighted by an anti-foreigner pogrom in 2008
and a further wave of killings in 2015. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) (2015) defines xenophobia as „attitudes, prejudices
and behaviour that reject, exclude and often vilify persons, based on the perception
that they are outsiders or foreigners to the community, society or national identity‟.
Some, including the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), have
argued that the phenomenon of violence against foreign nationals is better
understood as „afrophobia‟ (EWN 2015). There is merit in this view - white foreigners
are not attacked for example - but „afrophobia‟ obscures the fact that some victims
are migrants from South Asia. The phenomenon is complex, and we have preferred
to limit ourselves to noting evidence of anti-foreigner sentiment - that is, xenophobia
- where „foreigners‟ are not defined in terms of nationality, and could, as sometimes
happens, include South African „outsiders‟. For the purposes of the present research,
xenophobia has been captured in two different ways. First, as discussed above, we
quantified the extent to which it was a protest focus. Secondly, we considered
evidence of xenophobia within other kinds of protest (see Table aa2 for an example
of this).
27
2.5 Summary
This section has provided a discussion of key concepts, including „protest‟, various
„protest foci‟, „disorder‟, and „xenophobia‟. A protest is defined as „a popular
mobilisation in support of a collective grievance‟. We also distinguished between
PRPs and MRPs. The former being those crowd incidents that, on the basis of
evidence in IRIS records, can be regarded as protests; the latter being media-
reported protests captured on our Rebellion of the Poor database. We rejected a
dichotomous approach that tends to stigmatise protests that challenge public order -
often by burning tyres - but have not harmed people or property. Instead, we
categorised protests as either orderly or disruptive or violent. We now turn to a
discussion of our methodology.
28
3. Methodology
The analysis presented in this report is based upon data generated from two
samples. Due to the limits of our resources it would have been impractical to attempt
to analyse all of the incidents we had data for. The first sample of 4,520 incidents
was used to identify the proportion of incidents that were protests. The second
sample of 2,314 was deployed to analyse the focus of protests, whether the protest
was orderly, disruptive or violent and whether there had been any instances of
xenophobia. This section explains the procedures we adopted.
3.1 Phase 1: identifying and counting protests
In order to provide an accurate assessment of the proportion of incidents in IRIS
which are protests, a combination of disproportionate and proportionate stratified
random sampling was used to obtain a representative sample (see Appendix 3).
Strata were the eventuality classification of the incident (either „peaceful‟ or „unrest‟)
and year. For the eventuality classifications, sampling was disproportionate and
unrest cases were deliberately oversampled. As findings in Report #1 demonstrate
90% of all the incidents recorded are classified as peaceful and a sample that
mirrored this distribution would generate too few unrest cases per year to reliably
infer the results for the population. Furthermore, our previous analysis led us to
believe that it was likely that a greater proportion of unrest than peaceful incidents
would be protests, so disproportionate sampling would also provide a larger sample
of protests for subsequent analysis. This, we anticipated, would be particularly true
with community protests, and assessment of these protests was our ultimate goal.
We decided to use a 60:40 split between peaceful and unrest events. Proportional
sampling was used for the years. So, the greater the number of incidents in a year
the larger the sample for that year. With two eventuality classifications and 17 years
there was a total of 34 strata.
An initial sample size of 3,500 incidents, 2,000 peaceful and 1,500 unrest,
was deemed to be operationally feasible. Incidents were grouped by eventuality and
year, and the random sampling programme in IBM SPSS (version 22) was used to
draw the required sample for each of the strata. Incidents were coded as either a
protest or not a protest based on the definition provided in 2.1.313. The results of this
exercise are discussed in Section 4.2.
13
Initially, incidents were coded in one of four ways: not a protest, protest, community meeting and
intercommunal violence. This reflected our developing understanding of the concept of protest which
allowed us to take an initially broad definition that could include community meetings and incidents
such as taxi conflict. The initial results from this sampling showed a small number of incidents fitted
into the categories of community meeting and intercommunal violence. The decision was then taken
to review all of the incidents that had been assigned to these two categories to determine whether
they could be understood as a protest or not. In the case of community meetings, those where
demands were formulated collectively by the „community‟ were considered to be protests; those
where no demands were raised were re-coded as not a protest.
29
Analysing the first sample allowed us to estimate the total numbers of protests
per year for each eventuality classification. In order to increase the reliability of our
analysis of PRPs it was decided to increase the sample with the aim of selecting 2%
of PRPs classified as peaceful and 10% of PRPs classified unrest.14 Additional PRPs
were located by drawing additional incidents using the same procedures discussed
above. This resulted in a final sample consisting of 4,510 incidents, 2,856 peaceful
and 1,654 unrest. Table 2 provides the final numbers of PRPs identified in the
sample. Further analysis can be found in Appendix 3. A total of 2,314 PRPs were
identified, 1,173 classified as peaceful and 1,141 classified as unrest.
Table 2. Number of incidents sampled and number of PRPs in sample,
by eventuality classification and year
Year
No of
peaceful
incidents
sampled
No of PRPs
(peaceful)
No of
unrest
incidents
sampled
No of
PRPs
(unrest)
Total
Sample
Total
PRPs
1997 141 76 114 78 255 154
1998 191 99 159 103 350 202
1999 179 82 80 57 259 139
2000 149 71 73 43 222 114
2001 149 69 66 44 215 113
2002 129 53 67 33 196 86
2003 143 59 54 29 197 88
2004 145 36 57 33 202 69
2005 215 92 105 74 320 166
2006 221 101 98 62 319 163
2007 147 56 86 61 233 117
2008 120 46 79 43 199 89
2009 158 53 86 77 244 130
2010 222 82 109 81 331 163
2011 200 74 124 86 324 160
2012 158 65 149 116 307 181
2013 189 59 148 121 337 180
Total 2,856 1,173 1,654 1,141 4,520 2,314
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
14
An initial miscalculation in drawing the additional sample means that we actually sampled a higher
percentage of PRPs for each year of the sample (see Appendix 3). This initial mistake actually
increases the reliability of our findings by increasing the sample size further.
30
3.2 Coding protest foci, violence and xenophobia
Working with the 2,314 incidents classified as protests, the revised sample was
analysed further to identify the focus of each protest, whether it was orderly,
disruptive or violent, and whether there was evidence of xenophobia. Protests were
assigned one of nine protest foci, definitions of which are provided in Table 1. The
results of this analysis are presented in subsequent sections of the report.
While the categories of protest foci were intended to be mutually exclusive,
the complexity of real-life situations meant the classification of protests was not
always simple and protests could potentially be classified in more than one way.
Furthermore, the notes may not contain the information regarding the demands and
actors that we, as social scientists, would have wanted to know. Table 3 provides
two examples of this problem. The first example is a protest led by a union about a
non-labour related issue. If the protest had been defined simply according to
collective actor it should have been coded as „labour‟, but this would probably have
been a wrong choice as the protest was not about a labour matter. Since the issues
raised were „rape, sexual harassment, domestic violence and child abuse‟, the
protest could also have been assigned to the „crime related‟ category. In this
instance, because of complexity and uncertainty this protest was assigned to the
„other‟ category.
The second example, which started as a protest by municipal workers
(represented by their union, SAMWU), could also have been classified in more than
one way. There were two actors involved, a union and the community. Furthermore,
the protest shows clear evidence of xenophobia. However it is highly unlikely that
resentment towards „foreigners‟ was the primary focus of the protest (which would
have been stipulated in the memorandum). We decided not to record the focus as
xenophobia, but the xenophobia was noted and later analysed separately. In
addition, the community involvement in the protest could, arguably, make this a
community protest. However, as the union was the primary initiator of the protest and
the demands in the memorandum are likely to have been labour-related the decision
was taken to record this as a labour protest.
31
Table 3. Examples of protests difficult to classify15
Protest led by a union about
a non-labour issue
I1 REPORTED THAT ON 2001-11-30 AT ABOUT 09:30 THEY WERE AT
JOHANNESBURG HIGH COURT MONITORING APPROXIMATELY 300
NEHAWU SUPPOTERS WHO WERE MARCHING TO THE COURT TO HAND
OVER THE MEMORUNDUM. THE REASON FOR THE MARCH WAS TO
PROTEST AGAINST THE RAPE, SEXUAL HARASSMENT, DOMESTIC
VIOLENCE AND CHILD ABUSE. THE MARCH ENDED PEACEFULLY
WITHOUT ANY VIOLENT RELATED INCIDENT REPORTED. [30/11/2001,
Gauteng]
Labour protest with
evidence of community
participation and
xenophobia
On 2010-03-29 at about 15:00 samwu members were coming from Steve
Tshwete municipality where they were handing over a memorandum to the
municipal manager. The police disperse the crowd by shooting them with rubber
bullets, and they ran back to Mhluzi location where they started burning shops,
damaging vehicles and destroying properties of the pakistanists. The following
cases of burglary at businesses premises were opened at Mhluzi …The
community joined Samwu members and started to destroy businesses at Mhluzi
location and the above cases were opened, and there was no arrest. The
community and Samwu members became violent and cases of public violence
were opened at Mhluzi SAPS and there were arrests made…
The estimated damage caused by the participants is valued at R1 000 000-00.
Progress report will be communicated due to the fact that the situation is
continuously monitored. [29/03/2010, Mpumalanga]
3.3 Ensuring reliability and consistency
Ensuring reliability and consistency in the coding process is essential to the integrity
of our analysis. Four research assistants undertook the coding, all of whom are listed
as co-authors. These assistants also played a role in the broader project and have
added to our understanding of the data. They were led by a senior research
assistant, Mahlatse Rampedi, who recently obtained an MA with distinction.
Boikanyo Moloto, an MA student, was responsible for coding notes in Afrikaans and
English. Boitumelo Maruping, an MA student who has worked on the project for three
years and is a co-author on Report #1, and Eunice Khumalo, an honours student (at
the time), assisted with coding the English-language notes.16 To ensure consistency,
the assistants worked together in the same office and discussed borderline cases in
order to come to a consensus on coding decisions. There was a peer checking
system of the coding and Mahlatse made the final ruling on coding decisions, with
oversight and periodic checks undertaken by Carin Runciman.
15
With the exception of personal details, which have been removed, the notes are presented exactly
as they appear within the IRIS data supplied to us. Most notes are in capital letters, but this is not
always the case. 16
Selhaphi Sibanda was involved in earlier stages of this research but did not participate in the coding
that informs the analysis presented in this report.
32
3.4 Summary
This section has presented an overview of our research methodology, which
involved two phases. First, there was a sample of incidents to identify the proportion
that were protests. Secondly, a sample of protests was generated in order to discern
the focus of each protest, whether it was orderly, disruptive or violent, and whether
there was evidence of xenophobia. This section has also provided insight as to how
coding decisions were taken and how reliability in the coding was ensured. The next
sections present findings generated by our data analysis.
33
4. Frequency and geographical distribution of police-
recorded protests
This section provides an analysis of the estimated numbers of police-recorded
protests (PRPs) and their geographical distribution.
