tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/south-african-townships-40342/articlesSouth African townships – The Conversation2024-01-18T15:30:58Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2209762024-01-18T15:30:58Z2024-01-18T15:30:58ZSoul Brothers: the story of a band that revolutionised South African music<p>Biographies of important South African musicians often fall into two categories: they either emerge from PhD or other university-based research, or are the fruit of dedicated digging by a fan or family member. The first kind benefit from institutional resources and support; the second from community knowledge of personal details that may be documented nowhere else. </p>
<p>Because of that very scarcity of a public record, the first kind might miss many parts of the story that can’t be checked in formal records and archives. The second risks being bent out of shape by hero-worship or fallible memory.</p>
<p>Sydney Fetsie Maluleke’s book <a href="https://www.google.co.za/books/edition/The_Life_and_Times/1qyXtQEACAAJ?hl=en">The Life and Times of the Soul Brothers</a> benefits from an author with a foot in each camp. Maluleke is a university-schooled researcher, but also an insider fan – he’s administered the band’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/p/Soul-Brothers-100044409727019/">Facebook page</a> and comes from a family who, by his own account, were even more fanatical than he is about the legendary <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-soul-brothers-mn0000044338#biography">band</a>. </p>
<p>So the book, recently revised and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjMypAcv41g">relaunched</a> for its second edition, combines the strengths of both kinds of biography, and avoids most of their weaknesses.</p>
<h2>Who are the Soul Brothers?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVo6lHNFkz3h-aWIaR-pa-g">Soul Brothers</a>, formed in KwaZulu-Natal province in the mid-1970s by the late vocalist <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/opinion-and-analysis/2015-07-12-obituary-david-masondo-lead-singer-of-sowetos-legendary-soul-brothers/">David Masondo</a> and keyboardist <a href="https://iono.fm/e/1373266">Black Moses Ngwenya</a> (and still working as a band today, though with new players), was the outfit that shaped the sound of South African <a href="https://www.masterclass.com/articles/mbaqanga-music-guide">mbaqanga</a>. That’s the name of a popular genre blending traditional African vocal styles and lyrical tropes with transformed borrowings from western pop. It grew from a predominantly Zulu-speaking fanbase to dominate Black South African hit parades for more than a decade.</p>
<p>The band scored multiple gold and platinum hits, and although their most recent studio recording was more than a decade ago, Soul Brothers music still gets radio play and is popular at family and neighbourhood parties. Soul Brothers were innovators. They drew in members from across language groups, and multiple inspirations, at the very time the South African <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> regime was entrenching separation and difference. </p>
<p>Incorporating Ngwenya’s soul keyboard into what had begun as Zulu close-harmony vocals and guitar work was as startling an innovation for mbaqanga as US musician <a href="https://raycharles.com">Ray Charles</a>’ introduction of electric piano had been for American rhythm and blues. </p>
<p>Tired of exploitation by big, white-run record labels, the Soul Brothers also established their own label and studio, making them part of South Africa’s first generation of modern Black music entrepreneurs too.</p>
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<p>Maluleke’s book takes us through all these developments. Though its subtitle describes the narrative as told “through the eyes of Black Moses”, he’s careful to source what he learns, label what is contested, and acknowledge that other interpretations are possible. </p>
<p>The book’s voice is resonantly human. Though chapters are organised thematically around the lives of various artists and the group’s stages of development, the story backtracks, repeats and comes at the same subject from different angles, just as people do when they speak. At points, I found myself hankering for more direct quotes from these insider voices and less paraphrase.</p>
<h2>A new edition</h2>
<p>The book’s first edition in 2017, Maluleke tells us, left out the setbacks and disputes from the tale, something for which Ngwenya himself gently rebuked the author. So in this second edition we learn also, for example, of the professionalism that permitted spellbinding and seamless ensemble performances onstage while, behind the scenes, the principals were literally not talking to one another because of disputes over leadership and power dynamics.</p>
<p>Maluleke and his family’s obsessive fandom, meanwhile, means there’s a priceless archive of press clippings, album covers and photographs to draw on. That provides nearly 40 pages of illustrative evidence to deepen the story. </p>
<p>Along the way, there are multiple bonuses not advertised on the cover: histories of associated musicians such as the veteran <a href="https://umsakazo.bandcamp.com/album/makgona-tsohle-reggi">Makgona Tsohle Band</a>, explanations of tradition, and descriptions of township community life more than half a century ago. Though the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/township-South-Africa">townships</a> – segregated and impoverished areas for black workers removed from the “white” cities – had been designed by apartheid, residents built their own rich networks of solidarity, self-help and shared culture. Music was one of its <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Soweto_Blues.html?id=_fwkCIKoTpgC&redir_esc=y">pillars</a>. </p>
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<p>For me, a big surprise was learning that the young Ngwenya – regarded today as South Africa’s finest mbaqanga keyboardist – was inspired back in the 1960s by watching the rehearsals of the band Durban Expressions, whose keyboardist became one of the country’s finest jazz players: the late <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/bheki-mseleku-south-african-jazz-pianist-932017.html">Bheki Mseleku</a>. </p>
<p>All those are strengths that could make the book a storehouse of inspiration for music scholars. Each one of its details and detours could inspire a study of its own.</p>
<h2>Some flaws</h2>
<p>The book’s flaws, where they exist, emerge from the strains of producing a book on a shoestring budget. Maluleke, quoting Nigerian writer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Chinua-Achebe">Chinua Achebe</a>, wrote it because he was determined the history of lions must not be written by the hunters alone. The book did have one editor: veteran broadcaster and popular music expert Max Mojapelo, whose encyclopaedic industry knowledge no doubt enriched the history. </p>
<p>But it needed another, more prosaic kind of editor as well: a copy editor. </p>
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<p>There are rather too many typographical errors and inconsistencies in, for example, the use of italics for song and album titles. Some date references are clearly unrevised from the 2017 edition. And there is no index; that makes the contents less accessible. </p>
<h2>Hugely important story</h2>
<p>Yet, if Maluleke had waited until more resources were available, he – and we – might still be waiting. A story hugely important for South African popular music history would have remained largely untold. He made the right choice. </p>
<p>Every music fan eager to understand how the “indestructible sound of Soweto” was born and shaped is in his debt.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell 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 book tells the inside story of how they changed the sound of urban pop.Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2141642023-10-25T11:52:15Z2023-10-25T11:52:15ZIzikhothane: a deeper history of a South African youth subculture where luxury items are trashed<p>In South Africa, a skhothane is a young, fashionably dressed black urban resident who engages in destructive conspicuous consumption. This involves regular get-togethers on weekends in which groups of izikhothane – most likely male teenagers – gather to compete in mock battles where luxury items are often destroyed. The name is derived from a word in the Zulu language, <em>ukukhotha</em>, meaning “to lick”, but in urban slang it means to boast.</p>
<p>There’s no consensus about when exactly this “<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/07/sowetos-skhothanes-inside-the-south-african-townships-ostentatious-youth-subculture.html">youth craze</a>” emerged. But there’s reason to believe the ukukhothana subculture can be <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02500167.2015.1093322">traced</a> as far back as 2005, first in the townships of the East Rand of Gauteng province before spreading to other provinces. In South Africa, townships are human settlements established outside towns and cities by the white minority <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> government as areas for people categorised as black to live in. </p>
<p>At ukukhothana events, izikhothane show up wearing expensive designer labels such as Rossimoda shoes, DMD shirts and Versace jackets and suits. They also bring what, in the township context, is considered expensive junk food, such as KFC and Debonair’s Pizza. Alcohol such as Bisquit, Hennessy and Jameson, traditionally associated with affluent people, accompanies the food.</p>
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<p>What makes the events interesting is what happens to these costly items once there’s an audience and loud music. The expensive clothes are at times torn, burnt or trampled on. The food is thrown on the ground and at each other in a playful and boastful manner. The alcohol is both consumed and used to wash hands and even poured on the ground. All this is done in order to show off wealth, style and swag, and ultimately to outdo each other in attracting cheers from the audience, attention from female spectators and respect from rival crews.</p>
<p>As one would expect, a subculture like this in a developing economy like South Africa has not been well received. It’s often <a href="https://i-d.vice.com/en/article/xwd5ed/dissecting-the-backlash-against-the-skhothane">criticised</a> as wasteful and reckless by society and in the media. Prominent investigative journalist Debora Patta, for example, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWEcV_Ecfl4">labelled</a> izikhothane as “bling gone obscenely mad” on national TV. The question is asked: why do izikhothane embrace conspicuous consumption despite their limited means?</p>
