Number 15, 2nd Quarter 2002
By Aziz Pahad
We live in an era of profound change, distinguished by globalisation, which are brought about by factors such as the technological revolution, foreign exchange liberalisation in the early 1970s, financial and trade liberalisation, the lowering cost of transportation as well as increase in speed, rapid advances in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and the unprecedented development of biotechnology.
Some manifestations of globalisation that have a profound impact on the global economy and international relations are inter alia:
"We believe that the central challenge we face today is to ensure that globalisation becomes a positive force for all the world's people. For while globalisation offers great opportunities, at present its benefits are very unevenly shared, while its costs are unevenly distributed.
We recognise that developing countries and countries with economies in transition face special difficulties in responding to this central challenge.
Thus, only through broad and sustained efforts to create a shared future, based upon our common humanity in all its diversity, can globalisation be made fully inclusive and equitable.
These efforts must include policies and measures, at the global level, which correspond to the needs of developing countries and economies in transition, and are formulated and implemented with their effective participation.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. Development that perpetuates today's inequalities is neither sustainable, nor worth sustaining". Millennium Declaration
In the context of NEPAD, our foreign policy objectives are to ensure that we meet the Millennium targets, inter alia to by 2015 halve the worlds very poor; ensure primary education for all, reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters and under-5 mortality by two-thirds, and halt and then reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases.
Whilst pursuing these objectives, since 11 September 2001 we also have to grapple with the consequences of the heinous terrorist attacks in the US on global security. As a consequence of these attacks, the Global Coalition Against Terrorism has come about. Differences between major powers and regional powers have been put aside to address the new common enemy. New terminology has been born such as the "Axis Against Evil", the language of which is a reflection of the extraordinary times we live in. The world has been divided into one of: "either with us or against us!"
Certain foremost international relations analysts refer to the new emerging world order, which they speculate would stretch at least over the next two decades, as comprising a new Rome with three other major power centres orbiting it, i.e. USA, EU, Japan and China. There is also intense debate among diplomats and academics about the nature of power in this global information age - that is to say: hard versus soft power or a combination of both.
Professor Joseph Nye, Dean of Harvard Kennedy School of Government, has recently argued (The Economist, March 23-29, 2002) that power resembles a three-dimensional chess game: On the top chessboard, military power is unipolar with the USA dominating.
On the middle chessboard, economic power is multipolar with the USA, Europe and Japan representing two-thirds of world production, with China's dramatic growth likely to make it the fourth big player.
The bottom chessboard is the realm of transnational relations that cross borders outside government control. Here power is widely dispersed amongst actors as diverse as bankers and terrorists. According to Professor Nye, it is a three-dimensional game that one will lose if one focuses only on one dimension and fails to notice the vertical connections among the three dimensions. How to make hard and soft power reinforce each other, are the key foreign policy challenges!
Unfortunately, since the tragic events of 11 September, there has been a growing contradiction between unilateralism and multilaterism. On the one hand, the Global Coalition against Terrorism is clearly a recognition that the transnational and complex nature of terrorism can only be dealt with successfully through as many as possible countries cooperating to combat it. On the other hand, there is a growing trend towards unilateralism when it comes to the use of hard power, i.e. military force or the threat thereof. There is a debate on whether the latter approach will lead to a new world order that is characterised by more tension, conflict and instability and whether this will impede the endeavours to establish a just and equitable international political, financial and economic system.
The ANC-led government's principled belief in a democratic world order and multilateralism dictates that we continue to fight for the transformation and democratisation of the multilateral institutions, including the Security Council and the Bretton Woods institutions.
Notwithstanding the fundamental changes to international relations after 11 September 2001, our contention is that the global challenges affecting humanity are precisely the same as those before 11 September 2001! If anything, these challenges have taken on a new urgency. There is growing consensus internationally in support of South Africa's persistent view that in order to defeat terrorism, a holistic approach must be adopted in dealing with the root causes thereof.
The Secretary-General of the UN, speaking in the UN General Assembly, echoed these very same sentiments when he said: "Let us remember that none of the issues that faced us on 10 September has become less urgent..."
These challenges are, amongst others: eradication of poverty, communicable and pandemic diseases; ensuring sustainable development; combating the negative consequences of globalisation; preventing global warming; containing the threats to global peace and security; eradicating racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance and combating transnational crime and terrorism.
The eminent Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, author of Things Fall Apart, considers himself an optimist today. He says that his country, and for that matter Africa, has seen "the excesses of bad government which lie like a curse on the continent", that he now believes these nightmares will serve as correctives for the future. "We're not good students, but in the end we do pick up pieces here and there. This is the hope, the only hope, perhaps", he writes.
It is dangerous to underestimate Africa's marginalisation. Let us give an example of the challenges we face. In a recent Finance Week article, Helena Barnard writes that she once had to explain to an American that the South African flag is not the African flag and that Africa is a continent with a large number of countries, languages and cultures. She thought that Africa was at least on their radar screens, until she saw a map that is part of a typical university textbook, the 6th edition of Madura's International Financial Management, published in 2000 by International Thompson Publishing. Thousands of Americans apparently use this book to learn how to do business internationally. Right at the end of the book there are two world maps, and Africa is not on either one. The one map shows export markets for US companies while the other shows direct investments of US companies. Not a word is said about why Africa has been cut, but you can imagine it is because there is so little trade between Africa and the US.
For many Americans, Africa is indeed not on the map. That's why President Thabo Mbeki's efforts to enhance Africa's image are so necessary. The more positive general perceptions of Africa, the more benefit to South Africa's economy.
We are of the firm conviction that the hope of the 21st century as the African century, has already begun. The long walk to peace and prosperity in Africa has commenced with the first major steps.
South Africa, together with its partners, has made remarkable progress in preparing the groundwork for the revitalisation of Africa and prevention of the further marginalisation of the continent.
For the purposes of giving further momentum to the considerable progress already made, the South African Government has identified the following foreign policy priorities for this year (2002):
The year 2002 is one of the most important in the history of South Africa's foreign policy, indeed for the whole of Africa. Future generations will look back at this year as one of the defining moments in Africa's history. Exciting challenges lie ahead for us and we will endeavour to provide a glimpse of what can be expected.
South Africa is honoured to be hosting the Inauguration Summit of the AU in South Africa in July 2002. As Chair, South Africa will seek to play a constructive role to ensure that the core structures of the AU commence functioning smoothly, namely the Assembly of Heads of State and Government, the Executive Council, the African Parliament, the Permanent Representative Committee of Ambassadors and the Commission, and other structures of the AU which will be established later. The first year of the AU is crucial for us to set the pace and direction of the organisation for subsequent years.
We should assure all, especially the Afro-pessimists, that the AU will be fundamentally different from its predecessor, the OAU. It is not merely the "O" that falls away as certain detractors would scorn.
The transition to the AU reflects the continuation of Africa's own unwavering determination to deal with the legacy of colonialism and underdevelopment. The future focus will also be on meeting the basic needs of people with regard to socio-economic development, achieving peace, security and stability, and the protection of human rights, democracy, good governance and the rule of law. There will also be important limitations on the principle of sovereignty.
The AU will place particular emphasis on conflict prevention, management and resolution and instruments in this regard are being strengthened. According to initial plans, the Central Organ of the Mechanism on Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution will be changed to an AU Peace and Security Council (PSC), comprising fifteen member states.
It is envisaged that membership of the PSC should be based on a set of agreed criteria which will be based on the capacity and interest of a country to assume and discharge the responsibilities, and include commitment to uphold the principles enshrined in the Constitutive Act of the African Union. It is proposed that the PSC should be in permanent session for it to address the daily security challenges facing the continent. Moreover, the PSC should meet at the level of Permanent Representatives, Ministers and Heads of State and Government respectively.
The chairpersonship of the PSC should be delinked from the chairpersonship of the AU. The questions of permanent membership and veto rights for such members are, however, still under discussion. It is foreseen that there should be a close working relationship between the PSC and the UN, on the one hand, and sub-regional mechanisms, on the other.
Discussions and consultations are also taking place on the establishment of a Council of the Wise, comprising highly respected African personalities, to complement the efforts of the envisaged AU Peace and Security Council.
NEPAD is seeking fundamental transformation regarding political and economic governance. Given the realities of our continent, we have no illusion about the difficulties and indeed opposition from vested interests that we will face in implementing the objectives of NEPAD. NEPAD is about genuine partnership and not paternalism. We also start from an understanding that NEPAD is not an event but a process.
Impressive progress has already been made and a detailed, implementable NEPAD Programme of Action will be presented to the G8 Summit in Kananaskis in June 2002 and to the Inaugural AU Summit in South Africa in July 2002.
The NEPAD Steering Committee, together with the G8 Personal Representatives Committee have been meeting at regular intervals and are focusing on the following themes, namely: Governance, Peace and Security, Education/Knowledge and Health and Economic Growth and Private Investment.
Strong support has already been received from each of the G8 states, with various states expressing specific interest in particular areas of NEPAD. For example: The USA announced an additional US$ 5 billion per annum for development assistance over the next ten years; the EU has committed itself to raising its development assistance to 0,39% of GDP over the next nine years; and Canada has decided to increase its ODA contribution by 8% over the same period. The implication is that much of this will benefit the NEPAD process. Unfortunately there are suggestions of "collective punishment", i.e. NEPAD will be held hostage to events in any one country. Surely this cannot be right. Africa understands the importance of "good governance" politically and economically.
The NEPAD Implementation Committee of Heads of State and Government, at their meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, on 26 March 2002, adopted the Draft Report on Good Governance and Democracy, as well as an African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM)
The Draft Report on Good Governance and Democracy spells out in detail commitments and obligations such as: strengthening of the democratic process, promotion of good governance, protection of human rights, press freedom and enhancing institutional capacity.
New initiatives worth underscoring are: the establishment of a portfolio, in the AU, of a Commissioner to be responsible for Democracy, Human Rights and Good Governance; expansion of the OAU position on Unconstitutional Changes of Government by expanding the yellow/red card-principle to include patently undemocratic and unconstitutional behaviour, as well as gross violations of human rights by governments in power; examining of a series of reforms to improve the effectiveness of the Charter system, including amendments to the Charter and strengthening the Commission and the Court of Human and People's Rights and establishing an effective African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM).
The APRM is designed, owned and managed by Africans so as to demonstrate that African leaders are fully aware of their responsibilities and obligations to their peoples and are genuinely prepared to engage and relate to the international community on the basis of mutual respect. The purpose of the APRM would be to:
Each NEPAD-participating country is expected to define a clear time-bound programme of action for meeting the said commitments, obligations and actions. Once a Government has pledged to these commitments, a concomitant is that the state in question is to be reviewed every three years.
Upon receipt of country reports, the Heads of State and Government of participating states could consider a number of actions at sub-regional and/or regional level, inter alia: using the yellow/red card approach currently utilised by the OAU. The Heads of State will decide on appropriate measures on a case-by-case basis. Country reports and the Heads of State findings are to be made public.
Conversely, committed states should be assisted to overcome deficiencies and capacity constraints in meeting their commitments and obligations. The monitoring and review process could be utilised to identify these deficiencies and limitations and to assist in securing the necessary resources to overcome them. Incentives (political, social and economic) must be created for emerging democracies that are committed to maintaining and entrenching their achievements.
It is necessary to support good leadership on the continent. Good governance, both political and economic, demands appropriate conditions, especially eradication of poverty and underdevelopment. This requires, inter alia, support in the form of increased market access, debt relief, increased flow of investment and ODA, removal of agricultural subsidies in OECD countries ($360 billion a year), technological transfer and bridging the IT gap.
It is proposed that members of the APRM team, as well as their terms of reference, be recommended by the Council of Ministers for the approval by the Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee. Such an approved team would be comprised of an eminent African personality and nominees of the envisaged African Commission for Human Rights, Peace and Security Council and the Pan-African Parliament.
The Abuja meeting of the NEPAD Implementation Committee also approved eight Draft Codes and Standards for Economic and Corporate Governance for Africa. These are:
NEPAD objectives will inform our strategic bilateral relationships. In the case of the USA, South Africa is encouraging the extension and deepening of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) as well as the development of Africa's capacity to take full advantage of its benefits. The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) is exploring the possibility of a comprehensive trade agreement with the USA. South Africa will continue its focused political dialogue with strategic partners in Europe. We will further emphasise NEPAD objectives during high-level institutionalised meetings, notably with Germany, UK, France and Spain and the Nordic-South Africa Summit. South Africa is looking forward to working closely with Japan for the preparations for the TICAD III conference early next year.
We should underscore that partnerships for NEPAD are not restricted to the G8, but also include smaller developed countries and countries of the South. In addition, we will also continue to encourage China to synchronise policies towards Africa in line with NEPAD. India can be a significant partner for NEPAD with her substantial experience in democracy, the promotion of peace and stability and economic development. No one is excluded who can make a contribution!
NEPAD is also about partnerships between governments, the private sector and civil society. In the end NEPAD's success will largely depend on the involvement of the private sector and other elements of civil society. South Africa has already launched an Outreach Programme to inform and popularise the AU and the NEPAD. This Outreach Programme is coordinated by the Presidency and involves the African Institute of South Africa, Departments of Foreign Affairs, Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), NEPAD Secretariat and the South African Chapter of the African Renaissance.
The corporate world is starting to show a keen interest in NEPAD as evidenced by the attendance of about 900 business people at the NEPAD Financing for Developing Conference held in Dakar, Senegal. Corporate leaders included representatives from Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Chevron, Shell, Petronas, Coca-Cola and Eskom.
NEPAD was also the main topic of discussion between governments of Southern Africa and the private sector at the World Economic Forum Southern African Summit that was held in South Africa this year.
South Africa's interaction with the continent must also primarily be through its membership of SADC. Given the political and economic instability in certain SADC member countries, some "experts" have suggested that South Africa should "ring-fence" itself from the rest of the region. This can never be a policy option for this Government!
Instead of this view, South Africa's foreign policy is a principled one based on the view that South Africa cannot be an island of prosperity in a sea of poverty and that the concept of regionalism is becoming increasingly important in order to compete globally.
Broadly South Africa's vision for the Southern African region is one of the highest possible degree of economic cooperation, mutual assistance and joint planning of regional development initiatives, leading to integration consistent with socio-economic, environmental and political realities.
SADC, through various protocols, has laid the basis on which regional planning and development in southern Africa should be pursued. At the SADC Summit held in Blantyre, Malawi, in August 2001, attention focused on the implementation of the restructuring of the operations of SADC institutions. This restructuring is expected to give the organisation the institutional framework required to support NEPAD.
The decision-making within the organisation has also been re-examined with proposals that decision-making operate on a troika basis. This will undoubtedly create better conditions for the consolidation of democracy in our region. Good governance, democracy and the rule of law, are the foundations on which SADC must develop.
SADC also provides the desired instrument by means of which member states should move towards economic integration. Thus SADC, together with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Arab Magreb Union (AMU), Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) form the five Regional Economic Communities (RECs) recognised as building blocks of the African Economic Community.
Another important development in SADC this past year was the signing of the Protocol establishing the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security in Blantyre on 14th August 2002. All countries in the region are in the process of ratifying the Organ Protocol. A Draft SADC Declaration on Terrorism has been formulated and will be signed later this year. The Declaration recognises the effects terrorism has had on the region and unites the region against this scourge. SADC member states are called upon to ratify the OAU Convention on Terrorism.
South Africa is committed to bring about peace, security and stability on the African continent and will continue to be seized with the Middle East conflict. Peace, stability and security are preconditions for sustainable development and by implication for the success of NEPAD.
If we can secure peace in the DRC, Angola and the Sudan, all three resource-rich countries, the prospects for economic development in Africa could be realised. Needless to say, SA will continue to be actively involved in seeking solutions to conflicts in Africa and the Middle East.
We are very much aware that the many conflicts in Africa have their roots in the abject poverty that is pervasive on the continent. The number of Africa's poor has grown relentlessly and Africa's share of the world's absolute poor increased from 25% to 30% in the 1990s. Not to mention the devastation caused by HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. It is because of these objective realities that NEPAD must succeed!
Poverty, poor governance and conflict constitute a vicious cycle that must be broken at all cost. Therefore, the sine qua non for development, and by implication the success of NEPAD, is peace and stability. Because of this reality, South Africa is committed to conflict prevention, management and resolution on the African continent, as well as the Middle East. We are convinced that many conflicts in Africa are in the process of being resolved. For example:
Furthermore, South Africa is committed to assisting Lesotho to move out of its classification of a Least Developed Country (LDC) and a number of project proposals of Lesotho are currently being considered.
With regard to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), we are proud to host the largest international conference ever with approximately 65 000 people attending. The success of this conference will lay a solid basis for us achieving our foreign policy objectives.
Three broad themes reflect the essential prerequisites for moving towards sustainable development, namely alleviating poverty and promoting sustainable livelihoods, realising sustainable consumption and production, and protecting the integrity of life-supporting eco-systems.
Certain important issues for the WSSD include:
Amongst the new issues to be addressed at the WSSD include the biotechnology revolution, combating HIV/Aids, tuberculosis, malaria and other pandemic diseases, as well as the explosive growth in information and communication technologies.
The world will aim to arrive at a comprehensive, frank and useful review of the development agenda of the past ten years and reinvigorate, at the highest political level, the global commitment to Sustainable Development.
Issues that will be addressed at the WSSD are of vital importance to the whole world, and particularly so for developing countries and NEPAD objectives.
In conclusion, we would like to quote from the President's State of the Nation Address in Parliament on 8 February 2002.
President Mbeki said, "The nations of the world elected to come to our country because they understand and appreciate what we have done in the last seven-and-a-half years to address within our own borders precisely the same questions that constitute the global agenda. They chose to convene in South Africa because they are convinced that we have something of value to contribute to the building of a new and more equitable world order that must surely emerge."
Together in partnership, let us make it happen!
[Edited version of the Deputy Foreign Minister's Annual Address to the South African Institute of International Affairs, 18 April 2002.]
9 July 2002
People of Africa.
We have gathered at this stadium in Durban to carry out a solemn and historic act, the launch of the African Union.
We are meeting here to celebrate and rejoice in a great achievement of the peoples of Africa, the formation of the African Union.
We have convened at this stadium in Durban, in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, to make a pledge to the peoples of Africa and the world that we will honour the commitments we made as we agreed to establish the African Union.
As a South African, I am proud that Africa is taking the giant step forward she is taking today in the land of King Shaka, whose name is known across the globe.
This is the land of King Cetywayo, whose armies defeated the seemingly invincible colonial armies of the British Empire at Isandlwana.
It is the land of Nkosi Bambata, who turned the Inkandla forest into a permanent monument to the courage and heroism of an African people in defence of their right to freedom and self-determination.
I am proud that Africa is taking the giant step forward she is taking today at the home of John Langalibalele Dube, the patriot and co-founder of the African National Congress.
This, also, is the home of Pixley ka Isaka Seme, the patriot and co-founder of the African National Congress.
I am proud that Africa is taking the giant step forward she is taking today at the home of Nkosi Albert Luthuli, the first African winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
A.J. Luthuli was President of the African National Congress of John Dube and Pixley Seme at the moment in time when, under his leadership, this parliament of the African people transformed itself into a fighting force, whose heroic actions opened the door to our emancipation.
I am proud that Africa is taking the giant step forward she is taking today at the temporary home of Mahatma Gandhi.
He taught us what we needed to do to achieve our liberation.
At this place, Mahatma Gandhi accumulated the skills that helped to free India from the yoke of British colonialism, the jewel in its crown, which precipitated the collapse of the colonial system in Africa and elsewhere in the world.
I am proud that Africa is taking the giant step forward she is taking today during the year and at the place where the African National Congress celebrated its 90th anniversary at the dawn of this year, in the presence of representatives of the peoples of our continent and the rest of the world.
This is a country in which Africa first fashioned the kind of fighting force that was pan-African from the beginning and which, with its fellow combatants throughout our continent, led our peoples to their liberation. This is a country that gave birth to the melodic African prayer and anthem -Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika! God bless Africa! Raise high her glory! Hear our prayers and confer on us your blessings!
But this is also a country that owes its birth as a non-racial democracy to the great sacrifices that the peoples of Africa made to ensure that our continent is free of the blight of colonialism, white minority rule and apartheid.
In this regard, we pay tribute to heroes such as Abdel Gamal Nasser, Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Patrice Lumumba, Eduardo Mondlane, Ahmed Ben Bela, Julius Nyerere, Samora Machel and Modibo Keita.
The holding of the last Summit Meeting of the OAU and the first Summit Meeting of the African Union in this country, which proved to be the most stubborn remnant of colonial oppression, constitutes a special victory celebration for our continent as a whole.
This morning, the first summit of the African Union took place in this city. Gathered in this stadium today as we launch the African Union, are the representatives of the millions of Africans who can truly say that through their sustained combined action, they ensured that the advancing wave of African liberation finally reaches the southernmost tip of Africa, 110 years after the European powers and the United States agreed in Berlin to share Africa among themselves.
Imperialism and colonialism had sought to own and control Africa permanently, from Cape to Cairo. African pride and courage ensured that Africans own and control Africa permanently, from Cape to Cairo.
39 years after the Organisation of African Unity was formed in Addis Ababa, in the ancient African state of Ethiopia, Africa has convened in Durban to decide what it should do about itself.
To answer this question Africans have adopted the Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU) which defines clearly the common objectives we as Africans have committed ourselves to and the tasks that lie ahead of us. The Constitutive Act is the supreme law of the continent which has been approved by all our parliaments, the parliaments of the people of Africa to meet the challenges facing Africa today.
We are here in Durban, therefore to give effect to this Act of the African Union.
By forming the Union, the peoples of our continent have made the unequivocal statement that Africa must unite! We as Africans have a common and a shared destiny! Together, we must redefine this destiny for a better life for all the people of this continent.
The first task is to achieve unity, solidarity, cohesion, cooperation among peoples of Africa and African states. We must build all the institutions necessary to deepen political, economic and social integration of the African continent. We must deepen the culture of collective action in Africa and in our relations with the rest of the world.
Our second task is that of developing new forms of partnerships at all levels and segments of our societies, between segments of our societies and our governments and between our governments. We must mobilize all segments of civil society, including women, youth, labour and the private sector to act together to maximise our impact and change our continent for the better. As Africans, we have come to understand that there can be no sustainable development without peace, without security and without stability. The Constitutive Act provides for mechanisms to address this change which stands between the people of Africa and their ability and capacity to defeat poverty, disease and ignorance. Together we must work for peace, security and stability for the people of this continent. We must end the senseless conflicts and wars on our continent which have caused so much pain and suffering to our people and turned many of them into refugees and displaced and forced others into exile.
We must accept that dialogue and peaceful resolution of conflicts are the only way to guarantee enduring peace and stability for our people. The Constitutive Act provides for such mechanisms.
Together we have made one statement against terrorism. As Africans, we must put our resources together to defeat terrorism with all its manifestations in the interest of peace and stability for our people.
In the spirit of the Constitutive Act of the Union we must work for a continent characterized by democratic principles and institutions which guarantee popular participation and provide for good governance. Through our actions, let us proclaim to the world that this is a continent of democracy, a continent of democratic institutions and culture. Indeed, a continent of good governance, where the people participate and the rule of law is upheld. Let us today, re-dedicate ourselves to those fundamental principles we have adopted of human and people's rights, of gender equality, of worker's rights and the rights of the child.
In doing so, we shall have reminded ourselves that realizing these would entail the eradication of poverty and underdevelopment, that the right to development is a human right, that to end hunger on our continent, food security and nurturing agriculture have to be central to our enterprise, that clean water, and sanitation are as crucial to the health of our people as are other ways of fighting communicable diseases such as malaria, TB and AIDS.
To end ignorance on our continent, we shall invest in education, in research in all fields and endeavour to develop our capacities in science and technology.
A key challenge we have set ourselves is to end the levels of unemployment that has been a characteristic of our societies. To do this, there is no alternative but to garner all our own resources both on the continent, and elsewhere, to invest in factories, mines, agriculture and infrastructure. No longer should Africa be simply an exporter of raw materials to the west. We aspire to produce and manufacture the highest quality products for our own use and for export. In order to do this we shall have to invest in training our own working people. If we are to sustain our development, then we shall have to increase trade among ourselves.
Time has come that Africa must take her rightful place in global affairs. Time has come to end the marginalisation of Africa. We call on the rest of the world to work with us as partners.
This is a moment of hope for our continent and its peoples. We shall act together to build a brighter future, working together with all of us, governments, parliamentarians, trade unions, private sector, civil society, religious communities, cultural workers, for a better future for the peoples of Africa.
We congratulate all the leaders gathered here for the work they have done to bring us where we are today.
Long live African Unity. Long live African Union.
First published in May 2001 and updated July 2002
The highlight of the 2000 OAU/AEC Assembly of Heads of State and Government in Lomé, was without doubt, the adoption of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, in terms of the Sirte Declaration of 9 September 1999. As a follow-up, the Extraordinary Summit in Sirte was particularly important because all OAU Member States seemed to be conscious to witness the beginning of the new era and epoch of entrenched unity in Africa, but at the same time cognisant of the road travelled and the firm basis that has been laid towards democracy and the rule of law. It was indeed the case of the new struggling to be born out of the old for the old has given a context through which the new could exist. This is an important dialectical relationship that is yet to underpin the unfolding of this process - the unity and struggle of opposites.
The African Union will evolve from the OAU and the AEC into one unified institution. By adopting the Constitutive Act during the Lomé Summit of the OAU on 11 July 2000, the African Leadership had taken a bold and important step towards the renewal and regeneration of Africa. This was recognition of the need to rebuild and enhance African solidarity by creating a new organisational form that would respond to the new challenges facing Africa in the new global environment. Indeed they positively responded to a call of the Summit to "Strengthen OAU capacity to enable it to meet the challenges of the new millennium". Thus the adoption of the Constitutive Act marked the first giant step in an ongoing process to streamline and rationalise the existing organisational framework of the Continent, in so doing making the African Union relevant to the demands of the 21st Century and to achieve the ultimate goal of African Unity.
Surely, South Africa has an important role to play as a member of the African Community. This process is unfolding in a period in which South Africa is preparing to join the Troika of OAU/AU leadership in 2001 and assuming the Chair of the OAU/AU in 2002. This is a difficulty time that call for imaginative leadership as South Africa is called upon destiny to be one of those countries that will preside over this painfully transformation process.
We dare not fail.
The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was established on 25 May 1963 in Addis Ababa, on signature of the OAU Charter by representatives of 32 governments. A further 21 states have joined gradually over the years, with South Africa becoming the 53rd member in 1994. The formation of the OAU was a milestone in the decolonisation of the continent as it gave new political impetus to African peoples struggles to rid the continent of all vestiges of colonial oppression and economic subjugation. In this context, the founding principles of the OAU, laid a firm basis for the continued unity and solidarity of Africa.
