This story of organised around and imaginary organised dog killing in a South African township during the period of resistance to apartheid oppression. It has been germinating in my mind for a long time, and is inspired by disturbing, historically real events that took place in the Township of Duduza in Nigel, an old gold mining town in the far east of Johannesburg. But no actual dog-killing took place. This event in the story is imagined. While it is triggered by the past, it is also about the present unfolding into a future.
Duduza entered South African history through the real and gruesome mob-killing of a woman accused of being an informer against fellow township residents. Her alleged act was seen not only as betrayal of township victims of the dreaded racist system of apartheid and its deleterious effects on black people in South Africa’s black townships, but also as giving acting supporting state oppression of black people. This killing involved the placing of a tire around her neck, dousing it with petrol, and then setting it alight with a matchstick: the method of killing that came to be known as “necklacing”. It was the first of its kind to occur in South Africa at that time.
Much more than the imaginary killing, the story is also about how the township community, against the history of their ambiguous relationship with dogs, enables them to see and get to know themselves following the mass killing of their dogs. It explores how their community came about, how it evolved, over time, and how the event of mass dog-killing got them not only to confront themselves as individuals and as a community but also to ponder their personal and community relationships against what the future might hold for them.