<p>As communications scholars we have each <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02500167.2015.1093322">studied</a> this subculture for several <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/b7e0af6a24ea39bb8fda4d37b868145a/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2026366&diss=y">years</a>. In a recent <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14725843.2021.1913094">research paper</a> we explore the link between consumption and the idea of rehumanisation – or restoring dignity to marginalised lives. We investigate how this subculture is a form of fashion consciousness with a long history – leading on from the “diamondfield dandies” of the 1800s and the “oswenka” of the 1900s. We argue that ukukhothana is a form of expression that has the potential to reclaim a sense of selfhood and pride in the remnants of oppression in post-apartheid South Africa.</p>
<h2>Consumption and identity</h2>
<p>UK anthropologist Mary Douglas and UK economist Baron Isherwood <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203434857/world-goods-baron-isherwood-mary-douglas">suggested</a> in 1979 that consumption is a purposeful act. It’s often aimed at conveying identity, cultural values and social circumstances. The goods people consume serve as markers of social identity and carry deeper meanings. US sociologist Thorstein Veblen’s <a href="https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Veblen/Veblen_1899/Veblen_1899_04.html">concept</a> of “conspicuous consumption” aptly captures this phenomenon. It refers to the act of displaying wealth and status through ostentatious spending.</p>
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<p>Izikhothane’s behaviour can be understood within this framework. It’s an effort to signal their defiance against adversity and assert their presence in a society that has historically marginalised those who look like them. This historical marginalisation involved the treatment of black people as less than human through the system of apartheid. Black people were dehumanised during this period.</p>
<p><a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/OELDAR">Dehumanisation</a> involves viewing others as fundamentally different and inferior, perpetuating stereotypes and hindering empathy. Interestingly, this practice affects both the dehumanised and the dehumaniser. By devaluing others’ humanity, individuals strip themselves of their own humanising qualities. This underscores the complex psychological toll of perpetuating stereotypes.</p>
<p>Reversing the process of dehumanisation and reclaiming humanity is a nuanced effort that happens through a process of rehumanisation. Sartorial expression, which involves using clothing to convey identity, can play a pivotal role in rehumanisation. </p>
<p>Material possessions hold a significant influence over how we view other people’s identities. People use belongings not only to express who they are but to construct their “best” selves. </p>
<h2>Diamondfield dandies and oswenka</h2>
<p>Izikhothane are not the first and will not be the last to do this. Various sartorial subcultures appear to have arisen under conditions of dehumanisation in South Africa. These include the diamondfields dandies of the 1880s in Kimberley and the oswenka in Jeppestown in Johannesburg in the 1950s. These fashion subcultures found themselves in dehumanising conditions of migrant labour exploitation. They used expensive clothing and competitions of display to carve out a sense of their own humanity.</p>
<p>The diamondfield dandies sought to challenge racially inscribed stereotypes by parading in expensive clothing. They rebelled against the silence of black people in a bigoted white culture and created an identity outside work. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sho-madjozi-the-pop-star-using-traditional-culture-to-shape-a-fresh-identity-for-young-south-africans-213599">Sho Madjozi: the pop star using traditional culture to shape a fresh identity for young South Africans</a>
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<p>Years later a different kind of dandy emerged through the oswenka (swankers), who performed menial labour for work. The oswenka subculture went beyond simply parading in expensive apparel in the form of suits; it involved competitive performance battles against other dandies.</p>
<p>In a similar way, izikhothane’s extravagant displays of consumption serve as a means of fulfilling psychological needs.</p>
<h2>Why this matters</h2>
<p>Izikhothane’s seemingly frivolous consumption rituals defy the constraints of their socioeconomic backgrounds. Their fashion choices assert their existence and protest against the enduring effects of apartheid. Their actions challenge conventional notions of rebellion and provide a poignant commentary on the complexities of identity, inequality and resistance.</p>
<p>The izikhothane of post-apartheid South Africa show us the power of consumption to challenge social norms and resist structural injustices. Their conspicuous consumption, while seemingly destructive, can be interpreted as a way of asserting identity and demanding recognition in a society that has historically treated those who look like them as invisible and less than human.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214164/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mthobeli Ngcongo receives funding from the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sifiso Mnisi 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>It’s about more than wasteful destruction; it’s a way of restoring dignity to marginalised young lives.Mthobeli Ngcongo, Lecturer in Communication Science, University of the Free StateSifiso Mnisi, Senior Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1769212022-03-01T15:04:14Z2022-03-01T15:04:14ZIdle and frustrated: young South Africans speak about the need for recreational facilities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447589/original/file-20220221-28422-1eri5rx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A gang member shows his tattoos.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Per-Anders Pettersson/ Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recreational facilities play a crucial role in youth development. Research has <a href="https://www.academia.edu/11399146/RECREATIONAL_ACTIVITIES_IN_CRIME_PREVENTION_AND_REDUCTION">shown</a> that sports and fitness centres, community halls, parks, libraries, cultural centres and other facilities can keep young people out of harm’s way and reduce crime. </p>
<p>In South Africa, however, these facilities aren’t available to everyone and townships are hardest hit as they continue to have large numbers of unengaged and uninvolved youths who are not in employment, education or training – persons referred to as NEETs. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.dhet.gov.za/Planning%20Monitoring%20and%20Evaluation%20Coordination/Fact%20Sheet%20on%20NEET%20-%202021.pdf">Research</a> on NEETs found that approximately 17 million people in South Africa between the ages of 15-60 were not in employment, education or training in the latter part of 2020 and more than half were below the age of 35. This significant number of idle youths has an impact on crime and community safety – as many African township youths are forced to achieve a sense of belonging through engaging in crime, violence, drug abuse and alcohol abuse. </p>
<p>Studies in South Africa have repeatedly <a href="https://socialwork.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/739">shown the link</a> between idle youths and troubled social behaviour, including drug abuse and violence. Some studies have also found that access to recreational facilities can help learners to leave gangs.</p>
<p><a href="https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/SWPR/article/view/7687">Our research</a> explored the intricate link between recreational facilities and gang involvement in marginalised communities. It sought to help youth development practitioners better understand the significant role played by recreational facilities in reducing gangs and anti-social behaviour. </p>
<p>We studied the experiences of youths from Nyanga in South Africa’s Western Cape province and Bophelong in Gauteng province, who perceived themselves as excluded from well-resourced and well-managed recreational facilities. We explored the way this exclusion had influenced youth gang violence in both areas, which are African townships characterised by unemployment, low quality education, poor housing conditions, high levels of crime and underdevelopment.</p>
<p>In both communities, young people lacked the facilities that could keep them occupied and off the streets. As a result some of them passed time by joining gangs and were then compelled to join in violent, criminal and anti-social behaviour. This ranged from “ukubloma emakhoneni” (being idle on street corners) to drug use and physical assault. </p>
<p>So the study revealed a link between youth, troubled behaviour and exclusion from recreational facilities. The findings show that youth development practitioners – such as those employed in the public sector, private sector and civil society to serve the needs of South African youths – have excluded African youths from actively and fully participating in recreational activities.</p>
<h2>The study</h2>
<p>Nyanga and Bophelong both battle with the issue of gangs, substance abuse and the subsequent illegal activities that are a direct consequence of gangs and drugs. </p>
<p>For our study, we interviewed 18 unemployed youths aged between 14 and 35 years, 18 former gang members between the ages of 14 and 35, and 36 practitioners working on the issue of youth and gang violence. We took an exploratory, qualitative approach to obtain an in-depth understanding of the participants’ perceptions of the topic.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of boys gathers at a club house, one sitting and entering information into a computer at an outside table, others standing around him or peering through the security gate of the clubhouse, which sports painted murals of football players." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447592/original/file-20220221-17-1iuzrmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A football programme in Khayelitsha township created to keep youths off the streets.</span>
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<p>We asked questions about how a lack of access to well-resourced and well-managed recreational facilities has intentionally or unintentionally influenced the issue of gang violence. Other questions included the benefits of recreation in the prevention of youth delinquency, gang involvement and violence. </p>