These were, inter alia;
The OAU/AEC has been a crucial platform in championing the aspirations and interests of the Continent and has since its inception developed into a political and economic fulcrum of Africa. It was a uniquely African institution, created by African States as vehicle to serve Pan-African interests - it was a natural focal point for the foreign policies of its member states.
It had become evident and accepted as early as 1979, when the Committee on the Review of the Charter was established, that a need existed to amend the OAU Charter in order to streamline the Organisation to gear it more accurately for the challenges of a changing world. However, despite numerous meetings, the Charter Review Committee did not manage to formulate substantive amendments. The result of this was threefold:
These many attempts to review and give new meaning to the mandate of the OAU took a new shift in the Ouagadougou Declaration of 10 June 1998 which resolved to work towards the establishment and consolidation of effective democratic systems by involving all actors of civil society. This marked a new change of attitude in the OAU/AEC, with more emphasis on openness, co-operation with civil society, and most notably a need to bring into the mainstream economic and development issues, whereas the previous agenda was characterised by a strong focus on political issues.
Following Ouagadougou, the 1999 OAU/AEC Summit in Algiers marked a definite turning point in the Organisation's history. Its meetings were infused by a new sense of urgency and willingness to reposition the OAU for the next century. In particular, pertaining to the entrenchment of democratic governance in Africa, the Heads of State and Government accepted a proposal that leaders that came to power through coups d'etat would be expelled as from the 2000 Summit if they did not return their countries to constitutional rule. This decision marked a clear undertaking by the OAU/AEC that forceful, unconstitutional changes of government would not be tolerated in the future.
This development gained momentum during the Extraordinary Summit in Sirte, Libya in September 1999. It was at this Summit that the African leadership took a quantum leap in the process of transformation of the OAU by amending the OAU Charter to increase its efficiency and effectiveness. This Summit concluded with the adoption of the Sirte Declaration, which made provision for, inter alia:
In this instance, the Summit called for the early establishment of all the institutions provided for in the Abuja Treaty; such as the African Central Bank, the African Monetary Union, the African Court of Justice and in particular, the Pan-African Parliament.
Acting on the mandate of the Sirte Summit, the first draft of the Constitutive Act of the African Union (as well as the draft Protocol Establishing the Pan-African Parliament) was prepared by a team of legal, political science and economic experts for the OAU Secretariat. The process of refining the Constitutive Act focussed mainly on the legal aspects of the document within the framework of the Sirte Declaration.
By the time the Constitutive Act was adopted by the OAU/AEC Summit in July 2000 in Lomé, these aspects had in the main been adequately addressed. What remained were questions of the functional relationship between the African Union and existing OAU organs; the practicalities of the transitional period of the OAU/AEC to the African Union; and the confirmation and development of policies which were the result of OAU/AEC Summit decisions, i.e. the weaknesses and opportunities these may create.
The main objectives of the African Union marked a strategic shift from those espoused in the OAU Charter, in that they acknowledged the multi-faceted challenges confronting the Continent, especially in the twin areas of peace and security, as well as socio-economic development and integration. This indeed reflected the spirit of the new generation of African leadership's determination and willingness to face up to important issues and problems facing Africa in an integrated and holistic manner. In strengthening the founding principles of the OAU Charter, the objectives of the African Union are more comprehensive, as contained in the Constitutive Act, in that, inter alia, they also seek to:
Note: The principles of the OAU Charter are, in terms of the Sirte Declaration, maintained as part of the orientational basis of the African Union.
Article 5(1) of the Constitutive Act specifies that the organs of the African Union will be:
Union in particular, only the Assembly, the Executive Council and the Specialised Technical Committees have their functions spelt out in any detail in the Constitutive Act. All other organs will have to be elaborated on in Protocols to the Act. It is in this regard that South Africa should encourage a review of all protocols of OAU/AEC organs and institutions to ensure their justification, relevancy and effectiveness within the African Union.
The Constitutive Act makes provision for a defined transitional period which will ensure a smooth and gradual transition of the OAU and AEC into the Union. The transition of the OAU into the African Union is clear and well spelt out in the Constitutive Act. Regarding the transition of the AEC into the African Union, the Union takes over from the AEC, the Pan-African Parliament; the Court of Justice; the Specialised Technical Committees; the Economic, Social and Cultural Council; and the Financial Institutions. In addition, the Union will take over from the AEC the crucial responsibility of co-ordination and harmonising the policies between the existing and future RECs for the gradual attainment of the objectives of the Union.
An important supporting element to the whole process of revitalising the organisational structures for the Continent was recognised in the Sirte Declaration by the adoption of the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Co-operation in Africa (CSSDCA) as an integral part of continental mechanisms and structures. Implicit recognition was given to the CSSDCA's existence as an autonomous process that should serve as catalyst for policy development of its four Calabashes (Security, Stability, Development and Co-operation).
The Report of the First Ministerial Meeting of the CSSDCA, held in Abuja from 8 to 9 May 2000, was adopted by the OAU/AEC Summit held in Lomé. In its Declaration, Summit acknowledged the CSSDCA process as creating a synergy between the various activities currently undertaken by the OAU/AEC, which therefore should help to consolidate the work of the OAU/AEC in the areas of peace, security, stability, development and co-operation. In this regard, the CSSDCA should provide a policy development forum for the elaboration and advancement of common values within the main policy organs of the OAU/AEC. South Africa has offered to host the meeting of the Development and Co-operation Calabashes in order to kick-start and operationalise the CSSDCA process. It is expected that the African Heads of States and Governments will review the work of the CSSDCA during their Summit in South Africa in 2002.
NEPAD is a holistic, comprehensive and integrated strategic framework for the socio economic development of Africa. The NEPAD document provides the vision for Africa, a statement of the problems facing the continent and a Programme of Action to resolve these problems. Its primary objective is to eradicate poverty in Africa, to place African countries individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development and to thus halt the marginalisation of Africa in the globalisation process.
Conditions for Sustainable Development: Peace, Security, Democracy and Political Governance; Economic and Corporate Governance; Sub-regional and Regional Approaches to Development.
Sectoral Priorities: Bridging the Infrastructure Gap, including all infrastructure sectors, bridging the digital divide: investing in information, communications and communications technologies, energy, transport and water and sanitation. Human resource development, focusing on reducing poverty, bridging the education gap, reversing the brain drain and health. Agriculture, environment, culture. science and technology platforms.
Resources for the Plan will be mobilised through: The Capital Flows Initiative, which include increasing domestic resource mobilisation, debt relief, overseas development aid (ODA) reform and private capital flows. The Market Access Initiative, promoting diversification of production through the development of sectors such as agriculture, mining, manufacturing, tourism and services. This initiative also seeks to promote the private sector on the continent, African exports and the removal of non-tariff barriers.
Principles and Objectives of NEPAD: Ensuring African ownership, responsibility and leadership; strengthening Africa's capacity to lead her own development and to improve coordination with development partners. Making Africa attractive to domestic and foreign investors; unleashing the vast economic potential of the continent; achieving and sustaining an average GDP growth rate of over 7% per year for the next 15 years; Increasing investment in human resource development; promoting the role of women in all activities; Promoting sub-regional and continental economic integration; ensuring that there is capacity to lead negotiations on behalf of the continent on major development programmes that require coordination at continental level; ensure that there is capacity to accelerate implementation of major regional development cooperation agreements and projects already approved or in the pipeline. Developing a new partnership with industrialised countries and multilateral organisations on the basis of mutual commitments, obligations, interests, contributions and benefits. Strengthening Africa's capacity to mobilise additional external resources for its own development.
Implementing NEPAD: The Lusaka OAU Summit in July 2001 adopted what was then known as the New Africa Initiative (NAI) and mandated the first meeting of the NEPAD Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee, which took place in October 2001 in Abuja, Nigeria. This meeting adopted the document, implementation structures and the name of the plan to be known as NEPAD.
The African Union was launched in Durban South Africa from 9-10 July 2002. The First Ordinary Session of the AU took a range of far-reaching decisions, including:
We, the Heads of State and Government of the Assembly of the African Union, meeting in our inaugural session in Durban, South Africa, have adopted the following declaration in tribute to the Organisation of African Unity:
We, Heads of State and Government of the Member States of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) from Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire , Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti , Egypt , Eritrea , Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe
INSPIRED by the noble ideals which guided the founding fathers of our Continental Organization and generations of Pan-Africanists in their determination to promote unity, solidarity, cohesion and cooperation among the peoples of Africa and African States;
CONSIDERING the principles and objectives stated in the Charter of the Organization of African Unity and the Treaty establishing the African Economic Community;
RECALLING the heroic struggles waged by our peoples and our countries for political independence, human dignity and economic emancipation;
CONSIDERING that since its inception, the Organization of African Unity has played a determining and invaluable role in the liberation of the continent, the affirmation of a common identity and the process of attainment of the unity of our Continent and has provided a unique framework for our collective action in Africa and in our relations with the rest of the world;
DETERMINED to take up the multifaceted challenges that confront our continent and peoples in the light of the social, economic and political changes taking place in the world;
CONVINCED of the need to accelerate the process of implementing the Treaty establishing the African Economic Community in order to promote the socio-economic development of Africa and to face more effectively the challenges posed by globalization;
GUIDED by our common vision of a united and strong Africa and by the need to build a partnership between governments and all segments of civil society, in particular women, youth and the private sector in order to strengthen solidarity and cohesion among our peoples;
CONSCIOUS of the fact that the scourge of conflicts in Africa constitutes a major impediment to the socio-economic development of the continent and of the need to promote peace, security and stability as a prerequisite for the implementation of our development and integration agenda;
DETERMINED to promote and protect human and peoples' rights, consolidate democratic institutions and culture, and to ensure good governance and the rule of law;
FURTHER DETERMINED to take all necessary measures to strengthen our common institutions and provide them with the necessary powers and resources to enable them discharge their respective mandates effectively;
RECALLING the Declaration which we adopted at the Fourth Extraordinary Session of our Assembly in Sirte, the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, on 9.9. 99, in which we decided to establish an African Union, in conformity with the ultimate objectives of the Charter of our Continental Organization and the Treaty establishing the African Economic Community;
HAVE AGREED AS FOLLOWS:
Article 1: Definitions
Article 2: Establishment: The African Union is hereby established in accordance with the provisions of this Act.
Article 3: Objectives.The objectives of the Union shall be to: Achieve greater unity and solidarity between the African counties and the peoples of Africa; Defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of its Member States; Accelerate the political and socio-economic integration of the continent; Promote and defend African common positions on issues of interest to the continent and its peoples; Encourage international cooperation, taking due account of the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Promote peace, security, and stability on the continent; Promote democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance; Promote and protect human and peoples' rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and other relevant human rights instruments; Establish the necessary conditions which enable the continent to play its rightful role in the global economy and in international negotiations; Promote sustainable development at the economic, social and cultural levels as well as the integration of African economies; Promote cooperation in all fields of human activity to raise the living standards of African peoples; Coordinate and harmonize policies between existing and future Regional Economic Communities for the gradual attainment of the objectives of the Union; Advance the development of the continent by promoting research in all fields, in particular in science and technology; Work with relevant international partners in the eradication of preventable diseases and the promotion of good health on the continent.
Article 4: Principles. The Union shall function in accordance with the following principles: Sovereign equality and interdependence among Member States of the Union; Respect of borders existing on achievement of independence; Participation of the African peoples in the activities of the Union; Establishment of a common defence policy for the African Continent; Peaceful resolution of conflicts among Member States of the Union through such appropriate means as may be decided upon by the Assembly; Prohibition of the use of force or threat to use force among Member States of the Union; Non-interference by any Member State in the internal affairs of another; The right of the Union to intervene in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity; Peaceful co-existence of Member States and their right to live in peace and security; The right of Member States to request intervention from the Union in order to restore peace and security; Promotion of self-reliance within the framework of the Union; Promotion of gender equality; Respect for democratic principles, human rights, the rule of law and good governance; Promotion of social justice to ensure balanced economic development; Respect for the sanctity of human life, condemnation and rejection of impunity and political assassination, acts of terrorism and subversive activities; Condemnation and rejection of unconstitutional changes of governments.
Article 5. Organs of the Union. The organs of the Union shall be: The Assembly of the Union; The Executive Council; The Pan-African Parliament; The Court of Justice; The Commission; The Permanent Representatives Committee; The Specialized Technical Committees; The Economic, Social and Cultural Council; The Financial Institutions; Other organs that the Assembly may decide to establish.
Article 6. The Assembly.
Article 7. Decisions of the Assembly
Article 8. Rules of Procedure of the Assembly The Assembly shall adopt its own Rules of Procedure.
Article 9. Powers and Functions of the Assembly
Article 10. The Executive Council
Article 11. Decisions of the Executive Council
Article 12. Rules of Procedure of the Executive Council The Executive Council shall adopt its own Rules of Procedure.
Article 13. Functions of the Executive Council
Article 14. The Specialized Technical Committees Establishment and Composition.
Article 15. Functions of the Specialized Technical Committees
Each Committee shall within its field of competence: Prepare projects and programmes of the Union and submit in to the Executive Council; Ensure the supervision, follow-up and the evaluation of the implementation of decisions taken by the organs of the Union; Ensure the coordination and harmonization of projects and programmes of the Union; Submit to the Executive Council either on its own initiative or at the request of the Executive Council, reports and recommendations on the implementation of the provision of this Act; and Carry out any other functions assigned to it for the purpose of ensuring the implementation of the provisions of this Act.
Article 16. Meetings
Subject to any directives given by the Executive Council, each Committee shall meet as often as necessary and shall prepare its rules of procedure and submit them to the Executive Council for approval.
Article 17. The Pan-African Parliament
Article 18. The Court of Justice
Article 19. The Financial Institutions
The Union shall have the following financial institutions, those rules and regulations shall be defined in protocols relating thereto: The African Central Bank; The African Monetary Fund; The African Investment Bank.
Article 20. The Commission
Article 21. The Permanent Representatives Committee
Article 22. The Economic, Social and Cultural Council
Article 23. Imposition of Sanctions
Article 24. The Headquarters of the Union
Article 25. Working Languages
The working languages of the Union and all its institutions shall be, if
possible, African languages, Arabic, English, French and Portuguese.
Article 26. Interpretation
The Court shall be seized with matters of interpretation arising from the
application or implementation of this Act. Pending its establishment, such matters
shall be submitted to the Assembly of the Union, which shall decide by a two-thirds
majority.
Article 27. Signature, Ratification and Accession
Article 28. Entry into Force
This Act shall enter into force thirty (30) days after the deposit of the instruments
of ratification by two-thirds of the Member States of the OAU.
Article 29. Admission to Membership
Article 30. Suspension
Governments which shall come to power through unconstitutional means shall not
be allowed to participate in the activities of the Union.
Article 31. Cessation of Membership
Article 32. Amendment and Revision
Article 33. Transitional Arrangements and Final Provisions
By P. Anyang' Nyong'o
African Academy of Sciences, Nairobi, Kenya
When the African heads of states and governments met in Monrovia in July 1979, to discuss and examine the economic problems facing the continent and to take a stand on the need to address these problems, they arrived at some very historic decisions which can only now be appreciated in retrospect. They declared, among other things, that they would take concrete measurers to realize national and collective self-reliance in the economic and social domains faced by the New International Economic Order. They went further to note that they had recognized the necessity to take urgent measurers in giving the indispensable political support to the process of realizing rapid economic growth in the context of collective self-reliant development.
In this regard, the y resolved that it was vital to do the following:-
The heads of states and governments therefore charged the OAU Secretary General and the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa to come up with a sound plan for putting in place these objectives. This is what led to the Second Extraordinary Session of the Heads of States and Governments held in Lagos in July 1980 to pass The Lagos Plan of Action and The Final Act of Lagos for the economic development of Africa.
In essence, the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) was a detailed elaboration of the general principles and objectives arrived at in Monravia in 1979. It went into details, sector by sector, on how Africa could, through collective self-reliance, achieve rapid economic and social development during the last two decades of the twentieth century. The Final Act of Lagos (FAL) committed the African governments to establish an African Economic Community by the year 2000 and stated steps to be taken to this effect. In other words, the FAL took the principles, programs and projects enunciated in the LPA as agreed upon, and now went further to state the kind of economic and political institutional agreements necessary to realize these.
The LPA was criticized by the World Bank as not giving enough room to the private sector, not conceding to reforms necessary in the public sector to stimulate growth and being too ambitious in its projections on what Africa could achieve in terms of industrial growth. Given that the West was generally hostile to arguments advanced by the advocates of the NIEO (?), it was not surprising that they paid scant attention to the LPA and FAL.
The World Bank therefore went ahead to set up its own assessment of the possibilities to jump start African economies, so as to overcome underdevelopment. Professor Elliot Berg was appointed by the World Bank to head a team of evaluators who came up with the famous Berg report entitled Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action. Like the LPA, the Berg Report also analysed the African economies sector by sector, and was equally convinced that Africa ad little to show in terms of development twenty years after independence. But unlike the LPA, the Berg Report delivered a judgment that put the African state and African bureaucracies in the dock. From the Bank's perspective, little would happen in Africa in terms of accelerated development before the African state abandoned its misadventures in the economy, bad governance tarnished to the museum of political evils that helped to deepen Africa's underdevelopment and the market allowed more room to introduce economic rationality in development choice making.
While the LPA had avoided raising political issues, the Berg Report was quite explicit about corruption and the role of "over blown bureaucracy" in eating up scarce resources in development, mismanaging public affairs and generally becoming a parasite on society. The state-led development model that relied on heavily subsidizing social welfare, industrializing through tariff-supported import substitution, foreign exchange controls and deficit financing of public expenditure was deemed by the World Bank to be unsuitable and antithetical to the growth of the private sector. Yet it is the growth of the private sector that African economies needed for accelerated development so as to overcome underdevelopment.
The Bank therefore recommended a two-pronged solution to the crisis of underdevelopment and the search for accelerated development in Africa. First was the need to role back the state from involvement in the economy by privatizing public enterprises and confining the state to its traditional role as a regulator. The second was to open up the economy to more private sector participation and the rule of the economy by market forces through liberalization. Economic reform policy packages handed down to African governments by the World Bank and other donors as conditions for aid disbursements containing some or all aspects of these two came to be known as Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs).
The doctrinaire manner in which SAPs were demanded and implemented alarmed many African governments, scholars, researchers and even some of the donors themselves. For example, it was not quite clear how the state could be expected to pull out altogether its support for public health and education, why it was mandatory that food subsidies to be withdrawn even where it meant starvation of thousands of workers and their families trapped in the mining districts like in Zambia, and whether workers would afford to travel to work where affordable public transportation was no longer available. Economists could also not agree that a complete withdrawal of exchange controls in contexts where only a few multinational banks dominated the money market and the Central Banks were relatively weak, was good for Africa.
While Africa did not want to simply pour cold water on SAPs, their adverse effects and even at times inappropriateness could not be ignored. A more proactive approach was therefore taken by the Economic Commission of Africa in conjunction with African governments to produce Africa's Priority Program for Economic Recovery 1986-1990 (APPER). This was later converted into the United Nations Program of Action for Africa's Economic Recovery and Development (UN-PAAERD).
In these two documents, Africans tried to come to terms with SAPs, and to propose to the UN body economic programs and objectives under which African governments could engage the external world in a joint endeavour to tackle economic and social backwardness in Africa. The problem of the debt burden became prominent, inadequacy of investment resources was underlined and unequal exchange of trade was underscored. Even before SAPs could be implemented, these issues needed to be addressed and commitment made to infuse the continent with capital investment that would create the shock absorbers when SAPs were landed on the African people.
The outside world noted that African governments were not taking their part of the bargain seriously. That the LPA had not even addressed the issue of "good governance", that this has been left to the World Bank to raise in the Berg Report and African governments have since then kept mute. It was further pointed out that the issue of SAPs needed to spell out clearly how APPER and UN-PAARED could be implemented without clear signals and programs that the SAPs - the African versions - were on the agenda.
In 1989, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) produced The African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Program for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation (AAF-SAP). Without abandoning the commitment to collective self-reliance that was the linchpin of the LPA, and still underscoring the need for massive capital investment in African economies so as to kick start economic growth, AAF-SAP nonetheless conceded to the demands of the World Bank led SAPs agenda. It however introduced a new dimension: the need to pay attention to vulnerable groups and to create landing pads for them through safety nets. But AAF-SAP was seen in certain African quarters as a retreat from LPA, or - at worst - a capitulation to the SAPs mafia. Such harsh judgments did not take into account the shifts in global politics, with Gorbachev already implementing his own version of AAF-SAPs in the Soviet Union and the Berlin wall about to fall.
In that same year, the Berlin Wall did indeed fall, and African governments could no longer avoid addressing the governance issue in holding any international "development discourse" with the so-called western democracies led by the Triad. It was in this context that the ECA prepared for and held the famous Arusha conference on Popular Participation for Democracy in Africa and subsequently produced The African Charter for Popular Participation for Development (1990). Given this positive predisposition to good governance and noting that this was the first time that the official documents discussing Africa's development agenda conceded that democracy was a cardinal issue, the UN now went ahead to produce the New Agenda for Development of Africa in the 1990's (UN NADAF. 1991) which had heavy doses of good governance as a sine qua non for Africa's economic recovery.
As if the ECA, OAU and African governments had been involved in some kind of pantomime, not much really happened in terms of jump starting the African economies by the time the ink dried on the UN DADAF and other resolutions that followed in its wake in various UN and OAU conferences and inter-ministerial meetings. Prof. Adebayo Adedeji, who was indeed at the center of this drama, recently gave this rather pessimistic commentary:
"Unfortunately, all of these were opposed, undermined and jettisoned by the Bretton Woods institutions and Africans were thus impeded from exercising the basic and fundamental right to make decisions about their future. This denial would have been ameliorated if the African leaders had shown the commitment to carry out their own developmental agenda. But given excessive external dependence, their narrow political bas, and their perennial failure to put their money where their mouth is, the implementation of these plans has suffered from benign neglect. Lacking the resources and the will to soldier on self-reliantly, they abandon their own strategies, including the two UN-PAARED and UN-NADAF which were crafted jointly with the international community under the aegis of the United Nations."
Adedeji sees the unfortunate fates of these earlier initiatives to have been due not only to lack of clarity and commitment on the part of the African political leadership, but also as a function of the capriciousness of the Development Merchant System (DMS) which is always hell bent on selling the "development packages" to Africa whether they are workable or not. But Adedeji is not alone in this. Right from the mid sixties to the Fall of the Berlin Wall, African scholars and progressive nationalists had always warned against the dangers of African political leadership without vision thrust in a world where the DMS called the shots in the development agenda.
Nkrumah had called for progressive African unity as the only answers to the vagaries of imperialism and neo-colonialism (Africa Must Unite. Moscow Progress Publishers. 1963). Reginald Hebald Green and Anne Seidmann, during the days they spent in Dar es Salaam in the sixties went further to discuss in detail the economics and politics of African unity, equally underscoring the perilous nature of the DMS in a context of political vulnerability. This vulnerability, Franz Fanon had warned us, becomes particularly acute when the national bourgeoisie is either non-existent or weak, and where nationalists take leave of their national identity and consciousness and become the conveyor belts for foreign interests and values.
Yet both Rene Dumont and Walter Rodeney, writing almost a decade apart from each other, noted that the objective conditions obtaining in Africa in the post independence era showed quite clearly that underdevelopment was a historic phenomenon in which western imperialism stood accused of depleting Africa's resources and labor for purposes of capital accumulation in the north. Any attempts to come to terms with this unequal and structurally "under developing" relationship called for a drastically new arrangements in international relations in which Africa needed to recapture her role as a subject and not object of her own history. Impressive growth statistics that might have accompanied the records of certain African economies after independence - such as the growth in export earnings in places like Cote d'Ivoire - only hid the structurally "blocked" nature of these economies, argued Samir Amin in his book, Neo-Colonialism in West Africa.
But objective conditions remain as such until they are challenged by subjective factors: this was the essence of Fanon's analysis. It has remained so in the many researches undertaken by various African scholars on issues of development, national liberation and disengagement from imperialism. Indeed, even before talks and studies of democracy became an industry in Africa, we ourselves had pioneered major studies on struggles for democracy in Africa that showed that the African people, organized in various ways, had not taken underdevelopment and political oppression lying down. They had engaged in struggles for democracy. These struggles, though viciously oppressed by the exploiters, were popular and, in the end, changed the cause of history in Africa in certain countries. The ANC is a living example. We cannot say we are still where we were in the sixties, seventies, and the eighties. In other countries, the jury is still out; but this does not mean that the people have completely thrown in the towel.
It is with this historical and contextual background in mind that we need to discuss NEPAD.
In many ways Adedeji and Dan Nabudere adequately addressed themselves to this question and made contributions to the NEPAD discourse both timely and necessary. The following key issues, however, need to be reiterated. First, unlike the LPA and other subsequent documents referred to earlier, NEPAD tackles the issue of good governance frontally and goes ahead to set up institutional mechanisms that can put politics at the command of economics in Africa.
Second, NEPAD is not shy to speak about democracy. Nowhere in the LPA was the word democracy mentioned, let alone addressing the issue of politics. For all intents and purposes, the LPA was an "economistic" document in the rather pejorative sense of the word. NEPAD on the other hand, is a document conscious of "political economy" and the role of subjective factors in influencing processes of social transformation.
Third, while fully conscious of the structural constraints that the world economic system places on the potential for development in Africa, NEPAD openly admits engagement into this system as the only realistic way out, and suggest partnership - rather than dependence and subservience - as the mode of this engagement. This engagement will involve renegotiating international trade arrangements to improve equity in WTO rules and regulations; to reduce unequal exchange in international commerce; and to have better and more rewarding access to foreign markets. It also hope that this partnership implies a kind of social democracy at a global level whereby those who have been favored by history for various reasons to be developed will have some vested interests in investing in the rapid development of the currently underdeveloped Africa provided this is done with African leadership taking the initiative.
Fourth, nowhere in NEPAD is there any lamentation about SAPs, nor does the document try to pinch the consciousness of the western world about its role in under developing Africa. These issues are either taken as given, or they are deliberately avoided as possible causes for unnecessary self-pity.
Nonetheless, the issue of reparations remains cardinal to any discourse for a healthy partnership and the promotion of global social democracy.
Fifth, NEPAD - like its predecessor the LPA - is strong on collective self-reliance and puts premium on regional integration as part and parcel of the strategy for African economic renaissance. Unlike previous initiatives, however, it is more specific on African-level projects and is not as wordy in its proposals as the LPA tended to be - with the risk of confusing the statement of general principles with that of detailed programmatic implementation schedules.
