Abstract
This chapter explores the role of street committees in retrenching and grounding community participatory governance at Cato Crest. The chapter is purposed to revitalise street committees as street/area democratically elected and managed structures aimed at restoring inclusive local democracy, peace, and order, especially in the prevalence of domestic violence, crime, community disunity and divisions, disobedient youth, and other anti-social behaviours. The author argues that the current configuration of street committees as partisan structures compromises their fundamental purpose of uniting people regardless of race, culture, gender, and socio-economic class. The chapter found that without clear developmental roles, street committees are often highjacked to serve a party political agenda. The chapter is qualitative in nature when data were collected through observation and face-to-face interviews with street committees at Cato Crest. The empirical data was also enriched by secondary sources in the form of journal papers, books, and government reports.
TopIntroduction
South Africa got its political independence in 1994 after being subjected to protracted decades of colonial and apartheid regimes. However, the history of exclusion, marginalisation and non-representation of black majority in social, economic and political spheres is traceable to the arrival of European in South Africa especially the formation of the union of South Africa in 1910. The exclusion and non-representation of black people even continued when apartheid was officially adopted as the governance system in 1948. Apartheid regime introduced racial laws aimed at excluding mainly blacks from social, economic and political representation (Handley, 2015; Sonneborn, 2010). Apartheid discriminatory ideology was both entrenched and used to relegate blacks to the socio-economic periphery. Under apartheid, opportunities were denied using race (Herbst & Mills, 2015). Thus, racial categorization had explicit exclusionary tendencies with social, economic and political implications (West, 1988). The white minority was protected by the apartheid system to enjoy full citizenship with opportunities to access resources (West, 1988; Manby, 2009). The exclusion, alienation and lack of representation of blacks in the body politics that led the formation of parallel structures such as streets committees under both the Black Consciousness and United Democratic Movements in the 1970s and 1980s. Thus, the formation of street committee structures were not only the coping mechanisms for black people in the townships, but also provided opportunities for community social cohesion, social capital, and life enhancing and development. Street committees have played a pivotal role during the apartheid era especially in promoting community-based solutions to communal challenges such as behavioural, criminal and household socio-economic hardships.
It is against this background that this chapter is concerned with revitalising street committees as street or areas democratically elected and managed structures aimed at restoring inclusive local and direct democracy at local community level.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Participatory Governance: Is the system of governance that promote the active participation of citizens in decision making processes.
Street Committees: Were committees created in the 1980s and were democratically elected committees meant to cater for needs and challenges facing community members in their respective streets or areas.
Community Governance: This is the system of governance at community level created to manage relationships and foster a sense of citizenship through active participation in decision-making processes.