4.1 Estimating numbers of police-recorded protests
Based on the sample discussed in Section 3 we are able to provide an estimate of
the number of PRPs that occurred between 1997 and 2013. Table 4 presents a
summary of the results. More detail can be found in Appendix 3. Between 1997 and
2013 there was an average of 3,985 PRPs a year. The lowest number recorded was
in 2004 and the highest was in 2012. Figures for the years 2007 to 2009 are
unreliable, due to the re-organisation of public order policing in this period, which led
to under-recording of incidents. Despite this, we believe that our estimates of PRPs
take us closer to understanding the total number of protests that occurred in South
Africa in this period than any figures published previously.
Extrapolating from the sample, about 43% of IRIS crowd incidents were
PRPs. Working with 95% confidence limits, we can be 95% confident that the
proportion of „peaceful‟ incidents that were PRPs lies between 39% and 43% and the
proportion of „unrest‟ incidents that were PRPs lies between 67% and 72%. Working
with these percentages there are between about 55,800 and 58,100 PRPs listed
under „crowd (peaceful)‟ and between 10,500 and 11,100 PRPs listed under „crowd
(unrest)‟. That is, between 66,300 and 69,200 PRPs in total. This means there is
likely to have been an average of between 3,900 and 4,100 PRPs a year. A large
majority of these, 84%, were listed under „crowd (peaceful)‟, meaning there had been
no „intervention‟, and only 16% came under „crowd (unrest)‟.
Table 4. Estimated numbers of PRPs by eventuality classification
(peaceful and unrest) and year
Year
Estimated number of
protests within peaceful
eventuality
Estimated number of
protests within unrest
eventuality
Estimated total number
of protests
1997 2,869 606 3,475
1998 4,272 771 5,043
1999 3,734 529 4,263
2000 3,397 419 3,816
2001 3,460 422 3,882
2002 2,624 280 2,904
2003 2,903 287 3,190
2004 2,049 329 2,378
2005 4,054 662 4,716
34
Year
Estimated number of
protests within peaceful
eventuality
Estimated number of
protests within unrest
eventuality
Estimated total number
of protests
2006 4,561 542 5,103
2007 2,589 506 3,095
2008 2,182 401 2,583
2009 2,641 711 3,352
2010 4,004 691 4,695
2011 3,995 845 4,840
2012 4,179 1,410 5,589
2013 3,437 1,389 4,826
Totals 56,950 10,800 67,750
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
4.2 Comparing crowd incidents and police-recorded protests
Figure 1. Crowd incidents and estimated police-recorded protests, 1997-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
Figure 1 compares numbers of crowd incidents (peaceful and unrest combined) with
estimated numbers of PRPs. This confirms that less than half the incidents were
protests. Report #1 showed that a high proportion of crowd incidents are
recreational, religious or cultural events.
On the graph, both lines have a V-shape trough for 2007-9, when there was
under-recording of incidents. A rise in both incidents and protests in 2010 can be
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Crowd incidents PRPs
35
explained, in part, by, respectively, the FIFA World Cup and the public sector strike
(which, in terms of „workdays lost‟ was the biggest stoppage in the country‟s history).
From 2012 to 2013, while the number of incidents increased the number of PRPs
declined. Our analysis of MRPs shows 2012 to be a high point, and it seems this
was also the case with PRPs. It is likely that voter registration activity in 2013 was a
factor in the high number of incidents that occurred in that year.
4.3 Police-recorded protests by eventuality classification
Crowd incidents are classified by „eventuality‟ as either crowd (peaceful) or crowd
(unrest), and for the period as a whole 90% were classified as the former and 10%
as the latter. As shown previously the distinction is based on whether or not the
police „intervened‟ - for instance, by means of arrests, pushbacks or use of rubber
bullets - with „intervention‟ leading to classification as „unrest‟ rather than „peaceful‟.
„Unrest‟ should not be equated with violence, and „peaceful‟ does not imply an
absence of violence.
Figure 2. Estimated police-recorded protests classified as „peaceful‟ by IRIS,
1997-2012 (with trend line)
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
Table 4 provided a breakdown of PRPs by eventuality classification. A large
majority came from the crowd (peaceful) classification, meaning that no police
intervention occurred. Figures 2 and 3 present the estimated numbers of PRPs by
eventuality classification between 1997 and 2013. There has been an upward trend
under both headings. However, the upward trend is more pronounced in the „unrest‟
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
36
PRPs. While the number of „peaceful‟ PRPs increased by 20% between 1997 and
2013, over the same period „unrest‟ PRPs increased by 129%. If we start the
analysis in 2004, the rising level of protest is more dramatic. In 2012, a peak year,
the estimated number of „peaceful‟ listed PRPs was 104% greater than in 2004, and
the estimated number of „unrest‟ PRPs was 329% greater.
Figure 3. Estimated police-recorded protests classified as „unrest‟ by IRIS,
1997-2013 (with trend line)
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
4.4 Estimated police-recorded protests per annum and per day
Table 5 presents estimates of the average number of PRPs per day and the
estimated total number of PRPs per annum for the years 1997 to 2013. The table
shows that the average number of PRPs per day ranges from a low of 7 per day in
both 2004 and 2008 to a high of 15 in 2012. The variations in the estimated number
of protests, and the average number of protests per day over the time period, is
something which requires further analysis. In subsequent sections of this report we
offer some provisional explanations.
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
37
Table 5. Estimated total PRPs per year and estimated
average number of PRPs per day, 1997-2013
Year
Average PRPs per
day
Total estimated
PRPs per annum
1997 10 3,475
1998 14 5,043
1999 12 4,263
2000 10 3,816
2001 11 3,882
2002 8 2,904
2003 9 3,190
2004 7 2,378
2005 13 4,716
2006 14 5,103
2007 8 3,095
2008 7 2,583
2009 9 3,352
2010 13 4,695
2011 13 4,840
2012 15 5,589
2013 13 4,826
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
4.5 Total number of protests, 1997-2013
Working with our definition of „protest' there were about 67,500 PRPs between 1997
and 2013. However, it is reasonable to assume that the total PRPs for 2007, 2008
and 2009 undercount the number of protests in those years by about one third
overall (i.e. the figure we are working with is about two-thirds what it should have
been). This reckoning comes mainly from a comment by a senior SAPS officer who
told us there was under-recording of incidents by 20%-40% in this period.17 As we
are making provisional calculations and dealing with percentage change it is
acceptable to extrapolate from „incidents‟ to „protests‟. Our assessment is buttressed
by analysis of our MRP data and PRP trend lines. To reach a figure that includes the
lost PRPs we must add 50% to the present total for those years. This is about 4,500
protests. The same officer said that the incident undercount was now down to about
5%. Applying this figure of 5% to the total PRPs from 2010 to 2013 gives us an
additional 1,000 protests approximately.18
17
He actually referred to 2006 to 2008, but we are assuming he meant the years we refer to here,
which are the ones associated with the big dip in number of incidents and which fit analysis about re-
organisation of policing (see Report #1, pp. 15-16). 18
We are not applying the 5% figure to the years before 2007 because the police units with primary
responsibility for public order policing then employed significantly more officers.
38
Thus, using our definition of protest and the calculations above, if IRIS had
recorded all the crowd incidents that actually occurred, the total number of PRPs
would have been about 73,200. With a 2.5% margin of error either side of this figure
(the margin we calculated earlier under the crowd [unrest] heading), there could not
have been less than 71,000 protests. In reality, for reasons discussed in Section 2.1,
the actual number of protests was higher.19 We cannot estimate how much higher,
but, outside of 2007-9, it is likely that most protests that were not recorded by IRIS
would either have been small or occurred inside a building (see 2.1.5)
Our figures imply an average of at least 4,100 protests per year for 1997-
2013, and at least 5,100 per year for 2010-13.
4.6 Protests since 2013
Table 6 summarises information taken from SAPS reports and a ministerial
statement, placing this alongside statistics deduced from IRIS data. Some words of
warning are necessary before offering an interpretation. First, as always, incidents
are not protests, so our figures can only be regarded as a broad indication of the
likely trend. Secondly, it seems that POP has been deployed in an increasingly wide
range of activities, perhaps giving an exaggerated impression of the increase in
crowd incidents. Thirdly, one cannot rule out the possibility that, in recent years,
incident recording has become more rigorous or even than that there has been
conscious intervention aimed at inflating figures (specifically unrest-related
incidents).
Let us consider the table. With the exception of the final column, data is taken
either from SAPS Annual Reports (for the years 2010/11 to 2013/14) or from the
Minister of Police‟s Budget Speech (2014/15). The final column is based on „our‟
IRIS data. In contrast to IRIS, Annual Reports present statistics for financial years
rather than calendar years. Also, they use the terms „peaceful incidents‟, „unrest-
related incidents‟ and „crowd-related incidents‟, rather than, respectively, „crowd
(peaceful)‟, „crowd (unrest)‟ and „crowd management incidents‟.20 It is unclear to us
why different terms are used. For the final column we refashioned IRIS data to fit
three financial years, thus making it possible to offer a comparison with Annual
Report statistics. The IRIS totals are lower than those in the Annual Reports but the
differences are negligible.
19
In comparing protests on our MRP database with incidents recorded by IRIS we found that a few
protests reported in the media were not recorded by IRIS. This is solid evidence of under-recording by
the Police. 20
In his speech, the Minister did not distinguish between „peaceful‟, „unrest-related‟ and „crowd-
related‟, rather he used the terms „peaceful‟, „turning violent‟ and „incidents‟. He clearly misled
parliament (see Report One), but we assume his figures will appear in the SAPS Annual Reports
under the usual headings.
39
Table 6. Crowd-related incidents, 2010/11 to 2014/15, and total crowd management
incidents, 2010/11 to 2012/13
Financial
year
Peaceful
incidents
Unrest-
related
incidents
Total crowd-
related
incidents
Total crowd
management
incidents
2010/11 11,680 971 12,651 12,436
2011/12 10,744 1,194 11,938 11,922
2012/13 10,517 1,882 12,399 12,182
2013/14 11,668 1,907 13,575 not available
2014/15 12,451 2,289 14,740 not available
Sources for crowd-related incidents: South African Police Service (2014),
Nene (2015). Source for crowd management incidents: IRIS (with analysis by
South African Research Chair in Social Change).
Since 2011/12 there has been a steady increase in the total number of crowd-
related incidents, but the rise is far more marked with „unrest-related‟ than „peaceful‟
incidents. Comparing 2010/11 and 2014/15, we find a 6.6% increase in the number
of „peaceful incidents‟ and a 135.7% increase in the number of „unrest-related
incidents‟. While keeping the caveats mentioned above in mind, the trend in total
crowd-incidents, and particularly unrest related incidents, has continued upwards.
What are the implications of these figures for the total number of protests over
this period? According to our calculations for 2010 to 2013, the percentage of crowd
(peaceful) incidents reckoned to be a PRP ranged between 31% (2013) and 41%
(2012), and the percentage of crowd (unrest) incidents reckoned to be a PRP ranged
between 69% (2011) and 82% (2013). Applying these ranges to the figures above
suggests that in 2013/14 there were probably 4,932 to 6,355 PRPs, and in 2014/15
between 5,439 and 6,982 PRPs. We caution that the ratio of protests to incidents
might well lie outside these ranges.