Sixth, NEPAD, like the African Charter for Popular Participation, takes the issue of peace, security and human rights as critical to any prospects of development in Africa. In this regard, priority must be given to the settlement of the debilitating internal conflicts in Africa and the creation of political democratic order wherever such order is wanting. This includes a whole range of conflicts from the obvious ones like the ones in the Great Lakes region, the Horn of Africa and Western Sahara to the less talked about ones like the conflicts in northern Uganda.
Seventh, NEPAD, like all her predecessors, has been an initiative of the Heads of States and Governments. It has therefore encountered some problems of gaining legitimacy with the people in terms of being found wanting in the politics of inclusion. But this critique need not be carried to its absurd conclusion: it is in the nature of leaders that they must lead first and foremost in ideas. Quite often these ideas are in the interest of the people where leaders feel accountable to the people. At other times, when the people are terrorized into submission, such ideas can be very dangerous, like with Nazism in Germany and Zionism in Israel.
For most of the post independence period, African societies have been terrorized by presidential authoritarian regimes and military dictatorships.
The people of Africa - particularly the intelligentsia - are therefore very cautious when ideas come from above without broad discourse and consultation. They need to be sure that there are institutional mechanisms and safeguards that make such ideas be pursued in the interest of the people, and not simply be used for the legitimating of authoritarian rule. The danger is not that the masses have not been fully involved in discussing NEPAD. The much more important issue is that the institutional mechanisms be established for public discourse and accountability. After all, before the coming into being of the Euro, only 16% of Europeans were aware - let alone engaged - in European Union matters. It was only when decisions were being made to join or not to join that potential members held referenda to seek the support of the people.
History, however, is never devoid of subjective factors that may intervene at certain moments to change the course of events quite contrary to expectations based on previous experience. This is where enlightened leadership comes in where the African public is historically attuned to be pessimistic about their leaders. Recent democratic openings may have allowed into the scene some leaders who are reasonably enlightened to recapture the spirit of the early nationalists and to lead Africa out of the present quagmire of underdevelopment. Their success, however, will depend on the extent to which they establish institutional mechanisms for realizing the noble visions, and the extent to which progressive social forces embrace these visions into popular movements for democratic transformation and development of Africa.
Paper delivered at the Renaissance South Africa Programme Continental Experts Meeting. Pretoria, 17-19 June 2002.
By Sydney Mufamadi
The KwaZulu Natal African Renaissance Festival of Ideas has brought together the political leadership of our region, the African intelligentsia, Africans-in-the-Diaspora and members of formations that represent civil society in its various dimensions. Together we constitute a constellation of the rising classes with a responsibility to claim for the African continent a place in the global sun.
As one of the Speakers in this Fourth African Renaissance KZN Festival, I share the platform with a delegation of comrades from the Republic of Mozambique, led by the Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation, Dr Leonardo Simao. Their presence brings back memories of those days when in the immediate aftermath of the floods, we soldiered together for the salvation of humanity in Mozambique.
Not so long ago, Mozambique was a Portuguese colony. Just as it was about to join the world community of free nations, by what cruel twists, it was plunged into a long nightmare of civil strife. As a result, Mozambique was at one stage said to be the poorest country in the world.
We know this to be a fact that before the floods, Mozambique was rising like a phoenix from the ashes of the twin evils of colonialism and civil war. The floods struck a Mozambique whose economy was growing at a rate that was considered the fastest in the world, albeit from a very low base.
The resilience of the people of Mozambique and South Africa's path-finding transitions to democracy have about them a significance of profound dimensions. They debunk dominant stereotypes of Africa as a continent with an innate propensity for failure. The experience of our two peoples speak to the determination of the inhabitants of a continent whose time has come. Our two countries therefore, count amongst the torch-bearers of the continent's regrouping.
The notion of the Renaissance is associated with the motive force that bequeathed to the cartography of the world, the nation state as a reality of civilisation. Since then, the world we live in is organised and divided into domestic and foreign realms which are by no means hermetically sealed. This forms the basis on which modern nation states built political, legal and social institutions.
Like all other civilisations, ours was incorporated within the evolving inter-state system. It is a system, which contrived the progenitor of the enduring images of affluence in the North and the counter-images of misery, underdevelopment and poverty in the South.
Indeed those states which had the economic and military power enough for them to rise to positions of preponderance within the interstate system, have used their discursive power to consign the rest of us to the periphery. It is within this context that the concept of an African Renaissance must be understood. An important pillar on which the African Renaissance rests is the bringing into life of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD). This is important because a way had to be found to overcome the pernicious effects of the market exploitative division between the North and South. NEPAD presents a framework for a break with the unequal and exploitative economic and political relations that manifest itself in the causal connection between development in the North and underdevelopment in the South, of which our continent is an intimate part.
The idea of African Renaissance was received with mixed reactions. The majority of the people of this continent see in the African Renaissance the promise of a better life. Sceptics point to various flashpoints of political and economic problems; Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sierra Leone and now lately, Zimbabwe. They then come to the conclusion that the African Renaissance is doomed to fail.
It is inevitable that all forward-looking undertakings such as the African Renaissance are exposed to all manner of inertia. In the first place, the idea of the Renaissance itself implies a conscious and determined decision to extricate society out of prolonged moments of decay. Even the non-African versions of the Renaissance traversed similar ground. They were not problem-free, nor linear trajectories leading to the pinnacle of human civilization.
We have firstly to assume intellectual responsibility for ensuring that our Renaissance represent endogenous progressive traditions on the basis of which the African continent shall organise itself into the future.
Secondly, our vision must be grounded in a sound appreciation of the empirical base of the contemporary world. Thus, the need for us to subject the threats and opportunities facing our continent to scientific intellect cannot be overemphasized.
We also have the attendant responsibility of barricading the Renaissance from the negative force of Afro-pessimism.
It was when we acted as a united force (both on the domestic and on the international fronts), that we were able to free this continent from the shackles of colonialism. Unity of purpose continues to be an indispensable condition for taking the logic of African decolonisation to its conclusion.
In the process of asserting our independence and carving a niche for Africa in the globalising world, our intellectuals have a very important role to play. In order for them to be of service and value to our continent and its people, our intellectuals must see themselves as part of our continent, part of its people. Our intellectuals must mount a rebellion against the hegemonic atomistic ideology of the west which privileges the individual above the collective.
We need perhaps now more than never before, to overcome the fragmentation of policy- making and intellectual resources which our continent is so well endowed with. All the resources available to us must be mobilised and canalised towards the goal of setting our continent firmly on the path of sustainable development.
Turbulences notwithstanding, the African Renaissance is on course.
Mozambique proved that it can be done - so too did South Africa in its own way. And so, it will be done.
Abridged speech by Minister Sydney Mufamadi to the 4th KwaZulu Natal African Renaissance Festival, 22 March 2002. Durban
By Saliem Fakir
In September 2002 the largest ever gathering of environmentalists, industry, government, labour, NGOs and social movements will gather in Johannesburg to reflect on the implementation of the declarations and plan of actions for sustainable development over the last 10 years following the 1992, Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro.
The Johannesburg Earth Summit may just be another jamboree of government delegations fussing over nothing. Gauging from the recently deliberations during the preparatory processes, there is a distinct lack of sparkle, both from the side of important stakeholders and government delegations. Then there is the whole Bush administration's unilateral decision to reject the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, [and at the same time increasing the protection of its agricultural sector] adding to doubts as to whether the world's most powerful country will come to the Johannesburg jamboree at all. Changes over the last ten years entail that Agenda 21, which is the programme for sustainable development that was agreed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, needs to be recontextualised. Since 1992 there has been an escalation of globalisation, with the most significant characteristic thereof being the creation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) (an institution established to manage trade liberalisation) and following suit are an increasing number of regional trade agreements.
This has also been accompanied by the unprecedented rise in the power of multinationals and a plethora of civic movements and organisations all attempting to act as countervailing forces against the perceived convergence between the interest of government and corporations. The size of these corporations in terms of power and resources dwarf that of many developing countries. We have not seen in the entire human history such an unprecedented growth in wealth and poverty all lumped on us simultaneously. Perhaps globalisation is nothing new, as some would argue it existed in one form or the other if we were only to examine earlier mercantilism, the slave trade, colonialism etc, except that its present depth, range, speed and scope for both major social and economic transformation is reason for concern.
The Johannesburg Summit will not be immune to demonstrations of civic power and civic voice, as we have seen unfold in the pastiche of events, such as Seattle, the first ever World Social Forum in Porta Alegre, which was organised as an alternative to the World Economic Forum, and the recent protest against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas in Quebec City. As one local NGO magazine poignantly noted the Johannesburg Summit would provide yet another opportunity for social movements to connect (Land and Rural Digest, March/April 2001). The Earth Summit will fail if it did not deal with the substantive issues which form the undercurrent and the themes emerging in gatherings from Porta Alegre to Quebec City. These issues are at the heart of some of the challenges we will face in the 21st century in terms of ensuring the world is a safe place for all, where there is security of livelihoods, and protection of human rights through intensification of democracy.
The anti-globalisation movement is a convenient vehicle to amass an array of marginalised and disempowered groups and communities. These are the forgotten voices and identities of people who have once placed their trust in the political machinery of modern national states, but increasingly find that their states are either powerless, or that the democratic institutions are only accessible to a select few in their society. As prominent feminist and sociologist, Suskia Sussen notes:
"The movements are made up of people who feel entitled to practise politics on streets of nations where they are not citizens. They are conducting themselves as denationalised citizens in a way that interestingly parallels the formalized rights and entitlements that allow corporations to function on an international level. In other words we are seeing the globalization of citizenship" (In These Times.Com, March, 2001).
Despite the strong presence of social movements - led entirely by civil society organisations (CSOs) - as an important countervailing force, it is still a movement coming to terms with its own power. A well-knit vision is yet to be forthcoming and whether the movement, which mobilises entirely through the web and discreet systems of communication, will take an institutional form and present identifiable leadership remains open to question.
For now its loose arrangement, spontaneity, amorphous structure, collective energies and the almost carnival atmosphere of 'street-war', teach-ins, and alternative media campaigns nourishes interest in the movement. This seems to attract a great deal of disenfranchised youth dissatisfied with the post-cold-war era of consumerism, and government mediocrity. The movement provides a forum and adds weight to the voices of those excluded from mainstream institutions wherein the major decisions affecting their lives are made.
It is still a camp struggling with differences of opinion between the 'nix-its' and 'fix-its', regarding what should be done with institutions such as the World Bank or IMF. The nub of the issue is whether social transformation at the global level is best achieved by abolishing the existing system of governance hinged together by various multilateral bodies, or by reforming it.
An additional interesting feature of the new social movement is that it is not encapsulated under one convening identity. There is a distinct move away from having ones identity as groups, networks or institutions located in the name of a single entity. There seems to be a preference for a loose alliance of issues, and groups, so that no one entity may lay claim to the entirety of the movement as its own. It would seem that in this way social movements are maintaining their fluidity, and the presence of multiple identities, claims and agendas.
There is always a temptation to transform social movements into an identifiable institution and leadership cadre. As experience elsewhere shows, this can lead to leadership conflicts, possessiveness over power, and splits between different tendencies. Some semblance of this did manifest at the World Social Forum at Porta Alegre. The movement however, is still in its infancy and it is therefore premature to conclude as to whether it is just an amorphous agglomeration of spirits, or that it will emerge into a transnational political entity taking on the semblance of a new global vanguard party representing the interest of the new left and marginalised groups. A further test to the resilience of the social movement is that if it were to also become merely a gathering of talk-shops, marginalised constituencies may soon doubt the ability of this movement to deliver tangible changes.
In a recent book titled: "Shaping Globalization: Civil Society, Cultural Power and Threefolding", by the prominent intellectual Nicanor Perlas of the Philippines, it is argued that civil society organisations (CSOs) have become the most important countervailing power since Seattle, in shaping globalisation. Together with business, and government, CSOs are defining a new political state of play and spectrum, whereby any movement towards a more sustainable future would require dialogue between the three different actors. Hence, in his concept of three-folding, Perlas states:
"The first key is to understand why our world is now tri-polar. It is so because there are now three contending institutional powers that reside in the world - global civil society, government and business. These three powers, through their interaction, determine the direction of world development".
However, Perlas' analysis of CSOs is too generic, as there are within the CSO community different political strands, alliances and interests, which makes the network of relationships between the tri-party actors at the global level not as distinct entities, as presented in his thesis. The reality is that the terrain is more discursive with possibilities of alliances between government and CSOs, CSOs and business, and not just business and government as his thesis seems to posit. The concept of three-folding does leave us with an interesting question as to whether sustained and lasting global social agreements can only be achieved through inter-governmental forums and agreements? It is an issue that perhaps requires radical new ways of conceiving international governance systems and decision-making processes. Nobody would disagree that policy and action is much more enriched if the three parties are party to informing decision-making.
Although Seattle is hailed as a symbol of civic power, it is still dominated by the interests of northern civil society. It is not clear to what extent a southern agenda, which has a strong development agenda and discourse attached to it, will be allowed to prevail on issues of a broader and more vigorous notion of sustainable development. The North/South divide is a real one, and tensions unfolded at the first preparatory meeting for the Johannesburg Summit held in New York this April. So far there is no agreement between the two constituencies on the way forward and it is rapidly turning into a bun fight over control, numbers and access to donor funds. The concerns of the South cannot be resolved by the South entering the arena with a begging bowl, but by asserting its leadership.
The emergence of CSOs is linked to the claim that citizens all over the world seem to be losing faith in the ability of governments across the spectrum of the globe, to secure freedoms and welfare for themselves and fellow compatriots. The very basis of democracy and the presence of nation states are, in terms of conventional political discourse, meant to satisfy the need for social equity; the freedom to engage in fruitful economic activity; and being able to exercise one's critical faculties. Eric Hobsbawn in a recent article in The Spectator noted that even in democratic countries the claim that parties or political leaders are representative of the voice and aspirations of their citizens is being put to question. This may also explain the rise of social movements and NGOs as new forums for voicing issues and political engagement.
In his Reith lectures, Anthony Giddens, notes:
"At the same time as democracy is spreading around the world, in countries that you can define as the core countries of democracy - the liberal democratic states of Western Europe, the United States, Australasia and so forth - there is increasing disaffection with democratic institutions. In almost all countries you find declining levels of trust in political leaders. In almost all countries you find declining levels of trust in figures of authority in general, professors, doctors or other professionals" (Giddens, Reith Lectures, 1999).
There is this strange anomaly of citizens in mature democracies losing faith in their own systems to be democratic, and the urgency for democratic order is corralling overwhelming numbers of citizens, where democracy is lacking, to take to the streets. In these countries, good governance is seen as a means for dealing with disparity and economic hardship.
In reality however, corporations and many social movements, while engaging in transnational politics, are only enabled to act because of the prevalence of states. Corporations can only further their interest using the state as a vehicle because international trade systems, and other agreements are negotiated between state parties. So increasingly the issue is not the lack of states, it is the use of the state as an instrument to secure maximum economic and political interest. In fact, one may argue that state instruments are, to use the Gramscian cliché, loci, whereby there are constant attempts to vest ideological hegemony and in so doing resources can be channeled to favour the interests of particular political and economic formations outside of government. Sassen notes:
"The formal political system today faces a new geography of power. Globalization
and the new technologies have contributed to the shrinking of state authority
and the explosion of a wholes series of new actors engaged in governance activities"
(Sassen, 2000).
Often the locus of information, knowledge and influence exists outside of the state, forcing state institutions to be dependent on these external networks, in order to formulate the state's own positions and strategies. The Internet revolution is largely credited for stimulating the rapid success and rise of globalisation. However, as noted by the Philosopher of Information Technology, Manuel Castells (Castells, 1996), herein also lies the danger of entrenching the current digital divide between developed and developing countries, which is likely to lead to the perpetuation of a global system of apartheid in Information Technology, as many citizens of developing countries have neither telephones nor Internet access. This lack of access will lead to greater political disenfranchisement and economic impoverishment.
A World Bank Report for Global Economic Prospects published in 2000, notes that while the "Internet is globalization on steroids", and has the potential to improve commerce and democracy in developing countries, there are still major gross inequalities in terms of internet access which can stifle opportunities or the ability of developing countries to 'leap-frog' technological gaps. In the US, 30% of the population is online compared to 0.6% in developing countries, limiting the degree of access that ordinary citizens have with regard to economic information, public policy documents, international debates, alternative opinions etc. The internet has made it possible, where countries are more digitally connected to each other, to sustain deeper levels of economic integration and hence growth (Foreign Policy on-line, Jan/Feb. 2001).
The advent of the Internet has made mass dissemination and political mobilisation possible across spatial and cultural boundaries. This power to mobilise an opposition of consumers around the world has been clearly demonstrated over the issue of Genetically Modified Organisms. The strength of this opposition was not cloistered around a common accusation by the establishment that it is a coterie of a few ignoramuses instilling fear in the populace on things that are good for them. But perhaps for the first time people have had more than enough information to make an opinion, participate on online debates, and disseminate pro- and counter-information.
The strength of the opposition was supported by substantive comment, analysis and views that could not have been possible without the virtual connections that were made possible by the Internet. The Internet has ensured that old systems of political patronage, from which they derived their legitimacy, have been made somewhat oblivious or weaker. As Sassen remarks:
"The internet plays a strategic role in this re-positioning of the local" (Sassen, 2000).
The management of global and national environmental resources are intrinsically tied to the relative powers that countries enjoy with regard to their trade position, and influence within the existing system of global governance. The emergence of new formations of power and social transformation such as corporations and NGOs, are having an impact on the policy decisions of national governments, and hence the lives of ordinary citizens.
The decisions of these forces are revolutionary in scope because of their ability for spatial dislocation and differential degrees of penetration are made possible by changes in global telecommunications.
The rights of citizens, especially second and third generation rights regarding economic opportunity and healthy environments, are no longer guaranteed solely by the conventional units of political organisation and engagement such as the state. Transnational politics is creating a new avenue of engaging power and influence that can only be dealt with by re-examining the fundamental premises of the current system of global governance.
The Johannesburg summit offers an opportunity for aligning sustainable development goals - in the broader sense of the terminology - to trade, FDI, debt and aid by placing the trade agenda squarely on the scoring sheet of achievements, thereby adding to the potential to generate more meaningful agreements and decisions, that will fundamentally define the path to the future.
The Seattle Movement in Johannesburg
By Michael Sachs1
A new movement has emerged across our globalising world. It is called by many names: 'global solidarity movement', 'global social movement', 'global citizen's movement', 'global civil society', 'anti-globalisation movement' and 'globalisation movement'.
Each proposed name advances a particular definition of the movement's character. All agree that it is part of the process called 'globalisation'.
All agree that at its heart lies the unity in action of those that stand opposed to neo-liberalism: the global ideology of the primacy of markets.
But its form is fluid, its shape indeterminate. It is a "movement of many movements - coalitions of coalitions. Thousands of groups... working against forces whose common thread is what might broadly be described as the privatisation of every aspect of life"2. It is a movement still in search of its own identity, but for most its defining image was the 'Battle of Seattle': a carnival of protest that contributed to the collapse of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations in Seattle in 1999. For simplicity's sake, therefore, lets call it: the Seattle movement.
As we approach the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg later this year the Seattle movement will, in all likelihood, converge on our biggest city in a festival of dissent. What is this Seattle movement? What is its character and what does it want? How does it relate to older struggle in the South and particularly in Southern Africa? And, where does its stand in relation to demands for a fairer global economy and a post-imperialist world?
Answers to these questions have not yet formed. Nevertheless, in this article I hope to more clearly spell out the questions we should be asking of Seattle. I will raise some potential areas of contradiction between the Seattle movement and the project of national liberation, around which popular politics in much of the South continues to be hinged. I do not mean to argue that the Seattle movement is inherently reactionary. After all, the anti-apartheid movement, which South African progressives helped build and sustain, was a critical antecedent of Seattle. Many Northern activists continue to be motivated by demands for a fairer distribution of global resources, as witnessed by the organisational success of the Jubilee 2000 campaign. Also important is the potential unleashed by the globalisation of ideas for enhanced South-South solidarity. A small but significant example is the inspiration provided by Brazil's Movimento Sem Terra to those attempting to mobilise a movement of the landless in South Africa.
In other words there is much to welcome from Seattle. However, given its Northern origin, its diverse content and its amorphous form, Seattle's progressive credentials should not be taken for granted. There are many currents in its broad stream, and some flow against the tide of progress in the South. Those who regard themselves as Seattle's local expression frequently ignore these complexities: they wallow in its cultural power, remaining blissfully ignorant of its ambiguous politics. But more important than this, there is a need to consider such matters from the vantage point of the mainstream of progressive politics in South Africa.
The origins of Seattle are complex and manifold. In both form and content it has direct roots in earlier periods of mass mobilisation, particularly in industrialised countries and often referred to as the 'new social movements'3. These include, amongst others, the women's movement, the gay liberation movement, the peace and hippy movements of the 1960's, the conservation and environmental movements that emerged in the 1970's and the anti-apartheid/anti-racism movements of the 1980's. In the context of relatively stable and democratic societies, many political movements were able to unite a wide range of people behind a single issue (War in Vietnam, Nuclear Disarmament, Anti-Apartheid or 'Save the Whale'). The hippies, together with other cultural and youth movements, advanced the ideas and practice of alternative lifestyles and cultural mobilisation.
Developments in the traditional left and working class organisations have also been key. After the cold winter of the 1980's (where Thatcher, Reagan and Kohl dominated the politics of the first world) social democratic parties, with roots in earlier periods of proletarian resistance, swept to power across Europe. However, against the backdrop of rapid globalisation, these progressive parties appeared to continue the policies of their neo-liberal predecessors, thus casting doubt on the continued relevance of the Social-Democratic project. At the same time the collapse of the Soviet bloc threw Marxist-Leninist tendencies into turmoil around the world.
'Social movement trade unionism' (particularly Solidarnosc in Poland) and the re-emergence of 'civil society' in Eastern Europe that assisted with this collapse were also crucial inspirations and precursors to Seattle. The apparent failure of the both the Social Democratic and Leninist tendencies to advance the interest of the working class from the helm of state sent many from the left onto the streets in search of new answers to old questions. This spurred the growth of a 'new left', which, although closely associated with the 'new social movements' of the 1960's and 70's, had at most tenuous connections to the broad workers movement and little experience of mass-based electoral mobilisation.4
Perhaps the most inspiring factor in the origins of the Seattle movement was the Zapatista uprising of 1994. This military expression of discontent among Mexico's 'indigenous people' coincided with the introduction of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which came into force on 1 January 1994. NAFTA awoke the Americas to the era of capitalist globalisation and, simultaneously, the Zapatista uprising provided a direct link between North American and South American struggles, all of which regarded themselves as resisting this corporate-led/private sector agenda. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) is unusual amongst armies of national liberation in that it believes that: "the worst that could happen to it... would be to come to power and install itself there"5. Rather than seizing state power, it fights for a 'dialogue' with the state.
In Seattle, these and other streams of dissent converged and found collective strength in a single (but turbulent) confluence of popular mobilisation. The 'Call of the Social Movements' adopted at the Second World Social Forum (in Port Alegre, Brazil at the beginning of 2002) declares: "We are diverse - women and men, adults and youth, indigenous people, rural and urban, workers and unemployed, homeless, the elderly, students, migrants, professionals, peoples of every creed, colour and sexual orientation.
The expression of this diversity is our strength and the basis of our unity. We are a global solidarity movement, united in our determination to fight against the concentration of wealth, the proliferation of poverty and inequalities, and the destruction of our earth.
We are living and constructing alternative systems, and using creative ways to promote them. We are building a large alliance from our struggles and resistance against a system based on sexism, racism and violence, which privileges the interests of capital and patriarchy over the needs and aspirations of people."6
Proud words, but what do they signify in action? In what organisational structure are these diverse elements united? How do its activists relate to a broader set of social forces? What is the nature of their common programmatic agenda? At a 1996 'encounter' held in Zapatista controlled territory, delegates from around the world provided this (ambiguous) answer:
"[We are] a network of voices that resist the war that the Power wages on them. A network of voices that not only speak, but also struggle and resist for humanity and against neoliberalism... A network that covers the five continents and helps to resist the death that the Power promises us... This intercontinental network of resistance is not an organizing structure; it doesn't have a central head or decision maker; it has no central command or hierarchies. We are the network, all of us who resist... We are the network, all of us who speak and listen."7
'All of those who speak and listen'! 'Resist the Power'? 'We are the Network'! What is this? For those schooled in the traditions of Marxism-Leninism these are strange days indeed! Seattle's approach seems at best naïve, at worst counter-productive! What is the purpose of mass mobilisation if it is not directed at a clearly defined enemy, for a clearly defined purpose? What is the class content of the project? In what form are its professional revolutionaries organised? Who is "The Power"?
But, for many," ...this is a movement about reinventing democracy. It is not opposed to organisation. It is about creating new forms of organisation. It is not lacking in ideology. Those new forms of organisation are its ideology. It is about creating and enacting horizontal networks instead of top-down structures like states, parties or corporations; networks based on principles of decentralized, non-hierarchical consensus democracy. Ultimately . . . it aspires to reinvent daily life as a whole. But unlike many other forms of radicalism, it has first organised itself in the political sphere - mainly because this was a territory that the powers that be . . . have largely abandoned."8
It would be premature, therefore, to characterise the content of the Seattle movement. However, what is clear is that a new cultural/political space has been opened: an arena of mass mobilisation that (to a large degree) was abandoned by traditional parties in western democracies who converted themselves into narrow electoral machines.
Those who have filled this space have also transformed it with new approaches to dissent. Like the Zapatistas, they do not seek to ascend to state power in order to transform the existing socio-economic order. Rather, in keeping with their roots in cultural dissent, they aim to 'reinvent daily life as a whole', to construct alternative systems in creative action. For Nicanor Perlas, a Phillipino civil society activist and intellectual, the power of the new 'global civil society' to contribute to sustainable development will only be truly realised once each sphere of society realises its own place in a mutually reinforcing process for change. For civil society, this place is 'cultural':
"In its modern form civil society means the active and organized formations and associations of the cultural sphere . . . in contradistinction but not necessarily opposition to the formal apparatus of governance in the political sphere and the web of business enterprises in the economic sphere. Business has economic power. Governments wield political power. Civil society uses cultural power. Culture deals with the realm of ideas, which includes worldviews, knowledge, meanings, symbols, identity, ethics, art, and spirituality. The 'cultural sphere' is that subsystem of society concerned with the development of full human capacities . . . [and] is, in fact, that social space where identity and meaning are generated."9
As well as these new approaches to mass politics, the rapid development of the technologies of globalisation has enabled new approaches to popular mobilisation and new forms of organisation to emerge. Low-cost 'budget' airlines, particularly in Europe and America, have made it possible for activists to participate in demonstrations on the other side of their continents (and the world). The growth and penetration of worldwide mass media (such as CNN) has made the impact of these demonstrations immediately global (while at the same time making this impact less dependent on size and more dependent on audio-visual finesse). And the internet has made possible the mobilisation of activists through electronic networks. The mobilisation in Seattle itself was largely conducted through internet, which has also been central to the global impact of the Zapatistas, the Falun Gong(a Chinese spiritual movement) and various NGO-led campaigns at an international level.10
But behind the carnival atmosphere and the high tech communications, there is not yet a new movement. The term movement can be considered (in the sense in which South Africans generally do) as implying an organisational structure with a clear centre and a disciplined cadreship, which in turn relates coherently to a broader set of popular organisations and social forces. Certainly Seattle has nothing of this kind, and (as is clear from our discussion so far) neither does it have pretensions to such a structure.
