Number 23, 2nd Quarter 2005
CONTENTS:
COVER THEME: NGC DISCUSSION DOCUMENTS
Guidelines on discussion of Strategy and Tactics
Unity and diversity in the ANC: Overview of the ANC's experience
Development and underdevelopment: Learning from experience to overcome the two-economy divide
The national question
CURRENT AFFAIRS
Fighting the stranglehold of neo-liberalism - Sydney Mufamadi
The transformation of the judiciary - S'bu Ndebele
Micro-finance for poverty alleviation: Towards a pro-poor financial sector: An ETC discussion document
The complex challenges facing a new generation of youth: An overview of the World Youth Report 2005 / Part 1 - Fébé Potgieter
Youth and politics in the democratic order - Michael Sachs
HISTORY
Fighting for the worth of each human being - Deputy President Jacob Zuma
INTERNATIONAL
Blood is thicker then water: The relevance of Pan-Africanism today - Pallo Jordan
A false spring in the Middle East - Shannon Field
Restoring the jewel of West Africa: The crisis and peace process in Cote d'Ivoire - Adewale Banjo
READERS' FORUM
Serving the public in the second decade of freedom - Luthando Gilbert Buso
Commissioning the custody of nations - Mphuthumi Ntabeni
Mobilising the cadre to meet the challenges of the 21st century - Tshilidzi Marwala
BOOKS
A journey to reclaim an uncle, comrade and martyr - Imtiaz Kajee
A lazy kissing of the feet - Robert Suresh Roberts
Call for contributions
Umrabulo welcomes contributions from readers. Contributions may be in response to previous articles or may raise new issues. Contributions may be sent to the address below.
Editorial Collective
Fébé Potgieter, Joel Netshitenzhe, Pallo Jordan, Naph Manana, Mandla Nkomfe, Mduduzi Matloporo, Michael Sachs, Steyn Speed
Contact Information
Address: Umrabulo, PO Box 61884, Marshalltown, 2107, South Africa
Telephone: 011 376 1000
Fax: 011 376 1134
e-mail: umrabulo@anc.org.za
The contents and views expressed in Umrabulo do not necessarily reflect the policies of the ANC or the views of the editorial collective.
A people's contract to advance the vision of the Freedom Charter
Fifty years ago, on an open field at Kliptown, thousands of South Africans gathered for the Congress of the People. A unique event in our history, the Congress drew together those excluded from the political institutions of apartheid South Africa, and placed them at the centre of the process to adopt the Freedom Charter; a vision of what our nation could become.
During five decades of struggle we marshalled our courage behind that glorious vision. Inspired by the Charter's promise of a better life for all, millions of our people risked life and limb to bring down the ugly edifice of white supremacy. Upon the rubble of its destruction we are now constructing a new society. The freedom and democracy that now reign constitute the foundation on which South Africans remain determined to advance the vision of the Freedom Charter. It is a vision in which underdevelopment and poverty are defeated. It is a vision in which a new nation, united in its diversity, is being built.
It is appropriate then that, following our national celebration at Kliptown, which will mark the Charter's anniversary, the cadres of the ANC will meet in Tshwane to convene at another parliament of the people: the ANC National General Council (NGC). The NGC will, like the Congress of the People, bring together more than two thousand five hundred activists and leaders from cities, towns and villages across our land. Like the Congress of the People, the NGC will write a new chapter in our efforts to unite the country behind a common programme to build a better life for all. Thus, its theme will be: "A people's contract to advance the vision of the Freedom Charter".
In 1955, the Congress of the People was preceded by a vast process of consultation, in which the demands and vision of millions were garnered, before being translated into the ten clauses of the Charter. A thoroughly democratic process of consultation has also preceded the NGC. The ANC released to its branches four discussion documents, aimed at stimulating debate and interaction that could enrich our deliberations at the NGC.
Over the last few months these documents have been vigorously engaged at grassroots level. Each of the nine ANC provinces will hold a provincial general council prior to the NGC to refine and enhance our positions. Not only have the discussion documents stimulated wide ranging engagement within the structures of our movement. Even the public media has, perhaps for the first time, fully grasped the importance and democratic character of the ANC's policy process. Indeed, many of the issues raised in the documents, including our approach to confronting the challenge of underdevelopment and building a genuinely non-racial South Africa, have captured the imagination of our whole nation.
This is to be welcomed because, as the leading political movement on the continent of Africa, the ANC can only benefit from the views expressed by the broadest possible range of our people.
It is precisely this notion that lies behind the people's contract to advance the vision of the Freedom Charter. In unity we shall overcome poverty and underdevelopment in our lifetime. In unity, we shall lay to rest the demon of racism that continues to poison so much of the public discourse. In this edition of Umrabulo we publish the ANC's discussion documents, and so hope to stimulate even further debate and reflection. It is indeed a fitting tribute to the heroes of 1955, that a mere fifty years later the ideals for which they fought have taken such strong root in a free and democratic nation.
The current Strategy and Tactics document of the ANC was adopted at the 50th National Conference in Mafikeng, 1997. When the ANC meets in Conference in 2007 the document will be ten years old. Will its provisions still be relevant? What changes have taken place in South African society and in the global arena, and do these dictate new strategic and tactical approaches on the part of the movement?
As we answer these questions, we also have to take into account the fact that the 51st National Conference in 2002 reaffirmed the relevance of the document as a guide to action "for the coming period". However, it resolved to append a preface that would assist in the interpretation of the 1997 Strategy and Tactics (S&T) against the backdrop of new developments and experiences. Is this adequate, or should we set out to amend or rewrite the document?
These are the critical questions that we need to reflect on as we prepare for the National General Council (NGC). The aim is for the NGC to give guidance to the National Executive Committee as it conducts the preparatory work for the 2007 National Conference.
This guidance should be informed by our understanding of "strategy" and "tactics" in a revolutionary struggle. Strategy, on the one hand, defines the long-term objectives that a movement pursues: in our case a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society. On the other, tactics constitute the methods to attain those objectives: the various forms of struggle that are used in pursuit of the ultimate goal.
While the broad circumstances in which the struggle is conducted may remain the same, and while the long-term objectives may stay unchanged, it may still be necessary to revisit S&T. This could be, among other reasons:
2002 PREFACE - IDENTIFYING MAJOR ISSUES
The preface to the S&T adopted at the 2002 National Conference identified a number of major issues that need to be taken into account in defining the strategic posture and tactical approaches of the movement. In the first instance, it suggests, in popular terms, that when we met in Conference in 1994, we had just started to build the foundation on which to construct the new order. In 1997, we had started to build on that foundation; and in 2002 we had started to experience people's power in action. So, how in popular terms do we define the phase which by 2007 will be characterised by the fact that we will be some three years into our Second Decade of Freedom?
Character of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR):
One of the weaknesses in our S&T identified in the 2002 Conference is that it does not adequately address how the process of change relates to economic power relations. While the S&T asserts the need for programmes to improve the quality of life of all, especially the poor, it does not clarify the issue of eradicating apartheid property relations. How do we address issues of distribution of wealth and income, and so-called black economic empowerment in particular?
The transformation of economic relations is meant to combine the improvement of the conditions of the poor and greater social equity on the one hand, and the smashing of the glass ceiling that kept aspirant black middle strata and business-people from rising to the commanding heights of the economy, on the other. How do we address the class differentiation and contradictions that are bound to emerge among those who seek a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society?
The ideological struggle:
As the 2002 Preface asserts, social change entails more than just the improvement of material conditions of any society. It has to be combined with changes to the spiritual elements. This includes the battle of ideas and programmes to inculcate social values, identities and self-worth informed by the national objectives. How do we define these national values, primarily to build a society that cares, in the context of a market system?
The ANC also has to clarify its own positioning in the vast array of schools of thought both in our society and across the globe. The critical ideological currents against which we need to contrast ourselves, argues the 2002 Preface, are neo-liberalism and modern ultra-leftism. It then asserts that the ANC is a disciplined force of the left, organised to pursue the interests the poor. Does this require elaboration, and are there other strands that should be included?
Motive forces of NDR:
We have historically defined the motive forces of the NDR in national terms as the African people in particular and blacks in general. Attached to these, we have argued, are white democrats who identify with the cause of social change. Does this approach require redefinition? What about the assertion in the Freedom Charter that "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white" - in the context of more than ten years of building a nation under conditions of democracy? Is race still a relevant criterion in defining motive forces? What is the meaning of "being African"?
In class terms, we have argued that black workers are the leading force; but also that black middle strata and the aspirant black business class constitute part of the motive forces of the NDR. This is because, objectively, they stand to gain from the programme of social transformation and therefore share a keen interest in the transformation project. Is class identity in our situation subsumed under national identity and will this apply for all time? How does the ANC manage the contradictions among the forces of change, particularly between business and labour; and should it encourage inter-racial class solidarity?
Character of the ANC:
Both the Preface adopted in 2002 and the S&T document itself define the ANC as a national liberation movement characterised by its identification in particular with the aspirations of the working people and the poor. Its central task is to organise and mobilise the motive forces of the NDR to march in step in pursuit of their common interests. It uses the various terrains of struggle and centres of power - the state, mass organisation, the economic centre, the ideological struggle, and two-way international solidarity - to attain its objectives. What balance in theoretical and practical terms needs to be struck among all these centres?
Within society, a variety of organisational forms express themselves, which can broadly be categorised into political and civil organisation. As the construction of a new society proceeds apace, how should the ANC manage three contradictory tendencies. Firstly, because of its success in carrying out a mission that is in the long-term interest of the country as a whole, more and more organisations seek closer political relations with the ANC: the movement assumes the character of a representative of the nation as a whole. Secondly, a residue of society committed to the past of racial privilege becomes more rabid in its opposition to the ANC. Thirdly, under conditions of open democracy issue-based civil society structures are bound to assert narrow objectives sometimes at the expense of the common agenda.
Character of the international situation:
The global situation characterised by a unipolar world and socio-political globalisation does pose many difficulties for the cause of national liberation and social equity; but it contains within it many possibilities to address the fundamental question of improving the human condition all-round. Immense possibilities exist to promote a popular African agenda both on the continent and further afield. What are the motive forces and allies in this struggle and how do the ANC and the democratic government pursue this agenda?
Attached to unipolarity is the rise of neo-liberalism, unilateralism and a militarised global agenda. The other side of the coin is the emergence of terrorism - an inhuman deliberate targeting of civilians in armed conflict -in the main itself quite right-wing and against progressive social transformation. How should progressive forces contain and reverse these twin evils?
EMERGENT TRENDS FOR FURTHER ELABORATION
In addition to the issues identified above, which are flagged in the Preface to the Strategy and Tactics of the ANC adopted at the 51st National Conference, there are many other issues that emerge from our recent experiences - both concrete and theoretical - which may require elaboration in a new S&T. Some of these are listed below.
Programme of National Democratic Transformation:
The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) constitutes the foundation of our approach to social transformation. This programme is informed by the ideals of the Freedom Charter. Among the questions that need reflection are:
Organisational challenges:
The proposals emerging from the document on "organisational re-engineering" have far-reaching implications on the strategic organisational posture of the movement. While in the main they are informed by the standard outlook of the movement with regard to centres of power, motive forces and the vanguard role of the ANC, contained within them are choices that will define the organisational character of the movement in a fundamental way. Some of the issues, not necessarily in this document, which require reflection are:
GUIDELINE TO DISCUSSION
A productive discussion of all these issues will require a thorough understanding of the Strategy and Tactics document itself, including the Preface as adopted at the 51st National Conference in 2002. Discussion of the question whether there is need for a new S&T document should therefore be preceded by a presentation of the current S&T and clarification of issues contained therein. Thereafter, issues listed in this discussion document and others identified by members themselves should be debated.
Members should then resolve to propose either a retention of the current S&T - if the assessment is that these issues are adequately addressed - or to suggest a redraft. They should highlight the issues that need to be added to the current S&T or to be changed. Each of these should be listed in brief format with not more than two paragraphs of elaboration (a quarter-page per issue). This is with the understanding that, if a new draft is prepared after the NGC, it will be circulated for discussion in the build-up to the 52nd National Conference in 2007.
Overview of the ANC's experience
During the ninety-three years of its existence the African National Congress has demonstrated the capacity to remain relevant despite sweeping changes in South Africa, Africa and in the rest of the world. Ossification, complacency and rigidity can overtake even the wisest of political movements. In 2005, not only is our movement relevant, it has demonstrated in three successive general elections that it enjoys the support and confidence of the overwhelming majority of South Africans.
Yet in South Africa and in other parts of the world, movements and parties of about the same age as the ANC, have collapsed, become irrelevant or are struggling to stay alive. What has given the ANC this extra-ordinary capacity to survive and sustain its relevance?
The growth, development and maturation of a political formation is not a linear process. A delicate balance that sustains continuity but which nonetheless offers the political space for new initiatives and for the emergence of novel ideas is vitally necessary to keep it alive. This intervention is an attempt to examine how the ANC has historically maintained that delicate balance and to open up discussion on how we should handle the inevitable tensions that accompany development and growth in the present.
The ANC bears the singular distinction of being among the oldest national liberation movements in the world. It was the pioneer movement in sub-Saharan Africa from which a host of sister movements in Southern and East Africa drew direct inspiration. Founded in 1912 as a multi-class movement primarily for the african people, at first membership was restricted to men only, but in time women were brought into full membership.
Towards the end of that decade, the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) - a general workers' union - was formed among a group of dockworkers in Cape Town. It became the most active and popular organisation in urban and rural areas during the 1920s and produced a crop of militant african, coloured and indian working class leaders led by Clements Kadalie, AWG Champion, James La Guma, Johnny Gomas, Gana Makabeni, Doyle Modiakgotla, and others.
Though they emerged independently of each other, the national movement and the black working class movement intersected, were intermeshed and fed off each other at numerous points. Members of the ICU were invariably members and leaders of the ANC, as working class ANC members were also enrolled in the ICU.
Owing to the relative numerical weight of the working class and other working people among the oppressed, there was an ongoing mutual cross fertilisation between the two movements. Tactics learnt and employed in workers struggles informed the strategy of the ANC; skills acquired and employed in the national movement found application in workers struggles. The classic method of working class struggle - the general strike - was incorporated into arsenal of the ANC. The movement borrowed freely from others throughout the world, adapting their methods to the South african situation where appropriate.
Nationalist politics emerged during the third quarter of the 19th century, when black South Africans - specifically africans and coloureds - began to organise politically within the colonial political environment to secure their rights. Black political leaders waged an unsuccessful rearguard battle to defend the few rights blacks had attained under British colonial governments until 1910. The founding of the ANC in 1912 marked the moment after which blacks would increasingly challenge the institutions of white overlordship and pose alternative courses for the country as a whole.
Content at first to operate as a loyal opposition that recognised the legitimacy of the white state, as the movement acquired self-confidence, its leadership, consistent with its own ambitions and the growing capacity of the African people to be their own liberators, challenged white rule on grounds of its illegitimacy. The ANC leaders of the time would have argued that their political strategy was to affirm the political fact that the Africans were British subjects; and as British subjects, were entitled to certain rights which whites enjoyed but blacks were denied on grounds of their race. Their deeply held confidence in these British institutions shaped their tactics: moral suasion complemented by protest action to give prominence to the issue.
Unity of purpose
For maximum effect, any political movement relies on the collective action of its adherents. Unity of purpose and of action are indispensable for effect. Objectives - immediate, intermediate and long-term - must be known and understood by the protagonists to attain this. Consequently political programmes and the programme of action by which to pursue them are the devices by which political adherents commit themselves to common action.
The collective commitment made by the adherents of a movement is further reinforced by agreed mechanisms of mutual discipline - the whips in a parliamentary party play this role - which entails submission of the individual member to the collective in all matters affecting the collective good. The unity of the movement thus involves a social contract between the individual member and the collective in terms of which the individual member surrenders a measure of personal sovereignty in order to pursue a common purpose, in return for which the individual is reciprocated by the support of the collective to pursue an individual objective that is unattainable except through collective action.
Unity is an organisational value upheld and pursued by all political movements because it enhances the effectiveness of collective action.
But, political collectives are made up of diverse individual members, who have come together to pool their energies in pursuance of shared objectives. The more elastic the breadth of the collective and the greater the depth of its potential appeal, the greater the prospect of tensions and conflicts among its adherents. The imperatives of coherent and effective action therefore require a leadership to exercise vigilance not to allow potential and actual tensions to jeopardise it.
Yet, a mechanical uniformity holds out the threat of stifling, undermining and repressing the creative thinking and innovation so necessary for growth and adaptation to ever-changing situations and environments.
The art of successful political leadership entails the management of the tension/contradiction occasioned by the demands of coherent collective interventions and the reality that the political environment is not static and thus requires adaptation and constant adjustment and re-adjustment.
Two mutually exclusive and rival nationalisms emerged in the history of twentieth century South Africa, embodying fundamentally differing perspectives on the character and future of our country. Both nationalisms however laid claim to the same piece of earth, our common home, South Africa.
The divergent approaches reflected the antagonistic interests of the constituencies of the respective movements. The main line of fissure in South African society was race, in terms of which power, status, wealth and opportunity were distributed. Afrikaner nationalism sought to entrench and permanently institutionalise this division, African nationalism fought to abolish it.
At its birth the movement that became the historic bearer of African nationalism, the ANC, embraced a number of values, principles and ideals as the key pillars of its political canon. They are still recognisable as deriving from a specific political tradition - a culture of human rights, rooted in and inextricably linked to the political revolutions of the late 18th century, those of the mid 19th century and the post-war 20th century. The ANC embraced all of humanity - black, white, brown, yellow, red - as its moral universe. In contrast Afrikaner nationalism adopted an extremely narrow moral universe, bounded by ethnic group, language, church and race.
While the ANC accepted that Africans, Europeans, Asians and others were all part of a world-wide human family to whose patrimony Africans had contributed and in which they were entitled to share, Afrikaner nationalism asserted the exclusive claim of the white race, and specifically the Afrikaners, to the wonders humanity had created. The ANC's was a vision of a shared society in which all citizens would have the equal opportunity to improve themselves by their own efforts; of equality before the law as opposed to the vision of the white minority autocracy that succeeded the colonial state. The concept of a common society was also embraced by the left-wing of the then pre-dominantly white labour movement, organised as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), in 1924.
The struggle for liberation and democracy was the contest between these opposing visions embodied in the rival nationalisms that dominate 2Oth century South African history. For either of the two to succeed required that each endeavours to win as many adherents and supporters to its side of the argument, while devising the political isolation and impotence of its antagonist. The conflict consequently involved the crafting, definition and redefinition of variable alliances, fluid coalitions and adaptable power blocs to maximise the strength of the rival centres.
Diversity of communities
Though defined by law and practice as a conquered and colonised people, the black population were and remain highly differentiated communities. Such diversity derives from the origins of its many components, the experience and lived existence of its members, as well as the highly differentiated social and economic environment it has to work and live in. This diversity is further overlain by gender, linguistic diversity (the africans alone speak about ten different languages), ethnic origins, religion (some are Christians, some non-Christian), regional, and as the century unfolded, there emerged differences between urban and rural, in addition to differences of class and occupation. The plural character of the most oppressed and exploited community was matched by equally diverse coloured and indian communities.
The challenge faced by the political leadership was devising strategies and tactics that could result in unity of purpose and collective action, despite the diversity of the communities to be mobilised. To achieve this, they emphasised the shared political status of blacks as colonised people.
On their part the white minority regimes sought to exacerbate the differences among the oppressed. Differential treatment of the three black communities, emphasis on ethnic and linguistic differences, regional and occupational differences, were all harnessed to thwart unity and to divert energies to purposes that would make united action more difficult to achieve.
Unity of purpose is thus not a given nor is it constant. It is the outcome of ongoing political and ideological struggles through which the oppressed learn its virtue from their own experience. But because the terrain on which the struggle unfolds is unstable and continuously shifting, strategy, and especially tactics, have to be kept under constant review. There are no pre-ordained formulae, no text-books of infallible quotations that are applicable in any and every situation.
The task of leadership is to be concrete and to examine the unfolding realities at a given moment and to act in accordance with their comprehension of it.
The strategy of the ANC sought to maximise the unity of the african people in the first instance, then create wider alliances with the movements of the other oppressed communities, while stimulating opposition to the white minority regime among whites.
This strategy had its origins in the coalition that went to London in 1909 to oppose the creation of the Union. For almost two decades after 1910, the ANC leadership thought it would be possible, through patient and restrained agitation, to convince a critical mass of whites of the justice of their cause. Such an achievement, they hoped, could lead to the election of a reformist government that would extend full citizenship rights to the black majority incrementally.
Arising from this conception, the tactics the ANC leadership of that time employed relied heavily on winning the goodwill of "reasonable" whites. Moderation, it was assumed, would retain such goodwill and not antagonise those who could potentially be convinced. The abolition of the Cape African franchise (with the passage of the Hertzog Bills) in 1935 discredited these tactics.
Josiah T Gumede, who succeeded ZR Mahabane as President of the ANC in 1927, sought to rejuvenate the ANC. Gumede had been impressed by the militant struggles led by the ICU and the Communist Party. He was persuaded that the ANC could not succeed purely by petitioning the government or seeking relief from Britain. He wanted to transform the ANC into a movement representing the urban workers, the farm-workers, the rural people and the poor. Gumede's presidency converged with developments in both South Africa and the international political arenas.
Like many other parties in the Second International, the South African Labour Party had split into an anti-war left-wing and an empire-loyalist right-wing at the outbreak of World War I in August 1914. Constituting itself into the International Socialist League (ISL), the left had also turned its attention to mobilising black workers. The Industrial Workers of Africa (IWA), a general workers union, was established with their assistance. In 1921 the ISL joined with a number of smaller groups from Cape Town and Durban to found the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA).
In 1924 the CPSA congress resolved to recast its strategy to concentrate on organising the black working class. Within a few years it had attracted some of the leading militants in the ICU.
In 1919, under Lenin's personal guidance, the Communist International (Comintern) had adopted the cause of the colonial people as its own. After Lenin's death the Comintern was instrumental in the establishment of the League Against Imperialism, with its headquarters in Berlin, headed by an energetic German communist and consummate organiser, named Willi Munzenburg. The league convened a world conference that met at the Egmont Palace, Brussels in early 1927. Among the South African delegates were Josiah Gumede, President of the ANC, James La Guma, from the CPSA and one Walter Colraine from the Trades and Labour Council. Other participants in the conference included Jawaralal Nehru of India; Sen Katayama from the USA; Ho Chi Minh from Vietnam; Richard Moore from the USA; and George Padmore from the Trinidad.
Later that year both Gumede and La Guma were invited to Moscow as guests at the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. As one of South Africa's leading black communists, La Guma held lengthy consultations with the leadership of the Comintern. From these there emerged a resolution, setting the attainment of "an independent Native Republic" as the immediate objective of the CPSA, which La Guma was charged with transmitting to the party in South Africa
Gumede travelled to the Asian republics of the USSR, where he was greatly impressed by the reforms the Communists had effected to bring the Tsar's dependencies into the modern world. On his return to South Africa, he told the ANC conference: "I have seen the New Jerusalem."
Gumede's strategy of an ANC alliance with the CPSA, the trade unions and progressive peasant organisations to create a mass movement striving for freedom and an end to colonial domination was a radical turn for the ANC. Radical democratic politics, including socialist ideas, came into the ANC through the alliance Gumede attempted to build.
However, in 1930, Gumede was voted out of office. In a well-organised conservative backlash, people opposed to radical poitics in principle had him ousted. Under the more cautious leadership of Pixley ka Seme the ANC withdrew into itself. Destructive witch-hunts ensued to rid the movement of radicals, communists and others perceived to be such. Later that decade, in Natal, John Dube broke with the national body to form a regional ANC, iANC yase Natal.
Division led to decline leaving the ANC ill-prepared for the offensive of the white minority government cobbled together by Hertzog and Smuts in 1935.
The growing urban african, coloured and indian communities acquired a new importance during the 1940s. In the towns the communities themselves underwent transformation as new points of association were established and skills of modern organisation were acquired.
The collapse of the economies of the "Native Reserves" during the 1930s coincided with the demand for more workers as industries developed. Many more people moved to the cities during that decade. Here they spawned their own community organisations - such as the Squatter's Movement - and joined trade unions.
In the cities gender roles changed when african women, unable to sustain life in the rural areas, migrated to the cities where thousands found employment as washer-women, domestic servants and as factory workers, especially in food processing and textiles, as teachers, nurses and later in other professions.
Urban struggles, at both the community and factory levels, stimulated the emergence of a corps of militant women leaders and political activists. In 1946 they initiated the creation of the ANC Women's League replacing the auxiliary body that preceded it and took full membership in the ANC.
During the mid-forties black trade unionists constituted the Council of Non-European Trade Unions (CNETU) to coordinate workers' struggles. In the rural areas of today's Limpopo Province and the eastern Free State, peasants rose in revolt against the impositions of the white government and oppressive chiefs in their pay. The strikes, boycotts and other mass struggles during the war years culminated in the strike by african mineworkers in 1946.
In 1947 the presidents of the ANC, the Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC) and the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) signed a pact pledging mutual support for one another's campaigns. Though the thrust of ANC, NIC and TIC policy increasingly converged in the post-war period, the leadership of all three bodies thought it tactically wiser to retain their separate identities. The movements had come into existence as distinct organisations and though the leaderships might have overcome the racial animosities fostered by the white minority government's policies, this did not necessarily apply to the communities they were organising. Unity in action by the mass organisations of the disenfranchised not only made for greater effectiveness but could also more effectively break down the mutual suspicion. The first crucial test was the Defiance Campaign of 1952, during which 8,000 volunteers courted imprisonment by defying apartheid laws.
The Defiance Campaign was a defining moment for the ANC. The concept of a "volunteer for freedom", a disciplined, self-sacrificing activist of the liberation movement was born in the course of the campaign. The ANC itself underwent transformation from a movement of relatively passive members who regularly attended branch meetings and adopted resolutions, to a body of the politically engaged, who intervened in and gave leadership to popular struggles.
Inspired by the vision of the ANC Youth League's founders, during the 1950s the ANC was able to create a broad front of pro-liberation forces in the Congress Alliance, and inspire the mobilisation of others committed to change. Its primary aim was to isolate the racist regime through ever broader alliances and coalitions among all South Africans opposed to racism while at the same time generating tensions, divisions and splits among the ranks of the regime and its supporters.
As a result of the changes wrought by World War II, a handful of white liberals within the dominant capitalist classes tentatively embraced the idea of a common society. They were instrumental in getting city councils to respond to the huge housing shortage among blacks. Permanent urban african communities thus became a recognised feature of South African life. The liberals made an ambivalent attempt to force this recognition on the rest of white South Africa in the Report of the 1946 (Fagan) Commission on Native Laws. But the majority of white South Africans rejected the notion of a single society, insisted on excluding blacks from common citizenship and voted the National Party, the party of Afrikaner nationalism with its programme of apartheid, into office with a small majority in 1948.
After Winston Churchill and FD Roosevelt concluded the Atlantic Charter, setting out the war aims of the allies, ANC President Dr AB Xuma called together a committee of african leaders, thinkers and opinion makers to draft a document applying the principles of the Atlantic Charter to Africa. The product was the "African Claims", published in 1943, summing up the ANC's aims and objectives.
The "African Claims" diverged sharply from the earlier thinking of the movement's leadership by locating the issue of racial oppression in South Africa in a continental context. It called unequivocally for African self-government and independence, which in South Africa translated into democracy. That was a direct challenge to the prevailing system of government. The African Claims indicted all systems of colonialism and minority rule by applying the test of "government by the consent of the governed", which the Atlantic Charter had proclaimed.
The African Claims were based on the black people's humanity rather than their status as British subjects. The document spoke of freedom as a birthright rather than as an accident of history arising from British dominion or as a favour bestowed by benevolent rulers. A very different strategy flowed from this. As a birthright, oppressed blacks striving for freedom had the right to employ whatever methods were necessary to attain it irrespective of the views or sensibilities of "reasonable" whites. The movement thus recognised that national democracy could only be realised by defeating and overturning the existing political arrangements. The African Claims posed an alternative programme - based on the principles of democracy, non-racism, non-sexism and equality - for all of South Africa. In the South African context, democracy meant that at least two basic conditions should be met: government based on the consent of the governed, and all racist laws that institutionalised inequality should be scrapped.
Few of the ANC leaders of the time would have interpreted their actions in these terms, but the alternatives they posed were revolutionary and directly challenged white minority rule by posing majority rule as the alternative. The African Claims affirmed that the struggle was a contest for state power and not one to reform the white minority state. The african masses would be the principal agency of change, with other forces playing a supportive and auxiliary role.
