tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/marikana-18237/articles
Marikana – The Conversation
2023-07-02T09:17:26Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207769
2023-07-02T09:17:26Z
2023-07-02T09:17:26Z
Zondo at Your Fingertips: new book offers an accessible and condensed version of South Africa’s ambitious corruption inquiry
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534104/original/file-20230626-25-j2fluj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Ramaphosa, right, receives the final report of the State Capture Commission from Judge Zondo in 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Anti-corruption activist <a href="https://shadowworldinvestigations.org/team_member/paul-holden/">Paul Holden</a> has done South Africa a great favour by summarising the work of the judicial commission that probed massive corruption under former president Jacob Zuma. No one except academics will read the commission’s 4,750 page report, but many will read Holden’s book, <a href="https://jacana.co.za/product/zondo-at-your-fingertips/">Zondo at your Fingertips</a>.</p>
<p>Holden is a former director of investigations at <a href="https://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/">Corruption Watch</a>, the South African corruption watchdog. He has worked with the investigative organisations <a href="https://shadowworldinvestigations.org/">Shadow World</a> and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org.za/">Open Secrets</a> for many years. He seeks to expose how corrupt individuals, aided by auditors and banks, not only looted the state but came to control it and pervert it into a kleptocracy.</p>
<p>The author, who has also lived in the UK, tells us that the Zondo commission was globally unique:</p>
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<p>There are only a handful of examples of any state or quasi-judicial inquiry being given the task and resources to delve so deeply into the corruption of the ruling party … something like the scale, importance and independence of the Zondo Commission could never happen in the United Kingdom. </p>
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<p>Holden has written a good and solid book, selecting and explaining the significant Zondo findings. It is useful for South Africans in getting a grasp of the commission’s report. Overall, this book is recommended for your bookshelf and every library.</p>
<p>If South Africans are lucky, the multi-volume report will be read through by prosecutors, who have the power to formulate charges and get the courts to issue warrants of arrest.</p>
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<img alt="Book cover with the words: Zondo at your fingertips" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532714/original/file-20230619-23-7kewfk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532714/original/file-20230619-23-7kewfk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532714/original/file-20230619-23-7kewfk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532714/original/file-20230619-23-7kewfk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532714/original/file-20230619-23-7kewfk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532714/original/file-20230619-23-7kewfk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532714/original/file-20230619-23-7kewfk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>But the historical odds are stacked against this. The country has had over a dozen big commissions of inquiry. Not many people landed up in jail as a consequence. </p>
<h2>How the story is told</h2>
<p>Holden starts by telling us that the commission, headed by then deputy chief justice <a href="https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/13-current-judges/72-deputy-chief-justice-ray-zondo">Raymond Zondo</a>, heard 1,731,106 pages of documentary evidence, which it summarised in a transcript of 75,099 pages. The commission’s 19-volume report totals 4,750 pages. It heard 300 witnesses over 400 days of hearings, spread over four and a half years between 2018 and 2021. </p>
<p>Only the report of the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a>, which probed human rights abuses by both the apartheid regime and the liberation movement during the struggle for freedom in South Africa, has been comparable in <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/">length and scope</a>. It sat from 1996 and submitted its <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Truth-and-Reconciliation-Commission-South-Africa">final report in October 2003</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-democracy-or-a-kleptocracy-how-south-africa-stacks-up-111101">A democracy or a kleptocracy? How South Africa stacks up</a>
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<p>The book is well structured in 10 parts. These include a chapter on the capture of state institutions such as the South African Revenue Service, the capture of state-owned enterprises such as South African Airways, the failures of the president, the African National Congress, and parliament, and a chapter on what money went where.</p>
<h2>Commissions of inquiry</h2>
<p>The most ambitious commission of inquiry set up in South Africa was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Set up in 1996 after the end of apartheid, it offered amnesty in exchange for information about atrocities.</p>
<p>No one who refused to apply for amnesty, or whose amnesty application was refused by the commission, was in fact prosecuted. A quarter of a century lapsed before the families of some detainees who’d been tortured to death found pro bono lawyers who <a href="https://www.newframe.com/long-read-the-unfinished-business-of-the-trc/">instituted the reopening of inquests and other litigation</a> – with zero support from the government.</p>
<p>The great majority of the recommendations of commissions of inquiry, such as the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/comm-mrk/docs/20150710-gg38978_gen699_3_MarikanaReport.pdf">Farlam Commission</a> into the massacre of striking miners and other killings at Marikana, North West province in 2012, remain unimplemented and ignored by the government. Sceptics argue that commissions of inquiry merely provide governments with a pretext to <a href="https://www.enca.com/opinion/parking-hot-potato-are-commissions-inquiry-ineffective">stall any remedial actions for years</a>, until the politics of the front page has moved onto other issues.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-has-a-new-chief-justice-an-introduction-to-raymond-zondo-179315">South Africa has a new Chief Justice: an introduction to Raymond Zondo</a>
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<p>Holden notes that Judge Zondo ordered the government to lay charges with the police against Dudu Myeni, former chair of South African Airways, for revealing the identity of a witness. But no arrest or prosecution has yet occurred. Likewise, the commission’s recommendations to the <a href="https://lpc.org.za/">Legal Practice Council</a>, to explore whether certain lawyers who enabled corruption should be struck off the roll, and to the auditors’ regulatory entity, to do the same with some auditors, have not yet resulted in action.</p>
<p>However, the author concludes, on the positive side, the <a href="https://www.npa.gov.za/asset-forfeiture-unit#:%7E:text=Empowered%20by%20the%20Prevention%20of,the%20private%20and%20public%20sector.">Asset Forfeiture Unit</a>, which is empowered to seize assets which are the proceeds of crime, successfully froze the Optimum coal mine to prevent it being sold on to cronies of the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48980964">Guptas</a>, the Indian family accused of orchestrating mass corruption in South Africa. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.siu.org.za/">Special Investigating Unit</a> took up numerous cases against multinational companies to recoup state funds and got billions of rand refunded. The <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/news/investigative-directorate-move-npa-says-president">Investigative Directorate</a> of the <a href="https://www.npa.gov.za/">National Prosecuting Authority</a> made numerous arrests; prosecutions are pending.</p>
<h2>Recommendations</h2>
<p>Holden notes that the Zondo Commission made a number of recommendations. Key among these are to professionalise all appointments to the boards of state-owned enterprises, and prevent cabinet ministers from appointing political cronies and other unqualified or compromised persons. The same applies to <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-has-a-plan-to-make-its-public-service-professional-its-time-to-act-on-it-187706">professionalising civil service</a>, provincial, and municipal procurement officials.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whistleblowers-are-key-to-fighting-corruption-in-south-africa-it-shouldnt-be-at-their-peril-168134">Whistleblowers are key to fighting corruption in South Africa. It shouldn't be at their peril</a>
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<p>Holden also summarises the commission’s enhanced proposed protection for whistle blowers, and to grant them compensation for losses they suffered. He notes that Zondo also flagged the deployment of party loyalists to key state positions as a violation of the constitution’s section 197 (3).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207769/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is a member of the ANC, but writes this review in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>
The Zondo Commission was globally unique in scope and scale. The book selects and explains its key findings and recommendations.
Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western Cape
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/189802
2022-09-07T08:24:16Z
2022-09-07T08:24:16Z
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s credibility has been dented, putting his reform agenda in jeopardy
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482732/original/file-20220905-12-6ckntm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Cyril Ramaphosa came to power promising to revitalise the economy and end corruption.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s business interests are threatening to derail his presidency and stall his economic and political reform agenda.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa’s reform agenda has two elements. The first is an <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-south-africa%E2%80%99s-economic-reconstruction-and-recovery-plan-15-oct">economic reconstruction and recovery plan</a>. This includes his latest <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-address-nation-energy-crisis-25-jul-2022-0000">energy plan</a> and <a href="https://african.business/2021/06/trade-investment/cheers-and-fears-as-ramaphosa-accelerates-reform/">restructuring</a> of Eskom, the power utility, as well as infrastructure development.</p>
<p>The second is to reunite the governing African National Congress (ANC) after his predecessor Jacob Zuma <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-01-09-ancs-106th-ramaphosas-push-for-unity-continues/">factionalised</a> the party. </p>
<p>Both the economic and political reforms depend on his credibility and his success in overcoming resistance to his agenda. But a number of controversies relating to his business interests have raised questions about his credibility. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2022-06-08-phala-phala-cyril-ramaphosa/">Phala Phala controversy</a> – regarding the theft of foreign currency from his Phala Phala farm in 2020 – is the latest complication caused by his relationship with the private sector. Opposition parties have latched on to it, calling for his impeachment by parliament.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosa-scandal-looks-set-to-intensify-the-ancs-slide-ushering-in-a-new-era-of-politics-185719">Ramaphosa scandal looks set to intensify the ANC's slide, ushering in a new era of politics</a>
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<p>It could be argued that Phala Phala has the potential to <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosa-scandal-looks-set-to-intensify-the-ancs-slide-ushering-in-a-new-era-of-politics-185719">seriously harm his public credibility</a> and the international support for his economic reforms. It could also embolden his political opponents within the party, making it difficult to reform and unite it. A closer look at these dynamics is required.</p>
<h2>A reform approach</h2>
<p>Reform is a gradual, incremental programme of change or restructuring. Its intention is to change the status quo by restructuring ineffective state institutions, replacing officials, and reconstructing economic policies and practices. It should not destabilise the situation. </p>
<p>The reformer must enjoy credibility and sufficient popularity, and must have a strategic vision and unwavering commitment to the reform. They must be strong enough to overcome resistance. Successful reformers are, accordingly, regularly accused of being autocratic. </p>
<p>Reform depends on astute strategies, and that is why it is a <a href="https://www.socialwatch.org/node/841">rare phenomenon</a>. </p>
<p>The recent death of <a href="https://theconversation.com/mikhail-gorbachev-southern-africans-have-a-special-reason-to-thank-him-189741">Mikhail Gorbachev</a>, the last leader of the Soviet Union, brings to mind the impediments he <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/gorbachevs-tragedy-flawed-reformer-an-impossible-mission-2022-08-30/">had to deal with</a> as a reformer and why reform is such a delicate political approach. </p>
<p>The contexts of the Soviet Union and South Africa are very different, but the types of problems a reformer encounters are often similar. Resistance from <a href="https://theconversation.com/mikhail-gorbachev-the-contradictory-legacy-of-soviet-leader-who-attempted-revolution-from-above-189681">inside a party or government</a> is the most pronounced one. For Ramaphosa, success depends on the support of a strong core in the ANC.</p>
<p>Herein lies a big problem: the success of his reform project requires that he also reform the ANC – which is factionalised and <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/opinions/voices/cyril-ramaphosa-the-anc-is-accused-number-one-for-corruption-20200823">highly corrupt</a> – to make it attractive to voters. </p>
<p>But reforming the party itself involves irreconcilable issues: building party unity versus promoting the values of integrity, ethical conduct, anti-corruption and a service orientation. Greater focus on values will mean that some people, among them leaders, must leave the ANC. Many are resisting and <a href="https://africacenter.org/spotlight/the-challenging-path-to-reform-in-south-africa/">fighting back</a>. </p>
<p>Part of Ramaphosa’s general reform agenda is a reconstruction and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africas-ramaphosa-proposes-new-compact-grow-jobs-economy-2022-02-10/">renewal of the economy</a>, which is <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-fiscal-squeeze-warning-signs-ignored-for-too-long-177188">ailing</a>. His direction is not supported by the Left and the more dogmatic party members. </p>
<p>His economic reforms includes a focus on infrastructure development and foreign direct investment, which needs international and private sector support. Hence his drive for a <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2022/07/25/cyril-ramaphosa-social-compact-for-growth-and-jobs-must-make-a-lasting-difference">social compact</a> – public-private partnership – and sectoral master plans. These initially gained some traction, but not sufficient progress has been made to solicit enough public confidence in this approach.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-is-trapped-again-what-kind-of-leaders-can-set-the-country-free-187704">South Africa is trapped again: what kind of leaders can set the country free</a>
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<p>The COVID pandemic and global economic problems also put the brakes on Ramaphosa’s plans. To maintain support in his party, he has to present his reforms as a continuation of the ANC’s economic philosophy while their content is significantly different. His outreach to the private sector is just as important. The sector is waiting for overt policy changes before the social compact can become reality.</p>
<p>Reform depends on success stories and tangible results. Successes create momentum for more successes and it builds more confidence in the reform approach itself. Ramaphosa struggles to communicate effectively his successes to the public, probably fearing counter-moves by his opponents. They are announced in an ad hoc manner, and therefore lack impact.</p>
<h2>Risks for Ramaphosa</h2>
<p>Prior to the Phala Phala saga, another business related complication arose when John Steenhuizen, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance, <a href="https://www.vocfm.co.za/ramaphosa-refuses-to-disclose-value-of-sons-bosasa-contract/">asked Ramaphosa in parliament a question</a> about his son’s financial relationship with the private company Bosasa. The Zondo commission of inquiry investigating state capture has <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202203/judicial-commission-inquiry-state-capture-reportpart-3-vii.pdf">linked Bosasa</a> to corrupt deals with some ANC leaders. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa’s answer was misinformed and incorrect. He later corrected it in a letter to the speaker of parliament. But the public protector took it further and investigated the funding of his campaign to become ANC president. (Her report was ultimately <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/press-releases/parliament-statement-constitutional-court-leave-appeal-application-review-high-court-findings-public-protectors-bosasa-report">set aside</a> by the courts.)</p>
<p>The first of the controversies to dog Ramaphosa regarding his private sector role was related to the massacre of striking mineworkers at Marikana <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">in 2012</a> and his role as a <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/cyril-ramaphosa-is-responsible-for-marikana-3fe5271b-160c-45d1-8f8c-ed7575f9ddda">director</a> of the mining company, Lonmin. His detractors used it to question his suitability as a government leader. It continues to <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/he-never-sets-foot-in-marikana-widows-want-ramaphosa-to-apologise-commemoration-of-massacre-20220811">haunt him today</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-marikana-10-years-on-survey-shows-knowledge-of-massacre-is-low-188777">South Africa's Marikana 10 years on: survey shows knowledge of massacre is low</a>
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<p>Phala Phala came at the worst possible time for Ramaphosa’s reform initiative. Because of it, he is facing an impeachment process in terms of the <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/news/atm-welcomes-impeachment-process-against-ramaphosa-98e69a75-5a82-4f79-9063-9b98cdf5fd1f">constitution’s section 89</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-08-11-what-lies-beneath-excavating-phala-phala-investigations-and-their-runup-from-mud-and-murk/">public protector and the police’s priority crimes unit, the Hawks</a>, are also investigating it.</p>
<p>The impeachment process will most probably fail in the National Assembly because of the ANC’s majority. But the issue will not disappear before the 2024 general elections. Opposition parties will ensure that it becomes a <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/118174/anc-admits-zumas-nkandla-has-hurt-its-image/">perennial thorn in the flesh for Ramaphosa</a>.</p>
<p>As any reform strategy depends on the reformer’s credibility and integrity, Phala Phala has seriously dented Ramaphosa’s public credibility, and he may face even more risks ahead of the ANC’s elective national conference in December.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189802/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dirk Kotze does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Ramaphosa’s presidency has been dogged by several controversies related to his business interests.