But even if we define movement more broadly, as a programmatic unity of divergent forces around a clear set of core issues and values, it is doubtful whether Seattle fits the bill. An example of this kind of movement would be the campaigns against the war in Vietnam, which, while including communists, pacifists and liberal democrats, had a clear and definite aim: to end American aggression. Another example would be the global anti-apartheid movement, which united a diverse set of people around the demand for a non-racial and democratic South Africa. One could pose Seattle as a movement against 'neo-liberalism'. But convergence against a concept rather than unity for a realisable objective avoids rather than confronts absence of programmatic direction in Seattle. And, surely, some form of programmatic direction is inherent in the word movement.
Nevertheless, new terrains of political and cultural engagement have been opened, and numerous movements contest for dominance within these. In this sense Seattle challenges us to redefine our own 'tools of analysis': the package of concepts and ideas with which we collectively view popular struggles and their relation to social transformation. Within our own liberation movement these 'tools of analysis' have not generally transcended the narrow bounds of Marxism-Leninism, which, as we have already alluded, may be an ill-suited framework for illuminating the many struggles of the new century.
In 1994, South Africa's liberation movement achieved a democratic breakthrough. This breakthrough also inspired the emergence of Seattle, since popular mobilisation combined with impressive international solidarity networks were seen to succeed. Since then our activist base has prioritised building the institutions of representative democracy, such as legislatures, democratic local government and structures such as NEDLAC. In Europe or America similar institutions were shaped by the bourgeois revolutions of bygone eras. But in South Africa, a country where universal adult franchise remains but eight years old, these are an entirely new set of instruments for social change, with potentially radical implications. Democracy and popular participation, which appear stale and atavistic in the industrialised North, are fundament aspects of progressive transformation in many parts of the South. But, partly as a result of this focus, we too have create vacuums in the arena of extra-state political mobilisation. And, in accordance with the laws of nature, this vacuum will be filled. No doubt much sound and fury will be associated with the WSSD. But is the Seattle movement likely to have longer-term consequences for our own political terrain and if so, what are they likely to be?
This raises important questions of the relation of Seattle to the South. Is it a truly global movement, or essentially a movement of the North? If global, what is its relation to the struggle for a post-imperialist world? And, if Northern, how does it interface with progressive movements in the South? First, I will look at some organisational (structural) issues that relate to these questions. Then I will consider areas of potential programmatic (substantive) contradiction between Seattle and the historic thrust of progressive politics in the South. The experience and issues arising in South Africa are the main point of reference and reflection on the relation of Seattle to 'the South'.11
The Seattle movement has creatively linked Northern with Southern struggles. This partly mirrors the growing importance of large global companies, with supply chains that cut across national boundaries. These transnational corporations have spawned a new trans-nationalism of resistance: "Thanks to Shell Oil and Chevron, human rights activists in Nigeria, democrats in Europe, environmentalists from North America have united in a fight against the unsustainability of the oil industry...
It is Nike, of course, that has most helped to pioneer this new brand of activist synergy. Students facing corporate take-over of their campuses by the Nike swoosh have linked up with workers making its branded campus apparel, as well as with parents concerned at the commercialisation of youth and church groups campaigning against child labour - all united by their different relationships to a common global enemy."12
In Latin America, Seattle does interface with a host of popular forces. These include the Zapatistas, and also the Brazilian PT (worker's party), which acts as host to the Porto Alegre Social Forum in its capacity as the ruling party in that province of Brazil. Also of significance are organisations such as the Movimento Sem Terra (MST) in Brazil, which we have already mentioned. Part of the reason for close links between the Seattle movement and Latin America is its proximity to North America. The Philippines too, where a vibrant, Seattle-type 'civil society' has also emerged, is a former colony of the United States.
But the Seattle movement is not (yet) truly global. It has emerged from (and remains rooted within) a history of typically Northern forms of struggle.
The popular expressions associated with its existence are (until now) all linked with the names of western capitals: Seattle, Genoa, Washington, Cologne and Birmingham. It may be the case, too, that in the global relationships of struggle forged against a common enemy, it is the North that is most commonly the dominant partner. It is true that thousands of 'civil society' activists from the South have been drawn into Seattle's electronic networks, but Seattle's frequent dependence on continental and global travel imposes serious limitations on them. Also in Africa, for example, there are (on average) only two telephone lines for every 100 people (in some country's there is one for every 1,000); the charge for using the internet is higher than in Europe and (despite rapid growth) internet access is largely confined to capital cities.13
In other words, to the extent that globalisation has had an uneven impact, both within and between countries, a movement based on the technologies of globalisation will also have an uneven impact, both within and between countries. These facts impose selection mechanisms for African (and other Southern) participants that are anything but 'democratic and horizontal'.
This all raises the ugly but important question of the politics that underlie such selections. The potential (if not actual) problem emerges of a small coterie of activists, residing in Southern capitals and raising the banner of Seattle in the South by linking to its electronic networks in the North; but being distinguished by their lack of any tangible connection to popular politics or developmental action. Their importance (for the North) is to provide a fig leaf over the absence of Southern leadership, but their actual relevance to broader popular struggles in the South is limited, and therefore, their claims to represent a 'countervailing force' to a 'global elite' are trite and self-serving.
Another important issue in this regard is the unidirectional flows of funding that undergird the project to construct 'civil society' in the South, as well as the political and ideological factors that spur such funding. Some have even argued that the rise of the NGO phenomena in the South, with its 'anti-statist' overtones and dependence on foreign sources of funds, itself forms part of the project of imperialism and neo-liberalism14. Even if we do not accept this 'worst case scenario', the concept 'civil society' is not without ideological and political implications. Sometimes it is devoid of relation to the actual histories and institutional landscapes of the societies in which it is deployed.
In South Africa, for example, 'civil society' is frequently construed to exclude popular organisations by definition. Those with any link to a mass base, such as trade unions, student formations, organised religious communities, civics or any other popular organisations that emerged from the anti-apartheid struggle, fall outside the scope of 'civil society'. Instead, 'civil society' is (in both theory and practice) conflated with 'NGO's', a narrow network of service and advocacy groups. These organisations are free of any association with the project of national liberation, and therefore, are the only structures that will satisfy the bias for 'independence' in the donor community15. These factors raise the spectre of Northern trusteeship and paternalism in relation to a Southern 'civil society'. These are questions that our own liberation movement has engaged with over many decades16 and at least in respect of South Africa seem pertinent (if not urgent) to ask.
There are also important substantive, or programmatic, questions that may bedevil relations between Seattle and the South. Here we consider two areas, both related to the political and economic domination of the North over the South. Our assumption is that, even in this post-modern and globalised world, the distribution of economic, social and human capital between nations rests on the legacy of colonialism and slavery. The political domination of the North is founded upon this unequal distribution of resources, and is exercised to maintain structural inequities in the global economy. The answers that Seattle provides to these questions, will, to a considerable degree, determine its relevance to popular politics in the South.
In South Africa, the national liberation movement remains, for all its alleged misdemeanours, the main progressive force around which popular anti-imperialist and transformatory politics are organised. The 'congress tradition' is a broad stream of progressive politics that, over many years, and in many struggles, has converged with the labour and socialist traditions in the country, all of which are among the strongest of progressive movement's on our continent. The convergence of these progressive forces is given concrete expression in the ANC/SACP/COSATU/SANCO Alliance, which is based on a fundamental strategic agreement that 'the primary task of the current period is the implementation of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR)'17. In other words, while certainly at odds over important areas of policy, all actors within the mainstream of progressive politics agree on the need to build a national democratic state as a vital step towards the creation of a post-apartheid society founded on the vision of the Freedom Charter18.
But amongst Seattle's multitude are many who are hostile to the project of national liberation and the Third World nation-state, which is its logical and inevitable outcome. They come in various shapes and guises: ideas of anti-statism (of the state as the enemy of people) are common to the anarchist left, the neo-liberal right, and a host of tendencies in-between. Indeed these issues form a fault-line in the Seattle movement:
"The most important political difference cutting across the entire [Porto Alegre] Forum concerned the role of national sovereignty. There are indeed two primary positions in response to today's dominant forces of globalisation: either one can work to reinforce the sovereignty of nation states as a defensive barrier against the control of foreign and global capital, or one can strive towards non-national alternatives to the present form of globalisation that is equally global".19
Some who fall into the latter camp (in favour of 'non-national alternatives') believe the nation-states of the South, far from being the potential apparatus of social transformation in the hands of the poor, are an intrinsic part of a new machinery of imperial domination. For example, Hardt and Negri in their influential book 'Empire', argue that:
"The postcolonial nation-state functions as an essential and subordinated element in the global organisation of the capitalist market... From India to Algeria and Cuba to Vietnam, the state is the poisoned gift of national liberation".20
In their view the nature of the nationalism amongst the oppressed is ambiguous during the struggle against colonialism since it exhibits both progressive and reactionary tendencies. Once the anti-colonial struggle achieves national sovereignty, however, nationalism of the oppressed becomes thoroughly reactionary:
"[The] ambiguous progressive functions of the concept of nation exist primarily when nation is not effectively linked to sovereignty, that is, when the imagined nation does not (yet) exist, when the nation remains merely a dream. As soon as the nation begins to form as a sovereign state its progressive functions all but vanish... With national "liberation" and the construction of the nation-state, all the oppressive functions of modern sovereignty inevitably blossom in full force."21
If we accept this view of national-liberation-in-state, we would conclude that projects of Third World national liberation (including our own) should be tossed to the dustbins of history, together with the systems of transnational domination that have inevitably co-opted them. Our democratic and non-racial state is, and can be, nothing but an agent of a new Empire.
This view, which is common amongst Seattle activists, goes against the grain of the project of national liberation around which progressive South Africans are broadly united.
The second potential area of substantive (programmatic) contradiction between the Seattle movement and the South revolves around the question of the environment and its relation with growth and development, particularly in the South.
In South Africa, the recent Alliance Summit 'placed the challenge of economic growth, development, job creation and poverty eradication at the centre of the challenges we face in the current period'22. As progressives we may differ on the relations between democracy and development, or between growth and redistribution. But nobody seriously challenges the urgency and centrality of economic growth and social development. This accords with the consistent position of the South in international fora; especially those which, like the forthcoming WSSD, are concerned with issues of environmental protection. At the first UN Conference on the Human Environment in 1972 Indira Ghandi (then Prime Minister of India) famously remarked, "Poverty is the worst form of pollution". This is not a position against environmental protection, which is clearly important to all. Rather it is a position that the central, most urgent and important problem faced by humanity is the eradication of poverty and that, to overcome this problem, a fundamental restructuring of international economic relations is required.
But many in Seattle would not agree. The greens (which are of no small significance to the Seattle movement) reject the imperative for growth and development in the South. They argue that the environment is simply not big enough to accommodate it. For example, the Heinrich Böll Foundation (HBS), a think-tank associated with the German Green party, argues that:
" ...if all the countries of the globe followed the industrial model, five planets would be required to provide the carbon sinks needed by economic development. As humanity is left with just one, such an equity approach would become the mother of all disasters.
Consequently, there is no escape from the conclusion that the worlds growing population cannot attain a Western standard of living by following conventional paths to development. The resources required are too vast, too expensive, and too damaging to local and global ecosystems".23
In other words, the South should not do what the North did. It should not attempt to accelerate industrial growth and development, which has been shown to reduce poverty. Instead, the South should 'leapfrog' into an age of solar power. It should devise a new 'development path' based on eco-friendly technology and harmony with nature.
In a purely linear sense we cannot escape the logic of the green arguments. If the South did follow exactly the same 'development path' as the North, this would certainly result in the destruction of the planet. Furthermore, unlike the past, we now have the technology and the knowledge to avoid a path that entirely consumes its own natural resource base. Who could argue that the South should not seize the advantage of the latecomer and integrate such knowledge into its programmes.
But the 'northern development model', which the greens so roundly condemn for its environmental abandon, is not simply based on the inappropriate application of knowledge. In fact it is a 'development path', which, in addition to being environmentally unsustainable, is founded on the colonial plunder of the world, and the enslavement of a large proportion of its population. Therefore, the 'development path' followed by the South most certainly cannot mimic that of the North: it must be different in a host of respects, of which the application of environmentally friendly technology is perhaps among the less urgent.
More urgent, one would think, to development in the South, is the question of the fundamental and morally repugnant systemic imbalances in North-South relations that are premised on history and which the North continues to maintain through its political and economic dominance For example, Oxfam recently reported that:
"If Africa, East Asia, South Asia, and Latin America were each to increase their share of world exports by one per cent, the resulting gains in income could lift 128 million people out of poverty... In their rhetoric, governments of rich countries constantly stress their commitment to poverty reduction. Yet the same governments use their trade policy to conduct what amounts to robbery against the world's poor. When developing countries export to rich-country markets, they face tariff barriers that are four times higher than those encountered by rich countries. Those barriers cost them $100 billion a year - twice as much as they receive in aid"24.
The demand for development in the South is, therefore, always linked with a restructuring of the international division of labour towards a more efficient global growth path, which in turn requires that we overcome the legacy of past injustice and its ongoing material existence. But, the effect (if not the intention) of the green argument is to shift the debate away from these questions of North-South relations. It is argued that the historic divides between the colonised and the perpetrators of colonialism are irrelevant in a globalised world. Instead, the divisions within countries are emphasised. Once again this point is well put by the Heinrich Böll Foundation:
" ...The conventional North-South distinction obscures the fact that the dividing line in today's world, if there is any, is not primarily running between Northern and Southern societies, but right across all of these societies. The major rift appears to be between the globalised rich and the localised poor...
...In contrast to Rio, the Johannesburg Summit will concentrate on poverty eradication. The South may pin up the badge of poverty, demanding a greater share in the world economy. However, while the task is a noble one,its politics are ambivalent... Much too often, and for quite some time now, the Southern governments, supported by their elites, have indulged in the expansion of their own consumer classes and have secured their own power base under the banner of poverty eradication. Against this background, it is clear that the struggle for poverty eduction will not be decided in controversies between Southern and Northern governments, but in conflicts between the marginalized majority and the global middle class - which includes domestic governments, corporations and multilateral institutions".25 Questions of global racism, of national domination, of imperialism, of the North bearing any responsibility for the poverty of the South are deftly avoided. Instead a crude notion of class war is deployed to delegitimise Southern states and undermine their demands for global equity in global political arenas such as the WSSD. Rather than seeing the world as divided both within and between countries (a reality that globalisation is in fact reinforcing) all progressive struggles must give primacy to the resolution of contradictions within each country and, therefore, a political strategy that unites popular democracy in the South with progressives movement's in the North is ruled out. 'Domestic governments' (popular, democratic, progressive or not) are part of the problem, not the solution. Oddly, this position strikes a resounding chord with those on the outside-left of South Africa's liberation movement who have always argued that the 'national question' (the question of racism and racial oppression) is a distraction from 'pure' working class struggle. And it flies in the face of a common front in favour of a National Democratic Revolution, which has united liberation movements throughout the South since the inception of anti-colonial struggle. Indeed, the defeat of apartheid was premised on and achieved through precisely such an approach. The continued existence of a broad alliance of progressive forces pursuing social and political change in South Africa, even today, constitutes a significant monument to the failure of the kind of narrow-minded reductionism. But this strange coincidence of position signifies more than just an interesting ideological irony. In addition to providing the intellectual basis for many 'civil society' activists in the South, institutions such as the Heinrich Böll Foundation also deploy considerable financial resources to promote these views across the globe. They form part of a 'donor community' whose blessing is required for the initiation and implementation of projects. Anecdotally, last year's NGO-led march at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban illustrates he kind of confused irony that such relations can generate. Africans were mobilised to oppose a conference against racism. The pamphlet that called them to this (strategically dubious) action, proclaimed: "Another World is Possible! Resist Global Capitalism!" and then, in fine print "sponsored by the European Union".
Rather than being a movement against globalisation, the Seattle movement is itself a radical and democratic expression of the globalisation process.Through symbolic protest and cultural power, it poses a project of popular counter-globalisation in contrast to that of elite globalisation. All progressives should welcome this development. After all, deepening of democracy and the building of alternatives in action requires a strong and diverse set of organisations, independent of the state. However, given its Northern foundation, we should not uncritically accept that all those raising the banner of Seattle are friends of the South. Various currents converge on the confluence called Seattle, and amongst them are those that flow against the tide of national liberation and development in the South. Some are ideologically opposed the state we are trying to build. Others oppose the imperative of poverty reducing growth and development on which we agree. Against the backdrop of the digital divide, the ambiguous nature of concepts such as 'civil society' and unidirectional North to South donor relations, we should also be aware of the potential for paternalism and trusteeship to develop. In this context, it should be our task to identify those currents within Seattle with which tactical and strategic alliances can be built, and to consciously foster relations with them. If the liberation movement fails to engage with the spaces of extra-state mobilisation from which it has drawn so much strength and vitality in the past, it will only have itself to blame if people opposed to its historic project are drawn in to fill this vacuum. Those unwilling to play or unable to win in the thorny game of democracy will no doubt be first to offer themselves in this role. But, whatever the case, the fact is that Seattle has inspired new forms of global mobilisation and new techniques of direct political action. For better or for worse, therefore, Seattle will have direct influence in shaping the forces that contest for political space in the arena left behind by our cadreship in parliament, government and union bureaucracy. In August and September it will converge on Johannesburg. This will be an opportunity for dialogue among progressives globally, and an occasion for the liberation movement to assess its own role in national and global civil societies. While there are lessons of struggle that we can teach the world, it would also be an important for us to learn from the thousands of activists, radicals and revolutionaries that will descend on our biggest city, many of whom played a direct and important role in the liberation of our country.
Umrabulo: Out of all the national days we celebrate since 1994, mass activities on Youth Day have been well supported. Why has this been the case, especially in the context of the annual debates about how Youth Day is celebrated?
Malusi: Generally, the youth feel the need to support this day. We could do better, especially in schools and other institutions, to educate the youth about the historic significance and current and future relevance of this day and to ensure that on this day, every young person is filled with a renewed sense of mission and purpose, and regard this day as a day of rededication, to foster patriotism among the South African youth.
Sheer lack of vision and a common commitment to our country prevents this.
Nonetheless, amidst much cynicism and negative commentary, youth come out every year to commemorate this day, to listen to their leadership addressing them and to enjoy the new forms of arts and culture that represent the advancement of our society and culture since that tragic day in 1976. Some youth organisations also play a pivotal role in going to schools, religious institutions, sports and social fields to mobilise for this day.
But, surely, what we need is dedicated effort from youth organisations and elsewhere, families included, to highlight to their children the importance of such days in our national calendar. A real danger exists that without doing this, we may begin to take our freedom for granted and surrender it to those who wish that ours be a half-measured revolution.
What are the priorities for the League in the unfolding ANC Policy review process towards National Conference?
Besides the general policies, we are keen on youth development policies. Generally, ANC policies are correct and okay. I do not expect that there will be many changes in them. We will continue, however, to need an acceleration of some policies such as land reform, education, economic transformation and job creation, health and some others. There are real challenges that we face which have to do with the socio-economic situation of our people. We need to move faster in some regards, within the given international and domestic balance of forces and the strength that we have amassed as a movement.
What progress has been made in implementing the Mafikeng resolutions on youth development and a national youth service programme?
Since Mafikeng, there are youth development structures at national and seven of the nine provincial government levels. We hope that by the time of the National Policy Conference, Western Cape would have taken a serious step and that Gauteng would, in line with the ANCYL NEC proposal, have formed a fully-fledged Youth Commission as opposed to a Directorate.
There is now a Minister in the Presidency, responsible, among others, for youth. There is an Inter-departmental Committee (IDC) on Youth Affairs and the NYC regularly interacts with Cabinet Clusters and the Directors-General's Clusters.
Further, Umsobomvu Youth Fund (UFY) is now functioning, although still yet to make a drastic impact on the situation of youth. It will make this impact, no doubt!
The National Youth Development Framework (2002-2007) has eventually been adopted, and there is now in parliament a Joint Monitoring Committee on the Quality of Life and Status of Children, Youth and Disabled Persons. In regard to all these structures and programmes, there is more that still needs to be done, but there is progress. We do surely need to accelerate the implementation of all these programmes and policies, while we speedily re-align the national and provincial Youth Commissions to ensure that they function in harmony, implementing an integrated plan everywhere. The National and Provincial Governments must lead in this regard to achieve this integrated implementation of our programmes.
Within civil society, the South African Youth Council (SAYC) exists as an umbrella organisation of all youth organisations. Despite its weaknesses, it plays a very important role within NEDLAC and the WSSD processes. We should continue to strengthen it.
Part of what we have worked hard at ensuring is that the SAYC, NYC and UYF also work closely together, given that all of them have a complementary and reinforcing role with regard to each other. Youth development must be implemented as an integrated programme. There must be no space for tensions and conflicts arising out of competition for resources, programmes and profiles and out of duplication.
ANCYL branches, in particular, must be found at the centre of this programme, championing youth interests in their totality in every village, rural area, town or city.
The challenge that remains is that of creating youth structures at local government level. Right now, there are varying initiatives taken by municipalities, but there is no national framework. We are discussing this matter with the Minister of Provincial Affairs and Local Government, Cde Sidney Mufamadi, as well as with SALGA, through its Chairperson, Fr. Mkhatshwa. Solutions must be found soon.
Why, despite the general recognition about the problems facing youth, do we not as yet have a national youth service programme?
Our greatest gripe is that eight years into the new democracy, there is no significant movement achieved with regard to the national youth service programme.
Given the dire socio-economic difficulties and sheer extent of deprivation and marginalisation faced by the youth, we had thought that such a programme would constitute a strategic national intervention into this situation of youth, to help them develop their skills and earn some remuneration at the same time. As well as doing this, this programme would have developed the patriotism of the youth of this country and their love for their country.
We have raised this matter with the President on several occasions, and some Cabinet Clusters have been discussing it now, led by the Office of the Presidency. After very extensive consultations with the youth, where they also overwhelmingly gave a thumbs-up for this programme, the NYC finished the White Paper as far back as 1998. The debate seems also to be whether this programme needs to be legislated or not. Let me be categorical - this programme must be legislated!
So you see, our decision was correct. We must not compartmentalise and hence marginalise youth development. It must be integrated into every department.
Youth makes up the largest portion of the unemployed. Has the League done enough to ensure that this issue is addressed as a national priority and what more needs to be done?
This has been our concern for a long time. Ahead of the 1998 Presidential Jobs Summit, the ANCYL convened a national workshop on the matter, attended also by our provinces. We then developed an integrated youth employment strategy adopted by the NEC, some of whose elements have gradually become incorporated into the government's policies and programmes.
But, we remain worried about the high levels of marginalisation of youth from economic participation. This problem manifests itself through youth unemployment, lack of skills and lack of opportunities for self-employment. You will remember that last year, we launched a campaign on this matter through marches to the private sector and later meetings with SACOB. We did so because we believe that business possesses the largest volumes of capital for development. We need to mobilise this capital through mass action and dialogue. Since then, we have engaged the private sector and government on this matter very persistently.
Recently, the NEC resolved that we should intensify this campaign, starting in June. We shall embark upon a five-point programme entailing mass action, engagement with government including its finance development agencies and other structures such as UYF, engagement with the private sector, engagement with other youth organisations to form a progressive youth front (for jobs, skills development and self-employment) and preparations for the Growth and Development Summit.
Our intention in this regard is to provide overall political leadership to the youth of the country and to mobilise them to struggle for their own interests. Much of what we will gain in regard to this campaign will depend on the seriousness of the masses of the youth themselves, on the extent to which they are prepared to occupy the streets in advancement of these issues so important and dear to them.
To mark the launch of intensification, we marched to government all over the country on June 20th to highlight all these issues. There are specific intervention that we want our government to do on our behalf, supported by us and in partnership with us - the youth.
Further to this, we will engage structures such as NEDLAC in order to apply pressure on all sides.
You must also know that we are attending also to the matter of self-employment because we would like the youth to become entrepreneurs. We would like to see a national consensus emerging on a national youth entrepreneurship strategy, with targets and clear timeframes and support mechanisms. In this is also incorporated the idea of youth cooperatives.
We've often heard statements about the new generation being apolitical. The Youth 2000 study by CASE indicates that close to 54% of all youth are not involved in any organisation, with only 4% belonging to a political organisation and almost all of whom are African. How has the youth movement in its broadest come to terms with the changing challenges of mobilising and organising this constituency? Is this a correct assessment and what are the issues that inform the political and social consciousness of young people today?
This is a real challenge. The new situation brought with it many challenges which included the declining levels of youth political consciousness and activism, social consciousness and political organisation. Many youth organisations failed to survive the transition.
Democracy provides many opportunities for political and other organisations, and for activism in general to soar. This is critical for those involved in the act of social change.
But, unfortunately, some among the youth mistook the achievement of democracy to mean that the struggle was over, that they did not themselves need to be social and political activists for the championing of their cause and that because the government and society were committed to fulfilling their aspirations, they needed to do nothing themselves.
What complicated the matter is the fact that our liberation coincided with the end of the Cold War, which then brought with it the consolidation of the neo-liberal agenda in its crudest forms. As an ideology, this sought to mobilise the youth of all countries to opt to depoliticise and concentrate on their own consumerist and selfish material interests and to regard politics as a bore.
We have witnessed this happen in our country too, not without resistance.
The media have become huge instruments for propagating these views, attempting to turn our youth into fools that cannot think beyond the next party, bash and money. They make believe that youth are not interested in politics anymore and then create them paper idols, celebrities and role models.
At times we may think that this is a natural, logical or neutral development. Some people, including some leaders of the movement at all levels, even refer to the weaknesses of the Youth League with a demented glee. Thus they fail to recognise, in their short-sightedness, the perilous danger facing the future of our revolution and the movement, indeed, of our people themselves.