4.7 Geographical distribution of police-recorded protests
Table 7 presents the estimated numbers of PRPs by province between 1997 and
2013. As one would expect, Gauteng, the most populous province, has the highest
estimated number of PRPs, and Northern Cape, the least populous, has the lowest.
Figure 4 presents a comparison of the percentage of total crowd incidents and
estimated PRPs by province. It is interesting to make a geographical comparison
between incidents and PRPs because it reveals slightly different patterns. The
distribution of PRPs closely mirrors that of incidents, with two exceptions. While
Western Cape had a higher share of crowd incidents and a lower share of estimated
PRPs, the Eastern Cape was the reverse, with a larger share of estimated PRPs and
a lower share of crowd incidents. Further research is required to be able to explain
these trends.
40
Table 7. Estimated numbers of PRPs by province, 1997-2013
Province Estimated no of PRPs
Eastern Cape 10,251
Free State 6,371
Gauteng, 14,229
KwaZulu-Natal 7,276
Limpopo 4,430
Mpumalanga 4,336
Northern Cape 3,169
North West 8,881
Western Cape 8,796
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
Figure 4. Percentage of total crowd incidents by province compared with
percentage of estimated PRPs by province, 1997-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
4.8 Estimated police-recorded protests per capita
4.8.1 National
The population of South Africa is growing. The 2001 and 2011 censuses recorded
total populations of, respectively, 44.8 million and 51.8 million, an increase of 15.6%.
Figure 5 takes account of this growth. It draws on Statistics South Africa‟s mid-year
population estimates to show PRPs per 100,000 people. The trend line is almost flat.
Contrary to expectation, South Africa is not a country with, in general, rapidly
increasing levels of protest action. The rise is specific. We will unpack this in the
sections that follow, but there were clues in Figures 2 and 3.
0 5 10 15 20 25
Gauteng
Western Cape
North West
KwaZulu-Natal
Eastern Cape
Free State
Mpumalanga
Limpopo
Northern Cape
% of PRPs % of incidents
41
Figure 5. Estimated PRPs per 100,000 people, 1997-2013 (with trend line)
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
4.8.2 Provincial
Given substantial disparities in the population of the various provinces, it is important
to consider the distribution of PRPs across the provinces on a per capita basis.
Figure 6 shows the estimated number of PRPs per 100,000 people by province
across the period 1997-2013 as well as split across two time periods, 1997-2004 and
2005-2013. Presenting the data by year for each province would convey a false level
of accuracy given the sample size, and it creates a messy picture lacking distinct
trends. The split into these two time periods was determined, firstly, by them being
similar in length. Secondly, by the fact that Figures 2 and 3 indicated that there may
have been a turning point in the numbers of PRPs per annum before or around
2005. Could there, we wondered, be some significant difference between the two
periods, and, if so, was this reflected in provincial distribution of protests?
The analysis in Table 8 presents some interesting findings. Across the total period the Northern Cape closely followed by the North West had the highest number of estimated PRPs per 100,000 people. KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo had the lowest number of estimated PRPs per 100,000 people. When analysing changes through time, for all provinces, with the exception of the Free State and the Western Cape, there was an increase in the estimated number of PRPs per 100,000 people between the two time periods. This increase was most startling in the Northern Cape, which increased from 101 PRPs per 100,000 in 1997-2004 to 563 PRPs per 100,000 in 2005-2013. A large increase was also documented in the North West where PRPs increased from 100 per 100,000 people per annum in 1997-2004 to 160 per 100,000 people per annum in 2005-2013. In 1997-2004 the Free State had the highest number of PRPs per 100,000 people per annum, 125, and Limpopo had the lowest, 22. In 2005-2013 the Northern Cape had the highest number of PRPs per 100,000 people and KwaZulu-Natal the lowest. What is also clear from Table 8 is the
0.0
2.0
4.0
6.0
8.0
10.0
12.0
14.0
42
increase in the number of estimated PRPs per 100,000 population between the two periods. Seven of the nine provinces show an increase.
Table 8. Estimated number of PRPs per 100,000 people per province,
1997-2004 and 2005-2013
Estimated number of PRPs per 100,000
1997-2004 2005-2013 1997-2013
Eastern Cape 82 91 171
Free State 125 117 246
Gauteng 74 82 156
KwaZulu-Natal 28 44 73
Limpopo 22 49 76
Mpumalanga 39 69 110
Northern Cape 101 563 268
North West 100 160 266
Western Cape 107 68 176 Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
4.9 Summary
Crowd incidents are not protests. PRPs represent less than half of all incidents.
We calculate, with a 95% level of confidence, that between 1997 and 2013 there
were between 66,300 and 69,200 PRPs.
Making some allowance for incidents that IRIS failed to record (mainly following
downsizing of public order policing in 2006), one can be almost certain that there
were not less than 71,000 protests in the years 1997-2013.
The number of protests peaked in 2012, when there was an average of about 15
PRPs per day. The low point was in 2004, when there was an average of about 7
PRPs per day.
84% of estimated PRPs were recorded as „crowd (peaceful}‟, implying that police
had not „intervened‟ in these protests. Only 16% appeared under „crowd (unrest)‟.
Between 1997 and 2013 there was an upward trend in the number of PRPs, but
the increase was very modest, and per capita there was a very slight downward
trend.
However, from 2004 there was a steep upwards trend in the number of PRPs.
This was much more marked in the case of „crowd (unrest)‟ PRPs, for which the
number of protests was 329% higher in 2012 than in 2004.
When accounting for population, Free State had the highest estimated number of
PRPs per capita between 1997 and 2004 and Northern Cape had the highest
between 2005 and 2013. The reasons for provincial variation require further
investigation.
43
5. Protest foci
In this section we distribute police-recorded protests (PRPs) among the nine protest
foci listed in Section 2.2, comparing these in terms of the „eventuality‟ class from
which they were sourced (i.e. „peaceful‟ and „unrest‟). We then investigate the two
must numerous kinds of protest, „labour‟ and „community‟, comparing their
distribution over time and geographically. Finally, we contrast community PRPs with
our data for media-reported protests (MRPs).
5.1 Motives assigned by the SAPS to protests
IRIS assigns a „motive‟ to each incident; however, as our analysis in Report #1
highlighted, the definition of incident motives is often unclear and a third of incidents
are recorded „as no motive registered‟. Since IRIS records incidents and not protests
it is not possible to provide an accurate analysis of protests based on the analysis of
a single motive as other researchers have done (see Saba and Van der Merwe
2013; Duncan 2014). Furthermore, it is not always possible to accurately discern
what a protest was about from the police assigned motives.
In our sample of 2,314 protests a total of 62 different motives were used by
the police (see Appendix 5). Many of the motives that featured prominently in the
sample were labour-related, with „demand wage increase‟ accounting for 18.1%.
However, „no motive registered‟ was the second most frequently recorded motive,
with 16.7%, highlighting the weaknesses of data capture by incident recording
personnel and the limitations of drawing inferences directly from police-recorded
motives. Furthermore, there were certain police-assigned motives, such as „imbizo‟
and „vote‟, that on face value were not protests but which, following examination of
related notes, had to be classified as a PRP. Given the difficulties the IRIS data
poses in attempting to provide an analysis of what protests have been about, it was
necessary to undertake our own analysis.
5.2 Estimated numbers of protests by protest focus
Protests were assigned to one of nine protest foci, definitions of which are provided
in Table 1 in Section 2. Based upon our estimates of total numbers of protests we
are able to provide an analysis of what PRPs were about. Figure 6 summarises our
findings.
Labour protests accounted for the highest proportion of PRPs, 46.0%, of all
estimated PRPs were related to labour issues. Conditioned by the media
representation of protests we were surprised to find that such a high percentage of
PRPs were related to labour. In part, this can be explained by the bias towards the
reporting of labour protests explained in Section 5.3 however, it cannot be
completely explained by this. Community protests are the second most common
accounting for 22.1% of all of the estimated PRPs.
44
Figure 6. PRPs by protest focus, percentages, 1997-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
„Other‟ is the third most common category, accounting for 13.1% of estimated
PRPs. It features prominently for a variety of reasons. Largely, it was because many
notes do not provide enough detail to make a reliable assessment of what the
particular protest was about or who was involved. However, the category also
embraces protests that do not fall within the other eight categories, such as some
concerned with international politics, and it includes protests that could have been
placed under more than one focus (see Table 3).
Crime-related protests are the fourth most frequently documented. These
mostly concern arrest and detention of suspects or complaints about the failure of
the police to make arrests, and they generally take place outside courts or police
stations. The category also includes actions taken within communities to apprehend
suspects.
Party political protests account for only 1.7% of the estimated PRPs. The
involvement of political parties and factional interests has been a subject of much
debate in the analysis of protests in South Africa (see Von Holdt et al 2011;
Alexander et al 2014; Dawson 2014). The data presented in Figure 7 represents
PRPs where a political party is explicitly involved, and does not necessarily capture
factional struggles, which Von Holdt and others suggest is a primary motivating
factor in protests. Nonetheless, the low number of political protests is consistent with
analysis advanced by the Rebellion of the Poor project on the basis of both
quantitative and qualitative data.
Protests related to issues of traditional governance, labelled as „customary‟,
account for a small percentage of protests, 0.6%. While this number is small it
46.0%
22.1%
13.1%
9.6%
5.3%
1.7%
1.3%
0.6%
0.4%
0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0%
Labour Protest
Community Protest
Other
Crime related protest
Education protest
Party political protest
Transport issues
Customary
Xenophobia
45
highlights that protest is not solely an urban phenomenon. Protests in which the main
focus was xenophobia accounted for 0.4% of the estimated PRPs. This figure is very
low, showing that few protests are primarily motivated by xenophobia. In Section 6.5
we consider evidence of xenophobia in protests that did not have this has its focus.
Figure 7 provides a breakdown of PRPs by focus and „eventuality‟, that is,
„crowd (peaceful)‟ and „crowd (unrest)‟. Again, we stress that „unrest‟ should not be
equated with „violent‟, and is better understood as indicating police intervention (see
Section 2.3 and Report #1). The majority of PRPs categorised by IRIS as „peaceful‟,
therefore involving no intervention (push backs, rubber bullets etc.), were classified
by us as „labour‟ (50.2%). In contrast, the most common „unrest‟ PRPs were
community protests, 46.0% of the total. Education protests also figure more
prominently as „unrest‟ than „peaceful‟. Many of these PRPs, often undertaken by
learners or students, use repertoires similar to those employed in community
protests (such as road barricades and other forms of disruption). On the other hand,
crime-related protests, which frequently include pickets outside courts or police
station, figure more strongly as „peaceful‟ than „unrest‟ incidents.
Figure 7. Percentage of PRPs by protest focus and eventuality, 1997-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
5.3 Analysing labour and community protests
As the analysis above demonstrates, labour and community protests make up more
than two-thirds, 68.1%, of estimated PRPs. Of the remaining PRPs, leaving aside
those classified as „other‟, the further six foci accounted for only 18.9% of the total.
The rest of this section focuses on labour and community events, the most
numerous but also the most politically significant of the protests.
