Cynical Citizenship: The Civic Consequences of Democratic State Violence

• In Event: Ideology from the Ground Up

Abstract

How are democratic systems reproduced in the wake of state violence like police shootings? And what consequences does state violence have on the practice of democratic citizenship? This paper examines the wake of the Marikana Massacre – a 2012 event in which South African police killed thirty-four striking mineworkers – to answer these questions. It argues that the radical interpretability of such events where individuals can see an event in fundamentally different ways makes even basic agreement about facts difficult, much less common judgements about how to respond. These differences of interpretation lead to frustration with other citizens and a belief that any state response is ultimately hollow, if not cynical. The effect is to produce a cynical citizenship in which citizens see engagement with the state as useless, leading to their refusal to participate in institutional politics. One ironic consequence is the reproduction of the very institutional arrangements that enabled the violence in the first place as cynical citizens withdraw from the political process, leaving little pressure on politicians to respond to the circumstances that created the crisis in the first place. The political failure to respond thus closes a logical loop that proves the cynics “right” that nothing can be repaired. The effect is to reproduce institutional democracy while hollowing out its substance. To make these arguments, the paper draws on ethnographic evidence from a memorial service for the dead mineworkers in which organizers argued for a return to authoritarian politics in South Africa as the only means by which to achieve justice for the historical inequities that enabled the violence in the first place.

Author

• Nicholas Rush Smith, CUNY-City College