In the opinions of this agenda, history and the past are not important, they do not matter and they did not create the present. Actually, we must not just forgive, we must forget the past, then the question of forgiveness is taken care of - there is no need to forgive the past you do not remember anyway. The problem with this is that the icons of our struggle get forgotten, their acts of heroism in struggle, seen out of context, are then regarded as just another crime, the movement has no history but only the present and hence must be judged the same way anyone else gets judged (whether they be Tony Leon or some other lunatic) and all the socio-economic problems of South Africa today were created and magnified by the ANC in the last eight years. The ANC is failing to govern because it has not solved these problems that it, and not centuries of colonialism and decades of apartheid, created.
These forces have a lot of money to disseminate their propaganda and ideology. We, on the other hand, have only our members who must continue literally to become the foot-soldiers of the revolution.
But, a youth organisation like ours has great potential to grow and adapt, using the very new situation to mobilise and organise youth into politics and heighten their political and social consciousness. These young people we often believe to be apolitical sometimes prove us wrong. When the ANCYL mobilised the youth for the campaigns against HIV/AIDS, racism and youth unemployment, they came out in large and unbelievable numbers. Every June 16th they come out in huge numbers to commemorate the day.
It would seem to me that either youth organisations are abdicating their responsibility to mobilise, educate and organise the youth, or they are very weak. Indeed, others are terminally ill and others never lived to see the new day.
The challenge is to champion the socio-economic and political interests of youth in their entirety. The challenge is to modernise the organisation and adapt to new conditions without losing its character. The ANCYL remains a militant, mass, political, youth, organisation, of the ANC. But, we engage with all the issues of interest to the youth and try hard to be wherever they are, leading and directing them.
The problem in other organisations, including progressive ones, is the longing for the past! In the past they were mighty and glorious!
As for us, we should not emulate the example of KOMSOMOL told by Gorbachev at one CPSU Congress that the leadership was marching on the one side of the road in a particular direction, while the youth themselves were marching on an exactly parallel side, in the opposite direction (to that of KOMSOMOL).
Only 48% of youth ages 18-20 registered in the 1999 Elections. What efforts since then have the ANC Youth League, the IEC and the National Youth Commission made to register these first time voters and to convince them of the importance of participating in elections?
After the 1999 elections, good numbers of youth had participated in the elections. Then, as during the 2000 municipal elections, we had to make an intervention and point out to the fact that there was no message directed at the youth. I suppose that youth, unless local governments make themselves relevant to them through significant youth development programmes, will continue to have a difficulty in attracting youth participation during elections.
So far, we have not engaged in any programmes, we have decided that we should begin to develop a programme to do exactly that.
Part of what we had suggested is that such things that are of civic importance and civic responsibilities, must become part of the school curriculum. But, surely, we need to do more in this regard, quite early.
Is the League still committed to its call for the voting age to be lowered to 16 or is it on the back burner, given the low voter turnout of first time voters?
We still insist that 16-year olds should vote. We have not abandoned the idea. We live today in a society where there is enough information which could, if made available, empower these youth to vote. Already, they take many decisions about their lives which are significant. Those who have the franchise must not mystify the process of voting. Any 16 year-old with sufficient information can vote correctly. Any one above 18 can be adventurous with their vote.
Once granted the right to vote, 16 year-olds must then be trained to exercise that right accordingly. It is the duty of the nation to prepare all those that vote for that process. Ours is a nascent democracy, we all, regardless of our age and level of education, have to be trained over and over again to vote in order to ensure that we follow correct procedures. As we mature, we will get comfortable around this process.
In 1976 (and the 80's) tertiary and high schools students, through their organised formations, were a driving force within the broader youth movement. Is this still the case today and what is your assessment of the state of the student movement and the challenges it face today?
There are great challenges facing the student movement today. Indeed, in the past, they were full of might, initiative and glory. In South Africa, we all know too well the role the students played in reviving our struggles and triggering revolutionary action.
It was them who, among others, committed such heroic feats of struggle as the 1976 uprising. It was them who, together with the trade unions, first adopted the Freedom Charter in 1982. It was them who formed the national youth congresses that eventually led to the formation of the SA Youth Congress (SAYCO). It was also them who forged alliances with the working class and helped instill among their ranks a revolutionary working class consciousness and bias.
For as long as it has existed, our struggle and society have never had to do without their students deeply enmeshed in revolution, demanding not just narrow students rights, but fighting for the freedom of their people as a whole.
In all this, students have acted within the understanding and conviction that their interests as students were inseparable from those of their people as a whole. Accordingly, they have always known that in demanding a compulsory and free, just and quality education, they also had to demand, at the same time, freedom for their people. They knew that none of these ideals of the students could be realised without the attainment of full democracy and the constitution of a free people's democracy in South Africa!
Accordingly, as we achieved the victory over apartheid in 1994, students could correctly claim this victory too, having themselves been joint architects of that victory and midwives of our emancipation.
But, the changes that took place in 1994 contained in them enormous challenges for the students movement and affected it dearly. The character of the students began to change, and together with it their level of political and social consciousness, as well as their level of activism. The degrees of social responsibility and discipline began to decline, as others began to embrace a false notion that being 'revolutionary' was equal to anarchy!
Students have also been affected by the neo-liberal offensive which elevates individualism above collectivism, which puts to the fore a consumerist philosophy accompanied by the notion that the immediate material interests of the self are paramount and supercede the common good of the nation. Thus is the notion that youth interests are inseparable from those of the nation as a whole reversed and perverted. The perspective of some of them about society and what it owes them, vis-à-vis what they owe it, is rather warped and reflects a dangerous attitude of mind.
But, student organisations too, like youth organisations in general, suffer from serious organisational weaknesses. What we need to emphasise is that students' activism must transcend mouthing revolutionary-sounding slogans. Shouting slogans, no matter how revolutionary they sound, does not even begin to make one revolutionary and neither does it instill political and social consciousness in one. It may be a step in that direction.
It must be about first and foremost, studying and succeeding in your studies, to amass the levels of information and knowledge requisite for the task of national and continental renaissance. It must be about both creating a revolutionary intelligentsia as well as creating revolutionary activists who can apply and test their theories in concrete conditions so that they can always advance them. As we move deeper into the democratic society, students must open their eyes to the reality that the education front becomes the most important front of our struggle.
The student movement is a potent force for revolutionary change. As well as educating and organising students, it must constitute the firm form of contact between students and progressive change in society, instilling social discipline and responsibility among them. Given the skills and knowledge that they develop, the places they occupy in society and the time they have at their disposal, students must always be first to volunteer to help our communities ravaged as they are by poverty and disease, illiteracy, ignorance, underdevelopment and social dislocation.
The concrete changes that have taken place in South Africa today have not implied that students must cease to be guided by the perspective that what they want for themselves as students must be consistent with what their society wants for itself.
Students must respect the masses of the people, especially the poor and working people, and must equally respect the institutions that these people regard as their own. To attack the people on the streets and vandalise an invaluable public institution is tantamount to dishonouring the concept of the struggle. In fact, it vandalises the struggle itself even for those who, in future, may still want to engage in mass action to highlight genuine students' demands.
To engage in anarchy in the name of the struggle is blasphemous! It cannot and must not be tolerated by all revolutionaries, especially the students and youth organisations.
As well as educating and organising students, the ANCYL must strengthen it through reinforcing progressive student organisations, participating in their programmes and supporting them. We must build and strengthen our branches in tertiary institutions and directly organise school students.
The 21st National Congress of the League in April 2001 emphasized the need to consolidate the organisational renewal of the League. A year later, is the League meeting the challenges set by this Congress and the expectations of the ANC?
We are surely making strides in this regard. The Congress had been of the view that we are doing well, but that we needed to increase the tempo. What we are doing is to position the organisation for the new era, the new dispensation and the new challenges. We are doing so by blending together the best of the past methods of struggle and organisational building with the creativity of the new era. In this regard, we use music, arts and culture, new creative organisational methods. At the same time, we have retained our character as a political, mass youth formation of the ANC. We have retained our militancy and are using this, not as our detractors would have it, to build the new democratic dispensation as a disciplined mass formation. We are mobilising the youth around the challenges of education, volunteerism, youth service, economic participation, sports and other social issues that interest the youth.
We seek to place the ANCYL at the centre of every young person's effort for development, an instrument for the pursuit and attainment of their most ambitious ideals, an instrument for revolution. This must result in us being the repository of the best youth in society, changing the lives of young people everywhere.
The League has often come under criticism over its interventions in ANC leadership contests, especially in the provinces. League structures on the other hand, refer to the role played by the 1944 generation in the ANC. Is this a fair critisism and what informs the approach of the Youth League?
The ANCYL is the League of the Youth of the ANC. Not another organisation, but the ANC! Accordingly, our interest in the ANC leadership contests is not unfounded, or baseless, but it is firmly political and informed by this fact that we are an integral part of the ANC and, hence, we are very much interested in who leads the ANC to fulfill its strategic objectives and tasks. We cannot then be indifferent on the important question of who will lead the ANC, at any level.
Often, this criticism is influenced by subjective on the part of those that raise it. It is raised in a derogatory manner which seeks to deny and obfuscate the role youth, especially the ANCYL, play in the ANC throughout the course of its existence, in the implementation of its programmes and in its building. The ANCYL always discusses the state of the ANC as well as the political and policy decisions it takes from time to time, both when Conferences approach as well as during the entire course of the lifespan of the organisation. Our interventions on leadership are always informed by our own autonomous analysis of the ANC, its strengths and weaknesses as well as its performance and challenges. Actually, the ANC needs its Youth League to do exactly this. Since the 1940s, we have played this role, often to the best interest and advantage of the ANC itself. We will not stop!
According to the Medical Research Council , drug and alcohol abuse are on the increase amongst especially black youth, and that whereas before one in 20 youth seeking help for addiction at treatment centres were under 20 years, today the figure is one in four. Is this an issue, which the League is taking up and how?
We have been involved in a campaign against the rate of abuse of alcohol and drugs among youth. We are keen that we should alleviate this problem. This problem reflects some serious socio-economic crises faced by the youth, but we cannot attribute all of it to socio-economic conditions in that neat manner. Many of the people who abuse substances and alcohol are youth from very well-to-do families. But, of course, we have to address the socio-economic conditions of the poor, raise the levels of social consciousness and responsibility among the youth and deal with issues such as advertising campaigns aimed at increasing the intake and use of alcohol among youth.
As from 1998, we have been working with the Association for the Responsible use of Alcohol (ARA). We have run three inter-provincial workshops in the matter covering all our provinces. We sent Comrades Songezo Mjongile and Themba Nobatana to Netherlands to learn about their substance abuse policies and to help us craft ours. We are in a process to do so. Our 21st National Congress adopted a resolution in this regard.
This means that we are deep in a campaign that, however, has not yet been unleashed in full force as an inferno among the youth. This is our next difficult challenge, as difficult as asking the youth to abstain from sex. But, if we must provide honest leadership to the youth, and for the sake of our nation and our revolution, indeed in the name of our future, we should engage the youth, using also the campaign for moral regeneration to bolster and escalate this campaign.
Youth and student movements played a crucial role in the African anti-colonial and national liberation struggles. Do we see the same levels of mobilisation and participation in the African renaissance today; what is the state of the youth movement in the region and the continent to meet the new challenges?
In 1997, we launched the Southern African Youth Forum (SAYF), a structure composed of all progressive youth and students organisations in the region.
The President attended and officiated at the launch of this Forum. At the same time, we have been the Africa Coordinators for both the International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY) and the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY). In the former, upon our election as one of the Vice-Presidents (through Cde Fikile Mbalula), we left the position of Africa Coordinator to Gabon.
SASCO, COSAS and other members of the Progressive Youth Alliance are members of the regional and continental students organisations. All of us are involved in campaigns for democracy, peace and development on a continent-wide and regional basis. In 1998, the ANCYL hosted the widest ever All-Africa Youth Conference on the African Renaissance which was a huge success. This year, in partnership with the National Youth Commission, we shall host the African Youth Dialogue focusing on both the WSSD and NEPAD (including the role and position of youth within the African Union and the Pan-African Parliament).
Largely due to lack of political and material support for many youth and students' organisations in the region, lack of a perspective that future leadership and cadreship is thoroughly prepared drawn from the ranks of this movement, many youth organisations in the region and on the continent are extremely weak. Others have ceased to exist. The progressive movement on the continent and in the region lacks a correct perspective of the youth movement, an issue we have on several occasions taken up with the ANC. When he decided to address the SAYF Founding Congress, the President was influenced by this perspective to raise this matter as critical for the sustenance of the historic mission of the African democratic revolution.
As we are, currently, we are weak and lacking in political, organisational and material terms. But, particularly in Southern Africa, we can play a critical role within the African Renaissance process, and link up with regions such as East Africa which also have relatively strong progressive organisations. We need also to establish bilateral relations with organisations such as the Algerian Youth Union and the Algerian Students Union and others with which we have historic relations and which are progressive.
The Alliance Summit of the ANC, SACP, COSATU and SANCO, led by the leadership of the four organisations met in Kempton Park, Ekurhuleni Municipality from 4 - 7 April 2002. The delegations were made up of members of both the national and provincial/regional leadership of all the organisations.
The objective of the Summit was to assess the current national and global situation, the progress we are making in building a better life for all South Africans and the challenges we face in leading and accelerating the process of social transformation.
This Summit has followed a period in which there were serious tensions within our Alliance through the latter half of 2001. We have been addressing these problems in a series of constructive bilaterals and tripartite meetings, and this Summit is, in part, the product of these engagements. It is noteworthy that the Summit was not at all dominated by these tensions. The Summit has been characterised by a spirit of open engagement and debate, and by our sense of responsibility to our mass constituency which deeply cherishes the unity of our historic Alliance. We have re-affirmed and consolidated our understanding of the profound strategic unity of our Alliance in this Summit.
All components of the Alliance agree that the primary task of the current period is the implementation of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). This common objective forms the foundation of the strategic relationship among our organisations. It is a perspective that has been forged in struggle over more than seven decades. The character of this NDR is articulated in key policy documents such as the Freedom Charter and the Strategy and Tactics of the ANC, the strategic objective of which is the creation of a united, non-racial, non-sexist, prosperous and democratic society.
The primary task of this epoch is the creation of a national democratic society. All the classes and strata which share this objective, as well as the schools of thought found in the democratic movement, see this as their current strategic objective. There is one NDR, at the core of which is the liberation of black people in general and Africans in particular. Among these classes and strata, the working class is the leading social motive force.
Informed by this perspective, the Alliance needs regularly to assess progress in the implementation of the Reconstruction and Development Programme, and devise ways in which we can accelerate the programmes aimed at eradicating poverty, speeding up economic growth and job creation and introducing equity in all areas of life.
The Summit agreed that we were meeting in a period in which immense opportunities had opened up for us to accelerate the implementation of our programmes.
The ANC-led Alliance has consolidated critical elements of democracy and it enjoys mass support among the majority of South Africans. There is appreciation among the overwhelming majority - poor and rich, black and white, women and men, young and old, urban and rural, and persons of all religious persuasions - that further decisive steps need to be taken to improve the conditions of life of all the people, especially the poor. This is in the interest of South African society as a whole.
This period is characterised, too, by a creative examination across most sectors of society of the challenge to pool the country's resources, both public and private, in the effort to grow our economy at a faster pace and further improve the material conditions of the country's citizens. The possibility of decisive movement forward is also reflected in the fact that South Africans are increasingly joining hands to affirm our democratic constitutional order and to find ways in which they can make a contribution to national reconstruction and development.
However, these national objectives are hampered by the legacy of concentration of wealth in a few hands and, in some instances, the negative impact of the global financial system on the domestic economy. A combination of these and other factors, including problems of resources and capacity within the state, affect the pace at which we are able to eradicate the conditions of poverty, inequality, acquisition of skills, unemployment, crime, communicable diseases, including HIV/AIDS and other social ills.
Critically, we undertake the project of social change in a situation in which the dominant platforms of social discourse, including the media, either do not share or do not fully understand the objectives of the NDR. Combined with weaknesses in the organisational structures of the Alliance and mass democratic formations, and the tension that gripped the Alliance in the recent period, all these factors can undermine our joint efforts to restructure South African society.
The Summit noted that positive developments had taken place in the global arena in the last few years, allowing for greater assertion of the agenda of developing countries and the poor worldwide. This is however counter-balanced by many unfavourable factors, which we need to continue to engage in the interest of social progress.
The system of global capitalism, including patterns of investment and trade, is deepening the gap between the rich and poor both within and among nations of the world; and there are intermittent financial crises whose negative effect is felt most keenly within developing countries. While the tendency among the rich nations (in addressing these serious global problems) is to tinker with the margins of the system, there is a growing global movement of developing countries, the working people and progressive elements in all parts of the globe whose voice is starting to make an impact.
We are also encouraged by the new confidence and determination across Africa to mobilise for the reconstruction and development of the continent, improve capacity to carry out such programmes, resolve conflicts, and introduce democratic systems of governance. While there may be difficulties in this trajectory, we are convinced that this historical movement is on the ascendancy.
We recognise our responsibility as the Alliance and the country to assist in strengthening the forces geared towards this objective. In this regard, it is our responsibly to ensure that the influence and respect that our country enjoys is put to good use in promoting development in our own country, in Africa and among developing countries. At the same time, we need to protect our nation and our state against strategies aimed at subverting our programme of social transformation, and undermining our independent approach to critical global issues.
The Alliance Summit approached its discussion on the character and state of the Alliance fully aware of the critical responsibility we have to lead the process of transformation in our country and contribute to the strengthening of efforts to build a humane world order. Unity, a sense of common purpose, the depth of understanding of our historical mission, activism, loyalty to the people - especially the poor - and commitment to international solidarity and joint action are some of the critical attributes that have placed the Alliance at the head of the forces of change in our country.
We are duty-bound by the realities of our history, the yearning of our people for a better life and the confidence that they have placed in the ANC and other components of the Alliance to ensure that these qualities continue to characterise the relationship among ourselves and our interaction with the motive forces of change, and with society at large.
In elaborating our detailed programmes of action and in managing tensions that may arise among us from time to time, the Alliance partners proceed from the premise that ours is a strategic political Alliance founded on a common national democratic programme. All organisations that are part of the Alliance accept the ANC as the leader of the Alliance.
Our organisations, though profoundly inter-dependent, are separate organisational formations with their own identities, policy-making mechanisms and internal organisational arrangements. In this regard, each component respects the independence of its allies.
The summit discussed a range of challenges emerging out of managing intra-Alliance relations. In general it was agreed that none of these challenges, including the question of multiple mandates and overlapping membership, pose insuperable problems to the effective management and consolidation of the Alliance. It is a source of strength for the Alliance that many members of one partner are also members of other components.
Having examined the causes and the impact of recent intense public discord among some components of the Alliance, the Summit concluded that this was an unfortunate development which we should not allow to recur. We do acknowledge that it would be artificial to expect that tensions would not exist among and even within components of the Alliance. The challenge is how we manage them within our constitutional structures, and use them as a catalyst for the growth and maturity of our organisations.
There are, of course, some areas of economic policy in which debate will continue within and among components of the Alliance. These nonetheless should not detract from the substantive areas of agreement on accelerating growth and development. Where there are areas of difference, we are committed to resolving them through ongoing constructive debate and engagement within the context of our Alliance.
It is agreed that the strategic mandate to all our organisations in the current phase derives from our commitment to the NDR as enshrined in the Freedom Charter and the Strategy and Tactics documents of the ANC. Further, the ANC governs on the basis of a broad mandate elaborated in the RDP and Election Manifesto.
The policies and programmes of the Alliance are aimed to give expression to these objectives. It is critical that the process of policy development and implementation is informed on an on-going basis by this collective endeavour. It is agreed that more consistent discussion in the Alliance and tighter coordination is important to give effect to our common programme of social transformation. The Summit has directed the leadership of the Alliance to develop effective mechanisms to achieve these objectives. Guidelines will be developed to align these policy processes in a way which enriches, and does not impede, the decision-making processes of government.
Having reflected on all these matters, the Summit has elaborated the following Programme of Action for the coming period.
This Alliance Summit has agreed on a comprehensive programme of action for accelerating growth and development. The core principles of this POA are:
Over the coming months the Alliance will play an active role in ensuring the eventual success of the Growth and Development Summit announced by the President. The Alliance is committed to leading the process to ensure positive outcomes. The Alliance agrees that such a Summit should deal with a limited number of key issues, and should focus on concrete measures and specific contributions that each of the eventual participants (government, labour, business and other civil society organisations) will make to growth and development. This will be located within the framework of a broadly agreed development strategy which integrates our approach to key areas of policy, and may need to be pursued through sectoral summits.
Among the key issues that we agree should be considered for the Growth and Development Summit are: Job creation, Economic Restructuring, Investment, Greater social equity, Price stability, and Improved economic efficiency and productivity.
In the coming period, the Alliance will take forward the discussions and emerging agreements we have reached on these and other key issues, with a view to presenting unifying perspectives into the Summit. We will also set up processes and task teams, and engage the widest range of MDM and other progressive formations. This could culminate in a forum, convened by the Alliance, of broad MDM and progressive civil society formations, to create the broadest popular unity in advance of the Growth and Development Summit.
Our POA for accelerating growth and development is not confined to preparations for, and the eventual convening by government and NEDLAC of, a Growth and Development Summit. Indeed, the success of this Summit itself depends on the ongoing mobilisation of government and popular forces around the following key areas:
Employment: The Summit agreed that addressing the serious problem of unemployment would have to be at the heart of the Growth and Development strategy. We will develop more comprehensive strategies for employment creation. These need to be supported by more detailed analysis of the patterns of employment, job losses, and opportunities for job creation. We will integrate the ILO concept of "decent work" into our programmes. We will also intensify short-term programmes of employment creation.
Economic Restructuring: In order to restructure the economy the Alliance will continue to elaborate the framework for collective economic action, including intensifying the efforts to reorient various sectors of our economy onto an employment-generating growth path, inter alia through the tripartite sector summits involving government business and labour.
Investment: The Alliance is committed to ensuring that the resources in the retirement industry, the life assurance industry, and other forms of savings, are more effectively mobilised for the provision of social and economic infrastructure, and labour-absorbing economic activities. We will carry these perspectives through to the Growth and Development Summit, and into the Finance Sector Summit. We will also actively use the presence of labour representatives on the boards of many of these funds to ensure the more effective strategic use of worker funds.
Skills and human resource development: The Alliance agrees that there is the need to intensify human resource development. Specifically, in the area of skills development, we will ensure through government and through the trade union movement that there is increased participation and the much more effective mobilisation of the SETAs. SETAs represent a major potential asset in our POA for accelerated growth and development.
Co-operatives: The Alliance will play an active role in helping to build a strong co-operative movement, as a means of promoting employment, redistribution and local and community empowerment. Government needs to create a facilitative and supportive environment for the growth of co-operatives.
Spatial and local economic development: We will give high priority to the acceleration of the implementation of policy on urban, rural and local economic development strategies. The implementation of this policy will be directly linked to the ongoing programmes of action of our Alliance local-level structures.
The struggle for a more equitable global economic and social order: Our POA for accelerating growth and development within our own country is inextricably linked to the broader struggle for a more equitable global economic and social order. This includes the struggle for:
The Alliance and government will pursue these and other goals in our engagements with the IMF, World Bank, WTO, ILO, the UN, in our inputs into the WSSD, and in the numerous international forums and contacts in which each of our different formations is involved.
In this regard the summit noted the critical importance of the NEPAD initiative, and agreed that briefings and discussions should be held within the Alliance on NEPAD and the African Union, in pursuit of African development.
The convening of the WSSD and the summit of the African Union (AU) in our own country presents, in particular, an important challenge and opportunity. The Alliance will engage actively to maximise the impact of our strategic vision on the WSSD and the AU Summit.
All of the areas above link directly, in one way or another, to the local concerns and aspirations of communities. The Alliance will actively link our Growth and Development POA to ongoing mobilisational campaigns. In particular, we will link and strengthen the ANC-led letsema campaign in this way.
There are also many other Alliance and MDM campaigns around jobs, poverty, transforming the financial sector, and HIV/AIDS. We will link and strengthen these campaigns within the broader context of the struggle for growth and development.
The success of all of the above depends critically on the unity and organisational capacity of our Alliance structures.
This Summit has re-affirmed key decisions to ensure greater regularity of Alliance leadership inter-action, at all levels.
We have also committed ourselves to improving the coordination of Alliance policy development and implementation.
The Alliance Summit has placed the challenge of economic growth, development, job creation and poverty eradication at the centre of the challenges we face in the current period. Many other issues including the challenge of social delivery, capacity of the state, HIV/AIDS and the struggle of the Palestinian people for self-determination were also reflected upon. A resolution on the Palestinian question was adopted (see document 6)
On the issue of HIV/AIDS, in particular, the Alliance reiterates its commitment to a comprehensive programme for prevention, treatment and home-based care, and recommitted itself to the ABC campaign. Further engagement is required on the detailed aspects of the treatment component of this programme.
This Summit of the Alliance marks an important stage in the consolidation of the organised forces at the head of the NDR. We are at one that significant progress has been made since the last Alliance Summit, including the overwhelming victory of the ANC in both the national and local government elections and the growing role of South Africa in world affairs. However, as the Summit discussions and decisions have confirmed, many challenges remain.
In the coming weeks and months, we will be briefing our structures at all levels, about the discussions and outcomes of this Alliance Summit. Strengthened by our deliberations over these past five days, we will be mobilising all our forces and our broader constituency to ensure that there is a decisive acceleration of growth and development in our country.
By Kader Asmal
The Education Ministry welcomes the opportunity to engage revolutionary-minded cadres and intellectuals in building and defending our national socio-cultural, political and economic gains through Umrabulo.
Umrabulo continues the historical and intellectual tradition of political engagement through such journals as Sechaba and the African Communist. The intervention of the Ministry around adult illiteracy has been framed by two critical political fundamentals: that our people are our greatest asset and that our people are their own liberators.
Various international forums have reinforced the importance of human centered development. "The challenges of the twenty-first century cannot be met by governments, organisations or institutions alone; the energy, imagination and genius of people and their full, free and vigorous participation in every aspect of life are also needed". (Hamburg Declaration on Adult learning).
Our government has made a number of international commitments around the provision of education, including adult education and literacy. In particular, the Education Ministry is a signatory to the Dakar Framework for Action adopted by the World Education Forum in April 2000 in Dakar. In terms of this, and among other targets, we are committed to achieving a 50% decline in illiteracy by 2005, especially for women.
