Protest action in the urban peripheries: assessing reconciliation between the community and elites after the protest

Urban peripheries in South Africa, especially in metropolitan spaces, have been sites of contestation of power between local government and the communities, and historically they have been sites of resistance against the apartheid government. Violence has always characterised South Africa, and state-sponsored violence has been used as an instrument to curb violence and resistance. Ironically, state-sponsored violence has consistently failed to curb violence and has always resulted in violence. The history of South Africa is further characterised by protest, especially during the apartheid era, as Black Africans protested against the apartheid government that they deemed illegitimate. The ushering of the democratic era promised a new South Africa in which protest action was to be a thing of the past, and in the first decade of democracy, there was little protest action. However, since 2004, protest action emerged and escalated; it has been observed that the protest action is aimed at local government and concentrated at the peripheries (townships and informal settlements). The response by the government has been the use of state-sponsored violence to deal with the increasingly disruptive protests. Employing the qualitative approach, using documentary analysis, this paper seeks to assess the protests at the peripheries and investigate if there are measures to reconcile the community, the local government and the police after the protest action. This paper finds that there are no measures to ensure that reconciliation takes place. Further, there is no understanding of what works regarding reconciliation. Reconciliation is a complex phenomenon, as it means different things to different people and communities, as people are affected by violence in various ways. Further, reconciliation in South Africa is complicated by its violent history; hence, it has become a complex and lengthy.