<p>The responses showed a strong link between idleness and crime. Many young people said youths had too much time on their hands, “which is a recipe for mischief”. Especially former gang members attributed their involvement in gangs and crime to a lack of programmes that could keep them busy with developmental activities. One former gang member admitted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we had things to do, we wouldn’t be having all this time to be killing each other. We have too much time here, gangs and drugs keep us busy.</p>
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<p>Another said: </p>
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<p>After school, we have nothing to do … We have too much free time and we are free to move around with guns and knives, not books.</p>
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<p>Some practitioners, too, noted that youths with too much time on their hands are vulnerable to social ills such as substance abuse, crime or gangs. These findings echo other <a href="https://doi.org/10.34051/p/2020.101">studies</a> about problem behaviour.</p>
<h2>Gangs take over neglected facilities</h2>
<p>The South African government has an <a href="http://www.nyda.gov.za/Portals/0/Downloads/Integrated%20Youth%20Development%20Strategy.pdf">Integrated Youth Development Strategy</a> which highlights the importance of programmes for youths from underprivileged backgrounds. But practitioners and young people in our study said that children growing up in townships joined gangs and abused substances because they lacked youth-friendly facilities. </p>
<p>A former gang member from Bophelong indicated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our homes are too small, they are suffocating us. There are no facilities for young people in this area, young people have nothing to do … We need facilities or else we join gangs and do drugs just to forget about our circumstances.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Both practitioners and young people in our study pointed out that some of the few facilities that were available were either abandoned or unsupervised. As a result some of them had been used as a space for antisocial behaviour by gangs and drug lords. Instead of serving as areas of recreation to keep young people safe, these spaces were now traps for the vulnerable. As one practitioner put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then there was a park and then this park was captured by gangs simply because there was nobody who was owning the space, so they decided that the space is theirs.</p>
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<h2>Meeting real needs</h2>
<p>Recreational facilities should meet the real needs of marginalised young people. But our findings highlighted that they didn’t. This defeated the whole purpose because the facilities failed to attract the very people they were meant to serve. An unemployed youth from Nyanga said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sisteri, ekasi (Sister, the African township) is full of useful people doing useless things. A lot of talents and gifts are wasted ekasi because of limited resources, that’s why people end up using their gifts for wrong things like crime … There is a lot of frustration … for example go around Nyanga and look around, the facilities are not attractive.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These findings indicate the importance of understanding specific youth needs and contexts to bring about targeted programmes that prevent and redress antisocial behaviour. Well-organised and well-managed recreational facilities play an important role in removing youths from the streets of marginalised, crime ridden communities and keeping them occupied with constructive activities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176921/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>G. Nokukhanya Ndhlovu receives funding from the Govan Mbeki Research and Development Centre (GMRDC) at the University of Fort Hare.</span></em></p>The study revealed a link between youth, troubled behaviour and a lack of access to recreational spaces in marginalised communities.G. Nokukhanya Ndhlovu, Post-doctoral fellow, University of Fort HareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1688612021-10-11T15:06:38Z2021-10-11T15:06:38ZStudy paints a grim picture of what young gangsters think about violence and manhood<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424472/original/file-20211004-15-bvtz8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children watch as police work behind a cordon where a young victim of a gang shooting lies dead on the ground. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Gang violence is a <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0259-94222014000300033">deeply rooted problem</a> in many impoverished communities across South Africa. This not only significantly affects the young people involved, but has adverse effects on communities: psychological violence, substance abuse and <a href="https://aidc.org.za/the-violent-work-of-south-african-gangs/">abnormal levels of crime and gun battles</a>.</p>
<p>Another grim side effect of gang violence is gender-based violence, which is one of the country’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/dialogue-mark-16-days-activism-26-nov-2020-0000">greatest concerns</a>. Research has repeatedly <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7599123/">shown</a> how gender-based violence is closely <a href="https://promundoglobal.org/resources/masculine-norms-violence-making-connections/">linked to toxic masculinities</a> – views about masculinity (what it means to be a man) that are harmful to the man himself and the people around him. It is also about the exercise of power by men over women and other men they consider weak.</p>
<p>Our study explored the intricate connection between marginalised youth in gangs, toxic masculinity and gender-based violence in <a href="https://www.mindat.org/feature-1017447.html">Bophelong</a>, a township about 70 kilometres south of Johannesburg, in the Vaal area. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03736245.1982.10559651?journalCode=rsag20#:%7E:text=Positioned%20just%20to%20the%20west,3">Townships</a> are historically black urban residential areas, mostly characterised by underdevelopment and high levels of poverty. </p>
<p>The study, <em>The Interconnection between Youth Gangs, Toxic Masculinity and Gender Based Violence in South Africa</em>, is a chapter in the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Negotiating-Patriarchy-Gender-Africa-Discourses-ebook/dp/B09BYQYSWZ">book</a> Negotiating Patriarchy and Gender in Africa: Discourses, Practices, and Policies.</p>
<p>We found that, in the absence of socio-economic opportunities – recreational and cultural facilities, jobs, other economic opportunities and social networks – gangs use violence to dominate and subordinate rival gangs in order to maintain their place as the “superior” men in their communities. </p>
<p>High levels of violence are used to “prove” gang members’ masculinity. The findings also highlight that the way young gang members think about and understand masculinity ultimately translates into gender-based violence.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-cape-town-gangsters-who-use-extreme-violence-to-operate-solo-143750">The Cape Town gangsters who use extreme violence to operate solo</a>
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<p>Our findings are important because they highlight the link between harmful definitions of masculinity and violence. They show that in the face of marginalisation and social exclusion, youth in gangs think they have no options except violence to prove that they are “real” men in their communities.</p>
<h2>The study</h2>
<p>We interviewed 15 unemployed youths and former gang members between the ages of 14 and 35, and 19 practitioners working on the issue of youth and gang violence. </p>
<p>We asked questions about the development challenges facing youth in townships, as well as exploring what drives young people’s attraction to gangs. And we examined how gang members think about masculinity. We found that gangs use violence to construct and practise a toxic masculinity: it makes them engage in anti-social behaviour, resulting in them being maimed or killed. </p>
<p>Women in the areas are often caught in the crossfire of gang wars. This is because territory marking and revenge among rival gangs is not just about them fighting among themselves. It also spills over into sexual violence.</p>
<p>The gang members often lose their loved ones or put them in danger of revenge attacks while trying to prove that they are the better gangs and the better men. </p>
<p>A former gang member explained (page 82):</p>
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<p>you feel like you are a man if your gang is powerful but there is so much violence and there is so much revenge.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These results concur with those of other <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X17000761">studies</a> which have noted that gangs use violence as a tool to eradicate all traces of femininity or weakness within them. Gangs enable their members to assert their manhood. As our study confirms, being a “real man” is about power and hierarchy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gangs-offer-a-tempting-home-to-frustrated-unhappy-youngsters-54840">Gangs offer a tempting 'home' to frustrated, unhappy youngsters</a>
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<p>Many participants in our study identified the masculine norms of power, control, being in command and aggression as some of the defining factors of being “top dogs” (<em>izinja ze game</em> in isiZulu). There was also an element of performance, whereby they displayed their so-called prowess on the streets to intimidate communities. </p>
<p>All of this is, of course, dangerous not just for the individual men, but for their communities more broadly.</p>
<h2>Sexual violence</h2>
<p><a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2017/07/18/breaking-bad-recognising-the-role-of-masculinities-can-help-prevent-gang-formation-in-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/">Research</a> indicates that, due to their glamorous lifestyle which includes access to cash, expensive clothes and flashy cars, gangs often construct their masculinity through promiscuity. Our findings show, however, that in Bophelong, gangs use rape as a weapon to assert their masculinity. A respondent working with former gang members noted (page 81):</p>
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<p>They start raping girls around the area. I don’t know, maybe they are told that they are now men they must test their thing.</p>
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<p>We also found that the gangs extended their violence to the women and girls around them. To mark territory or exert revenge, a rival gang member’s female family member is sometimes raped. </p>