Dirk Kotze, Professor in Political Science, University of South Africa
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188777
2022-08-16T14:27:02Z
2022-08-16T14:27:02Z
South Africa’s Marikana 10 years on: survey shows knowledge of massacre is low
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479382/original/file-20220816-5614-dzeno6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman at a protest in support of victims of the Marikana massacre outside the South African parliament.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>To explore the patterns of collective memory in South Africa after nearly three decades of democracy, we set out to establish how much of the country’s recent history people in the country still remember. </p>
<p>Close to 3,000 people over the age of 15 responded to the annual round of the <a href="https://hsrc.ac.za/news/latest-news/striking-pain-memory-trauma-and-restitution-a-decade-after-the-marikana-massacre/">South African Social Attitudes Survey (2021)</a> by the <a href="https://hsrc.ac.za/">Human Sciences Research Council</a>. The nationally representative data suggests that there is low public awareness in the country about key historical events. The <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana massacre</a> – the killing of 34 striking miners by police on 16 August 2012 – is one of them.</p>
<p>Just over 40% of the survey respondents said they had heard of the massacre but knew very little about it, while 17% said that they were unaware of it. Only 40% reported knowing enough about Marikana to be able to explain it to a friend. </p>
<p>The findings seem to suggest that public awareness of the tragedy is relatively low among the South African public. This raises uncomfortable questions about collective memory in the country, implying a weak acknowledgement and appreciation of important turning points in its modern national history. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479399/original/file-20220816-9774-hiye6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479399/original/file-20220816-9774-hiye6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479399/original/file-20220816-9774-hiye6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479399/original/file-20220816-9774-hiye6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479399/original/file-20220816-9774-hiye6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479399/original/file-20220816-9774-hiye6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479399/original/file-20220816-9774-hiye6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">South African Social Attitudes Survey, 2021.</span></span>
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<p>To put the finding in perspective, we compared the responses to the Marikana massacre with other big historical events in the country. These included the <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/south-africa-student-protests-explained/">#FeesMustFall Movement</a> (2015/16), the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">1976 Soweto Uprising</a>, and the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">Sharpeville massacre</a> (1960). </p>
<p>The results show that awareness of the Marikana massacre was very similar to knowledge about the #FeesMustFall Movement, with 16% having heard of it, 41% displaying limited knowledge, and 40% no awareness (Fig 2). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479400/original/file-20220816-26-6grk0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479400/original/file-20220816-26-6grk0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479400/original/file-20220816-26-6grk0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479400/original/file-20220816-26-6grk0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479400/original/file-20220816-26-6grk0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479400/original/file-20220816-26-6grk0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479400/original/file-20220816-26-6grk0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">South African Social Attitudes Survey, 2021</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Familiarity with the 1976 Soweto youth uprising against apartheid education was marginally lower. Awareness of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, in which 69 peaceful protesters against restrictions on the movement of black people were shot dead, was even lower. The share of respondents who were confident they would be able to describe the historical events to someone else ranged between 26% and 40%. </p>
<p>These findings suggest that awareness is likely to be event-specific. And that it’s influenced by how recently events have happened. But overall the level of knowledge about historical events remains generally quite shallow.</p>
<p>As the philosopher George Santayana once <a href="https://bigthink.com/culture-religion/those-who-do-not-learn-history-doomed-to-repeat-it-really/#:%7E:text='Those%20who%20do%20not%20learn,are%20condemned%20to%20repeat%20it.%E2%80%9D">said</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Skewed memory</h2>
<p>Women were slightly less knowledgeable about the Marikana massacre than men. A high percentage of young people – especially 16 to 19-year olds – as well as those over the age of 65 knew very little. The group that knew the most were aged between 35 and 49. </p>
<p>Less educated and rural adults displayed significantly lower awareness of the Sharpeville massacre. The influence of education is especially pronounced in shaping awareness. Access to information also has a bearing. People with a television at home or internet access displayed higher knowledge levels than those without. </p>
<p>Looking across all these attributes, more than a fifth of youth (16-24 years) and students, those with less than a high school level education, rural residents, and those living in North West, Northern Cape, Free State and Eastern Cape provinces reported not having heard of the Marikana massacre.</p>
<p>The most surprising finding was the relatively low awareness among those in North West province, where the massacre happened. This raises the question of whether this historic event is not adequately represented in the media platforms accessible to this community.</p>
<h2>A desire to remember?</h2>
<p>Apart from social and demographic characteristics, the survey also found that individual beliefs about the past and its relevance for the present had a strong influence on awareness of the Marikana massacre (Figure 3). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479401/original/file-20220816-8518-5u5jp5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479401/original/file-20220816-8518-5u5jp5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479401/original/file-20220816-8518-5u5jp5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479401/original/file-20220816-8518-5u5jp5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479401/original/file-20220816-8518-5u5jp5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479401/original/file-20220816-8518-5u5jp5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479401/original/file-20220816-8518-5u5jp5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Firstly, the extent to which people expressed interest in “the history and cultures of South Africa” was found to be a significant factor. Those who were very interested in local history and culture were nearly four times more likely to have high awareness of the massacre than those not at all interested (55% compared to 14%). </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/marikana-massacre-south-africa-needs-to-build-a-society-thats-decent-and-doesnt-humiliate-people-188534">Marikana massacre: South Africa needs to build a society that's decent and doesn't humiliate people</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A similar pattern was found based on the degree to which South Africans recognised the importance of the past for the present. Those who believed that historical events were very important were two-and-a-half times more likely to confidently explain the events of Marikana, relative to those who did not (55% versus 22%). </p>
<p>Finally, adults were less knowledgeable of the Marikana massacre (37% could explain the event) if they held the view that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>we should forget the past, move on and stop talking about apartheid.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Those challenging this viewpoint displayed a distinctly higher level of awareness (52%). </p>
<p>Given the importance of such beliefs, it is encouraging that many South Africans recognise the importance of the past for the present. Overall, 71% were interested in South African history and culture (38% very, 33% somewhat), while 78% said that historical events such as the Marikana massacre were very or somewhat important today (47% very, 32% somewhat). </p>
<p>More ambiguously, 45% agreed that South Africans should forget the past and move on, while 31% disagreed and 24% were neutral or uncertain. </p>
<h2>Commemoration, accountability and justice</h2>
<p>The tenth anniversary of the Marikana massacre raises many lingering and uncomfortable questions. These include issues of accountability and culpability, the nature of corporate power and state violence in democratic South Africa, and ultimately of social justice, restitution and healing.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/disconnect-between-business-and-state-contributed-to-marikana-massacre-121507">Disconnect between business and state contributed to Marikana massacre</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A failure to remember and address the issue of reparations will, as William Gumede, Associate Professor at the Wits School of Governance, has argued, pose the societal risk of <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2020-08-16-how-workplace-democracy-can-undo-many-of-apartheids-ills/">“many more Marikanas”</a>.</p>
<p>As former public protector Thuli Madonsela stated in a 2020 Marikana <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-08-14-remembering-and-renewal-thoughts-on-building-a-positive-future-for-the-marikana-region/">memorial lecture</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Marikana happened because we forgot to remember. We forgot to remember our ugly, unjust past and the legacy it left us … We forgot to heal and we focused on renewal. A renewal without a foundation can’t work.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Samela Mtyingizane, a doctoral researcher at the Human Sciences Research Council, contributed to the research and writing of this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188777/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Roberts receives funding from various government departments and non-government organisations for the fielding of commissioned content in the annual South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) series. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jare Struwig receives funding from various government and non-governmental organisations as part of a body of work connected to the South African Social Attitude Survey. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Gordon works for the Human Sciences Research Council as a senior research specialist. He is a member of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) research team. In addition, he is affiliated with the University of Johannesburg. </span></em></p>
Individual beliefs about the past and its relevance to the present strongly influenced awareness of the Marikana tragedy.
Benjamin Roberts, Acting Strategic Lead: Developmental, Capable and Ethical State (DCES) research division, and Coordinator of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), Human Sciences Research Council
Jare Struwig, Chief Research Manager, Human Sciences Research Council
Steven Gordon, Senior Research Specialist., Human Sciences Research Council
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/166976
2021-09-07T14:57:21Z
2021-09-07T14:57:21Z
Race and capitalism: no easy answers, but posturing will get South Africa nowhere
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419301/original/file-20210903-21-18havdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Looters make off with supplies during the unrest that hit parts of two provinces in South Africa in July. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Stringer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is likely that historians will conclude that there was no one reason why the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/investigations/anatomy-of-a-violent-july-data-mapping-shows-unrest-was-part-of-tactical-plan-to-shut-down-sa-20210806">recent riots and looting</a> of supermarkets, shops and warehouses in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, South Africa’s <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0441/GDP%202020%20Q4%20(Media%20presentation).pdf#page=47">two most economically important provinces</a>, caught up so many generally law-abiding citizens in their slipstream. There were seemingly <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-lies-behind-social-unrest-in-south-africa-and-what-might-be-done-about-it-166130">numerous dynamics at play</a>, from <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29614">the sheer poverty</a> of numerous black citizens through to the <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/six-suspected-instigators-violent-unrest-arrested">manipulations of social media</a> by supporters of former President Jacob Zuma, angered by his arrest.</p>
<p>However, one explanation which has been touted in various quarters has been that the upheaval was the outcome of <a href="https://mg.co.za/opinion/2021-08-28-racial-capitalism-destroys-ubuntu/">‘the racial capitalism’</a> to which South Africa has been subjected <a href="https://mg.co.za/opinion/2021-08-28-racial-capitalism-destroys-ubuntu/">over the centuries</a>. Such an explanation hearkens back to the racialised policies of the past, and how they twinned the <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/prisoners-of-the-past/">political ideologies of segregation and apartheid</a> promoted by South Africa’s white governments before democratic transition in 1994.</p>
<p>This view holds that the inequalities of the present, which continue to have a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-corruption-in-south-africa-isnt-simply-about-zuma-and-the-guptas-113056">strong racial dimension</a>, along with the brutal treatment handed out to poor black people – for instance, by the police at <a href="https://theconversation.com/marikana-tragedy-must-be-understood-against-the-backdrop-of-structural-violence-in-south-africa-43868">Marikana in 2012</a>, in the North West Province, when police shot dead 35 protesting miners – are a product of the history of racial capitalism in South Africa.</p>
<p>It is difficult to disagree with the major thrust of much of the analysis which is put forward in this vein. It is widely accepted that the democratic transition in 1994 was the result of an ‘elite pact’ which transformed the country’s politics but did little to undermine the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africa-should-undo-mandelas-economic-deals-52767">foundations of white economic power</a>. </p>
<p>It is continuity as much as change which characterises the <a href="https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-south-africa/">post-apartheid political economy</a>. Nonetheless, South Africans need to take care in ascribing all the present crises to ‘racial capitalism’. Blaming racial capitalism for all the country’s ills can easily become a way of deflecting responsibility away from the country’s present politicians – and from South Africans themselves.</p>
<h2>The past as present</h2>
<p>Colonial conquest happened in tandem with the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40404472">development of capitalism</a>. Both projects requiring non-white people, notably Africans, to become instruments for the purposes of others. Africans were stripped of their land and their possessions and became the tools of their oppressors. This process was not stopped by the arrival of democracy.</p>
<p>When miners of Lonmin in Marikana, in the platinum-rich North West Province demanded a <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/2014-south-african-platinum-strike-longest-wage-strike-south-africa">reasonable increase in their wages</a>, the state colluded with foreign capital to crush their dissent. <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/southafrica/overview">Inequality</a> nurtures this objectification of humans, leading to greater exploitation of the poor, who are overwhelmingly black.</p>
<p>The problem with the solution that is often provided – that the entire system of ‘racial capitalism’ should be overthrown – is that it is so remarkably bland. So, it is worth attempting to deconstruct it.</p>
<h2>So, what is to be done?</h2>
<p>Is the implication that racism and capitalism are inseparable? If that is so, is the further implication that capitalism itself should be overthrown? Which is perhaps a very nice idea, but first, is this practical and likely? Who is to do the overthrowing? At what human and other cost (as its unlikely that capital and the state would give up without a fight)? And what would be put in capitalism’s place? Is this to be a new socialist order, and if so, will South Africa be following historical examples (which, on the whole, have not been very successful) or will it be charting its own way forward?</p>
<p>Or is the implication that capitalism can be deracialised? This is very much what, in theory, the African National Congress (ANC), which has governed the country since 1994, has set out to do through <a href="http://www.labour.gov.za/DocumentCenter/Acts/Employment%20Equity/Act%20-%20Employment%20Equity%201998.pdf">equity employment</a> and <a href="https://www.gov.za/faq/finance-business/where-do-i-find-information-broad-based-black-economic-empowerment-bee">black economic empowerment</a> legislation. Although the corporate profile, in terms of ownership and management personnel has registered not insignificant change, most would agree that the achievements of ANC policies have been <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/employment-and-labur-20th-commission-employment-equity-cee-annual-report-2019%E2%80%9320-19-aug">remarkably modest</a>.</p>
<p>However, it remains a matter of considerable debate whether this is because of corporate resistance, social factors (such as inadequate supplies of suitably trained black personnel) and or the incompetence of the state. </p>
<p>Leaving aside the entire question of whether a de-racialised capitalism would be less exploitative than a racialised one, and whether it would be less patriarchal, the more fundamental issue is how can South Africa achieve it if current strategies – which most would agree are well intentioned – are proving inadequate in realising their goals.</p>
<p>Should equity employment and black economic empowerment be ratcheted up, when the prevailing cry from the business establishment is that more regulation serves as <a href="https://www.biznews.com/sa-investing/2021/07/27/bee-sa-poverty">major barrier</a> to the inflow of much needed foreign investment? Will this increase or deter a rise in much needed employment? Or is it that current strategies should be re-engineered?</p>
<p>Often left out of such analysis is the question of what sort of state will be required to bring about the transformation to the more humane society South Africans are looking for. Present <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-1994-miracle-whats-left-159495">disillusion</a> with the post-1994 order highlights the limits of South Africa’s democracy, and the ways in which ANC dominance has eroded it.</p>
<p>Much attention lately has been focused on the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">ANC’s strategy of deployment</a>, how this has led to the substitution of political loyalty to the party for the capacity to do the job, how deployment has <a href="https://www.da.org.za/2021/05/its-da-versus-anc-over-cadre-deployment">led to corruption</a>, how it has <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/opinion/home-and-abroad/2021-08-04-justice-malala-how-the-ancs-cadre-deployment-ruined-sa/">destroyed state-owned corporations </a>, how it has undermined the efficiency of government, and how it has <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329309747_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_and_its_Effects_on_Performance_Management_in_South_African_Local_Government_A_Critical_Review">collapsed local government</a>.</p>
<p>The answer that is usually given is that it is necessary to <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/opinion/home-and-abroad/2021-08-04-justice-malala-how-the-ancs-cadre-deployment-ruined-sa/">undo the merger of party and state</a> and entrench the independence of the state to allow for expertise to flourish, and to ensure the <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/opinion/2020/2020-01/build-a-capable-state-dont-just-talk-about-it.html">rise of meritocracy</a>. But then we are left with the conundrum whether the ANC is capable of bringing such a transformation about, or whether the ANC itself needs to be removed from power. </p>
<p>That, in turn, demands not only that it must lose an election, but that it will gracefully concede its loss if it did so. Perhaps both dimensions of that last sentence are unlikely.</p>
<h2>No easy answers</h2>
<p>So where does all this lead South Africa? Quite frankly, I don’t know. But I do know that the answers to South Africa’s numerous problems are far from easy. This does not mean that South Africans cannot work their way to finding the solutions, and unless they are just going to give up, they have to believe that they can. But, it is going to be extremely hard work. South Africans will have to talk to, listen to, and bargain hard with each other to find their way.</p>
<p>But one thing South Africans must draw from such complexity is that any realistic and workable answers will not be arrived at by posturing. Alas, there are no easy answers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall has previously received funding from the National Research Foundation</span></em></p>
The democratic transition in 1994 was the result of an ‘elite pact’ that changed the country’s politics, but did little to undermine the foundations of white economic power.
Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/80441
2018-03-11T09:02:25Z
2018-03-11T09:02:25Z
How corporate social responsibility projects can be derailed
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208668/original/file-20180302-65516-j8xgca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Big companies operating in developing countries often use corporate social responsibility initiatives to position themselves as development agents and friends of the host communities.</p>
<p>But in places like South Africa – and within the mining sector in particular – initiatives aren’t achieving the objectives they were designed to meet. Animosity between corporations and hosting communities persists. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana massacre</a> is a case in point. A labour dispute between platinum mining company, Lonmin, and its workers, spiralled out of control, resulting in the death of 34 miners after police opened fire on a demonstration. The events at Marikana show how animosities continue to exist, and the damage they can cause.</p>
<p>One of the factors that’s emerged in the intervening four years is that there were major gaps in Lonmin’s corporate social responsibility programme. An <a href="https://www.sahrc.org.za/home/21/files/marikana-report-1.pdf">analysis</a> of the Marikana events show that the company <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-09-04-groundup-marikana-lonmins-dodgy-housing-record/#.WplDNGpubIU">failed</a> dismally to meet its housing plans for workers. This left a significant portion of the workforce living in dehumanising conditions.</p>
<p>The Lonmin case illustrates two key areas of failure that are common in approaches taken companies. These are a failure to appreciate the cultural sensitivities of host communities and poor communication.</p>
<p>In our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15228916.2016.1219174">paper</a> we review various approaches taken by companies. The paper uses key dimensions of corporate social responsibility – moral, ethical, economic, cultural and consultative and legal. The aim was to identify which the weakest links in the strategies pursued by big corporates.</p>
<p>The research could contribute to a theoretical framework that can be used to develop negotiated and mutually acceptable outcomes. This could potentially reduce the friction and tension that are often present when corporate social responsibility projects are implemented. </p>
<h2>Communication is key</h2>
<p>Why do companies engage in corporate social responsibility projects? The <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262901183_Corporate_Citizenship_in_South_Africa">main reason</a> is a growing realisation that they have a compelling moral, ethical and legal obligation to protect their operating environment as well as stakeholders. They’re also motivated by strategic and economic imperatives.</p>
<p>Our study confirms two key factors. The first is that communication plays a huge role in corporate social responsibility projects. The second is that many have been derailed by uninformed assumptions about the needs and priorities of host communities. </p>
<p>Adopting a consultative decision making approach is essential. If initiatives are viewed as being community oriented, then it makes sense to involve the intended beneficiaries – both in initiation and implementation.</p>
<p>Our study encountered a case where a company encouraged farmers in the community to form themselves into a cooperative society. The company was collaborating with a university faculty of agriculture to train cooperative farmers. The training focused on the use of modern technology and the cultivation of high yielding crops. The idea was that the company would then purchase the crops at prevailing market prices.</p>
<p>The initiative generated a reasonable amount of employment and sustainable income for the community members. But community leaders reacted with hostility. They dismissed the project because they argued that it was fraught with nepotism and favouritism. They also saw it as an attempt to divide and rule. The project, they said, was devised</p>
<blockquote>
<p>to cause confusion amongst our people so that we do not speak with one voice against the operations of the company.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They charged that distributors were selectively appointed by the company without consultation. They added that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Most of the distributors are relatives or extended family members of a major shareholder of the company, who is a native of our neighbouring village.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The cooperative project became moribund.</p>
<p>The community leaders’ reaction points to poor communication and consultation. A participatory decision making approach would have resolved the community’s allegations and perceptions. </p>
<h2>Cultural sensitivities</h2>
<p>Our study also shows that corporations should consider cultural and traditional values when initiating projects. Not doing so could prove expensive.</p>
<p>Cultural and property rights practices differ from one jurisdiction to the other. In most African societies, land is central to people’s existence and identity. Cultural beliefs and traditional practices are often tied to the land.</p>
<p>People’s homes, and the land around them, are considered to be a heritage from ones ancestors and must therefore be preserved and sanctified through rituals. These cultural beliefs and practices don’t always make business sense to multinationals. They, perhaps even unconsciously, underestimate the significance attached to ancestral lands.</p>
<p>Land is sometimes appropriated by government, while businesses are required to pay compensation and relocate people. From our interviews, it was inferred that a company does not see anything untoward in acquiring graveyards and compensating families to exhume and re-bury their ancestors. </p>
<p>But communities consider this to be taboo and a process that could invoke the wrath of their ancestors. </p>
<p>It’s therefore imperative for corporations – particularly multinationals – to foster cultural understanding with local communities. </p>
<h2>Your heading here</h2>
<p>Overall, we found that companies were willing to embrace corporate social responsibility. This was often expressed in their vision and mission statements and through considerable monetary allocations towards corporate social responsibility initiatives. But many fail due to cultural insensitivity and misplaced communication strategies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80441/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olorunjuwon Samuel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Corporates are willing to embrace corporate social responsibility initiatives. But many fail due to cultural insensitivity and misplaced communication strategies.
