South Africa: Continuing the Culture of Militarism in Cape Flats Townships

Mercifully, South Africa has experienced a reasonably peaceful transition into the democratic “rainbow nation”. Yet the soldier with his gun, and the ubiquitous R4 rifle remain the constant, if not the only, signifiers of symbols of power that thread through and remain respected during both apartheid and the era that has come after it. The omnipresent Casspir with its male occupants, rifles at the ready, driving through township streets today, makes one question the extent to which the physical and social spaces of South African townships have been demilitarized.