0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0%
Labour Protest
Community Protest
Other
Crime related protest
Education protest
Party political protest
Transport issues
Customary
Xenophobia
Unrest Peaceful
46
Figure 8 shows the estimated number of labour and community PRPs. The
highest number of estimated labour PRPs occurred in 2006, with an estimated 3,000
protests recorded within IRIS. This appears to contradict statistics for number of
strike days, which show 2.9 million in 2006 compared to 12.9 million in 2007 (the
year of a major public sector workers‟ dispute) (Ceruti 2012: 103). The explanation
for this difference is that PRPs record protests and if, for the sake of argument, there
is one picket at each workplace, industries with small workplaces would be „over-
represented‟ relative to number of strike days. Moreover, in some industries, workers
prefer to gather for a single city-centre march than to hold workplace pickets, and in
other industries there might be no pickets, or small pickets not recorded on IRIS. All
this affects the tally of PRPs. In the specific case raised here, many of the 2006
labour PRPs were associated with a nationwide strike in retail as well as a major
strike in the transport sector. We should also keep in mind the problem with the
record of crowd incidents, hence PRPs, for the years 2007-2009.
None of this invalidates the value of PRP data for study of labour action. On
the contrary, for the labour analyst it is a useful supplement to strike data, providing
an indication of degrees of rank-and-file participation, with the notes giving details
about particular workplaces absent from published strike statistics. For us, the IRIS
dataset makes it possible to contrast labour and community protests, and it
highlighted a far greater level of labour action than we anticipated. Probably, labour
protests are less visible in the media than community protests.
Figure 8. Number of estimated police-recorded community and
labour protests, 1997-2013 (with trend lines)
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
1997 1998 19992000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Community Protests Labour Protests
47
5.3.1 Labour protests
Figures 9 and 10 show numbers of labour protests for the two different periods
identified above, 1997-2004 and 2005-2013. In the first period, the general trend was
slightly downwards, with an approximate 40% decline in the number of estimated
PRPs between 1997 and 2004. From 2004 the trend was reversed, though we
caution against reading too much into this given the problem with the 2006-2009
data.
Figure 9. Estimated number of labour PRPs, 1997-2004 (with trend line)
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
Figure 10. Estimated number of labour PRPs, 2004-2013 (with trend line)
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
48
5.3.2 Community protests
Community PRPs are the second most frequent. The numbers of these per annum is
shown in Figures 11 and 12, which cover the same periods as before. For 1997-
2004, the decline was similar to that for labour PRPs, an 44% between the end
dates. For the second period, there was, again, an upward trend, but this time it was
much more distinct. Here we are less concerned about the 2007-2009 problem
because we have MRP data that reveals a similar phenomenon (see below). In
2013, there was approximately 133% more PRPs than in 2004.
Figure 11. Estimated number of community PRPs, 1997-2004 (with trend line)
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
Figure 12. Estimated number of community PRPs, 2004-2013 (with trend line)
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
49
5.4 Estimated number of labour and community protests per day
Figure 13 provides an estimate of the number of labour and community PRPs per
day by year. The graph reflects the finding that labour PRPs have been more than
twice as numerous as community PRPs. They averaged over five per day, compared
to just over two per day for community protests.
Figure 13. Estimated number of labour and community
PRPs per day by year, 1997-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
5.5 Geographical distribution of labour and community PRPs
Figure 14 provides an analysis of the distribution of labour and community PRPs by
province. As with other provincial data this poses more questions than answers, and
our interpretation here is aimed at opening debate. Gauteng accounts for the
greatest share of community PRPs and labour PRPs, 19.2% and 21.8% respectively.
The North West, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga all have a greater percentage
share of community PRPs than labour PRPs with the North West accounting for the
second highest share of community PRPs, 15.9%.
Table 9 analyses the data by providing the estimated number of PRPs per
100,000 people by province for the protest foci labour and community. The Northern
Cape had the highest number of labour PRPs per 100,000 people and KwaZulu-
Natal the lowest. The Northern Cape also had the highest number of community
PRPs per 100,000 people followed by the North West, and Limpopo the lowest.
0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
6.0
7.0
8.0
9.0
Community Protests Labour Protests
50
Figure 14. Distribution of labour and community PRPs, by province,
in percentages, 1997-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
Table 9. Estimated number of labour and community PRPs
per 100,000 people, by province, 1997-2013
Estimated number of PRPs per 100,000
Labour Community
Eastern Cape 56 24
Free State 140 62
Gauteng 70 30
KwaZulu-Natal 20 16
Limpopo 26 14
Mpumalanga 72 43
Northern Cape 272 90
North West 105 68
Western Cape 86 32
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
5.6 Comparing community PRPs with media-reported protests
Given that so much of what is known about the frequency of community protests is
based on media reports, it is valuable to compare community PRPs with media-
reported protests (MRPs). As we have seen, despite some under-recording, PRPs
are a fairly reliable indicator of the total number of protests. The value of analysing
MRPs is enhanced if we know the extent to which they capture total community
protests. This can also assist us in discerning media bias in reporting protests, and
then the way this is carried over into analysis of media reports. For instance, do the
0.0% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 20.0% 25.0%
Gauteng
North West
Free State
Eastern Cape
Western Cape
KwaZulu Natal
Mpumalanga
Northern Cape
Limpopo
Labour Community
51
print and online media (the source of our MRPs) give a false impression of the
violence of community protests because violent protests are more newsworthy? This
is a specific question we address later.
Here, we look at numbers of community PRPs compared with numbers of
MRPs captured on our Rebellion of the Poor database. It should be remembered
that this database draws on reports in a very wide range of print and online media,
and is the largest and most extensive database of its kind. Data from the two
sources is comparable, because in both cases we defined a „community protest‟ in
terms of mobilisation by a geographically defined community, rather than according
to specific demands raised. Our estimates of the frequency of community PRPs is
based on 701 community protests we found in the representative sample of 2,314
protests.
We can begin the process of comparing community PRPs and MRPs by
looking at Figure 15 which depicts total numbers. This is limited to the period from
2005, because our database does not go back further than the middle of 2004. In
terms of total numbers, for the period 2005-13, we estimate there were about 8,693
community PRPs and, for the same years, we have 2,014 MRPs on our database.
The former outnumber the latter by about 4 to 1. Putting it another way, the print and
online media reports less than 1 in 4 community protests. We would not expect the
press to cover all protests, but it is important to know what kind of protests they are
likely to cover. In Section 6.4 we return to this problem by comparing PRPs and
MRPs in relation to „violence‟. Closer analysis by location and paper could enable us
to compare the extent to which the various titles are reporting protests in their region.
Figure 15. MRPs compared with estimated community PRPs,
2005-13 (with trend lines)
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Police-reported community protests
Media-reported community protests
52
Looking at the trend lines in Figure 15, and comparing the left and right of the
graph, we can see similarities in the trends for both PRPs and MRPs, with both
recording substantial increases in the numbers of protests recorded. The media
missed quite a high proportion of the 2006 protests, and re-organisation of public
order policing, encountered many times before, is implicated in the decline in PRPs
in 2007 and 2008. But from 2009 the percentage changes are broadly similar for
estimated community PRPs and MRPs. So, while MRPs cannot be used as an
indicator of total protests, something we always recognised, they do reflect the
direction of variation in the number of total protests year on year.
5.7 Summary
The use of police-recorded „motives‟ cannot provide an accurate analysis of what
protests have been about. Determining the foci of protests requires a reading of
incident „notes‟.
Labour protests account for slightly under half of total estimated PRPs, and
community protests make up a little less a quarter.
The average number of labour protests to have occurred per day between 1997
and 2013 was about five. The average number of community protests to have
occurred per day between 1997 and 2013 was just over two.
Labour protests are more likely than community protests to be classified as
„peaceful‟, involving no police intervention, while community protests are more
likely than labour protests to be classified as „unrest‟, involving police
intervention.
The Northern Cape had the highest number of labour and community PRPs per
100,000 people. The Free State had the second highest number of labour PRPs
per 100,000 people and the North West the second highest number of community
PRPs per 100,000 people.
Over the full period, there has been an upward trend in both labour and
community protests. But when we divide this period in two, 1997-2004 and 2004-
2013, for community PRPs there was slight decline in frequency in the earlier
period, followed by a sharp increase in the years that followed.
By comparing community PRPs and MRPs evidence suggests that print and
online news data can be used as a rough indicator of trends in the number of
community protests, but over the years 2005-13 the media reported less than a
quarter of all protests.
53
6. Disorder and xenophobia in police-recorded protests
As we demonstrated in Report #1, the classification of incidents as either „unrest‟ or
„peaceful‟ by IRIS is determined by whether or not police „intervened‟, and should not
be conflated with violence and non-violence. In order to provide an analysis that
takes account of violence in protest it was necessary to initiate a new approach. We
have developed the concepts „orderly‟, „disruptive‟ and „violent‟, and justification for
this and the related definitions, can be found in Section 2.3. A critical element of our
approach is to break with the binary violent/peaceful by introducing the concept
„disruptive‟. Disruptive protests are regarded as disorderly, like violent protests, but
peaceful, like orderly protests. We link this form of action with the tradition of civil
disobedience and non-violent direct action, and it can be regarded as a protest
equivalent of strikes, which disrupt production. A common example of disruptive
protests is blockading a road using rocks, burning tyres and so forth.
6.1 Estimating orderly, disruptive and violent police-recorded
protests
Figure 16 shows that for all PRPs estimated to have occurred between 1997 and
2013, 80% should be regarded as orderly, 10% as disruptive and only 10% as
violent. This, we suggest, provides a very different impression of protests than that
conveyed in the media, which tends to emphasise violence.
Figure 16. PRPs categorised as orderly, disruptive and violent, 1997-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
Figures 17 and 18 provide an analysis of PRPs according to IRIS‟s eventuality
categories, that is, as crowd (peaceful) or crowd (unrest). As Figure 17 shows, 93%
of protests classified by the police as „peaceful‟ (i.e. requiring no police intervention)
were orderly while 6% were disruptive and 1% violent. Figure 19 shows that of those
80%
10%
10%
Orderly Violent Disruptive
54
classified as „unrest‟ by the police, 12% were orderly, 36% were disruptive and only
52% were actually violent. It is worth adding that „violent‟ does not necessarily imply
violence by protesters, it could be violence by the police, or by both (see Section
2.3). In analysing protests classified as „unrest‟ by the police, the importance of
identifying „disruptive‟ protests is highlighted, with over a third of the PRPs falling
under this heading.
Figure 17. PRPs categorised as orderly, disruptive and violent within
IRIS‟s crowd (peaceful) eventuality, 1997-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
Figure 18. PRPs categorised as orderly, disruptive and violent within
IRIS‟s crowd (unrest) eventuality, 1997-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
93%
1% 6%
Orderly Violent Disruptive
12%
52%
36%
Orderly Violent Disruptive
55
6.2 Estimating orderly and disorderly PRPs by year
While it is important to note that between 1997 and 2013 the vast majority of PRPs
were orderly, it is equally salient to understand how the estimated numbers of
orderly, disruptive and violent PRPs has been changing through time. In the
following analysis the categories of disruptive and violent have been combined and
are referred to as „disorderly‟. This helps us assess the extent to which people are
breaking with an orderly approach to protest, and becoming more „rebellious‟. While
we have combined the categories of disruptive and violent we still argue that
distinguishing disruptive acts from violent ones is crucial for a nuanced account.