Olorunjuwon Samuel, Associate Professor, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/92043
2018-02-19T12:13:17Z
2018-02-19T12:13:17Z
Why Ramaphosa’s moment of hope is built on a fragile foundation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206958/original/file-20180219-75967-1jt4sj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's new president, Cyril Ramaphosa has in his state of the nation speech inspired hope.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Ruvan Boshoff</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Coming after the extended period of uncertainty in South Africa resulting from Jacob Zuma’s <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/zuma-refuses-to-resign-13255893">reluctance</a> to resign, Cyril Ramaphosa’s first state of the nation <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/state-nation-address-president-republic-south-africa%2C-mr-cyril-ramaphosa">speech</a> restored dignity and decorum to parliament, and pressed all the right buttons. </p>
<p>He was gracious to all (even giving thanks to Zuma for facilitating what the African National Congress (ANC) has termed “the transition”), before launching into the delivery of a peroration which proclaimed the breaking of a new dawn. South Africa’s <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/world/africa/2018/01/do-south-africa-and-zimbabwe-s-new-leaders-represent-moment-hope">“moment of hope”</a>, which was to be founded on the legacy of Nelson Mandela, had returned. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa combined extensive tribute to the heroes of the ANC’s liberation struggle with the gospel of social inclusion according to the Holy Writ of the <a href="https://www.ujuh.co.za/remember-the-freedom-charter-what-it-actually-says/">Freedom Charter</a>. This was time to move beyond the recent period of discord, disunity and disillusionment. </p>
<p>The speech was delivered with panache and confidence. It had style, declaring to the nation and the world that he, Cyril Ramaphosa, was in charge. </p>
<p>But along with the style, there was the solid substance. The overall impression was that Ramaphosa intends to impose a new coherence and efficiency on government. Although acknowledging the calamity of the dismally low rate of economic growth, he was upbeat about the future, about the reviving fortunes of the commodities market, and the upturn in the markets.</p>
<p>Deservedly, Ramaphosa was to be allowed to enjoy the applause, as opposition members rose to their feet alongside the ANC MPs to give him a standing ovation which went far beyond ceremonial ritual. After the disaster of Zuma, it would seem to have given a massive fillip to South African pride and confidence. </p>
<p>It also gave the opposition parties a problem. With Zuma gone and a credible ANC president in place, they are facing an uphill electoral battle.</p>
<h2>The substance</h2>
<p>The new President committed to ensuring ethical behaviour and leadership, and to a refusal to tolerate the plunder of resources by public employees or theft and exploitation by private businesses. Critically, this would entail a transformation in the way that state-owned enterprises such as the power utility Eskom would be run. </p>
<p>There would be a new beginning at state-owned enterprises. They would no longer be allowed to borrow their way out of their financial difficulties. Competent people would be appointed to their boards, and there would be an appropriate distancing of their strategic role from operational management. And board members would be barred from any involvement in procurement. </p>
<p>This would be all part and parcel of a much wider reconfiguration of government, presumably a code for the reduction in the number of departments and a reduction in the size of ministerial ranks. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa also committed to hands-on government, promising that he would be visiting each department over the forthcoming year.</p>
<p>The forging of a social compact between government, business and labour would define the new era. A part of it would come from a new presidential economic advisory council. There would be summits for jobs and investment; convening of a youth working group to promote youth enterprise and employment and a summit for the social sector to forge a new consensus with NGOs and civil society. </p>
<p>This would add up to the construction of a “capable state” to foster much needed economic recovery. There would be concerted efforts to promote and aid small and medium business and revive manufacturing. Stress was laid on the importance of arriving at <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2018/02/19/ramaphosa-says-committed-to-holding-talks-on-mining-charter">consensus around a mining charter</a>, a document designed to guide transformation in this industry. </p>
<p>Due reference was made to preparing South Africa to embrace the fourth and fifth industrial revolutions and the encouragement of scientific innovation and new technology. And there was an explicit undertaking from Ramaphosa that he would take personal responsibility to ensure that social grants would get paid. And “no individual person in government” would be allowed to obstruct social grants delivery, a brutal albeit indirect put down of the minister concerned. </p>
<p>The one aspect of the speech which would have raised eyebrows among the Davos crowd was Ramaphosa’s re-iteration of the ANC government’s commitment to the expropriation of land without compensation as part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-south-africas-anc-bent-on-radical-policies-heres-why-the-answer-is-no-89801">radical economic transformation</a>. This highlighted the ANC’s proposed change to the constitution adopted at its recent national conference. </p>
<p>But that commitment was also <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-south-africas-anc-bent-on-radical-policies-heres-why-the-answer-is-no-89801">fudged</a> by linking any expropriation to ensuring agricultural production and food security. Cynics may argue that this was simply a form of words. In the context of Ramaphosa’s general investment seeking demeanour, agricultural capital and international business are unlikely to be unduly alarmed. But if they are wise, they will take it as a warning to come to the party of “social transformation”.</p>
<h2>A long game</h2>
<p>Ramaphosa has played a long game since he was <a href="https://www.news24.com/Books/book-extract-ramaphosa-and-the-massacre-at-marikana-20171126-2">passed over for president</a> in the mid-90s in favour of Thabo Mbeki. After playing a key role in crafting the constitution, he left politics, made a lot of money by spearheading the first round of black economic empowerment, and then returned to politics to play what must at times have been a mortifying role as deputy president under Zuma. He suffered a great deal of criticism for being complicit in the Zuma-era corruption because of his silence – silence he would have reckoned was necessary to secure his rise to the top.</p>
<p>Clearly, Ramaphosa is not above criticism. He is no saint. He lives in the shadow of the massacre of miners at <a href="https://www.news24.com/Books/book-extract-ramaphosa-and-the-massacre-at-marikana-20171126-2">Marikana</a>. Only towards the end of the ANC leadership race did he let fly against corruption and state capture. </p>
<p>Yet it could so easily have been so different. What would the mood have been now if Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma had won the ANC leadership? Few would have been convinced that she would have been able or willing to leave the legacy of the corruption of the Zuma years behind. In contrast, although there is extensive acknowledgement that Ramaphosa will meet considerable opposition from within the ANC patronage machine if he is to realise his ambitions, he has indeed provided hope.</p>
<p>Yet the irony is that we need to pay due deference to David Mabuza, Premier of the province of Mpumalanga. If it had not been for his last moment tactic of throwing his provincial delegates’ votes behind Ramaphosa at the ANC conference to thwart a Dlamini-Zuma victory at the ANC national conference, South Africa would be having to face a very different future. </p>
<p>In true ANC style, the irony is that the moment of hope was facilitated by someone who has been portrayed, even from within the party, as <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2017-12-28-mpumalanga-a-thin-line-between-democracy-and-fascism/">a political hoodlum</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92043/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall receives funding from the National Research Foundation</span></em></p>
The speech was delivered with panache and confidence. It had style, declaring to the nation and the world that he, Cyril Ramaphosa, was in charge.
Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/70866
2017-01-05T17:58:38Z
2017-01-05T17:58:38Z
Ramaphosa has what it takes to fix South Africa’s ailing ANC. But …
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151714/original/image-20170104-18647-21pae9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cyril Ramaphosa celebrates his election as deputy president of South Africa's embattled governing ANC.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s deputy president <a href="http://www.gov.za/about-government/leaders/profile/987">Cyril Ramaphosa</a> has confirmed his availability to <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/ramaphosa-i-am-available-to-lead-20161215">contest the presidency</a> of the governing <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/splash/index">ANC</a> at its 54th national conference later this year. He has already secured the endorsement of the South African Congress of Trade Unions <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/rdm/politics/2016-11-24-politics-live-why-cosatus-backing-is-a-big-deal-for-ramaphosa/">(Cosatu)</a>.</p>
<p>He failed in his bid to lead the party once before. Twenty years ago his comrades Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma were chosen ahead of him for the top two jobs at the party’s <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/anc-national-conference-1991-2013">1997 Mafikeng Conference</a>. If his dream is going to be realised this time he is going to have to take on a major task of convincing ANC branches of his suitability.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa will need a restoration and renewal narrative to convince them. He’ll need to show he has a plan to rebuild the party, and inspire its cadres sitting on the side-lines to join in his renewal efforts.</p>
<p>If successful, he will need to switch immediately to election campaigning mode. The country goes to the polls in 2019 and he will have to do everything in his powers to salvage the former liberation movement’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/sharp-tongued-south-african-voters-give-ruling-anc-a-stiff-rebuke-63606">declining electoral support</a>.</p>
<p>For South Africans at large, he will need to show how the ANC as a brand can reclaim its sentimental and inspirational traits to warrant their trust.</p>
<p>These tasks seem insurmountable when one considers the extent of damage done to the party since Zuma’s rise to power was solidified at the ANC’s bitterly divisive <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-11-02-polokwane-and-mangaung-shades-of-difference/#.WG36ext97IU">Polokwane conference in 2007</a>. But Ramaphosa has faced seemingly insurmountable tasks of building organisations in challenging times before. He has also served in various international organisations and has been a member of teams appointed to <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/cyril-ramaphosa-anthony-butler">help countries in transition</a>.</p>
<p>He will need to draw on all this experience to succeed.</p>
<h2>A history of organising under difficult conditions</h2>
<p>Born on November 17 1952, Ramaphosa is from a generation I <a href="http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fwMoyHJCMfM">regard as the agitators</a> in the struggle for South Africa’s liberation. Inspired by <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-bikos-black-consciousness-philosophy-resonates-with-youth-today-46909">Steve Biko</a>, among others, this generation – born in the early 40s to late 60s – injected greater momentum to the fight against apartheid in the 1970s and 1980s.</p>
<p>As a young person Ramaphosa was an active member of the erstwhile <a href="http://v1.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/bios/ramaphosa-cm.htm">Student Christian Movement</a> (SCM) at Sekano-Ntoane High School in Soweto. His evangelical experience cannot be understated in the task that confronts him now. Much like the biblical character <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Nehemiah+2&version=NKJV&interface=am">Nehemiah</a>, his task is to inspire a dejected and hopeless people with a new vision.</p>
<p>That will not be a new experience for Ramaphosa. As historian Anthony Butler writes, while pursuing standard nine and ten at Mphaphuli High School in his parents’ village of Sibasa in Venda, he built a <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/cyril-ramaphosa-anthony-butler">stronger SCM within a short time</a>. This was after he was elected to its leadership in the first year of his arrival.</p>
<p>The same happened when he went to study at the then University of the North (now University of Limpopo). The SCM was weak and seen by some as a tool of domination. Rhamaphosa worked tirelessly with <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/frank-chikane">Frank Chikane</a> and others to turn it into a vibrant organisation. It became a vehicle of struggle when the Black Consciousness student movements <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/banning-south-african-students-organisation-saso-and-student-politics-1980s">were banned</a>. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa’s claim to fame, however, is the work he did in founding the National Mineworkers Union (NUM) in the early 1980s. The NUM operated under the auspices of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/council-unions-south-africa-cusa-formed">Council of Unions of South Africa</a>. Until then, attempts to unite mineworkers and fight for their representation in the mines had <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/cyril-ramaphosa-anthony-butler">failed</a>.</p>
<p>The fact that Ramaphosa was able to build a union in a mining industry fraught with ethnic politics, worker fragmentation and a history of state-sanctioned exploitation attests to his organisation building capabilities. This is especially so considering that he had never worked on the mines himself.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa’s colourful leadership continued over the next three decades across various settings. He became the ANC’s chief negotiator during the country’s transition from apartheid to democracy, beating ANC president Oliver Tambo’s protégé, Thabo Mbeki, to the position. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa became the secretary general of the ANC at its <a href="http://www.incwajana.com/cyril-ramaphosa/">1991 National Conference in Durban</a> after out-campaigning Zuma. He was succeeded in the position in 1997 by <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/kgalema-petrus-motlanthe">Kgalema Motlanthe</a>, with whom he had worked at the NUM. </p>
<p>As the chief negotiator of the ANC he managed the negotiating committee. He showed great leadership, alongside the National Party’s counterpart Roelf Meyer when the talks broke down.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151726/original/image-20170104-18644-10uzn9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151726/original/image-20170104-18644-10uzn9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151726/original/image-20170104-18644-10uzn9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151726/original/image-20170104-18644-10uzn9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151726/original/image-20170104-18644-10uzn9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151726/original/image-20170104-18644-10uzn9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151726/original/image-20170104-18644-10uzn9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cyril Ramaphosa holds the newly signed South African Constitution as President Nelson Mandela looks on.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ramaphosa became a member of parliament in 1994 and headed the constitutional assembly which <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/drafting-and-acceptance-constitution">drew up the final constitution</a> of the republic. This was finally approved – to international acclaim – in <a href="http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/constitution-republic-south-africa-1996-1">1996</a>.</p>
<p>But after his crushing defeat by Mbeki to the post of deputy president in 1997 Ramaphosa went into business but maintained some involvement in politics. He was to make a sterling return 15 years later when he was elected ANC deputy president in 2012 at the <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/content/53rd-national-conference-mangaung">53rd National Conference</a> in Mangaung.</p>
<h2>Ramaphosa the businessman</h2>
<p>Ramaphosa was among the first beneficiaries of the first wave of <a href="http://www.gov.za/broad-based-black-economic-empowerment-summit">equity-based black economic empowerment deals</a> in 1997. In partnership with medical doctor and anti-apartheid activist <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/nthato-harrison-motlana">Nthato Motlana</a> he joined <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=883851">New African Investment Limited</a>. From those early beginnings he was to form <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=25599686">Shanduka Group</a>, an unlisted entity with interests in resources, energy, real estate, banking, insurance and telecommunications. </p>
<p>He also chaired a number of South Africa’s largest companies, such as <a href="http://www.bidvest.com/downloads/pdf/Bidvest_Prod_Bro_Aug2013.pdf">Bidvest Group</a> and <a href="https://www.mtn.co.za/Pages/Home.aspx">MTN</a> and held non-executive board positions of others such as <a href="http://www.standardbank.co.za/standardbank/">Standard Bank</a> and <a href="http://www.ab-inbev.com/">SABMiller</a>.</p>
<p>His most <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-06-19-00-marikana-shootings-will-always-stalk-ramaphosa">controversial role</a> was as a non-executive member of the mining group Lonmin’s board. Shanduka was a minority shareholder in Lonmin, which owned the mine in Marikana <a href="https://theconversation.com/marikana-tragedy-must-be-understood-against-the-backdrop-of-structural-violence-in-south-africa-43868">where 34 miners were shot by police in 2012</a>.</p>
<h2>Leadership qualities</h2>
<p>Ramaphosa has the leadership experience to salvage the ANC and become a great president with a wide range of skills. He has the potential to restore hope at the top of the ANC following a period of mediocrity and scandal.</p>
<p>However, while he has a chance in convincing ANC members of his potential, the broader South African public will be even harder to convince. Firstly, as a key player at Lonmin, Ramaphosa is seen as having failed to improve the working conditions of the mineworkers he fought for in the 1980s. </p>
<p>Secondly, his relationship with Zuma, whom he has served as deputy president, has led to some awkward questions. Until last year he appeared to be complacent – or actively defended – Zuma even as the president became more deeply embroiled in alleged corruption scandals. This silence was evident even when Zuma was accused of violating the constitution Ramaphosa was party to creating.</p>
<p>It may be that Ramaphosa has the restoration and renewal narrative – as well as the organisational building skills and tenacity – to turn his own fate and that of the ANC around, but it’s going to be a ‘<a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-12-05-ramaphosa-my-long-walk-has-not-yet-ended/#.WG4S0xt97IU">long walk</a>’ as he put it. Time will tell.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ongama Mtimka chairs the board of Isidima Development Council which seeks to advance socioeconomic transformation in the Eastern Cape. </span></em></p>
Cyril Ramaphosa is in pole position to become president of South Africa’s ruling ANC, 20 years after he lost the position by Thabo Mbeki. But, it won’t be easy. Neither will rebuilding the party.
Ongama Mtimka, Lecturer and PhD Candidate, Department of Political & Conflict Studies, Nelson Mandela University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/70076
2016-12-13T22:34:22Z
2016-12-13T22:34:22Z
Good cop, bad cop: confessions of a reluctant policeman
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149428/original/image-20161209-31396-1sffd7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African policewomen on beach patrol. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Book review: <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/good-cop-bad-cop-confessions-reluctant-policeman/9781776090952">Good cop bad cop: confessions of a reluctant policeman</a>, by Andrew Brown.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In this book, Andrew Brown recounts his experience on a sweltering Friday in November 2015. He is on duty as a police reservist, nowhere near his home in the well-to-do Cape Town suburb of Mowbray and his paid job as a lawyer. </p>
<p>Instead he is about an hour’s drive down the Cape peninsula, just outside the poor and overcrowded township of <a href="http://www.groundup.org.za/article/what-it-live-masiphumelele_3019/">Masiphumelele</a> near Fish Hoek. Here, people’s <a href="http://www.groundup.org.za/article/where-are-cops-ask-masiphumelele-residents_3313/">frustration</a> with crime and chronic state neglect has boiled over into <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2015/11/11/Ninth-vigilante-murder-in-Masiphumelele-as-residents-await-mobile-police-station1">vigilantism</a> and increasingly violent clashes with the police. And so the police top brass have gathered to present the community with a new mobile “satellite” police station. It is intended as an <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/policing-in-masiphumelele-gets-a-boost-1948872">interim</a> measure until proposals for a fully-fledged police station can grind their way through the bureaucracy. </p>
<p>As he directs the enormous cars of the VIPs and VVIPs to their appropriate parking spots outside the ceremony, Brown wonders to what extent this modest new offering will succeed in altering the character of the police’s presence and reception in the community. </p>
<h2>Policing as pantomime</h2>
<p>The day wears on and the police band and speeches are received and appropriately applauded by scores of police officers, politicians and representatives of NGOs. But, Brown notices, barely a handful of Masiphumelele residents. It dawns on him that he is playing a part not in a sincere attempt to reach out to the people who actually live and struggle here, but in a political pantomime. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>As the red fabric drifted to the ground, a sergeant walked past me. ‘There we go,’ he said. ‘Masi is saved.’ Yes, cut the ribbon, eat the sandwiches, hold your flabby fist in the air. Masi is saved. Amandla.</p>
<p>A marshal came round with a large box containing food for the ordinary troops. Each person got some white bread with margarine and an apple. …
And once that was over, they all left.
