127 JAC 6 (2) pp. 127–134 Intellect Limited 2014 Journal of African Cinemas Volume 6 Number 2 © 2014 Intellect Ltd Editorial. English language. doi: 10.1386/jac.6.2.127_2 EdItorIAL Nyasha Mboti University of Johannesburg everyday violence(s) and visualities in africa: an introduction When the subject of violence is mentioned, we often tend to subjectively think of it in at least four ways. First, we tend to regard violence as not-normal. It more or less engenders feelings of shock, puzzlement and disbelief. It may repulse. Violence is therefore often regarded – through much head-shaking and hand-wringing – as unthinkable and irrational. It is ungraspable and unspeakable – and accidental and occasional. Who, in their normal mind, could do such a thing? Animals! Second, violence has concrete semantic prosody with savagery, depravity, moral poverty and ethical deficiency. Those bound to violence are also bound to an absence of morality and ethics. Third, violence is associated with a class of people we may regard as bad people, or simply as bad guys. These bad people are, invariably, categorical law-breakers. They are identifiable as criminals, thugs, nut-cases, knife-wielders, rapists, wife-beaters, molesters, genocidaires, assassins, terrorists, suicide bombers, anarchists, right- wing (or left-wing) goons, tyrants, football hooligans, gangsters, tsotsis, rioters, psychos, sociopaths and so on. As long as we retain our place off this list, we have no use for violence. Finally, violence takes place, or at least starts, out there – far away from familiar hearths. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. JAC_6.2_Editorial_127-134.indd 127 2/2/15 10:21:11 PM Copyright Intellect 2015 Do Not Distribute