<p>Another respondent working with current and former gang members added (page 82):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You find that you are a gang member and you belong to a certain group. How do we hurt you? We hurt you by either touching your daughter, your wife, or your girlfriend. So now again you see gender-based violence … It plays right into the sexual violence domain.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A former gang member confirmed (page 80):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My sister was raped by rival gangs as an act of revenge.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>This study has shown how gangs from the marginalised community of Bophelong, who feel that they have been “emasculated” by poverty, construct and practise masculinity. It also shows the impacts. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-soldiers-wont-end-gang-violence-a-co-ordinated-plan-might-120775">South Africa's soldiers won't end gang violence. A co-ordinated plan might</a>
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<p>It is, therefore, recommended that various government departments, civil society and communities work together to deny toxic masculinity its breeding ground. The focus should be on addressing the underlying, interlinked root causes of toxic masculinity. This includes a change in attitudes, socialisation, behaviours and beliefs about masculinity and manhood.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168861/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>G. Nokukhanya Ndhlovu receives funding from the Govan Mbeki Research and Development Centre (GMRDC) at the University of Fort Hare.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pius Tanga 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>Findings show that in the face of marginalisation and social exclusion, youth in gangs think that they have no options except violence to prove that they are ‘real’ men in their communities.G. Nokukhanya Ndhlovu, Post-doctoral fellow, University of Fort HarePius Tanga, Professor, University of Fort HareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1626332021-06-14T15:09:52Z2021-06-14T15:09:52ZStereotypes about young jobless South Africans are wrong: what they’re really up to<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406143/original/file-20210614-73866-7r6c4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Makeshift shops have mushroomed as people try to make ends meet amid South Africa's excessive unemployment.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hobermunemployment. an Collection/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world. A whopping <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=14415">63%</a> of its young people between the ages of 15 and 24 years are jobless. A large proportion of these young people have never worked in the formal economy.</p>
<p>The media frequently portray young people excluded from wage work as inactive, aimless and alienated from mainstream society. This image feeds into fears of crime, violence and social unrest in which people who are jobless are cast as a “<a href="https://insideeducation.co.za/2021/06/07/south-africas-youth-unemployment-crisis-a-ticking-time-bomb/">ticking time bomb</a>” that poses a threat to a country’s stability.</p>
<p>But this is a very misleading characterisation. Most analyses of unemployed youth fail to grapple with the reality that unemployment in the sense of “doing nothing” is not a feasible option for most young people.</p>
<p>As research in many parts of Africa, including <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0309132517690039?journalCode=phgb">Kenya</a>, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12132-012-9156-y">Ethiopia</a> and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2010.485784">Zimbabwe</a>,
has shown, unemployed young people use a wide range of economic strategies and practices to acquire an income. </p>
<p>I conducted <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02533952.2021.1909949?src=">research</a> in Zandspruit informal settlement, north of Johannesburg, in 2015 and 2016, on the lives, livelihoods and struggles of mostly young men who were either unemployed or marginally employed. It included life and work history interviews with 37 young people, a survey of 100 young people and a mapping exercise of the local economy, including semi-structured interviews with 40 local business owners. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-covid-19-is-likely-to-slow-down-a-decade-of-youth-development-in-africa-159288">How COVID-19 is likely to slow down a decade of youth development in Africa</a>
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<p>My <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02533952.2021.1909949?src=">study</a> showed that many unemployed young people are engaged in a variety of economic activities. Many of these are not necessarily recorded as a form of self employment or informal employment, but they consume a large part of young people’s lives.</p>
<h2>Survival strategies</h2>
<p>I found that livelihoods included running car wash ventures, fixing people’s cars as informal mechanics, and renting back rooms or shacks. Other activities included wiring illegal electricity connections for a fee and street-side gambling. They also acquired sponsorship from NGOs and local politicians to support local initiatives and community based organisations that helped local youth access educational and economic opportunities.</p>
<p>These livelihood strategies rarely constituted a formalised business or enterprise. Many young people in Zandspruit combined short stints in the formal economy with forms of “hustling” and self-employment. </p>
<p>In many instances, informal livelihoods were taken up because of the loss of a job or the failure to find one. There was also evidence of young men rejecting jobs in some of the low-paying sectors, in favour of self employment in the informal economy. </p>
<p>This not only reflects a desire for greater social autonomy and social power – something that low end wage employment denied them. It also shows the importance of investing in highly localised relationships in a time of generalised precariousness. </p>
<p>These informal livelihoods are embedded in networks and social relations that are critical to young people surviving unemployment. </p>
<p>Take a car wash business for example. While often analysed as a standalone business or enterprise, my research highlighted how it also operates as a connecting point for a dense web of social relations that underpin and connect various informal enterprises. These included the taxi industry (drivers and washers), informal mechanics, a <em>chesanyama</em> (barbecue joint) and the local drug trade.</p>
<p>A car wash also provides a space where young men (most of whom also make a living informally) can gather to socialise and pass time. These social relationships are a critical part of young men gaining leverage within a particular niche of the local economy. They also serve as a critical source of male sociality and mutual aid that one young man described as “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02533952.2021.1909949?src=">communal living</a>”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-giving-young-people-basic-financial-skills-helps-them-find-jobs-118860">How giving young people basic financial skills helps them find jobs</a>
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<p>The relationship between the young men who gather at car wash stands to pass time and “hustle” a living are premised on an understanding of “flexible reciprocity”, whereby those who currently have money, or are employed in some form, help those who are without. These networks of support offered an informal kind of “insurance”, as one of my interlocutors put it, but also social relations that provided alternative avenues to earn an income. As Sandile, aged 27, explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is a big communal living. You are not going to starve when you have friends.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The social embeddedness of informal work is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, these relations of interdependence are a critical source of support and solidarity. On the other hand, the relations are embedded within complex power dynamics that can reproduce forms of social differentiation and inequality.</p>
<p>They also require informal entrepreneurs to invest so much in personal relationships, fees and protection that many are left with little money to invest in improving their business. </p>
<h2>What needs to be done</h2>
<p>Given the failure of the formal economy to produce enough jobs, policy makers and governments often present self employment in the informal economy as the solution to youth unemployment. </p>
<p>For instance, the provincial government of Gauteng, the country’s economic hub, has identified the mostly informal “<a href="https://www.gep.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Gauteng-Township-Economy-Revitalisation-Strategy-2014-2019.pdf">township economy</a>” as key to tackling unemployment and promoting entrepreneurship.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03736245.1982.10559651?journalCode=rsag20#:%7E:text=Positioned%20just%20to%20the%20west,3">Townships</a> are historically black urban residential areas. They are mostly characterised by underdevelopment and high levels of poverty.</p>
<p>The renewed interest in the “township economy” is important considering the extent of unemployment, poverty and the damaging legacy of township marginalisation under apartheid. <a href="https://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/Bond%20Townships.pdf">Townships</a> were seen as labour dormitories for white businesses in towns and suburbs, and not intended to have their own viable economies. </p>
<p>But the government’s interest in township economies as the generators of jobs, entrepreneurship and “<a href="https://www.gep.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Gauteng-Township-Economy-Revitalisation-Strategy-2014-2019.pdf">socially inclusive wealth</a>” is woefully out of sync with the reality of most township enterprises. They are too small to offer an escape from poverty.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/more-children-in-zimbabwe-are-working-to-survive-whats-needed-149033">More children in Zimbabwe are working to survive: what's needed</a>
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<p>While the idea of entrepreneurship is gaining traction among young people, research suggests that only a small number see it as a viable livelihood and <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwimvZe7lY_xAhVHY8AKHR_OCu4QFjAFegQICRAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uj.ac.za%2Ffaculties%2Fhumanities%2Fcsda%2FDocuments%2FSiyakha_Report___Oct_2016_Print_FINAL%255B1%255D.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3gRgEBzDsvwJ3Gh3qLvvib">something to strive towards</a>.</p>