The independence of India in 1947 was the first decisive victory of the colonial liberation movements. Other colonial people drew inspiration from it as an implicit guarantee of their own freedom. It gave an irresistible character to the drive for colonial freedom that unfolded during the 1950s and 1960s. The commencement the Algerian War of Liberation in 1954; the Suez crisis in 1956; and the independence of Ghana in 1957, stimulated endless debate on strategy within the ANC and the wider democratic movement. The character of alliances, fronts and coalitions were endlessly debated along with the tactics to address specific and long-standing struggles
The ANC had always linked the South African struggle with the anti-colonial struggles in the rest of the world, especially those in Africa. After 1946 the movement systematically sought to draw democrats, liberals, labour and workers' parties throughout the world into an international movement in support of the struggle of the South African people, complementing our own efforts with international solidarity. ANC leaders had participated in the various Pan-African conferences in the past, President Josiah Gumede had attended the congress of the League Against Imperialism in 1927, and during the forties and early fifties ANC leaders worked closely with the US-based Council on African Affairs founded by Paul Robeson in 1936. The Anti-Apartheid Movement of Britain, formed in 1959, was the first among many movements in solidarity with South African struggle that grew in the decades that followed.
India placed the issue of racial oppression in South Africa on the agenda of the United Nations Organisation (UNO) soon after her independence. This was the initial step in mobilising for the international isolation of the white minority regime.
The strategy that flowed from this conjuncture envisaged mass action in peaceful struggles in the urban and rural areas, while encouraging those whites critical of the regime to find ways of relating to the movement.
Thus two alliances developed. The first, a strategic alliance among the ANC and its allies in the Congress movement, the second, a wider tactical coalition of anti-apartheid forces, under the ANC's leadership.
A living movement generates masses of information to keep participants and supporters abreast of current news and debates in and around national and international politics. During the 1950s, the ANC and the Congress Alliance produced a number of publications (a weekly newspaper, 'Advance' later 'New Age' ; two monthly journals, 'Fighting Talk' and 'Liberation') as well as a number of pamphlets and booklets. Various caucuses and lobbies for specific viewpoints also circulated less formal publications among the ranks of the movement. Ephemeral mimeographed newsletters and discussion journals appeared only to disappear after two or three published numbers. The most durable of these was 'The Africanist', edited by Robert M Sobukwe, produced by a small lobby led by Potlako Leballo and Josiah Madzunya.
The mood of expectation and optimism after 1945 stimulated discourse about colonialism and struggle as liberation visibly advanced. These debates within the movement and among its supporters distilled new strategies and tested new ideas.
Constant political engagement
From its inauguration the ANC advanced the idea of a single South African nation based on democratic institutions, while it recognised the diverse elements that make up South Africa. Forging a single, united nation requires that we bridge the huge gulf separating the rich from the poor, white from black, and distinguishing urban from rural areas. Where formal legal equality proved insufficient to attain this, the movement concluded, a democratic government empowered to intervene to address these disparities would be required.
That vision was captured in the Freedom Charter, the standard around which the ANC rallied its allies and popular forces.
Among the results produced by ANC campaigns was catalysing the birth of the South African Congress of Democrats among radical whites in 1953, and the formation of the Liberal Party among the left-wing of the opposition United Party in 1954, after the poor showing of that party in the 1953 elections. This culminated in the crystalisation of a liberal wing within the United Party which broke away to form the Progressive Party in 1959.
The ANC evolved and grew during the 1950s because it was consistently politically engaged. It had interacted with and learnt from a host of other political formations in South Africa and beyond its borders. In the process it had borrowed freely and adapted to its own purposes the tactics of the movement for Indian independence. From the workers movement it had learnt how to organise strikes. It had forged alliances with like-minded bodies of coloureds, indians and whites, besides working in loose coalitions with bodies of whites who were critical of the policies of apartheid. It also inspired the formation of other bodies that accepted the leadership of the ANC. The Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW), founded in 1954, piloted a Women's Charter, setting out an agenda to improve the situation of women in South Africa.
The strategic alliance the ANC built collectively adopted the Freedom Charter as their common programme after 1955.
The collapse of agriculture in the "native reserves" during the 1930s and '40s resulted in the migration of thousands of African women into the urban areas. As the 1946 Native Laws Commission pointed out, the cheap labour system was based on the assumption that the overwhelming majority of male African workers would be migrants, whose incomes in the urban areas could be supplemented by agricultural production of women in the "reserves". The inability of the "reserves" to sustain themselves compelled rural women to seek employment in the urban areas to supplement the meagre earnings of their husbands.
Regulation and control of this new urban workforce became one of the priorities on the NP government's agenda. The first step in this direction was the extension of the pass laws to apply to african women. When the apartheid regime moved to re-impose passes on african women, FEDSAW stepped into the fray to mobilise a massive demonstration of mainly african women, who marched on the Union Buildings in Pretoria on 9 August 1956.
The militancy of the women also became evident in the townships. Apartheid law made it illegal for African women to brew traditional beer. Police raided homes and destroyed home brewed liquor so as to encourage men to use municipal beer halls. In response, women attacked the beer halls and destroyed equipment and buildings and also organised a highly successful boycott of the beer halls.
Resistance in the rural areas also reached new levels as the campaign against passes for women spread there. In the course of waging struggles women in urban and rural areas were shedding deference to men and, as urged by Charlotte Maxeke four decades before, were "get(ting) themselves ready for the struggle".
As in other countries agitation for the enfranchisement of women had been one of the key demands of progressive movements. During its second term as government after 1929, the NP had enfranchised white women as a device to increase the numbers of its supporter. Black women, like Cissy Gool, who had been involved in suffragette activity drew the appropriate lessons from this and became involved in liberation movement politics.
The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 tied traditional chiefs even more firmly to the organs of the white minority government, and gave it the power to appoint and remove chiefs to suit its purposes. In terms of this law all african women in urban or rural areas, were reduced to the status of minors. In the highly skewed populations of the "reserves" women-headed household were the norm. They were invariably the principal victims of the powers that the chiefs acquired under this law. The situation of african women in urban and rural areas drew them into the liberation struggle at various fronts.
The collaboration of chiefs with apartheid laws and institutions was one of the causes of the Pondoland Revolt in 1960-61. A peasant's assembly (Intaba - the mountain committee) created in opposition to the traditional structures controlled by the chiefs negotiated with the apartheid government. The peasants demanded full representation in parliament, equal rights, land reform, lower taxes and an end to Bantu Education. They agreed among themselves not to renew mining contracts as a protest.
Giving leadership to so broad a movement involved, among other things, managing the internal debates that animated the movement. As in all political movements, debate at a certain point has to make way for action. The tradition the ANC evolved through practice, is that while debate and ongoing discussion is the life-blood of the movement, differences of opinion should not undermine the movement's capacity for collective action. This is achieved by the requirement that a minority viewpoint submits to the majority, though the minority may reserve the right to revisit these differences within the structures of the movement.
During the 1950s caucuses of like-minded comrades and lobbies for specific policy directions were not uncommon. Provided these did not crystalise into factions, they were allowed. The Africanists were one of the most vocal lobbies, networked across the country. When the Africanist lobby, led by Leballo, broke movement discipline by organising against a strike called by the movement in 1958, Leballo and Madzunya were suspended from the ANC. The following year, the majority of their supporters left the ANC voluntarily to establish the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).
The racist state's response to the african mineworkers' strike set the tone for the following fourteen years. When the ANC and the CPSA called a stay-at-home strike in May 1950, the regime responded by killing six unarmed strikers. A strike protesting these killings and the Suppression of Communism Bill, then before the all-white parliament, was met with a massive build-up of police in the african townships of Johannesburg. Armed repression of peaceful protests, administrative repression through banishment, proscription and illegalisation became the standard response of the regime to any form of protest or resistance.
A decade of repression culminated in the massacre of more than 69 unarmed demonstrators at Sharpeville on 21 March 1960. Ten days later the apartheid regime declared the ANC and the PAC illegal and instituted a state of emergency. The following year, 1961, after the apartheid state responded to a stay-at-home strike with the mobilisation of the police, the defence force and reservists, the leadership of the ANC took the decision to adopt armed struggle and created Umkhonto weSizwe (MK), the nucleus of a national liberation army.
An extra-ordinary conference of the now illegal ANC met in Lobatsi, Botswana, during the course of that year to endorse the decisions taken by the leadership in the aftermath of Sharpeville and the repression of the May 1961 strike. The ANC did not disband despite illegality. Its membership was instructed to constitute an underground, illegal movement that would continue the struggle, employing means adequate to the challenges of the day.
The decision to take up arms was made in response to the demonstrated intransigence of the regime which had used its armed might to repress an unarmed people and then made all forms of political protest unlawful by banning the ANC and PAC, proscribing the movements and actions of its leaders and members, and by banning the democratic press.
The international environment during the early 1960s was more conducive to the conduct of armed struggle in South Africa because the successes scored by other national liberation movements on the African continent and beyond had brought into being a number of governments that supported the struggle for freedom. That made the international isolation of the apartheid regime conceivable.
The possibilities of acquiring modern military skills and training became available as more and more ex-colonies attained their freedom. The advances of national liberation had created a climate of expectation among the oppressed people of South Africa who wanted to see change in their own country.
Because the system of white domination had systematically denied the African majority any access to modern military skills, creating the nucleus of a people's army had to commence from scratch. MK announced its existence with a number of nationally coordinated attacks on government installations on 16 December 1961. From its inception, in its command structure, personnel and ranks, MK sought to reflect the non-racial ethos of the national liberation movement. Its first commander in chief was Nelson Mandela.
Challenges of underground and exile
After the Rivonia arrests of 1963 and the mass repression inside South Africa, though it had not been the intention, the corps of ANC leaders outside the country were compelled by circumstances to assume leadership of the movement inside and outside South Africa.
The challenge facing this leadership was how to reconstruct the ANC as an underground political movement operating under conditions of totalitarian repression inside South Africa; keep alive the spirit of militancy among the oppressed; create a political environment that would be conducive to the infiltration of military personnel and materiel into the country; and revive mass struggles.
The ANC strategy entailed attaining four inter-related goals: making the ANC an organised presence among the people of South Africa; spreading among the mass of our people an appreciation that revolutionary violence was not only necessary but could be successfully deployed against what appeared to be a formidable enemy; stimulating among our people the understanding that without their active support and protection, the armed cadres of the movement could not hope to survive in the country; and stimulating their self-organisation in every form of mass organisation to actively engage in struggle to overthrow the apartheid regime.
The ANC characterised the armed liberation struggle as essentially a political struggle, employing other means. Armed force was therefore derivative of the political struggle and should always be subordinated to it. For its success the liberation struggle would have to be built on four interdependent pillars - the ANC underground; mass political mobilisation; armed struggle; and international solidarity.
At the heart of this strategy were the politically mobilised and active masses of our people. These masses had to be drawn into the mass political struggle in every conceivable way through the leadership and political guidance of the ANC underground, whose task was to mesh and coordinate these struggles for an effective political offensive against the apartheid regime and all its structures. The movement was therefore required to take advantage of whatever political space existed, even under the totalitarian apartheid regime, to further the struggle by encouraging the formation of organised popular structures at the local, regional and national levels and striving to bring them under the overall leadership of the ANC. The armed struggle would thus be based on and grow out of the mass political struggle.
The pace and level of struggle inside the country would stimulate international solidarity, whose effectiveness, in turn, would act as a further stimulus to mass struggles.
The ANC argued that as the struggle progressed, the coordination among these various planes would culminate in armed action to overthrow and dismantle all the machinery of the apartheid regime. Such a climax could arise as a result of the cumulative effect of armed and mass struggles or as a general insurrection of the oppressed, spearheaded by the people's army, Umkhonto weSizwe.
The renewal of organised mass opposition to the apartheid state and the institutions of racial commenced during the 1970s. This was heralded by the massive strike wave of 1973, which marked the beginning of black working class self-mobilisation that grew steadily to become the decisive feature of the political landscape.
The events of 1973 unfroze politics, helping to stimulate political activity on a scale unknown for almost ten years. Organisation among tertiary students in the South African Students Organisation (SASO) inspired by the ideology of Black Consciousness, which borrowed from earlier radical nationalists and from the African-American freedom movement brought a new crop of young militants into the fold of liberation politics. Mobilisation of student's representative councils among secondary school students brought liberatory politics to an even younger generation. The emergence and growth of structures among religious and other communities created an ever widening front of pro-democracy forces. The defeat of Portuguese colonialism in 1975 inspired the pro-Frelimo rallies in Durban and Johannesburg in 1976. The Soweto uprising and the nationwide revolt it sparked were high-water marks in this unfolding process.
The 1976 revolt was the first example for a decade of a mass assault on the institutions of racial domination. It placed our movement in a position to intervene for more effective shaping of events. 1976 also brought into the ranks of our movement a new generation of fighters who proved indispensable in the enhancement of our capacity to escalate the struggle on both the mass political and the military fronts.
The escalation of mass struggles was the central feature of politics during the 1980s. The founding of the United Democratic Front (UDF), largely on the initiative of ANC activists operating in the underground and in mass formations in 1983; the unification of the democratic trade union movement under the banner of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in 1985; the proliferation of mass formations and organs of struggle among women, youth and within communities, led to the crystalisation of a Mass Democratic Movement made up of political formations as well as organs of civil society. Opposition to the racist regime assumed a host of forms, expressing itself in cultural, sporting, academic and other formations. A vibrant democratic media, funded through sources mobilised by the ANC in the international community, also made its appearance offering alternative sources of information to both the general public but especially to political activists.
The most enduring facet of the upheavals was the emergence of a broad strategic alliance, embracing the Mass Democratic Movement and the national liberation alliance under the leadership of the ANC. This strategic alliance, tempered in the heat of the mass struggles of the time, became the spearhead of the national democratic forces. Coalesced around the Freedom Charter, it gave overall leadership and coherence to the mass struggles of this period.
By the second half of 1986 the ANC had visibly established itself as the alternative centre of power in South Africa, directly contesting that of the white minority state.
This gave the ANC leadership the confidence to attempt implanting an ANC leadership corps, with both military and underground organisational capacity inside the country. The operation, code-named "Vul'indlela", (literally 'open the way'; figuratively 'pathfinder'), was under the personal supervision of ANC President Oliver Tambo. Its purpose was to prepare the ground inside South Africa for a return to South Africa of a decisive element of the ANC's leadership and to prepare for an armed insurrection.
Operating well-nigh 30 years from external headquarters, the ANC's leading bodies were required to coordinate the operations of structures spread across the globe. In addition to its own membership and supporters, the ANC maintained a multi-faceted relationship with a host of other bodies - sister liberation movements, various political parties, governments and solidarity movements.
It was by the marshalling of all these forces, working in closer and more effective coordination, that the movement finally brought the apartheid regime to the table, compelling it to seek a negotiated settlement with the forces of national liberation.
The movement survived the most determined repression that included illegalisation, the execution of its members, the imprisonment of its most gifted leaders, the assassination of its cadres as well the "informal repression" of its supporters through the agency of mercenaries and counter-revolutionary vigilantes.
The terrain on which the ANC had to operate after it was unbanned in 1990 was not all of its own making. The regime had employed a plethora of counter-insurgency strategies in its attempts to defeat the liberation movement - including the use of surrogates directly in its pay; homeland political formations in its political orbit; and traditionalist/feudal political formations pursuing their own narrow ethnic agendas. Among the whites the regime presented itself as the champion of change and reform eager to discover reasonable (as against "extremist") black leaders with whom it could negotiate.
To its right, the regime was faced with die-hard racists and neo-fascist formations, bent on preserving undisguised white supremacy. Among its security forces there were also hardline securocrats who thought it was possible to use more repression to defeat the liberation movement. Both these groupings threatened to sabotage any negotiated settlement. In this context the ANC had to devise a twin strategy - that would keep the negotiations on course, but isolating the regime at the same time; while strengthening the regime's hand against the far-right and hardliners.
Thus in 1992, when FW de Klerk decided to mount a "whites only" referendum on the issue of negotiations, though the ANC was critical of a "whites only" referendum, it encouraged whites to vote in support of keeping negotiations on track. Symbolically underscoring this posture, Helen Joseph was among the first to cast her vote.
On its part, the movement had to try to define an absolute bottom-line on which the majority of liberation formations could agree. This inspired the pursuance of a "Patriotic Front" to include the PAC, Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO), and various progressive homeland parties (like Inyandza from kaNgwane). The upshot was that after agreeing to a Patriotic Front in 1992, both the PAC and AZAPO withdrew after a few months.
The movement's efforts unfolded in the context of terrible violence, orchestrated by hardliners in the security services and involving the IFP's supporters as shock-troops. The aim of the spoilers was to demoralise the ANC's supporters and disrupt its efforts to reconstitute itself organisationally. The movement responded to this by placing maximum pressure on De Klerk and company to clean out the hardliners, compelling the IFP leadership to commit themselves to peace, while organising effective self-defence among the affected communities.
Despite the tense months of 1992 to '94, the democratic elections took place in an atmosphere of peace. The ANC received a landslide majority and constituted the core of the democratic government.
Organising in a democratic South Africa
The ANC that won the 1994 elections bore the hallmarks of the alliances the movement had built during the period of illegality and mass struggle of the 1970s and '80s. Its constituency was disproportionately weighted in favour of the urban areas, it was overwhelmingly working class, and it was african in the main. This was reflected in the spread of ANC branches and structures. The elections brought to light the depth of support for the ANC among the rural population outside KwaZulu-Natal. The elections also confirmed that though the ANC enjoyed support among all black communities, the coloured and indian working classes did not identify with the ANC, preferring to support the NP. Sections of the indian middle classes supported the DP, while the coloured professional classes supported the ANC.
After the democratic breakthrough in 1994 the landscape changed.
The ANC had evolved over time from a movement that hoped to extend the few rights that some blacks enjoyed under British colonialism into one that sought to overthrow the entire system of minority rule. Because it was involved in a dynamic, ever-changing situation, the movement itself constantly had to change. The very dynamism of the situation required the ANC to discover the means of maintaining continuity while always being open to change. The growth and evolution of the movement entailed the ANC gathering around itself allies, partners, associates and supporters. But the alliances the movement crafted were not all of the same character. Some were by nature short-lived; some were enduring; some were tactical; others were strategic. Its association with Marxists especially after 1928 led to the absorption of Marxist analysis alongside the Christian ethical teachings that had motivated most of its founders and the radical nationalism of the ANC Youth League. The movement consequently evolved as a hybrid that combined a number of intellectual traditions under its roof.
As a movement of the people, the ANC has since its inception been the political home of all strata and classes among the black people, the africans in particular. The relative numerical weight of the working people of town and country among the african population meant that this too was reflected in the ANC's membership, among its support base and its electorate. Operating in an ever-changing environment, the movement had to require tactical resilience while maintaining a consistent strategic focus. These two qualities gave the ANC a capacity to accommodate diversity within its ranks and among its supporters while nurturing the unity of purpose and unity in action at decisive moments. Its evolution was not linear but characterised by periods of growth and advance, counter-pointed by others of retreat and decline. Repression at times threatened to destroy it but its inner strength enabled it to recover from these blows and move forward.
The question arises in the post 1994 environment: What threats, weaknesses and modes of operation could undermine the unity of the movement today?
Political democracy brought with it the dividend of new opportunities for self-advancement for black South Africans, especially africans. Careers in professions hitherto closed to blacks, access to centres of the economy from which blacks had been excluded, etc. meant that they could now compete on more equal terms with their white counterparts - in the professions, in business, in sport, in the arts, for state and government posts and in the accumulation of wealth. Creation of equal opportunity was always among the objectives of the liberation movement and had motivated large numbers of its adherents. No serious person, even from among our opponents, can pretend that South Africa today is not a country of far greater opportunity than it was 15 years ago.
As a movement of a people struggling for their liberation, the ANC was not an isolated group of revolutionaries acting on its own. Even as an underground, the movement tried to coordinate unrelated struggles by mobilising millions of people into actions that converged on the apartheid state.
During the 1960s, '70s and '80s membership of the ANC or even association with its aims entailed risk - imprisonment, loss of livelihood, even death. Even during the 1950s, when the ANC was not yet banned, its members and supporters were the victims of police harassment, job insecurity and proscription by the state. Arbitrary arrest, imprisonment and surveillance by the apartheid state's security agencies were not uncommon. Active dissenters who were not easily intimidated, submissive or obsequious, were the distinguishing characteristics of movement members and supporters. Personal courage and a willingness to sacrifice in the service of a cause were valued qualities; personal ambition and self-seeking were traits that we disdained.
The opening up of new opportunities for many who never had a chance to pursue their own ambitions, aims and individual aspirations before has created an environment conducive to an emergence of a class of black capitalists, a stratum of very senior black managers and business executives, a stratum of black civil servants and bureaucrats, a stratum of black professionals, as well as a black lower middle class. And there is nothing wrong with this.
As the party of government, the ANC today is regarded by a small minority as the instrument for advancing individual careers, creating new opportunities, and the pursuance of personal ambitions. The ANC has inevitably drawn into its ranks a minority of people who joined it in pursuance of personal agendas. A new phenomenon, political careerism, has now become evident in the ANC, its allied structures and among its supporters.
We have witnessed people who do not win a seat in an ANC structure transferred to the SACP structure in the hope of winning one there, and vice-versa; persons who fare badly in the two transferring to SANCO, etc. There have even been instances of ANC members contesting local elections against ANC selected candidates. All these are manifestations of political careerism, which places the personal ambitions and agendas of individuals above the interests of the movement. An NEC paper, titled " Through the eye of the needle", setting out some basic considerations regarding the deployment of comrades to elected office, was written in 2000 in an attempt to deal with this problem.
The movement's own non-racialism and non-ethnic ethos is not merely a matter of high moral principle. The endurance and sustenance of these norms, which many today take for granted, has not been unproblematic. The ubiquitous racism in South African society and the ethnic and tribal segmentation encouraged by the white minority state were powerful currents against which our movement has had to contend. It would be idle to pretend that we have routed them so completely that we can now rest on our laurels.
Historically the movement itself has been the site of intense politico-ideological struggles around the issues of ethnicity, race, class and gender. During the 1930s, for example, a conservative section among the ANC's founding fathers led a campaign to expel communists from the movement and to move it closer to the liberal fraction of the white establishment. Shortly thereafter, John Dube led the bulk of the ANC branches of Natal out of the mother body to set up his own regional organisation in opposition to the ANC. During the late 1940s some of the ANCYL leaders again sought to drive communists out of the ANC, claiming that communism was antithetical to African Nationalism.
At the height of the struggles of the 1950s, the Africanists, led by Potlako Leballo, tried to manipulate the justifiable anger of africans against their oppressors on an "Africanist" platform, a large component of which was also opposition to communism. The majority of ANC members resisted these siren songs despite the evident emotional appeal of the "Africanist" slogans.
Feminist politics at one time were not widely accepted in the ANC, many even suggested that an emphasis on gender would be divisive or diversionary at a time when maximum unity was imperative. A struggle by the women inside the ANC and in society, with the support of President Oliver Tambo, finally forced the issue of gender onto the ANC's agenda during the late 1970s.
There have been repeated attempts through the years by others to whip up residual ethnic loyalties and sectional inclinations as a means of mobilising support around platforms of dubious credibility. At the 1997 ANC National Conference in Mafikeng, for example, whispers circulated about the domination of one ethnic group and the need to resist it. Recently a columnist in 'The Star' alleged that the ANC takes certain provinces for granted and does not reward them with cabinet posts while retaining ministers from the Eastern Cape even when they do not have "impressive" performance records.
To the credit of the ANC's membership, none of these attempts has thus far been successful. Which raises the question: Will that always be the case? Is the ANC leaving those of our people who identify ethnically to the political wolves of ethnic enterpreneurship? Or does the ANC have a responsibility to combat ethnic mobilisation in every aspect of our national life so as to render it a political irrelevancy?
Since 1994 the multi-class character of the ANC itself has not changed. But it has become a bit more complex than in the past. Whereas in the past there were no captains of industry in the leading organs of the ANC, today there are National Executive Committee (NEC) members who head some of the largest conglomerates trading on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange. These corporations, moreover, employ thousands of other ANC members as well as ANC supporters. Prior to 1994 Transnet, one of the biggest state-owned corporations, which employs thousands of ANC supporters and members organised in SARHWU, an ANC initiated trade union, was headed by one Johann Maree. Today its MD is a member of the ANC.
For the first time it has become conceivable that ANC members employed by state-owned enterprises could enter into conflict with an ANC member who heads that corporation; that ANC members who are members of a union could clash head-on with another who heads a large private corporation; that ANC members who possess skills and professional training could be separated, both in lifestyle and even spatially, from their comrades who lacked these.
Stratification within black communities is reflected in the ANC and can produce its corollary, class conflicts in which ANC members find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. This has already generated tensions between the ANC and its principal alliance partners, the SACP and COSATU, both working class formations, who have sometimes felt that the ANC, as a movement, should tilt in favour of the working class side of such conflicts.
These are tensions, which if not correctly managed could cause division within the movement. Denial of the conflict potential between ANC-aligned capitalists, company directors, MDs of corporations and the workers employed by them will neither dissolve such potential tensions nor offer a sound basis for managing the new contradictions that have arrived within society and consequently in our movement.
The ANC's overwhelmingly african support base is sharply profiled in those provinces where black minorities are either a majority (as in the Western Cape) or a significant minority (as in KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng). Commentators and some ANC members have been known to suggest that these minorities are disproportionately represented in ANC leadership structures, in government and in state institutions, virtually suggesting that comrades drawn from these communities are not members of the movement in their own individual capacities, but are representatives of these minorities.
Perceived thwarted personal ambitions, competition among ourselves for scarce resources, as well careerism are often linked to such changes. But it would be misguided to close our eyes to the real and palpable disparities in access to housing, services and other necessities among and between the various black communities. In the Western Cape, for example, the overwhelming majority of shack dwellers - with no running water, poor sanitation, no electricity - are africans. Equally, the principal beneficiaries of affirmative action have been the coloured working class and white women. The contest over the distribution of such resources can sometimes find distorted expression within movement structures, leading to racially defined blocs and lobbies that could undermine unity. The political opponents of the ANC are keenly aware of such possibilities and have unashamedly played to them for political gain.
The central issue in South African political debate is the most effective strategy for rolling back the frontiers of poverty in the immediate term, so that in the intermediate and long term we should be in a position to eradicate it. As the ANC and its allies strive for consensus about the swiftest course to follow to achieve economic growth and to wage a concerted struggle against poverty, we should be vigilant in negotiating between the reefs of capitulation and those of sectarianism. The ANC has not surrendered to free-market fundamentalism, nor has it stubbornly clung to dogmatic notions that would deny a developmental role for the private sector.
A key challenge facing South Africa's democratic forces is how to grow and expand the productive forces of our country to enable us to narrow the gap between the urban and rural areas, release the resources to combat poverty, and create the social surplus necessary to address the huge deficits that are the legacy of colonialism and apartheid. There are no predetermined answers and strategies to guide us in defining the role we should assign to state-owned enterprises, the state and the private sector in such an endeavour. We have accepted that there will be instances where it will be necessary to create strategic partnerships between the state-owned and the private sectors; where it might be tactically wiser to permit the private sector to invest in and expand infrastructure where the state is no longer able to assume responsibility; and others where the state must intervene to stimulate the economy and foster growth where the private sector will not tread.
While accepting the need for partnerships with business, we should not entertain the illusion that private capital is motivated by altruism. The business of business is business. But we recognise that sometimes, precisely in their pursuit of profits, the private sector can be convinced or tempted and even spurred to provide or expand badly required services. There will be instances where there will be no other alternative than to harness the resources in the hands of the capitalist classes for our own purposes, but in the full and conscious realisation that their motive is to maximise profits.
An effective strategy must result in an objective social contract among business, the labour movement (in all its formations), elements of civil society and government around a South African growth strategy, recognising that its diverse elements pursue sometimes conflicting agendas, which can nonetheless come together into one stream.
The strategic importance of the ANC-led alliance for the success of such a project cannot be over-emphasised. The historic mission its components embraced make the mutual support the alliance offers its individual components an indispensable organisational tool for the pursuance of such a progressive national agenda. Nurturing the alliance and strengthening it, even if there are tactical differences among us, sustains the unity of the movement and that of its allies.
As the governing party the ANC has to take account of a host of national and international factors in determining policy options. Some of these have not sat comfortably with the ANC's popular constituency and with its alliance partners. But the trade-offs made against the prospect of an improvement in the national and international environment have not consistently panned out.
Diversity and unity
These potential and actual points of tension within the ANC-led alliance and within its own ranks are not new to the movement's experience. Except in the most intractable instances, as in the case of the Group of Eight of the 1970s, who constituted themselves into a political faction that pursued its own agenda in opposition to that of the movement, the ANC has fallen back on its traditions and tried and tested practices, avoiding expulsion, exclusion or suspension of dissident voices. The ethos of the ANC is that we debate and argue about contesting political positions, but once a majority view has emerged, the minority view submits to the majority.
