[debok]

The South African situation is very nuanced. The ANC had a violent faction, and a more peaceful faction aimed at reconciliation. The well-known Nelson Mandela belonged to the latter faction. Note that I said "more peaceful" and not "peaceful." Nelson Mandela also participated in sabotage attacks during Apartheid.

Those two factions are still alive in the ANC now that it is the ruling party. It just takes a different shape now that violence isn't the modus operandi anymore. You could call it a far-left radical faction, and a moderate faction. The far-left radical faction is heavily influenced by Fanon, they openly admit it. Also on the far-left you have the EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters) who were kicked out of the ANC for being too far-left. They also claim to be Fanonian. They are openly calling for violence, while simultaneously denying that they are calling for violence.

The violence prevalent in South Africa is caused by a wide array of causes, of which I expect Fanonian thought to be one of the lesser causes (but a cause none-the-less). A bigger cause is an inept and corrupt government by a political party that is still stuck in revolutionary rhetoric 30 years after it's victory. Their inept and corrupt governance caused degradation in law-enforcement, to the point where it is almost non-existent. Pair this with the abject poverty and fatherlessness caused by Apartheid, and you have yourself an unruly and violent populace.

Fanonian thought only factors in when things get political. In my opinion that is less commonplace than the media (both mainstream and otherwise) suggests. Our violence is mostly just normal plain old crime.

[stareatgoats]

Thanks, interesting. Agree, the violence in SA is largely a case of "plain old crime", and I wouldn't know how to prove that it was in some way connected to Fanonian thinking - except intuitively. And also intuitively, a corrupt government that has failed massively to fulfil the expectations of its people surely is a main reason. SA is none the less still an arena where these two philosophies vie for influence, long after independence.

To nuance it further: the ANC was, if I'm not mistaken, originally heavily influenced if not part and parcel of Gandhi's pacifist movement, only to break away through the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe, i.e. the armed branch actually founded by Nelson Mandela in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre. That said, the ANC was (and maybe still is) influenced by Gandhian thinking, and never really implemented the policy of including "soft targets" in the tactics with any enthusiasm.

I believe Nelson Mandela embodied this conflict, and more than being clearly on one side tried to balance the factions, and did so with some success. His enduring legacy in my mind is his reconciliation efforts, clearly Gandhi inspired, without which South Africa would perhaps still be embroiled in violent political conflict, a la Palestine.