Sanction all revolts: A reply to rebecca pointer

This article is a reply to Rebecca Pointer's response to our paper, "But We Were Thousands": Dispossession, Resistance, Repossession and Repression in Mandela Park'. It begins by making some remarks on the terrain in which academic interventions in elite publics are made in contemporary South Africa. In particular, it notes the general tacit support for a highly repressive response (discursive and material) to subaltern dissent. The article then goes on to argue for a politics of commitment to the act, but immediately proceeds to note, with reference to Fanon, two dangers inherent in the politics of the act. It then makes a distinction between militancy and scrupulousness as modes of resistance and argues that the latter often follows but must come to dominate the former. The article then turns to a more direct engagement with Pointer's paper. It begins by defending a register in our writing described as 'romantic' by Pointer and then moves on to mount a sustained attack on her autonomism, which we accuse of, among other things, objectifying the poor. Finally, the article offers qualified support for Pointer's feminist critique of the Mandela Park Anti-Eviction Campaign and our representation of the Campaign.