The question arises: are these adequate to the problems that can arise in the new context of the exercise of state power?
The struggle to push back the frontiers of poverty and to create jobs requires the ANC in the present to enter into various alliances and coalitions. Coalitions and alliances always entail a measure of compromise to achieve mutually agreed goals. Such compromises, however, cannot involve the movement reneging on or repudiating its strategic objectives and its principles. Nor should they foster illusions about the nature and character of the partners and allies we may attract. As the survey of ANC political practice illustrates, some coalitions are tactical, some are strategic; some alliances are designed to be long-lasting, others will be short-lived.
In order to govern the Western Cape and to isolate the last ditch defenders of white privilege clustered around the Democratic Alliance (DA), the ANC entered into a tactical cooperation agreement with the NNP. The need for this agreement did not delude about the nature of the NNP. It was not now a progressive force, on par with the ANC strategic allies.
The tactical alliances the ANC has fashioned to draw AZAPO, the PAC and the United Democratic Movement (UDM) into cooperation around the struggle to eradicate poverty, has not raised any of these parties to the status of the ANC's strategic allies.
The ANC at the age of 93 is a veteran of nine decades of struggle. It learnt the skills for growth, renewal and continuing relevance in the crucible of the struggle for freedom. Through participation in internal and public debate the movement armed itself with the courage to retrace its steps when necessary and to rethink strategy when required to.
Within the living memory of many veterans of the ANC, what was considered heterodoxy at one point has often been embraced as the new orthodoxy at another. Working in an ever-changing environment, the movement also acquired a remarkable tactical resilience.
But what has enabled the ANC to play this role is its understanding that diversity and unity are not diametrical opposites, but dialectical opposites; that these are mutually reinforcing aspects of democratic politics. The unity among its ranks and supporters is what has made this movement strong and imbued it with the capacity to give leadership to our diverse people and nation. But the movement never misconstrued unity as uniformity. The ANC has always valued the breadth of its appeal and the diversity of its ranks, but placed equal value on unity in action. The creative management of that tension is the secret of its success.
The ANC embraced certain key democratic political values, principles and practices to which it has consistently adhered, both in its public and its inner life. It is by remaining true to those ideals and values that the ANC has remained relevant to the people of South Africa and to the world.
The story of the ANC is that of several thousands of ordinary South Africans, working and struggling together as comrades, to propound the vision of a South Africa that would be a better place for all its people. After ninety three years, the ANC lives and the ANC still leads.
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Learning from experience to overcome the two-economy divide
When the ANC took power, it inherited an economy shaped by colonial dispossession and apartheid, which resulted in huge inequalities and increasing poverty, rising unemployment and unsustainable government debt. Despite this legacy, the ANC-led government has made great progress. It has ensured:
It has become clear over the last year that our strategies and tactics with regard to the economy have yielded important results. While still not high enough, the growth of the economy has moved onto a higher trajectory. The economy is creating more jobs than before as a result of a structural improvement in the job-creating capacity of growth. We expect the momentum of these structural shifts to continue over the coming years. At the same time, lower government debt and good management of our budget has enabled us to shift towards a more expansionary macroeconomic stance. Government will also massively increase its own investment in the economy over the coming years, which will further propel our growth and development.
Great challenges remain, however. Key among these are:
Addressing these challenges requires a choice in favour of a broadly accepted developmental approach that will underpin sustained reform and transformation of major sectors, regions and key domestic economic markets. Our choice of approach must involve focussed state-led interventions to ensure the integration of the two economies, poverty alleviation, job creation and, most importantly, sustained economic growth.
Such an approach rests on a correct understanding of the successful efforts to defeat poverty and underdevelopment in the last half of the twentieth century, which we analyse below. In all these cases, a central component of success was the ability of government to act as a 'developmental state'. This means creating the capacity at every level of the state to mobilise and direct social, economic and political resources where they are needed most.
But government alone cannot resolve these challenges. Rather they require that we unite South Africans in a people's contract to create work and fight poverty. Building this united front requires us to continue to mobilise support for our economic policies and strategies. We must seek to reach consensus on our development approach in society in general.
LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE
In the period since the Second World War, the world has experienced three successful development programmes specifically and consciously aimed at the eradication of poverty and underdevelopment. These were:
Each of these programmes was successful. The results they achieved demonstrated that it is indeed possible to eradicate poverty and underdevelopment and create an economy capable of self-generated, independent economic development without abnormal outside help. In each of these cases however, this success required the necessary political will on the part of the wealthy and industrialised nations of the world.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century it is commonly agreed that Africa constitutes the biggest challenge in the global struggle against poverty and underdevelopment. What can Africa, and South Africa in particular, learn from these historic experiences? The question which must be posed and answered today is what was done in these instances that produced the results which, some argue, are impossible to achieve in Africa.
THE MARSHALL PLAN
The success of the Marshall Plan represented the first example in the post-war years of what could be done to achieve the objective of the defeat of the twin challenges of poverty and underdevelopment. The determination to succeed in implementing this plan was driven, in part, by the fear among United States (US) policy makers that, without significant steps to address poverty and underdevelopment, Europe could be the theatre of a communist revolution.
Taking account of the destruction that had been visited upon Europe during the Second World War, one of the fundamental objectives of the Marshall Plan was to move Western Europe progressively from its post-war condition of crisis towards a working economy independent of abnormal outside support.
The plan was a rational and calculated effort by the US aimed at reducing the hunger, homelessness, sickness, unemployment, and political restlessness of the 270 million people in sixteen nations in Western Europe.
The plan involved concrete proposals for the recovery of agriculture and basic industries - coal, steel, transport, and power - which were regarded as fundamental to a viable European economy. These proposals were designed to correlate with individual national and industry programmes. Priority was given to projects promising quickest expansion of output and hence the generation of employment and income that could drive independent capital accumulation investment.
Funds were not mainly directed towards feeding individuals or building individual houses, schools or factories, but at strengthening the economic superstructure (particularly the iron-steel and power industries).
Although valuing and encouraging integrated and well-functioning markets, the approach to the Marshall Plan recognised the centrality of state agencies in creating demand to assist markets to function effectively and leading investments in social and economic infrastructure.
Over the four years of the programme, Americans paid around $14 billion in aid, around 2% of US gross national product for the period. Of this, around $1.5 billion was made available in the form of loans that were repaid. But the bulk of the programme's transfers to Europe consisted of grants. Those conceiving of the plan believed the sums required to fund Europe's reconstruction were so large, and the capacity of Europe to repay loans so weak, that to succeed the bulk of the financing would have to be regarded as a national (US) investment in peace and prosperity.
THE EAST ASIAN GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN
As the Marshall Plan succeeded in its goals, the perceived threat of 'communism' also became apparent in East Asia, where the Chinese revolution of 1949 had installed a communist party in power in the world's most populous nation. At that time the largest communist party in the world was in Indonesia, while communists and nationalists were uniting in a powerful anti-imperialist insurgency that was to triumph in Vietnam.
Once again, the US government concluded that a dedicated programme to create a set of prosperous and stable capitalist states would best serve the long-term interests of the American people. From the 1950s onwards no region in the world received more US aid than South East Asia.
One factor underpinning the rapid development of East Asia was that, since the US undertook to provide for the security needs of the region, countries such as Japan were able to direct investment towards social and economic priorities. At the same time the US instituted a special programme to procure as much of its defence requirements from Japan as possible, which provided about 30% of Japan's foreign currency receipts in the early 1950s, when the Korean War was raging.
Later, South Korea and Taiwan received vast quantities of grants, as well as soft loans on very generous terms. Between 1951 and 1967 foreign aid and loans made up 86% of capital flows to South Korea and 74% of capital flows to Taiwan. The US also opened its markets to imports from these countries without requiring reciprocal opening up of Asian markets.
As had been the case during the Marshall Plan, the development of East Asia also rested on an understanding that the state had a key role to play in ensuring the proper functioning of markets. In the East Asian case, expenditure on social and economic infrastructure was key. So too was the creation of 'rents' for domestic firms that were clearly linked to identified economic targets for growth and export performance. These rents were created by a variety of policies including the selected protection of firms, controls over interest rates, the direct allocation of credit through government-controlled financial institutions, state management of competition (including the encouragement of mergers), coordination of capacity expansion, and restrictions on entry into specific industries.
These policies were directed in a deliberate and focussed manner on creating self-generated economic growth and new cycles of accumulation in the future. Over a period of thirty years these policies, in the context of vast amounts of aid, grants and soft loans, succeeded in raising the South East Asian nations out of the conditions of poverty and underdevelopment in which they had languished in the aftermath of colonialism.
THE EUROPEAN INTEGRATION PROGRAMME
Following the success of the Marshall Plan, Europe once again emerged as one of the richest parts of the world. However, as the European Union (EU) expanded it realised that striking internal disparities of income and opportunity existed within and between the countries that constituted the EU. In May 2004 ten new member countries joined the EU, all of which had national incomes well below the European average, thus widening the gaps between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'.
Inequality in Europe is regarded as the product of various factors, including handicaps imposed by geographic remoteness or by more recent social and economic change, or a combination of both. These disadvantages are reflected in social deprivation, poor quality of schooling, high unemployment and inadequate infrastructure.
To integrate these poorer areas the EU has a 'regional policy', which transfers resources from affluent to poorer regions. The EU regards this as "an instrument of financial solidarity and a powerful force for economic integration". Areas that qualify for this solidarity are identified within the EU as regions that show a deficit in socio-economic development in that they have a low level of investment, a higher than average unemployment rate, lack of services for businesses and individuals and poor basic infrastructure.
Most assistance is granted in the form of non-repayable grants or 'direct aid', and to a lesser degree refundable aid, interest-rate subsidies and financial guarantees. These programmes are directed toward financing productive investments to create and safeguard sustainable jobs, investment in infrastructure that contributes to development, the revitalisation of economies and the regeneration of areas suffering from economic decline; the creation of infrastructure for trans-European networks in the areas of transport, telecommunications and energy; and investment in education and health.
Among the goals of the programme are to generate endogenous (ie. self generating) potential for economic growth by measures that support local development and employment initiatives and the activities of small and medium-sized enterprises. The funds support the takeoff of economic activities in these areas by providing the infrastructure they lack, encouraging investment in businesses and supporting human resource development.
Attention is also paid to overcoming labour market and economic barriers, overcoming social, ethnic, cultural and communications barriers and providing technical assistance to ensure local implementation monitoring and assessment of the development programmes. These interventions help to restructure and modernise the economies of the less developed regions, reducing their dependence on primary products and improving their economic competitiveness.
The EU makes these interventions based on the determination that market forces alone will not result in balanced economic development across the continent. Funds allocated for regional policy are vast, amounting to EUR15.2 billion in 2000-2005, far in excess of the allocations made by the EU for development assistance in other parts of the world. Indeed, the top five recipients of EU regional policy funds each receive grants which far exceed the amount that the EU allocates to the least developed countries of the world.
To date, the EU's regional policy has succeeded in its central objective of reducing and eradicating poverty and underdevelopment in the least developed regions with the EU, ensuring that these regions attain the average GDP level of the EU as a whole. Building on this success, the regional policy will be extended to meet the challenge posed by the accession of another ten states, all of which have GDP levels significantly below the European average.
LESSONS OF POST-WAR DEVELOPMENT AND THE FAILURE OF THE 'WASHINGTON CONSENSUS'
We have summarised three examples of programmes that have succeeded in overcoming underdevelopment and poverty in the post war era. There are a number of common factors in all these programmes from which we need to draw appropriate lessons:
In the 1990s the 'Washington Consensus' emerged as a shorthand for the package of policies that the richest and most powerful nations of the world had agreed would best address the problems of underdevelopment and poverty among the poorest. The measures proposed included fiscal discipline, reordering of public expenditure priorities, tax reform, liberalising interest rates, abolishing exchange-rate control, trade and capital market liberalisation, privatisation, deregulation, and the entrenchment of property rights.
We can summarise of the main assumptions that underlie the 'Washington Consensus' as follows:
This developmental model has not produced any success with regard to sustained development. Despite all the efforts by developing countries to create the political, policy and other conditions that the developed countries set as pre-conditions for economic take-off, this has not happened.
This is because, rather than sincerely drawing on the lessons of the programmes described above, the 'Washington Consensus' was designed not primarily with the needs of the less-developed countries in mind. Rather, it was a response to the interests and needs of the developed countries themselves. Through opening the markets of developing countries, but failing to reciprocate, and by a host of other measures, the developed countries have sought through the 'Washington Consensus' to provide new outlets and investments for their own businesses.
The 'Washington Consensus' constitutes a development model based on the ideology of 'market fundamentalism'. It has obliged the developing countries to depend on 'the market' for the investment and other interventions that would enable them to achieve their takeoff point, contrary to what happened to post-war Western Europe and the Far East, as well as the more recent EU regional policy.
Private capital, however, is inherently driven by the profit motive and is incapable on its own of addressing the challenge of poverty and underdevelopment. Consequently, with regard to the majority of developing countries, in the context of weak supportive intervention by the governments of the developed countries, the pursuit of profit by global private capital has worked against the goal of people-centred development.
Globally, the vast bulk of capital is in the hands of the private sector. The strategic posture represented by the 'Washington Consensus' to rely on this sector to achieve development means that the governments of the developed countries continue to resist all efforts to transfer a portion of global private capital to the public sector, which would give this sector the possibility to intervene.
Whereas the 'Washington Consensus' has few overt supporters among the global decision makers today, it has not been replaced by any serious programmes that seek to replicate the examples of successful development cited above. Perhaps the reason for this is that, freed of any challenge equivalent to the perceived threat posed by 'communism', the developed capitalist countries will devote only such resources to meet the needs of the poor billions in the world as would ensure that these billions do not act in a manner that threatens their survival as prosperous capitalist countries. Believing such a threat to be absent, the developed countries are ready to argue against substantial resource transfers to the poor, on the basis that their constituencies suffer from 'donor fatigue' and that, in any case, they have a responsibility to address the serious challenge of poverty within their own societies.
SOUTH AFRICA'S 'TWO ECONOMIES'
South Africa is fully integrated within the global economy. It is therefore open to the pressures imposed on all medium-sized middle-income countries of the South by the process of globalisation. At the same time, a large part of our population is caught in an underdeveloped sector, the Second Economy, which cannot escape the trap of poverty and underdevelopment through reliance on the market.
In South African 'two economies' persist in one country. The first is an advanced, sophisticated economy, based on skilled labour, which is becoming more globally competitive. The second is mainly an informal, marginalised and unskilled economy, populated by the unemployed and those unemployable in the formal sector. Despite the impressive gains made in the First Economy over the last decade, the benefits of growth have yet to reach the Second Economy, and with the enormity of the challenges arising from the social transition, the Second Economy risks falling further behind if there is no decisive government intervention.
The First and Second economies in our country are separated from each other by a structural fault. The Second Economy emerged during the long period of colonialism and apartheid as a result of the deliberate imposition of social, political and economic exclusion of the African majority by a racist state. This process aimed to achieve the enrichment of the white minority at the cost of the impoverishment of the black majority. Consequently, the Second Economy is today caught in a 'poverty trap'. It is unable to generate the internal savings that would enable it to achieve the high rates of investment it needs. Accordingly, on its own, it is unable to attain the rates of growth that would ultimately end its condition of underdevelopment.
The Second Economy is linked to the First Economy by the extent to which it can still supply the cheap, unskilled labour this economy may require. It survives on money transfers sent by family members who have been able to secure regular or occasional employment within the First Economy, as well as social grants and elements of the social wage provided by the democratic state. It is also linked to the First Economy by the goods, equipment and services it purchases with the meagre resources at its disposal. Those resources also make it possible for the Second Economy to maintain an informal economic sector of small traders, artisans and service providers.
Such positive 'trickle-down' effects as would result from higher earnings of family members who would benefit from growth in the First Economy, as well as individual and social transfers by the state, would not be sufficient to raise the standard of living in the Second Economy, or close the ever-widening wealth and development gap between the two economies.
The market economy, which encompasses both the First and Second economies, is unable to solve the problem of poverty and underdevelopment that characterises the Second Economy. Neither can welfare grants and increases in the social wage. The level of underdevelopment of the Second Economy also makes it structurally inevitable that the bulk of such resources as flow into the Second Economy will inevitably leak back into the First Economy.
Such public and private interventions as may produce a positive outcome in the First Economy cannot have any strategic impact on the Second Economy because the latter constitutes the structural periphery of the former, inherently positioned to remain on the periphery. Its internal objective reality in terms of the forces of production and their interaction makes it impossible for it to respond to the impulses that drive the growth and development of the First Economy.
INTERVENING FOR DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH
These problems make decisive government intervention imperative. This intervention would set the preconditions for market-led economic growth. Fortunately, South Africa can draw on a wide range of experiences, including the examples we have discussed above, to learn the lessons of successful government intervention to overcome conditions of poverty and underdevelopment.
One of these lessons is that we should, as far as possible finance the transformation of the Second Economy through domestic resources. These should be made available through the state in the form of grants. This does not rule out accessing commercial loans by the state, or equity participation funds to finance economically viable projects that have the possibility to generate profit that would be used to finance debt.
Necessarily, therefore, decisive government intervention in the Second Economy requires that the government should have the resources to make this intervention. The successful management of the macro-economy, coupled with policies that have resulted in the growth of the First Economy, have enabled the government to generate these resources. These results must therefore rank among our most important achievements during the First Decade of Freedom, precisely because this creates the possibility for our country to seriously confront the challenge of the Second Economy.
Using these resources, and applying the lessons of other successful development approaches, our interventions must focus on:
In the end, as was the objective of the Marshall Plan, those currently caught within the Second Economy should be able to grow and develop without the need for exceptional outside interventions.
The success of our own vigorous and targeted interventions in the Second Economy are dependent on the success of the First Economy and building the structural links between these two economies. Therefore, even as we pay concentrated attention to the Second Economy, we must not reduce our focus on the growth and development of the First Economy. It should be understood that successful interventions in the Second Economy can in their own right impact positively on our overall economic growth objectives.
At the same time, given the responsibilities that fall on the democratic state with regard to the development and transformation of both the First and Second Economies, we have to ensure that the state machinery is so organised, empowered and motivated that it can discharge its responsibilities effectively. We must also mobilise the people to participate in the eradication of the legacy imposed on them by a long history of colonialism and apartheid.
Simultaneously we have to maintain the social expenditures targeted at providing a social security net for the poor and disadvantaged, as well as social development to achieve higher levels of education, better health and nutrition, and other outcomes to improve the quality of life and empowerment of all our people, including women and youth in both urban and rural areas.
South Africa's strategy has to be to raise the level of investment and economic activity, while at the same time reforming the labour market so that more labour is absorbed, the fruits of economic growth are spread more evenly, and the Second Economy is empowered to generate higher levels of growth endogenously and in collaboration with the First Economy.
The two elements of this strategy entail reducing the cost of capital and allowing for a more competitive currency aimed at raising investment and exports, while at the same time allowing for labour demand to be expanded through more flexible and appropriate labour market policies. Because of the duality of our economy the methods and strategies to achieve a reduction in the cost of capital and a more appropriate labour regime for the First and Second economies will differ. As such a dual track approach must underpin the final basket of interventions, with strict respect being paid to the interconnectedness of the two economies. Contradictory policies or those generating unintended negative consequences and distortions will make the balancing of the final basket of measures a difficult task.
THE COST OF CAPITAL
Within the First Economy a policy aimed at reducing the cost of capital should not be based on artificial reduction of real interest rates. Under Apartheid, low and even negative real interest rates resulted in a decline in savings and hence a decline in investment. Lower real interest rates must come from prudent fiscal policy, a more nuanced inflation targeting policy, deeper capital markets, more efficient use of capital in the state-owned enterprises and the achievement of a more competitive unit labour cost. Government can also pursue a more competitive currency through the accumulation of reserves and through freer foreign exchange markets.
It must be noted that lowering the cost of capital on its own may raise investment but will not necessarily achieve our objective of raising employment. Cheaper capital without reforms to reduce the relative cost of labour is likely to result in higher investment that displaces labour. Some would argue that this is what has already happened over the past decade. The cost of capital has been brought down while labour costs have gone up, resulting in a switch from labour to capital. An increase in investment is only likely to result in an increase in employment if the cost of labour is reduced relative to capital.
A difficult issue to broach, but one that must be confronted, is the capital requirements of financing black economic empowerment (BEE). As an illustration, suppose a black company borrows from a bank to buy 10% of shares in a mining company. The mining company cannot invest in the sector for a number of reasons including domestic regulatory and policy constraints. Their only option is to buy a mine in Chile or Ghana. The financing of BEE deals that do not necessarily raise productive investment levels in the domestic economy is therefore a drain on scarce capital assets and will impact on the medium term investment level. This is just one example where policy decisions in South Africa sometimes contradict each other resulting in the failure to meet our most important objectives.
While these policies aimed at the First Economy will naturally permeate the cost of capital faced by the Second Economy, additional measures will be required to directly address the specific issues relating to the cost of capital in the Second Economy. Ultimately, reducing the cost of capital in the Second Economy can only be achieved by the state carrying the cost of this price reduction, which adds to fiscal pressure. It is however possible that the magnitude of this burden could potentially be limited by the government seeking soft monies from international multilateral institutions as well as leveraging 'under utilised' domestic assets via some form of prescription. In addition the state could consider establishing limits to its exposure and possibly a limited period in which such dual pricing could be accessed.
Also critical is the role of South Africa's development finance institutions, such as the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), as well as parastatal corporations, in directing investment and capital access in favour of the Second Economy. In the context of sustained investment from domestic public sources, these development finance institutions will also have a critical role in leveraging further resources from global development finance institutions such as the World Bank.
It is meaningless to deal with the cost of capital in the periphery without addressing access to capital. Three possible policy options exist. First, it could be possible to create a set of measures that improve the credit-worthiness of potential borrowers in the periphery. For example, a lower tax rate applicable to Second Economy businesses and lower effective labour costs would improve their profitability standing and improve their likelihood of accessing credit. A second policy option, which does exist but has been largely unsuccessful, is to re-look at the institutional depth of financial intermediaries and their ability to penetrate this under serviced market. It is necessary to investigate how the state-backed substitute intermediaries operate and perform and to consider how more appropriately existing private sector intermediaries can be incentivised to expand their coverage.
A third option to improve access to capital is the formal and legal recognition of assets that are currently unregistered and cannot be used as collateral (especially rural land and township houses). The failure to ensure that legal title of assets 'belonging' to individuals in the periphery is documented contractually sterilises the enormous value of these existing assets, which could so easily be turned into collateral to secure access to capital.
THE LABOUR MARKET AND SMALL BUSINESS
Without wanting to deregulate labour markets or erode the gains of the democratic order, a number of small adjustments to the current regulation of the labour market could produce substantial returns for job creation. Some of these apply to the First Economy and some to the Second Economy.
Government should consider adapting the present bargaining arrangements to limit the effect of agreements on parties outside of the agreement, such as smaller firms. In amending this policy, government must aim to support increased employment in small businesses. For example, a small component manufacturer in Soshanguve is less able to deal with higher wage increases than a large manufacturer such as Lear in Rosslyn. Policy must also aim to support increases in employment in labour intensive sectors and high value added sectors that are able to export. These measures may include investment incentives such as the present strategic investment incentive and the critical infrastructure programme as well as the possibility of a special labour dispensation for labour intensive sectors.
A sensitive point, which must be raised here, is that often we refer to labour-intensive and capital-intensive activities when in reality with respect to absorbing labour we are talking about skilled and unskilled activities. Similarly we often characterise a sector in isolation of the value chain to which it belongs. For example, while high value added manufacturing in the motor vehicle or information and communications technology (ICT) industry may not be labour intensive, the inputs, packaging and distribution of these final goods may give rise to increased levels of activity in the intermediate stage, which is more labour intensive. Similarly as one moves further down the value chain so the opportunities for less skilled jobs increases. While we chase direct labour intensive sectors, there is also much to be gained from supporting non-labour intensive industries whose inputs in the total value chain may indirectly create jobs.
From a policy perspective, the unintended consequences of the Labour Relations Act and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act need to be properly understood and unpacked, and a strategy to address this needs to be developed. One of the symptoms of the problems arising from these pieces of legislation is the proliferation of labour brokers. Companies outsource the "hassle factor" in employment contracts to labour brokers. These brokers often exploit employees by charging an exorbitant amount for managing the cost of employment. The solution to this problem lies in reducing the hassle factor associated with employing workers. While the legislation has good intentions, the effect is higher costs for companies and the alienation of these protective rights from the employees they were designed to protect. Other unintended consequences include the use of short-term contracts and consultancies, which distort jobs that in the absence of the legislation might be permanent positions.
Theoretically, when a floor is placed on wages in the formal sector, the informal sector absorbs those who cannot obtain gainful employment in the formal sector. Government must increase the employment opportunities for unskilled people. The Expanded Public Works Programme is a good example of how labour-based techniques can be used to achieve the same output in the same time with the same financial resources. We need to explore other sectors where this is possible. Home-based and community based care services also have the potential to increase employment. Simultaneously we must ensure that the different spheres of government are not placed in a situation where they are contributing to unemployment or moving staff from their own services into the expanded public works programme. For example, a metro council recently invested in new capital and technology, which made refuse removal less labour intensive. They did this for sound economic reasons from a company perspective but it was contrary to the larger job creation strategy. Numerous examples of these apparent contradictions exist (eg. government garages and fleet management).
Increasing the limit of the size of companies that comply with certain aspects of the labour legislation from 50 to 200 may stimulate more small business development. Government must look at reducing the compliance burden from the tax system and the regulatory environment to stimulate the informal sector. A strengthened land reform programme and supportive subsistence agriculture programme, and better access to credit for small businesses (including agricultural businesses), would stimulate the informal economy and increase employment.
The application of the minimum wage in sectors that potentially could employ more people must be examined. High transport costs and high reservation wages in the South African economy (the wage rate at which people will not work) already places a floor on the labour market. Addressing high transport costs and the spatial pattern of apartheid's 'location' policy is a more effective way of increasing real incomes to poorer people.
Some European countries with similar generous labour regimes to our own have experimented with accommodating some amount of duality in the labour market as a means of raising employment prospects for those outside the labour market. A dual labour market model is an attempt to break the insider-outsider divide. The model looks something like this: One set of labour laws (the existing ones normally) are used to govern one set of employees and more flexible labour laws apply to another set of people. This is often done informally through policy rather than legislation. More flexibility is accommodated (sometimes temporarily) rather than formally legislated.
There are many ways in which the criteria for splitting the labour market can be determined. Under apartheid, race was used to differentiate the applicability of labour laws. In some countries, geographic area is used, where more flexible labour laws are allowed in a specific geographic area, sometimes associated with industrial development zones or export processing zones. China is a good example of this. Age has also been used as differentiating criteria to break the insider-outsider problem. Companies are allowed to employ younger people under more flexible arrangements. They often fall outside of the collective bargaining and minimum wage arrangements and it's easier to dismiss people for non-performance. The theory is that young workers are able to get their foot into the door of the labour market, get some experience and then they are able to break into the labour market permanently. A fourth approach to labour market segregation is by industry. You have one set of rules for certain industries, typically the financial services, government, etc. and another set of rules for specific labour-intensive industries that government wants to boost. These usually include textiles and clothing, tourism and many of the personal services sectors. A fifth way of segregating the market is by size of business.
Government, either formally or informally, allows for more labour flexibility in smaller companies. Japan is the most successful example of such a country where labour rights were very generous in large corporates while small businesses were able to have more flexible arrangements.
The main criticism of the dual labour market approach is that it will encourage labour displacement. The fear is that business would move to the export processing zones, companies would get rid of older employees and hire younger people and so forth.
Perhaps South Africa should consider accommodating some flexibility in its labour regime. The first option is to allow younger people to be regulated under a more flexible regime. That is, waive the minimum wage and other collective bargaining arrangements (including limits on overtime work) and make it easier (less costly) to dismiss non-performers. The advantage of this option is that it might help break the very high rates of youth unemployment. On the other hand, the criticism of possible displacement of older workers with younger workers will be immense.
A second option is to use the present industrial development zones as geographic areas where labour laws will be made more flexible. This will encourage investment and employment growth in poorer provinces such as the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal. The criticism of this approach will be that it smacks of Bantustan industrial policy, which may not be sustainable in the long-term.
A third option is to allow for greater labour flexibility in the tourism, textile and clothing, household and child-care, and agricultural sectors. These are all labour-intensive industries, which can attract investment and will create jobs if investment rises. Is this approach politically feasible?
A fourth approach would be to have much more flexible labour laws for companies that employ less than 200 people. While the present legislation does have some flexibility for companies that employ less than 50 people, this flexibility is very limited and the threshold is too low.