We are pleased to report that at present there are over 400 000 adult learners in our Adult Learning Centres across the country, and they are studying a range of newly designed programmes, including SMME Management, Technology, Hospitality and Tourism, as well as Applied Agriculture. These programmes are offered up to ABET Level 4, which is equivalent to a GETC (or Grade 9) certificate at NQF Level 1. With this, the adult learner is equipped to enter Further Education at a College or other institution. We are also glad to be able to record that we have been able to secure and allocate funds in accordance with the commitments we have made. >From a base of R400 million in 2000, we increased spending on ABET to over R800 million this year. By 2004 this figure is planned to exceed R1.2 billion - a threefold increase in only five years. This significant allocation demonstrates the seriousness with which government is treating this matter, and sharply contradicts the uninformed views of our critics who have proclaimed "the death of adult education".
We have also been allocated R20 million this year from the Poverty Relief Fund to buy equipment for the new programmes at Adult Learning Centres, and to employ 240 additional adult educators at 60 new Centres around the country. These posts have recently been advertised, and should build our capacity to train all who need it. In addition, we have received considerable financial assistance from the USA (via USAID) and the United Kingdom (through DfID) for the expansion of programmes and increased participation in ABET.
We also have a large number of students, mostly adults, who are taking literacy classes. This is probably the most valuable aspect of any attempt to eradicate poverty, since literacy brings with it the opportunity to do things for oneself, and by oneself. There is nothing as debilitating and depressing as being isolated from friends, family and the world, in the way that illiteracy does. We are therefore glad to have over 200 000 such learners striving to become literate, and most of them being taught by younger volunteers, in the true spirit of Ilimo and Vukuzenzele. These numbers will be expanded in the next year or two, as we get more volunteers and more resources.
This project is absolutely critical in a number of respects. Firstly, it strives to build a base of organic intellectuals at the grassroots levels, especially in rural areas. We must attempt to empower people where they live, and not encourage a migration to urban areas in order to receive an education. We need educated people in rural areas, if these parts of the country are to be developed. Secondly, these programmes will draw on the indigenous knowledge and experience which these intellectuals possess, based in large part on our oral traditions. These capacities have been enormously under-estimated, and yet they are at the core of our social fabric. By involving such people we will be able to respond more directly to the needs of these communities.
For the same reason, we have initiated the Masifunde Sonke campaign, in an attempt to grow and develop the culture of reading in society, especially reading for pleasure. A reading nation is a learning nation, and we must continually and consciously promote reading if we are to compete in an information-based global environment.
While we are indeed able to count some successes, the department is still facing serious challenges relating to the implementation of adult literacy.
These include the weak state of NGOs which have historically played an active role in offering literacy programmes. We depend on these agencies to undertake the delivery of programmes, and where they do not exist it is very difficult to reach some communities.
The other problem is the absence of strong and effective managers for these Adult Education Centres, and for the management and administration of the sector. Regrettably ABET is not a popular field of study or work, and we sometimes struggle to find suitable people to manage the enormous resources that are being directed to the sector. We need to encourage young people not only to volunteer, but to train and develop as adult educators, who can continue to lead this area of work.
But nothwithstanding these constraints the Education ministry is committed to fulfilling the provisions of section 29 of our Constitution, which establishes the right of every person to a basic education. The wording of this right, with unmistakable intention, includes adult basic education. In line with this obligation, the Department of Education, together with the South African National Literacy Initiative (SANLI), has done all in its power to put in place systems to achieve these targets. These include the following steps:
By Tshepiso Ramphele
This article seeks to explore the approaches available in interpretation of the laws and the role of courts in a transforming society, given the significance of judicial transformation in order to advance a better life for all, which is the primary objective of our national democratic struggle. It is not intended to be an academic presentation, instead it is an attempt to demystify legal concepts and make them as non-technical as possible.
Before 1994, multiple debates took place on whether a democratic government should adopt a Bill of Rights. The rationale of those proposing a Bill of Rights were inter alia, that the bill of rights would result in the separation of powers, and thus ensure checks and balances.
It would further mean a move away from a sovereign Parliament. The track-record of the sovereign Apartheid parliament was bad, amongst others, it could engage 'in the colossal experiment of removing societies from one place to another under the Group Areas legislation and other draconian laws' as one judge explained the role of courts in a sovereign parliament. (Lockhart'case 1961). In respect of the old order, the late Professor Mureinik termed this a line of command: 'Parliament commanded the officials, and the officials commanded the people'.
The move was therefore towards the constitutional order we have today, where the courts have powers to review legislative decrees and in apposite cases declare them invalid for unconstitutionality.
Some of the proponents for a Bill of Rights had a slightly different concern. To some, a government of the majority might be tempted under the pressure of their constituencies to take the privileges of the minority and consequently deprive them of fundamental rights. One supposes that the remarks by Justice Flemming in the Itsoseng case where he stated that laws protecting farm workers against evictions are unconstitutional, is an example of privileges the Bill of Rights were meant to protect. (Sunday Times of 08 April 2002).
Mainly three characteristics were ascribed to the courts or judges, which qualify them to oversee fundamental rights: (a) they are said to be free from direct political pressure; (b) the nature of their training promotes objective assessment; and (c) the fact that the whole judicial experience is geared towards balancing conflicting interests.
Unfortunately the facts do not support this theory. The history of promotion of oppression and violence by the judiciary in South Africa juxtaposed with the non-violent record of the African National Congress in particular gives doubt on whether the above is a true picture. More of concern is the ability of many of those involved to rise above prejudice.
From the early 1900s, the South African Native National Representative Congress (SANNC) as the movement was formerly known, pursued a non-violent struggle. The leaders of the organisation preferred negotiation and thus the trip to London in 1904 by delegation of late Cdes Sol Plaatjie, Rev. Dube, Msana and others. The non-violent stance did not change despite the take-over by the National Party in 1948 with their policy of 'kaffir op sy plek'. The Defiance Campaign of the 1950s was peaceful, the women who marched on Strydom did so peacefully, the marchers at Sharpeville were peaceful. The armed struggle was a well-targeted effort and last resort meant to dislodge a very oppressive regime, and was by all measure of standards very responsible.
This happened in the face of a total court-protected state onslaught and complete non-recognition of the humanity of the African people. This attitude has firm historical bases: the human zoos in Europe that saw Saartjie Baartman in the museum, The Groot Trek in protest against the emancipation of slaves in 1830. The Voortrekkers opposed equality with 'heathens', and opted to go out and create their own system. A lot of the history is under the carpet, for it brings us closer to some contemporary conditions like the situation of farm workers. It was these very same 'politically uninfluenced' courts that hanged almost only blacks. The deaths in detention without any one being found guilty were a 'neutral' evaluation of evidence by the courts.
Also, fact-finding by the judiciary is not law, it is derived from human experience. Remember the Biko Inquest case, the flying Indian, Dr Aggett, and many others inquests in small towns that never reached the eye of the media.
Though a lot can be said about progress made by our democratic dispensation in the courts, there are many low-key cases that give concern. The Vryburg Case of Babeile. Are we supposed to regard this as neutrality? How many black students were injured in this saga, and how many of the perpetrators spent a day in jail? Unfortunately, this pattern of fact-finding permeates through the courts. The killing of 50 people by the rightwing in Mafikeng towards the build up to the 1994 elections resulted in no prosecution. The only prosecution is of the one black policeman who killed three white persons. The Frankfort community protests on 09 April 2002, just show us the frustration by communities that come in expectation of injustice to courts. Increasingly we see communities ready to protest unjust decisions. Is this how far we've come?
The above illustrates just the challenges faced by our country where the facts do not give a clean bill of health on the argument that courts are neutral. Their neutrality should be treated with circumspection, but importantly, something has to be done about this. This is stated with great respect to many very fair judges on our bench, black and white.
In 2000, Parliament passed a law on the Promotion of Access to Information Act, 3 of 2000. This particular law warrants particular attention, because again, government has given responsibility to ordinary courts to adjudicate on whether records of private and public institutions should be accessed on request. This piece of law is a perfect instrument to deepen democracy and there is no gainsay that all in their right minds should support this. International bodies including the UN Resolution 59(I) of December 1946 declared information to be the touchstone of all freedoms which are consecrated.
That having been said, we still need to protect our democracy like many other developed nations would. Section 80(1) of the Act provides as follows: ' Despite this Act and any other law, any court hearing an application, or an appeal against a decision on that application, may examine any record of a public or private body to which this Act applies, and no such record may be withheld from the court on any grounds.' I cringe at the thought of any court being involved.
The choices to be made in legal disputes are not always easy. It is necessary to have specialised courts dealing with information laws. The Administrative Tribunals set up for this purpose need consideration. In this manner, whilst we struggle with transformation in the ordinary courts, we can begin with a clean slate in dealing with matters on information, disclosure, open democracy and related transparency laws. South Africa is a young democracy, with a nation divided amongst itself because of our history. Our view of the world is a product of experience and teachings at an early stage. For now, we are building one nation and that process is not yet over, it needs nurturing and if unduly expedited may cause problems. Giving all courts carte blanche is dangerous. The majority of the black nation remains doubtful about the Basson case. The judge in this case was right. His correctness is borne of history, seeing facts in the spectacles of one's experience of the world. Another judge could have found differently. We thus do not have a right to blame anyone for interpreting facts in the manner in which they were taught. We however carry the blame to assume that fact-finders necessarily share our destiny, unless we control this. That is why we talk of the transformation of the courts. In one case, the issue on the right of farm workers to bury their dead on the farm was before the Pretoria High Court. There were three judges, two whites and one black. Though the views of all the judges were 'strictly' legal, they were divided along racial lines, and I suspect, the political inclinations were not strictly race based. This was a good show of 'a product of personal beliefs and experience'.
The two white judges contended that it would be an infringement of property rights if one were to be buried on someone else' land without the landowner's permission.
The likelihood of these racial differences is a reality in our situation. The problem becomes then, who leads in these discourses, or even so, who is right? The answer is not always straightforward. The interpretation by the court when they review government action, especially in interpreting social rights will pose a serious challenge for some time.
This discourse is no stranger to nations. The values that inform court decisions were also subject to discussion in that case of R v Oakes (1986) 26 DLR (4th) 200, a Canadian case. One of the judges said that the values that embody a free and democratic society include:
Finally, the judge said a fundamental right could be limited once exercise of such right would be inimical to the realisation of collective goals of fundamental importance.
Two things are set out in clear terms. The first is that in order to advance social justice we need to ensure that we respect the interests of an individual, and secondly, that in protecting such, we have to take into account our collective goal. In a country where the majority of the judiciary comes from a different background to the majority of the citizenry, there is a serious challenge when courts have to interpret things like public condemnation, or public interest.
The Frankfort right-wing killing in the South African situation is not simple. One person may see the protest by blacks to court decisions as bizarre, whilst another might have a different view. Which one would be public interest?
The belief in political institution and values inimical to the collective goal poses a serious challenge. I don't know how many on the bench could pass this test by deed and word.
A further concern is the lack of public education that comes with interpretation of transparency laws. The laws are interpreted as investigating tools rather than instruments that enables the public to be educated on government policies and how they could best partake in these. A tally of the requests for information to date could tell us the trends.
I believe that the African National Congress is not only responsible for the liberation of our people, first psychologically and then otherwise, but is leading in ensuring that ' the people shall govern.' This is clear from extensive laws passed especially in people's participation in Local Government. The movement should therefore take the lead and ensure that the transparency laws are strong on education of our masses in order to ensure people participation.
In the light of the above, I would content that with respect to the Information Act, we need an Administrative Tribunal. Information laws need a team of legal experts to review these laws. It is understandable that there were timeframes within which they were to be in place. The terms of such a team should include amongst others an investigation of the following:
By Cas Saloojee
The vision that the ANC has for South Africa's children is that we, as a government, would create conditions that will enable our children to live in a society in which they can achieve their full potential - physically, intellectually, emotionally and socially. Since the earliest days of the democratic transformation the ANC has engaged in the development of policy and legislation that would give effect to this vision.
South Africa ensured that children's rights are afforded specific mention in the Constitution, in line with international instruments such as the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In many respects, South Africa has made significant advances in establishing a rights-based culture through the passing of crucial legislation that addresses the State's responsibility to give effect to the Constitutional rights, and this has been recognised as a very important achievement for such a young democracy.
However, the culture of violence and dehumanisation that we inherited from Apartheid can still be seen and felt in many communities. This Apartheid legacy, which includes deep levels of poverty, unfortunately still impacts on the high levels of domestic and sexual violence both in the home and in the wider community. Therefore, the social reality that millions of South Africans face severely impedes the realisation of children's rights, and it is still a reality that our children are vulnerable to the effects of social disintegration and deprivation.
Government has made the improvement of people's developmental capacity one of its main priorities. It has launched many programmes aimed at creating an environment where individuals are able to work, to participate in community life and to protect the families they form part of, and Government has made real advances towards managing its programmes in an integrated manner. Yet, despite substantial progress made in relation to improving people's material conditions and thereby strengthening children's developmental opportunities, every year thousands of children still experience emotional, physical and sexual abuse.
The public hearings held in Parliament in March 2002 was an important step in refocusing our attention on what we, as a society, should be doing to prevent the sexual abuse of children. It gave Members of Parliament the opportunity to hear from a wide range of individuals and civil society organisations; it also gave us the opportunity to engage government departments on their programmes for the protection of children. The hearings contributed significantly to our understanding of the problem, and places us in the position to reflect on some of the most crucial difficulties we face in this regard.
One of the most important insights shared by many presenters is that sexual abuse is not limited to one socio-economic group, and that it is not new to South African society. Some of the participants at the hearings have in fact suggested that there has been a considerable increase in reporting of abuse because of the development of a greater awareness of human rights, and in particular, children's rights, in South Africa over the last decade.
We must therefore caution against glib assumptions about a linear relationship between poverty and abuse, as voices from some corners would have us believe. However, conditions of poverty and social disintegration have a marked impact on the ability of those who must protect the child to do so effectively. A mother may, for example, be unable to report abuse because of her financial dependency on an abuser, or a child might be more vulnerable to sexual abuse because his or her family does not have access to child care facilities while the parents are at work.
It was also brought to light that there are serious challenges in the way Government provides and supports services and programmes aimed at preventing sexual abuse of children or protecting them from secondary abuse. The first of these relates to the absence of a clearly enunciated, integrated approach to sexual abuse: there is no single understanding among government agencies of the nature of sexual abuse, its effect on children or the needs of child survivors. As a result, government departments do not collaborate effectively and efficiently, and children who enter the protective system may be exposed to secondary abuse.
The 1997 White Paper on Developmental Social Welfare sets out an important shift in what is often referred to as the welfare sector in that it emphasises the provision of preventative services to vulnerable families and children. Several subsequent social development policies also refer to the crucial importance of a preventative rather than a curative thrust, akin to the shift to primary health care services. However, the reality is that because of resource limitations, Government has not been able to make significant progress in implementing this shift. The result is that interventions are predominantly curative in nature, and that professionals in government services struggle to cope adequately with the workload expected of them.
At the same time, the civil society organisations that provide a large proportion of child and family welfare services have also not moved significantly in this direction. Among the difficulties identified is the fact that civil society organisations do not receive adequate government subsidies to enable them to attract appropriately skilled professionals or to expand services into the preventative field. It is crucial that government finalise and implement a clear financing policy, because the work being done by the voluntary sector is seriously affected by the current difficulties with regard to government funding.
Another issue that arises is whether those organisations of civil society that receive the bulk of government funding are in fact effectively rooted in communities. We believe that the sector must also interrogate their own commitment to and progress with regard to real transformation from serving the needs of a small minority, to being responsive to the developmental needs of the majority of our people.
Our children's legislation is unsuitable for the needs of all South Africa's children. The ANC has repeatedly pointed out that our children's legislation is completely inadequate, and Parliament amended some aspects of the Child Care Act (Act No 74 of 1983). However, because it was clear that this would not solve the problem in the long term, the South African Law Commission was commissioned to prepare a new and comprehensive children's statute. This Project Committee that has nearly completed its work, and we hope that a draft Bill will be presented to the Department of Social Development by the end of June.
The Child Care Act does not, for example, define sexual abuse as a distinct form of abuse that requires a distinct response from Government. One of the areas of concern in our discussions has been whether the legislation should contain positive obligations on government departments and service providers. It has been argued that an important step towards ensuring an integrated response from government agencies would be for new children's legislation to be explicit on the basic basket of preventative and protective services that government must make available.
The question of reporting of abuse has also come up for discussion. It was argued that the obligation to report abuse should be located only in the children's statute, and that it would not be feasible for the legislation to require all members of the public to report abuse or be liable for prosecution should they fail to do so. We believe that the new children's legislation must be clear about the responsibility of certain categories of professionals to report abuse or suspected abuse, as well as the question of criminal liability in cases where someone in any of these categories does not report abuse immediately. In view of the discussions that have taken place in the public domain around whether the clergy, for example, have an obligation to report abuse to the police, this matter would have to be considered in great depth during the deliberations on the proposed legislation.
The protection of children is not limited to the Department of Social Development or those organisations that offer child and family welfare services. In fact, the intersectoral nature of the response required from us cannot be overemphasised. In this regard, we must note that the specialised Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Units in the South African Police Services are seriously under-resourced, with the result that child survivors of abuse are often dealt with by police officers under circumstances that are not sufficiently appropriate to the needs of the survivor or their families. We welcome programmes by the Department of Safety and Security to roll out child-friendly facilities at police stations across the country, and encourage the Department to continue strengthening their programmes in this regard, especially in those parts of the country that have previously been under-resourced. In addition, we urge the Department to ensure that disciplinary measures against police officials who are implicated in the obstruction of a sexual offence matter either by way of ineffective police work or corruption, be strengthened and implemented effectively.
Medical personnel have an equally important role to play in the manner in which they examine survivors of abuse, secure reliable forensic evidence and provide survivors and their families with adequate information with regard to medical procedures followed during the examination, the health risks involved in abuse and the role of any medication that may be prescribed for survivors
A further step in government intervention in the area of sexual abuse of children is the prosecution of offenders, and it is here that very many reports of secondary abuse are located. Courts are not child-friendly, cases are drawn out and there appears to be little awareness among court officials of the special needs of child survivors and witnesses. The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development initiated the establishment of specialised sexual offence courts, and we must encourage the Department to give some priority to the further development of this programme. In addition, we must urge the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions to ensure that the legislation around bail for sex offenders is applied more consistently, as the current situation suggests that not all courts approach sexual abuse of children with the appropriate seriousness. Finally, it must be reiterated that there is a need for a government strategy that will spell out a holistic approach to preventing sexual abuse of children, including the roles and responsibilities of social workers, the police, medical personnel and court officials. The primary responsibility for protecting children and preventing abuse lies with the family, and there is a need to constantly reinforce awareness among communities of the effects of abuse on children as well as the services that are available to them to assist in the protection of children. However, as the family is often the place where takes place, the State also has a very particular responsibility to provide the framework within which preventative and protective measures can be put into effect.
By Eric Miyeni
I went to see Melrose Arch the other day. Melrose Arch is the new development in the Johannesburg "leafy suburb of Melrose", according to the brochure. The development is accessible off Corlett Drive and Athol-Oaklands Road just off the M1. My sisters, my brothers, it is beautiful. The concept behind the development is truly world-class and ground breaking. The place is a mini-city within a city. And it is designed to create the old local suburban business street type feel like the old Rockey Street in Yeoville and 7th street in Melville today. Those who live in Melrose Arch can work there, eat out there, shop there, jorl there and enjoy the African sky right there. The Melrose Arch brochures tell us that this is how the world is moving to avoid traffic congestion. Once you reside in Melrose Arch you don't need to drive unless, by necessity, you have to leave Melrose Arch. Everything you need is within walking distance. The concept is retro made modern. It's a real groove.
This is the face of Melrose Arch. But if you and I are going to grow and be strong Mandingo, we must learn to read the numbers behind the façades. Let me give you an example. I'm sitting inside JB's Corner, a restaurant inside Melrose Arch, and this young man is explaining something to this older woman who appears to either be his mother or business partner. Either way she carried the demeanour of somebody who put up the money. The young man is explaining how he's going to create a counter here to sell whatever from and how he's going to break down this wall there to get that effect. The woman listens then asks, like it is the most natural question on earth, if this is going to get him more room for people around the bar. Is he getting more people around the bar? Read: how much money is the space going to generate? The more people you can get in a bar/restaurant the better your chances of making money. JB's Corner is the façade you see. The real deal is in the numbers behind the façade. And this older lady understands it like you understand breathing. i.e. as the most natural thing on earth.
Let's forget the look of Melrose Arch and the concepts behind it and the glamour and all the smoke and mirrors in front of it. Let's examine the numbers behind the façade instead. Every piece of publicity material you read concerning Melrose Arch tells you that the developer behind this modern-day retro mini-city is Sentinel Mining Industry Retirement Fund (formally known as The Mineworkers' Pension Fund). What this means is that miners' retirement funds are being used to build this development. Then you must ask yourself this: who persuaded the Sentinel Mining Industry Retirement Fund board of trustees that this was a good investment? And you further ask: who has been entrusted with growing this miners' pension fund by 20% or more, year in year and out? Your finger will point to a company called Investec.
Now Investec is a super company by all financial accounts. It started out with eight guys and now, barely twenty years later, it employs over three thousand people worldwide. It manages assets in excess of R170 billion of which R103 billion is from overseas. Of the R67 billion or so left over, only about R9 billion is from the management of pension funds such as the Sentinel Mining Industry Retirement Fund in South Africa. The rest of the R67 billion is mainly from white corporate South Africa. In any event, Investec said to the miners' representatives, this Melrose Arch thing is good, do it. Put money in it. But how did they manage to convince these guys to agree to this?
The answer to this question is not hidden. In fact the Investec Property Management office that is managing Melrose Arch for the Sentinel Mining Industry Retirement Fund (read Sentinel Mining Industry Retirement Fund trustees know nothing about property management and so will not make a cent in that area) boasts huge banners that proclaim that Melrose Arch was built to escape the rot that was taking over the Johannesburg CBD! One of the listed reasons for this rot is hawkers. Another one is crime and whatever else made white people say to every other white person back then: desert the CBD, NOW! So Investec said to the Board use the money for this purpose and these are the reasons they used to make their point and so Melrose Arch gets built.
Let's examine this a bit further. As we speak, R1 billion has been spent to build phase one of Melrose Arch. And by God! These people have done a fantastic job. The security is so jacked that the cameras make you feel like you are living in the Big Brother house without a broadcaster to beam you out live. The actual structures that make up the development are simply wonderful to look at. But who built these structures? Who did the R1 billion of miners' funds pay and enrich to create this breakthrough in modern day living space design?
A quick glance through all the suppliers gives you one company with a black name, Bohlweki Waste Management. This company is a waste removal company as the name suggests. But nobody at the Investec Property Management office that is managing the pensions funds on behalf of the miners at a fee could tell us if this company was really removing refuse at Melrose Arch or if indeed it was black.
So, of all the architects (over eight architectural firms are involved), of all the engineering firms (also numerous), of all the financial advisors, of all the contractors, there is not a single black firm.
If you asked the black people involved in developing Melrose Arch they would most likely refer you to the white people involved in developing Melrose Arch. And the white people involved in developing Melrose Arch would probably tell you that they can't afford to make mistakes, they can't afford to handhold anybody as this is a delicate construction using pension funds and having to show a return of about 20% pretty quickly. They'll probably tell you that they could not find black firms with the credentials to be involved in something of this magnitude. They would say they actually tried and nobody of the right calibre came from the black community. You will be hard-pressed to argue that they did not try their hardest to find black suppliers.
Okay, so there are reasons for the lack of black suppliers who can participate in the earnings that are generated by using mainly black people's monies in the Sentinel Mining Industry Retirement Fund. Now let's see if black people have businesses in this complex. i.e. are black people participating in the wealth creation that the structures themselves are generating? A quick answer to that question is no. Even the "Zimbabwean restaurant by Zimbabweans" Moyo's, in the complex is owned by a Mr. Lurie, a white man. This is not surprising as the actual launch of this black-funded white-built Melrose Arch was advertised in the Rosebank/Killarney Gazette.
What about the posters for upcoming events at this "leafy suburb"-based complex for white peace of mind? Well, let's just say that you won't see them in the Johannesburg CBD and why the hell would anybody want to talk through the Sowetan? After all most miners are illiterate! So we have a scenario where white people convinced largely black people to spend black money to build a huge complex for white people to escape from black people in the CBD and enrich white people through a space that is designed to cater for white people. How's that for a scam?
Investec did not take a cent from the R103 billion overseas funds in its portfolio to do this. The company did not take a cent from its Corporate Banking division to do this. Investec went to the most insignificant of its portfolios and took largely black money and risked it on Melrose Arch, an untested concept in the South African context. Understand this: if they had built a Sandton City-type mall, the risk of losing the investment would be far lower simply because the Sandton City-type mall concept is well tried and tested and it works here in South Africa. On the other hand the risks for something as new and untested in the South African context as Melrose Arch are huge!
As a friend of mine puts it, you get the feeling that they asked themselves this question before embarking on this course: whose money can we afford to lose? And well, black money came up trumps here. And so Melrose Arch used mainly black money to help white people run away from black people in the Johannesburg CBD. How sick is that?
And so we come to the conclusion that Melrose Arch should indeed be called Melrose Ouch!
Eric Miyeni is Editor and Publisher of O'Mandingo, a weekly internet-based newsletter. blanter@iafrica.com
By Makhanda Senzangakhona, Edwin Mabitse, Uriel Abrahamse and George Molebatsi
Several other detachments of MK followed after those of the 60s and 70s. These included Barney Molokoane and a few informally named detachments: Silverton, Sasol et al. It must be conceded that MK also ran special preparatory courses in Luanda, Funda and Caxito for several years as of 1976 until the second half of the '80s when it became necessary to evacuate the military facilities in the Republic of Angola. Unfortunately, the graduates of these courses may not know as to which detachment they belong, except by associating themselves with the year/s of their training and therefore particular units.
Besides the formal detachments, the Military Headquarters and the Revolutionary Council - later renamed the Politico-Military Council- early on saw the need for a special military element of highly skilled and proficient combatants to carry on "pot-boiling operations" and to strike at selected targets of importance. This was the reason behind the formation of the Special Operations Unit of MK.
This unit carried out some of the most spectacular assaults by MK in its entire history thanks, in part, to the capable leadership of comrades like Joe Slovo, Motso " Obadi" Mokgabudi, Barney "Mmutle" Molokoane, Veli "Glenn" Msimang and others too many to mention.
The Special Operations Unit is credited with the attacks against the SASOL refinery, Voortrekkerhoogte Military Barracks, SA Air Force headquarters, Koeberg Nuclear Facility and many more. The operations by this unit and others within the country inspired many cadres and youth who constituted successor detachments in Angola. Several camps were established among them Pango, Camalundi, Moses Mabhida and Caculama in the East of Angola. Caculama, formerly occupied by ZIPRA was also inherited by MK on the departure of ZIPRA after the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980.