<p>The majority have a strong preference for stable formal sector jobs, which they associate with economic stability and social mobility.</p>
<p>The growing insecurity of jobs in the formal economy highlights the urgency of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africa-needs-to-ensure-income-security-beyond-the-pandemic-137551?fbclid=IwAR2VQ5qwKv0ZvVJWt2qBfB17xLpfRs9p_TMS0xDJPxnDk0q0mOrpi9Rhni4">stronger social protection and income support</a> for young people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162633/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah J. Dawson receives funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa (grant number: 116768), which I gratefully acknowledge. </span></em></p>Many unemployed young people are engaged in a variety of economic activities. These may not necessarily be recognised as a form of self employment or informal employment.Hannah J. Dawson, Senior Researcher, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1610042021-05-18T14:49:06Z2021-05-18T14:49:06ZFixing local government in South Africa needs political solutions, not technical ones<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401286/original/file-20210518-17-1e14nj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters gather in the middle of the road during a demonstration in Johannesburg.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Thabo Jaiyesimi/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) has long been good at <a href="https://www.ancpl.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Eye-of-the-needle.pdf">diagnosing its problems</a>, but not much good at fixing them. Its own documents have been accurately describing its problems for two decades – factionalism and corruption, which are often mentioned by its detractors, have been discussed in its reports and strategy documents <a href="https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/anc/1997/strategy-tactics.htm">since the 1990s</a>. But knowing what the problems are does not seem to help it to solve them.</p>
<p>The newest example of this ability to identify problems is a comment by deputy finance minister <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/person-details/192">David Masondo</a>. He told an ANC MP who asked him why local government was not working and was getting worse that the key was <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/politics-at-local-government-level-needs-to-change-says-david-masondo/">“sorting out” politics in local government</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We can change rules and regulations but as long as we don’t tackle the issue of political leadership at a local government level we will continue to have many of these problems.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Local government needed “developmental political leadership” which would be better able to work with business and national government to promote economic development. This leadership would also appoint competent officials.</p>
<p>South Africa has three “spheres” or levels of government – national, provincial and local. While all three are often accused of corruption and incompetence, local government is commonly identified as the worst. Councils are frequently accused of being unable or unwilling to provide residents with adequate services (seemingly because many councillors are only interested in self-enrichment <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2020-02-11-local-government-crisis-rooted-in-incompetence-and-corruption/">rather than public service</a>). </p>
<p>Studies have shown that Masondo’s diagnosis that the problem is political <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24858282?seq=1">is accurate</a>. His comment also sheds light on government in South Africa. From the early 1990s, the country’s elites have shown a strong taste for technical solutions to political problems. They assume that if a law is changed or a policy is adopted which says that government should work better, it will.</p>
<p>The latest fad is that changing the electoral system will mean <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/columnists/guestcolumn/opinion-changing-our-electoral-system-is-now-more-urgent-than-ever-20200912">more accountable government</a>, despite the fact that the system to which most of the faddists want to change – in which there would be both proportional representation and the election of representatives in voting districts – <a href="https://www.etu.org.za/toolbox/docs/localgov/local.html">already operates</a> in the same local government which everyone agrees <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-is-paying-a-heavy-price-for-dysfunctional-local-government-102295">is not working</a>.</p>
<p>Local government has seen its fair share of legal solutions and other technical fixes – the favourite right now is the <a href="https://www.cogta.gov.za/ddm/index.php/about-us/">district development model</a>, often mentioned as a solution by President Cyril Ramaphosa.</p>
<p>Officially, this allows municipalities to draw on help from national and provincial government – some in government no doubt hope that what it really means is that they will tell local government what to do. But even if they do help rather than instruct, this assumes that the cure for local government’s ills is technical, that municipalities need help on how to perform management tasks. In reality, the problem is political.</p>
<h2>Good diagnosis, bad remedy</h2>
<p>South African local government is deeply unpopular – it has been the <a href="https://theconversation.com/protests-soar-amid-unmet-expectations-in-south-africa-42013">target of protest</a> in the <a href="https://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/Bond%20Townships.pdf">townships</a> (black residential areas) and shack settlements for years. While it is fashionable to say that the problem is poor <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/south-africa-what-does-service-delivery-really-mean">“service delivery”</a>, which means that local government is not good at technical tasks, the real reason is that people believe, accurately, that mayors or councillors do not hear them and so have <a href="https://theconversation.com/protests-soar-amid-unmet-expectations-in-south-africa-42013">no idea what they need</a>.</p>
<p>So, Masondo does know what the problem is. His solution is less clear. What are “developmental” political leaders? Since he also <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/politics/rush-of-candidates-to-anc-political-school-20210515">heads the ANC’s political school</a>, he may believe that they are produced by careful selection and training. This would not be the first time the ANC believed it needed a “better” sort of candidate. Former president Thabo Mbeki <a href="https://cisp.cachefly.net/assets/articles/attachments/82857_tmf_newsletter_-_july_2020.pdf">still argues</a>, as he did when he was president, that the ANC reserved its best people for national and provincial government and sent only the third best to local government. ANC elections head Fikile Mbalula wanted to ensure that only people with <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1495010/mbalula-only-people-with-impeccable-credentials-should-be-elected/">“impeccable credentials”</a> were chosen.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A bespetacled man with a clean shave smiles" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401255/original/file-20210518-17-2pcjnk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401255/original/file-20210518-17-2pcjnk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401255/original/file-20210518-17-2pcjnk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401255/original/file-20210518-17-2pcjnk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401255/original/file-20210518-17-2pcjnk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401255/original/file-20210518-17-2pcjnk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401255/original/file-20210518-17-2pcjnk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=941&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="caption">Deputy finance minister David Masondo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span>
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<p>But who is “developmental” or who has the right character are matters of opinion. Who would decide who the “right” people are and why is their judgement better than anyone else’s? Nor do qualifications necessarily make anyone a better representative – what is needed is not a degree but a willingness to listen to people and to serve them.</p>
<p>This approach also misunderstands why local councillors often don’t care what their voters think. The reason is not that people have not taken the right courses. It is that, in an economy from whose benefits many are excluded, politics is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-corruption-in-south-africa-is-deeply-rooted-in-the-countrys-past-and-why-that-matters-144973">route into the middle class</a>.</p>
<p>Since some parties are reelected in suburbs (mainly white and wealthier) and townships whatever their councillors do, keeping your seat – and so staying in the middle class – depends on impressing not voters but the power holders who decide who the candidates are. None of this will be changed by introducing character tests or requiring qualifications.</p>
<p>Even if training or selecting a new set of leaders is not what Masondo has in mind, he does insist that it is the type of person who becomes a councillor which matters. But local government lacks popular support because of deep-seated realities which will remain no matter what type of candidates are selected.</p>
<h2>Fixing the problem</h2>
<p>The problem is not that the wrong people are being chosen. It is that the wrong people are doing the choosing – not only of candidates but of what they do if elected. While the ANC talks of ensuring that “communities” choose candidates, the process is dominated by elites who decide who should be chosen and what they should do if they win.</p>
<p>For example, the law provides for <a href="https://www.cogta.gov.za/index.php/2020/03/20/municipal-ward-committees-need-know/">ward committees</a> which are meant to enable “community members” to tell the councillor what they want. But the committees usually comprise politically connected people because members are not chosen in direct elections. Either they are elected at meetings which only activists attend or are simply selected. </p>
<p>This further strengthens pressure for councillors to take their cue from elites rather than voters.</p>