Aside from these changes to labour market regulation, we also need to streamline our efforts to promote small business. Already, the 2005 budget has announced a number of tax reforms designed to benefit small businesses. The creation of a single small business development agency is also an important development. Further discussion on how to promote small business is required so that all areas of government policy are aligned in support of small businesses.
CONCLUSION
The ANC's vision has always been one of a prosperous, equitable, stable and democratic society. In the economy, our vision has been one of decent work and living standards for all, in the context of qualitatively improved equity in ownership, management skills and access to opportunities. It is imperative that we mobilise the ANC's core constituencies - the poor, workers, women, youth and black business - around our economic strategies.
Realising this vision requires that we make a clear choice in favour of a developmental approach characterised by state intervention to unblock the constraints to growth and focus directly on the battle to defeat poverty and underdevelopment.
Decisive government intervention in the Second Economy requires that the government should have the resources to make this intervention. The successful management of the macro-economy, coupled with policies that have resulted in the growth of the First Economy, have enabled the government to generate these resources. Using these resources, and applying the lessons of other successful development approaches, our interventions must focus on:
Our growth strategy must aim to balance the need to raise investment and increase economic growth with the need to meaningfully share the benefits of economic growth to a wider group of people. This strategy requires policies that will increase investment while allowing for a strong State to direct the dividends of growth towards raising the human capital potential of the poor and maintaining a social security net for certain vulnerable groups. It is a strategy aimed at growing the First Economy, growing the value addition of the Second Economy while building staircases between the two economies. The three elements must be devised so that they are all reinforcing thereby creating a situation in which the growth of the whole is greater than the growth of the constituent parts.
The growth strategy aims to secure lower capital costs while also lowering the cost of labour so that higher investment translates into higher employment. One strategy without the other may increase investment without raising employment (labour substituting capital investment). Macroeconomic strategies must be complemented by microeconomic reforms aimed at absorbing more labour.
The growth strategy must seek to reduce the contradictions present in policy. You cannot aim for small business development while imposing such a high regulatory burden on small businesses. You cannot provide a comprehensive social security system, invest in economic infrastructure, the criminal justice sector and keep the tax and debt burdens stable. You cannot extend wage agreements to non-parties and expect geographic concentration on investment to be diversified. The balance between social security and investment in education and infrastructure must be appropriate and it is probably not optimal at the moment. In the words of President Thabo Mbeki, the objective must be to reduce the number of people on social grants and increase the number of people who earn an income from normal participation in a growing economy.
South Africa should pursue a policy that allows for a more competitive exchange rate without abandoning the inflation-targeting model. Aggressive buying of dollar assets when the Rand is strong is one option; faster liberalisation of exchange controls is another avenue to pursue to weaken the currency. South Africa should also pursue policies aimed at lowering domestic real interest rates through prudent fiscal policy, encouraging savings, making progress in reducing the cost of utility services and encouraging competitiveness in the economy. These policies should help to provide cheaper capital for investment and provide a more competitive currency. Achieving both will not be easy, but is also not impossible.
As a country with a 40% unemployment rate and a youth unemployment rate of almost 60%, the insider-outsider model of our labour market must be examined carefully. We have to introduce elements of flexibility in the labour market. In particular, reforms are needed to address the extension of agreements to non-parties, the cost of dismissing non-performers and the rate of increase of minimum wages. Introducing elements of a dual labour market either for young people, for small business or for certain labour-intensive sectors have to be considered given the high unemployment rate, even though this will be very difficult to sell.
Building linkages between the First Economy and the Second Economy is crucial. These linkages include providing quality education and health care to the poor, implementing a land reform programme and providing access to credit to small-scale businesses, investing in infrastructure that lowers transport costs and extends basic services and consolidating a social security safety net. This strategy, a South African strategy, taking into account the historical context is a realistic and workable strategy that will succeed if implemented effectively.
FOR DISCUSSION
This year mark half a century of the Freedom Charter, which proclaimed that "South Africa belongs to all who live in it" and that "All National Groups shall have equal rights!"
This year we also mark the ninth anniversary of the adoption of South Africa's democratic constitution by the Constitutional Assembly and with it the Bill of Rights. It is also nine years since then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki delivered, on behalf of the ANC, the 'I am an African' speech.
We also mark 36 years since the ANC's first national consultative conference, in Morogoro, Tanzania.
The 2004 democratic election ushered in a new political landscape with the decline of ethnic parties like the New National Party (NNP) and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the emergence of the Independent Democrats (ID) and new support for the ANC from coloureds in the Western Cape; indians in eThekwini; Zulu-speaking africans in rural KwaZulu Natal; and whites in Gauteng and elsewhere.
The election campaign was marked by images of ANC leaders being warmly embraced by poor whites. On the occasion of the election of the president, the leader of the white opposition party, for the first time, pointedly proclaimed his patriotism, his allegiance to the state, his respect for the office of the president and his acceptance of the right and duty of the majority party to rule by virtue of an overwhelming mandate from the people. For the first time there was a sense that the white parliamentary opposition was being just that, and not an opponent of the system of democratic majority rule.
All of this occasions an opportunity, and a need to reflect on the national question. We have to examine whether we can triumphantly proclaim that the new, and long sought after, South African nation has emerged and the national question resolved. Of course, it would be mechanical (and incorrect) to make such wild claims. But progress has been made towards non-racialism, non-sexism and a common patriotism and nationhood.
We must understand the extent of the progress and honestly acknowledge the challenges that still lie ahead. This must be done on the basis of actual reality. We must do this so we are able to determine a programme of action.
While the national question is not the only challenge we face, it is the central political question of our time.
The present period of transition and fluidity creates the opportunity to make rapid strides towards the building of a nation and we dare not shirk this historic responsibility.
Africa and the World
The national question around the world, far from being solved, is raising its head in an unimaginably barbaric manner. Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus slaughter each other in the name of their religions. The ethnic cleansing in the Balkans is still fresh in our memories and closer to home we painfully remember the Rwandan genocide which took place just over ten years ago. The Kashmir question has resulted in the mobilisation and proliferation of nuclear weapons in a very populous part of the world, the Taiwan question remains unresolved, ethnic warfare in the former Soviet Union continues, the Northern Ireland question remains a question, and the strife between Tamil and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka continues to cause suffering.
In our own region, the national question continues to result in untold human suffering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Great Lakes region and Sudan. It holds potential for conflict in countries like Nigeria, Angola, Tanzania and Mozambique.
All over South and Central America, those of Spanish descent practice something akin to a colonialism of a special type. The indigenous people of Colombia continue their life and death struggle for justice. Brazil, which has the second biggest African population on this planet, has succeeded, notwithstanding the globalisation of the media, to keep 70 million of its Africans in the shadows. These residents of the favelas are nowhere to be found in business or in the organs of state. The government of President Lula has for the first time now introduced a modest quota for university enrolments.
Even in self-proclaimed 'advanced' and 'stable' countries problems persist. In Spain, the conflict with the Basque community has not been resolved since the fall of Franco and the Catalonian demand for autonomy persists. The British, apart from their failure to solve the problem in Northern Ireland, have in the past decade experienced a revival of Welsh and Scottish nationalism and the demand for 'self-rule' from these groups. The single biggest political question that faced Canada in the past decade was the quest for secession by the Quebecois and the danger of the disintegration of Canada.
The lesson for South Africa is that we dare not ignore the national question in our own country. The actual reality all around the world tells us that, in general, the world has failed to deal with this issue. Nebulous concepts like the 'rainbow nation' may lull us into a false sense of complacency.
What is the national question in South Africa? In the first place, it is about the liberation of blacks in general and africans in particular. Secondly, it is the struggle to create a non-racial, non-sexist democratic and united South Africa. Thirdly, it is the quest for a single united South African nation with a common overriding identity. Fourthly, it is about resolving the antagonistic contradictions between black and white. And, fifthly, it is about combating tribalism, racialism or any other form of ethnic chauvinism.
National Question and Human Rights
Attending to the national question is important for the stability of a country, for peace and for its growth and development. But it is more than just about the practice of the art of statehood. More importantly, it is about the attainment of fundamental human rights, about justice and about human dignity. It is about freedom.
Tactics adopted to appease some or other narrow ethnic interest during the transition (like the Volkstaat Council or elements of the dispensation for traditional leaders) for the sake of making an overall advance should not be automatically elevated to being elements of our strategic approach to the national question. Matters relating to the national question are more than just about expediency.
In the South African context, the national question is not principally about the rights of minorities or ethnically motivated grievances (this statement is not intended to diminish the importance of the rights of minorities). It is, in fact, principally about the liberation of the african people. According to the Morogoro conference: "The main content of the present stage of the South African revolution is the liberation of the largest and most oppressed group - the african people". Hence, the main measure of the progress made on the national question is the extent and depth of the liberation of african people in particular - and blacks in general. This point must not be lost as a result of the excessive discourse in the media about 'minority fears'.
What will make us a nation?
The criteria that define and characterise the South African nation, or any nation for that matter, cannot be defined in cold mechanical terms. Nations are not made in heaven. They are not static and unchanging. Nations are products of politics, history, and social and economic processes. New issues arise from time to time which require a fresh analysis of nation-building. An example of such an issue in the coming years may be the presence in South Africa of new immigrants from a variety of African countries.
Within this context, we can outline the following as elements of the defining characteristics of the new South African nation we seek:
So what progress on the national question?
At the outset the notion of 'solving the national question' must be rejected. The national question cannot be solved any more than nationhood can be proclaimed by edict. The concept of 'solution' is static and rigid.
In a country with many languages, religions and ethnic groups, the national question will always be with us. It is a question which needs constant attention if we are not to make the mistake of the Soviet Union which simply decreed that the national question was solved, only to result in the most venomous and destructive expression of the contradictions among the former Soviet nationalities.
In this tenth year of democracy we should not be asking whether or not the national question is still a question. Instead we should boldly acknowledge that it will remain a question for a long, long time to come. That it is so is not a failing of the movement or our strategy and tactics. That it is so is just objective reality. And, our movement has never denied reality. None of this implies that the quest for nationhood and a common patriotism will elude us for ever.
After ten years of democracy we ask the questions: are we advancing the nation-building project? Are we responding in a correct and progressive manner to the national question?
In the first ten years of democracy, important strides have been made. This period will stand out forever in our history. All South Africans, regardless of race, colour or creed enjoy equal rights before the law. A system of democratic majority rule - without minority veto - has been established. The tricameral parliament has been abolished and in its place a popular democratic parliament representative of all our people, including women.
The integrity of South Africa, geographically and territorially, has been restored with the dismantling of the Bantustans. The quality of life of the most oppressed under apartheid, the africans, has improved with the extension of health care services, provision of schools, clean drinking water, housing, household electricity, telephone and postal services etc. The public service and organs of state are becoming more and more representative of the population.
Every day we see signs of a growing common patriotism among all South Africans. A recent example is the genuine outpouring of joy at the winning of the soccer world cup bid. All languages enjoy the equal recognition of the law.
The voting patterns of the 2004 election mark the beginning of the end of racial politics and racial and ethnic party political mobilisation. The people, in this election, expressed their rejection of ethnic representation. A significant number of whites, including Afrikaners, voted for the ANC, and the ANC emerged as the largest party among coloureds and indians. Overall, the support for ethnic and racial parties declined significantly.
But all this progress is insufficient and limited. The painful reality of our country is that, in general, it is still the case that to be born african is to be born into a world of hardships not experienced by whites. This is accentuated if you are a women or a rural person. In many ways it is still a white man's world. Economic apartheid is well and alive.
The successor to colonialism of a special type is a country characterised by two economies. The first is a prosperous and advanced developed economy bolstered by an enabling set of government policies, a legal framework and state institutions. The second is backward and underdeveloped - outside the banking system and not benefiting from the enabling instruments of the state.
Notwithstanding significant progress in black economic empowerment (BEE), the economy is by and large owned and controlled by white men. Even companies with black equity partners have white managers. After ten years of democracy, not one of the key financial institutions has majority - or even a significant minority - black ownership or management. And, a number of leading BEE companies are actually run by whites.
The inequality is not just a feature of the private sector. Whites go to better government schools than africans; whites get better police services, better municipal services, etc.
It is still so that a small number of whites own most of the land. It is still so that rural africans feel a deep sense of injustice at the inequitable ownership of land. It is also so that during the first ten years of democracy forced removals continued in the form of widespread farm evictions.
The building of a new and durable nation cannot be premised only on 'touchy feely' notions, but, more importantly, on the objective material reality.
The majority of whites and the majority of africans live in two different worlds, one prosperous and the other poverty stricken. The reality is that there is no sense of common patriotism among the inhabitants of these two worlds or the sense of "I am my sister's and my brother's keeper".
Racial and ethnic prejudice persists. These contradictions often manifest themselves in destructive ways. Racially motivated acts of aggression continue to be prevalent, especially on the farms.
The phenomenon of gated communities in the affluent suburbs of Johannesburg and elsewhere has accompanied democracy. These modern-day laagers nurture the desire of their mainly white inhabitants to cut themselves off from South Africa and practice local "own affairs". They serve as a physical reminder of resistance to nation-building.
We must also not ignore the reality that the majority of whites still seek refuge in their 'own' party, the Democratic Alliance (DA). A very significant number of eThekwini indians voted for a 'minority party' and a very significant number of amaZulu in KwaZulu Natal voted for their 'own' party.
The call on the part of the founding fathers of the ANC to "bury the demon of tribalism" has not lost its validity. Some, like the IFP, engage in this practice brazenly. Others engage in low-intensity tribal mobilisation, including in order to lobby support for positions in the ANC and in government. During the debate about provincial boundaries, tribal mobilisation took place among supporters of all parties, including the ANC. It was a rude reminder when even some of the most seasoned cadres of the liberation movement took positions on provincial boundaries based on tribal affiliation. Violence and killings between tribal groups (so-called faction fights) continue on the mines.
The apartheid and colonial rulers understood tribalism and used it as a weapon. During the years of struggle the enemy used every opportunity to promote the idea that the ANC was nothing more than a Xhosa organisation. Today it has become a habit among some to count the number of amaXhosa in the public service and in government. Accusations are made that many ministers and directors-general tend to appoint their own kind.
One of the biggest challenges in the Western Cape is the racial prejudice between coloureds and africans. This problem manifests itself in almost all walks of life, including in the ANC.
One of the most dangerous phenomena is the tendency to misuse legitimate concerns of tribal or national groups about language, culture or religion to promote oneself. If an indian or Sotho-speaking person does not get elected or appointed to a post they avail himself for, then - according to the candidate and his supporters - it is because of Anti-Indianism or because of Nguni dominance).
In spite of the constitutional equality of all languages, English and Afrikaans continue to dominate. The African languages still receive insufficient state resources. The non-official indigenous languages receive virtually no attention. Some recent developments, like the making of the first full length international movie in isiXhosa, uCarmen eKhayalitsha, present a glimmer of hope.
The African personality still struggles for breath. Our educational system somehow still uses the approach: the more European-like, the better educated. It is still more essential for an educated person to know the story of the French revolution than to know the story of the Congo under King Leopold. And of course we are continually taken by the wickedly seductive embrace of Hollywood.
None of this should cause alarm and consternation. The present situation does not constitute a crisis. Only an idealist would have assumed that the national question would be solved completely the moment apartheid falls. The way forward must be based on an accurate and honest appraisal of the reality as it is.
What to do?
The liberation movement is not merely a passive observer in the nation-building process. It carries the historic responsibility to resolve the antagonistic contradictions of the national question.
The first step is to understand the national question and its material basis. The highest priority needs to be given to the actual material upliftment of Africans, especially women and those in rural areas. The second economy must be brought out of the shadows.
The african majority have a leading role to play in building our new nation - just as africans were the leading force in the struggle. This can only be done on the basis of african unity. If tribalism persists, the emergence of a South African nation will continue to elude us. Left unchecked, tribalism can become the biggest threat to our social and political stability. The african unity needed should not be confused for a narrow, chauvinistic form of Africanism which denies the rights of minorities.
The different languages and cultures of South Africa need to be respected and promoted. So while we want to encourage a critical mass of common cultural practices for the purposes of nation-building, we are do not advocate the need for a monotonous sameness in which we are all cultural clones of each other. The existence of distinct cultures and languages do not pose an inherent threat to nation-building. In fact, nationhood will never be achieved without all cultural groups exercising their freedom and without a genuine comfort with the cultures of other South Africans. At the same time we must spare no effort to reject those of our traditional practices which are backward.
Together with this, more needs to be done to enable the creativity of our artists. We will not build a nation if we subject our artists to the mercy of the market, where art is just another commodity. We are still in a South Africa where nobody will publish a writer's work unless it is approved by his majesty, King Market!
Much, much more needs to be done to build a sense of pride in our South African and African heritage. It is good to brim with pride when we win the soccer world cup bid. But real national pride cannot be based on a silent acceptance of the colonial imposition of ideas - particularly the lie that African culture without the influence of Europe was primitive and backward. For example, only when we embrace the great San rock art painters and paintings as our common heritage, and understand that there is no earlier expression of human culture to be found anywhere else will we stop feeling culturally inferior to the self-proclaimed 'great civilisations' of the world.
Our strategic approach to the national question will be shallow if we fail to take the trouble to understand who we are. There is for example, an assumed sameness attributed to the Johannesburg Muslim Indian South African and the eThekweni Tamil Indian South African. Often, in reference to africans, the Nama are excluded just because apartheid classified them as coloureds.
We must not regard the white group as monolithic. It is becoming clearer and clearer that white Afrikaners have a different emotional, psychological and material relationship to Africa and South Africa compared to other whites. There are many signs indicating that Afrikaners are embracing the new South Africa and an Africanism more readily than English-speaking whites.
The vexing question of terminology must not be swept under the carpet. Racial classification cannot be avoided if we are to ensure representivity in the state and in society generally. But we must acknowledge that this creates the risk of freezing racial and cultural categories rather than allowing for organic development. And Afrikaners ask the valid question: how many hundreds of years more do they need to live here before they can be called Africans?
The ANC has duty to South Africa and to future generations to deal adequately with the national question. We also have a duty to the rest of Africa and the world where there is generally a groping in the dark or an idealistic hope that the national question will one day just vanish.
Democratic states and organs of civil society should unite around the goal of contemplating and mobilising for plausible futures other than those contemplated by neo-liberal orthodoxy, writes Sydney Mufamadi.
The post Cold War normative context of liberal globalisation continues to be marked by a division between the ideological promise of prosperity for all and the material reality that globalisation has not asphalted the globe. This is by no means a novel condition. One of Karl Marx's great theoretical contributions was to show how the formal equality of the market in reality produces socially structured inequality.
We also recall Charles Dickens' novel "Hard Times", which gave us portraits of life in the middle of the 19th century. Dickens talks of changes brought about by the industrial revolution. His is a picture of a society torn apart by competition and greed.
Capitalism's expansionist tendency
Marx and Friederich Engels observe in the Communist Manifesto that in addition to its inherent tendency to create profound disequilibrium, the market mechanism has a globalising imperative. Indeed the 1980s and the subsequent period have seen an expansion of the number and geographical domain of states characterised by vulnerability to external factors beyond their control and to policies which they do not own. We have witnessed differentiation within all states between people who are able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by global economic integration, and those who are marginalised by the process.
Not only did this particular trajectory of capitalist expansion sweep former colonies up into the globalising trend, but its impact also was felt in countries which previously were constituent elements of the world socialist system - thereby exposing a wider band of humanity to greater risk of immiseration.
Hegemony and counterhegemony
As we speak, the neo-liberal orthodoxy sits as a tyrant on the throne of political-economic policymaking. The dominant social and economic forces are doing their utmost to hegemonise the discourse - both materially and in respect of how developmental processes are to be institutionalised and theorised. Among other things, they:
The questions which we need to answer are: "Which new relevant territories are most effective to resist the negative effects of capitalist globalisation?" and "How do we impose choices other than those dictated by liberalism?"
We need to reflect on the imperative of constructing a broader counter-hegemonic perspective with coherent political aims. As we attempt to do this we must bear in mind the following:
The confidence of liberalism is partly a function of the fact that we saw in the 1980s the left forces sinking into the doldrums of weakening influence. Given that the peripheralising consequences of capitalist globalisation are manifest in all countries, the left can and should invoke its background of experience in organisation and ideology and commit its mobilising capability to the task of building a broad coalition of social forces.
Every day we see in various parts of the world, newly affirmed identities all of which derive their force from resentment against various forms of social injustice. Even with respect to our global positioning, we must proceed from the premise that different democracies and different struggles have different historical trajectories, and that this reality forecloses the possibility of fostering blanket universalisation.
What is of fundamental importance is that we should be united around the goal of contemplating plausible futures and mobilise all the forces that can be made to envisage and fight for the coming into fruition of such futures.
Lastly, given that the neo-liberal attack is also directed at the state (especially) in the developing countries, the left forces must not be seduced into posing the state and "civil society" in a dichotomous relationship. Such a dichotomy is false and for the state and society it leads to results that are mutually-enfeebling.
The Dickensian picture of society - a society which privileges market rationality over human welfare - necessitates a response which relegitimises the state as the regulator of the economy and as the guarantor of social equality. This is the only way by which we can realise a future free from the stranglehold of neo-liberalism.
Sydney Mufamadi is a member of the ANC National Executive Committee. This is an edited version of remarks made on behalf of the SA Communist Party at a conference organised by Fondation Gabriel Peri, 16 April 2005.
Like all other institutions of our young democracy, the judiciary needs to pass the test of legitimacy in the eyes of the people and demonstrate commitment to the values reflected in the constitution, writes Sibusiso Ndebele.
Our democracy is young and fragile. Ten years is too short a time to expect a complete re-organisation of society. Yet, miraculously, our people have succeeded in bringing about changes so fundamental that government continues to be inspired by the enthusiasm to create a society based on respect for the dignity of all people.
The values underlying the right to life and the respect for the dignity of others are deeply and inseparably infused into our constitution. Our constitution enjoins us in the quest for the resolution of the national question on a democratic basis, to build a non-racist, non-sexist and democratic society based on freedom and equality.
The judiciary as a critical institution of governance also needs to pass the test of legitimacy in the eyes of the general populace. This will enable it to effectively carry out its constitutional role of presiding over and deciding cases or disputes between individuals or between individuals and the state impartially and according to the law.
Our Constitution
The constitution guides and shapes our destiny as a nation. In 1994 the new democratic state inherited a judiciary that was illegitimate. This was because judges refused firstly to take the oath; were not representative of the population; were mostly political appointments; and presided over courts that were not accessible to ordinary people, especially the black majority.
The executive, the legislature and the judiciary are each required to give meaning to the words of this constitution. In doing so, each pillar of democracy is confronted with painful issues arising from the transformation of our society. Transformation is meaningless unless the aspirations of the majority of our people are reflected. This should happen through the inclusion of the previously marginalised majority.
Inclusion is not only about changing the colour of the participants - it is about ensuring that the aspirations of the majority are adequately reflected in the composition of all our institutions of democracy. And, the judiciary is no exception.
In fact, the judiciary is expected to lead the process of entrenching the values entrenched in our constitution. Ultimately it is the judiciary that must preserve and protect the constitution. It must, individually and collectively, be able to discharge its duties "without fear, favour or prejudice".
Mapping progress in the judiciary
From 'Constitutional Principles for a Democratic South Africa', adopted in April 1991, to 'Ready To Govern', adopted in 1992, the ANC's policy guidelines for a democratic South Africa argue for an independent judiciary.
At its 2002 National Conference in Stellenbosch, the ANC resolved to "expedite the transformation of the judiciary, to create a more representative, competent, sensitive, humane and responsive judiciary".
The sentiments are no different today. It is critical to continuously assess the progress made towards the objective of transforming the judiciary, and highlight the need for this process to be attended to with greater vigour.
At present the judicial officers presiding in the courts do not reflect the demographics of the country.
Consider the following:
Overcoming racism
Just as the judiciary is located among the people and is part of the process of democratic government, it too is affected by the fault-lines that characterise our society. Racism has been an integral part of the fabric of this society for too long and it would be naive to assume that certain institutions were insulated from its devastating and damaging effects. In its pervasiveness it affected everyone and left its mark on all our institutions - the judiciary included.
The impartiality and independence of the judiciary does not mean they are infallible or incapable of exhibiting bias or prejudice. They are human beings like all of us. They have their fears, hopes and aspirations, preferences and prejudices. These do sometimes get reflected in their judgments.
Judiciary and the National Question
There has hardly been any concerted effort in the past to deal with the effects of that legacy. There was the extremely naive assumption that taking a new oath of office and swearing allegiance to a new constitution were the preconditions for a transformed judiciary. We now know that it could never have been as simple as that. Some judges from the old order didn't even take the oath.
The judiciary is a singularly significant institution and the allegations of racism that have emerged have raised serious and valid questions about its ability to deliver justice "without fear, favour or prejudice".
As our society evolves in many complex ways, development remains the principal ideal that must be realised. Among the questions facing the judiciary is its role in ensuring legitimacy among the majority. Significant progress has been made. Much more is needed. It is needed sooner rather than later.
What is the role of the judiciary in the development of our society? How is the judiciary being perceived by the people who have willingly accepted its legitimacy? What, if any, is the role of the bench, and of the individual judge, in ensuring that the values of our constitution are entrenched among all the people? How will the judiciary take part in the life of our people? These questions admit no easy answers. They do, however, point to the changing role of the judiciary from a passive bystander with a narrow legalistic philosophy out of touch with the values enshrined in our Constitution.
Ultimately, the pillars of our democracy, including our courts, rests firmly on the will of all our people to be governed in accordance with the values that they have adopted, as reflected in the preamble to the constitution; values which signaled a complete break from the past. The commitment to these values is what will finally define the role of our judiciary.
Sibusiso Ndebele is a member of the ANC National Executive Committee. This is an edited version of an address in his capacity as Kwazulu Natal premier at a workshop on the challenges of the judiciary in a transforming South Africa, Johannesburg, 2 April 2005.
Overcoming the two-economy divide requires the transfer of vast resources into the second economy. Wherever possible these resources should take the form of productive assets that enable people to empower themselves to reverse the legacy of apartheid expropriation. This in turn requires that we transform the economic institutions that were constructed on the basis of apartheid fragmentation, and also create new institutions that are capable of meeting the urgent challenges of development.
Financial development and poverty alleviation
A central aspect of this programme is the development and transformation of the financial sector. Financial sector development is critical because access to financial services is an important factor in the accumulation of capital among our people and has been shown to reduce vulnerability to extreme poverty.
A large amount of research and practice has shown that the permanent deepening of financial markets to provide access to the poor can achieve the following outcomes:
Currently, of the 27 million adults in our country, more than 13 million do not have basic transaction facilities. Of these 13 million unbanked South Africans, 11 million are Africans who fall within the bottom half of the distribution of income, reflecting the continuing realities of apartheid's legacy. Among the unemployed, 83% do not have a bank account, while 60% of those who work in the informal sector remain unbanked.
Experience and Challenges over Ten Years of Freedom
One of the unexpected processes that coincided with South Africa's transition to democracy has been the rapid growth of the high street lending industry. In 1992 the last apartheid minister of trade and industry granted an exemption to the Usury Act for institutions providing loans below R6,000. The following year Persal (the state salary administration) provided codes for the commercial micro-lending industry enabling them to deduct payments directly from the salaries of public servants. These interventions led to the explosive growth of the commercial micro-lending sector in a largely unregulated environment, posing significant dangers to overall financial stability.
A commercial micro-lending sector can make an important and positive contribution to our economic vision. Millions of black people who could not access loans and other financial services before can now do so, providing them with the opportunity to accumulate income-generating assets. However, these developments have had contradictory and complex outcomes.
It unleashed the prospect of financial sector mal-development, with adverse consequences for our developmental objectives. Rather than promoting asset creation, an unregulated micro-lending industry can promote the liquidation of assets to support consumption. Rather than promoting employment and economic security it could promote unemployment and economic insecurity by thriving on the extension of unsustainable debt burdens among low-income workers, thus generating economic disempowerment. These possibilities arise, in the first instance, because of unequal power relations between the lender and the borrower. A second and related problem is the lack of knowledge of how to manage finances among the borrowers, especially in the South African context, where the vast majority had been denied access to financial services for so long.
It fell to the democratic state to respond to these dangerous and unpredictable developments. In 1999 a revised exemption to the Usury Act was passed, which established the basis for the regulation of the industry in the form of the Micro Finance Regulatory Council (MFRC). The revised exemption also outlawed the practice of retaining the ATM card and pin code of clients. The following year the state withdrew access to the Persal system.