The detachments that followed in the footsteps of Moncada, particularly, in the early eighties, faced a unique situation. The Young Lions, as they came to be known were the offspring of the siege of the Total Onslaught Strategy adopted by the P.W. Botha regime at the turn of the eighties.
The regime succeeded in signing the Nkomati Accord with Mozambique and other coverts agreement, "Swamati" in the wake of which the rear, particularly found it very difficult to receive recruits from SA. The road to MK became protracted and perilous as these cadres found themselves having to start in Tanzania first. Some would spend years on the road passing through jails in the Front-Line before they made it to Angola.
The intakes in Angola were saved by students from Solomon Mhlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO) who on completing their matriculation, felt it was their turn to undergo military training. Hence, some of these came to be known, informally, in MK ranks as the Nyerere Detachment.
Simultaneous with the efforts mounted by the regime to seal its borders through secret pacts and bandits destabilization war in the front-line states, P.W. Botha unleashed special forces to carry out attacks wherever the ANC was to be found: Matola, Lesotho, Harare-Ashdown Park, Gaborone, and Swaziland. A full-scale invasion was launched into Angola, blasting the country and the towns of Ondjiva, Ondagwa and others back to the stone-age.
In the interior of Angola, particularly in the East, the apartheid regime supplied UNITA, enabling the latter to open a front that sought to cut off MK locations from the capital the lifeline source of supplies. Emboldened by the attacks and ambushes sprung on MK convoys and movement, UNITA boasted that it would be little time before MK camps were encircled. In the circumstances, MK had little choice but to enter the war in Angola. This was a departure from the norm, necessitated by the determination not to allow UNITA to frustrate the march to freedom by the South African people. The bitter war for the road and right to train in was subsequently termed the Eastern Front battles.
The Young Lions, the generation of the eighties trained under fire. At home South Africa, was shaking in the wake of the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and attendant unprecedented mass action. So was Angola where the bandit units of UNITA seemed to manifest themselves in many of the villages in the vicinity of MK camps. They abducted villagers, butchered infants and massacred convoys of civilians and ODP, the Angolan militia. The presence of bandits were also picked in Lombe, Kangandala, Cacuso and Malange, a mere fifty kilometers from the Caculama Camp of MK.
Boasting of these cowardly acts, Jonas Savimbi of UNITA was quoted in the world press saying he will, "eat lunch in Malange". He also went on record saying that UNITA would, "declare independence in Malange on the 25th December 1983". It was against this background that MK went into battle.
In the words of Timothy Mokoena (Bra T), then Regional Chief of Staff of MK in the region, "I was summoned by the Regional commander of FAPLA in Malange. He requested help from MK because most FAPLA combatants were engaged against the might of the SADF in the South of the country. In turn, after the meeting, I reported to Tate Mashego, then Regional Commander, and to the Army Commander and Commissar, Joe Modise (JM) and Chris Hani respectively. The subsequent meeting of the movement deliberated over it and came to the conclusion that Angola was an important base for us. Angola was the only country physically standing up to the Boers and UNITA was threatening Caculama.
So in mid-83, our Regional Command met with FAPLA Regional command in Malange. We both realised the strategic importance of the Malange-Luanda Road; without it there would be no communication with Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul, Moxico and other provinces of the country. For us, to maintain a camp as big as Caculama without the road was just as unimaginable."
The experiences and exploits of MK including the casualties of the Eastern front are a subject fit for books on their own. It is sufficient to state that the cadres who went to the front were enthusiastic; morale was high and those not chosen resented being left behind. Such was the enthusiasm, that Ntate Mashego recalls that it seemed many cadres saw it as an opportunity to prove themselves after the long stay in the camps. A brigade under the joint command of FAPLA and MK was established. In all MK committed approximately 450 fighters. The overall command fell upon Senior Lieutenant Sebastiao with Bra T as his Chief-of staff. Chris Hani, then Army Chief of staff, represented the ANC leadership and the MK Military HQ.
For the next three to four months units of FAPLA and MK, one led personally by Chris Hani scoured the bush and villager in pursuit of UNITA. Skirmishes and fire-fights ensued with losses on both sides.
As it turned out, MK succeeded in capturing some UNITA members who disclosed the whereabouts of their biggest and main base, Rio Cuanza in the East. A force was mounted and after careful preparation and approach, MK launched one of the fiercest battles with UNITA across the Rio Cuanza. In the end, UNITA retreated from the base to the South of the country. Besides a few sporadic attacks and ambushes, it would take UNITA another three years before they could mount a threat of similar proportions on the flanks of MK - this time in the North.
MK was not spared the trauma of the after-effects of the Eastern front. The initial enthusiasm of some members who went to the front took a beating. There was resentment as the days during the front wore on; these subsequently grew into reluctance for battle. Some questioned why they should die in this war, let alone be engaged in it. The grievances, fuelled in many respects by previous discontent and the long stay in the conditions of the camps gave rise to open defiance in what came to be known as Mkatashinga-Mutiny.
The region, despite its recent victories against UNITA, experienced an uncertain and dangerous period when MK faced its own guns. In the aftermath of Mkatashinga, MK licked its wounds and faced the loss of several cadres during the period, some were tried by a Tribunal and faced the firing squad while those judged to have played a minor role went to Quatro. Mkatashinga cast a dark blot on the march of the Army; it became a wake-up call to MK to reassess many things including the quality of the cadre under preparation. On the political front, this realisation informed the 1985 Kabwe Conference and some of the reforms that emerged.
The Year 1986 can in many respects be remembered as the year of the coming of age of the Young Lions, then calling themselves the UDF Detachment. With burning memories of Nkomati when they first arrived and the burning barricades left at home, finally, they had become fully-fledged cadres. They had come from Lamontville, Chesterville and many were protégés of Msizi Dube and the offspring of Asinamili campaigns that vowed "A siyi Kwa-Zulu-So fela e Lamont". They had arrived in the camps fired with the defiant song sung by the ailing Oscar Mpheta as he was proudly wheeled from the court room to serve a long jail term in his old age: "Zi khona izibhamu E Angola-Khauze nazo izibhamu".
The barricades were up in the Vaal: Sebokeng, Evaton, Bophelong and Sharpeville were aflame. The regime could not douse nor extinguish the flames that flared up everywhere. Caught in the grip of mass action and revolt, the regime faced challenge on many fronts: Mass Mobilisation, Underground Actions, International Sanctions and Labour actions. The chickens were coming home to roost. The Young Lions were proving their mettle in the country and the camps in the rear every day awaited with bated breath, "another bomb blast- e Durban". Soon, Durban was known in the camp as" the engineering field'.
The apartheid regime was not taking it lying down. It saw the proverbial writing on the wall. The image of People's Power loomed large in response to the ANC's directive: "Render the country ungovernable. Make apartheid unworkable". Organs of alternative power - People's Power - were usurping apartheid power and springing up all over the country. They sought to exercise authority, civic and judicial in the communities.
The regime went to all-out war deploying its total strategies; it deployed the SANDF in the townships; unleashed death squads and Askaris. It launched a full scale war in Angola leaving a trail of chaos and destruction behind when it installed UNITA. The Angolan Army and Cuban Internationalists were tied down in the South defending against the invasion. Simultaneously, hordes and hordes of UNITA were infiltrated into the north of the country in an attempt to cut the Angolan defence from the rear. Between UNITA and their prized destination - the capital - lay the various camps of MK on the North of Luanda.
Thus commenced the Northern Front, a bitter and gruelling campaign that together with the battle of Cuito Cuinavale changed irrevocably the balances of forces in Southern Africa and paved the way for the Independence of Namibia.
Prior to the full-scale opening of the Front, UNITA had mounted hit and run attacks on the villages around the camps of MK in the North. They were heard in Phiri; then they attacked the villages of Bula-Atumba, then Quinenza, a village situated just a kilometre from the camp. In the wake of UNITA, villages were deserted and ghostly herds roamed loose and the fields lay fallow. They burned livestock, houses, at times, not discriminating between man and beast. They ambushed MK vehicles and desecrated corpses of fallen MK to the extent of painting these with Mjumbulu-cassava flour leaving their bodies displayed on the road. This was the fate of among other MK cadres, Texaco, Sphiwe and Shepherd Malinga. Shepherd was cited for valiant defence and named Hero of the Northern Front by MK.
On many occasions UNITA was repelled by MK and with heavy casualties on their side. In many instances, the peasant population came to look upon MK for protection. Such was the case with the villages of Mdlaza, Quibna and Tona Angola where the peasants returned to their villages after UNITA had been driven out by MK. The trail of UNITA appeared to be intent on depopulating the area off the peasants and villagers as far as Quilimuenga, Quilindage, Qufulu and Cateride.
The Northern front is a subject of whole books on its own. It is important, however, to indicate that this was one big effort that taxed MK to the hilt. All action and attention of the army in Angola were diverted, "All for the front" either to serve on the actual front or in support capacity. No longer could lone vehicles ply the North-Luanda Roads; they required escorts and soon it was mainly convoy. UNITA way-laid them; soon movement of civilians could only be under huge escort.
UNITA threw in everything it had in the Northern Front. It deployed what was known in its ranks as the cream of its decades-long battles in the like of the notorious Mvula Shaka and Captain Haleluya. The latter, previously wounded by MK during UNITA's aborted Eastern Front campaign was killed in the Northern front. Soon, MK had forward bases covering the hundreds of kilometre road between the North and Luanda to secure the movement of convoys. MK was in Parede, Busako, Mabelenga and the giant mountain named Petro Boa.
The Northern Front witnessed the fiercest battles. Many lives were lost on both sides. UNITA tried, including throwing in mercenaries speaking Zulu, a ruse that was very dangerous during battle. These would call to MK over the din and staccato of arms during battle: "Woza ngapa mfowethu". As the Angolans were known not to speak Zulu, this was clearly intended to lure the unsuspecting fighters into fire including captivity. This had happened previously in the East when two MK cadres were abducted during an attack on the MK farm in Quela. The cadres, Ntsimbi and Madiba would spend months in captivity at the UNITA HQ at Jamba in the South. They were released after many months, but not before UNITA had paraded them as captured mercenaries before the glare of Western media.
UNITA's strenuous effort to break the cordon in the North in order to reach Luanda and provide reprieve for the invading SADF army in the South was frustrated. It was none other than Jonas Savimbi himself who admitted that, "in the Northern Front of Angola there is a small army of ' karega-cheesekops' that is very dangerous." This army was MK and once again he found his ambitions to Luanda frustrated.
The tide had turned against the invading columns and the SADF army of apartheid in the South. In their eagerness to cut ground to reach the capital Luanda, they had burned themselves against FAPLA and the Cuban defence. Six thousand troops of the SADF were encircled in Cuito Cuanavale and threatened with extinction unless the regime agreed to negotiate. Behind the scenes, a flurry of diplomatic negotiations between the quadripartite countries: USSR, USA, SA and Cuba were under way. The result was the 14-Points Agreement: it provided for the safe passage of the encircled SADF troops in Cuito and the holding of elections leading to Namibian Independence. One of the provisions was a pledge by the countries not to harbour those destabilising them and to respect the inalienable territorial integrity of each other.
The Cuito outcome was pregnant with possibility and fraught with challenges. It was strategic because it guaranteed freedom for Namibia. Nobody was in any doubt that SWAPO would sweep the elections. Freedom for Namibia meant a denial of forward bases for use as springboard by SA for the destabilisation of the Peoples Republic of Angola or violation of the territorial integrity of the countries of the region. Cuito provided the ultimate condition required to realise the Namibian goal of freedom; the people of South Africa, Africa and the world shared in that goal; we had participated in the " common experience of struggle of a Great victory".
Cuito was a resounding victory of the tenacity and sacrifice of the Angolans; it was their culmination of 28 consistent and unbroken challenges to the forces of colonialism and imperialism. Angola had not known peace since independence, actually, since the dawn of the Slave Trade. The victory of Cuito was the necessary condition for the consolidation of the victorious gains of freedom and Independence fought for the people of Angola and Africa. Without the invasion and occupation army of apartheid, the people of Angola were free to decide their destiny. The Angolan people have paid the price and lived true to the commitment of its founding President, Agostinho Neto that: "Angola is the firm trench of revolution in Africa".
The victory of Cuito Cuanavale was a profound defeat for the Imperial ambitions of South Africa. It constituted a reversal of their assumptions to extend the front, to create a cordon sanitaire for the containment of the expansion of the borders of free Africa. Cuito literally rolled the battle to the banks of the Orange, as the Independence of Zimbabwe and Mozambique rolled the frontline to Limpopo and doorstep of South Africa.
To apartheid South Africa, albeit defeated, Cuito provided a tactical save-face. Their white constituency already in revolt, would see their conscripted sons alive. And most importantly, the consequence of Cuito would blunt the threat of MK through distance and dislocation from the region. What the regime could not achieve in the battlefield, it would seek to acquire from the Cuito settlement.
The repercussion of Cuito for MK were obvious; they required the capacity and commitment to accept the dramatic consequences of a victorious process; to realise the imperative of a realignment of conditions and forces locally and internationally in the wake of perestroika and glasnost. MK could not be party to the denial of the conditions for victory for the peoples of Namibia, Angola and by extension the dream of the peoples of Africa.
We laboured under no illusion regarding the capacity and integrity of the apartheid regime to live by their undertaking; Nkomati had taught us that they speak peace even as they prepare for war. The absence of war does not mean peace. We had to move. We moved from Angola: a tactical retreat, but a strategic consolidation. We had always perceived our battle-field to be in SA; that we had to fight where we were and everywhere was to defend so as not to permit whatever obstacle to stand between us and that goal.
It was the SADF that came after us; the conflict is in SA and the people prosecuting the challenge are in South Africa. They are the people's army is inside, what is outside is only the core. The weight of free Africa and the convergence of the forces of freedom and commitment for the decolonisation of the continent will weigh heavily on the last bastion. "Victory will be won by the people who are fighting on the ground in SA-taking advantage of this weight". The dispersal of the fraternal armies of liberation is the consequence of a strategic task fulfilled. The conditions of victory are laid, the people of South Africa, the region and the continent are responsible for its celebration.
MK is a participant of countless battles: Kongwa, Spolilo, Rio Cuanza, Cacuso, Valo Diloma, Messina, Hoedspruit, Soekmekaar, Piet Retief, Mochaneng, Ngwavuma, Silverton and all over South Africa. All these battles and all the struggle were targeted at the strategic objective to lead to the final objective (OR). Cuito delivered Namibia and gave peace a chance in Angola. There could be no question that the ultimate victory lay in SA and the cherished goal, the entire freedom of Africa in every respect. The political and military leadership of the ANC and MK issued the order for the army to move from Angola to Tanzania (Iringa and Mbeya) and Uganda (Mbarara).
If the apartheid regime entertained the false notion that MK was banished from the theatre of battle, then the Commander-in Chief, OR Tambo had a profound message for them, "nowhere on the African continent is SA too far, no difficulty too great for this army. We trained in Egypt; we trained in Morocco, trained in Algiers and went into the country. If Botha and Malan are clapping hands and saying that we are moving further and further away. They are living in a dream and they'll soon know it". Indeed, they knew it within eight years.
Paying tribute to the relentless resilience of the struggle of the oppressed and courage of militants of June16 and SA in general, the President imparted an enduring wisdom when he said; "When people cease to be frightened by bullets, they cease to be frightened by anything in the world; when you begin to defy death you've acquired the capacity to conquer - and what you need is correct tactics - what you need is the correct strategy because as we all know - the bravest soldier dies in vain if he dies without inflicting damage on the enemy. It is not sufficient to be brave; it is necessary that you fight with skill and with the means that give you capacity to win."
The Great Withdrawal from Angola was a solemn challenge; it was emotional for everyone. The task was understood and it was executed; it was historical and history has vindicated. The rest is not history, but the inspiring challenge that the nature and quality for which the sacrifice was made is retained in its integrity. "Cuito Cuanavale was not a final and definitive end. It was process." The renewal of Africa remains. The struggle is continuous. As OR would have it, "if we don't fight, if we don't step up our struggle - our victory will be distorted".
Our forefathers have discharged themselves gallantly; the Class of '44 has delivered and so did the Classes of '76 and the '80s. A strategic beachhead, political power, was conquered in 1994, but the economic, social and cultural goals remain alienated. Terrains have changed and so have the required instruments to prosecute the challenge.
Mark Shope's dream of bread, an egg and pint of milk a day for every child is yet to be fulfilled. Who are the new generation of Volunteers for Change?
Malome Kotane said to the South African youth of all generations: "At this hour of destiny, your country and your people need you. The future of South Africa is yours; and it will be what you make of it."
By Alpheus Manghezi and Mohammed Tikly
On 9 July, as the continent's leaders meet in Durban to launch the African Union, the African National Congress will mark the 10th anniversary of the handing over of the ANC settlements of Mazimbu and Dakawa to the Tanzanian government.
Developed from the late 1970s on land donated by the Tanzanian government, these two settlements served as home to South African exiles. The two settlements stand as a reminder of Tanzania's support for the struggle against apartheid - and to this day provide a bridge between the peoples of these two African countries.
Tanzania was home to ANC exiles during the 1960s when the movement's headquarters was based in Morogoro, before moving to Zambia. The first MK guerillas were trained in Tanzania, prior to the transfer of military training to Angola in the 1970s.
Also in the early 1960s, the ANC recruited 20 black South African nurses at the request of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) to replace departing white nurses at the time of Independence in 1964.
The period from 1978 to 1992 saw the development of the settlements of Mazimbu and Dakawa near Morogoro. The central institution set up by the ANC was the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (Somafco) and an array of supporting facilities, including the Ruth First Education Orientation Centre, the DakawaVocational Training Centre, the Dakawa Arts Centre, two libraries, two primary and nursery schools, day care centres, boarding accommodation, youth centres and sports fields.
Other self-reliance activities were also set up. These included a 16-bed hospital, two clinics, two farms and small industries for furniture, clothing and leather production. The two settlements had an infrastructure of running water, electricity, sewage disposal and a road network. All these facilities, including nearly a thousand dwellings, were the result of the ANC's planning and construction departments. ANC technical experts were assisted by volunteer experts from many countries, as well as hired local labour.
On 9 July 1992, when the late ANC President Oliver Tambo handed over the two settlements to then President Hassan Ali Mwinyi of Tanzania, he expressed the hope that the two settlements would remain as symbols of the friendship and solidarity between the peoples of Tanzania and South Africa. It was then estimated that the monetary value of the fixed and movable assets left behind amounted to US$ 600 million.
Ten years later, both Mazimbu and Dakawa continue to be used as educational and training centres. Somafco, the main institution at Mazimbu, comprised divisions for secondary, primary, nursery and adult education. Its facilities included over 40 classrooms, four lecture halls, six laboratories, three computer rooms, an arts block, a multipurpose library, an administration centre, a huge covered assembly square, six dormitory units, over 300 staff houses, communal facilities and sports fields.
After 1992, the 1000-hectare Mazimbu became the responsibility of the Tanzanian Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education. The Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), located in Morogoro, was mandated to use the physical facilities at Mazimbu but did not exercise full control until 2000. Thereafter, Mazimbu became the Solomon Mahlangu Campus of SUA.
Today, over 1500 students use the teaching, library, laboratory and accommodation facilities used by former Somafco students. The huge covered square at the centre of the complex then simply called the Dome, is today called the Nelson Mandela Freedom Square. The SUA has established links with four South African universities and it plans to extend these ties with the help of UNESCO's Participation, Fellowship and UNITWIN Programmes.
The large Mazimbu farm was highly productive both in terms of livestock and cultivation. However, soon after the handover in 1992, except for a small dairy unit, the farm closed due to the loss of most stock and equipment and the absence of experts and funds. Similarly, the Vuyisile Mini Furniture Factory ceased production a few years ago. Previously it had produced all the furniture needs of both settlements and also produced for the open market.
A strategic plan for the Mazimbu Solomon Mahlangu Campus is presently being implemented to revamp the furniture factory, the farm and the horticultural centre to generate income. Also included in the Strategic Plan is a rehabilitation programme of some Somafco buildings.
During the ANC tenure of Dakawa, an ambitious development plan was adopted in 1984 and partially completed by 1992. Completed were the Ruth First Education Orientation Centre, the Vocational Training Centre, the children's centre, two clinics and two villages, each comprising 80 housing units, communal halls and recreational facilities. Also completed was an infrastructure of roads, electricity, sewage disposal and water supply. The last mentioned was a costly project as it entailed piping water from the Wami River 16km away from the Dakawa Settlement.
Since 1992, the 3000-hectare Dakawa has been coordinated by the Prime Minister's Office while the Ministries of Education, Labour, Health and Agriculture have direct control of their respective functional activities at Dakawa. As from next year, it is envisaged that an autonomous agency will be set up to manage all activities and to run Dakawa as an integrated centre. The new agency will have the power to raise funds and generate its own income.
The former Ruth First Education Orientation Centre is now a co-ed secondary school, rated in 2001 as the sixth best among Tanzania's 124 secondary schools. Its intake is restricted to 205 boarders due to the shortage of accommodation. Dakawa also has a well-run nursery/primary school with 150 pupils.
Six trades are taught at the Dakawa Vocational Training Centre (VTC). Dakawa's isolation does not allow day scholars to attend the VTC and the secondary school. The VTC receives only 60 percent of its costs from the state, the balance has to be raised through fees and the sale of items produced through training. Already, the leather and clothing workshops generate significant income. Agro-mechanics and computer studies are planned for inclusion in the VTC's curriculum in the near future.
Before 1992 the Dakawa farm had a large beef herd while sorghum and sunflower were cultivated. There are fewer cattle now and cultivation came to a standstill when the ANC left. The present Director of Dakawa, Syneda Haonga, has plans to expand educational provision and to revive the farm. Moreover, it is anticipated that development will continue according to the 1984 ANC Dakawa Development Plan, which envisages a cultural centre and, in addition to the two villages built by 1992, another eight villages, each comprising 80 housing units and communal facilities.
The high profile ANC leaders, the South African volunteer nurses and the first MK recruits made their impact on Tanzanians during the 1960s and 1970s. The bond of solidarity that commenced then was consolidated by the thousands of mainly young exiles who inhabited Mazimbu and Dakawa between 1978 and 1992.
Bonding South Africa and Tanzania permanently are about 500 graves of exiles who died during the ANC's presence in Tanzania. Mazimbu and Dakawa have well maintained cemeteries, visited occasionally by relatives from South Africa. The South African High Commission in Dar es Salaam has assumed oversight of the cemeteries as national heritage sites and annually on 16 December, arranges the observance of Reconciliation Day alternatively at each Settlement.
The observance of Reconciliation Day has assumed an important part of bilateral relations. For the present inhabitants of Mazimbu and Dakawa and those living in Morogoro, it is a welcome reminder of the former South African presence. That presence was made up of a complex of social, cultural, political and sporting relations. It also meant economic benefit for local people through employment and service provision.
It was not entirely problem-free, as conflict and resentment surfaced occasionally against the wakimbisi, a double-edged word, which if used pejoratively implies someone who has run away as a coward. There are also some women and children separated due a complex of reasons from their partners and fathers who returned to South Africa in 1992.
It is encouraging that at Mazimbu and Dakawa there is continuity of learning, training and productive activity. Through these settlements, the South African liberation struggle has left a bridge for continued bilateral relations and friendship and solidarity between the two countries. The bridge is the result of the highly developed facilities of Mazimbu and Dakawa and in particular the graves of those who were destined not to return to their loved ones in South Africa. More important was the spirit, resilience and determination of those with a quest for a free South Africa, who departed in 1992. As one official put it, "we Tanzanians have inherited the spirit of Somafco". For the former students and workers of Mazimbu and Dakawa from 1978 to 1992 there can be no better tribute.
Tanzania's Minister of Health Anna Abdallah, affectionately called Mama Anna by former ANC exiles, was the Commissioner of Morogoro Region in the late 1970s. She sees the ANC's departure in 1992 in terms of "rejoicing and sadness". Rejoicing because South Africa was free and sadness because of the social and economic loss felt by many local people.
The present Commissioner of Morogoro Region, Musa Nkhangaa, regards the handed-over facilities of Mazimbu and Dakawa as vital educational and productive resources for his region and the country as a whole. But, for him, more important were the intangible mutual benefits resulting from the interaction of Tanzanians and South African political exiles. He feels that the seeds of the concept of the African Renaissance were possibly sown through the interaction.
Alpheus Manghezi and Mohammed Tikly were the first and last directors of SOMAFCO, respectively.
(This is an abridged version of an article published in Sechaba, September 1988)
By AZ April
When the National Party came to power in 1948, there were less than 1 000 black students in tertiary education. Half were at the South African Native College, which were formed in 1916 and later became Fort Hare University, and half at the various white universities.
In order to its promote apartheid programme, the National Party introduced the Bantu Education Act in 1953, as a blueprint for the future of the schooling system, and followed it up with the Extension of University Education Act in 1959, to extend its control of tertiary education. The Extension of University Education Act made provision for a number of 'tribal' colleges for blacks (largely under the control of the Ministers of Bantu, Indian and Coloured Affairs) and forbade white universities from accepting black students, except under special circumstances, and only after obtaining permits from Pretoria.
As a result of this Act, the University of the North, Turfloop was started for Sotho, Tswana and Venda speakers; the University of Durban Westville (UDW) for Indian students; the University of Zululand for Zulu and Swazi speakers and the University of Western Cape was set aside for those classified Coloured. Separate legislation turned the University of Fort Hare, where many of our leaders were educated, into a tribal college for Xhosa speakers. Later, more such universities - Transkei, Venda, Bophupatswana, Vista - were created according to the designs of apartheid. There are, therefore nine black universities in South Africa today.
During the first decade of their existence, the new institutions were just what their creators wished them to be. They were strictly segregated on ethnic basis of apartheid, and controlled with an iron rod by Verwoerdian ideologues, without serious challenge from the small student bodies. The councils were run by government nominees. Only here and there could one find a token black face, acting in an advisory capacity. There were only a handful of powerless black lecturers, and rigid social segregation was maintained on the new campuses.
The regime had its own objectives in setting up these apartheid institutions in the 1960s. It wished to enlarge the black professional and managerial class, to administer the Bantustan and the segregated coloured and Indian administrations. Later, in the 1970s, there was a further objective: to provide the increased number of skilled black workers and professionals required for economic growth. This meshed with the strategy used by the regime, of attempting to broaden the base of its support by fostering the development of a black middle class, which would guarantee political stability.