<p>If the politics is really to change, local voters must gain far more control over councillors. In the suburbs, where people can hold councillors to account, they usually choose not to. In townships and shack settlements, people often can’t do this because the elites have much more power than them.</p>
<p>Not much can be done about this in the suburbs (people can’t be forced to hold councillors to account if they don’t want to), but much could be done elsewhere to change a power balance which always dooms most voters to putting up with councillors who don’t serve them. If that began to happen, the deep-seated realities would ensure that many councillors would still see office as a ticket into the middle class. But keeping hold of the ticket would depend on impressing voters, not party elites.</p>
<p>This point goes beyond local government. South Africa’s politics <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-corruption-in-south-africa-isnt-simply-about-zuma-and-the-guptas-113056">divides</a> the political world into “good people” who are the solution and “bad people” who are the problem. Local government is not the only area in which this hides the real problem: a power balance which ensures that most citizens have little control over the governments they elect.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman 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 problem in municipalities is not that the wrong people are being chosen. It is that the wrong people are doing the choosing – not only of candidates but of what they do if elected.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1595612021-04-25T08:33:21Z2021-04-25T08:33:21ZSouth Africa remains a nation of insiders and outsiders, 27 years after democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396849/original/file-20210423-21-99d5c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Skyscraper buildings in the Sandton area stand on the skyline beyond residential housing in the Alexandra township in Johannesburg.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Twenty seven years <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/04597239308460952?journalCode=tssu20">into democracy</a>, South African politics is still for the few. And those who complain the most have the least to grumble about. </p>
<p>Since South Africa is <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/southafrica/overview">highly unequal</a> and remains divided into <a href="https://www.academia.edu/29610338/ARCHIPELAGOS_OF_DOMINANCE_Party_Fiefdoms_and_South_African_Democracy">insiders and outsiders</a> – those who benefit from the market economy and those who can’t – we might expect its politics to be a loud battle between those who have and those who don’t. Most commentators believe it is.</p>
<p>Within the governing African National Congress (ANC), <a href="https://theconversation.com/precarious-power-tilts-towards-ramaphosa-in-battle-inside-south-africas-governing-party-158251">a battle rages between</a> the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-03-14-carl-niehaus-tables-radical-economic-transformation-plan-ahead-of-ace-magashules-campaign-for-anc-president/">“radical economic transformation forces”</a>, who purport to champion the interests of the poor majority, and their <a href="https://theconversation.com/precarious-power-tilts-towards-ramaphosa-in-battle-inside-south-africas-governing-party-158251">market-friendly opponents</a>.</p>
<p>Outside it, the third biggest party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), some in the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03161.htm">ANC alliance</a> and the advocates of <a href="https://socialsurveys.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/AZAPO-2019-Manifesto.pdf">black consciousness </a> and <a href="http://www.pac.org.za/wp-content/uploads/PAC-Manifesto-2019.pdf">pan-Africanism</a> are assumed to speak for those who live in poverty.</p>
<p>There is much radical talk which creates this impression. The left-wing tradition in South Africa goes back over a century – it was injected into the mainstream of anti-apartheid politics by the alliance between the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057079208708304?journalCode=cjss20">ANC and the Communist Party</a>. But, while it is common for political activists to use left language, all politics is still, as it was before 1994, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/29610338/ARCHIPELAGOS_OF_DOMINANCE_Party_Fiefdoms_and_South_African_Democracy">insider politics</a>. Then the insiders were whites – now they are the minority who receive an income from the formal economy each week or month.</p>
<p>In the country’s insider politics, the majority who try to survive outside the formal economy are talked about, but are never heard. The “radical economic transformation forces” are people trying to gain a bigger share of what the few enjoy, not to share it with the many. The EFF’s chief concern is to challenge white privilege in the insider economy, not to open it to the outsiders. According to one <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-12-12-as-its-ratings-fall-precipitously-the-eff-goes-post-truth-in-the-opinion-polls/">survey</a>, EFF members have, on average, higher incomes and qualifications than ANC members.</p>
<h2>Insiders and outsiders</h2>
<p>Over the past few years, the country has witnessed a furious debate over whether the government should be able to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-politics-behind-south-africas-property-clause-amendment-131575">expropriate land without compensation</a>. Only one group has been ignored – the millions of <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-02-02-land-activists-without-the-voices-of-communities-the-expropriation-bill-will-not-go-very-far/">landless people</a> who have the greatest stake in the outcome.</p>
<p>Since insider politics is often about insisting that you speak for the poor when you have consulted no-one who lives in poverty, both sides of the debate did their best to show that the landless were on their side. Those who wanted expropriation found a few landless people to take to official hearings. Their opponents in the media interviewed just as few landless people who were reported to not want expropriation. But no-one spoke for the people without land.</p>
<p>During the first year of COVID-19, a debate raged over whether lockdown measures were needed. The official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, echoed the global right-wing by demanding that <a href="https://www.capetownetc.com/news/da-opposes-curfews-and-lockdown-phasing/">all activity be allowed</a>. The EFF insisted that <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/malema-economy-is-secondary-hard-lockdown-should-continue-until-scientific-solution-found-48627807">nothing should be opened</a>. The ANC claimed to adopt a “scientific” <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/government-will-be-guided-by-scientific-evidence-before-easing-lockdown-ramaphosa/">approach</a> in which public health and the economy’s needs were balanced.</p>
<p>None of them spoke for – and to – the majority who were <a href="https://www.businessinsider.co.za/minibus-taxis-may-now-be-100-full-2020-7">forced to travel on taxis</a> which they knew might spread the virus, to earn incomes in ways which might infect them, and whose need was to find a way to feed their families without falling ill.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-2019-poll-showed-dangerous-signs-of-insiders-and-outsiders-121758">South Africa's 2019 poll showed dangerous signs of 'insiders' and 'outsiders'</a>
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<p>Insider politics also shapes another conflict which divides “left” and “right” – the demand for <a href="https://theconversation.com/fees-must-fall-but-not-at-the-expense-of-quality-higher-education-62520">free higher education</a>. This is a rallying cry of the left which is denounced by opponents as a Marxist assault on the market economy. But the “left” demand boils down to insisting that the children of the corporate and professional elite should be <a href="https://theconversation.com/history-explains-why-south-africans-on-the-left-argue-for-free-passes-for-the-rich-88345">educated at public expense</a>. This, would, of course, mean that less money would be available to address the needs of people living in poverty. </p>
<p>There are many other examples which underline a reality in which no-one speaks for the outsiders except some local organisations which are ignored by the mainstream debate. It is why policies aimed at ending the exclusion of the outsiders – or at least at helping them to survive – usually fail. They are products of what insider politics think the majority need, not what the outsiders want.</p>
<h2>Suburbs versus townships</h2>
<p>There is a perverse side of insider politics: it ensures that the government is routinely denounced by those whom democracy has benefited while those whom it has largely left out remain silent.</p>
<p>The gap between insiders and outsiders is also that between suburbs on the one hand, low-income <a href="https://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/Bond%20Townships.pdf">townships</a> – the (almost) exclusively black urban residential areas – and shack settlements on the other. The suburbs are inhabited by the more affluent insiders. Not only does the ANC enjoy little support in these areas – it and the government are targets of deep contempt there. No-one wins respect in the suburbs by saying anything good about the government.</p>
<p>But suburban residents enjoy full economic and political freedom. They can also ensure that they receive much higher standards of public service than others: if the power or water supply is interrupted, suburbanites quickly begin demanding that the problem is fixed. They don’t always get what they want, but their problems are addressed more quickly than the rest of the country’s. And they can rely on privately provided services to make up the slack.</p>
<p>In the townships and shack settlements, the ANC, despite some setbacks, still tends to <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/results-of-the-municipal-byelections-held-on-21-ap">win elections handily</a>. It is often so dominant that the important conflicts happen within it. It is not uncommon for ANC activists to mobilise protest against an <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/umngeni-municipality-anc-members-protest-against-corruption">ANC mayor or councillor</a>.</p>
<p>But people aren’t free since local power holders don’t like competition and are often able, working at times with the police, <a href="https://theconversation.com/below-the-radar-south-africa-is-limiting-the-right-to-protest-60943">to suppress</a> people who speak and act independently. The best-known example is the shack dweller organisation <a href="https://abahlali.org/">Abahlali base mjondolo</a>, which has endured sustained violence because it threatens local power holders.</p>