Also in response to the burgeoning micro-lending industry, the mass movement in our country, most notably at the initiative of the SA Communist Party (SACP), led a series of popular campaigns designed to deepen the financial sector in favour of the poor and combat negative tendencies on the part of micro-lenders. As a result of these efforts, the National Economic and Labour Council (NEDLAC) declaration on the financial sector was signed in 2002. This in turn gave birth to the financial services charter, which promises to significantly expand access to financial services among the working class and the poor.
In terms of the charter, the financial sector has committed itself to "substantially increase effective access to first-order retail financial services to a greater segment of the population, within LSM [Living Standards Measure] 1-5". Among other important targets, this means that 80% of those within LSM 1-5 should have access to transaction banking within 20 kilometres of their home by the year 2008.
This is a major victory for us as a democratic movement, and must be welcomed by all those interested in pro-poor financial sector development. But we should not underestimate the awesome nature of the challenges posed by this victory.
A second challenge we face is to tighten regulation of the commercial micro-lending sector to prevent over-indebtedness, and to redress the power imbalances between lenders and borrowers through regulation and education. The recent Policy Framework for Consumer Credit Law and the Consumer Credit Bill which is currently before Parliament, seek to do just this.
Nevertheless, the commercial micro-lending sector has rapidly reached the limit of its expansion. The nature of its business model is such that it can only extend financial services to the salaried workforce. The vast majority of the 'unbanked' fall outside this category. Furthermore, the objectives and institutional culture of the high street lender can hardly be considered appropriate for the implementation of an asset-based community development strategy.
Livelihoods and financial services in the Second Economy
Livelihood strategies comprise the assets (including both material and social resources), the capabilities and activities required to secure a means of living. A livelihood is considered to be sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource base. Among the determinants of a household's ability to achieve increased well-being is its access to capital, defined broadly to include natural, physical, financial, human and social capital.
As a policy intervention, micro-finance seeks to:
Micro finance therefore forms part of an asset-based community development strategy with the following features:
There are few institutions providing these services to the poor, particularly savings and credit. The current state of access to these services can be thought of in terms of a pyramid of financial institutions (see figure 2). At the top, the middle class is fully serviced by the big four banks. The salaried working class, and people earning a regular income from self-employment and small business, are also able to access savings and loans through the commercial banks and the micro-lending industry.
At the bottom of the pyramid are the millions who are unemployed and live without any steady income stream, except for social grants and remittances from family members in full time employment. These millions lack any form of income-generating asset and are forced to adopt a range of livelihood strategies to secure their own survival.
The existing state agencies, such as Khula and Umsobomvu, do not reach deeply into the second economy. Certainly, the promotion of small business finance and entrepreneurial development among the relatively more affluent of our people is a vital programme, and we must continue to broaden the base of our economy through such institutions.
But the deficit in our interventions is among the economically active poor (who engage in micro-enterprise in the informal economy), the very poor (many of whom supplement remittances and grants with survivalist, or household based micro-enterprises) and the 'hard core' poor, or destitute.
The extension of social security over the last ten years has had a radical impact on the levels of poverty in the second economy. Furthermore, state transfers (which will continue to expand over the coming years) contribute significantly to the creation of effective demand in poor communities. But remittances, grants and survival strategies do not necessarily lead to the accumulation of income generating assets, and it is this that micro-finance interventions need to address.
The challenge is to create institutions that are able to work with the existing strengths and assets of communities in the second economy, and progressively scale these up, usually through some form of social mobilisation in the community.
KEY ISSUES AND QUESTIONS
Our determination to provide financial services to the second economy raises a number of important issues and questions that require further clarification. These include: the target group identified for particular interventions, the types of institutions required to provide these interventions, particularly at the retail level, the sustainability of these institutions and the appropriate role of government subsidies.
Target Groups
Those within the second economy are not an homogenous group. Would our resources be best directed at the more affluent and educated, those already engaged in some form of micro-enterprise, with the hope that these will eventually 'graduate' into fully-fledged formal businesses, and thus contribute to broader goals of economic development and job creation? Or, as others believe, should the focus of our activity start right at the bottom of the pyramid, targeting the 'hard core poor' directly in order to alleviate poverty and build assets that can minimise vulnerability and exclusion?
Another way of putting this question is to ask: should micro finance be aimed primarily at supporting sustainable livelihoods, or should it seek to augment productive investment for job creation?
This does not imply that one target group should be chosen and others ignored. Indeed, it is not necessarily the scarcity of capital that constrains our choice, but the absence of appropriate institutions that can deploy this capital effectively as part of an asset based poverty reduction strategy. But when we design our interventions we should be clear about which target group a particular intervention is intended to reach. Failure to specify these targeted beneficiaries often leads us to impose unreasonable expectations on ourselves.
Retail Institutions
The critical challenge we face is not primarily the creation of an apex institution for wholesale financing. The experience of Khula and other apex-type institutions over the last ten years shows that the real challenge is not wholesale, but retail.
There are four institutional types that we could broadly conceive of as providing retail financial services to the poor. The role of the state is looked at in the next section, leaving three potential non-state institutional models.
The first is a commercial, profit driven model. However, it seems clear from our own and international experience that 'market failure' would preclude the extension of micro financial services beyond the salaried working class, at least without some form of direct subsidy. Another problem of private sector providers is that they will tend to focus on financial services alone, without building the requisite social assets in the community that are required to effectively absorb finance as part of an asset building poverty reduction strategy.
The second approach is that of Micro Finance Organisations (MFOs). Various models of MFO have been developed internationally, the most famous of which is the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Over the last ten years many of these models have been adapted to the South African context. However, few have yet attained a scale of operation that is required. Even fewer have succeeded in becoming financially sustainable. While there may have been regulatory impediments to achieving these ends, there are also some who argue that such institutions are inappropriate to the South African context. On the other hand, some of the existing MFOs have a refined methodology and a track record in the second economy. While there are only a handful of successful pro-poor NGOs, each has something to offer and is addressing market failure in a unique way. Organisations such as the Small Enterprise Foundation, which has attained financial sustainability, should be emulated wherever possible.
Another type of institution is the Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO), also known as a credit union. SACCOs, in addition to providing a collective approach to the mobilisation of savings and credit, also actively promote the education of their members in the mutual self-help principles on which they are founded. An advantage of the cooperative approach is that it builds on our traditions of democratic and popular organisation, since they are often built around existing structures such as unions or residents groups. However, there are questions about whether financial cooperatives are appropriate for reaching the poorest people.
The current size of the non-government, not-for profit sector is estimated in table 1. The Savings and Credit Cooperatives League (SACCOL), which brings together the credit unions, has around 8,000 clients in 27 branches. MFOs, which include traditional NGO-type models as well as the Homeless Peoples Federation, currently have around 115,000 members. Research conducted by the MFRC shows that not for profit institutions currently account for 27% of micro-business loans.
The Community Micro-Finance Network (CMFN) estimated a number of scenarios for the growth of the sector up to 2010, which are given in table 2. The key driving forces defining the scenarios are policy variables. Even in the worst-case scenario, without any policy support, this model projects that the SACCOs and MFOs could collectively upscale their current activities by more than 500%.
Ultimately it is the test of practice that will decide what is the most appropriate institutional form for South Africa. Those institutions that are able to sustainably provide financial services to the poor in South African conditions must be supported to test their ability to do so. Our regulatory environment, and the apex institutions we create to support micro finance for the poor, should create the conditions for a thousand flowers to bloom.
Our people have already built successful models that are closest to the poor such as burial societies. These solutions developed by the poor themselves must be respected and strengthened where possible. Government's role is to create a platform or system for these processes to be streamlined and leveraged. The challenge is to recognise, protect and nurture them and ensure that our regulatory framework does not impose additional burdens on these structures.
Sustainability, subsidies and time lines
At the centre of the institutional challenge is the question of sustainability. Not only must we ask what type of institution can provide finance in a manner that builds wealth among the poor. We must also ask what type of institution would do so most efficiently. Only efficient institutions can lower the high cost of servicing small and irregular incomes on a sustainable basis. These lower costs can in turn be passed on to the poor in the form of low finance charges. In other words, what type of institutions can reach out to millions of people but can also sustain themselves financially, at least in the long run?
In the short run, however, the reality of 'market failure' means that any retail institutions in the second economy are likely to require some form of subsidy. For believers in 'market fundamentalism' any form of subsidy is regarded as bad. It may be more useful for us to ask what form of subsidy we deploy in the short to medium term to generate dynamic efficiencies in the long run, such as sustainable institutions, that would otherwise not emerge.
Also important would be to assess the opportunity cost of a subsidy. For example, if the poor had bank accounts, government could transfer welfare payments directly. The money saved in terms of administration costs could be used to subsidise these banking facilities. On the face of it, the state could save money by extending such a subsidy through private institutions, enabling them to expand their reach into the second economy.
A final question is the time frame that we define. When we expect a retail institution to become financially sustainable in the long run, what time frame do we have in mind? Should it be one year, or five years, or ten years? What is the cut-off point where we say, clearly we are barking up the wrong tree and we need to divert our resources into more useful pursuits?
THE ROLE OF THE STATE AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
There is a long history of state involvement in the provision of credit to the poor through retail institutions. In many instances state retail institutions have failed. Among the reasons for this is that the state is often regarded by its citizens as providing entitlements. In our own case, for example, the state interacts with millions of poor people through the welfare system. Where the state has sought to extend credit directly, it has been the experience of many that the wires of welfare 'entitlement' and credit extension get crossed, resulting in large debt defaults from citizens that equate state-led credit extension to welfare handouts.
On the other hand, the state could play a greater role in the extension of the infrastructure for savings and transacting facilities. This could be through an existing state infrastructure, such as the Post Office, or through an enhanced set of institutions functioning in the Multi-Purpose Com munity Centres.
Rather than establishing institutional capacity, the state could intervene by providing some form of subsidy to lower the cost of savings and transaction services to the poorest clients. Through such mechanisms the state could play an important role in realising the challenges of access posed by the financial sector charter.
The state must also play a key role in the coordination of institutions to create synergy across the developmental micro finance sector. Lack of coordination is a key weakness in our efforts until now. The large number of institutions that would need to be coordinated is illustrated in figure 3, which is itself not an exhaustive list.
Linked to the above is the role of the state in mobilising and directing social capital towards the pro-poor, developmental micro-finance sector. This includes the institutions directly accountable to the state, the parastatal development finance institutions, as well as non-state actors, including official and private donors. In other words, in addition to the new initiatives like SAMAF and MAFISA, there already exist a large number of apex-type institutions in both the public and private sector, which require improved coordination.
Last, but perhaps most importantly, the state needs to create a regulatory environment that supports the development of pro-poor finance. This involves a delicate balancing act between the need to police the negative tendencies that are bound to arise among profit seeking agents, while at the same time creating the regulatory space for development-oriented interventions to significantly upscale their work.
The following are specific policy recommendations:
1. Institutions in the first and second economy
The challenge of addressing 'market failure' in the second economy is essentially a challenge of building appropriate institutions. Many 'first economy institutions' are not 'second economy friendly'. This has three implications. First, we must reform 'first economy institutions' so they can maximise their outreach to the second economy. The financial sector charter is one instance of a programme to do just this. Second, we must act to build the potential of popular institutions in the second economy, such as burial societies, and be mindful of ensuring that legislative interventions nurture and support them. This would require the review of the Friendly Society Act of 1956 and improvement on draft legislation covering co-operative banks. Third, we must build new institutions that can operate effectively in the second economy.
2. Speed up implementation and 'learning by doing'
It is vital that we intensify the pace of implementation. There are no 'off the shelf' models for the implementation of micro-finance for poverty alleviation in South African conditions. It is important that we proceed to implement pilot programmes as soon as possible, so we can benefit from evaluation and 'learning by doing' on our own soil.
3. Develop an overarching conceptual framework
An overarching conceptual framework is needed to drive these interventions in a consistent manner. Such a framework would locate our micro-finance interventions within our broader approach to both poverty alleviation and financial development. It would outline the strategic objectives of our efforts in the medium term and the contributions that various initiatives make to achieve these objectives. It should be remembered that the development of such a framework is long overdue, and therefore the implementation of solutions will have to happen simultaneously with the development of a guiding policy.
4. Build synergy across government departments and agencies
A wide range of government agencies are responsible for various facets of micro-finance development. It often appears as though these interventions are not adequately coordinated, which could lead to overlapping responsibilities and a failure to capitalise on the potential for synergies between our programmes.
To guard against resource waste (both human and financial) we should be clear on the relation between Mafisa and the Apex fund, since both are aimed at similar objectives but accountable to different departments. Also, we need to pay more attention to the question of the relation between micro-finance interventions and other anti-poverty programmes, such as the Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP), lntegrated Sustainable Rural Development Strategy (ISRDS) and Urban Renewal Programme (URP). The role of government-owned infrastructure, including the Post Office, Transnet and Eskom also needs further deliberation.
There is a need to devise institutional means, possibly through an inter-ministerial committee on micro-finance, to build these synergies within government. There may also be a need to designate (or create) a central office within the executive which is dedicated to the monitoring and reporting on the developmental micro-finance sector as a whole.
5. Ensure complementarity of legislative frameworks
The key legislative initiatives currently in motion are the Dedicated Banks Bill, the Cooperative Banks Bill and the Consumer Credit Bill. We should consider this legislation with a view to building synergies, and also be mindful of the implications for the institutional arrangements we seek to foster in pursuit of pro-poor micro-finance. The impact of this legislation in terms of 'regulatory burden' on the sustainability of developmental Micro Finance Organisations also requires further thought. The ANC's parliamentary caucus will have a key role in evaluating the draft legislation.
6. Build partnerships
There is a need for much better communication around these various initiatives, particularly the establishment of the apex fund, among both parastatal and non-state actors. We must also ensure that government institutions, such as the Apex, give high priority to building broad unity in action among developmental micro finance institutions in the implementation of its programmes.
Partnerships are also required with local government, trade unions and other organisations for reaching out to our people and mobilising them around member-based micro-finance institutions, such as financial co-operatives.
7. Build Capacity
The role of the banking sector education and training authority (SETA) in building capacity for development-oriented micro-finance needs to be enhanced. This may require the SETA to re-evaluate its current role and programmes.
This is an edited version of a report of the ANC Economic Transformation Committee workshop on 'Micro Finance for Poverty Alleviation: Towards a Pro-Poor Financial Sector' held in Johannesburg on 5 February 2005. This document does not necessarily represent the view of the ANC Economic Transformation Committee.
REFERENCES
Porteous, David, with Ethel Hazelhurst: Banking on Change: Democratising Finance in South Africa, 1994 - 2004 and beyond, Double Storey, 2004
Rakodi, Carole: A Capital Assets Framework for Analysing Household Livelihood Strategies: Implications for Policy, Development Policy Review Vol. 17 (1999) 315 - 342
Community Micro Finance Network: The Developmental Microfinance Sector in South Africa: Update 2004, Research for Finmark Trust, 15 March 2004
Bay Research and Consultancy Services, The Pro-Poor Microfinance Sector in South Africa, for Finmark Trust, 2002
Rau, Naren: Financial Intermediation and Access to Finance in African Countries South of the Sahara, TIPS/DPRU forum paper, 2004
A recent UN report on the state of the world's youth reveals that the current generation of young people faces even more complex challenges than the previous generation, writes Fébé Potgieter.
The United Nations Secretary General recently released the World Youth Report 20051, which will be discussed by the UN General Assembly during two plenary sessions in October 2005. South Africa was among the few countries2 who submitted their national reviews before the completion of the report in December 2004.
The WYR 2005 gives an overview of the implementation of the World Programme of Action for Youth 2000 and Beyond, which was adopted by the UN in 1995 and makes an assessment of the situation of the world's young people in 2005. It reports on the five 'new concerns' - globalisation, information and communication technologies, HIV and AIDS, youth and conflict, and intergenerational relationships - which were identified in 1995 as issues which are likely to make an impact on young men and women.
The report, given its scope, provides a general sweep of issues affecting the world's youth. However, there are important issues raised by the reports, which South Africans should consider and debate as we travel into the second decade of freedom.
THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF THE YOUTH, 1985
Two resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly designated 1985 as International Youth Year, under the theme 'Participation, Development, Peace'. The resolutions motivated for this designation based on the recognition of the "need to harness the energies, enthusiasm and creative abilities of youth to the tasks of nation-building, the struggle for self determination and national independence, and against foreign domination and occupation, for the economic, social and cultural advancement of peoples, the implementation of the new international economic order, the preservation of world peace and the promotion of international cooperation and understanding." (UN, 1980) Balardini (2000), writing about the history of youth policy in Latin America, argues that the 1985 International Year of the Youth (IYY) gave a 'powerful push' to the development of youth policies and a foundation for different national youth organisations.
Similarly, during the height of repression in the 1980s in South Africa it provided a legal platform to the youth and student movement to unite around their issues as a sector, when many other legal forms of expression were being closed down. It provided an umbrella for coordinated efforts in the struggle to make apartheid unworkable and it helped to situate the youth struggles in South Africa in an internationalist context. The IYY activities, and the unity in action it inspired, provided cover and gave new impetus to the process of forming a national youth organisation -culminating in the launch of the South African Youth Congress (SAYCO) in 1987.
Dan Montsitsi, student leader from the 1976 generation, and then national IYY coordinator thus explained the meaning of the theme: "With 'Participation' they (the UN) mean that youth generally do not participate in the decision-making of their countries and governments don't deem it necessary to consult youth about issues that affect their lives. With 'Development' the UN said different countries are not doing enough to improve or develop the youth. They mention in particular the high rate of unemployment. By 'Peace', well they say that with the building of the neutron and atom bombs, this is actually not a sign of peace, but of war and until such time that the destruction of human life and poverty is done away with, there will be no peace."4
The goals of the declaration of the IYY globally were to raise public awareness of youth issues, profile young people as social actors and a political target group and recognise the mutual benefits this would have for the development of young people and society as a whole. (Balardini, 2000:p44)
The IYY represented a distinct break away from seeing young people as a 'problem', with youth policies focussing on problem issues - delinquency, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy - to a more integrated and developmental approach where society takes responsibility for providing an enabling environment for young men and women to meet their full potential.
THE 1995 WORLD PROGRAMME OF ACTION FOR YOUTH AND SOUTH AFRICA'S NATIONAL YOUTH POLICY
The World Programme of Action for 2000 and Beyond was adopted in 1995, ten years after the first International Year of the Youth. It followed and was influenced by a host of other UN Conferences such as the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights in 1993, the Cairo Conference on Population and Development in 1994 and the Beijing Women's Conference in 1995.
The World Programme of Action for Youth (WPAY) recognised that since the first IYY, the world "has experienced fundamental political, economic and socio-cultural changes, with young people (representing) agents, beneficiaries and victims of such changes".
Using the UN definition of youth, namely people in the 15 to 24 years age range, it identified ten priority areas for national action and international support aimed at improving the situation and well-being of the world's young men and women.
The ten priority areas are education, employment, hunger and poverty, health, environment, drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, leisure time activities, girls and young women; and the full and effective participation of youth in the life of society and in decision-making.
The WPAY encouraged all member states to develop or update their national youth policies and to ensure that they involve young people in the process. It set in motion a process through the UN system to provide support for the formulation and monitoring of such national youth policies. The Millennium Development Goals, adopted five years later, incorporated a number of these target priorities aimed at children and youth.
South Africa's National Youth Policy, which was adopted by cabinet in 1997, drew extensively on the approaches and priorities outlined in the World Programme of Action for Youth. Furthermore, it drew on the Commonwealth Youth Charter, which commits member countries to create societies where young men and women are empowered to develop their creativity, skills and potential as productive and dynamic members of their societies. Key principles for youth development in the Commonwealth Youth Charter are gender inclusive development, empowerment, sustainability, human rights and integration.
The process towards the formulation of South Africa's National Youth Policy reflects important elements of the 'Ten steps to national youth policy formulation', a guiding document by the UN to assist member countries with their national youth policies.
The South African process, spearheaded by the Office of the Deputy President and later the National Youth Commission was consultative and participative, involving over a period of nearly four years5 large numbers of stakeholders and youth organisations in particular. These processes also agreed on a South Africa specific definition of youth, using the 14-35 years age range. It was based on extensive research on the situation of young people at the time and drew on the experience of other national youth policies on the continent, as well as in the world.
The National Youth Commission (NYC) constituted the lead agency proposed in the guidelines, responsible for coordination of different government departments on youth matters and for ensuring that there is effective mainstreaming of youth policy in national development planning. The NYC in June 1998 adopted a National Youth Action Plan, aimed at giving implementation effect to the National Youth Policy, identifying resources required to implement the policy and setting goals and indicators to measure progress.
The National Youth Policy was adopted by Cabinet in 1997. However, the guidelines also call for 'formal enactment by the national legislative body' as an indication of the political will to initiate and pursue such a policy. The South African National Youth Policy (and subsequent policies on youth), unlike policies aimed at other priority target groups6, has never been adopted by parliament as part of the policy and enabling framework of the country.
THE SITUATION OF YOUTH IN 2005
The Secretary General's World Report on Youth 2005 notes that eighteen percent of the world's population are in the age group 15-24 years, and that more than three quarters of them live in the developing world. It further notes that the "young generation that witnessed the adoption of the World Programme of Action in 1995 has now completely been replaced by a new generation of young men and women".
In its review of the World Programme of Action for Youth (1995), the report summarised the ten priorities identified in the WPAY into three clusters:
Youth in the global economy: education and employment
According to WYR 2005 South Asia, followed by sub-Saharan Africa, have the largest number of young people living below the poverty line and these regions are home to the largest concentration of undernourished young people. The report notes that although young people are increasingly being identified as a target group in many national poverty reduction strategies, more should be done to mainstream youth into these strategies. The report also identifies the need for more research on poverty among youth, focussing on the specific characteristics of youth poverty as well as for age disaggregation in all national data.
Over the last ten years, important improvements with regards education have occurred worldwide - the number of children in primary school has increased steadily and gross enrolment in secondary schools globally have increased from 56% to 78%. "The current generation of young people," states the report, "is the best educated ever."
However, despite this progress, 113 million primary-age school children were not in school in 2000; the making of the next generation of illiterate youth. The report identifies poverty, gender inequality and access to education in rural areas as among the major barriers to schooling.
The importance of universal access to education is taken further in the Millennium Development Goals, to:
In addition to ensuring universal access to education, the report calls for major emphasis on enhancing the quality of education, life orientation skills, access to ICT and preparing young people more adequately for participating in the labour market.
Youth unemployment, though a major issue in 1995, has become even more dire in the decade since. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), "compared to adults, young people today are more than three times as likely to be unemployed... (and) being without work means being without a chance to work themselves out of poverty". The report notes a four percent decrease in the labour market participation rate of young people between 1993 and 2003, which it ascribes to the increase in participation in school, longer time spent in education, generally high unemployed rates, and because many young people dropped out of the labour force as they lost hope of finding work.
Given this trend, there has been increased international commitment to address youth employment, most notably the formation of the Youth Employment Network (YEN), a joint collaboration of the UN, the ILO and the World Bank, and the inclusion of Goal Eight in the Millennium Development Goals which urges national governments to "develop and implement strategies that give young people everywhere a real chance to find decent and productive work".
At a strategic level, an expert panel convened by the Secretary General as part of the YEN process identified four strategic policy priorities to meet the MDG target, namely employability, entrepreneurship, equal opportunities and employment creation.
Youth in civil society: environment, leisure and participation
Since the International Year of the Youth in 1985, the issue of the participation of young people as social and political actors has been on the national and global agendas. The report identifies three developments over the last decade which changed the way in which young men and women's socialisation and participation take place:
The report notes the concern and activism of young people throughout the world in environmental and sustainability issues. It refers to youth mobilisation around the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) and the example of the 'Clean up the World' annual volunteer campaign, which involves more than 40 million people worldwide, the majority of them young people.
Leisure and discretionary time make a vital contribution in promoting social inclusion, access to opportunities and overall development. On the other hand, threats to youth well-being - risky sexual behaviour, delinquency, substance abuse - are often linked to leisure.
The report notes that the cuts or limited government subsidies for leisure activities, sports and culture has endangered valuable extra-curricular activities in and out of schools, contributing to "greater numbers of latch-key children, who either return to empty homes or roam the streets".
Progress has been made in improving the involvement of young people in decision making, especially in matters which affect them. However, the report argues that effective youth participation "requires changes in how societies perceive young people".
Society's perceptions and discrimination against young people (and old people) in the main is based on age and on generalised societal assumptions about their abilities and experiences given their stage of development. Thus society regards and treats youth simply as 'immature adults', instead of as 'human beings in a particular life phase' (Klaus, 2000). The report thus calls for a move away from "ad hoc activity based approaches, to inclusion of young people in core aspects of social structures, institutions and processes".
The phenomenon of disengagement from traditional modes of especially political participation among the world's youth is noted with concern - "to many young people, the world of politics is too distant from their daily realities of school, leisure and finding work". The report however warns against concluding that because of low voter turnout and low membership in political parties, young people are not interested in the political future of their societies. It profiles the importance of student organisations, issue-based networks and organisations, and the role played by national youth councils in ensuring the continued mobilisation of young people.
Specific attention is also given to the involvement of millions of young men and women in volunteer work. Their participation in voluntary activity tends to be issue-specific and service-orientated, with reluctance to join formal organisations. Voluntary service, according to Gillette (2003: p.62), can contribute to social cohesion by empowering excluded sectors of society, by providing participants with a sense of self-worth and "with a commitment to change which enable participants to initiate ventures after the service experience".
The report makes an interesting (and rather cynical) observation on the reasons for the participation of some youth in formal organisations. "Membership," it notes, "is increasingly viewed as a way to forward a young person's career or other prospects rather than an opportunity to advance youth-driven ideas and policies: many members (thus) have a pragmatic rather than an ideological interest..."
Youth at risk: health, delinquency and discrimination against girls and young women
The majority of the world's young people with support from family, school, community and peers eventually find a meaningful place in society as young adults, having managed the transition from protected childhood to independent adulthood. However, the report notes that the stage of youth for every generation is also a stage of transitional risk behaviour -delinquency, sexual experimentation, experimentation with harmful substances and various forms of peer pressure.
As young people are a generally healthy segment of the population, their health needs have been overlooked. The HIV and AIDS pandemic has radically changed this, affecting young people more than any other segment of the world's population.
Early pregnancy in most part of the globe has declined, with young people reaching puberty at earlier stages and marrying later. However, teenage parenthood remains a major concern, because of the health risk for both mother and child, and the impact on girls' education and prospects.
The report raises concerns about the high levels of tobacco smoking among youth, with tobacco use being one of the chief preventable causes of death in the world. Although fewer women than men smoke, there are growing numbers of young women taking up cigarettes, indicating the need for specific policies and programmes for "girls to counteract marketing strategies that target young women by associating (smoking) with independence, glamour and romance".
Alcohol abuse and other harmful drugs are also singled out, with the growth of synthetic drugs since 1995 becoming an issue. The report argues that taxation may be an effective means to reduce youth alcohol consumption, since young drinkers tend to have more limited budgets.
The report notes the progress made in the development of adolescent health by governments, but calls on specific training for health workers to better communicate with young people and provide youth friendly services.
"Statistically young people constitute the most criminally active segment of the population, although eventually most will desist from criminal and deviant activity. In most cases the offenders are males acting in groups." The report also draws attention to the fact that young people are also disproportionately the victims of crime and violence.
The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (the Beijing rules) seek to ensure that diversionary alternatives other than prison are available to young offenders, with an emphasis on rehabilitation and reintegration.
"Gender discrimination and stereotyping continues to limit the full development and access to services of girls and young women". The report notes discrimination in such areas as access to education, time for leisure, labour market participation as well as violence against girls and women.
NEW INPUTS FOR GLOBAL YOUTH POLICY
The report notes in its concluding paragraph that over the last decade "while some progress has been achieved in a number of priority areas, the current generation of young people is facing even more complex challenges than the previous generation".
A key factor is the reality that although increasingly youth is being included as a priority target group in national economic and development planning, this is not the same as mainstreaming youth issues.
Mainstreaming, according to Walby (2004: p.1), "as a practice...is intended as a way of improving the efficiency of mainline policy, by making visible the...nature of assumptions, processes and outcomes." It is the "systematic integration of (consistent) equality into all systems and structures, policies, programmes, processes and projects, into ways of seeing and doing, into cultures and their organisations." (Rees 2002: p.2)
The Secretary General's report indicates that not only have we not as yet adequately dealt with the 'nature of assumptions' which underpins societal attitudes to young people, but also failed to effectively and systematically integrate issues of young people. This is reflected in the consistent refrain in all the priority areas for the 'strong need to scale up' initiatives and investments in young people. Programmes to address issues of young people are still add-ons, pilots or on such a small scale that they hardly make a dent to ensure the well-being and provide opportunities for the overwhelming majority of the world's young men and women.