As Figure 19 shows, while orderly protests predominate throughout the
period, there has been an increase in the number of disorderly protests, particularly
since 2004. This general trend towards disorderly protests is highlighted in Figure
20, which compares the percentages of PRPs classified as orderly or disorderly. In
relative as well as actual terms, 2012 was the most disorderly year, with about one in
three PRPs disorderly, compared with one in five for the period as a whole. Again
there are two halves to the story; first a decline in the proportion of protests classified
as disorderly and then a rise. This time the break is in 2003 rather then 2004, but
mainly because of a dip in the number of orderly protests in 2004.
Figures 19. Estimated numbers of orderly and disorderly PRPs by year, 1997-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
Orderly Disorderly
56
Figure 20. Percentage of PRPs categorised as orderly and disorderly by year,
1997-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
6.3 Orderly and disorderly labour and community PRPs
Figure 21 presents the estimated number of labour PRPs recorded as orderly or
disorderly. It shows that the vast majority were orderly. This is in marked contrast to
the position with community PRPs, which is reflected in Figure 22. For the period as
a whole, whereas with labour PRPs, 86% of the total were orderly, the figure for
community PRPs was 68%. Moreover, as reflected in Figure 22, for community
PRPs the gap between the number of orderly and disorderly protests closes over
time. Again, 2004/5 appears to have been a turning point. In 2012 and 2013 there
were actually more disorderly than orderly protests. Figures 23 analyses the
estimated number of disruptive and violent between 2005 and 2013. What this
demonstrates is that higher numbers of violent community PRPs than disruptive
community PRPs were documented between 2005 and 2011. The pattern shifts after
this point with the estimated number of disruptive protests increasing markedly.
Therefore the increase in disorderly protests shown in Figure 22 can be attributed
primarily to an increase in the numbers of disruptive community PRPs.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Total Orderly Total Disorderly
57
Figure 21 Estimated number of orderly and disorderly labour PRPs, 1997-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
Figure 22. Estimated number of orderly and disorderly community PRPs, 1997-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
Orderly Disorderly
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
Orderly Disorderly
58
Figure 23. Estimated number of community PRPs
categorised as disruptive or violent, 2005-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
6.4 Comparing orderly and disorderly MRPs community PRPs
In Section 5.6 we showed that the media reported about a quarter of all community
PRPs, with this proportion being very roughly consistent over the period 2005-13, the
years for which we have both MRP and PRP data. The MRPs are taken from our
Rebellion of the Poor database, which only includes community protests. We now
return to a question posed at that juncture: is there a media bias in favour of
reporting „violent‟ protest? We are able to respond to this issue because we not only
worked with the same definitions of „community protest‟, we also applied the same
definitions of „orderly‟, „disruptive‟ and „violent‟ to both sets of data.
Figure 24 shows the percentage of community PRPs and MRPs categorised
as disorderly (that is, disruptive and violent protests taken together). Figure 25
shows the converse: the percentage of community PRPs and MRPs categorised as
orderly. Over the whole period 2005-13 about 45% of community PRPs were
disorderly and about 71% of MRPs were disorderly. It inevitably follows that 55% of
community PRPs were orderly, as were 28% of MRPs. That is, media „under-
reporting‟ of protests is more marked with orderly than disorderly community
protests. In consequence, it is likely that the public, including politicians, get a false
impression of community protests, assuming that most are disorderly, when, in fact,
this has not been the case (with the exception of 2012 and 2013, for which see the
preceding section). From Figure 24 in particular, it will be seen that media bias
towards reporting disorderly protest has been increasing. While, in 2005, 43% of
community PRPs and 59% of MRPs were disorderly, a difference of 16%, by 2013
the gulf had expanded to, respectively, 54% and 80%, a difference of 26%.
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Violent Disruptive
59
Figure 24. Percentage of community PRPs and MRPs
categorised as disorderly, 2005-13
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
Figure 25. Percentage of community PRPs and MRPs
categorised as orderly, 2005-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
6.5 Xenophobia in protests
In Section 5.2 we reported on the proportion of protests that had xenophobia as its
focus. This was small, less than 1% of all protests, with a high proportion occurring in
2008, when about 70 people were killed in anti-foreigner violence. Here we broaden
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Disorderly MRPs Disorderly PRPs
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Orderly MRPs Orderly PRPs
60
our concern. We wanted to know the proportion of PRPs that revealed any evidence
of xenophobia. The results are presented in Figure 26.
The graph shows that for the vast majority of PRPs, there is no evidence of
xenophobia. However we can also see that in recent years there has been a rise in
the proportion of protests in which xenophobia was present. It is possible that some
of the increase was a consequence of greater awareness within public order
policing, because we know that, as a consequence of concerns within government,
IRIS now manually lists all incidents where xenophobia is detected. However, our
database of MRPs also includes a growing number of protests that contain an
element of xenophobia, so it is likely that this is increasingly a problem.
In our view it is important to keep a balance between not ignoring xenophobia
and not exaggerating the extent to which it is motivating or shaping protests. Most
protests are about labour and community matters, and xenophobia is only present in
a small minority.
Figure 26. Estimated percentage of PRPs with evidence of xenophobia, 1997-2013
Source: South African Research Chair in Social Change
6.5 Summary
The vast majority of PRPs were orderly. We estimate that between 1997 and
2013 only about 20% were disorderly.
From 2004 there was a marked increase in the number of disorderly PRPs, and
after 2003 the proportion of PRPs that were disorderly began to rise.
About 86% of labour PRPs were categorised as orderly, but the figure for
community PRPs was lower, 68%.
0.0%
0.5%
1.0%
1.5%
2.0%
2.5%
3.0%
3.5%
4.0%
4.5%
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
61
From 2004 there was a sharp upward trend in the proportion of community PRPs
categorised as disorderly, with this peaking in 2012 and 2013 when most
community PRPs were disorderly.
The print media is more likely to report disorderly than orderly protests, with this
probably impacting on public perceptions of protests; and the problem has
worsened in recent years.
There is evidence of xenophobia in just a small percentage of PRPs. However,
since 2006 there has been a rising trend, and this should be a matter for concern.
62
7. Conclusion
This report offers an analysis of police-recorded protests (PRPs) in South Africa. We
define a protest as a popular mobilisation in support of a collective grievance. It
draws on police data for 156,230 crowd incidents that occurred in the years 1997-
2013. Incidents are recorded on a daily basis so a protest lasting five days would be
counted as five PRPs. It was only possible to distinguish PRPs from other incidents
because police data include a separate open-ended note for each incident recorded,
and our assessments are based on a close reading of these notes.
Our estimates of the number of PRPs is based on a random sample of 4,520
crowd incidents which identified a total of 2,314 PRPs. Extrapolating from the
sample, about 51% of crowd incidents were PRPs. Making allowances for a
recognised undercount we claim it is highly unlikely there were less than 71,000
protests in South Africa between 1997 and 2013. The highest numbers of PRPs was
in 2012, when they averaged about 14 per day, the lowest was in 2004, when there
were about 7 per day. Across the period there was an upward trend in the number of
protests, but once population growth is taken into account the increase was
negligible. The number of PRPs per capita was greatest in Northern Cape and North
West and lowest in KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo.
Once PRPs were identified the sample was coded into one of nine protest
focus categories. The most common focus was „labour‟, accounting for nearly half of
all PRPs; second was „community‟, representing nearly a quarter of PRPs. While
there was an upward trend across the period for both these kinds of PRPs, it was
more marked for the community PRPs. With the latter, there was actually a slight
decline in the period to 2004, followed by a sharp increase, peaking in 2012.
Gauteng, the most populous province, had the most community PRPs and the most
labour PRPs. However, Northern Cape had the most labour PRPs and the most
community PRPs per capita, and North West and Free State were in the top three for
both measures. South Africa‟s three most rural provinces - KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo
and Eastern Cape - had the fewest PRPs per capita, and Gauteng, Western Cape
and Mpumalanga were in the middle for both labour PRPs per capita and community
PRPs per capita.
We also distinguished between violent, disruptive and orderly protests. Only
10% of all protests were violent, that is, with evidence of damage to property or injury
to person. Another 10% were „disruptive‟, that is, they challenged established order,
commonly by blocking traffic, but without evidence of violence. A large majority, 80%
were orderly, typically marches and pickets often organised with agreement of the
police but not in every case. Eighty-six percent of labour PRPs were orderly, but the
figure for community PRPs was lower at 68%. However, there was a steady rise in
the proportion of labour and community PRPs that was disorderly (i.e. either violent
or disruptive). With community PRPs, there was, again, a turning point after 2004,
with a mild downward trend in disorderliness to that date and a sharp increase in
63
disorderliness from that date, with more disorderly than orderly protests in 2012 and
2013.
Xenophobia provided a focus for less 1% of PRPs, and evidence of
xenophobia in protests with other foci was less than 2% of PRPs. In both cases,
2008 stands out as an exceptional year. However, since 2009 there has been a
slight upwards trend in the proportion of PRPs containing evidence of xenophobia. In
our view it is important to keep a balance between not ignoring xenophobia and not
exaggerating the extent to which it is motivating or shaping protests. Most protests
are about labour and community matters, and xenophobia is only present in a small
minority.
We were able to compare data for PRPs with statistics for media-reported
protests (MRPs) captured in our Rebellion of the Poor database. The MRPs are all
community protests, and the first full-year is 2005. Community PRPs outnumber
MRPs by more than 4 to 1. For the period 2005-13 about 25% of community PRPs
was classified as disorderly but the figure for MRPs was 71%. That is, the media
give a false impression of community protests by under-reporting orderly protests.
Popular protest in South Africa has been characterised by a persistently high
level of labour action and, especially from 2004, the emergence of a rebellion of the
poor, with the latter reflected in the increasing number and growing disorderliness of
community protests.
64
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Appendices
Appendix 1. Rebuttal to SAPS statement
-------- Original message --------
Subject: 2015-05-30 Media Release: Researchers from UJ‟s Social
Change Research Unit challenge allegations made by the SAPS
about the credibility of their recent research report
From: "Esterhuizen, Herman" <[email protected]>
To: "Esterhuizen, Herman" <[email protected]>
CC: "Theron, An-Li" <[email protected]>,"Damianov, Milcho"
ATTENTION: News editors
Media Release
For immediate release
Saturday, 30 May 2015
Researchers from UJ’s Social Change Research Unit challenge allegations
made by the SAPS about the credibility of their recent research report
The following is a statement by Prof Peter Alexander, South African Research Chair
(SHARChi) in Social Change, Dr Carin Runciman and Ms Boitumelo Maruping
challenging allegations made by the SAPS about the credibility of their recent
research report, South African Police Service (SAPS) Crowd Incidents: A Preliminary
Analysis.
Rebuttal of allegations by SAPS
We are disturbed by the response of SAPS to our analysis of data newly released by
SAPS Incident Registration Information System (IRIS) on crowd management
incidents. We refute their distortion of analysis found in our report. Our report can be
downloaded from: bit.ly/1JVgQri.
See SAPS media statement, issued on 28 May 2015.
Here we provide a point by point rejection of claims made by SAPS.