<p>Outsiders must also make do with officials and politicians who ignore them. While suburbanites must sometimes make do without services for hours or a few days, outsiders must at times go without for weeks or months.</p>
<h2>Great irony</h2>
<p>The great irony, of course, is that the areas which denounce the government can better influence it than those which support it. This speaks to an important reality: that the majority does not yet rule, even though the constitution says it should.</p>
<p>This ensures that South African democracy is vigorous – but only for a minority of the population. The insiders use their freedoms to engage in heated contest while the majority is forced to accept whatever they decide. Until this changes, South Africa will not deal effectively with poverty and inequality because those who need change most will remain unheard.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159561/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman 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>In the country’s insider politics, the majority who try to survive outside the formal economy are talked about, but are never heard.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1578302021-03-25T18:55:54Z2021-03-25T18:55:54ZCan social housing help South Africa overcome its legacy of apartheid?<p>South African cities are among the most unequal and segregated in the world. In an effort to address chronic housing shortages, the government has delivered more than 3.5 million free homes since 1994. While the programme has been successful, it has also perpetuated spatial divisions because of the peripheral location of most projects. </p>
<p>To reverse this trend, the government launched a social-housing policy in 2006 to boost affordable rental accommodations in well-located urban areas. In a study financed by European Commission, we evaluated some of the impacts of this programme, revealing mixed results.</p>
<h2>Post-apartheid housing policy</h2>
<p>Housing was a cornerstone of South Africa’s post-apartheid efforts to redress the legacies of racial discrimination and segregation. The <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02039/04lv02103/05lv02120/06lv02126.htm">Reconstruction and Development</a> (RDP, 1994) and <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/sustainable-human-settlements-breaking-new-ground">Breaking New Ground</a> (2004) programmes provided more than 3.5 million houses for poor black households. However, the focus on free-standing, individually owned units resulted in most new developments taking place on the urban periphery, far from economic and social opportunities. </p>
<p>The policy tended to reinforce spatial divides and economic inequalities. Some beneficiaries sold their houses and decided to rent closer to central cities, even if it meant living in poorer quality, unsanitary buildings or <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/review/hsrc-review-january-2015/backyard-schaks-and-urban-housing-crisis">“backyard shacks”</a>. Moreover, despite this massive construction of public housing, supply has fallen far short of demand. Thus, in large metro areas such as Johannesburg, Cape Town and Ekurhuleni, <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=11241">one out of five</a> inhabitants lives in precarious accommodation.</p>
<h2>Renewed hope with social rental housing</h2>
<p>While the focus of South Africa’s housing policy was on homeownership, social rental housing programmes began as early as 1995. The government made subsidies available to third-sector organisations to build and manage affordable rental accommodation. At the same time, private property developers recovered abandoned, sometimes squatted, buildings, <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2018/12/06/a-la-reconquete-du-centre-ville-de-johannesburg_5393519_3210.html">especially in Johannesburg</a>, and converted them into inexpensive rental apartments. From these early initiatives emerged a new social housing policy in 2006, which tied subsidies to the delivery of medium-density rental units in <a href="http://www.dhs.gov.za/sites/default/files/documents/publications/Social_Housing.pdf">“restructuring zones”</a>, similar to <a href="https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/1521317">“urban free zones”</a> in France. The goal was to bring working-class black citizens closer to areas with access to economic and social opportunities.</p>
<p>The programme delivered fewer than 2,500 units in its first phase (2008 to 2014) but then accelerated to more than 12,800 units constructed by the end of 2018. This was a considerable improvement, but the number was still below the target of 27,000. Today there are only about 35,000 social-rental units despite huge demand. Among the factors constraining production were subsidies that did not keep pace with inflation, lack of investment in capacity-building of social housing organisations, and weak support across government. Changes in 2017 corrected some of these shortcomings and brought renewed energy and investment to the sector.</p>
<h2>Spatial drift of projects</h2>
<p>We developed a unique database comprising all social rental housing projects in the country, which we analysed for the seven largest metros. Our study, <a href="https://www.afd.fr/en/ressources/role-social-housing-reducing-inequality-south-african-cities">“The role of social housing in reducing inequality in South African cities”</a>, reveals a spatial drift of projects toward peripheral locations. Between 1995 and 2005, most pilot projects were located within city centres. After the new scheme of 2006, more than half of the projects were still located within city centres or inner suburbs. However, from 2011 onward, a growing number of projects were moving to the outskirts and even to townships, including those where the black population was relegated during apartheid.</p>
<p>The map below shows the distribution of social housing projects in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni and the periods when they were constructed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391483/original/file-20210324-23-101sdfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391483/original/file-20210324-23-101sdfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391483/original/file-20210324-23-101sdfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391483/original/file-20210324-23-101sdfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391483/original/file-20210324-23-101sdfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391483/original/file-20210324-23-101sdfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391483/original/file-20210324-23-101sdfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391483/original/file-20210324-23-101sdfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Social housing projects distribution in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andreas Scheba, Ivan Turok, Justin Paul Visagie</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Several factors were behind this spatial drift. The first was the <a href="https://ideas4development.org/financiarisation-immobilier-tri-social/">rise of real estate values</a> within the private property market. This meant that social housing institutions could no longer find central land at affordable prices. The second was the stagnation of government subsidies. The third was that very few public land parcels were made available for social housing projects.</p>
<h2>Do tenants experience upward mobility?</h2>
<p>Social housing aims to promote social and racial mixing by targeting households that earn between R1,500 and R15,000 per month. A <a href="https://www.afd.fr/en/ressources/social-housing-and-upward-mobility-south-africa">survey of 10 social housing projects</a> showed that a quarter of the tenants received less than R2,500 per person per month which is close to the poverty line. Rent level are distributed according to income levels, but inflation and rising utility costs make them increasingly unaffordable to poor households, heightening the risk of evictions. </p>
<p>Most tenants in the surveyed projects previously lived within a 5km radius of the project, suggesting that urban restructuring and racial integration have been limited (see graph). Greater racial mixing has been difficult to achieve because of neighbourhood segregation, and was not a major expectation for residents, according to <a href="https://www.afd.fr/en/ressources/social-cohesion-and-inequality-south-africa">opinion surveys</a>. Social integration, as measured by income, was also modest.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391484/original/file-20210324-15-m91unk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391484/original/file-20210324-15-m91unk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391484/original/file-20210324-15-m91unk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391484/original/file-20210324-15-m91unk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391484/original/file-20210324-15-m91unk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391484/original/file-20210324-15-m91unk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391484/original/file-20210324-15-m91unk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391484/original/file-20210324-15-m91unk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Racial mix before and after moving to the social housing project (SHIP).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andreas Scheba, Ivan Turok, Justin Paul Visagie. SHRA 2019, Census 2011</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Interviewed tenants benefited from the lower rental charges, which can be much less than the private market. Another benefit is the perception of better safety in the generally secure and institutionally managed complexes. The buildings are often equipped with protection systems and monitored by a guard. Collective facilities are set up such as computer facilities, childcare or secure playgrounds for children (photo). Social development programmes such as healthcare and professional training are also offered. The feeling of safety usually stops at the exit and does not continue into the immediate neighbourhood.</p>
<p>While social housing has impacted positively on households, benefits related to employment, education and access to opportunities appear to be modest rather than transformative. Considerable differences exist between projects depending on their location and the social housing organisation managing the complex. </p>