The report reiterates the need for integrated and holistic youth policies, political commitment, and the need for continuous evaluation of national youth policies. It notes the need for better measurements on the impact of national policies on young people, and suggests a youth development index, that could be used by government and the international community to measure progress to improve the situation of young people by 2015.
Fébé Potgieter is a former Secretary General of the ANC Youth League and a member of the Umrabulo Editorial Collective.
NOTES
REFERENCES
Balardini SA (2000). "Youth policy in Latin America: From past to present." In Rollin (ed) Youth between political participation, exclusion and instrumentalism (Eschborn:GTZ). http://www.gtz.de
Gillette A (2003). "Taking people out of boxes and categories: voluntary service and social cohesion." In Perold, Stroud and Sherraden (eds), Service in the 21st Century, 1st edition. (Johannesburg: Global Service Institute and Volunteer Service Enquiry Southern Africa) www.service-enquiry.org.za
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Far from being politically apathetic, South Africa's youth are redefining the way they engage in struggle in a democratic society, writes Michael Sachs.
The youth movement stood at the forefront of political engagement at the time of the struggle against apartheid. Why is that in the democratic order the youth are often believed to be disengaged from political institutions? Youth disengagement from democratic institutions is sometimes explained by invoking a powerful myth: that the youth are apathetic. This paper offers an alternative explanation: because democratic movements and institutions have failed to engage the youth, the youth have given expression to their profound optimism and energy by politicising the cultural sphere.
Motive forces on the terrain of democracy
The most immediate task of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) was, and is, to dismantle the racial structure of power. Various motive forces of the NDR, the social groups that railed against institutionalised racism, stood to gain materially and socially from the defeat of the system in a most immediate sense. Without the defeat of white power the most basic issues they faced in their daily lives could not be addressed.
In April 1994 these motive forces achieved a voice in the state. For the first time in a long and bloody history they could be heard and their needs and interests placed at the centre of government policy. In this vein the 1996 discussion document, 'The State and Social Transformation', argued that: "The most important current defining feature of the South African democratic state is that it champions the aspirations of the majority who have been disadvantaged by the many decades of undemocratic rule. Its primary task is to work for the emancipation of the black majority, the working people, the urban poor, the rural poor, the women, the youth and the disabled. It is the task of this democratic state to champion the cause of these people in such a way that the most basic aspirations of this majority assumes the status of hegemony which informs and guides policy and practice of all the institutions of government and state."
Industrial workers stood to gain considerably from the democratic breakthrough. Their most immediate demand was the defeat of the apartheid workplace regime, which oppressed them doubly as black people and as workers. But, in contrast to the youth movement, industrial workers had the advantage of disciplined and organised trade unions, with a leadership schooled in the art of negotiated change. Pressure from below, organised on the factory floor, and the exercise of democratic state power from above combined to achieve a fundamental break with racist oppression in the workplace. Since 1994 South Africa has put in place remarkably progressive labour market policies given our level of economic development.
This could only have been achieved in the context of a change in the mode of engagement of the organisations of the black working class. Karl von Holdt describes the impact of the democratic breakthrough as follows: "For the first time, the colonised had breached the walls of political exclusion -they were now citizens with the right to vote for government... Shop stewards and workers now saw it as necessary to separate and redefine the politics of the union's relationship with government and its engagement with management...The election of the ANC government ... constituted the moment of democratic incorporation of the working class."
Of course the NDR has not ended the exploitation of workers as workers. But the defeat of white power in the workplace has qualitatively changed the terrain on which this struggle takes place. The popular organisations of the workers, trade unions, were able to change their mode of engagement to suit this new terrain. Women too have made immediate gains from their incorporation into the democratic system. The women in the liberation movement were the most advanced and experienced feminist activists in the country. They rode the wave of a women's movement that was mass-based and national in character. As the confrontation and resistance of the apartheid era gave way to the negotiation of a democratic order, women's organisations, like unions, were able to change the form and nature of their civic engagement.
According to one study:"[t]he shift from resistance to negotiations politics saw the consolidation of women as a political constituency within political parties and civil society as they joined forces across racial, class and political divides to fight for inclusion within the new democracy. This movement was bolstered by a strong women's leadership that had been fostered by the struggles and debates of the 80s and which was to demonstrate its capacity to intervene strategically in the interests of women in the 1990's."
Partly as a consequence of this, specific policies to address the needs of working class women have been vigorously pursued by the democratic state. These include the extension of the welfare net, better access to health care, the roll out of basic services and a plethora of specific programmes to prevent and combat violence and unfair discrimination against women. Gender concerns have featured prominently in processes such as affirmative action and black economic empowerment.
Of course it would be wrong to argue that the NDR has 'liberated' women. Nevertheless, democratic governance has qualitatively transformed the terrain on which this struggle takes place; and part of the explanation for this is that a coherent women's movement was able to adjust its mode of engagement to the needs of democratic governance, and to articulate a clear programme for state action.
Youth institutions and disengagement
The youth also represented a leading motive force of the liberation struggle. At the moment of qualitative breakthrough in 1994 they stood at the forefront of the battalions of resistance. Over the 50 years from the formation of the ANC Youth League until 1994, South African youth remained at the front-line of confrontation with the racist state.
But as a movement, progress has been much more uneven that that associated with either women or workers. The programmatic framework for youth development has taken much longer to put in place. At every level of government, and across civil society, it is doubtful, even today, whether a clear, consistent and realisable programme of youth development has been articulated and implemented. Furthermore, the youth institutions of the democratic state have been burdened with capacity problems, infighting and high levels of leadership turnover.
One indication of these problems is perhaps given by the fact that, whereas women have secured a 50% quota on the ANC's local government electoral lists, and whereas worker unions have played a strong role in deploying unionists as public representatives at all levels, the same cannot be said of youth. Looking at the ANC's lists for national and provincial elections in 2004, one would be hard pressed to find more than a handful of people falling below the age of 35.
Perhaps part of the problem is the nature of youth organisation. Whereas women remain female for their whole lives (in most cases), and the bulk of the workers also remain workers, the category 'youth' is continually changing as new generations take over from the old. 'Youth' are inextricably destined to become 'adults'. New generations are emerging, which requires us to constantly reinvent youth politics. These shifting sands of youth organisation mean that most of the public representatives from the youth movement can no longer be defined as youth.
Whatever the case, we have not yet succeeded to create institutions that effectively champion the cause of the youth in such a way that their most basic aspirations assume the status of hegemony that informs and guides policy and practice of all the institutions of government and state.
These weaknesses of state institutions to service the youth may be directly linked to the weakness of the youth as a mobilised and organised social force in the democratic order. The ANC's National General Council in 2000 aptly described this situation: "We have made progress in setting up state institutions that can act as instruments of change and we have established policy frameworks that give direction to these instruments. However, we have failed to mobilise the motive forces around these programmes and they have not been empowered to engage with these instruments... The youth in particular need to be mobilised behind the revolution, to which end limited resources must be directed at addressing issues such as high unemployment, which constrains the participation of the youth."
Paradoxically, while youth were regarded as the most politically engaged detachment of the revolution in the apartheid era, they have, on the terrain of democratic politics, become among the most disengaged. The evidence pointing in this direction is considerable.
Since the social ferment of the late 1980s and early 90s youth membership of public organisations has declined substantially. Figure 1 shows the results of surveys into youth membership of political organisations. In 2000 57% of youth said they belonged to no organisation. In 1992 15% of youth said they belonged to a political organisation, 17% said they belonged to a youth organisation and 5% a civic. In 2000 only 4% said they belonged to a political organisation, 7% to a youth organisation and 1% to a civic.
Church and sports organisations remain the most popular in terms of youth membership today, but are also well down from the high levels of membership associated with the social ferment of the late 1980s and early 90s.
Youth disengagement from the new institutions of democracy compared with older age groups is also apparent in the registration figures. At the time of the 1999 election only 77% of those in their twenties were registered to vote, whereas more than 95% of those over 40 were registered. By the 2004 national and provincial elections, only 50% of those between the age of 18 and 25 were registered. Put differently, while census 2001 estimated that people aged 18-35 constituted 52% of the voting age population, only 44% of registered voters were in this age group at the time of the 2004 election.
Again, this contrasts markedly with both workers and women who, by all accounts, remain the most politically mobilised segments of our society, at least in electoral terms.
International experience of youth disengagement
Low levels of youth participation in democratic politics are not a uniquely South African phenomenon. Youth 'apathy' is common and increasingly worrying feature of so-called 'mature' democracies. This is typically expressed in low levels of voter turnout among the youth. While voting is only one of the mechanisms through which citizens voice their needs in a democratic system, it is the most basic level of participation. Therefore, it can give us an indication of the levels of political engagement more generally.
A study of youth voter participation conducted in western Europe in the 1990s found that: "Turnout [of registered voters] is usually low amongst the youngest age category (80%), then increases more or less pronouncedly as electors approach middle age, reaches the highest levels of participation amongst people between 60 and 69 years of age (around 93%), and finally decreases slightly to around 90% for the oldest age group".
The same report identifies two alternative explanations for low youth participation in democratic politics: (a) the life-cycle explanation and (b) the generational explanation.
The life-cycle explanation rests on the assumption that participation in politics requires certain social resources, which are only acquired as people grow older. These include:
As they acquire these resources, older people are believed to become more attached to parties and to internalise ideologies more deeply. Therefore it is argued that: "If age represents experience, it is therefore not surprising that young, inexperienced citizens have the lowest levels of participation. As they grow older, they become integrated and more experienced, which in turn increases their turnout."
The implication of the life-cycle explanation is that, as youth grow older they will participate in politics. We should not worry too much about the current generation because, like their mothers and fathers before them, they will mature into full political citizens of the democratic state.
By contrast, the generational explanation assumes that there is something specific about this generation of youth, which distinguishes their political behaviour from that of their mothers and fathers.
"The generational explanation is based on the idea that low turnout among young electors is not explained by their lack of political experience and integration, but rather by the fact that they belong to a generation that does not attach enough importance to the electoral process, or feels excluded or alienated from politics, in part due to a particularly demobilisatory socialising process common to the whole cohort."
The worrying conclusion of this explanation is that levels of turnout, and interest in participation in democratic institutions, will become increasingly rare in 'democratic' societies.
Global trends are relevant to South Africa. But the reasons for youth disengagement from formal politics in South Africa cannot be read from an international barometer. A variety of factors distinguish youth South Africa from the situation in western Europe, including:
This underscores the need to develop a specifically South African understanding of the relation of youth to politics, which is rooted in the realities of our new democracy.
The paradox of youth disengagement in South Africa
Why is it that the youth, who formed the leading battalions in the popular movements for people's power from the 1970s to the 1990s, have become the most disengaged segment of the population following the victory of those movements and the creation of a democratic order? To understand this we must first consider the nature of youth engagement as a political force against the white supremacist state. The Status of the Youth 2002 report says that from the 1970s onwards:
"...School grounds became not just a battlefield against the symbols of oppression, but also a melting pot where a variety of youth efforts and interests combined to form a national youth resistance movement. The Soweto rebellion laid a charge for the youth to begin to challenge the apartheid system head on in the streets of South Africa... They assumed the role of midwives of the struggle and this took a heavy toll on the childhood of South African youth.
"With the heightening frustration and desperation, the youth took the struggle back into the streets and in direct confrontation with the machinery of the apartheid system..."
It may be true that the sudden shifts in the political terrain that occurred after 1990 caught the whole mass movement off-balance. It took time for the motive forces of the NDR to renegotiate the terms of their engagement on the terrain of democracy. But the youth movement, which, more than any other, was defined by its unrelenting militancy, was found most wanting the transition period. During their resistance to apartheid the youth had been most engaged in forms of resistance such as boycotts, civil disobedience and violent confrontation with the security forces. These forms of engagement inflicted telling punishment on the enemy, but also resulted in damage to the youth.
Having defeated apartheid and instituted a new political order it is ironic, but perhaps not surprising therefore, that the midwives of our liberation were at a disadvantage in the new order. They sacrificed their childhood, and in many cases their education. Having learned the street politics of active resistance and practiced the art of militant defiance, the ability of youth to seize the opportunities of democracy was wounded from the start.
The democratic order defined new methods of engagement that the youth were not familiar with. Democratic political engagement required precisely the skills and tools that the youth in particular lacked. Whereas workers had a long organisational memory of negotiation and democratic engagement, youth organisations had to fundamentally change in order to adapt to the new circumstances. Whereas gender activists were united across the divisions of apartheid society by the common creed of feminism, the youth were as divided (if not more so) by the lines of apartheid society.
But it would be wrong to lay the blame entirely at the door of the youth movement itself. The mother bodies too were instrumental in demobilising the youth after the democratic breakthrough. The late Parks Mankahlana once remarked that: "The leadership of the organisation shifted from the young lions to the old guard. The youth took a back seat. Today the national leadership of the ANC is characterised by old men whose traditions and conventions are deeply entrenched."
Others have argued that the youth were consciously demobilised by the leadership of the democratic movement. The message was no longer "youth to the frontlines", it was rather "go back to school". But the movement failed to articulate other forms of political mobilisation that could channel the energies of youth in the direction of democratic engagement, and realise the potential of the energy and commitment of our young people.
Debunking the myth of apathy
Rather than taking responsibility for youth disengagement, it is much more convenient to blame the youth. This is reflected in claims that the 'youth are ungrateful'. It is said that, since they were 'born free' the youth are not as patriotic than their elder compatriots. It is argued that, whereas previous generations of youth had thrown themselves headlong into the liberation struggle, the current crop of young people are more interested in American music and morally questionable behaviour. In other words, the paradox of youth disengagement is explained by invoking a powerful myth: that youth are apathetic, apolitical, consumerists.
But public opinion research consistently provides evidence to refute the view that the youth are politically apathetic. A host of surveys find that youth are the most interested in politics and elections, are most satisfied with process of change, are most optimistic about the future and are most supportive of the liberation movement.
One study found that: "Although young people may not be politically active to the extent their predecessors were, they remain politically aware and engaged. Asked a series of questions about the extent to which politics was seen as a waste of time or a civic duty, youth were least likely (10%) to agree that politics was a waste of time. They were most likely (at 38%) to agree that it is very important to keep in touch with politics, while the remaining 52% felt that while politics was unpleasant it was important to stay in touch...[Only] 7% of youth agreed that voting is a waste of time compared with twice that number of respondents aged above 50."
More recently, an SABC/Markinor Opinion poll (2003) asked more than 3,500 respondents if they were interested in politics.
"With regard to age, the interest among different age groups was almost on a par with 64% of 18-24 year olds and 65% of 25-34 year olds reporting being "very" or "somewhat" interested. The generation who were teenagers and young adults in the tumultuous mid-seventies and early eighties (the 35-49 year olds) were the least interested in politics."
In other words, this survey indicates that it is not the 'born frees' who are politically apathetic. Rather it is the 'young lions' of yesteryear, the generation that cut their political teeth in the late 1970s, who are the most apathetic age group in today's South Africa.
In the absence of an exit poll, it is impossible to scientifically estimate the turnout of youth in the 2004 elections. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that a large number of youth did participate in the election, in contrast to the predictions of some analysts. A researcher who did detailed analysis of voting patterns in KwaZakhele in the Eastern Cape commented that: "Although an age profile of voters is not available, researchers were impressed by the enthusiasm of young voters, indicating that there is little truth to the notion that the youth are apathetic about politics - at least in the working class townships such as Kwazakele". Pansy Tlakula, the IEC's Chief Electoral Officer, wrote in a review of the electoral process that: "What has also been of major significance with regard to these elections is the substantial increase of youth participation in the electoral process".
As we have said, although youth constitute the largest section of registered voters, the levels of registration, as a proportion of all youth, remain low. But rather than reflecting a rejection of politics by the new generation of youth this may reflect a life-cycle problem (ie. that young people, more than others lack the political and social resources to become registered voters). This means that we should be looking at ways of making the registration of youth an ongoing programme, and simplifying the procedures.
The only conclusion that can be reached from all of this evidence is that the myth of apathy must be rejected. Although disengaged from many of the democratic institutions we have created, it is not that youth are not interested in politics, but rather that the institutions of democracy are failing to engage them. The words of an American youth leader may apply well to South Africa: "Young people are socially conscious, and posses the energy and idealism necessary to change the world. Unfortunately, most do not see politics as the vehicle through which to exercise social responsibility, but rather as a forum that both excludes and ignores them."
Youth culture as a starting point for a new youth politics
Today's youth culture is much maligned in society in general as being self-centred as opposed to community oriented, dominated by foreign influence, apolitical and disrespectful of authority. The 'born frees' are regarded as unworthy heirs to the legacy of the 'young lions'. Kwaito music is said to epitomise these tendencies.
In fact, the vast majority of the 'Kwaito generation', while obviously not as politicised as the youth of the 1970s and 80s, are highly conscious of their identity as black people living in a society that has not yet achieved non-racialism, and they are generally sympathetic to the project of progressive transformation. But in a context where politics ignores and excludes the youth, new generations have sought other means to express energy and idealism. This has led to a renaissance of youth culture not witnessed since the days of Sophiatown.
Kwaito music, house, hip-hop and reggae form a single cultural milieu among South African youth, and are a fertile expression of a truly South African, non-racial culture. While strongly asserting African and black identity, it is a fundamentally non-racial movement, and draws in large numbers of youth from all national minorities. As a direct consequence of the democratic victories of the last decade this is the social context in which a new subjective non-racialism is emerging.
Anyone familiar with the lyrics and symbolism of the emerging black youth culture in South Africa cannot but be struck by the extent to which politics of the liberation struggle and the discourse of emancipation have been reinvented by new generations. The youth are giving new meaning to the politics of their mothers and fathers and are creating a new politics of human liberation that is entirely appropriate to the democratic order.
Rather than blame the youth it would behove us all to look inwardly and ask not why the youth have disengaged from political and social movements, by why political and social movements have become disengaged from the youth. In other words it is political movements that have consistently failed to communicate to youth and address their concerns. It is this that that lies at the root of youth disengagement rather than the erroneous idea that the youth are politically apathetic.
The new generations have placed politics in the centre of a new youth culture, which has emerged in the context of the victory of the liberation struggle, and which has transformed the nature of liberation politics and black assertion in the democratic era. Any reengagement with the youth must begin with where the youth are today, rather than where their mothers and fathers think they should be.
Michael Sachs is the ANC national research coordinator.
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African National Congress: The State and Social Transformation: A Discussion Document, 1996 [http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/policy/s&st.html]
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International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA): Youth Voter Participation: Involving Today's Young in Tomorrow's Democracy, Stockholm, 1999
Independent Electoral Commission (IEC): Report on the National and Provincial Elections of 14 April 2004, IEC, Pretoria, 2005 L evin, Melissa: Opting out of organised politics: Youth and the Elections [Development Update, Interfund/SANGOCO, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2000]
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Strategy and Tactics: Research into Youth and Voter Registration, conducted for the IEC in 2003.
Von Holdt, Karl: Transition from Below: Forging Trade Unionism and Workplace Change in South Africa, University of Natal Press, 2003
The rich legacy of the ANC's struggle for human rights continues to inspire and guide our actions, writes Deputy President Jacob Zuma.
The courtyard outside the present-day Constitutional Court is a place of past humiliation; a place where thousands of african men were kept in deplorable conditions. Many were guilty of no greater crime than failing to produce a pass. Others found themselves here because they dared to stand up to a cruel state, which did not regard africans as human beings, and therefore saw no reason to extend to them the rights which we all agree are inalienable.
But today, this courtyard has been transformed into a monument for human rights. Next to it, on the great wooden doors of the Constitutional Court are 27 panels, symbolising the 27 clauses of South Africa's Bill of Rights. But in the courtyard of Number Four prison, the memory of systematic injustice and humiliation still stands, reminding us of what a great achievement those 27 clauses are.
How did we get from the inhumanity of number four, to the doors of the Constitutional Court? Many have answered that this dramatic transition was a miracle.
Miraculously, a country destined to a permanent state of civil war, the violation of basic human rights and racist oppression, was transformed into a bastion of human rights, democracy and non-racialism to which the whole world now looks in envy.
But much more than this, our democracy is the result of years of untiring work by ordinary men and women. The work of building non-racialism, democracy and respect for human rights did not occur simply in the conference rooms of the negotiated settlement over a period of four years from 1990 to 1994.
The real story of our constitution, and the human rights and respect for dignity that we enjoy today, is the story of millions of South Africans who worked tirelessly and without reward, over the course of nine decades, to mobilise, organise and educate their fellow South Africans of the correctness of these positions.
When we came to the negotiating table, all that remained was to ensure that we convert these aspirations into a constitutional reality. For the vast majority of our people, principles such as human rights, non-racialism and equality before the law, were simply non-negotiable. This was not an accident of history. It was the culmination of hard work and unflinching commitment on the part of our people. In the story of this long struggle to entrench human rights in the heart of our nation, the African National Congress played a leading role.
The ANC has declared 2005 as "the year of popular mobilisations to advance the vision of the Freedom Charter". The Freedom Charter is the best-known statement that our movement has made on the question of human rights. Reviewing its clauses shows how far we have come.
The Charter said: "The law shall guarantee to all their right to speak, to organise, to meet together, to publish, to preach, to worship and to educate their children." What a simple, straightforward and obviously correct principle. But at the time, this was regarded by the state as a revolutionary threat to its very existence.
Another clause reads: "All shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside to town, from province to province, and from South Africa abroad." Today it is hard to imagine a South Africa in which this right is not taken for granted.
But many of the rights and freedoms contained in the Charter are yet to be realised in practice. The proclamation of laws and constitutions are an important part of realising our vision, but the day-to-day work of organising, educating and mobilising our people to realise these laws in practice must go on.
That is why our January 8th Statement, which outlined the ANC's programme for the year, called on our local structures to educate communities about their rights, how these can be exercised, and what recourse they have if their rights have been violated. We have also called on our structures to conduct audits on the realisation of socio-economic rights within each community, and to develop strategies for ensuring that these rights are progressively achieved.
We have called on communities to mobilise against racism, sexism, xenophobia and other forms of discrimination. This involves both awareness-raising activities and practical action to prevent and combat discriminatory practices. Led by the ANC Women's League, we also need to mobilise South African women to work together towards changing the lives of women for the better.
All this serves to remind as that the painstaking day by day work of thousands of our people, acting as agents for change in their communities, must continue if the panel's that adorn the Constitutional Court's entrance are indeed to be translated into a living reality experienced by all our people.
The Freedom Charter inspired millions to struggle for social justice and human rights. In a very literal sense, it was the precursor to the constitution that we currently enjoy. For the liberation movement, the significance of the Charter was that for the first time we coherently outlined the nature of the society that we desired to construct. This would be a society at which human dignity was at the centre of social action.
But the ANC's contribution to human rights in South Africa goes even further back into our history. The first Bill of Rights to be adopted by our movement dates back to 1923.
The then President of the ANC, Rev ZR Mahabane told the national congress of our movement: "The black man ... is reduced to a position of utter voicelessness and votelessness, hopelessness, powerlessness, helplessness, defencelessness, homelessness, landlessness, a condition of deepest humiliation and absolute dependency."
In response, the ANC sought to advance both the political and social right of black people through the publication of "The African Bill of Rights", which emerged as part of the congress resolutions of 1923. That document asserted "the Bantu inhabitants of the Union have, as human beings, the indisputable right to a place of abode in this land of their fathers".
Twenty years later, in 1943, the ANC adopted a full and detailed Bill of Rights in the form of the African Claims document. At a time when the world was united in a common struggle against the anti-human ideologies of nazism and fascism, the ANC was a pioneer in the development of a human rights discourse in South Africa.
The African Claims document demanded the granting of full citizenship rights to black South Africans. But the document went further to demand rights in relation to the distribution of land, education and health. To this end the document demanded "a substantial and immediate improvement in the economic position of the African" and "a drastic overhauling and reorganisation of the health services of the country with due emphasis on preventative medicine with all that implies in the modern public health sense."
The ANC was decades in advance of debates on human rights by clearly advocating that social and economic rights must form part and parcel of the discourse on human rights. These so-called "third generation" rights only commanded general acceptance half a century later. We are proud that our constitution is one of the few in the world to include these rights.
Once again, we must assert that it is only through conscious activism on the part of our people that these rights can be translated into a living reality. We are confident that in the past ten years our people have acted in various formations to defend and advance this agenda. Therefore, we are confident that we are on course to fully realise the progressive features of our constitutional dispensation over the next decades.
Our movement has embodied the most advanced articulation of the cause of human rights in South Africa. Today, as a government, we remain absolutely and steadfastly committed to the victories that we fought so hard to achieve. The government continues to face a number of challenges in the struggle to advance a human-rights culture.
None of the challenges we face is insurmountable. But it is critical that we realise that human rights cannot be proclaimed by government alone. What we require is the development of a culture of human rights, where every individual is accorded the dignity and respect that the constitution envisages.
This means we must continue to act, every day, in every sphere of society to realise our common humanity. As the ANC we are proud that these traditions are long and deep in our movement. We are sure that members of our movement will continue to act to advance the people's cause, as they have done over nine decades.
The courtyard of past humiliation has been transformed into an enduring monument to human dignity. Of course, transforming the architecture of buildings is much easier than transforming a society. This is especially so in a society that was taught, through words and deeds over many decades, that human rights are the preserve of an oppressive minority. Fortunately, our words and deeds over decades, communicated exactly the opposite of the regimes anti-human ideology. We communicated the worth of each human being and asserted that we would fight to achieve this goal throughout our lives. To this we remain committed.
Jacob Zuma is ANC Deputy President. This is an edited version of his address at the launch of the book, "Legacy of Freedom: The ANC's Human Rights Tradition" at Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, 21 March 2005.
By demonstrating in practice that the blood that binds the peoples of Africa and the diaspora is thicker than the waters of the Atlantic, the Pan-African movement has demonstrated its relevance in tackling the common challenges of the present, writes Z Pallo Jordan.
Pan-Africanism has had many different meanings over the ages, but the sense in which I shall be employing the term refers to the political project inaugurated by a group of African-descended intellectuals and activists at the beginning of the 20th century, with the aim of restoring the human rights of the peoples of Africa and those of African descent throughout the world. In conception and in historical fact the pan-African movement sought to unite in action the African communities on either side of the Atlantic Ocean to address their shared condition as a colonised and oppressed people.
The creation of African communities on the American side of the Atlantic was a harrowing process involving the horrors of the middle passage, the humiliations of the auction block and the brutalities of the plantation. Close to 10 million Africans perished during transportation to feed the insatiable appetite for labour power of the plantation and mining economies the Europeans established in the New World. African slaves played the pivotal role in the triangular trade spanning the Atlantic, producing the raw materials that were exported to Europe for manufacture. Finished goods were in turn sold along the Atlantic coast of Africa in return for human cargoes bound for the Americas.
Every part of the New World where slavery was practiced experienced its share of slave revolts, large and small. All were crushed with terrifying brutality. All, except for the revolution of the African slaves in the French colony of San Domingo. On 22 August 1791, two years and one month after the storming of the Bastille in the French Revolution, the slaves of San Domingo rose and in twelve years of war inscribed one of the most inspiring chapters in the annals of humanity's struggle for liberation. In January 1804, after the French expeditionary force Napoleon had dispatched to the island was defeated, Dessalines halted the independence day proceedings briefly in order to rip out a band of white bunting from the new national flag. "We want nothing white in our flag!" he declared. So embittered towards their former white masters had the ex-slaves become. The liberators renamed their island Haiti and proclaimed it the first Negro republic in the New World.
Haiti, an African nation in the Caribbean, lit the torch of African freedom two centuries ago. That torch was passed on from Toussaint L'Ouveture to Henry Sylvester Williams ninety six years later, it was carried across the finishing line by Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ninety four years later. When Nelson Mandela was sworn in as South Africa's first democratically elected Head of State in 1994, in every part of the world his inauguration was hailed as marking the official end of the system of institutionalised racism that had assailed the dignity and human worth of every person of African descent for the previous five hundred years of interaction between Europeans and Africans. The Atlantic slave trade and the triangular trade cycle of which it was an indispensable link, were the material undergirding of the white racism that legitimised and sustained it. The colonial conquest of Africa during the latter part of the 19th century cemented this relationship while widening the circle of stakeholders in racism and exponentially increasing its victims.
For those at its receiving end colonialism was not the benign, civilising mission we have from the literature of imperial nostalgia. In Africa it invariably entailed regimes of forced labour - enforced with the whip, imprisonment and the gun - for the benefit of public works as well as for private purposes. Taxes and other impositions were another favourite device for separating tillers from their land in order to create a workforce to serve the colonial government, administrators and White settlers.