Not just the deputy minister, not just the politicians, not just the police band, and not just the generals. Every last person got into their car or their bus or their taxi, and left. Within twenty minutes, there was not a braided insignia to be seen within a twenty-kilometre radius.
And not one of them had actually set foot in Masiphumelele township.
Maybe the smell would have disagreed with the deputy minister’s lunch.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This tone of bitter disillusionment dominates <em>Good cop bad cop</em>. It is a chilling contrast to Brown’s previous work of non-fiction, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6015614-street-blues">Street blues: the experiences of a reluctant policeman</a>. Both books combine self-deprecating anecdotes with reflection on the unique strangeness of the work of policing a post-apartheid South African city.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149430/original/image-20161209-31405-1nvitg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149430/original/image-20161209-31405-1nvitg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149430/original/image-20161209-31405-1nvitg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149430/original/image-20161209-31405-1nvitg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149430/original/image-20161209-31405-1nvitg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149430/original/image-20161209-31405-1nvitg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149430/original/image-20161209-31405-1nvitg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Good Cop Bad Cop Andrew Brown HR.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Street blues</em> did so with pathos and an endearing sense of wonder that he, an anti-apartheid activist, had come to work with his former opponents and found them to be, “first and foremost, ordinary people, with all the foibles, shortcomings and quirks of anyone else”. It described, frankly and with humour, his ambivalence about shouldering the burden of maintaining an ordered society and dealing with the full messiness of “human beings and their unfathomable perversity”.</p>
<h2>A cynical change</h2>
<p>In the eight years since that publication, there has clearly been a shift in Brown’s conception of the police and its role in the South African social landscape. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/marikana-tragedy-must-be-understood-against-the-backdrop-of-structural-violence-in-south-africa-43868">Marikana massacre</a> is clearly partly responsible. So is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-student-protests-are-about-much-more-than-just-feesmustfall-49776">student protest movement</a>. But the shift is stark. </p>
<p><em>Good cop bad cop</em> makes no claim to subtlety or conceptual novelty. Its title is not, after all, <em>Ambiguous</em> or <em>Cryptic cop</em>. What another writer, Jonny Steinberg does so well (in, for example, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6337146-thin-blue">Thin blue: the unwritten rules of policing South Africa</a>, released the same year as <em>Street blues</em>) is to use the humble narrative of the cop on the street to reveal complex and genuinely illuminating broader theoretical landscapes. Brown’s is a much less ambitious goal. As he freely admits, this book is a labour borne not of any particular analytical insight, but primarily of personal catharsis.</p>
<p>But <em>Good cop bad cop</em> reads less as a quirky, thoughtful memoir than as chaotic confessional and desperate entreaty. Ambivalence has deteriorated into turmoil at finding himself in the role of trying to hold the lid on the “pressure cooker … of government’s non-delivery”. From his own candid observation, he makes a solid and depressing case for the unsustainability of the police’s current position as clumsy, armed mediators between the frustrations of the people and the inadequacies of the state.</p>
<h2>Jarring flippancy</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, this material of heavy political lecture combines uncomfortably with the book’s irreverent, personal style. A frequent irritant in Brown’s work is his treatment of women. </p>
<p><em>Street blues</em> featured an aggressively sexualised description of the enticing eyes and curve of breast of a 19-year-old girl bleeding to death on a pavement. <em>Good cop bad cop</em> offers some obviously grudging apologetics for dwelling on the shapeliness of a rape victim’s legs. And one is left to wonder if there are any youngish woman in Cape Town who <em>aren’t</em> flirting with him in circumstances whose implausibility is matched only by the mystery of their anatomical technique. </p>
<p>Given his interest in improving relations between police and those they are tasked with serving, it might have occurred to him that this unpleasant insight into a police officer’s mind might have a lingering effect on readers who are at risk of needing to call on those services. The “sexing up” that may be acceptable in fiction or light-hearted memoir makes the skin crawl in the context of serious political appeal.</p>
<p>Still, that appeal is persuasive. The cruel contrasts that define South African politics and society create an impossible task for its police. As Brown demonstrates from his personal experience and in his own, unvarnished way, they are “[d]ogs on a tautening leash”. And more broadly:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is a word for a system that relies on its security forces to constrain its citizens in the face of its failure to implement basic human rights. And it’s not ‘democracy’.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70076/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anine Kriegler receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the David and Elaine Potter Foundation. </span></em></p>
A tone of bitter disillusionment dominates the book, which combines self-deprecating anecdotes with reflections on the unique strangeness of policing a post-apartheid South African city.
Anine Kriegler, Researcher and Doctoral Candidate in Criminology, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/68773
2016-11-21T20:53:07Z
2016-11-21T20:53:07Z
#FeesMustFall: the poster child for new forms of struggle in South Africa?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146558/original/image-20161118-19356-1hju881.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">#FeesMustFall, and its demands for zero university fee increases, is in a second cycle of mass resistance in South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike Hutchings/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle, national liberation politics was mass politics. It was grounded in building class and national popular alliances as a basis of a national liberation bloc. </p>
<p>A reading of the <a href="https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/anc/1969/strategy-tactics.htm">strategy and tactics documents</a> of the African National Congress (ANC) confirms the centrality of class agency, particularly that of the working class, while affirming the importance of nonracial unity. The material foundations for this, at least in the 1980s, were mass movements such as trade unions as well as civic, youth and student organisations.</p>
<p>The United Democratic Front (UDF), deemed by some as the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/organisations/united-democratic-front-udf">“internal wing”</a> of the then still banned ANC, congealed these forces into a bloc of resistance. In this ferment, hierarchical forms of organisation were established. Most importantly, vanguardist leadership played a determining role through the ANC and the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/south-african-communist-party-sacp">South African Communist Party</a> (SACP). The idea of an elite vanguard, a centralised underground leadership managing a strategic line of command, defined this politics. </p>
<p>The UDF was a mass front for waging a “people’s war” through mass mobilisation. While the UDF had its own democratic grassroots impulses, the Marxist-Leninist imprint and template of this politics was apparent. And, it was not unique to South Africa. The bolshevising of “national liberation” politics or “painting nationalism red” was a feature of 20th century revolutionary politics because of the influence of the Soviet Union.</p>
<p>This is not the politics of the current uprising of South African students, collectively known as <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/feesmustfall-21801">#FeesMustFall</a> which has <a href="http://defendingpopulardemocracy.blogspot.co.za/2015/10/fees-must-fall-to-neoliberal-sa-must.html">emerged</a> as part of a <a href="http://www.africafiles.org/printableversion.asp?id=27893">second cycle of resistance</a> (2007 to the present) in post-apartheid South Africa. </p>
<h2>Post-apartheid cycles of resistance</h2>
<p>The first cycle against neoliberalisation (late 1990s into early 2000s) was marked by the rise of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/birth-treatment-action-campaign">Treatment Action Campaign</a>, the <a href="http://www.naoexemplar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/The-rural-landless-people%E2%80%99s-movement-cas-6-ago-2014.pdf">Landless People’s Movement</a> and the <a href="http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/1197">Anti-Privatisation Forum</a>. These formations are now either moribund or very weak. In the case of the Treatment Action Campaign, there is an attempt at renewal.</p>
<p>Since 2007, South Africa’s civic <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/public-protest-democratic-south-africa">protest actions</a> against the lack of service delivery have become much more frequent and more violent. It has become the object of analysis of various sociological studies and sometimes vaunted as the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056241003637870?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=crea20">“rebellion of the poor”</a> or <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056244.2013.854040?journalCode=crea20">“violent democracy”</a>.</p>
<p>South Africa has also been witnessing the emergence of new transformative movements that mark out a second cycle of resistance. They include struggles around building solidarity economies (waste pickers building worker cooperatives), the right to know, equal education, social justice and defence of constitutional freedoms. It also includes struggles for food sovereignty, rural democracy and rights for women. </p>
<p>These struggles cover extractivism (particularly challenging pollution and land dispossessions related to mining), climate jobs and housing. They further include fighting for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersexed (LGBTI) people, as well as struggles against corruption, moves towards rebuilding a new worker-controlled labour federation and a growing emphasis on climate justice. </p>
<p>These are social forces attempting to advance transformation from below. After the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana massacre</a> in 2012 there has been a realignment of political forces. With it has come a detachment from the national liberation bloc of parties like the ANC. </p>
<p>These <a href="http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/geography/n48.xml">anti-systemic</a> forces are not led by any vanguards. They are agents of transformative counter-hegemony, opposing the dominant ruling class.</p>
<p>#FeesMustFall’s demands for zero fee increases, decommodified education, an end to outsourcing and decolonisation, is in this second cycle of mass resistance. The anti-capitalist impulses in South African society are amplified by all these forces. Alongside Marikana, #FeesMustFall has brought this to the fore in dramatic ways.</p>
<h2>Three new developments</h2>
<p>#FeesMustFall heralded three new developments in mass politics in post-apartheid South Africa. First, it married social media to mass politics which did not exist in 1976, for instance. This enabled telescoped, speedy and cross-campus mobilisation. Students used Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp groups and even webpages to communicate with each other. They also married situated mass practices (such as assemblies or occupations or sit ins) to larger political mobilisation. This was new for South Africa.</p>
<p>Second, this political matrix was amorphous, except for moments of media representation which presented “leaders” at the forefront. In practice, this was not the case in the university space. There, various groups jostled for influence. Mass mobilisation was catalysed through social media and common resistance activity, providing moments for mass convergence.</p>
<p>In many ways, #FeesMustFall was leaderless. At the same time, it had a powerful group and populist logic at work. It was a prototype of a grassroots-driven force with a leaning towards horizontality – but this did not fully mature. </p>
<p>At Wits University, for example, deliberative processes did not mature into intense democratic group deliberation as they had done in the <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/media/news-migration/files/Capitalisms%20CrisesAI.pdf">US Occupy Movement</a>. This has to do with the nature and orientation of crowd politics coming together in #FeesMustFall and its limits. Instead, final decisions were made through a rather loose assembly format and yes/no procedure around actions (<a href="http://wpj.dukejournals.org/content/33/1/30.abstract">Molefe 2016</a>) and were often driven by particular groups.</p>
<p>This weakness and internal tension of leaderlessness, existing alongside intense contestation between groups for leadership, did not provide much space for debate about strategy and tactics. Ultimately it also fed into divisions within #FeesMustFall. </p>
<p>Third, #FeesMustFall was about copying developments from different campuses, what is known as a mimetic politics. So if students marched and protested at one campus, others followed. </p>
<p>Or, if students occupied particular spaces at a certain university this was repeated at other campuses embracing the revolt. It was a copycat practice that also had a life of its own and reinforced the role of social media and “leaderlessness”. This mass dynamic, however, could have been given greater coherence if #FeesMustFall had moved early on to democratically elect a collective leadership on campuses and nationally. That did not happen, but despite the weakness, the mimetic dynamic gave a critical mass to #FeesMustFall. It gave a capacity for <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-10-23-sas-students-take-on-union-buildings">mobilisation</a> which culminated at the South African government’s seat of power, the Union Buildings in Pretoria in October 2015.</p>
<p>#FeesMustFall represents a new populist crowd politics. It brings forth strengths but also weaknesses. Without deeply democratic practices and institutional representation it could easily degenerate. At the same time, it is about a post-apartheid generation evolving a politics of its own. Its aim is to reclaim and transform the public university and challenge the crisis of national liberation politics, alongside other rising movements.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited version of a chapter from ‘Fees Must Fall; Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa’ (Wits University Press)</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68773/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vishwas Satgar receives funding from the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation for the Democratic Marxism series he edits. He is a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign(SAFSC) and also the Chairperson of the Board of the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre (COPAC). </span></em></p>
The leaderlessness of South Africa’s #FeesMustFall student movement has ultimately fed into divisions within the grouping.
Vishwas Satgar, Associate Professor, Department of International Relations, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/63848
2016-08-15T15:09:51Z
2016-08-15T15:09:51Z
Billy goes to Marikana: the staged lives and times of two mining towns
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134100/original/image-20160815-15238-kcssmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Meshack Mavuso played the role of 'The Man with the Green Blanket' in 'Marikana the Musical'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">@marikanathemusical</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I had the opportunity to watch a performance of “<a href="http://billyelliotthemusical.com/">Billy Elliot - The Musical</a>” in Bradford, UK in June 2016. The story explores the experiences of mining communities in the 1980s in northern England. The story of Billy Elliot, a young orphan boy growing up in a mining town during the miners’ strike in the mid-80s in the UK took me to South Africa. Specifically to Marikana, the Lonmin mine north west of Johannesburg, where South African police shot and killed 34 striking mineworkers on Thursday 16 August, 2012. </p>
<p>The emotional response I felt in the middle of a very British audience in Bradford was in fact the memory of Marikana, a tragedy that also led to a play, <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/entertainment/2014/10/10/marikana-the-musical-hits-the-stage">“Marikana the Musical”</a> in 2014. I realise that is what theatre is meant to do: the arts aim to evoke feelings over and above appreciation of the artistic piece.</p>
<p>Billy Elliot took me on a journey back home to the familiar losses of lives, work and sense of community when mining suddenly dies. The long term effects of the loss of livelihoods when mines shut down in northern England in the 1980s are still felt to date. I also remembered the more recent losses in Zambia and <a href="http://www.africanindy.com/business/mining-woes-rock-botswana-1520740">Botswana</a>’s northern cities when <a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2009/06/economy-zambia-hard-times-on-the-copperbelt/">copper prices</a> crashed. Communities whose lifeline was dependent on the mines have gone from surviving to grinding poverty.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134111/original/image-20160815-27210-t81vtp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134111/original/image-20160815-27210-t81vtp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134111/original/image-20160815-27210-t81vtp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134111/original/image-20160815-27210-t81vtp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134111/original/image-20160815-27210-t81vtp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134111/original/image-20160815-27210-t81vtp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134111/original/image-20160815-27210-t81vtp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actor Trent Kowalik from ‘Billy Elliot, The Musical’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gary Hershorn /Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Billy Elliot was a boy who wanted to do ballet. Billy kept his secret from his father and brother, pretending that that he was taking boxing lessons. </p>
<p>In a community steeped in mining traditions and a strong sense of masculinity a boy doing ballet was a no-no. With help from his ballet teacher, he triumphs and eventually realises his dream.</p>
<h2>Mining cultures</h2>
<p>Southern Africa is no stranger to mining cultures. For over 200 years men journeyed to the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/first-mines-are-proclaimed-johannesburg">gold</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/all-glitters-rock-which-future-will-be-built-emilia-potenza">diamond</a> mines of Johannesburg and Kimberley respectively. When <a href="http://www.southafrica.net/za/en/articles/entry/article-a-brief-history-of-mining-in-south-africa">platinum</a>, which was discovered in South Africa in 1924, became the new gold many more came. For boys going to the mines was part of their rite of passage. They fashioned their dreams and manhood around mining. Many came from far and endured long separation from their families. Their remittances kept communities alive. </p>
<p>In the mines they formed strong bonds of brotherhood to survive. Music and dance became their outlet and to date the gumboot dance remains a popular artistic act. Musicians like <a href="http://www.hughmasekela.co.za/">Hugh Masekela</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/miriam-makeba">Miriam Makeba</a> have done award winning songs about the life and times of miners.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cPxmmMpfG88?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Hugh Masekela’s song ‘Stimela’ about the lives of mineworkers.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Marikana brought a new awakening to the brutality of mining life. Following months of strike action the miners of Marikana tragically encountered a brutal police response on August 16 four years ago. Many who saw it broadcast live on television still ask – why? A <a href="http://www.marikanacomm.org.za/">commission of inquiry</a> has <a href="http://www.wwmp.org.za/index.php/2-uncategorised/161-the-struggle-for-justice-and-restitution-the-bodymaps-of-the-widows-of-marikana">come and gone</a>. Many lost their jobs and returned empty handed to their communities. Marikana will never be the same again.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/O56d-xd8AuM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Thirty four mineworkers were killed in the Marikana massacre.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tears and emotions in the theatre</h2>
<p>Director <a href="http://gq.co.za/2015/07/aubrey-sekhabi/">Aubrey Sekhabi</a> brought Marikana to stage. I was fortunate to attend the premiere of the <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-04-15-marikana-musical-wins-big-at-naledi-theatre-awards">award winning</a> “Marikana the Musical” in 2014. The vivid representation of the “Man with the green blanket” – Mgcineni “Mambush” Noki, one of the miners killed in 2012, was one of the strikers’ leaders – brought me to tears and elicited emotions I had not felt since watching the news on that fateful evening in August 2012.</p>
<p>A year later the award winning documentary “<a href="http://www.minersshotdown.co.za/">Miners Shot Down</a>” (2015) brought a reminder of Marikana’s unresolved questions. The widows, survivors and families live with the physical, emotional and mental scars of those fateful days. Miners lost their lives and jobs. Communities lost lifelines. Hopes died particularly for children who dreamt of going to school, getting a new chance at life to break the cycle of poverty. All those dreams have been deferred or are dead and buried.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134104/original/image-20160815-15253-jfwboj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134104/original/image-20160815-15253-jfwboj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134104/original/image-20160815-15253-jfwboj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134104/original/image-20160815-15253-jfwboj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134104/original/image-20160815-15253-jfwboj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134104/original/image-20160815-15253-jfwboj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134104/original/image-20160815-15253-jfwboj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mgcineni ‘Mambush’ Noki talking to the police hostage negotiator - from the documentary ‘Miners Shot Down’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.minersshotdown.co.za/">Miners Shot Down</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many questions have been asked about the role of leaders in the Marikana affair. Like the UK miners’ strike, the economic livelihood of the miners and their communities were at stake. They were pitted against big business and a changing capitalist world. </p>
<p>In the case of Marikana <a href="https://www.lonmin.com/">Lonmin</a>, a listed mining company, was calling the shots with vested interests of the newly rich black middle class who had acquired shareholding through the policy of <a href="http://www.southafrica.info/business/trends/empowerment/bee.htm#.V7GLlfl97IU">Black Economic Empowerment</a> (BEE). With its roots in Lonrho (the amalgam of London and Rhodesia) Lonmin was no stranger to mining and doing business in Africa. The huge divide between executive pay and wages for workers was a bone of contention. The conditions of miners including the use of hostels brought to the fore issues of inequalities and poverty.</p>
<p>The platinum mines are located in areas of <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-08-18-marikana-i-dont-see-any-difference-in-living-conditions/#.V7GMYfl97IU">rural poverty</a> with small isolated villages in South Africa’s North West province. Small shanty and shack settlements quickly form around mines and with them come the negative impacts of crime, diseases and other social ills. Mining executives live in cities in exclusive neighbourhoods like Sandton, north of Johannesburg. Today, <a href="http://www.miningweekly.com/article/lost-narrative-of-silicosis-tb-among-mineworkers-post-marikana-2012-11-09/rep_id:3650">TB</a> and HIV/AIDS haunt mining communities like Marikana and families of miners who have returned home.</p>
<h2>Trapped in poverty</h2>
<p>Some communities and parts of others in the north of England were to an extent salvaged by government social protection albeit with varied degrees of success of commitment from the UK’s politicians. The people of Marikana, however, are still trapped in abject poverty.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134107/original/image-20160815-15277-1c4oxzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134107/original/image-20160815-15277-1c4oxzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134107/original/image-20160815-15277-1c4oxzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134107/original/image-20160815-15277-1c4oxzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134107/original/image-20160815-15277-1c4oxzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134107/original/image-20160815-15277-1c4oxzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134107/original/image-20160815-15277-1c4oxzz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A child sits outside a locked shack in Nkaneng township, Marikana’s informal settlement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In southern Africa, the lives of communities dependent on mining are shattered. The miners wait for answers, compensation and for someone to do something. Through art we encounter their pain and anguish with no signs of hope at the end of the dark tunnel.</p>
<p>Unlike Billy Elliot, the <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-04-12-in-pictures-the-children-of-marikana/#.V7GRUfl97IU">children of Marikana</a> are doomed. Leaving the theatre after watching “Billy Elliot” I thought of home … and how different life can be for a boy called Billy in England. </p>
<p>In Marikana, a boy – let’s call him “Bashi” – could be in the dusty alleys of Marikana. Billy realised his dream. “Bashi” looks at the dark night. He stares at the stars and wonders where help will come from.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63848/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alinah Kelo Segobye received funding from the Rotary Peace Centre for her visiting scholar term at the University of Bradford in 2016. </span></em></p>
Two musicals set in working class mining communities – one in the UK and the other in South Africa – have diametrically opposed messages: one of hope; the other, despair.