1) SAPS says: South African Police Service (SAPS) has noted media reports
regarding a study conducted by the University of Johannesburg about the Public
Order Policing Unit and more specifically, the R3,3 billion budget proposal submitted
to the Portfolio Committee on Police.
Our response: Our report was not about Public Order Policing (POP) but about the
68
SAPS Incident Registration Information System (IRIS) and, specifically, mis-readings
of data it generates.
2) SAPS says: It is clear that this deliberate misinterpretation of facts supports the
view held by some of the researchers that the police should not be involved in the
management of protests. The information was clearly manipulated in order to suit
this view
Our response: This is an unfounded allegation by the SAPS. Our report is based
upon analysis of over 150,000 crowd incidents supplied by the SAPS. We express
gratitude to the SAPS for making this data available. The report contains extensive
appendices and a description of the methodology that we used. At no point in either
our media briefing (held on 27 May) or in the report did we say police should not be
involved in the management of protests.
3) SAPS says: On 29 August 2014, SAPS management briefed the [Portfolio]
Committee [on Police] on the "state of Public Order Policing and the plans to
enhance Public Order Policing".
Our response: The report makes no mention of a meeting on this date, but it does
highlight misleading comments made by Lt. General Elias Mawela, the divisional
commissioner responsible for Public Order Policing, on 3 September 2014.
4) SAPS says: SAPS therefore did not conflate “incidents” and “protests”.
Our response: We quoted a statement from Lt. General Mawela to the portfolio
committee, where he says as follows: „Violent protest action escalated from 1,226 in
2011/12, and then in 2012/13 it is 1,882, and in the last financial year [2013/14] it
escalated to 1,907.‟ The figures he gives are taken from SAPS‟s Annual Reports
where it is clearly stated that these are numbers for „unrest-related incidents‟. So
there is conflation of „violent protest action‟ and „unrest‟. Appendix 4 of our report
contains many cases of „crowd (unrest) incidents‟ (a concept with the same, or
closely similar meaning to „unrest-related incidents‟). Many of these were not violent
protests, as in this example below.
ON 2010-03-20 CAPT… OF POP-DURBAN AND OTHER MEMBERS OF POP
MONITORED THE SOCCER MATCH AT MOSES MABIDA STADIUM IN DURBAN
BETWEEN AMAZULU F.C AND MARITZBURG UNITED. THE GATES OPENED AT
ABOUT 11:00 AND THE MATCH STATED AT ABOUT 15:00. +-7010 PEOPLE
ATTENDED. AT 15:50 CAPT… ARRESTED THE FOLLOWING PERSONS FOR
PUBLIC DISTURBANCE AT THE NORTH ENTRANCE TURNISTILE. AS PER
DURBAN CENTRAL CAS 1322/03/2010. 1. MR… 28YRS SAP 14-143/03/2010 2.
MR… 30YRS SAP 14-940/03/2010 THE MATCH WAS FINSHED AT 17:00. THE
SCORE ; AMAZULU-1 MARITZBURG UNITED -0 ALL IN ORDER. PEOPLE
69
DISPERSE PEACEFULLY. NO INCIDENT REPORTED. I/R-02A/R - 30 – 31 O/B -
1420/03/2010 [20/03/2010, Kwa-Zulu Natal]
5) SAPS says: SAPS management therefore takes strong exception to being
accused of lying to MPs.
Our response: We make no such accusation in the report. However, we did say that
the public and parliament had been misled and we stand by this. It is for Lt. General
Mawela and the Portfolio Committee to say whether he was lying. Perhaps he just
misspoke or was misinformed, but his assessment was reported in the media and
repeated by politicians, and not, to the best of our knowledge, corrected.
6) SAPS says: Violent incidents are not defined by “police intervention”, but by the
conduct of participants that violate or infringe upon the rights of others.
Our response: We did not say that violent incidents are defined by police
intervention. However, we explained that the distinction between „crowd (peaceful)‟
and „crowd (unrest)‟ was determined by whether or not there had been police
intervention. Here our understanding came directly from communication with a senior
officer in SAPS. In the example above there is evidence of intervention in that two
people were arrested but, there is no indication of a violent protest having occurred.
7) SAPS says: In other words “incidents” include all protest actions, peaceful
gatherings and pure unrest incidents that cannot be justified as crowd management
incidents like taxi violence, gang violence, ethnic and racial violence,
demonstrations, political meetings, road barricades and revenge attacks by a small
group of people.
Our response: IRIS distinguishes between crowd (peaceful) and crowd (unrest)
incidents. For each incident IRIS assigns a „motive‟, and these include „gang conflict‟,
„taxi dispute‟ and „racial conflict‟. Their statement contradicts what IRIS records
show.
Conclusion
We were not concerned to attack the police but rather to underscore
misrepresentation of their own statistics. The key point is that „incidents‟ cannot be
equated with „protest‟ and „unrest‟ is not the same as „violent‟.
We were further concerned to draw this matter to the public‟s attention because
SAPS‟s misleading use of its own statistics is likely to have an impact on the public‟s
perception of a mammoth increase in spending on Public Order Policing. The
increase, by R3.3 billion from R2.7 billion, will fund an almost doubling of the number
of Public Order Police and additional water cannon and pyrotechnics.
70
From our broader research we know that the single most important issue propelling
community protests is housing - both the sub-standard quality of much public
housing and an absolute lack of sufficient dwellings. Assuming that an RDP house
costs R150,000, the extra R3.3 billion spent on Public Order Policing would be
enough to build more than 200,000 RDP houses, roughly tripling the number
completed in recent years.
We wish to encourage public debate about how government should best respond to
community protests. We have written to SAPS in order to clarify any
misunderstandings that may have arisen. We hope that they will read the full report
and provide a considered response in the near future.
ends
Note to the Editor/Journalist/Producer:
Prof Peter Alexander, SHARChi in Social Change is available for interviews on
request. He can be contacted, directly, on 082 332 8802.
Issued by:
Herman Esterhuizen
Coordinator: Media Relations
University of Johannesburg
Tel: +27 11 559-6653
Cell: + 27 72 129 0777
Email: [email protected]
71
Appendix 2. Examples of protest foci
Protest focus Peaceful/Unrest Examples
Community Peaceful ON 1999-08-10 AT ABOUT 10:00 INSP….. AND MEMBERS OF HIS RELIEF MONITORED THE MARCH
OF PEOPLE FROM TAFELKOP TO MOTETEMA WATER AFFAIRS OFFICES.+-400 PEOPLE
ATTENDED,COMPLAINING OF SHOTAGE OF WATER AT THEIR AREA.THE MEMORANDUM WAS
HANDED BY MR…. AND RECEIVED BY HEAD OF WATER NEBO DISTRICT MR…...THE
MEMORANDUM READ AS FOLLOWS.WE THE PEOPLE OF TAFELKOP DEMAND WATER IN OUR
AREA AS A MATTER OF URGENCY,THE RESIGNATION OF MR….. AND MR…..FROM WATER
AFFAIRS AS THEY DO NOT HAVE THE INTEREST OF THE COMMUNITY HEART OVER AND ABOVE
WE DEMAND A REPLY TO OUR MEMORANDUM WITHIN 7 DAYS;1999-08-17 AND FAILURE TO
THAT WILL RESULT IN A MASS ACTION
(Limpopo, 1999/08/10).
Unrest ON 1997-08-27 MEMBERS OF POPS PIETERSBURG PERFORMED DUTY AT LEBOWAKGOMO (GA-
MPHAHLELE WERE PROBLEM OF ELECTRICITY.THE VILLAGERS ARE DEMANDING THAT THEIR
PLACE BE INSTALED WITH ELECTRICITY.AS ARESULT THEY DAMAGED THE POLES OF
ELECTRICITY INSTALLED AT A NEARBY PLACE WITH FIRE.THEY FURTHER CUT OFF THE LINES
OF ELECTRIC SUPPLYING OTHER PLACES.THE POLICE (POPS) ARRESTED TWO PEOPLE FOR
MALICIOS DAMAGE TO PROPERTY AS PER LEBOWAKGOMO CR 37/8/97.
(Limpopo, 1997/08/27).
Labour Peaceful ON WEDNESDAY 2010-08-25 AT ABOUT 07:38 MEMBERS OF POP KLERKSDORP POP REPORTED
ON DUTY AT TSHEPONG HOSPITAL TO MONITOR NEHAWU STRIKE,±40 MEMBERS GATHERED
INFRONT OF TSHEPONG SINGING. AT ABOUT 09:42 W/O MOKONE REPORTED THAT THE
PARTICIPANTS WANT TO GO BACK TO WORK AND MS…. REFUSED TO LET THEM IN AS THEY
ARE NOT WEARING THEIR UNIFORM SO THEY AGREED TO WORK TOMORROW MORE INFOR TO
FOLLOW
72
Protest focus Peaceful/Unrest Examples
(North West, 2010/08/25)
Unrest INSP….. AND 2 MEMBERS MONITORED THE STRIKE OF ABOUT 90 SAPPI SAWMILL WORKERS AT
CLAN SYNDICATE CRAMOND. THE REASON FOR THE STRIKE WAS LABOUR DISPUTE AND
SALARY INCREMENT. CAPT…. OF CRAMOND SAPS ARRIVED AND INFORMED INSP….. THAT THE
AREA IS QUIET AND NO COMPLAINTS. AT ABOUT 13:00 CRAMOND SAPS WERE CALLED BY
COMPLAINANT THAT THE STRIKERS WERE BARRICADING THE MAIN ENTRANCE,THE TRUCK
DRIVERS WERE INTIMIDATED BUT THE DRIVERS WERE INFORMED BY THE STRIKERS THAT
THEY ARE NOT INTIMIDATING THEM BUT THEY NEED THEIR SUPPORT IN THE
STRIKE.CRAMOND SAPS MEMBERS ARE MONITORING THE SITUATION ESCORTING THE
TRUCKS TO AND FRO THE PLANT.SUPT…. INFORMED.
(KwaZulu Natal, 2001/07/30).
Education Peaceful OP 2000-03-02 OM 14:40 RAPPORTEER N8F
DAT DAAR 'ONGEVEER 50 PERSONE WAS,
WAT 'N PROTES OPTOG GEHOU HET TE UPE
UNIVERSITEITS KAMPUS. DIE LEDE HET VAN
DIE MENASIE NA DIE BIBLIOTEEK BEWEEG.
HULLE IS ONTEVREDE OOR DIE HOE GELDE
EN DIE STUDENTE WAT GESKORS IS OMDAT
HULLE NIE KAN BETAAL NIE. DIE SRS HET MET
DIE LEDE GEPRAAT EN LEDE IS UITEEN.DIE
POLISIE SE HULP WAS NIE BENODIG NIE.
(Eastern Cape, 2000/03/02) [ ON 2003-03-02 at
14:40 N8F REPORTED THAT THERE WERE
ABOUT 50 PEOPLE WHO HAD A PROTEST AT
UPE UNIVERSITY CAMPUS. THE MEMBERS
WERE ADVISED TO MOVE TOWARDS THE
LIBRARY. THEY ARE UNHAPPY ABOUT HIGH
TUITION AND THE STUDENTS WHO WERE
SUSPENDED BECAUSE THEY COULD NOT
PAY. THE SRC SPOKE TO THE MEMBERS AND
MEMBERS ARE SET. THE POLICE.S HELP WAS
NOT NECESSARY.]