However, by establishing apartheid institutions, the apartheid state was also opening new fields of struggle between the forces of reaction and those of liberation. One of the fundamental contradictions of apartheid and Bantu education was that, by lumping together 'commonly oppressed' people in various areas of life, especially education, it created conditions, and a political platform, for the expression of a racially-based political consciousness. The result was the emergence of the Black Consciousness philosophy, and its organisational arm, the South African Students Organisation (SASO), amongst the first generation of students born under apartheid.
After Steve Biko led the walkout from NUSAS in the late 1960s, a wave of militancy swept through the black campuses in the early 1970s, providing a basis for the militant new Black Consciousness generation.
The student struggles at Turfloop and elsewhere in the 1970s showed the importance of confronting the apartheid enemy at every level. Far from becoming pliant models of submission, as the founders of the 'bush colleges' intended, the students at these colleges fundamentally challenged apartheid education by rubbishing the concept, relating student grievances to wider structures of society, challenging the power relations on the campuses, and articulating alternative visions of the university.
By the mid-1970s, the student struggles had succeeded in forcing the state to restructure the way in which it controlled tertiary education. Many of the student demands - for example the appointment of black rectors and the Africanisation of the universities - found their way into the reports of various Commissions of Enquiry set up and responded to by the state.
At another level, Black Consciousness was spreading from the universities to high school students and others, fueling the explosion that erupted in Soweto in 1976.
Undoubtedly, the student struggles on the black campuses were a major influence on the politics of the 1970s. They fed into and were shaped by, the aims and strategies of the broad liberation movement, and created new space for student protest, mobilisation and organisation.
The battles of the 1970s were those of a specific time, specific conditions and struggles. During the 1980s, black campuses reflected the struggles of a different period. The overall national liberation struggle deepened during the 1980s, with unprecedented mass mobilisation of all sectors, the call to render apartheid unworkable and concerning itself more fundamentally with issues of power.
Education struggles also deepened, with the rallying slogan for the 1980s, under the banner of the National Education Co-ordinating Committee (NECC), for Peoples Education for Peoples Power!
The focus of struggles at universities (and teachers training colleges) shifted from protest at exclusion and racial discrimination in the university, to how to fundamentally transform these institutions. It continued to locate struggles at universities within the broader struggle for liberation and students as part of the broader oppressed community.
by Prof Christina Murray and Lia Nijzink
"This publication has the potential to play a supportive role in advancing and consolidating democracy." Naledi Pandor, Chairperson: National Council of Provinces, Parliament
The dawning of our new democracy in 1994 created the opportunity for South Africa to establish itself as a beacon of representative democracy. This new era in the history of our country offered institutions of democracy the opportunity and potential of representing the true aspirations of the people of South Africa. These institutions previously represented the interest of a minority and in no manner reflected the values of democracy, accountability and a people-centered approach to development.
With the adoption of our final Constitution in 1996, South Africa's legislatures entered a paradigm of governance that ensured representative democracy through the separation of powers between the executive and legislative institutions.
The publication "Building Representative Democracy South Africa's Legislatures and the Constitution" begins the review process of our institutions of democracy within the legislative sector. The publication attempts to undertake a macro snapshot of the responsibilities and functions of these institutions in relation to their mandate and policy directives under the Constitution of South Africa.
This book sets out the role that the Constitution expects South African legislatures to play and explores the ways in which they have met the challenges. It looks at their institutional arrangements, and their record in making law, overseeing the national and provincial executives and forging links with the public. It is a study of young legislative institutions building a new democratic culture in a society undergoing important changes.
The mandate of our legislative institutions is to deliver a quality set of laws for the people of South Africa. Secondly, it expects legislatures to ensure that these laws are implemented efficiently and in a way that is responsive to the needs of citizens. Many challenges face the legislatures in fulfilling this oversight function but the impetus for proper oversight is growing.
The first challenge is to become active agents in the constitutional project of transforming the country and not to be relegated to the sidelines. The very active role that some parliamentary committees have played in developing new legislation in crucial policy areas attests to considerable initial success in this regard, particularly in the national Parliament. This challenge will be fully met only when the goal of transformation is integrated into all the work of all the legislatures and when they fully succeed in grasping their oversight responsibility.
South Africa's legislative institutions have established themselves within a remarkably short time. Many challenges still confront our new institutions in ensuring that the notion of a people's government becomes a living reality in their day to day functioning.
The problems that face South Africa's young legislatures today are not unique. Many other countries with similar political systems, experience similar challenges all around the world, critics lament the extent of executive dominance and the tyranny of party discipline in parliament. Complaints about the lack of a truly deliberative style of decision making and weak links between members and the people are equally common. It is important to note that these difficulties are to some extent endemic to representative democracy within parliamentary systems. It is equally important to recognise the additional challenge of South Africa's specific circumstances. To consolidate democracy in a country with a divided and violent past, no democratic tradition and an urgent need for social and economic transformation, is by no means an easy task. But, it is the project that the Constitution demands from the government and the representative institutions of South Africa.
Central to change and development is the reality of transformation. Our institutions are required to be instruments of transformation. This publication by no small measure begins to advance these ideas in both theory and practice.
The book is published by the Parliamentary Support Program and funded by the European Union. For your free copy send your name and postal address to - eupsp@iafrica.com
Hoosain Kagee
National Director
Parliamentary Support Programme
Edited by Nico Cloete, Richard Fehnel, Peter Maassen,Teboho Moja, Helen Rerold and Trish Gibbon
Publications on higher education are not new. But this volume, which is the first of its kind as a collective effort of tracing and examining the twists and turns taken by processes of change in the South African higher education system in a context of profound societal and global transformation, adds a fresh dimension to the debate. In its examination of the extent to which the changes were in line with policy intention, particularly with regard to equity, democratisation, responsiveness and efficiency, and how a new institutional landscape started emerging, it makes a momentous contribution to the current debate about higher education restructuring.
(Njabulo Ndebele, Vice-chancellor, University of Cape Town and Chair of the South African Association of University Vice-chancellors.)
This book addresses a rich variety of issues on South African higher education. It puts these in the relevant context of the process of globalisation and it shows that the South African experiences offer us a lot to learn. Highly recommended for those who are intrigued by the innovations taking place in South African higher education as well as for those who intend to grasp the effects of globalisation.
Frans van Vught, Rector Magnificus and founding Director of the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, University of Twente, Netherlands. In terms of the four main pillars of transformation - equity, democracy, efficiency and responsiveness - the evidence reveals a very complex picture.
In each area some progress has been made, but in all cases the gains have been more modest than anticipated by the policy-makers. What is quite clear is that in most cases change can be attributed to institutional responses and the impact of the market, and much less to government policy than one might have predicated from the policy proposals and processes.
The discussion points to the fact that unidirectional comprehensive policy has not worked in South Africa in the post-1994 period. Instead, a different notion of higher education transformation, based on a more targeted, differentiated, information-rich policy interaction between government, institutions and society has to be developed. This implies not only a new approach to policy, but even a new notion of the state.
This publication is available from the Centre for Higher Education and Training (CHET) at R180.00 per copy and can be ordered from www.chet.org.za.
by Annie Molelekwa
Free State Province
I didn't quite realise that there are disagreements on who constitutes the motive forces until I read his paper or that these differences represent differences of policies to be pursued by the democratic government.
Comrade Joe Slovo in 1988, in his paper entitled, "The South African Working Class and the National Democratic Revolution", said: "These discussions and debates keep coming back, in one way or another, to certain fundamentals: class struggle and national struggle, the question of stages of struggle, inter-class alliances, and the role of the working class in the liberation front. Many of these debates are between people who share common starting points, a belief that national domination is linked to capitalism and an acceptance of the goal of a socialist South Africa. But there is not always clarity on the most effective tactical road towards this goal."
He went further to say that: "Genuine worries about some of our approaches and formulations (whether from 'right' or 'left' position) must be debated and not merely dismissed.
It is for this reason that I have decided to join in the debates and highlight that the comrade failed to raise critical issues of the current phase of the NDR. The issues which this paper does not deal with, are indeed the critical issues of the current phase, issues such as GEAR, and the restructuring of the state assets.
I must point out that there are no disagreements between the ANC and its allies on who constitute the motive forces. Even historic documents like the ANC Strategy and Tactics of 1969, did accept this fact and had since raised the question "is there a special role for the working class in our national struggle?" It went further to indicate that "in our country, it is inconceivable for liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the land to the people as a whole. Our drive towards national emancipation is therefore in a very real way bound up with economic emancipation".
The only concern that came was from the SACP, when it said that "unlike earlier strategic assessments made by the ANC, the number of progressive "motive" forces has now multiplied to six". Some historical documents of the ANC like the Kabwe Strategy and Tactics (1985) identified four namely the working class, women, rural masses and the youth.
What is really confusing about the SACP position is their conceptual problems of classes and social categories. On the classes and strata I fully agree, we cannot divide the unemployed and unorganised people from the working class. Instead we should work towards unifying the working people.
As we were preparing for the ANC National General Council last year, discussion papers were distributed to branches for intense debates and discussions. One such paper was entitled, "Task of the NDR and the mobilisation of the motive forces". The aim of the discussion paper was to engage and discuss the current task of the NDR, to examine the motive forces and the forces opposed to transformation.
The paper identified nine immediate and longer-term objectives of the NDR. These immediate and longer-term objectives were "the progressive replacement of the apartheid state by a democratic state, the commitment of the democratic state to reconstruction and development, a better life for all, the mobilisation of the masses of the people to govern themselves in the context of the objective that 'the people shall govern', social partnership for development and transformation, economic transformation, progress of the region of Southern Africa, the African Renaissance and the unity of the poor of the world, for peace, democracy and progress -South/South cooperation".
Then the paper went further to say that "having articulated the strategic tasks of the present phase of our NDR, the democratic forces are then called upon to identify and engage the motive forces that can be mobilised towards the achievement of these goals".
The critical issues of the current phase of the NDR is not the differences or disagreements on who constitute the motive forces, but a statement in one of the ANC NGC papers entitled "ANC - People's movement and agent for change." It argues that it is important that we pay a particular attention to "giving a spur to the drivers of economic growth and job creation: take decisive steps to address the issue allocation of public and private capital for productive purposes and launch the savings campaign in the context; resolve as a matter of urgency the blockages around promotion of SMMEs; systematically implement the programme of restructuring of state assets and complete the process towards a comprehensive industrial strategy".
The organisational question is whether our economic and other policies been developed and driven by the ANC or technocrats? Are the Alliance partners been involved in the development and driving of these policies?
The understanding is that the NDR must address the inequalities created by apartheid through various strategies to redistribute wealth. It is not about enfranchising a new elite and as Cde Malikane suggests - that we should build the black bourgeoisie as opposed to white bourgeoisie. In the history of the liberation movement we have never came across a question like "how the liberation of the proletariat can be compatible with the liberation of the aspirant bourgeoisie? Under what conditions are these two classes in conflict with each other in terms of their concept of national liberation?
A question that should be raised is who constitute the aspirant bourgeoisie? Comrade Joe Slovo in his paper said "we need to devote a few word to the obvious, it is obvious that the black capitalist class favours capitalism and that it will do its best to influence the post- apartheid society in its direction". Therefore, to alter South African society radically requires a massive transfer of wealth from white minority and the creation of new sites of economic activity. We accept the fact that as a result of this, the NDR has come under new strains necessitating that we reassess its basic aims and objectives.
The ANC Strategy and Tactics of 1997, says, "The strategic objective of the NDR is the creation of a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society. This, in essence, means the liberation of Africans in particular and black people in general from political and economic bondage. It means uplifting the quality of life of all South Africans, especially the poor, the majority of whom are African and female".
The South African revolution is unique in that it was led by an alliance between a popular movement with an unquestionable track record of struggle, which is progressive and revolutionary in content; a working class party with a long history of struggle for the liberation of the majority and for socialism and a revolutionary trade union movement which played a critical role in the struggle for liberation. The ascendance of the ANC to power meant a qualitative shift in the operations of the Alliance. Under apartheid the partners struggled together and worked closely.
The current debates are based on failure of the Alliance to give expression to this working relationship, the failure to clarify how the Alliance relates to government, the lack of Alliance programme of action and the failure to develop any strategy to implement the RDP. These are but to me the critical issues facing the Alliance and which brought the tensions that characterised the relations and not who constitute the motive forces. The principle contradiction in SA is not the NDR, why should it be like this today?
The SACP and COSATU have said that "yes" there are disagreements which are brought about by the issues raised above. All this points to a need for a clear programme of action to be developed on building the national democratic state, public service transformation and restructuring of state assets. That we make sure that policy making process and monitoring of the implementation of policy to be addressed to ensure all Alliance components participate jointly in policy processes led by the ANC.
Comrade Malikane's paper misses the current debates within the Alliance. The debates in the alliance are on who formulate, implement and monitors government policies? The question of whether the black bourgeoisie is part of the motive forces or not is one area of disagreement in the movement is not the main issue. We should all heed the call made by comrade Joe Slovo in 1998 and Lenin when they said respectively "genuine worries about some of our approaches and formulations (whether from 'right' or 'left' position) must be debated and not merely dismissed and without revolutionary theory, there can be no real revolutionary movement.
by Nathi Mthethwa
"...We, who have walked with giants know that Moses Mabhida belonged in that company too". (O.R. Tambo at Mabhida's funeral)
I am certain that those who knew and struggled with Sankara would have expressed similar sentiments at his funeral. Sankara's insight on the complimentary role between National Liberation Struggle and a socialist construction is demonstrated by his thoughts on a variety of social motor forces and sectors of revolution like the working class, youth, peasants, intelligentsia, women etc.
August 4, 1983 witnessed a popular uprising in one of the poorest Western African country of the Upper Volta, thus ushered in potentially one of the most far-reaching revolutions in African history. The leader of this revolution was Thomas Sankara who became the president of the new revolutionary government at the age of thirty-three. Upon the triumph of the revolution the country was renamed Burkina Faso.
For the next four years the Burkina revolution, carried out the most ambitious programme that included land reform, fighting corruption, reforestation to halt the creeping desert and avert famine and prioritising education and health. For this programme to succeed, the government pressed on with the organisation, mobilisation and political education of especially the working class, youth, peasants and women. The government also focused on solidarity with freedom struggles around the world - from solidarity with the battle against apartheid in South Africa to friendships with the revolutionary movements in Cuba, Nicaragua, Palestine, Western Sahara and so forth.
On October 15, 1987 Sankara was assassinated in a counter-revolutionary coup that destroyed the revolutionary government and thus destroyed the acceleration of the program of change in that country. Ironically, a week prior to his death Sankara addressed people about the slain Cuban revolutionary leader, Che Guevara and said that "while revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas."
Sankara has become a symbol to all those who were inspired by the Burkinabe revolution and who are committed to the total liberation of Africa and indeed of all humanity the world over. For the purpose of this pamphlet we will confine ourselves on his thoughts on women' s emancipation.
From his experience as a revolutionary leader and convinced of the need for a Marxist - Leninist understanding of human society, Sankara explained the origins of women oppression and the importance to eradicate it.
Dorotea Wilson, a then member of Nicaragua's National Assembly and a Sandanista leader, paid tribute to Sankara's speech against women oppression, thus: "This speech is not just a declaration of principles. It also shows a profound understanding of, and active solidarity with the struggle of women which in fact belongs to and involves all of humanity." (Referring to his speech to a rally in Burkina Faso's capital of Ougadougou on March 8, 1987, commemorating International Women's Day)
Thomas Sankara, putting his case before thousands of women, moved from the point that the revolution cannot triumph without the emancipation of women. Whilst the night of August gave birth to an achievement of freedom, honor, dignity and happiness, he argued, this was selfish happiness for something crucial was missing: woman. She has been excluded from the joyful procession. Though men had reached the edges of the great garden of revolution, women were still confined within the shadows of anonymity. He further charged that nothing whole, nothing definitive or lasting could be accomplished in Burkina Faso, as long as women are kept in condition of subjugation, a condition imposed in the course of centuries by various systems of exploitation.
Men and women of Burkina Faso were urged to profoundly change their image of themselves, for they were part of building a society that is not only establishing new social relations, but is also provoking a cultural transformation, upsetting the relation of authority between men and women and forcing each to rethink the nature of both. In order to achieve this, which was immediately acknowledge as formidable but necessary task, you need correct tools to equal the task.
"The human being," he said, "this vast and complex combination of pain and joy, solitary and forsaken, yet creator of all humanity, suffering, frustrated and humiliated, and yet endless source of happiness for each one of us, this source of affection beyond compare, inspiring the most unexpected courage, this being called weak but possessing untold ability to inspire us to take the road of honor, this being of flesh and blood and of spiritual conviction - this being women, is you.
You are our mothers, life companions, our comrades in struggle and because of this fact you should by right affirm yourselves as equal partners in the joyful victory feasts of the revolution. We must restore to humanity your true image by making the reign of freedom prevail over differentiations imposed by nature and by eliminating all kinds of hypocrisy that sustain the shameless exploitation of women."
The first step is to try and understand how this system works to grasp its real nature in all its subtler, in order to then work out a line of action that can lead to women's total emancipation.
The evolution of society and the worldwide status of women Dialectical materialism has shed light on problems and conditions women face, which is part of a general system of exploitation. Dialectics defines human society not as a natural, unchangeable fact, but as something working on nature. Human kind does not submit passively to the power of nature, but takes control over it.
This process is not internal or subjectively in practice, once women ceased to be viewed as a mere sexual beings and we look beyond their biological functions and become conscious of their weight as an active social force. In essence the difference between men and women revolves around biological functions, of which women have more functions than men, anyway.
The importance of dialectics lies in having gone beyond essential biological limits and simplistic theories about our being slaves to nature and having laid out the facts in their social and economic context. From the beginnings of human history, humankind mastering of nature was extended beyond his or her bare hands or his or her physical organisation. The hand reached out to the tool, which then increased the hand's power. It was thus no physical attributes alone, musculature or the capacity to give birth for example that determine the unequal status of men and women. Nor was it technological progress as such that institutionalised this inequality. It was rather the transition from one form of societal evolution to the which institutionalised inequality breeding exploitation of women by men. From slavery, feudalism, capitalism etc. the common denominator has always been the subjugation of women folk.
Frederick Engels explained that for millennia from Paleolithic to the Bronze age, relations between sexes were positive and complimentary in character. He (Engels) further charged that relations were based on collaboration and interaction, in contrasts to the patriarchy, where women exclusion was generalised characteristics of the epoch. Engels traced the historic enslavement of women to the appearance of private property, when one mode of production gave way to another and when one form of social organisation replaced another. So, for eight millennia property was handed down from a woman to her clan, unlike now where property is from father to son, a historical and contemporary patriarchy.
Humankind first knew slavery with the advent of private property. Man, master of his slaves, land, cattle and in addition elevated himself to be the woman's master. This was the historic defeat of the female sex. It came about with the appearance of the division of labour as a result of the new mode of production and the revolution in the means of production.
The patriarchal family emerged with the father as head, within this family the woman was oppressed. The family was founded on the sole and personal property of the man. Reigning supreme, the man satisfied his sexual whims by mating with slaves. Women became his booty, his conquest in trade, for he benefited from their labour power and took his feel from myriad of pleasures they afforded him. For their part, as soon as masters gave chance, women took revenge in infidelity. Thus adultery became a "natural" counterpart to marriage. It was the woman's only self-defence against domestic slavery to which she was subjected. Her social oppression was the direct reflection of her economic oppression.
The status of women will improve only with the elimination of the system that exploits them. Through the different stages where patriarchy has triumphed there has been close parallels between gender, class and racial oppression. Her status overturned by private property, banished from her very self, relegated to the role of child raiser and servant, written out of history by philosophy and the most entrenched religions, stripped of all worth by mythology, woman shared a lot with a slave who was nothing more than a beast in human face.
It is not surprising therefore that in its phase of conquest, the capitalist system should be the economic system that has exploited women the most brazenly and with the most sophistication. The woman, whatever her social rank, was crushed not only within her class, but by other classes too. This was the case even for women who belonged to the exploiting classes.
Women's fate is bound up with that of an exploited male. However this solidarity must not blind us in looking at the specific situation faced by womenfolk in our society. It is true that the woman worker and man are exploited economically, but the worker wife is also condemned further to silence by her worker husband. This is the same method used by men to dominate other men. The idea was crafted that certain men, by virtue of their family origin and birth, or by divine rights were superior to others.
We must pay close attention to the situation of women because it pushes the most conscious of them into waging a sex war when what we need is a war of classes, against gender oppression, against racial domination, wage together side by side. This war is one we can and we will win - if we understand that we need one another and are complimentary, that we share the same fate and fate and in fact that we are condemned to inter dependent. In order to win this war women must see themselves as part of an organic whole offensive against retrogression in society, not as a separate entity having to wage a struggle belonging to them alone.
The man, no matter how oppressed he is, has another human being to oppress: his wife. To say this is without any doubt to affirm a terrible fact. When we talk about the vile system of apartheid, for example, our thoughts and our emotions turn to exploited and oppressed blacks. But we forget the black woman who has to endure her husband as well.
There are plenty of examples of men, otherwise progressive who live cheerfully in adultery, but who are prepared to murder their wives on the merest suspicion of infidelity, yet thing nothing of seeking so called consolation in the arms of prostitutes.
There are also those more or less revolutionary militants - who don't accept that their wives should also be politically active, or who allow them to be provided it is during the day only, who will beat their wives because they went to a meeting or a demonstration at night.
Oh! These suspicious jealous men! Said Sankara. What narrow mindedness! And what a limited partial commitment! For is it only at nights that a woman who is disenchanted and determined can deceive a husband? What about on 'revolutionary" who will remark on a woman as a "despicably materialist", "manipulators", "gossip", "clowns", jealous" and so on. Maybe this is all true of women, but surely it is equally true of men. When you are condemned, as women are, to wait for your lord and master at home in order to feed him and receive his permission to speak or just to be alive, what else do you have to keep you occupied and to give you at leas the illusion of being useful? The same attitudes are found amongst men put in the same situation.
The continued oppression of women can as well be worsened by some other women who use women oppression to climb the social ladder. They use the gender ticket for narrow material benefit which has no bearing to the course of women's emancipation. The different neo-colonial regimes, Sankara wrote, that have been in power in Burkina have had no better than a bourgeois approach to women's emancipation, which brought only the illusion of freedom and dignity. It was bound to remain that way as long as only few petty bourgeois women from the towns were concerned with the latest fade in feminist politics - or rather primitive feminism which demanded the right of women to be masculine.
Thus the creation of the Ministry of Women, headed by a woman, was touted as a victory. Asked Sankara: "Did we really understand the situation faced by women? Did we realise we are talking about living conditions of 52% of Burkinabe population, away from town in the rural areas? The high and fast life of town has to be normalised to take into account of all women concerned with fighting hunger, disease etc."
It is evident form this account that the struggle against women oppression is a struggle that belongs to all humanity. Thus it is the fight for gender equality, which is interwoven with class and national questions. The generation of giants like Thomas Sankara, Samora Machel and O.R. Tambo have pointed to the correct path - that the liberation of women is not an act of charity but a pre-requisite for the triumph of any revolution. This is the commitment of the ANC to fight for a non-sexist society with the same vigor used when we fought against apartheid system.
The future is revolutionary!
The future belongs to those who fight!
Forward to a non-sexist society!
by Lance Nawa
In his article entitled Transformation of arts, culture and the New Person, Morakabe Raks Seakhoa raises an important point when he says that "we need to as a society, and government in particular, tackle the arts and culture with the same kind of focus and attention we give to other aspects of transformation, such as houses and jobs."
Of course, Seakhoa does acknowledge that it is assumed that the other material basics, such as food, clothing and shelter, have been satisfied. We all know, despite all the incisive intervention government has done, and still continue to do in a sterling manner, these matters will take a very long time to be addressed. But that's another point.
What this articles seeks to address, is the fact that Seakhoa seems to be focusing, to which he is entitled to do, on the funding aspects of the matter, particularly by government. He even cites organizations and/or institutions, which could be used as conduits in this regard.
Sadly lacking in Seakhoa's article is the context within which this could be done.
And I forthrightly suggest that we need to lay the foundation on which cultural activities ought to take place in a progressive and productive way, as was often the case in the not-so-distant past. Put another way, and to go a bit deeper in our analysis of the discourse, we need to identify and create a site or sites on which this foundation is to be laid, lest we pitch our cultural heritage on metaphorical wet lands and quick-sands. To this end, we need to understand, and acknowledge the power of culture in the domination and liberation of a people, as can be best captured in Amilcar Cabral's Return to the source:
"...When Goebbels, the brain behind Nazi propaganda, heard culture being discussed, he brought out his revolver. That shows that the Nazis -who were and are the most tragic expression of imperialism and of its thirst for domination - even if they were all degenerates like Hitler, had a clear idea of the value of culture as a factor of resistance to foreign domination..."
It is within this context that the liberation movement viewed culture as the source from which the struggle drew its strength, particularly after it was banned. It is for these reason that it allowed and supported organized cultural organizations - some of whom it set up itself or assisted in doing so directly and/or indirectly (such as Amandla and COSAW) - and individual artists and writers, in keeping the flames of liberation burning globally.
This created an atmosphere, a springboard from which communities, activitists and soldiers defined themselves within a national consciousness and revolutionary context and got inspired into collective action against monster of apartheid.
It must be recalled that the liberation movement also had cultural attaches in almost every mission or camp that it set up all over the world.
Back home in the 80's and early 90's, it was a misdeamenour for any public gathering, be it a mass meeting or rally, to be held without any cultural programme. Streets were also saturated with literary pamphlets and journals, such as Staffrider. Walls were also splattered with poetic graffiti. Sadly, this is no longer the case today.
Branches of the ANC, and perhaps alliance structures as well, do not even contemplate talking about the setting up of cultural units and/or supporting existing cultural formations, if any, in the communities within which they are located.
The danger here is, of course, that the transformation of arts, culture (development of) and the New Person that Seakhoa is talking about will be sugarcoated by money. This is a situation, which is prone to attracting very suave pseudo revolutionaries who would hijack our cultural programmes and distort them to suit their own pockets, business cards, and curriculum vitae.
This scenario will be characterized by, amongst others, a proliferation of organizations which have no clue about the importance of culture in nation building, no any legitimate and credible track record, at the expense of those that have been through the mill and are currently struggling to get help from the very government that they were hoping for to look up to for assistance.
Let us return to the source (the people) by heeding Cabral's warning when he says:
"The liberation movement, as representative and defender of the culture of the people, must be conscious of the fact that, whatever may be the material conditions of the society it represents, the society is the bearer and creator of culture. The liberation movement must furthermore embody the mass character, the popular character of the culture - which is not and never could be the privilege of one or of some sectors of the society.
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