Alinah Kelo Segobye, Associate Professor (Archaeology), University of South Africa
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/63778
2016-08-10T15:46:22Z
2016-08-10T15:46:22Z
Under the influence of … Spike Lee’s film ‘Do The Right Thing’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133660/original/image-20160810-20932-1zjptc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The poster for 'Do The Right Thing'</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>In our new weekly series, “Under the influence”, we ask experts to share what they believe are the most influential works of art or artists in their field. Here, University of the Witwatersrand film studies lecturer and filmmaker Dylan Valley explains why Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing” is one of the director’s most influential films.</em></p>
<p>For a black film and media student at the University of Cape Town, Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing” (1989) was a revelation. I watched it on a DVD one afternoon with my friend Frank in one of the damp tutorial rooms in the Arts Block on Upper Campus, only a few steps away from where Cecil John Rhodes’ statue stood. </p>
<p>Our film history curriculum at that point had been mostly European and American cinema. While still American, this was something completely different. It had been nearly 20 years since the film’s inception and it took place on a completely different continent, and yet it was so relatable.</p>
<p>More than just that, it was a visceral film experience, a wake-up call, but also an affirmation. Watching it in 2016 it’s eerie (and tragic) how relevant its central theme of racial tension and structural violence still is, both in America and South Africa.</p>
<p>“Do The Right Thing” takes place over the course of the hottest day on a block in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Spike Lee plays Mookie, a 25-year-old who seems to be meandering through life, but is on a mission to get paid. He works at the local Italian pizzeria, Sal’s, where most of the neighbourhood eats and hangs out.</p>
<p>The simmering heat of the day (visualised by deep reds and yellows on screen) reflects the tensions between the Italian pizzeria owner, Sal (Danny Aiello) and Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito), the self-appointed neighbourhood spokesperson. Buggin’ Out questions the lack of representation of black people on the walls of the pizzeria, which services a mostly black clientele: “Sal, how come you ain’t got no brothers on the wall?”</p>
<p>Sal’s hostile response to Buggin’ Out’s provocation leads to a protest that ends in police brutality and the loss of black life, and marks the demise of the pizzeria.</p>
<h2>Why is/was it influential?</h2>
<p>Despite its explosive dénouement, one of the main strengths of the film is the complexity of its characters and the representations of blackness on screen. Lee moved beyond stereotypes of African Americans in cinema and created characters reflected in the everyday. In “Do The Right Thing”, black people are not presented in the traditional binary of subservient and smiling, or violent and dangerous, but rather are able to exist as more rounded expressions of themselves. </p>
<p>While Buggin’ Out is concerned with black nationalist politics and representation, he also bugs out when a white gentrifier on the block accidentally scuffs his brand new US$100 Jordan sneakers. Even though this infliction is frivolous, it leads to a cathartic (prophetic?) outburst: “Man motherfuck gentrification!”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jc6_XgtOQgI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A clip from ‘Do The Right Thing’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>No one in “Do The Right Thing” is necessarily “heroic”. Even Radio Raheem, the likeable, stylish giant who blasts the film’s opening theme and leitmotif, hip-hop group <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/public-enemy-mn0000856785/biography">Public Enemy</a>’s <em>Fight The Power</em>, from a large boombox, imposes his music on others. He is mostly an irritant in the neighbourhood. Radio Raheem is unnecessarily confrontational with the Korean shopkeepers who have recently moved onto the block. It’s reflected in the scene where he goes to them to buy batteries, “I said 20 ‘D’ batteries, motherfucker! Learn how to speak English first, alright?”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cMNvYJ6O_Ks?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The ‘20 D’ clip from ‘Do The Right Thing’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although in the same scene, he smiles and tells shopkeeper Sonny (Steve Park), “You’re alright, man”, diffusing any threat of real conflict. </p>
<p>Mookie isn’t necessarily noble or likeable, however his actions towards the end of the film disrupt this reading of him and show significant character development. Ironically, there is not that much black and white in this film; the characters live in a world of greys. </p>
<p>While the film has no typical heroes, it is more clear about its villains, particularly the police. Also there is pizzeria owner Sal’s son Pino (John Turturro) who is openly racist and tells Sal, “I’m sick of niggers.” Sal is more complicated, as he sees himself as a good guy who takes pride in feeding the neighbourhood. </p>
<p>Sal later tells Mookie he sees him as “son”. Despite this, during the film’s climax and in the verbal screaming match between him and Buggin’ Out, he flips and uses racial epithets, telling Radio Raheem to turn off that “jungle music” and hurls profanities like “nigger mutherfucker”.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133664/original/image-20160810-9203-74xg7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133664/original/image-20160810-9203-74xg7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133664/original/image-20160810-9203-74xg7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133664/original/image-20160810-9203-74xg7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133664/original/image-20160810-9203-74xg7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1061&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133664/original/image-20160810-9203-74xg7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1061&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133664/original/image-20160810-9203-74xg7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1061&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cover of ‘BFI Modern Classics: Do The Right Thing’.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his book, “<a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=lnVZAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y&hl=en">BFI Modern Classics: Do The Right Thing</a>”, Ed Guerrero points out that it is Sal who destroys Raheem’s boombox with a bat: “A line is crossed here, from words to physical action.” When that violence escalates and turns fatal, the victim doesn’t need to be an angel for us to have tears in our eyes. He was real, we knew him.</p>
<p>“Do The Right Thing” was partly inspired by the <a href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/a-racial-attack-that-years-later-is-still-being-felt/?_r=0">1986 Howard Beach incident</a> in which a black man, Michael Griffiths, was killed while escaping an angry white mob with baseball bats after exiting the New Park pizzeria. The mob had earlier tried to chase him and his friends out of their neighbourhood for being black. Unsurprisingly, this was only one of the stories that Lee drew from to write “Do The Right Thing”. This story is sadly familiar nearly 30 years later.</p>
<h2>Why is it still relevant today?</h2>
<p>In 2016, amidst the #BlackLivesMatter <a href="http://blacklivesmatter.com/">movement</a>, and a never-ending list of unarmed African Americans being <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-people-killed-by-police-america_us_577da633e4b0c590f7e7fb17">killed by police</a>, the film is even more relevant. In 2015, young black men were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/the-counted-police-killings-2015-young-black-men">nine times</a> more likely to be killed at the hands of police than other Americans, and 2016 looks to be on par. In a South Africa where the police killed 34 miners in <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana</a> for striking for a better life, and where the politics of representation and ownership are still unresolved, the tragic trajectory of “Do The Right Thing” will send chills down your spine. </p>
<p>When the film was released, journalists feared it would <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/08/when-spike-lee-became-scary/261434/">spark race riots</a> and hate crimes. There were even warnings issued to white people to avoid seeing the film. Instead, it caused a nation to reflect, and affirmed the black experience around the world. Despite critical and fan acclaim, the film was mostly snubbed by the Academy Awards in 1990, receiving <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097216/awards">two nominations</a> for Best Writing and Best Supporting Actor (Danny Aiello). </p>
<p>Tellingly, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097239/awards">Best Picture</a> went to “Driving Miss Daisy”, which Ed Guerrero calls </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the paternalist problem picture with its long-suffering black servant … The contrasts between Morgan Freeman’s rendering of an elderly, humble and enduring Negro servant in “Driving Miss Daisy” and Spike Lee’s portrayal of the feckless, urban youth Mookie could not have been greater in the 1989 Oscar year.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133663/original/image-20160810-28149-upq3yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133663/original/image-20160810-28149-upq3yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133663/original/image-20160810-28149-upq3yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133663/original/image-20160810-28149-upq3yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133663/original/image-20160810-28149-upq3yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133663/original/image-20160810-28149-upq3yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133663/original/image-20160810-28149-upq3yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spike Lee accepting an honorary award at the Oscars in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mario Anzuoni/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Last year Lee finally won his Oscar at the Academy’s annual <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2015/11/spike-lee-finally-gets-his-oscar.html">Governor’s Awards</a>, an honorary nod for his contribution to cinema.</p>
<p>Filmically, there is so much more to be said of “Do The Right Thing”: its beautiful cinematography, it’s on-point casting (Rosie Perez’s debut as Tina, and Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee as an elderly couple) and its belligerent dialogue (“I’m just a struggling black man trying to keep his dick hard in a cruel and harsh world!”).</p>
<p>The film often breaks the “<a href="https://alwaysactingup.wordpress.com/what-is-the-4th-wall/">fourth wall</a>” – the imaginary “wall” that exists between actors and the audience – making us aware of its construction, like in Raheem’s dreamlike love/hate soliloquy and the racial hatred montage. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pa-oUPTr9LI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The ‘Love/Hate’ clip from ‘Do The Right Thing’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Watching it all these years later, perhaps what’s most impressive is how fresh the film still feels, even down to the classic hip-hop and “Afro-centric” clothes and haircuts (there are many Buggin’ Outs walking the streets of my home city of Johannesburg as we speak). </p>
<p>“Do The Right Thing” was a challenge to Hollywood’s cultural hegemony. Lee fought to get the story told on his terms, exchanging larger financial support for his artistic vision.</p>
<p>Most importantly, the film doesn’t offer neat answers, but rather important questions, which haven’t lost any of their urgency today. As a filmmaker, one can only hope to create work with such long-lasting affect.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dylan Valley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
With #BlackLivesMatter and a never-ending list of African Americans being killed by police, the film ‘Do The Right Thing’ is even more relevant now than when it was released 27 years ago.
Dylan Valley, Lecturer of Film & Media Studies, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/61699
2016-07-10T16:44:40Z
2016-07-10T16:44:40Z
How clearer strategy and precaution could make mining better for all
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129526/original/image-20160706-12743-esc7ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mining companies are keen to get to work in underdeveloped, deeply rural parts of South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mining in South Africa is beset with controversy. The 2012 <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana massacre</a> was an extreme expression of this – but dangerous conflicts can arise even before a mine is commissioned. Mining proposals are often <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-05-04-wild-coast-mining-conflict-xolobeni-escalates/#.V3zL1Lh97IU">opposed by</a> neighbouring communities and can be <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-05-07-villagers-call-for-chiefs-head-over-plan-to-mine-their-land">hugely divisive</a>.</p>
<p>This sort of conflict can escalate into violence unless the state and companies take a strategic and precautionary approach.</p>
<p>This was illustrated by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/25/australian-mining-company-denies-role-in-of-south-african-activist">murder</a> in March 2016 of Sikhosiphi “Bazooka” Rhadebe. He was part of a broad group of locals opposing a titanium mine proposed by <a href="http://www.mineralcommodities.com">Mineral Commodities Limited</a> at Xolobeni in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.polity.org.za/article/cm-murder-of-xolobeni-community-leader-2016-03-24">responses</a> to Rhadebe’s murder fail to grasp two underlying problems. The first is that the state and mining companies don’t always effectively implement progressive environmental management policies. The second is that neither the companies nor the state seem sufficiently committed to avoiding conflict.</p>
<p>This needn’t be the case. The government, mining companies and communities can be brought together by a thorough assessment process before any ground has even been broken. Historical precedent shows that these processes can help.</p>
<h2>How it can be done</h2>
<p>South African <a href="https://www.environment.gov.za/legislation/actsregulations">law</a> requires project-level assessments before mining activities begin. These typically take mining as a given. They also tend to fall short of a broader strategic assessment of diverse alternative land uses and development options, and how these relate to each other and to local communities’ preferences. </p>
<p>In 1999 one of us was part of a consultant team that developed one of South Africa’s first strategic assessments for a mining project. It came in response to a <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/south-africa/mining-paradise-caught-between-rock-and-heavy-">proposal to mine titanium</a> near <a href="http://www.centane.co.za/">Centane</a> in the Eastern Cape. The proponent, Iscor, recognised the controversial nature of the proposal and, to its credit, saw the benefit of such a strategic assessment. </p>
<p>Our job was not just to react to the proposed project plan but to take a broader view. We looked at mining as a development option in Centane, compared it with other options and examined whether it could complement land uses like agriculture and ecotourism.</p>
<p>Our report recognised a number of mining’s potential benefits, especially with regard to job creation, and the construction of roads and other infrastructure. But it also highlighted two very important risks. One focused on how the pristine estuary would be affected and the other concentrated on the very real risk of conflict – or even violence – if mine planning proceeded.</p>
<p>The provincial government set up a committee to assess the report and make recommendations. It paid close attention, particularly to the risk of conflict. This contributed to the project not going ahead in the end.</p>
<p>The point of such processes is not necessarily to stop mining. Rather, it’s to assess in a comprehensive, measured way how mining will interact with the local context and other development options. It also gives communities an opportunity to discuss their preferences in an open-minded way. Creating such a strategic platform can help facilitate, at least to some extent, <a href="http://reference.sabinet.co.za/webx/access/journal_archive/10231765/243.pdf">public participation</a> based on people’s underlying interests rather than on entrenched positions relative to a specific development option.</p>
<h2>Strategy through policy</h2>
<p>Since 1999, the South African government has recognised the need to take a strategic approach to balancing development opportunities and environmental management. The country played a pioneering role in developing the <a href="https://www.environment.gov.za/documents/strategies/integrated_environmentalmanagement_eim">theory and practice of strategic assessment</a>. Local practice up to 2007 has, however, been described as largely ineffective and little more than the “<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195925507001370">emperor’s new clothes</a>”.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/default/files/docs/eiams_environmentalimpact_managementstrategy.pdf">2014 National Strategy for Environmental Impact Assessment and Management</a> seeks to place this tool on a firmer footing. It posits an ideal situation in which strategic environmental assessments “are utilised … with clearly defined sustainability objectives”. There have been several recent examples of such assessments in line with this new policy.</p>
<p>These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.environment.gov.za/mediarelease/cabinet_gazetting_redz">renewable energy development zones</a>;</li>
<li>the <a href="http://www.ska.ac.za">Square Kilometre Array</a>; and</li>
<li>proposed <a href="http://seasgd.csir.co.za">shale gas mining (fracking) in the Karoo</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>Of course, as these examples illustrate, conducting a strategic assessment – even if it’s done well – is not going to do away with the fundamentally <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/sep/02/frack-controversy-south-africa">controversial</a> nature of something like fracking in the Karoo. The point is that it provides, at least potentially, a transparent and well-informed platform for deliberation among different stakeholders. The administrative and political decision will then need to defend itself with reference to this deliberation, consistent with the notion of <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Public-Reason-Society/dp/0415624681">public reason</a>.</p>
<p>These sorts of strategic assessments also ought to be used to guide decisions on mining before controversial proposals create conflicts between deeply vested interests and community concerns. But this potential is, by and large, not being fulfilled.</p>
<p>It is not obvious why this is the case. One likely reason is that many municipalities and provincial governments lack the interest and skills to implement strategic environmental planning. This is particularly likely in the poor, rural municipalities in which controversial projects like the Xolobeni and <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/anthracite-mine-fatally-flawed-1910804">Fuleni mines</a> are proposed. </p>
<p>A second possible reason lies with the national Department of Mineral Resources. It still sees itself primarily as a promoter of mining rather than a facilitator of mining within an overarching need for sustainable development.</p>
<h2>A duty to avoid conflict</h2>
<p>In the Centane example, both the mining company and the provincial government recognised the need for a strategic assessment. They also recognised the danger of community conflict. Both Xolobeni and Fuleni are lacking a strategic assessment. There also seems to be no real recognition of the precautionary duty to avoid conflict.</p>
<p>The state’s duty to avoid conflict and violence, and to avoid environmental degradation, is clearly established. A key principle situated in this nexus between human rights and environmental policy is the <a href="http://www.sehn.org/precaution.html">precautionary principle</a>. Precaution entails careful and democratic assessment of potential harm in advance of action, and a willingness to consider a range of options that includes no action. Proponents – not the public – are expected to shoulder the burden of proof, and to adopt precautionary measures to minimise risk.</p>
<p>Companies’ responsibility in these respects is also being clarified in international “soft” law. The <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/GuidingPrinciplesBusinessHR_EN.pdf">United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights</a> insist that companies have a responsibility to avoid human rights abuses in their operations and in associated activities. Such human rights due diligence requires companies to develop <a href="http://www.international-alert.org/sites/default/files/Economy_ConflictSensitivityBusinessHumanRights_EN_2016.pdf">conflict sensitivity</a>. This also ought to involve a precautionary approach.</p>
<p>Both the state and mining companies need to be more proactive in demonstrating their duty of care. Indeed, some community activists argue that the mining companies are actively fomenting conflict and violence. In the Xolobeni case, they are openly concerned that the <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-03-30-xolobeni-hawks-take-over-probe-into-bazookas-slaying/#.V2APwlf-0rU">police are not impartial</a>.</p>
<h2>Assessments are crucial</h2>
<p>These grave concerns will need to be investigated. But even if they turn out to be baseless, the government and the proponent companies are neglecting their duty to avoid conflict. Rhadebe’s murder means that things have gone too far already in Xolobeni. </p>
<p>It’s our belief that both the Xolobeni and Fuleni mining proposals should be put on ice until carefully facilitated strategic assessments have been commissioned. These should cover the environment and human rights, and establish locals’ vision for their own areas. Information from such assessments can help to evaluate and even reconcile conflicting development scenarios. </p>
<p>More regular use of regional and precautionary strategic assessments to inform controversial proposals is the least the state and mining companies can do to honour the issues raised by the late Rhadebe and his peers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61699/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ralph Hamann is affiliated with the University of Cape Town, but parts of this article are based on experience working as a consultant. He receives research funding from the National Research Foundation, the UCT African Climate and Development Initiative, and the UCT Graduate School of Business.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Hill is affiliated with the Environmental Assessment Practitioners Association of South Africa.</span></em></p>
Mining proposals are often hugely controversial in South Africa and can even lead to violence. Better strategic assessments based on participation and precaution would help.