Unrest ON 2004-05-06 AT APPROXIMATETLY 09:00 THERE WERE ABOUT 150 STUDENTS WHO WERE
TOYITOYING ON THE MANCHESTER ROAD IN CAMBRIDGE,BURNING TYRES,BLOKING THE
73
Protest focus Peaceful/Unrest Examples
ROAD SINGING TOYITOYI SONGS AND OBSTRUCTING THE VEHIACLES ON THE ROAD.AND
THEY WERE DEMANDING (A) ACCOMODATION.(B) SHORTAGE OF COMPUTER LAB.(C)
CONDEMING CRIME RATE WHEN STUDENTS HAVE TO ATTEND AND LEAVE ROUTES AND THE
MANAGEMENT DOES NOT ADRESS THE ISSUE,AT THE EASTERN CAPE TECHNIKON. AT ABOUT
11:00 ACCU MEMBERS ARRESTED 21 STUDENTS AT THE MANCHESTER ROAD BECOUSE THEY
WERE VIOLENT AND DISORGANISED.AND THEY WERE CHARGED FOR PUBLIC VIOLENCE ACT
SAP 10 NO/289/05/2004.AR NO/16/05/2004.AND THE SITUATION WAS NORMALISED BY THE
POLICE AND NO FUTHER INCIDENTS HAS BEEN REPORTED.THE CASE NO CAS 149/05/2004,SAP
14 NO FROM 117 TO 137/05/2004.
(Eastern Cape, 2004/05/06).
Crime-related Peaceful ON 2000-01-14 HAD +-100 ANC SUPPOTERS FROM "F"SECTION MARCH FROM "F"SECTION TO
THE MAGISTRATE COURT TO HAND OVER THEIR MEMORANDUM TO THE CHIEF MAGISTRATE
MR….THE RESIDENT COMPLAINT ABOUT THE SUSPECT WHO RAPE CHILDREN AND WOMEN IN
THEIR SECTION AND WHEN THEY HAD BEEN ARRESTED THEY GET BAIL EASILY.THEY DEMAND
THAT THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE SHOULD TAKE HARD STEPS AGAINST THE CULPRITS OF
WOMEN AND CHILDREN ABUSE.THE CONVENOR MR….. HANDED OVER THE MEMORANDUM TO
THE CHIEF MAGISTRATE AND DEMANDED AN ANSWER WITHIN 21 DAYS.THE MARCH WAS
MANAGE BY 28 POP MEMBERS UNDER THE COMMAND OF CAPTAIN…...
(Free State, 2000/01/14).
Unrest ON 2000-10-16 FROM 16:30 TO 18:40 ABOUT 500 KAMEELRIVIER B CUMMUNITY GATHERED AT
THE CLINIC.THEY ALLEGED THAT ONE THE NURSES…….WAS INVOLVED WITH CRIMINALS AND
MUST COME TO THE COMMUNITY (KANGAROO COURT) TO EXPLAINED HER INVOLVEMENT AND
WHERE ARE THE CRIMINALS(SUSPECTS).CAPT…… TOLD THEM THAT IT WAS NOT PROCEDURE
TO INTEROGATE PEOPLE AND THE SAID NURSE WAS PREPARED TO MOVE OUT OF THE CLINIC
AND KAMEELRIVIER.THE PEOPLE STARTED TO BE VIOLENT AND THROWING STONES AT THE
74
Protest focus Peaceful/Unrest Examples
POLICE WHILE THEY WERE PROTECTING THE NURSE.A WINDSCRE
EN OF A POLICE M/VEHICLE WAS BROKEN.THE POLICE FIRED TWELF(12) RUBBER BULLEYS
AND FOUR(04) CANNISTERS TEARGAS.ONE SUSPECT…..WAS ARRESTED FOR MALICIOUS
DAMAGE TO PROPERTY,PUBLIC VIOLENCE AND RESISTING ARREST…… CR 161/10/2000 AND
SAP 14/163/10/2000.
(Mpumalanga, 2000/10/16).
Transport issues Peaceful ON 2004-03-18 AT ABOUT 18:00 ACCU GIYANI(MOPANI) MONITORED CROWD PEACEFUL
DURING BOYCOTT ACTION BY COMMUTORES COMPLAINING ABOUT THE LATE COMMING OF
BUSES TO AND FROM WORK PLACE.COMMUTERS SATISFIED AFTER NEGOTIATION AND THEY
DESPERSSED PEACEFULY. IRIS.434481.
(Limpopo, 2004/03/18).
Unrest MEMBERS OFVRYBURG POPS(6) AND(6) VRYBURG VISPOL WERE AT GANYESA ASSISTING (6)
KLERKSDORP SHIRIFFES WHO CAME TO COLLECT +-20 UNPAID COMBI'S.TAXI'S OWNERS AND
DRIVERS (40) WITH PANGAS AND KNOBKERIES INTEND BEAT AND BURN THEIR BAKKIES AND
SHERIFF'S THEMSELF.POLICE PROTECTED THEM SAFELY TO SAFETY AND STOP REPOSSES
PROCCES ESCORTED THEM +-100 KM TO DALAYREYVILLE AS THEY FOLLOWED THEM WITH
INTENTION OF HARMING THEM.
(North West, 2011/05/24).
Party political Peaceful ON 2007-06-21 AT 10:00 EIGHT MEMBERS FROM CCU MTHATHA MONITORED A POLITICAL
MEETING BY THE ANC YOUTH LEAGUE AT THE MTHATHA TOWN HALL, OWEN STREET,
MTHATHA. THE PURPOSE OF THE MEETING WAS TO DEMAND A SPEEDY RESOLUTION OVER
THE ONGOING LEADERSHIP CONFLICT IN THE KSD MUNICIPALITY. THE CONFLICT AROSE WITH
THE APPOINTMENT OF MAYOR……..WHO STANDS AGAINST MR……. THE FIRST MENTIONED IS
PRO MBEKI AND THE OTHER PRO ZUMA. ±200 ANC YOUTH LEAGUE MEMBERS TOOK PART IN
75
Protest focus Peaceful/Unrest Examples
THE MEETING WHICH CONCLUDED PEACEFULLY AT 13:00. AUTHORITY FOR THE GATHERING
WAS GRANTED BY THE KSD MUNICIPALITY ON 2007-06-20 AT 16:00.
CCU MTHATHA SAP10/578/06/2007 REFERS.
(Eastern Cape, 2007/06/21).
Unrest ON 2011-04-18 AT 20:00 ±300 CONCERNED RESIDENTS OF WARD 2 BOCHABELA IN
BLOEMFONTEIN HELD A MEETIN NEAR MR……HOUSE IN BOCHABELA.THE REASON FOR THE
GATHERING IS THAT THE PEOPLE ARE NOT SATISFFIED ABOUT THE ANC ELECTED CANDIDATE
(MR……)THE CROWD SHOWED THEIR DISSASTISFACTION BY BURNING ONE TYRE AROUND
MR…… HOUSE.MEMBERS OF POP HELD NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE GROUP LEADER AND
THERSFTER THEY DISPERSED.
(Free State, 2011/04/18).
Xenophobia Peaceful OP 2008-06-19 OM 07:30 WAS DAAR 'N OPTOG
VANAF MAPENYADINA HALL NA HENRY DE
WET STADION DEUR LEDE VAN COSATU TEEN
XENEPHOBIA. ONGEVEER 150 LEDE HET AAN
DIE OPTOG DEELGENEEM. 'N MEMORANDUM
IS OORHANDIG EN DIE VOLGENDE PERSONE
WAS TEENWOORDIG :LESOTHO MAYOR,
MR…..,…..MAYOR, EXECUTIVE MAYOR OF
TABO POFUTSANYANE, MR……, SECRETARY
OF XHARIEP, MR…….AND PROVINCIAL
SECRETARY…….. DIE MEMORANDUM WAS
OORHANDIG AAN MR….. OM 14:45 HET DIE
OPTOG VERDAAG. DAAR WAS GEEN
VOORVALLE. ALLES WAS VREEDSAAM. (Free
[ON 2008-06-19 AT 07:30 THERE WAS A
PROTEST FROM MAPENYADINA HALL TO
HENRY DE WET STADIUM BY MEMBERS OF
COSATU AGAINST XENOPHOBIA. ABOUT 150
MEMBERS TOOK PART IN THE PROTEST. A
MEMORANDUM IS HANDED OVER AND THE
FOLLOWING PEOPLE ARE PRESENT:
LESOTHO MAYOR, MR…., …….MAYOR,
EXECUTIVE MAYOR OF TABO
POFUTSANYANE……, SECRETARY OF
XHARIEP MR…. AND PROVINCIAL
SECRETARY…. THE MEMORANDUM WAS
HANDED OVER TO MR….AT 14:45 THE
PROTEST DISPERSED. THERE WERE NO
76
Protest focus Peaceful/Unrest Examples
State, 2008/06/19). FATALITIES. ALL WAS PEACEFUL. ((Free State,
2008/06/19).]
Unrest ON 2013-07-25 AT 21:04 LT…….,STATION COMMANDER OF PORT NOLLOTH PHONED W/O
MAASDORP OF POP.UPINGTON FOR ASSITANCE TO A UNREST SITUATION IN SIZAMILE SUBURB
IN PORT NOLLOTH.MEMBERS OF POP.UPINGTON ARE ALREADY DEPLOYED IN THE AREA AND
ASSITS THE STATION MEMBERS WITH THE SITUATION,±30 RESIDENTS OF SIZAMILE GATHERED
IN BOBO STREET.ACCORDING TO VICTIM,MR…….. (NIGERIAN) DRIVING IN BOBO STREET,±10
RESIDENTS ATTACT HIS VEHICLE,REG.NR.CA 280850 BLUE POLO PLAYA, WAS THROWN WITH
STONES AND HIT HIM IN THE FACE.HE SUSTAINED INJURIES ON HIS RIGHT UPPER LIP,CASE
DOCKETS WAS OPENED FOR DAMAGE TO PROPERTY AND ASSUALT.
MEMBERS OF POP. UPINGTON WAS DEPLOYED IN SIZAMILE TO MONITOR THE SITUATION. AT
21:40 W/O MAASDORP REPORTED THAT THE RESIDENTS DISPERSED.
VISPOL MEMBERS WILL PATROL THE AREA. MEMBERS OF POP.UPINGTON ON STRONG
STANDBY.
(Northern Cape, 2013/07/25).
„Customary‟ Peaceful ON 2004-04-20 A GROUP OF TWENTY MEMBERS OF THE MARITE OPPOSSING GROUP ARRIVED
AT CHIEF………PLACE AT THE SANDFORD FARM.THEY DEMANDED THAT CHIEF…….MUST
LEAVE THE PREMISES AS HIS LAND CLAIM DOCUMENTS WERE NULIFIED BY THE LAND CLAIM
BOARD.CHIEF…. PRODUCES DOCUMENTS THAT ALLOWES HIM TO OCCUPY THE LAND.THE
OPPOSSING GROUP WERE THEN INFORMED TO LEAVE THE PREMISE AND TO CONSULT THE
LAND CLAIM BOARD TO RESOLVE THIS ISSUE.NO INCIDENT WAS REPORTED OR
ENCOUNTERED DURING AND AFTER THE INCIDENT AND NO ARREST WAS MADE.
