An Ordinary Atrocity: Sharpeville and Its Massacre, and: The Assassin: A Story of Race and Rage in the Land of Apartheid (review)

These two books are concerned with South Africa during apartheid. Few developments of the period have been studied more intensively than the Sharpeville massacre. It might seem, indeed, that we do not need yet another examination of the subject. An Ordinary Atrocity, however, is a groundbreaking work, as good a study as I have read on any political development in modern Africa. In the four decades since it occurred, we have not had a truly comprehensive history of the massacre. The behavior and motivations of the police remain unclear, for example, and until recently the government discouraged investigations into any aspect of the affair. With few exceptions little evidence has been produced on most of those involved, and previous studies have all but ignored the forensics of the massacre. Frankel's work attempts to fill existing gaps and to reassess established theories and claims. Its aims are multiple: to compare the two diametrically opposed narratives of the event in light of historical evidence recently made available; to accord the Sharpeville community the status it deserves within apartheid history; to situate Sharpeville within the general context of twentieth-century massacres; to provide a better sociology of the massacre; and finally to consider oral evidence from participants, witnesses, and others connected to the disturbance.

The study is based on an impressive set of primary sources, including more than one hundred individual interviews and more than seventy depositions, and it incorporates much of the previous research on the subject. It is divided into three unequal parts and a postscript. The first part places Sharpeville in the context of South African history before apartheid and during its early period by considering the geographic setting, the social, economic, and environmental bases of the city, as well as public policy relating to its creation and governance. In the second part—the most interesting of what is throughout an interesting book—the author, besides dealing specifically with the carnage, provides insights into the politics, policies, and composition of the security forces, the roles of black informers, and brutality by black policemen. Frankel's detailed account of events—from time lines to how many bullets were distributed—is captivating. He is the first writer to identify and classify participants in the massacre—victims, policemen, police informants, nationalists, witnesses, and health workers—and to analyze their roles. His examination is in the best tradition of history "from the bottom up."

The massacre was "a seminal event in the dark history of the apartheid era" with far-reaching consequences, as Helen Suzman notes in the foreword. To Frankel, it was a nefarious incident which, as the defining event of the twentieth century for South Africa, transformed the body politic of the nation. In its wake the government decided that it would not tolerate any but the most ineffectual political activity by or in support of blacks and moved to expedite construction of the security structure for a mature apartheid. Those decisions helped shape apartheid until the fall of the regime.

Frankel, a political scientist at the University of Witwatersrand, challenges accepted wisdom on the massacre. He rejects the notion that authorities sought to teach a lesson to the people of Sharpeville. He posits that the death of a number of policemen in a violent confrontation at Cato Manor in Port Natal weeks before Sharpeville, as well as a clash between police and protesters in the nearby city of Evaton on the eve of the disturbance and the exhaustion of policemen prior to that calamitous afternoon of March 21, 1960, all helped to condition their response in Sharpeville. He revises upward the number of policemen deployed and the number of people killed or injured. He also illustrates...