Ralph Hamann, Professor, Research Director, Research Chair, University of Cape Town
Richard Hill, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Assessment, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/60943
2016-06-15T09:30:48Z
2016-06-15T09:30:48Z
Below the radar, South Africa is limiting the right to protest
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126574/original/image-20160614-22380-p5lhr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protester smokes marijuana during a march calling for the legalisation of cannabis in Cape Town.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year marks the 40th anniversary of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">June 16 uprisings</a> in South Africa. The apartheid regime responded brutally to the ensuing protests, with police shooting live ammunition at protesting schoolchildren.</p>
<p>Given this history, to what extent does South Africa respect the right to protest today? The question should be asked with renewed urgency in the wake of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana massacre</a> and other police killings of <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2013-03-28-cops-acquitted-of-andries-tatanes-murder">protesters</a>.</p>
<p>To date public attention has focused mainly on the part <a href="http://www.saps.gov.za/about/stratframework/annual_report/2014_2015/SAPS_AR_2014-15_for_viewing.pdf">police</a> play in repressing protests. What’s been neglected is the role of municipalities in administering gatherings in terms of the <a href="http://www.gov.za/documents/regulation-gatherings-act">Regulation of Gatherings Act</a>. </p>
<p>In terms of the Act, municipalities must consult with the police and protest conveners (organisers). If agreement is not reached about conditions for gatherings, then municipalities may impose conditions or even prohibit gatherings on very narrow grounds. This means that the Act gives municipalities tremendous power to regulate gatherings, but this power must be exercised reasonably. </p>
<p>Research over five years on the right to protest in 11 municipalities – the findings of which are to be published in a book later this year – showed that none adequately respected the right. Most municipal restrictions imposed on protests did not meet the test of reasonableness. </p>
<h2>Restrictions on the right to protest</h2>
<p>In an attempt to understand the extent of the problem a research team travelled around the country and collected notices that protest conveners were required to submit to municipalities in terms of the Act. The team also considered other documents detailing municipal conditions on gatherings.</p>
<p>They also interviewed municipal officials. Police data about four of these municipalities were also mined, as were media reports. Interviews and focus groups were also conducted with activists and protest conveners. This yielded rich information about the scale of the protests and their reasons, the protest actors and municipal responses to the protests.</p>
<p>The data suggested that most protests took place peacefully and uneventfully. But what also became apparent when comparing municipal data and media coverage was that peaceful protests <a href="https://theconversation.com/voices-of-the-poor-are-missing-from-south-africas-media-53068">were often not covered by the media</a> as they did not involve disruption or violence.</p>
<p>Yet, in spite of protests remaining largely peaceful, all the municipalities surveyed instituted unreasonable restrictions on the right to protest. Most of them required conveners to seek a letter from the institution or person they were marching against, guaranteeing that they would be willing to accept the protesters’ memorandum of demands. This requirement made these protests subject to a veto by the very institution or person being targetted.</p>
<p>The City of Johannesburg required conveners to seek permission from a ward councillor to protest. The <a href="http://www.localgovernment.co.za/locals/view/191/Rustenburg-Local-Municipality">Rustenburg</a> municipality, in the North West Province, insisted that traditional chiefs – sometimes the target of the protesters – give permission for protests in areas that fall under their authority. </p>
<p>In 2010, the <a href="http://www.makana.gov.za/">Makana municipality</a> banned a planned protest by the Unemployed Peoples’ Movement against unemployment because “a meeting with the officials must be called for a follow-up on previous matters and tabling of the current ones”. </p>
<p>But the Act does not stipulate how grievances should be resolved before an organisation takes to the streets. The municipality’s reason for prohibition was also not supported by the Act. Many other examples of official censorship of protests emerged during the research. </p>
<p>Municipalities have misapplied the Act to stifle protests since the early 2000s. For instance, the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/10012607/Thabo_Mbeki_and_dissent">Johannesburg</a> and <a href="http://www.durban.gov.za/Pages/Contact_Us.aspx">eThekwini</a> municipalities have prohibited protests by social movements like the Anti-Privatisation Forum, the Soweto Electricity <a href="http://www.ngopulse.org/article/electricity-crisis-south-africa">Crisis Committee</a> and <a href="http://abahlali.org/">Abahlali baseMjondolo</a> on grounds that are not recognised by the Act. But this trend intensified from 2012 onwards.</p>
<p>In 2012, embarrassed by the scale of the protests, the Department of Co-operative Governance, under which municipalities fall, issued a circular to local governments, appealing to them to improve channels of communication.</p>
<p>The circular called for, among other things:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[working] with the office of the speaker [and] public participation units to ensure ongoing engagement between councillors and communities and residents.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Unintended consequences</h2>
<p>The circular was clearly well-meaning. But it had unintended consequences. </p>
<p>After receiving the circular, some municipalities introduced a filtering system for protests. They required conveners to show that they had held a meeting with the municipal officials that were the targets of the protests. At the very least, they had to show that an attempt was made to bring all parties to the table.</p>
<p>Perversely, this requirement drove up the number of “unlawful” protests, as aggrieved protesters simply took to the streets without informing the municipality. These were generally protesters who were at loggerheads with the very municipalities they were being required to negotiate with, and who had lost faith in their ability to respond effectively to grievances. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126592/original/image-20160614-22404-1ixi0s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126592/original/image-20160614-22404-1ixi0s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126592/original/image-20160614-22404-1ixi0s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126592/original/image-20160614-22404-1ixi0s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126592/original/image-20160614-22404-1ixi0s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126592/original/image-20160614-22404-1ixi0s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126592/original/image-20160614-22404-1ixi0s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters carry sticks as they chant slogans during a protests in Johannesburg in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Flawed application of the law</h2>
<p>These findings pointed to fundamental flaws not only in the application of the law, but in the Act itself. Municipalities claim they have the power to decide whether to allow protests or not. But the Act makes it clear that they cannot do so arbitrarily. For instance, they can only prohibit gatherings when there are imminent threats to public safety that cannot be contained through less drastic means.</p>
<p>A great many protests are against the performance of the very municipalities or authorities that claim the power of granting “permission” or not (the Act merely requires conveners to notify the municipality of their intention to gather, not seek permission). </p>
<p>This means that municipalities have intolerable conflicts of interest. They are both player and referee. The number of “illegal” protests increased when municipalities made it increasingly impossible to protest “legally”. This led to widespread and entirely inappropriate criminalisation of protests.</p>
<p>The police were also more likely to disperse such “illegal” protests with force as they did not have a hand in facilitating them. </p>
<p>But in some municipalities bureaucrats exercised relative independence from the politicians, and took administrative decisions about protests. Municipalities were more likely to be open to criticism when the responsible officer had a vested interest in the criticisms being aired. This happened, for example, if the person agreed with the protesters’ criticisms or was an opposition party supporter.</p>
<h2>Putting repression in check</h2>
<p>Massacres are the ultimate form of censorship. This is because public displays of state violence can stun dissenters into silence. This was as true on <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">June 16</a> 1976 as it was on August 16 2012 at <a href="https://theconversation.com/marikana-shining-the-light-on-police-militarisation-and-brutality-in-south-africa-44162">Marikana</a>. </p>
<p>But Marikana was not a particularly successful massacre for South Africa’s democracy-era rulers. It hastened political shifts away from the African National Congress and it did not dampen protest levels.</p>
<p>So it is hardly surprising that local governments – many of which are in the firing line of protests – are seeking ways to curtail the right to protest through administrative censorship, rather than relying on the police to use brute force. This they do by making it difficult – even impossible in some cases – for protesters to take to the streets.</p>
<p>This shift suggests that ruling elites recognise the fact that they lack the capacity to repress dissent openly. It is unlikely that there will be more Marikanas, in the sense of an organised plan to use state violence to quell protests. The ruling bloc simply cannot afford the political costs.</p>
<p>This is good news for South Africa’s democratic movements. But it does mean that public attention needs to focus on the more preemptive, less visible and ultimately less well understood forms of restrictions that limit the right to protest.</p>
<p><em>The author’s new book, “Protest Nation: The Right to Protest in South Africa”, will be published by <a href="http://www.ukznpress.co.za/">UKZN Press</a> later this year.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60943/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Duncan has received funding from the Open Society Foundation for South Africa for this project. She is affiliated with the Right 2 Know Campaign. </span></em></p>
Despite protests in South Africa being largely peaceful, municipalities are placing unreasonable restrictions on the right to protest, which sometimes amounts to a veto of that right.
Jane Duncan, Professor in the Department of Journalism, Film and Television, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/60658
2016-06-13T09:17:14Z
2016-06-13T09:17:14Z
Soweto uprising: four decades on, South Africa still struggles with violent policing
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126261/original/image-20160613-29216-e0c2pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A recent protest by South African schoolchildren which had to be quelled by an under-resourced police force</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>June days in South Africa can be dark, cold and short. The sun rises late and sets early. Highland frosts feel their way through blades of blemished veld; mists mask roads ahead and behind. The month brings with it the year’s mid-point and shortest day; a chance to reflect on what has been, and what may lie ahead.</p>
<p>Five days before the equinox South Africa celebrates <a href="http://www.gov.za/youth-day-2015">Youth Day</a>. Forty years ago on 16 June 1976, thousands of school children in Soweto, Johannesburg, braved the Highveld cold to protest the apartheid government’s decision that they be educated in a strange tongue: <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">Afrikaans</a>. Out on the street the students were confronted by the South African Police force (SAP). Teargas was followed by gunfire. Young bodies fell; cameras <a href="https://www.google.co.za/search?q=photograph+of+hector+pieterson&rlz=1C1CHMO_en-GBZA648ZA648&tbm=isch&imgil=-nSZWu7xmToV5M%253A%253BZcLIipsW1ZziwM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.fimomitchell.com%25252Fblog%25252Fsoweto-apartheid%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=-nSZWu7xmToV5M%253A%252CZcLIipsW1ZziwM%252C_&usg=__2QMDkEQA2eQXBvR0tY9wnnDW7a0%3D&biw=1920&bih=911&dpr=1&ved=0ahUKEwiv4_fj6fTMAhVJL8AKHVIvBzMQyjcINg&ei=vmRFV6-MJ8negAbS3pyYAw#imgrc=3dkBnajiT0w66M%3A">clicked</a>. The apartheid system was shaken irrevocably.</p>
<p>Youth Day takes its name from the energy and courage of those young learners. But had the police not responded as they did, 16 June might simply be another winter’s day. Police work is practical and symbolic. Through interactions with police, the state communicates with its public. In 1976, police actions embodied the unjust, indefensible and violent state attitude towards black citizens.</p>
<p>It exposed, in ways not seen since the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">Sharpeville</a> massacre on March 21, 1960 the violence through which apartheid was upheld. South Africans remember June 16, 1976 because youth took to the streets, but also because police looked them in the eye and pulled their triggers. The ripples set in motion by the youth of ‘76 had by the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/youth-politics-south-africa-1980s">mid-80s</a> crippled the economy, led to <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/state-emergency-south-africa-1960-and-1980s">states of emergency</a>, public “unrest”, and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-africas-foreign-relations-during-apartheid-1948">international sanctions</a> against the apartheid regime.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126138/original/image-20160610-29209-i2z0d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126138/original/image-20160610-29209-i2z0d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126138/original/image-20160610-29209-i2z0d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126138/original/image-20160610-29209-i2z0d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126138/original/image-20160610-29209-i2z0d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126138/original/image-20160610-29209-i2z0d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126138/original/image-20160610-29209-i2z0d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South African children visit the Hector Pieterson memorial in Soweto outside Johannesburg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Lerato Maduna</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Nelson Mandela freed</h2>
<p>The early '90s saw <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/nelson-mandela-freed">Nelson Mandela</a> freed from prison and liberation movements <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/fw-de-klerk-announces-release-nelson-mandela-and-unbans-political-organisations">unbanned</a>. The South African Police <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02167/04lv02264/05lv02335/06lv02357/07lv02372/08lv02379.htm">re-positioned</a> itself as an objective arbiter of political tension while being accused of using undercover agents to stoke ethnic violence, at a time when the country recorded its highest ever murder rate. </p>
<p>In 1995, a year before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-trc">TRC</a>), the police service <a href="http://www.saps.gov.za/resource_centre/publications/police_mag/police_magazine_feb_2015.pdf">merged</a> with the 10 <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">Bantustan</a> police agencies to form a single South African Police Service (SAPS). <a href="https://www.issafrica.org/uploads/2016-05-19-SAPS-Shake-Up-Presentation.pdf">Civilian ranks</a> replaced military, and mustard-coloured vehicles were painted cloud-white.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/wits/papers/papsapjr.htm">Training curricula</a> were revised to embrace human rights, and “<a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/index.php/publications/1462-a-review-of-community-policing.html">community policing</a>” was imported from the wealthy West. <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/wits/papers/papbruc6.htm">Transformation policies</a> saw black members and women rising through the ranks rapidly. All the while, the TRC shone a light on the SAP’s <a href="https://www.enca.com/look-vlakplaas-apartheids-death-squad-hq">torture farms</a>, as well as on the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/umkhonto-wesizwe-mk-exile">detention camps</a> of the liberation movements. It exposed habits of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/09/world/apartheid-torturer-testifies-as-evil-shows-its-banal-face.html?pagewanted=all">torture</a> and <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2013/10/29/remember-the-past-and-question-the-present">murder</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126136/original/image-20160610-29238-n7o1o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126136/original/image-20160610-29238-n7o1o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126136/original/image-20160610-29238-n7o1o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126136/original/image-20160610-29238-n7o1o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126136/original/image-20160610-29238-n7o1o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126136/original/image-20160610-29238-n7o1o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126136/original/image-20160610-29238-n7o1o4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nelson Mandela and his wife Graca Machel attend a ceremony to receive the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report on October 29, 1998.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the run-up to the '94 elections, the African National Congress (ANC) believed, perhaps not unexpectedly, that once police were under an elected-ANC’s control, South Africans would accept their authority. They expected that citizens would accept the criminal law as legitimate and cease the daily violence. This violence had evolved as a product of oppression and as a tool of political resistance, security and punishment in <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-10-02-south-africas-mysterious-murder-rate/#.V1q4r7t97IV">preceding decades</a>.</p>
<h2>“Dog deals with a bone”</h2>
<p>Instead crime and violence spread, sending politicians scrambling. In 1999 then Minister of Safety and Security <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/pebble.asp?relid=2932">Steve Tshwete</a> <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2012/12/20/police-public-order-expert-proves-a-recalcitrant-witness-at-marikana-inquiry">declared</a> that government would “deal with criminals in the same way a dog deals with a bone”. With this posturing the ANC <a href="https://www.issafrica.org/uploads/CW41Dixon.pdf">stripped law-breaking</a> of the historical, socioeconomic and political overtones through which it had <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Governing-through-Crime-in-South-Africa-The-Politics-of-Race-and-Class/Super/p/book/9781409444749">explained violence under apartheid</a>, framing “criminals” instead as bad people who threatened democracy.</p>
<p>In 2000 South Africans were shown precisely how a police dog “deals with a bone” when video emerged of four white officers and their dogs <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/nov/30/chrismcgreal">mauling</a> three Mozambican men. It was a reminder that, like its violent crime, the horrors of apartheid policing were not snuffed out by elections.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/onmq-g2kx-o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Four white South African policemen set their dogs on three Mozambicans as a ‘training exercise’ and videotaped it. PLEASE NOTE: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC VIOLENCE.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In response to public anger over crime, the 2000s saw government increase police budgets at rates above inflation. Police ranks swelled to 200 000 and the rhetoric of police “service” was abandoned in favour of “force”. <a href="http://fromtheold.com/news/new-police-ranks-south-africa-welcome-sapf-2010040117527.html">Military ranks</a> were reintroduced in 2010 amid calls by leaders for police to “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1584641/Kill-the-bastards-South-African-police-advised.html">kill the [criminal] bastards</a>” and “<a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/police-must-shoot-to-kill-worry-later---cele-453587">shoot to kill</a>”. Some officers have been so emboldened that they have filmed and shared their shootings.</p>
<p>Even the 2012 horrors that happened at the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana</a> mine, where police shot and killed 34 striking mineworkers, were <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbAlgo_pzVg">captured</a> on police cell phones. Scenes from that day have become as iconic as those of a dying <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/hector-pieterson">Hector Pieterson</a>, photographed in Soweto 40 years ago this week. Has anything changed?</p>
<p>The SAPS is far from a perfect organisation, but it is not dysfunctional. Many SAPS officers face extreme challenges, like policing a claimed average of <a href="http://www.saps.gov.za/about/stratframework/annual_report/2014_2015/SAPS_AR_2014-15_for_viewing.pdf">40 protests a day.</a> </p>
<p>A further challenge is <a href="http://www.khayelitshacommission.org.za/images/towards_khaye_docs/3_Part_Three.pdf">patrolling</a> informal settlements without lighting or roads where murders can exceed 100 per 100 000 residents (the <a href="https://www.unodc.org/gsh/en/big-picture.html">global average</a> was 6.2 in 2012) and where residents <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/sinoxolos-boyfriend-allegedly-stabs-state-witness-20160509">fear attack from neighbours</a> if they speak to detectives.</p>
<h2>Police salary a dream</h2>
<p>In a country with a <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=7281">27% unemployment rate</a> and where 60% of workers <a href="https://africacheck.org/reports/do-60-of-south-african-workers-earn-less-than-r5000-a-month/">earn less</a> than R5 000 a month, a police starting salary of R13 000 is the kind of thing dreams are made of. Of the nearly <a href="http://www.saps.gov.za/about/stratframework/annual_report/2014_2015/SAPS_AR_2014-15_for_viewing.pdf">200 000 job applications</a> received by the SAPS in 2014/15, just 1.4% (2 827) were successful.</p>