(Mpumalanga, 2004/04/20).
Unrest MEMBERS OF PLATOON 8 WENT TO MECKLENBURG WHERE THERE WAS +=100 PEOPLE WHO
77
Protest focus Peaceful/Unrest Examples
STAGED SITIN,AT KGOSI MAHLEKOANE KRAAL.THEY WERE INTENDING TO REMOVE THE KGOSI
FROM HIS LEADERSHIP POSITION.THEY WERE FROM KGOSI MOHLALA WHO A ARCH RIVA TO
KGOSI……..THEY UNLAWFULLY ENTERED THE KRAAL OF KGOSI……..AND THEY EVEN
INTIMADATE HIM.THE POLICE INTERVENED AND ARRESTED THREE LEADERS FROM THE SAID
GROUP.THEY ARE ………..,……,AND ….. …...ALL WHERE DETAIND AT MECKLENBURG POLICE
STATION AS PER CR06/04/1998.
(Limpopo, 1998/04/05).
Other Peaceful ON 2012-02-23 AT ABOUT 10:50 ±100 PEOPLE GATHERED AT BELGIUM EMBASSY AT 625 LEYDS
STREET MUCKELNEUK PRETORIA.50% MALE AND 50% FEMALE.THEIR REASON FOR PICKETING
IS TO HIGHLIGHT THE ATROCITIES THAT ARE HAPPENNING DAILY IN BELGIUM AND THE
GOVERNMENT DOES NOT INTERVENE.THEY CARRIED THE PLACARDS THAT READ AS
1.VIVA DRC VIVA AFRICA.
2.NO FUNERAL FOR GRIEVING POLITITION.
3.KABILA MUST GO NOW.STOP WOMAN RAPING AND MASS KILLING.EVERYTHING WENT WELL
UNTIL 12:45 WHEN ALL THE PARTICIPANTS DISPERSED PEACEFULLY.THERE WERE NO
INCIDENTS. MEMORANDUM TO BE HANDED OVER.
(Gauteng, 2012/02/23).
Unrest ON SUNDAY 2012-09-16 AT 22:00 CST OKKERS OF SOUTHERN CAPE POP GEORGE
FORCE NUMBER 7023702-6 REPORTS THAT DURING ATTENDING A COMPLAINT AFTER
A SHOOTING INCIDENT AT MARBLE FLATS OTTERY A CROWD PLUS MINUS 40 PEOPLE FORM
AROUND THE NYALA AND START THROWING STONES AT THEM
CST OKKERS WAS HIT BY A STONE ON HIS RIGHT SIDE OF HIS JAW AND WAS SWOLLEN AND
BRUISED. THE MEMBERS RETALIATED AND NOW FURTHER INCIDENTS OCCURED. SUSPECT
WAS UNKNOWN IRIS: 719139
(Western Cape, 2012/0916).
78
Appendix 3. Calculation of police-recorded protests (PRPs), peaceful and unrest
Police-recorded protests, peaceful
Year No of crowd
incidents
Sample
size
Sample as proportion of total
incidents
Number of protests in
sample
Number as % of
sample
Estimated number of
protests
1997 5,323 141 2.6% 76 54% 2,869
1998 8,241 191 2.3% 99 52% 4,272
1999 8,152 179 2.2% 82 46% 3,734
2000 7,128 149 2.1% 71 48% 3,397
2001 7,471 149 2.0% 69 46% 3,460
2002 6,386 129 2.0% 53 41% 2,624
2003 7,035 143 2.0% 59 41% 2,903
2004 8,253 145 1.8% 36 25% 2,049
2005 9,473 215 2.3% 92 43% 4,054
2006 9,981 221 2.2% 101 46% 4,561
2007 6,795 147 2.2% 56 38% 2,589
2008 5,691 120 2.1% 46 38% 2,182
2009 7,872 158 2.0% 53 34% 2,641
2010 10,839 222 2.0% 82 37% 4,004
2011 10,796 200 1.9% 74 37% 3,995
2012 10,158 158 1.6% 65 41% 4,179
2013 11,010 189 1.7% 59 31% 3,437
Totals 140,604 2,856 2.0% 1,173 41% 56,950
79
Police-recorded protests, unrest
Year No of crowd
incidents
Sample
size
Sample as proportion of total
incidents
Number of protests in
sample
Number as % of
sample
Estimated number of
protests
1997 886 114 12.9% 78 68% 606
1998 1,190 159 13.4% 103 65% 771
1999 743 80 10.8% 57 71% 529
2000 711 73 10.3% 43 59% 419
2001 633 66 10.4% 44 67% 422
2002 569 67 11.8% 33 49% 280
2003 535 54 10.1% 29 54% 287
2004 569 57 10.0% 33 58% 329
2005 939 105 11.2% 74 70% 662
2006 857 98 11.4% 62 63% 542
2007 713 86 12.1% 61 71% 506
2008 736 79 10.7% 43 54% 401
2009 887 86 10.8% 77 80% 711
2010 930 109 11.7% 81 74% 691
2011 1,218 124 10.2% 86 69% 845
2012 1,811 149 8.2% 116 78% 1,410
2013 1,699 148 8.7% 121 82% 1,389
Totals 15,626 1,664 10.6% 1,141 69% 10,800
80
Appendix 4. Calculation of Police-recorded protests (PRPs), peaceful and unrest, by protest foci
Police-recorded protests, peaceful, by protest foci
Year Estimated
PRPs
Community
Protest
Labour
Protest
Education
protest
Crime related
protest
Transport
issues
Party political
protest
Xenophobia Customary Other
1997 2,869 717 986 224 493 45 0 0 0 403
1998 4,272 899 2,068 180 450 0 225 0 0 450
1999 3,734 911 1,913 91 137 46 0 0 0 638
2000 3,397 335 909 96 574 48 48 0 0 1,387
2001 3,460 577 1,311 105 629 0 0 0 0 839
2002 2,624 583 1,069 49 194 0 49 0 0 243
2003 2,903 570 1,296 104 259 0 52 0 0 570
2004 2,049 398 740 114 171 0 171 0 115 114
2005 4,054 445 2,806 45 356 89 45 0 89 178
2006 4,561 730 2,828 46 319 137 46 0 91 365
2007 2,589 244 1,661 342 0 0 98 0 0 244
2008 2,182 339 873 145 388 0 0 48 0 388
2009 2,641 559 1,219 102 152 51 0 0 0 559
2010 4,004 405 2,483 253 355 0 0 0 0 507
2011 3,995 547 2,134 274 492 0 55 55 55 383
2012 4,179 1,029 2,122 257 450 0 64 0 0 257
2013 3,437 543 1,809 121 362 181 60 0 0 362
Total 56,950 9,831 28,227 2,548 5,781 597 913 103 350 7,887
81
Police-recorded protests, unrest, by protest foci
Year Estimated
PRPs
Community
Protest
Labour
Protest
Education
protest
Crime related
protest
Transport
issues
Party political
protest
Xenophobia Customary Other
1997 606 220 150 47 71 8 8 0 0 102
1998 771 137 290 114 84 15 8 0 8 114
1999 529 164 96 58 29 39 29 0 10 106
2000 419 68 136 58 39 10 19 0 0 88
2001 422 163 86 10 67 19 10 0 0 67
2002 280 119 68 17 42 0 8 0 0 25
2003 287 119 109 20 10 0 0 0 0 30
2004 329 124 51 72 0 10 21 0 21 31
2005 662 349 134 107 9 27 0 0 18 18
2006 542 202 202 74 0 37 9 9 0 9
2007 506 294 73 65 24 8 0 0 0 41
2008 401 181 95 48 19 0 10 48 0 0
2009 711 425 176 37 46 9 18 0 0 0
2010 691 341 166 105 17 17 17 0 0 26
2011 845 491 138 49 20 10 29 10 10 88
2012 1,410 898 287 50 50 12 0 25 0 87
2013 1,389 671 341 82 106 47 12 59 0 71
Total 10,800 4,966 2,598 1,013 633 268 198 151 67 903
82
Appendix 5. Motives used by police, in sample
Motive Percent Motive Percent
DEMAND WAGE INCREASES 18.1 UPSET - VIOLENCE ON WOMAN/CHILDREN 0.5
No motive registered 16.7 CRIME* 0.4
DISSATISFIED WITH SERVICE DELIVERY 7.6
FOR/AGAINST BAIL APPLICATION 0.4
LABOUR DISPUTE 7.6 RESISTANCE TO EVICTION 0.4
FORCING OF DEMANDS& 6.5 ESTABLISH ALTERN STRUCTURES SOS/POL 0.3
DISSATISFIED WITH LOCAL GOVERNMENT 3.4 ETHNIC CONFLICT 0.3
DISSATISFIED WITH HIGH CRIME RATE 3.0 EXPANDING OF POWERBASE 0.3
DEMAND RESIGNATION OF COUNCILLORS 2.8 RACIAL CONFLICT 0.3
ATTACK ON SECURITY FORCE 2.4 RENT 0.3
DISSATISFIED WITH UNEMPLOYMENT 2.0 REVENGE 0.3
DISSATISFIED WITH S/F ACTION 1.9 BUSFARES 0.2
DISSATISFIED WITH WORKERS DISMISSAL 1.7
DISPUTE BETWEEN BUSSES AND TAXI'S 0.2
SCHOOLS CONFLICT 1.7 DISSATISFIED WITH TAXI FARES 0.2
SOLIDARITY 1.7 ESTABLISH NEW STRUCTURE/ORG. 0.2
CAMPUS/TERTIARY CONFLICT 1.5 MOB JUSTICE 0.2
DISSATISFIED WITH HOUSING 1.5 PENSION DISPUTE 0.2
INTIMIDATION 1.4 XENOPHOBIA 0.2
SERVICE CHARGES 1.3 DEMARCATION 0.1
RESISTANCE TO EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM 1.2 DISRUPTION OF ASSEMBLY 0.1
DEMAND RELEASE OF SUSPECTS 1.1 ELECTION CAMPAIGN 0.1
SUSPENSION OF MUNICIPAL SERVICES 1.1 FACTION FIGHTING 0.1
RESISTANCE TO GOVERNMENT POLICY 1.0 SPORTING EVENT 0.1
DEMAND DISMISSAL OF EMPLOYEE 0.9 VOTE 0.1
IN SYMPATHY WITH OPPRESSED 0.9 GANG CONFLICT 0.0
IDEOLOGICAL CONFLICT 0.8 IMBIZO 0.0
PERSONALITY CONFLICT 0.8 PENSION/GRANT DISPUTE 0.0
TAXI DISPUTE 0.8 PEOPLES COURTS 0.0
MOBILISING OF THE MASSES 0.7 PRISON CONFLICT/VIOLENCE 0.0
DISSATISFIED WITH S/F PRESENCE 0.6 SOCIAL EVENT 0.0
POLITICAL INTOLERANCE 0.6 TRAIN CONFLICT 0.0
BORDER DISPUTE 0.5 TRIBAL COURT 0.0
Total 100.0
83