The Urban Blitz, Pacification and Contemporary Johannesburg

• In Event: Policing Capital: The Logic of Pacification

Abstract

This article argues that a critical analysis of police ‘blitzs’ reveals important connections between state power, spectacle and the pacification of dangerous classes and spaces. Since at least the mid- 1990s, the concept of the state-led blitz became central to the management of urban space in Johannesburg, South Africa. Originally this term refereed to aggressive raids led by the police in ‘trouble spots’ in the city but later expanded to refer to general inspections on urban services. The blitz concept has fallen out of usage within city parlance with officials suggesting that it is a “hit and run” approach which is not sustainable in the long run. However, “intensified police operations” are still very much in use in the city and almost invariably targeted against the urban poor. This article has two central arguments about the “blitz”. Within the context of South Africa, it will situate it within a long history of colonial and apartheid police and military raids, and argue that this coercive tactic has proved durable under the post-apartheid liberal order. More generally it will assess how the blitz can be considered as an instance of pacification- the marshalling of state forces to control dangerous groups and to maintain capitalist order.

Author

• Christopher McMichael, University of the Witwatersrand