More than half of South African intimate relationships have an element of violence in them, says Rhodes academic Anthony Collins in the wake of Amanda Tweyi's murder this week.
More than half of South African intimate relationships have an element of violence in them, says Rhodes academic Anthony Collins in the wake of Amanda Tweyi's murder this week.
The second-year Rhodes University BSc student from King William’s Town was shot in the residence room of a fellow student in the early hours of Saturday 26 April. The body of her child's father, 34-year-old Nkosinathi Nqabisa, was also found in the room.
He also had a gunshot wound. Police are treating the incident as a murder-suicide.
“People organise their lives in order to protect themselves against strangers but it is actually the people closer to you that you need to protect yourself against. If women are murdered it is more likely that they will be killed by someone they know,” said Collins, a professor and researcher at the Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies.
Collins said the Oscar Pistorious trial had alerted the world to the fact that the murder of women is often aresult of domestic violence. He said the culture of gender-based violence had been normalised in South Africa.
Men often believe they must discipline their romantic partners, Collins said.
“It is difficult for an outsider to see a relationship as being simultaneously violent and affectionate, but this does occur more often than we think,” he said.
There is little the police can do to counter domestic violence even if women do report it, Collins said.
In the case of Tweyi, the alleged perpetrator was already disobeying the university’s rules by entering the residence; it was unlikely he would have abided by a protection order, had there been one.
Making the culture of abuse even more dangerous was the fact that gun ownership, both legal and illegal, was growing at an alarming rate in South Africa. Collins believes removing the guns may reduce levels of crime but won't solve the problem.
He said the problem lies rather in the culture of gender-based violence and the supposed inferiority of women in relationships.
Framing this incident as a crime was a problem, he said. “This is a dangerous line of argument because it shifts attention from the social acceptance of violence, and cultures of masculinity that in turn support victim blame,” said Collins.
Kim Barker, coordinator of the Rhodes University Silent Protest, an annual event that aims to counter silence around sexual abuse, argues that even though men are often socialised into being abusive, they can choose act differently.
“We know there are many women in our country who experience violence at the hands of a partner," said Barker. "This tragedy challenges us to open the conversation about gender-based violence; to question, to reflect and to take meaningful action, most urgently to offer support to those at risk.”