As colonised people Africans could claim no rights. They were not citizens, but subjects governed in terms of the colonial administration's construal of "customary laws". Even in countries, as in the US, where the Constitution guaranteed citizenship rights to people of African descent, these protections were ignored and they were treated no differently from their kith and kin in Africa and the Caribbean. The colonial authorities exercised a host of arbitrary powers which they wielded at their discretion or, worse yet, at the instance of settlers or metropolitan vested interests.
In 1900 a group of Africans from the USA, the Caribbean and the African continent gathered for the first Pan-African conference. The struggle to restore African sovereignty was indeed among the leit motifs of 20th century history.
The birth of a movement
Pan-Africanism was and remains a movement born in struggle; a struggle waged to radically change the condition of Africans on the continent and those in the African diaspora. Its history dates from 1787 when Prince Hall, an African-American clergyman in Massachusetts, campaigned unsuccessfully to return impoverished African freed persons to the continent. The Quaker shipbuilder Paul Cuffe, anticipated Marcus Garvey's Black Star Line by setting sail in one of ships he had built with 40 other black Americans and founding a settlement in Sierra Leone in 1815.
Like other movements of the oppressed and colonised of the time, the Pan-African conference was the brain-child of an educated elite. The founders were drawn from the Caribbean and North America. This Pan-African political leadership, like its counterparts elsewhere in the world, was very conscious of the precarious perch it occupied in a world dominated by the imperial powers of Europe.
The first stirrings of solidarity across the Atlantic came from the US where African-American activists attempted to arouse their own community to the threats to African sovereignty posed by the expansionist policies of the European powers. The first recorded meeting took place in Chicago in 1893, where resolutions were adopted in opposition to France's unwelcome attentions to Ethiopia. Trans-Atlantic African opposition to European colonial adventures received a welcome boost in 1895 when the Ethiopian armies repulsed an Italian expeditionary force intent on invading their homeland, at Adowa.
An African Association was formed in 1897 with Henry Sylvester Williams among its leaders. This London-educated barrister from Trinidad convened the first Pan-African conference in London during 1900.
"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the colour-line," declaimed the delegates to the first Pan-African conference. "The question as to how far differences of race - which show themselves chiefly in the colour of the skin and the texture of the hair - will hereafter be made the basis of denying to over half the world the right of sharing to their utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern civilisation."
During the twentieth century the most consistent inspiration of the Pan-African movement was Dr WEB Du Bois, the first African-American to earn a PhD from Harvard University. Du Bois chaired the committee that drafted "The Address to the Nations of the World" adopted at the 1900 conference as its declaration. He convened every subsequent Pan-African conference held outside the African continent. Du Bois remained deeply involved in the movement even after he had passed the baton to younger leaders from the mother continent.
Crafted in the cautious language of petitioners, appealing to the presumed sense of justice of their colonial overlords, the "Address" Du Bois produced in 1900 may, with hindsight, strike one as extremely naive. Yet it focused on virtually all the issues that would be at the core of the struggle for African freedom in the twentieth century.
Six years later, addressing an audience at Columbia University, New York, a South African undergraduate, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, could more optimistically pronounce:
"The regeneration of Africa means that a new and unique civilisation is soon to be added to the world. The African is not a proletarian in the world of science and art. He has precious creations of his own, of ivory, of copper and of gold, fine, plated willow-ware and weapons of superior workmanship. Civilisation resembles an organic being in its development - it is born, it perishes, and it can propagate itself. More particularly, it resembles a plant, it takes root in the teeming earth, and when the seeds fall in other soils new varieties sprout up. The most essential departure of this new civilisation is that it shall be thoroughly spiritual and humanistic -indeed a regeneration moral and eternal!"
As African voices begin to be heard speaking more assertively, so too the continental dimension of the African freedom movement assumed a higher profile. What is striking about the international movement for African freedom is the central role specific personalities, bodies and initiatives emanating from the African Diaspora occupy within it. The Caribbean is particularly well represented in virtually every phase of the movement, as the names Williams, Marcus Garvey, George Padmore (Macolm Nurse), CLR James, Aime Cesaire, Franz Fanon, and Walter Rodney testify. The Caribbean was notably fecund in breeding the organisers, theorists and tacticians of a movement that helped shape the trans-Atlantic African movement at key moments, helping to give it focus and stimulating novel ideas that kept it relevant to this African community for over a century.
From its birth pan-Africanism in the New World was characterised by an internal tension between those who sought a solution in abandoning the New World and re-settling in Africa, versus those who sought to recast relations between white and African in the New World and win equality for Africans and independence in the territories where they constituted the majority. These two schools co-existed, often extremely uncomfortably, into the second half of the twentieth century, when the arrival of African independence rendered the one less relevant than in the past.
Though the strategies implicit in these two divergent approaches appear mutually exclusive, role players regularly discovered issues that made cooperation possible. The place the communities of the diaspora occupied within the movement, the resources these communities commanded as well as the international profiles its leading figures enjoyed, lent the strategists and tacticians from the diaspora a weight disproportionate to the numbers they commanded.
Reform or revolution?
When the second conference was held in 1919, Williams was no longer in the picture and Dr WEB Du Bois assumed leadership. African leaders on both sides of the Atlantic had deliberately chosen to tone down on agitation during the course of the World War in the hope that a demonstration of loyalty would rebound to the benefit of their cause.
Fifty-seven delegates, representing fifteen countries, attended the conference, which met in Paris to give it easy access to the allied powers. Though concerned with the position of all Africans, the Second Pan-African conference focused especially on the fate of Germany's African colonies. It placed two principal demands before the Versailles peace conference, that: * the Allies administer the former German colonies in Africa as a condominium on behalf of their indigenous peoples;
* Africans be allowed greater participation in the governing of their countries "as fast as their development permits" with a view to self-government.
The language was still that of the loyal subject petitioning his rulers, whom it was assumed would respond to a tone of "reasonableness". But the experiences of African soldiers during the war, including racist attacks by white American and British troops, had a radicalising impact on the political leadership. The victorious allied powers chose to ignore the petitions and pleas of the Pan-African conference as they did those of Chinese, Indian and Arab nationalists who had hoped that the contribution their people had made to the allied victory would at least earn them some token of gratitude.
"The Regeneration of Africa" invoked by Seme in his speech at Columbia has been the lodestar of the Pan-African movement since its inception. The movement was premised on inseparability of the condition of Africans on the mother continent from that of Africans of the diaspora, hence the integral involvement of the diasporic community and its leaders in its conception and in the prosecution of its project. It required the political intervention of the masses, through powerful movements on both sides of the Atlantic during the inter-war years, for a leadership that placed its reliance on the power of mass action to emerge.
Garveyism and its trans-Atlantic impact
The Garveyist movement was probably the first trans-Atlantic mass movement among the Africans of the English-speaking world. Its impact was felt in Garvey's Caribbean home, the US as well as in Anglophone Africa and Britain. Garvey catalysed yet another movement, Rastafarianism, by linking the deliverance of the African world from bondage to the coronation of an African Emperor. When the Ethiopian nobleman Ras Tafari was crowned Emperor Haile Selassie, the Lion of Judah, in 1930, his name was adopted by a pan-African mystical sect with growing numbers of adherents in every part of the African world.
Garveyism in the British empire found an echo in Negritude in France's Atlantic empire, Afro-Cubanismo in Cuba, Modernismo Afro-Brasileiro in Brazil and the New African Movement among African intellectuals in South Africa. In each of these regions these movements among intellectuals were accompanied by mass protest movements such as the United Negro Improvement Association in the US and the Caribbean, and the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) in Southern Africa.
It was only in the aftermath of the Second World War that this new mood of assertiveness became evident among the leaders of African opinion in the Atlantic littoral countries. The Atlantic Charter, adopted by Roosevelt and Churchill in 1941, seemed to endow the demands that the Pan-African movement had been making for forty years with legitimacy in the eyes of their rulers. When the US-trained Dr AB Xuma, President of the ANC in South Africa, commissioned a response to that document in 1943, he penned a preface which read in part: "As African leaders we are not so foolish as to believe that because we have made these declarations that our government will grant us our claims for the mere asking. We realise that for the African this is only a beginning of a long struggle entailing great sacrifices of time, means and even life itself. To the African people the declaration is a challenge to organise and unite themselves under the mass liberation movement... "
Xuma's preface was prescient. Churchill virtually repudiated the Atlantic Charter once it was clear that the Axis powers had lost the strategic initiative. The principles of the Atlantic Charter, Churchill said, applied only to the whites of Europe, and not to the colonial peoples of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
But the struggle for African rights had taken on a new character as expressed in the Declaration of the 5th Pan African conference that met in Manchester, Britain, in 1945. Though the participants from the mother continent were still a minority, those who were present became names to conjure with during the next two decades: Kwame Nkrumah from Ghana; Jomo Kenyatta from Kenya; Obafemi Awolowo from Nigeria; Hastings Banda from Malawi. The indomitable Du Bois was there, as were George Padmore and Mrs Amy Garvey, the widow of Marcus Garvey.
The accent of the moderate colonial subject was a thing of the past: "We believe in the rights of all peoples to govern themselves. We affirm the right of all colonial peoples to control their own destiny. All colonies must be free from foreign imperialist control, whether political or economic. The peoples of the colonies must have the right to elect their own government, a government without restrictions from a foreign power. We say to the peoples of the colonies that they must strive for these ends by all means at their disposal... Today there is only one road to effective action - the organisation of the masses. Colonial and subject peoples of the world - unite!"
That battle cry was taken up in every part of the colonised world during the next two decades. What was notable about the 1945 document was that it linked the struggle for African independence and freedom to that of other colonised peoples, thus anticipating the themes of Afro-Asian solidarity, the Non-Aligned Movement and those of the tri-continental movement of our day.
In 1958 the first Pan-African Conference to be held on African soil began its deliberations in Accra, Ghana. The veterans of the Pan-African freedom movement, Du Bois, Padmore and James graced the occasion. But the lead was now visibly being taken by the leaders from the mother continent, culminating in the high tide of independence in Africa and the Caribbean during the 1960s.
The founding of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963, and the establishment of its Liberation Committee in 1965, was an affirmation of the mission adopted in 1945 but it was also a recognition that the tide of liberation had come up against the immovable object of the White colonial redoubt in Southern Africa. Nineteen sixty five was the year that Ian Smith led the racist white Rhodesia Front in its Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from Britain in the full knowledge that Britain would neither use armed force to suppress them, nor impede white-ruled South Africa from assisting them. The stubborn resistance of the white settler regime in Zimbabwe, the apartheid regime of South Africa and of fascist-ruled Portugal compelled the liberation movements to match the words of the 1945 Declaration - "...that that they (the colonised peoples) must strive for these ends by all means at their disposal" - with deeds.
In June 1967, the combined forces of the Zimbabwe and South African liberation movements commenced joint operations into Zimbabwe, announcing the outbreak of the Southern African liberation wars.
The wars to liberate the Portuguese colonies, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa were inter-linked and intertwined not solely by geography but also by the long-standing links among the freedom fighters of Southern Africa. The founding of the ANC in South Africa had inspired sister movements in all of South-Eastern Africa, as far north as Kenya. Many of the liberation movement's pioneer leaders were accepted as spokespersons for the entire region. Relations established as students at universities, in Europe and America, among pioneers; but increasingly at Fort Hare University College in South Africa; Adams College, Roma College in Lesotho and at Makerere in Uganda for later generations, resulted in a remarkable espirit d'corps that united these leaders around a common vision.
The unfolding of African independence coincides with and helped stimulate the struggle for human rights in North America. The African community in the US had historically made a consistent contribution to the liberation struggle on the mother continent in a number of ways. Its most high profile leaders and public figures invariably were held up as role models among Africans, especially in the Anglophone countries. Numerous future leaders of the African liberation movements studied in US tertiary institutions, many in historically black colleges, where they came under the influence of Booker T Washington, later of Du Bois, and some under the influence of Marcus Garvey. When Italy attempted its second invasion of Ethiopia in 1936, Paul Robeson, the most famous African-American performer of stage and screen at the time, helped found the Council on African Affairs, which mobilised support within the African-American community and the wider US society for African liberation. The Council was eventually "red-baited" out of existence during the McCarthy era. Robeson, Alpheus Hunton, Du Bois, Louis Burnham, Lena Home and others who rallied to the Council on African Affairs were also leading players in the struggle for freedom within the US itself.
The African diaspora was destined to play a decisive supportive role especially in the southern African theatre of struggle, where the statesmen of Europe and the US outdid themselves in equivocation, while quietly giving tacit support to the remaining colonial and white supremacist regimes on African soil.
When the apartheid regime, having received assurances of support from the US, attempted to export counter-revolution to Angola in 1975, it was the small Caribbean nation of Cuba, with a population smaller than that of New York city, that committed its armed forces, materiel and its international reputation to the defence of the project of African liberation.
Over the following fifteen years Cuban troops destroyed the myth of white South Africa's invincibility; called a halt to its strategy of intervention and military destabilisation of independent Africa, and finally inflicted a decisive strategic defeat on the forces of apartheid at Cuito Cuinavale, thus opening the way to Namibian independence in 1990. Among the pressures that finally compelled the Apartheid regime to the negotiating table, was the defeat suffered at Cuito Cuinavale. An extra-ordinary degree of coordination among the various fronts of a Pan-African effort to deal the final death blow to apartheid occurred during these years. In the Commonwealth, African, Caribbean and Asian states were able to muster the isolation of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government which could barely conceal its support for the apartheid regime. In the US, Trans-Africa, a highly effective lobby group working in close cooperation with the Congressional Black Caucus and African-American community groups, was able to pilot sanctions legislation through Congress in 1987.
The mass struggles that swept through South Africa during that same period converged with these external pressures precipitating an insurmountable crisis in the apartheid regime. By the end of 1988 it was clear that it was just a matter of time before all political prisoners would be released and negotiations to end apartheid commenced in earnest.
African freedom and the challenges of the present
A shared history over the past 500 years dictated that the fates of the African peoples who today live on either side of the Atlantic would be interwoven. Recognition of that reality spurred the most far-sighted political leaders of the African diaspora to assume leadership of a trans-Atlantic movement for African freedom. By demonstrating in practice that the blood that binds these two communities is thicker than the waters of the Atlantic, the Pan-African movement they inspired, after close to a century of struggle, has reconquered the sovereignty of the African continent and put an end to institutionalised racism on both the mother continent and in the New World.
Despite this historic victory, Africa is an extremely troubled continent, plagued by internecine wars, political instability and its people afflicted by degrading poverty. The first free African nation of modern times, Haiti, is the poorest country in the Caribbean, with a troubled history expressed in the 37 coups d'etat that the island has witnessed. The African communities of the Atlantic are not prosperous. In the New World the legacy of slavery, compounded by nearly a century of constitutionalised racial oppression, has kept them at the lowest rungs of the social ladder. Despite the pervasive poverty evident in virtually every part of the continent, Africa still is a net exporter of wealth to Europe and North America.
Having won political freedom through their collective action during the 20th century, the challenge facing the peoples of Africa in the 21st century is how to devise a programme of action to break the chains of poverty and under-development that hold far too many of our people in thrall.
"Globalisation" is the name used to describe the developments in world economy brought about by the rapid developments in telecommunications, international travel and the movement of capital and goods across international frontiers. Though the African continent and the peoples of Africa have been at the core of evolution of the world system since the 15th century, globalisation threatens to marginalise our continent even further and to compound the social and economic situation of Africans of the diaspora. Africa has attempted its own indigenously evolved response to globalisation, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), focusing on the development of infrastructure, the redefinition of trade between Africa and its principal trading partners, the exploration of intra-African trade and the development of new partnerships among African and other developing countries.
There are important developments taking place in Africa, many of them based on our own efforts. The reversal of the attempted coup in Togo in recent weeks is a case in point. It is equally significant that it was action by ECOWAS that achieved this.
We remain engaged with the issues of the Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Sierra Leone and Liberia. The struggle to achieve peace and political stability on the mother continent is going to require the same measure or commitment as well as the solidarity that brought us freedom during the 20th century. Yet it is equally true that African capacity is gravely constrained by the limited finances of the continent and the huge developmental challenges facing every African country.
Here in the Caribbean, we have witnessed yet another coup in Haiti, coinciding with the bi-centennial of Haitian independence. The Caribbean Community was unable to thwart the aims of big powers that took a direct hand in effecting "regime change" in Haiti and the interventions of the Black Congressional Caucus in the USA were greeted with utter contempt. Well nigh a century after he spoke these words, Pixley ka Isaka Seme's clarion call for the "Regeneration of Africa" should summon us all to the new battlefronts to defeat the scourge of poverty among the peoples of Africa. As in the struggle for political emancipation, self-determination and freedom it is by coordinating our efforts that we shall maximise our striking force.
Pan-Africanism remains eminently relevant in our day because there is still so much unfinished business among all of us. The future beckons. The best and most lasting monument we can erect to the generations who preceded us is to ensure that Africa does indeed walk tall. In the words of Seme: "Then shalt thou, walking with that morning gleam, Shine as thy sister lands with equal beam."
Z Pallo Jordan is an ANC National Executive Committee member and Minister for Arts and Culture. This is an edited version of a speech delivered at the South Africa-African Union-Caribbean Diaspora Conference, Jamaica, 17 March 2005.
The recent election in Iraq, held under conditions of military occupation, does not support the notion that a 'spring of freedom' is descending on the Arab world, writes Shannon Field.
There has been a lot of talk in recent weeks about a 'spring of freedom' descending upon the Arab world, with democratic revolutions breaking out from Baghdad to Ramallah. The reality on the ground in Iraq does not resemble freedom as we know it. The 'democratic exercise' that took place at the beginning of the year was without the participation of 40% of registered voters, and scant participation from the Sunni community, which comprise a fifth of the population. As to the country being free, resistance attacks continue to average over 50 a day, and assaults by the military occupiers on cities, homes and places of worship only serve to anger the population.
The military strategy of the occupation has been to throw occupation forces at the Sunni insurgency by going on offensive operations - mounting raids and deploying overwhelming force against cities with large insurgent presences. This strategy has reinforced failure. Counter-insurgency strategy teaches that this is the best way to lose. To succeed, the occupiers would have had to reinforce their successes, and place their forces where the situation is better, enabling the political and economic situation to improve. The assault on Fallujah saw 2,000 pound bombs dropped, sometimes on civilian homes, and the use of napalm was reported. Some reports estimate 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the onset of the military occupation, and little has been done to win the hearts and minds of the populace.
The quality of life for Iraqis is not improving, and the need for basic services such as access to electricity, clean water and sanitation is urgent. Electricity production is down again, 80% of what it was under Saddam Hussein, and about what it was immediately after the military intervention in April 2003. Queues for petrol are typically 24 hours long, heightening levels of resentment in a country which no longer controls its own massive oil reserves.
The elections in Iraq were touted as a watershed in the country's history, a potential signal of hope in a devastated country that was to reclaim its destiny. The election was to establish a 275 member transitional national assembly, which would draft the new constitution to be approved by referendum, and would choose a president and two vice presidents. Whether democratic elections can legitimately be held under foreign occupation is a question that still lingers. Freedom of movement and the ability to campaign were severely encumbered by the occupation. In Iraq, 14 million people were eligible to vote, but only eight million actually cast their votes.
Most of the voters did not know the names of the candidates or their policies before voting. Ayatollah Sistani issued a decree before the elections making it a religious obligation for Shiites to vote saying, "It is more important to vote than fasting at Ramadan or prayer". Sistani's call was largely responsible for the significant turnout of Shiites at the polls. Representing 60% of the population, the Shia wanted to ensure they secured a major role in governing the country, given their political suppression for the past century. The voters were also casting a ballot for an end to military occupation. The media coverage of the elections was largely manipulated, with the major TV networks being given a list of five polling stations where they were allowed to film. Four of the five stations were in Shiite areas where turnout was expected to be high.
There was limited participation in the Sunni triangle - in Fallujah, Ramadi, and Tikrit. Sunni's comprise 20% of the population, and are the group that have most actively and violently resisted the occupation. As a result of their decision not to participate in the election, there is confusion as to the legitimate representatives of the Sunni population. It is highly problematic that they are largely unrepresented in the national assembly, and this remains a stumbling block in the effective functioning of the transitional government.
In return for a measure of cooperation, Sunni leaders insist that the new government release political prisoners, set a withdrawal deadline for US troops, and give them responsibility for a security ministry such as defence or interior. The latter is unlikely given that the most influential Shia party in the alliance, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, perceives there to be too many Baathist sympathisers in the armed forces and intelligence services.
The two main groups in parliament are the Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance, and the coalition embracing the two main Kurdish parties. The main issue dividing the two groups is the final status of the disputed city of Kirkuk, which will be decided at a later date. More than two months after its elections, Iraq has named its executive leaders. The Prime Minister is Ibrahim Jaafari, who favours making Islam the state religion, and the President is Jalal Talabani, with Vice Presidents Ghazi al-Yawar (Sunni), and Adel Abd al-Mahdi (Shia). The real test will be the elections held at the end of the year which are supposed to usher in a permanent government once the constitution has been drafted.
The Iraqi invasion now reverberates across the Middle East. Al-Qaeda has urged its supporters to strike around the maritime Arab kingdoms of the Gulf - Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the Emirates. Qatar was the first to experience an attack in recent weeks, which has traditionally been seen as a safe location, so much so that Saddam Hussein was imprisoned there. Qatar is the home of the largest US air base, a CIA base, US special forces, and numerous expatriate compounds. It seems that the Iraqi insurgency is now to embrace these 'safe' locations.
In a survey of six Arab countries (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates) by Zogby International last year, the vast majority said they did not believe US policy in Iraq was motivated by the spread of democracy in the region.
It is believed that the Middle East is less democratic after the military occupation of Iraq, and Iraqis are worse off than before. The promise of future change is outweighed by the more repressive reality in Arab countries. The majority of Arabs opposed the war in Iraq, and detest the marginalisation of the Sunnis in that country. The sentiment on the Arab street has made governments in the region increasingly insecure, leading to higher levels of repression. This reality does not seem to reflect the 'spring of freedom' so often talked about in the media. The West may have the power to reshuffle the deck in the Middle East, but not to guarantee where the cards will fall.
Shannon Field is political analyst based in Pretoria.
After a lengthy process of negotiation and mediation there is now hope that peace, stability and national unity will be restored to Cote d'Ivoire, writes Adewale Banjo.
For many years Cote d'Ivoire was considered the 'Jewel of West Africa'. Its strong cocoa-based economy had attracted thousands of immigrants from neighbouring Francophone countries. In fact, due to its relative prosperity and infrastructural development the capital city of Abidjan was once described as the New York of West Africa.
Most of the pre and post-independence politics of Ivory Coast revolves around the personality of former president Felix Houphouet Boigny. He was credited with successfully and painstakingly paving the route for Ivorian independence and those of most French Africa. It has been suggested the root of today`s problem should be located in Boigny`s immigrant-propelled agricultural revolution through plantation economy of the 1960s. From the 1950s to late 80s the cocoa-based plantation economy transformed the communities in Southern Ivory Coast and by 1980, thousands of labourers from all over French Africa had been ferried into Ivory Coast to work on the plantations. The presence of these labourers had presented the Ivorian authorities with an identity crisis at the dawn of independence in 1960, but was effectively managed by Boigny from the beginning of his presidency in 1960 until his death in December 1993 at the age of 88.
The Crisis
At the time of Houphouet Boigny's death, Cote d'Ivoire, with a population of 14 million, had become one of the most prosperous tropical African states, through the development of cocoa production for export, and the realisation of foreign investment. This pleasant past, however, did not prevent it from plunging into political turmoil in the 1990s. Arguably, the foundation of this crisis was laid in the years of the semi-autocratic, single party and 'quasi-corporationist' regime of Felix Houphouet-Boigny. This regime failed to build strong democratic institutions, relying instead on a policy of 'co-optation'. But towards the end of his regime, the politicians had actually starting waging the war of succession.
The weak nature of the Ivorian state prepared it for the military coup on 25 December 1999 - the first ever in Cote d'Ivoire's history - which overthrew the government led by President Henri Konan Bedie. Bedie was accused of having planted the seed of ethno-religious discord by stirring up xenophobia against Muslim northerners and immigrants through his 'Ivorite Policy'.
The concept of 'Ivorite' had existed since the 1970s, but in the 1990s Bedie had transformed it from a cultural project to an ideological concept to enhance prospects of grabbing political power. This concept, as constructed in the post-Boigny era, triggered off the politicisation of ethnic belonging and religious orientation.
Consequently, due to the unresolved identity and citizenship question, which had not been be resolved at the time of General Robert Guei's election in late 2000, the main opposition leader Alassane Quattara was excluded from taking part in the elections. But Guei was forced to step aside due to popular protest and brought runner-up Laurent Gbagbo into power. Gbagbo has been trying to consolidate power to strengthen his weak mandate, but has been unable to appease his opponents, who, for political expediency, are not regarded as bona fide Ivorians. A failed coup d'etat in September 2002 resulted in a full-scale civil war. This development has resulted in fierce intra-elite struggle for political supremacy in Cote d'Ivoire, which has divided the country into north and south. Opposition forces, known as New Forces, currently control the northern half of the country, with the capital in Bouake.
The Peace Process
The first external intervention in the Ivorian conflict, led to the Linas-Marcousis Accord, which provided for 1,478 peacekeeping troops from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the French Operation Licorne, with 4,000 troops. The mandate of the peaceforce was to:
In addition to the above, and for lack of progress in the implementation of Linas-Marcousis Accord, several other peace meeting agreements had been signed. From the Accra I, Accra II and Accra III Agreements are examples of the spirited effort by ECOWAS as a sub-regional group to find lasting peace to the crisis in Cote d'Ivoire. Determined to find an African solution to an African problem, the African Union appointed South Africa president Thabo Mbeki as a mediator.
The Pretoria Agreement
President Mbeki had a meeting with the Ivorian political leaders in Pretoria on 3-6 April 2005 , at which almost all the leaders of the contending parties were present.
The leaders reviewed the current situation in Cote d'lvoire and took a number of decisions relating to outstanding issues on the implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis and Accra II and III Agreements. The Ivorian leaders reaffirmed:
The meeting reemphasised its appreciation of the importance of the resolution of the Ivorian crisis in the interest of the Ivorian people, the West African region and Africa as a whole.
Pretoria Agreement: The Achievements
The most important outcome and the high point of the Pretoria meeting was the joint declaration of the end of the war. One of the major achievements was the agreement to proceed to disarmament and dismantling of the militia. The parties agreed to immediately proceed with the disarmament and dismantling of the militia throughout the entire national territory. It was agreed that the Chiefs of Staff of the National Armed Forces of the Cote d'lvoire (FANCI) and the Armed Forces of the New Forces (FAFN) meet immediately to ensure the implementation of the National Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration Plan (PNDDR).
The parties agreed there is a need to guarantee the security of people and assets as soon as the cantonment of the New Forces in the North commences. The parties accepted the plan proposed by the Mediation ensuring security for the New Forces ministers of the Government of National Reconciliation. Consequently, the FN agreed to return to the Government of National Reconciliation.
It was agreed the prime minister of the Government of National Reconciliation requires the necessary executive authority to accomplish his mission appropriately. Consequently, the president reaffirmed the authority of the prime minister.
The parties agreed to make amendments to the composition, organisation and functioning of the current Independent Electoral Commission, and subsequently on the organisation of elections. The parties noted the importance of the Ivorian Radio and Television (RTI) as an outlet that should be used to contribute to national unity and reconciliation. As a result, parties agreed that the programme of the RTI must immediately cover the whole national territory. It was also decided to restore the status of the RTI to that it enjoyed before 24 December 2004.
On the crucial issue of eligibility to the presidency of the country, the meeting discussed the matter of the finalisation of the amendment of the Constitution in relation to Article 35. Having listened to the views of the Ivorian leaders, the mediator undertook to make a determination on this matter after consultation with Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Given the progress made in the mediation process, the observation that President Thabo Mbeki does not understand the soul of Francophone Africa -whatever that means - cannot be considered credible.
Adewale Banjo holds a PhD in Political Science and is currently the Head, West Africa Research Programme at The Africa Institute of South Africa.
The ANC needs to implement the last NGC resolutions on the strengthening the public service if it is to meet the needs of the poor, writes Luthando Gilbert Buso.
In Umrabulo 21 President Thabo Mbeki, writing on the national agenda, stated the position of the government as follows: "As government we believe we have a clear understanding of what the national agenda is and are determined to do everything possible to pursue it, working together with the people and all their representative formations in the people's contract we have spoken of."
The members of the legislatures understand the 2014 vision of our liberation movement, but does the executive arm - the public service - understand and have the will to realise this vision? Has the movement (as the party outside parliament) taken stock of the discrepancies that exist in the national and provincial departments? Have we outsourced our responsibility to advance the national agenda and safeguard our prestigious revolutionary gains?
