EXCERPT | Why We Kill: Mob violence, vigilantism and a strange case of 'the John Wick of Mamelodi'

Of the unprecedented 27 000 recorded murders in South Africa in 2022, at least 1 894 – or 7% – were attributed to mob justice and vigilantism, more than double the number from five years before. In the first nine months of 2023, a further 1 472 mob justice deaths had already been registered.

Mob justice is nothing new, but in recent years, it has taken on an undeniably desperate, furious edge. From the breathtakingly violent Zandspruit massacre in May 2021 to the killings during the July unrest two months later to the march of Operation Dudula across the nation in 2022, vigilantism – and the condoning of it – has never before captured the zeitgeist of South Africa so sharply. What has changed in the past few years, and what does it augur for the future?

'Why We Kill: Mob Justice and the New Vigilantism in South Africa' by Karl Kemp (author of 'Promised Land: Exploring South Africa’s Land Conflict') explores the roots, realities and consequences of South Africa's current crisis of vigilantism. In this excerpt, Kemp looks at a curious case of vigilantism in Mamelodi.