<p>It is in this context that the job is something to be coveted. But this doesn’t necessarily produce professional, integrity-based policing. Rather, many officers –- including the <a href="http://city-press.news24.com/News/Farlams-Marikana-findings-Leading-role-players-slammed-20150628">most senior</a> –- do what they must to please their managers and present a public image of competence.</p>
<p>For some this means doing the best job they can do, <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/policeman-shares-lunch-homeless-woman-photo-goes-viral">responding</a> to people’s needs compassionately and efficiently. But for others it means <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFiCiJeQMo8">abusing sex workers</a>; shooting <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2016/03/14/CT-filling-station-robbery-ends-in-shooting-four-killed">without fair warning</a>; <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2009-10-17-top-cops-knew-stats-were-cooked">manipulating</a> crime data; <a href="http://www.icd.gov.za/sites/default/files/documents/IPID_Annual_Report%20_2014-15.pdf">torturing</a> criminal suspects; (allegedly) <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/pics-cops-terrorise-vyeboom-residents-2026300">assaulting</a> vulnerable villagers; even <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2015/08/25/Mido-Macia-all-eight-accused-found-guilty-of-murder">beating a man to death</a> for publicly questioning police authority – when they believe nobody is watching.</p>
<p>It’s an <a href="http://www.elections.org.za/content/Elections/2016-Municipal-Elections/Home/">election year</a> in South Africa. The opposition Economic Freedom Fighters’ <a href="http://www.economicfreedomfighters.org/full-document-2014-eff-elections-manifesto/">manifesto claims</a> that “20 years [into democracy], the police still kill people!” It promises the party will protect street vendors from “police harassment” and communities from “intimidation from the police”. That the party believes these promises will win it votes reflects very poorly on the SAPS.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126135/original/image-20160610-29222-82412e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126135/original/image-20160610-29222-82412e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126135/original/image-20160610-29222-82412e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126135/original/image-20160610-29222-82412e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126135/original/image-20160610-29222-82412e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126135/original/image-20160610-29222-82412e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126135/original/image-20160610-29222-82412e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Policemen stand in front of the Hector Pieterson memorial during the 30th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nevertheless, more South Africans are <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412013.pdf">satisfied</a> with police than not, even though only <a href="http://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Dispatches/ab_r6_dispatchno56_police_corruption_in_africa.pdf">49% trust</a> them. Ultimately, <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0341/P03412013.pdf">South Africans agree</a> that to address crime, government should spend money on socioeconomic interventions rather than police. Indeed, what democracy has not yet delivered is an equal country or economy, in the absence of which policing will always likely defend the status quo established by extreme concentrations of power and wealth.</p>
<h2>Volunteer for the police</h2>
<p>In my many years of working with the SAPS as a volunteer and researcher, most police action I have observed has targeted poor, black men. But one needn’t be a researcher or reservist to know this: <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/death-andries-tatane-service-delivery-protest-free-state-sparks-national-outrage">Andries Tatane</a>, who was killed by police during a service delivery protest, was black and poor, the Marikana workers were black and poor, the residents of <a href="http://www.khayelitshacommission.org.za/images/towards_khaye_docs/Khayelitsha_Commission_Report_WEB_FULL_TEXT_C.pdf">Khayelitsha</a> (one of Cape Town’s largest and deadliest townships) are overwhelmingly black and poor.</p>
<p>The tragic irony is that, despite their relatively good salaries, many police officers remain poor. Their income is stretched to support networks of vulnerable kin. So while one group of relatively poor men and women police another, a political and economic elite enjoys the fruits of a violently unjust society.</p>
<p>As such, police signal to the country’s vulnerable young men that the state does not trust them. The signals entrench divisions already established by a landscape many young people literally cannot afford the taxi fair to traverse in search of a job in a market which rejects almost half of young job-seekers. All of this happens against the backdrop a welfare system which offers subsidies to almost every category of vulnerable person but for able bodied, unemployed young men.</p>
<p>The South African Police Service is a very different organisation from its apartheid predecessor. And yet, in its actions and inactions, it is at times too easy to see similarities between them. Ultimately, one cannot reform a police service without reforming the context in which it operates. In South Africa, a broken education system continues to <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/education/2016/04/19/poor-education-traps-black-youth-in-poverty">trap the poor majority</a> in poverty.</p>
<p>Despite huge changes South Africa remains a country of stark, violence-inducing inequalities and injustices, wounds which police officers cannot heal. Instead, through their work they both shepherd and protect, criminalise and abuse the vulnerabilities and struggles of millions of South Africans still waiting for their winter to end.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60658/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Faull previously received funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>
It is exactly forty years since the Soweto uprising in June 1976 where the South African police met the students with brutal force. How much has changed in terms of policing?
Andrew Faull, Senior Researcher at the Centre of Criminology, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/47804
2015-10-02T04:39:23Z
2015-10-02T04:39:23Z
Why inequality matters – for the rich and the poor
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96957/original/image-20151001-23072-kq9819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Workers in a bank watch as Occupy Wall Street protesters march in New York as part of the populist movement protesting economic inequality.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Joshua Lott </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the last decade there has been a renaissance in studies stressing the relevance of inequality worldwide, particularly in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. The loud cry of the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2015/sep/16/occupy-wall-street-four-years-later-timeline">Occupy movement</a> gained worldwide attention in its denunciation of the increasing polarisation of incomes and assets in the hands of an infamous 1%. </p>
<p>Thomas Piketty’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/1491534656">Capital in the Twenty-first Century</a> has largely supported the claims of global social movements that capitalism is moulding a world for the few against the many. It is not a coincidence that the name of his book recalls Karl Marx’s famous <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf">critique of political economy</a>. </p>
<p>Since the 1950s, mainstream economic narratives have been obsessed with modelling the relationship between inequality and growth. They also deployed questionable indicators of inequality based on an “average” distribution (the Gini coefficient). </p>
<p>Piketty has broken this mould. His work has focused on the extremes of the distribution and on elite’s capture since the origins of capitalism in western economies. </p>
<p>This enabled him to highlight what capitalism does best if left unchecked: namely, increasing returns to capital, rewarding and reproducing the creation of wealth. The book has been widely reviewed – favourably and unfavourably. Truth is, whatever one thinks about it, it returned inequality to the core of political economy debates on capitalism where it belongs.</p>
<h2>Roots of inequality</h2>
<p>In many instances, the historical roots of intercountry inequalities lie in slavery and colonialism. This is too often overlooked by contemporary economic analyses whose timeline is generally quite narrow. The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/30/slavery-reparations-call-overshadows-david-camerons-visit-to-jamaica">Jamaican government</a> is currently reminding the UK that slavery can hardly be dismissed as a “thing of the past”.</p>
<p>Intracountry and intercountry inequalities interplay in the world economy. The increasing polarisation of the income shares of capital and labour is embedded in an equally polarised global division of labour. </p>
<p>This counterpoises countries hosting the majority of the world’s rich, led by the US, and those gathering the majority of the world’s working poor – Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the post-colonial era national capital has played its own role in processes of exploitation and dispossession against the working poor. </p>
<p>British-Indian writer <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/21/capital-portrait-twenty-first-century-delhi-review">Rana Dasgupta</a> has illustrated how these processes unfolded in the making of Delhi as a modern metropolis. Intriguingly, he has done so in a book also called Capital - a portrait of Delhi in the 21st century.</p>
<p>Even emerging economies like India or China, which are experiencing “global convergence”, are building their economic fortune on the shoulders of the working poor.</p>
<h2>The cost of inequality</h2>
<p>The human and social cost of highly unequal processes of capitalist development for low classes and for the working poor is substantial. This should be the primary reason for our interest in inequality. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/roger-southall/south-africas-massacre-peeling-onion">Marikana tragedy</a>, which saw South African police firing on striking miners with live ammunition killing thirty-four, has indicated the violent nature of the struggles over resources and income shares. Piketty himself refers to the Marikana case to highlight the extreme consequences of fights over redistribution. </p>
<p>In Cambodia in 2014, <a href="http://theconversation.com/cambodian-sweatshop-protests-reveal-the-blood-on-our-clothes-21811">workers were shot</a> in the streets of Phnom Penh as they asked for an increase in their minimum wage. Inequality must be fought because it perpetuates social injustice.</p>
<p>Even those hardly moved by these arguments are increasingly aware of the challenges highly unequal distributions of income and wealth imply. Inequality was high on the agenda at the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2015/jan/25/davos-2015-overriding-pessimism-over-growing-inequality">World Economic Forum 2015</a> in Davos, certainly not your average activists’ network. This is because high levels of inequality have clear economic and social costs. </p>
<p>High inequality may undermine growth, as in South Africa. It can lead to violence and tensions, compelling the rich to live in gated communities, like in Brazil. In <a href="http://theconversation.com/gated-communities-lock-cities-into-cycles-of-inequality-33516">Buenos Aires</a> there were 90 gated communities in the 1990s. They became 285 by 2001, and 541 by 2008. </p>
<p>The proliferation of borders, fences and walls, not only in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/may/02/gated-communities-blade-runner-dystopia-unhappiness-un-joan-clos">urban spaces</a>, is gaining momentum across the world, even in developed countries, leading to increasingly segregated livelihoods. In the end, also the rich may not want to live like this.</p>
<h2>What to do about it?</h2>
<p>This is hardly an easy question to answer. Economics studies, even bestsellers like Piketty’s, still tell us little about who is more likely to bear the brunt of inequality. This is a crucial issue as inequality is a <a href="http://www3.qeh.ox.ac.uk/pdf/qehwp/qehwps81.pdf">“horizontal”</a>, “group phenomenon” experienced collectively. </p>
<p>And income and wealth – material inequality – may only represent the final outcome of far more rooted structures of oppression. </p>
<p>Ultimately, inequality is experienced on the basis of class, gender, race, caste or geographical provenance. In South Africa, one cannot understand inequality without addressing the legacy of apartheid. In India, one cannot decouple inequality from colonialism and <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/contours-of-caste-disadvantage/article6442860.ece">caste</a>. In the US, inequality is linked to racial discrimination. In Europe, it is increasingly linked to migration, as many undocumented migrant workers are subjected to “slavery-like” <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/09/28/us-italy-immigrants-tomatoes-idUSTRE58R1TW20090928">working conditions</a>.</p>
<p>The fight against inequality must be fought on many fronts. It is a fight worth fighting. As highlighted in all books of the Capital “trilogy” mentioned here, from Marx to Piketty and Dasgupta, inequality is a key functioning mechanism of capitalism. It must be addressed as a matter of social justice. </p>
<p>Furthermore, it may also soon become both economically unviable and socially undesirable for the few to exclude the many. As the few reinforce fences and gates, the many may be really becoming too many, particularly across the developing world. They may even start demanding their share.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In the past, Alessandra Mezzadri has received funding from ESRC-DfID and from the British Academy. </span></em></p>
The Marikana tragedy has indicated the violent nature of the struggles over resources and income shares. Inequality must be fought because it perpetuates social injustice.
Alessandra Mezzadri, Lecturer in Development Studies, SOAS, University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/46375
2015-09-04T04:44:24Z
2015-09-04T04:44:24Z
Marikana artwork provides a tool for conscientisation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92785/original/image-20150824-17762-1r706q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It may seem like photographer Greg Marinovich captured a bare landscape in his photos of Marikana, but the dreary photos are filled with haunting memories of the massacre that took place there.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Greg Marinovich</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">killing</a> of 34 striking miners near the Lonmin platinum mine at Marikana in South Africa’s North West province in 2012 was the single biggest use of deadly force by the authorities against civilians since 1960’s <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">Sharpeville massacre</a>. </p>
<p>The tragedy was a depressingly familiar response of South Africa’s authorities to a perceived challenge to hegemonic power. It was, simultaneously, a disturbing new departure. That it occurred 18 years after the demise of apartheid set the country back ethically and politically.</p>
<p>The powerful clash of entrenched mining capital, race, labour and deadly violence embodied by the massacre has also been a point of interest to many South African artists.</p>
<p>South Africa has been visually imagined by many artists as a country being constantly dug up and penetrated, or, alternatively, emptied out to represent the beauty of a ‘<a href="http://www.nfsa.gov.au/digitallearning/mabo/tn_01.shtml">terra nullius</a>’. </p>
<p>The visual profile of the mining headgear and mine shaft is perhaps the most characteristic symbol of the tortured character of South Africa’s history. It is an allegory for the racialisation of space and capital and the forced removal of black people from the urban landscape and economic opportunity. In recent times, artists as disparate as <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/william-kentridge">William Kentridge</a> and <a href="http://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/steve-mcqueen/">Steve McQueen</a> have taken up the trope. </p>
<h2>Outpouring of creativity</h2>
<p>But it is Marikana which dominates recent South African memory. It has produced, in addition to much debate, many different aesthetic responses. The recent third anniversary of the massacre offers some useful perspective on how various responses to the tragedy can offer South Africans a different and more nuanced emotional perspective.</p>
<p>To say that art should be apolitical is often misguided. The work produced by South African artists in light of Marikana has in common with other socially and politically engaged art a revelatory and revolutionary commitment to change and democracy. It has this in common, for example, with the outpouring of creativity in response to the <a href="http://blacklivesmatter.com/">#BlackLivesMatter</a> mobilisation campaign against racist police brutality in the US. </p>
<p>In this case, in a wider social movement involving many different kinds of activism, art played a central role in enabling people to understand and articulate their anger. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.hankwillisthomas.com/">Hank Willis Thomas</a> is a good example within the #BlackLivesMatter campaign. He deconstructs and re-contextualises the imagery of advertising and popular culture. This reveals how racism and capitalism work in concert to destroy black lives all over the world.</p>
<p>Three very different examples of South African artwork produced in response to the Marikana tragedy give us some insight as to the ways in which art can be used as both a tool for political conscientisation and a means to psychologically process traumatic events.</p>
<h2>The ‘small koppie’</h2>
<p>Soon after the massacre took place, photojournalist <a href="http://www.thebangbangclub.com/greg-marinovich.html">Greg Marinovich</a> captured another way of envisioning South African post- or neo-colonial space. This was done in poignant photographs of the ‘Small Koppie’ (hill) killing field at the site.</p>
<p>Quasi-documentary photographs of empty and melancholy landscapes such as those by artists like <a href="http://wsoa.wits.ac.za/fine-arts/jo-ractliffe/">Jo Ractliffe</a> or <a href="http://www.goodman-gallery.com/artists/davidgoldblatt">David Goldblatt</a> beg questions of framing, veracity and back story as to what is excluded. Marinovich’s forensic images are focused around the investigative marking and lettering of each individual murder site. They offer a haunting sense of culpability in the absence of detail and habitation in this killing field. </p>
<p>As he writes in <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-08-30-the-murder-fields-of-marikana-the-cold-murder-fields-of-marikana#.VdrFZZcnKLY">an article</a> accompanying the images, this cul-de-sac, surrounded by steep rocks, was where police gunned down many of the striking miners after the initial police engagement. </p>
<p>Equipped with this knowledge, the viewer cannot see the landscape as empty. Instead it is full of the horror of the massacre, even without any explicit detail. </p>
<h2>The massacre in film</h2>
<p>A very different kind of intervention and response to the massacre takes place in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0449365/">Aryan Kaganof’s</a> lyrical agitprop <a href="https://vimeo.com/120610859">film</a> Night is Coming – a Threnody for the Victims of Marikana. </p>
<p>The initial edit of the film juxtaposes footage of an exclusive, and almost exclusively white, academic music symposium at Stellenbosch University at the time of the massacre. It has a hypnotic manipulated edit of the ‘official’ available news footage of the original engagement between the miners and the police who shot them down. </p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/120610859" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Kaganof’s original commission was to film the proceedings of the academic conference. He uses the premise of the exclusive and highly detached theoretical discourse happening at the event as a counterpoint to the Marikana footage. He subjects this to an almost unbearably extreme slowing-down. The altering of its duration renders it at once more poignant and more abstracted. </p>
<h2>Diminishing of human life</h2>
<p>A final example of an immediate artistic response to the tragedy was an exhibition of eleven oil paintings by artist <a href="http://artthrob.co.za/Artists/Mary-Wafer.aspx">Mary Wafer</a>. It consists of a set of paintings in a muted palette, with a fragile and delicate use of the artist’s trademark black paint, which is based on aerial reconnaissance photographs and other media images of the site. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92794/original/image-20150824-17799-1yqusb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92794/original/image-20150824-17799-1yqusb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92794/original/image-20150824-17799-1yqusb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92794/original/image-20150824-17799-1yqusb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92794/original/image-20150824-17799-1yqusb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92794/original/image-20150824-17799-1yqusb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92794/original/image-20150824-17799-1yqusb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wafer Lines Oil on Canvas LR x.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The titles of the images mirror the sparseness of their style. Aerial I, II and III all abstract both the site itself and the aerial photographs which they refer to. The paintings all contain a flock of black marks which could be people, though they have no detail. The birds’ eye view presages both the tragedy and the diminishing of the value of human life it presupposes. </p>
<p>All of these works both aestheticise the tragedy of Marikana, and pass judgement on the events. The artists use their images to change the viewer’s relation to the events. In so doing, they provide a different framework for understanding the tragedy and others like it as at the same time aesthetically and politically significant.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46375/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Sey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Marikana tragedy has dominated recent South African memory and produced many different aesthetic responses.