What is at stake is the hard-fought gains achieved through our national democratic revolution which we collectively have to safeguard, advance, deepen and defend for people's contract to create work and fight poverty.
My analysis at this juncture, which may be wrong, places me in an awkward position where I find myself compelled to see my movement reluctant to viciously seize all levers of state power. In July 2000 at the National General Council (NGC) in Port Elizabeth, which was also attended by the leadership of Alliance components, the leadership made it clear that the movement was not yet in full control of all levers of state power and therefore was unable to meet the needs of the majority of our people.
The proposals adopted at the Port Elizabeth NGC have not been thoroughly and vigorously implemented in the first decade of freedom to the benefit of the nation. They included:
The high rate of fraud and corruption, non-observance of working hours, poor performance and drunkenness at work, all prove that these proposals have not been implemented. This is an example of the current situation in the Eastern Cape. Our cadres occupying strategic positions find themselves surrounded by greedy dinosaurs with destructive agendas, but it's themselves who moved towards that dangerous costly situation. These people report somewhere else on the damage they cause within the public service. These dinosaurs make sure that ANC cadres are marginalised and prevented, through dirty tactics, from holding strategic positions where they can positively influence accelerated service delivery to the poorest of the poor. Some of my fellow comrades became frustrated and resigned from the public service. It goes without saying that conscious cadres of our movement always strive under unfavourable conditions to influence programmes within their institutions to favour the poor. This entails that even in a budget process the cadres articulate the debates towards sufficient funding for programmes that enhance and stimulate the aspirations of the majority of people, particularly the poor.
The ideological offensive of this bloc of forces entrenches itself in such a manner that renders our comrades who hold senior positions as dismal failures who can not even carry the mandate of their own organisation. These dinosaurs have reconstituted themselves in such a manner that necessitates them to introduce elements of capitalism in the public sector. The government department employs a strategic manager today and tomorrow this manager recommends the employment of consultants for them to do his or her job. In their recommendations they complain there is no capacity in their directorate. Surprisingly, this person quickly forgets that it is the major responsibility of every manager to train and develop the subordinates and this gives effect to the Skills Development Act.
Surprisingly, these "fortune hunters" seem to know and understand the movement more than its active cadres. This is evident when they pursue their own interests for the attainment of higher positions in government, disregarding the huge responsibilities attached to such positions. If we let this practice continue unabated in this second decade of our freedom, do we do justice to the movement that carries the mandate of the majority of the people in this country?
Abraham Lincoln once said: "The dogmas of the past are inadequate for the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves." The cadres of the movement must all be in the forefront of the struggle to pave the way and level the ground for the national agenda. In the history of the ANC the struggle has never been a nice thing and that was made difficult by the enemy. So even now dedicated and disciplined cadres of our movement must be prepared and get ready to struggle under unfavourable conditions.
The opposition does not constructively criticise our movement; it employs dirty tricks and continuously plans to destroy every attempt we make towards addressing the problems of the people of South Africa. Every member of the movement should regard themselves as deployed in a government department and the movement should monitor that process. Fraud and corruption is the number one enemy of our national democratic revolution as this consumes the limited resources the state reserves to pursue the objective of national agenda.
The time has arrived for the ANC to have a database of its cadres serving in both national and provincial government departments; which indicates what qualifications and experience they have, what positions they hold and how they should relate to the movement in terms of reporting criminal activities taking place in their institutions. By virtue of the fact that the ANC has been given a mandate by the majority of people of South Africa, all customer care centres in all government departments should be managed by our cadres who know that the ANC cares. The movement should deploy its cadres to fraud and corruption units and labour relations units.
We are in the second half of the game. Turn-around strategies are needed in this second decade of democracy to serve the public with respect, dignity and honesty. Implementation of the resolutions of the Port Elizabeth NGC are still the best way to turn the situation around for the benefit of the nation.
Luthando Gilbert Buso is an ANC member in the Eastern Cape and an SACP executive committee member in the Skenjana Roji District.
Though couched in the language of well-meant assistance, the recommendations of the Commission for Africa are likely to weaken, rather than strengthen, African states, writes Mphuthumi Ntabeni.
Africans were expected to universally welcome United Kingdom prime minister Tony Blair's 'Commission For Africa' report with its use of catch phrases like 'make poverty history', and the language of humanism. The report seems to be saying Africa should be free to shape her destiny with the assistance of the world at large. On practical terms this help translates to about an extra $25 billion a year in aid from western donors, a write-off of Africa's debt, and a better deal for Africa in trade relations.
Africa needs not only financial support, but educational, cultural, emotional, spiritual and social development as well. But we've to start somewhere.
It is when one considers the means of implementing the Commission's recommendations that one discovers the flaws of the report. When one looks beyond the report's self-consciously ambitious rhetoric and use of altruistic language in describing Africa's plight, there are low horizons about what Africa, through the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), is striving to achieve. This is perhaps why President Thabo Mbeki, though welcoming the report, had his reservations.
The new partnership between Africa and the West proposed by Blair's report is likely to weaken African states still further than give them capacity for state-building. New monitoring mechanisms, ostensibly designed to strengthen the 'capacity' of African states will instead undermine it because it compels African states into opening themselves up more to monitoring by external authorities in return for the promise of greater resources. The report says Africa must promise true democracy, no more excuses for dictatorship, abuses of human rights; no tolerance of bad governance, no endemic corruption of states; proper commercial, legal and financial systems, in return for aid.
According to the report, the African Union will not be the only body monitoring African states but Western donors, the UN's Economic Commission for Africa and "civil society organisations" - mainly non-governmental organisations (NGOs) - must play a key role too in the process. The report advises African states to sign up to the UN Convention Against Corruption and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative pioneered by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID). All this sounds reasonable in a quick perusal.
But the fundamentals of these regulations mean that this new 'partnership' will in effect create parallel structures of government in African states, which will further undermine Africa's already weak nation states. It means the African states will have to submit to detailed rules that are dictated by outsiders, which will limit the operation of nation states and business, giving them little autonomy or control over their already meagre resources.
The Blair Commission report argues that a key problem for Africa is weak states and wrongly blames this largely on the legacy of African dictatorships bolstered by Western governments during the Cold War. The Cold War ended over a decade ago. A more invidious role has since been played by the Western NGOs, especially those of Washington consensus, in the 1980s and early 1990s. The twin forces of International Monetary Fund (IMF) measures to roll back the state to free market forces, and international donor aid stepping in to provide basic services outside the state sector, caused more damage in undermining African states than the Cold War ever did. If implemented, the Blair Commission's proposals would compound this problem.
The virtual disintegration of states such as Somalia clearly shows that outside interference, with the creation of parallel structures for distributing resources and monitoring state activity, undermines nations and ultimately makes it even more difficult for them to maintain their coherence. Not only does external interference undermine the rights of the states intervened in, it also undermines the rights of those individuals who are the objects of the intervention, as they have no mechanism of holding these external bodies to account.
Some are worried that the evangelical zeal with which Blair has taken the cause for Africa after so many years of neglect is the result of his failing political vision in Britain. They argue that the focus on Africa can help give his government a sense of mission. None of that would matter if Africa were to benefit from his Commission. More resources would benefit Africa whatever the motivations of the donors. There has been worse motives for Western aid in Africa than political expediency. The problem is that what is being proposed in the Blair Commission report is unlikely to improve Africa's plight.
Africans are also wary of Blair's report for its intentional or unintentional promotion of the returning tone of imperialism - couched in euphemistic terms like 'trusteeship' - in recent Western discussions. The US political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, in his book 'State Building:
Governance and Order in the Twenty-First Century', proposes the policy of trusteeship as a solution to the problem of instability in weak states of the modern world. He makes easier, and obfuscates, the return of one nation's subordination to another by legitimising it in the language of empowerment and capacity-building for the failed states.
Another US political scientist, Roland Paris, in his book 'At War's End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict', starts on a Hobbesian support of a strong state and ends on the opposing note of support for 'sovereignty' held on trust by international administrators acting as representatives of external institutions. For him traditional liberal conceptions of individual rights are obstacles to the development of a free and just society, rather than an indicator of its success. He holds trusteeship as an improvement on previous conceptions of individual and state rights of freedom and autonomy. Just as individuals in the state-building process have to submit to unequal relations of tutelage and dependency, so too do the states being empowered by their trustees, he says.
What this argument amounts to, despite its obfuscating cleverness, is that non-Western states have demonstrated they cannot be trusted with sovereignty and political equality. Therefore the return to forms of Western regulation is the only solution. The discourse is sometimes couched in the language of old-fashioned imperialism's 'obligations of power', which echoes Rudyard Kipling's "white man's burden" - the moral duty of those with the power, knowledge or civilisation to enlighten and assist the poor and down-trodden to ways of good governance and civil society.
No amount of mystifying cleverness can hide the fact that this discourse is preaching a breakdown of the consensual processes of diplomacy and collapse of international law. It is what gave a specious cloak of decency to the invasion of sovereign states like Iraq. It has resurrected the old relations of domination, the 'noble mission of an empire'. The contradiction between relations of domination and those of equality is played out in the export of democracy, state-building, human rights promotion and post-conflict peace-building. This achieves the blurring of line between aid and imperialism, because external interference claims to act on the basis of the perceived interests or needs of those who are seen as unable or unwilling to help themselves.
The lesson the Western world has not learnt is that developing local capacity is the only solution to the management of state administration. You cannot impose solutions from without. The government imposed from outside will always lack popular legitimacy in the eyes of the population it wishes to govern. There is only a limited amount that can be achieved by external technical advisers, regardless of their motivation or capability. The ethics of trusteeship and custody, like those of imperialism, stand fundamentally opposed to the modern belief in the moral and political equality of human beings. There lies the seed of its failure.
Mphuthumi Ntabeni is a freelance writer based in Queenstown in the Eastern Cape.
The challenges of a rapidly changing world demand a new kind of cadre, rooted in the values of struggle, but able to provide leadership in a new environment, writes Tshilidzi Marwala.
The challenges of the 21st century are unlike any other others that have confronted humanity. This is particularly true because the evolution of the environment in which cadres of the 21st century find themselves is occurring at an ever fast pace.
This environment is characterised by a shift in economic power from the western world, where it has resided for the past 300 years, to the east, particularly India and China, where over 40% of humanity reside. This shift in economic power will invariably be immediately followed by a shift in political power. This shift in economic and political powers from the west to the east will have many consequences. In parallel with this shift, there will also be a fast paced increase in the automation process of the means of production which will revolutionise the concept of the working class and thus the exploited will become machines. These challenges will require the development of a new type of cadre. It is not enough for us to allow this new cadre to just emerge through a process of evolution because the forces of natural evolution will take a very long time to create a cadre adapted to the changed internal and external environments. This cadre will therefore have to be nurtured within our movement according to all the challenges we expect this cadre to confront.
One of the biggest myths of leadership is the belief that leadership is not planned but emerges naturally from the environment. Evidence shows that this is not the case, particularly when one studies countries such as the USA, United Kingdom, France, Japan and China. For example, it is common knowledge that most of the leaders of the USA come from the Ivy League schooling system or that almost all leaders of Japan come from about five schools, with the University of Tokyo taking a lead; or that most UK leaders come from a few schools, most notably Oxford and Cambridge. If it is indeed true that leadership is trained and that effective leadership is trained through a particular school of thought, and that as a movement and a country we are going to be confronted with an increasing complex external environment, then it is perhaps a good time to ask ourselves the question: 'How do we best train the modern cadre to successfully engage the problems of the 21st century?' To do this we ought to have an accurate view of our past and to have clear visualisation of the future.
Furthermore, we should thoroughly investigate our schooling system, particularly our higher education sector and the underlying structure of our culture to ensure it is poised to meet all these challenges. The point of departure of this paper is an investigation of the sort of challenges our movement will confront in the 21st century.
Challenges of the 21st Century
The 21st century is an interesting century in the sense that humanity will be able to create machines that will ultimately perform - without much human intervention - tasks that are traditionally performed by human beings. This process is called automation. It can therefore be expected that machines, without any human intervention, will manufacture an entire car on a much larger scale than is presently the case. The effect of this on the labour market, and in particular on unemployment, will be far reaching. Simply put, those with enough capital to acquire this capacity will ultimately control economies of scale without much participation of the masses of people. This will ensure that the fundamental rule of international capitalist economy that says that the gap between the rich and the poor keeps widening will intensely govern societies unless there is a major shift towards socially oriented societies.
On the economic plane, realising that economies of scale matter, particularly as sources of consumer markets, countries will gravitate towards the formation of larger trading blocs. In particular Europe will gravitate towards a bigger trading bloc which will include much of Eastern Europe; North and South America will become much more integrated; and Asia will also move towards a much more unified economic bloc.
Where will this leave Africa? Will the African Union be as effective as its European, Asian or American competitors? The cadre of the 21st century will have to ensure that the Africa that emerges is a strong global competitor with a much louder political voice. The global economic and political governance structures, such as the UN and World Bank, will also rapidly change. The permanent members of the UN Security Council will be expanded to include an African country. These changes will impact more and more on regional representation, economic responsibility and political accountability. It is therefore important to ensure that the cadres that will be at the forefront of this revolution are adequately equipped to deal with all these challenges.
Characteristics of the 21st Century Cadre
The cadre that we ought to nurture within our ranks must have many characteristics. The cadre must be politically committed to taking the masses to higher levels of human development. The cadre must understand matters that measure human development and must continually analyse these indicators to improve the delivery of social, political and economic services to the masses. They must be committed to the ascendancy of the African people to the highest levels of human development in the sciences, economics, politics, arts, culture, etc. At any given time, the cadre must be able to bring forth the best qualities of people and stimulate them to rise in contribution to the betterment of humanity.
The cadre must at all times understand that knowledge is the only accessible way to economic prosperity and must therefore incorporate into their consciousness a culture of lifelong learning. The cadre must master all modern ways of accessing knowledge. Some of these include traditional methods of accessing knowledge through experience. However, there are other avenues, such as acquisition of knowledge from cyberspace, that will become readily available as we work to eliminate the digital divide between the largely developed north and largely underdeveloped south.
This mode of learning will become the most dominant source of information as traditional libraries wither away to be replaced by digital libraries. Of course these will require digital infrastructure, such as computers and the internet, but these should be readily available as the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) consolidates more successes. New computer-aided learning will become a dominant mode of learning and traditional institutions such as universities will have to rediscover themselves in this new age. Of course such an unavoidable revolutionary process will require a great deal of input from cadres of our movement.
The cadre must learn to make decisions based on data. This will improve the accuracy of the decision-making process and thus improve the systems of delivery to the masses. They should understand the relationship between data and wisdom, which entails transforming data into information, which in turn translates into knowledge, which then translates into understanding, which gives rise to wisdom. The information age forces us to clearly understand these relationships to increase our economic competitive edge in the information age.
The new cadre will have to possess the flexible thinking process that is required of us to compete in the extremely volatile 21st century global economy. This flexible mind will facilitate resources to deal with the fast paced environment where the systems of government will change on a daily basis. However, a flexible mind must not be confused with flexible principles. The principles of the NDR must not change, but tactics and strategies appropriate for a given time must be deployed flexibly to successfully achieve the goals of the NDR.
The new cadre must also develop a forward-looking culture. The challenges that will confront us will be of a nature that we cannot possibly visualise them a priori. They must be able to anticipate all possibilities, prepare for all scenarios and, in short, be an all-rounded cadre that is ready to volunteer at all times to meet all the possible challenges.
We need to achieve this massive task by diversifying the methods of training cadres and increasing the participation of the masses in all facets of the organisation. It is the goal of the NDR to conscientise the masses thereby increasing the collective wisdom of the masses. The cultural landscape in which the cadre operates in the 21st century is situated against the backdrop of globalisation. Globalisation offers both opportunities and threats. Some of the threats include the dilution of national identities while the opportunities include equalisation of the skills base, since there will not be a single piece of information in a single country that will not be accessible from another country. In short we ought to create a cadre with a cultural mindset that will capture all the opportunities that the globalised world will offer and to defeat all the threats that this very same globalised world will present.
The new cadre must also be a source of stimuli for the creation of responsible citizens. They must at all times project what is best of our movement and by so doing stimulate the masses to be organised, become patriotic, disciplined, modest, always ready to volunteer, honest and have a strong sense of social conscience. The cadre must possess be compassionate and be guided by the phrase: To each according to their needs and from each according to their working ability.
The cadre must also be a hard worker and must work intelligently, for there is no single endeavour of historical significance that has not been constructed without sheer hard work. However, hard work that is not guided by core competencies in the school of wisdom, whether gained through theoretical or practical experience, can exhaust much-needed energy and can potentially be misdirected.
The cadre must be clear on the need for both theory and practice in all organisational work and be able to differentiate between the two at all times. Clarity on issues of theory and practice is crucial, for theory without practice is void and thereby inconsequential, while practice without theory is misguided. The cadre must understand the dialectical relationship between theory and practice and that the two depend on one another. Practice must always be monitored and thus be used as a feedback to build a better theory in order to refine the theory, which in turn guides the practice to achieve greater successes.
The building of a cadre is an ongoing process that should be guided by the core principles of our movement. It must at all times be directed by the need to take this society to the highest levels of human development. Learning is crucial in this endeavour and it must be accessed using the cheapest available means of the time. The challenges ahead are huge but we have all the capacities to succeed.
Tshilidzi Marwala is an associate professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and a member of the Thomas Nkobi Branch.
In this extract from the introduction to his book about the life of his uncle, Ahmed Timol, Imtiaz Kajee describes the roots of his journey of remembering and reclaiming.
Ahmed Timol is one of the most celebrated official murder victims of apartheid South Africa - in the grim company of Looksmart Solwandle Ngudle, Joseph Mdluli, Dr Hoosen Haffejee, Steve Biko, Neil Aggett, The Imam Haron and so many others. The technique of "defenestration" - being teasingly dangled and sometimes dropped, by accident or on purpose, from a high police window - was immortalised in his own death. So was the chilling term that the security police would use to mock his fate : "Indians can't fly", as George Bizos has grimly noted. This was, evidently, the timbre of their humour. My uncle plunged 10 storeys to the ground at Johannesburg's notorious John Vorster Square, named after apartheid's worst securocrat, the man who introduced the torture laws as justice minister in 1963 and then went on to become apartheid's prime minister, as he was when my uncle died.
The death was itself not enough for them. They turned even our collective grief into a new tool of torture. Years after, after my uncle's death had inscribed itself in the collective memory of the anti-apartheid movement, detainees at John Vorster Square were taunted with my uncle's death.
Gerald Sizani from Orlando East, Soweto, was nearly 14 years old when Ahmed Timol died. Gerald was a product of the June 1976 uprising and was detained by the Security Police in late 1976. The police were not really looking for him, but for his brother Zweli. Gerald narrates: "They took me to the 10th floor of John Vorster Square at approximately 2am. An English-speaking policeman by the name of Captain Cronwright and his bullies were interrogating me. I refused to cooperate with them. They asked me if I heard of Ahmed Timol. They told me that I was stubborn like Ahmed Timol and that they had thrown Timol out of the window."
"They then took me to the window and I was told that this was called 'Timol Heights'. I was held by my feet and dangled outside the window. I closed my eyes, sure that I was dead. They would pull me up again. This happened in broad daylight. They managed to find Zweli and I was released at approximately 1pm the next afternoon. Then Zweli was severely beaten and assaulted, which damaged him permanently. To this day he has relapses of mental disturbances."
I have called this book A Quest for justice. I wanted, if not specific retribution, at least to put right some lingering sense of a wrong committed against my uncle, my family, my country, myself. Immediately after my uncle's death the ANC correctly promised, in its official statement, to "avenge" Ahmed's murder and I am, even now, not willing to let go of that word, despite all the colourful talk of "reconciliation" that surrounds such subjects as these.
But any question of vengeance was overtaken, during the writing process, by a more pressing need. It dawned upon me that I wanted to know my uncle. I was five years old when he died and this book is my own act of reclaiming him whom I only almost had. I still have his Beethoven LPs which brought him calm and rest. The ninth symphony has the most tattered jacket; it must have been my uncle's favourite. But however much I played and re-played his music to myself in old boyish hope, Ahmed never appeared. I had no Aladdin's lamp, but I kept rubbing away.
The process of reclaiming him in fact long pre-dated the idea of a book. I began on my own many years ago, with the hoard of faint memories that I cherish... of sitting with Uncle Ahmed in Amina Desai's yellow Anglia, the very car in which he was to be arrested shortly before his murder. Uncle Ahmed often took me to Amina's house and I remember the white cat - but all its playfulness is overwhelmed, for me, by the grim recollection, after his death, of coming from Standerton to Roodepoort with my mother in the middle of the night. We were sitting huddled in the small kitchen and the family were whispering to one another. There was a ritual knock on the door. White policemen entered. Later, Uncle Ahmed's body was placed outside the flat in Roodepoort and people filed past. My granny, the dead hero's mother, was standing at the flat balcony. These glimpses are indelibly vivid in my mind.
During the years that followed I would go to the cemetery and visit Uncle Ahmed's grave with my grandfather. I would return to the flat and report back to my granny. She would inquire if I had prayed for my uncle.
These in full are the combined, precious and only personal memories with which began the journey recorded in this book, to know and reclaim my Uncle Ahmed in the fullness and roundness of his personality, going beyond the grim fixture in my mind of his martyrdom (a word I use literally: he was a martyr) and the immensity of my grief. In 1996 I began to collect documents about Ahmed's life and death as an act of remembrance and also to ensure that I could be of assistance, if necessary, as our democratic country began the process of re-visiting its past. There was, as yet, no idea of a book.
My uncle, Ahmed Timol, was a Muslim of the most profoundly humane kind. His particular brand of fundamentalism, however, was never theological and always humanist. He was no kind of zealot except in the causes of anti-racism and anti-apartheid and such values were hardly zealotry, merely common sense and elementary decency. Underneath his political ideology and religious belief Ahmed merely sought a South Africa made safe for school teachers such as himself was; a South Africa that could live up to every child's basic idea of fairness - racial fairness and economic fairness. His ambitions were as simple and as humane as that. In 1999, in Azaadville, Nelson Mandela fittingly dedicated a school to his memory and renamed it after him.
He was fundamentalist in the cause of common sense; he mingled the pious and the practical. He never left the house in the morning without reading Yaseen (a verse from the Quran), yet he never wore a "topee"(hat) for fear of upsetting his hairstyle; he wore a handkerchief instead. Ahmed always told Aysha (my mother)to keep her heart clean. He used precisely those simple, commonplace words for virtue. "Allah does not like it when the heart is dirty," he would say.
Ahmed was exceptionally well dressed on a Friday, the holy day in the Muslim calendar. In summer, he would bathe twice a day, Aysha recalls. "He was always very neat and tidy. He insisted that new shirts had to be washed before being worn, since there must not be creases on the shirt. The label on the back of the shirt had to be removed as it left a "mark" on his body. Ahmed always brought his friends home for lunch on Fridays after returning for prayers. Whenever Ahmed entered the flat he first went to the bathroom to comb his hair - never a strand out of place, that was his harmless ambition. But after the torturers had done with him, one of his eyes had rolled loose from its socket and his bush of black hair was pulled out and lay strewn on the cell floor.
Ahmed argued frequently and fervently that apartheid was a heresy against Islam. He refused to choose between Communism and Islam, thus showing that the idea of the "Godless Communist" was a figment of apartheid's own demonology. As the life of an anti-apartheid militant and Muslim, Ahmed Timol's story is of central importance now, in ways he could not have foreseen. His life underlines the profound humanism of political Islam in a divisive time when violent Christian Fundamentalism is trespassing upon Iraq (George W Bush has explicitly called his war against terrorism a "Crusade") and when vicious so-called Islamic fundamentalists are dragging the name of a great religion through the mud. Ahmed Timol's jihad was against racism and social and economic inequality.
Timol: A Quest for Justice
By Imtiaz Cajee
STE Publishers
In a book more anticipated for the responses it may elicit than for its own intellectual worth, labour-saving devices replace serious research, writes Ronald Suresh Roberts.
Shortly after Henry Morton Stanley famously found and rescued the marooned missionary David Livingstone, Livingstone's servant Ulimengo irritated the rescuer, Stanley, by failing to clean a coffee pot properly. Why was it, Ulimengo asked, that if the "big master", Livingstone himself, had no complaints, the "little master", Stanley, was complaining?
Livingstone entered the room just in time to save Ulimengo from the beating that Stanley was about to administer with a club. Livingstone, taking command, publicly rebuked Ulimengo, who repented thoroughly. After apologising, Ulimengo asked for permission to kiss Stanley's feet.
"Livingstone, doubtless not feeling that Stanley had acted entirely correctly, would not permit this," writes Stanley's biographer, Frank Lynn. "Having dismissed Ulimengo, [Livingstone] took Stanley aside and calmly got him to see the error of his ways. 'Come now, you must not mind him. He's only a half-savage and does not know any better...'" Thus the native is not only bad, but cannot appreciate the fine points of his own badness and cannot even apologise without extravagantly over-doing it. At all stages, the missionary is required for the calm administration of truth.
It is fascinating to place the public discourse around William Mervyn Gumede's book within this rich moment in the long history of colonial imagery. Rather than presenting a book for intellectual assessment and discussion, Gumede's champions seem to believe that they are presenting the native government with a test of moral sensibility. Thus, before the book was even released the chorus came: how will the natives react; what moral sensibility will be revealed in their reaction.
The quality of research and fluency of writing and all the usual standards of intellectual measurement took a strange back seat to this test of moral fitness or "maturity" of the natives. "It will be instructive to see how Mr Mbeki and his party react to William Gumede's forthright book," wrote The Economist magazine. The publication of Gumede's book "will serve as a test of the maturity of our new democracy" wrote the Books Editor of the Sunday Independent. Max Du Preez had much the same to say.
Gumede is one of four "editorial directors" of the Helen Suzman Foundation and is the only black person to occupy that esteemed status. Notwithstanding the gender of its patron, no women serve as editorial directors of the Helen Suzman Foundation, which may explain the quaint masculinity of Gumede's idiom: "in any man's book" Mbeki ran a brilliant 2004 campaign; "Desmond Tutu is "no man's fool" while Cosatu and the SACP are like "hopeless men playing the Lotto".
Oddly in a book that says it wants to lower the inhibition levels in public debate, Gumede himself as well as his bodyguards in the liberal and media elites have laboured mightily to ensure a celebratory and uncritical reception for this critical book. The Economist went so far as to play the race card, as though the fact that Gumede is black could somehow increase the value of his intellectual contribution: "Older, white critics may be dismissed (however unfairly) as relics of the apartheid past. Mr Gumede - a bright, young and black academic - cannot be brushed aside so easily."
If Gumede is to be dismissed it is not because of his race but because of the intellectual unseriousness of his work. It is not only, as others have pointed out, that he mischaracterises Mbeki's ANC as an uncritical proponent of the Blairite "Third Way" and that he vastly understates that same ANC's critique of globalisation.
What makes him easily dismissed is the laziness with which he pursues even his own case. At page 125 he writes "the modernisers increasingly talk 'left' to the ANC membership, but act 'right' as government". This is doubly lazy, first because Gumede offers no original thought but merely parrots the poorly argued thesis of Patrick Bond's book, 'Talk Left, Walk Right'. It is further lazy because Gumede gives no evidence that he has read Bond's book. His footnote cites "Interview with Patrick Bond, 7 March, 2002". That illustrates his method. He favours the quick chat over the labours of reading.
Gumede's book illustrates Mbeki's complaint that too many self-styled commentators simply do not read. It is easier to offer windy pontification: "Great democratic leaders are visionaries. They have an instinct for their nation's future, a course to steer, a port to seek." That is very eloquent, but whenever Gumede must address the intellectual commitments actually espoused by Mbeki throughout his life, he merely treats them as "fashionable" (Communist Party membership) or as slogans "used" for ulterior motives (Africanism) or as an expression of Mbeki's "arbitrary nature". All this is a labour-saving device because serious engagement with and critique of Mbeki's ideas would have required a little bit of reading, not a mere procession of adjectives underpinned by series of chats (many of those anonymous) upon which he confers the fancy title of "interviews".
It is with similar laziness that Gumede passes on his own worthless speculations as to the inner thoughts of Mbeki at various points in his narrative: "Mbeki was bitter"; "for Mbeki the decision was painful"; Mandela's "occasional admonishments drove Mbeki to distraction". Such matters are fundamentally unknowable, but Gumede is determined to kiss the feet of his liberal and elite readerships. There are already signs that, as with Ulimengo, they have adjudged him to have overdone it. The Economist concedes that he may seem to have gone too far, while the Financial Times has rejected his pessimism.
Ronald Suresh Roberts is writing a book about Thabo Mbeki and his intellectual tradition.
Thabo Mbeki and the struggle for the soul of the ANC
By William Mervyn Gumede
Zebra Press
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