Grassroots democracy can be a tool to liberate, but it can also oppress, weaponised against the vulnerable. That seems to be what happened to Elvis Nyathi, who was stoned and burned to death last year when a group of about 30 people demanded identity documents and money that he didn’t have.
Nyathi, a 43-year-old gardener, was from Zimbabwe but living in South Africa, in Diepsloot (Afrikaans for ‘Deep Ditch’). The neighbourhood is a predominantly Black, working-class area of approximately 140,000 residents on Johannesburg’s northern fringe, notorious for high crime rates, poor services and mob justice.
Evidence suggests that the group who allegedly killed Nyathi that April night did not target him alone. They had been going from shack to shack asking for documents and money. This was a practice developed by Operation Dudula, a vigilante anti-immigrant movement. Dudula had recently gained notoriety outside Diepsloot with its xenophobic vitriol against undocumented foreigners who Dudula blamed for rising crime and unemployment. The group claimed that the people had to take action because the government was doing nothing about the proliferation of ‘illegal’ foreigners.