James Sey, Research Associate, Research Centre, Faculty of Fine Art, Design and Architecture, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/44162
2015-07-03T04:27:54Z
2015-07-03T04:27:54Z
Marikana: shining the light on police militarisation and brutality in South Africa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87188/original/image-20150702-11345-1o8jxtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Farlam Commission found that the police inappropriately chose to forcibly break the strike at Marikana, resulting in the deaths of 34 miners.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2015/06/29/Families-to-sue-over-Marikana-massacre">widely</a> criticised <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/pebble.asp?relid=19997">Farlam Commission</a> of inquiry’s report into the <a href="http://www.marikanacomm.org.za/">Marikana massacre</a> has put a spotlight on the dangers of South Africa’s militarised police force. The government needs to seize the opportunity to address this problem once and for all. </p>
<p>Possibly the most significant finding by the commission is that the police inappropriately abandoned public order policing with its emphasis on crowd control in favour of forcibly disarming the striking miners and breaking the strike.</p>
<p>This was done because police leaders had declared August 16 – the day on which the massacre occurred – “D-day”. The police took this decision not because the situation on the ground demanded it, but in response to inappropriate political considerations.</p>
<p>The decision had an impact in how things turned out at Marikana. The police reduced the involvement of the <a href="http://pmg-assets.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/140903saps.pdf">Public Order Police</a>, which deals with public unrest, and increased the involvement of specialised policing units with little-to-no experience in public order policing. These included the paramilitarised <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2012/11/05/a-template-for-marikana-was-made-in-ermelo-a-year-ago">Tactical Response Team</a>, the <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2012/11/05/a-template-for-marikana-was-made-in-ermelo-a-year-ago">National Intervention Unit</a> for counter-terrorism, which deals with medium- and high-risk law enforcement, and the <a href="http://www.sapstf.org/">Special Task Force</a>, which deals in counter-terrorism and hostage situations. </p>
<p>The operational plan was geared heavily towards the use of maximum force rather than minimum force. This is hardly surprising – this is what these paramilitary units are trained for.</p>
<p>In an attempt to prevent a recurrence of the massacre, Farlam has called for the <a href="https://nationalplanningcommission.wordpress.com/">National Planning Commission’s</a> recommendations to <a href="https://nationalplanningcommission.wordpress.com/building-safer-communities/">demilitarise</a> the police to be implemented. But the problem is that that no-one, including Farlam himself, has set out what this task involves.</p>
<p>The police and even the National Planning Commission seem to understand militarisation as being about the reintroduction of the military ranking system to the police. But it is so much more than that, as the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana massacre</a> demonstrated graphically.</p>
<h2>What militarisation means</h2>
<p><a href="http://justicestudies.eku.edu/people/kraska">Peter Kraska</a>, possibly the foremost academic on the subject, defined police militarisation as an ideology which stresses the use of force and threats of violence to solve problems, and using military power as a problem-solving tool.</p>
<p>Kraska undertook ethnographic work of the US paramilitary <a href="http://www.americanspecialops.com/special-weapons-and-tactics/">Special Weapons & Tactics (SWAT)</a> teams from the 1980s onwards, and developed a <a href="http://cjmasters.eku.edu/sites/cjmasters.eku.edu/files/21stmilitarization.pdf">militarisation continuum</a>. He used indicators ranging from:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>material indicators (the extent of martial weaponry);</p></li>
<li><p>cultural indicators (the extent of martial language);</p></li>
<li><p>organisational indicators (the extent of martial arrangements); and</p></li>
<li><p>operational indicators (the extent of operational patterns modelled after the military).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In the US, police militarisation emerged during the <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/paradox/htele.html">“war on drugs”</a> in the late 1960s, and intensified after the <a href="http://global.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks">September 11</a> attacks and the <a href="http://wiksa.free.fr/en/files/text/Rubin_Buchanan_CIBC%20-%20Recession.pdf">2008 global recession</a>. More countries followed the US example, using vaguely defined “wars on” to justify their actions.</p>
<p>This conflicted with what, by then, had become the dominant model of protest policing, which recognised protest as a right and a legitimate form of political expression. Countries such as Canada and Germany that embraced this <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_assembly">approach</a> were social democratic in nature, and aimed for a socially included (or co-opted) working class. Therefore, they stressed the negotiated management of protests.</p>
<p>The advent of <a href="http://www.sok.bz/web/media/video/ABriefHistoryNeoliberalism.pdf">neoliberalism</a> from the 1970s onwards changed all that. As political elites promoted social polarisation and many workers became condemned to lives of permanent unemployment, they pursued more authoritarian policing practices stressing the use of force. At the same time, these countries, such as the US and the UK, also began to redefine crime. Crime was not a social problem caused by ills such as poverty, but as an aberration justifying increasingly violent responses.</p>
<p>Drawing on Kraska’s work, it becomes apparent that militarisation is not just about the police using military ranks. It is also about the increasing use of the military in internal security matters, and applying military models to domestic policing. When the police are militarised, more elite police units that are modelled on military special operations units are established and normalised in a range of policing functions.</p>
<p>The military have also taken on more <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/11553017/South-Africa-deploys-the-army-in-townships-hit-by-xenophobia.html">policing functions</a>, leading to a blurring of the distinction between the two, and they transfer more weapons to the police. This is problematic. The military is mandated to use force much more readily than the police. A soldier that hesitates to use combat skills in a war situation could be killed.</p>
<h2>The South African case</h2>
<p>When Kraska’s continuum is considered, it becomes apparent that the South African police are being two-faced on the demilitarisation question. While claiming to be committed to demilitarisation, as national police commissioner Mangwashi Victoria Phiyega <a href="http://www.gov.za/speeches/speaker-notes-national-police-commissioner-vision-2030-17-jun-2015-0000">told parliament</a> last month, they have actually been remilitarising. Marikana seems to have strengthened their resolve to do so.</p>
<p>While the South African police leadership was <a href="http://www.issafrica.org/uploads/m138full.pdf">closing</a> specialist policing units, they increased the number of paramilitary units. Yet there is no transparency about when and why the paramilitary units are being deployed. And there are signs that they have become normalised in more areas of policing: an operational indicator of militarisation. </p>
<p>They have also become well-known for extremely violent policing, especially the <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-12-10-tactical-response-teams-brutal-reign-in-wesselton-mpumalanga#.VZUt9huqqko">Tactical Response Team</a>.</p>
<h2>Danger signs for democracy</h2>
<p>The police and the military are increasingly being deployed jointly to the point where South Africa’s <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/docs/reports/15year_review/gdyc/disability/chapter3.pdf">security cluster</a>, comprising primarily the departments of intelligence, army, and the police, has begun referring to the police, the military and the intelligence services as the <a href="http://www.gov.za/speeches/police-operation-fiela-3-may-2015-0000">joint security forces</a>. This is being done on an increasingly centralised basis through the <a href="http://www.gov.za/national-joint-operational-and-intelligence-structure-natjoints-statement-elections">National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure</a>, an organisational indicator of militarisation.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87172/original/image-20150702-11311-qoupq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87172/original/image-20150702-11311-qoupq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87172/original/image-20150702-11311-qoupq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87172/original/image-20150702-11311-qoupq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87172/original/image-20150702-11311-qoupq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87172/original/image-20150702-11311-qoupq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87172/original/image-20150702-11311-qoupq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South African National Defence Force soldiers patrolling the streets.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For some time, policymakers have been preparing the ground for an increasing domestic deployment of the military. This convergence of powers and functions is taking place along militarised and intelligence-led lines. This mandate and function creep is extremely dangerous for South Africa’s democracy.</p>
<p>Last year, the police made a <a href="http://pmg-assets.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/140903saps.pdf">plea</a> to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Police for a doubling of resources for their public order work. This request rested on dubious grounds. It overplayed the extent of violent protests, as shown by <a href="http://www.uj.ac.za/EN/Newsroom/News/Documents/2015/South%20African%20Police%20Service%20Data%20on%20Crowd%20Incidents%20Report.pdf">research</a>.</p>
<h2>The slippery slope</h2>
<p>The Marikana massacre happened partly because police militarisation is much more advanced than is often acknowledged in the public debate. A superficial understanding of the problem serves the police as it prevents them from being held to account. It masks the extent to which militarisation has been driven by deliberate political decisions in favour of a more repressive social order.</p>
<p>Despite all the arguments for police demilitarisation, the extent of militarisation has not been quantified. The joint deployments of the police, the military and the intelligence services, as well as paramilitary unit deployments, remain under-analysed.</p>
<p>Organisations such as the Institute for <a href="http://www.issafrica.org/about-us/how-we-work">Security Studies</a>, which states its goal as advancing “human security in Africa through evidence-based policy advice, technical support and capacity building”, have <a href="http://www.issafrica.org/crimehub/news/iss-today-blaming-militarisation-for-police-brutality-is-aiming-at-the-wrong-target">downplayed</a> the extent of police militarisation. </p>
<p>Academics have been largely missing in action, failing to take up Kraska’s cue. This leaves South Africa with no real roadmap for achieving police demilitarisation. It puts the right to protest in post-Marikana South Africa in a very dangerous place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44162/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Duncan is affiliated with the Right 2 Know Campaign.</span></em></p>
The Farlam Commission has called for implementation of plans to demilitarise the police to prevent a recurrence of the Marikana massacre. But, no-one, including Farlam, has set out what this involves.
Jane Duncan, Professor in the Department of Journalism, Film and Television, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/43868
2015-06-25T21:52:32Z
2015-06-25T21:52:32Z
Marikana tragedy must be understood against the backdrop of structural violence in South Africa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86454/original/image-20150625-29094-1c24b7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The scene at Marikana on August 16, 2012. The South African Police Services came in for targeted criticism in the Farlam Commission report. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For some observers, the long-awaited and much-delayed publication of retired judge Ian Farlam’s report on the death of 44 people at the Lonmin-owned platinum mine at Marikana in August 2012 is all about <a href="http://www.gov.za/about-government/leaders/profile/987">Cyril Ramaphosa</a>. </p>
<p>Did the former union leader, multi-millionaire former businessman and current deputy president of South Africa have the blood of 34 striking mineworkers on his hands? Did the <a href="http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2012/10/24/marikana-inquiry-shown-ramaphosa-em">emails</a> he sent and the phone calls he made to Lonmin management and senior government ministers amount to the smoking gun lawyers representing the miners’ families and his political opponents – the <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2014-07-30-toxic-lonmin-police-collusion-blamed-for-marikana-massacre">Economic Freedom Fighters</a> in particular – have hoped and argued for? </p>
<p><a href="http://www.marikanacomm.org.za/">Farlam</a> concluded that his hands are clean and there is neither gun nor smoke. So much is clear from President Jacob Zuma’s summary of his <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/pebble.asp?relid=19992">findings</a> when he released the report. But, with so much at stake for so many, this is unlikely to be the end of the <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2015/06/12/EFF-to-launch-private-prosecution-for-Ramaphosa-over-Marikana">controversy</a>.</p>
<p>It would be a pity, and a waste of both public money and a lot of people’s time, if the wider meaning of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana</a> gets swept away in a tide of politically charged controversy about the deputy president and what he did or did not do, should or should not have done, in the fateful days leading up to the bloody events at Marikana on August 16 almost three years ago. This is not to say that the politicians, police officials, company executives, union leaders and others responsible for what happened should not be held to account, and face prosecution if there is evidence of criminal behaviour. They should.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding <a href="http://www.gov.za/about-government/leaders/profile/987">Farlam’s verdicts</a> on Ramaphosa, former Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa, former Minister of Mineral Resources, Susan Shabangu and National Police Commissioner, Riah Phiyega, and the field commanders on the ground at Marikana, it is important to see what happened as indicative of more deep-rooted structural and institutional problems. At the centre of it all is the problem of violence.</p>
<h2>Structural violence</h2>
<p>Writing almost half a century ago, the peace researcher <a href="https://www.transcend.org/galtung/">Johan Galtung</a> distinguished between what he called structural and personal violence. It is South Africa’s misfortune that both forms of <a href="http://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-south-africas-official-crime-statistics-for-201314/">violence</a> are part of the bitter legacy of apartheid – a legacy that the events at Marikana suggest has not yet been overcome.</p>
<p>For Galtung, structural violence was a result of the uneven distribution of resources: income, education, medical services and so on. Above all, it stemmed from differences in the power to decide over the distribution of resources. It is evident wherever power is held by some and denied to others, wherever life chances are unequal. Personal violence, he argued, was more familiar and more obvious in the context of personal interactions.</p>
<p>Millions of South Africans felt the effects of structural violence under colonial and apartheid rule. Thousands became the victims of personal violence meted out by the police – beatings, torture and murder.</p>
<h2>Migrant labour and public order policing</h2>
<p>Studies of life on the mines in the twentieth century by <a href="http://www.wits.ac.za/humanities/swop/20872/">Dunbar Moodie</a> and others have uncovered the structural violence inherent in the migrant labour system on which South Africa’s mining industry has depended for so long. The report of the <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/">Truth Reconciliation Commission</a>, several academic histories and a host of biographical accounts – not to mention the work of a few courageous individuals writing at the time – have documented the routine use of sometimes lethal personal violence by the old South African Police (SAP). </p>
<p>A good deal of this violence was visited on usually unarmed people protesting against the iniquities of the system. In probably the most notorious incident, 69 people died and more than 300 were injured at <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">Sharpeville</a> on March 21, 1960.</p>
<p>The tragedy – a much overused word that seems unusually appropriate here – of Marikana was that 44 lives were lost in circumstances that can only be understood in the context of the continued use of <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02167/04lv02264/05lv02303/06lv02317/07lv02318/08lv02323.htm">migrant labour</a> on the mines, and of lethal force in policing crowds by the SAP’s successor, the <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/saps-to-blame-for-marikana-massacre-1.1876552">South African Police Service</a> (SAPS).</p>
<p>Efforts to make the system of ethnically segregated single-sex mine compound hostels a thing of the past have led to the development of sprawling, poorly serviced shack settlements around Marikana and other <a href="http://www.wits.ac.za/files/q3ct5_356612001366361136.pdf">mines</a>. Migrant workers struggling to maintain two families and two homes have been forced into the iron grip of loan sharks.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the process of police reform that gathered pace after 1994, and led to the major changes in <a href="http://www.issafrica.org/uploads/cq38tait_marks.pdf">public order policing</a> observed by Durban-based scholar, Monique Marks, stalled and then went into reverse in the 2000s. The response to protests over the provision of basic services became <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/docs/thesmokethatcalls.pdf">increasingly violent</a>. </p>
<p>A low point was reached when <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/death-andries-tatane-service-delivery-protest-free-state-sparks-national-outrage">Andries Tatane</a> was killed at a protest in Ficksburg in the Free State in 2011. David Bruce, an independent researcher who gave evidence to the Farlam Commission, has tracked a <a href="http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/1455">disturbing trend</a> in the use of increasingly lethal amounts of force by the police to the re-establishment of Operational Response Services (ORS) as full division within the SAPS. </p>
<h2>Understanding Marikana</h2>
<p>Events at Marikana can only be understood against the background of the structural violence faced by the striking mineworkers and their families and the personal violence routinely used by the SAPS in public order situations calling for more sensitive handling. </p>
<p>Throw in the politically charged atmosphere of the time – <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-14718226">Julius Malema</a>, the <a href="http://www.afesis.org.za/local-governance/local-governance-articles/192-the-anc-youth-league-lost-in-the-high-seas.html">ANC Youth League</a> and all that – the struggle for dominance in the mining industry between the ANC-aligned <a href="http://www.num.org.za/AboutUs/History.aspx">National Union of Mineworkers</a> and <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/labour/2015/05/13/amcu-to-demand-basic-underground-salary-of-r12500-says-mathunjwa">Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union</a> and continuing uncertainties about South Africa’s ability to attract foreign investment and the scene was well and truly set for – that word again – tragedy.</p>
<p>Forty-four people lost their lives that week in August 2012. The search for an explanation for their deaths must go far beyond the “sent” folder and cell phone records of one man, however powerful he may be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43868/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bill Dixon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Did the former union leader, multi-millionaire former businessman and current deputy president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, have the blood of 34 striking mineworkers on his hands?
Bill Dixon, Professor of Criminology, University of Nottingham
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.