<p>As South Africa’s social housing policy has arguably ambitious objectives, monitoring and regular impact assessments are needed to develop a stronger evidence base about the impact of projects on household mobility. Specific attention should be paid to adequate financing and making well-located land available, including reforming “restructuring zones”, which have tended to cover the whole metropolitan area.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390955/original/file-20210322-21-wvo0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390955/original/file-20210322-21-wvo0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390955/original/file-20210322-21-wvo0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390955/original/file-20210322-21-wvo0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390955/original/file-20210322-21-wvo0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390955/original/file-20210322-21-wvo0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390955/original/file-20210322-21-wvo0bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children’s playground on the roof of a social-housing complex, Johannesburg (2016).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Irène Salenson</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157830/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article is the result of a research programme on inequalities, led by the French Development Agency and funded by the European Commission (DEVCO).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andreas Scheba receives funding from the European Commission through a research facility on Inequalities. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ivan Turok receives funding from the European Commission through a research facility on Inequalities.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Visagie Ivan receives funding from the European Commission through a research facility on Inequalities.</span></em></p>Despite millions of free homes built since 1994, spatial inequality in South Africa remains high. A study evaluating a programme to boost rentals in well-located areas found mixed results, however.Irène Salenson, PhD, chargée de recherches, Agence française de développement (AFD)Andreas Scheba, Senior Researcher in the Inclusive Economic Development Programme, Human Sciences Research CouncilIvan Turok, Executive Director, Human Sciences Research CouncilJustin Visagie, Research Specialist: Human Sciences Research Council, Human Sciences Research CouncilLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1427322020-07-16T16:04:01Z2020-07-16T16:04:01ZSouth Africa is failing on COVID-19 because its leaders want to emulate the First World<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347865/original/file-20200716-23-wyrng6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The township of Khayelitsha in Cape Town. South Africa has adopted First World COVID-19 responses for Third World reality.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>COVID-19 infections are <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2020/07/15/sa-closing-on-300-000-confirmed-coronavirus-cases">rising sharply</a> in South Africa – and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52711458">Latin America</a>. This is fitting: South Africa resembles the countries of South America more than those of its home continent.</p>
<p>It has become common to point out that COVID-19 has <a href="https://theconversation.com/pandemic-underscores-gross-inequalities-in-south-africa-and-the-need-to-fix-them-135070">highlighted South Africa’s inequalities</a>. It is less common, but just as important, to recognise that inequality shapes how the country is governed, ensuring that, while South Africa is located in Africa, those who govern it may be closer to their counterparts in Latin America.</p>
<p>The first reason South Africa has been unable to stem the tide of infections is that its strategy <a href="https://www.medicalbrief.co.za/archives/mkhize-warns-of-exponential-rise-of-covid-19-infections/">always assumed a severe epidemic was inevitable</a>. It is hard to fight anything if you assume you are bound to lose. This followed advice from South Africa’s medical scientists, almost all of whom embrace this view despite the fact that scientists in other parts of the world have helped to prevent great damage. </p>
<p>Why is this? Possibly because their points of comparison on the pandemic were <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-a-post-lockdown-strategy-that-emulates-south-korea-136678">not Asia</a> and <a href="https://oecd-development-matters.org/2020/05/26/ethiopias-response-to-covid-19/">parts of Africa</a> where infections were curbed, but the rich countries of the global North, many of which <a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-has-blown-away-the-myth-about-first-and-third-world-competence-138464">were overwhelmed</a>. They also probably assumed that while some countries might be able to prevent a severe outbreak, South Africa could not.</p>
<p>If so, this would reveal a common way of thinking in South Africa: the belief that the country must compare itself to the rich countries of the North – but that it will never match up.</p>
<h2>Capacity problems</h2>
<p>This pessimism is born of the view that South Africa’s government has very limited capacity. The failure to curb COVID-19 does show glaring capacity gaps. But the problem is not, as critics usually assume, a lack of technical know-how. It is, rather, a particular view of the world and the difficult relationship between those who govern and the governed.</p>
<p>Despite appearing to give up before the fight began, South Africa could have contained COVID-19 had it done what its government said it would do: create an effective testing and tracing programme which would identify people with the virus, trace their contacts and isolate them if they were infected.</p>
<p>The government likes to boast about the large number of tests its many <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/statement-president-cyril-ramaphosa-progress-national-effort-contain-covid-19-pandemic%2C-union-buildings%2C-tshwane">community health workers have conducted</a>. It talks much less about why testing has not stemmed the virus: <a href="https://mg.co.za/coronavirus-essentials/2020-06-03-the-backlogs-denials-and-future-of-testing-covid-19/">a bottleneck</a> at the <a href="https://www.nhls.ac.za/">National Health Laboratory Service</a>, which supports provincial and national government health departments. </p>
<p>In May, doctors complained that it took on average a week to receive COVID-19 test results for outpatients and three to four days for patients in hospitals. Other doctors reported cases in which it took weeks to receive results. At the end of May, Gauteng, the country’s economic hub, was waiting for test results for over 20,000 people.</p>
<p>Testing can contain COVID-19 only if results are received speedily so that the contacts of infected people can be traced. The laboratory backlog meant that testing and tracing could not work no matter how many tests were conducted and how many health workers were hired.</p>
<p>This seems to be an obvious technical failure. Some test results were, according to doctors, lost, which seems to show that the lab was simply not up to the task. But the real problem may be that the government put far too much faith in a high-tech laboratory which was, because too much was expected of it, simply overwhelmed (hence the lost results). </p>
<p>By contrast, Senegal, a far poorer country, knowing that it had no laboratory service that could have coped, developed a test which <a href="https://www.one.org/international/blog/innovations-senegal-covid-19/">cost only $1</a> and produced results very quickly.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347869/original/file-20200716-19-gf59sm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347869/original/file-20200716-19-gf59sm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347869/original/file-20200716-19-gf59sm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347869/original/file-20200716-19-gf59sm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347869/original/file-20200716-19-gf59sm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347869/original/file-20200716-19-gf59sm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347869/original/file-20200716-19-gf59sm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&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="caption">South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So, South Africa believed it had capacity which it lacked. It also assumed that a laboratory which operated like those in rich countries was the most effective way to test for COVID-19. And so, unlike Senegal, it failed to come up with a solution fitted to its needs. Again, the desire to be like the North made it impossible to contain the virus.</p>
<h2>Elitist approach</h2>
<p>The second problem is that the behaviours which are needed to stem COVID-19 are very difficult for most South Africans – those who live in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/township-South-Africa">formerly blacks-only urban townships</a> and in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7141253/">shack settlements</a>. Overcrowding makes physical distancing very hard, clean water may not be available for hand washing and people are forced to <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-minibus-taxi-industry-has-been-marginalised-for-too-long-this-must-change-142060">travel in full minibus taxis</a>.</p>
<p>The government could have overcome these problems if it had chosen to work with people in these areas to find ways to protect themselves. But it did not try – it relied on instructing people to do things they clearly could not do.</p>
<p>To South Africa’s elite, of which the government is now a part, people in low-income townships lack sophistication and maturity: poverty is confused with inability. And so there is no point in working with them.</p>
<p>The problem here is the government’s lack of political capacity, its inability to form a relationship with voters which would enable them to work together against a common threat.</p>
<p>Why is South Africa governed this way? Unlike other sub-Saharan African countries and like several Latin American countries, South Africa is both <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-needed-to-take-africa-from-third-to-first-world-in-25-years-61418">“First World” and “Third World”</a>. A significant section of its people lives like, and measure themselves by the standards of, the affluent in North America and Western Europe. </p>
<p>This is why it has facilities other African countries lack and why it insists on relying on them.</p>
<p>People who live in “First World” conditions also find it much easier to lobby politicians. That is why the government’s claim that it would be guided only by the science of COVID-19 collapsed as lobby groups persuaded it to open activities which <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/level-3-regulations-ramaphosa-lifts-ban-on-religious-gatherings">allowed the virus to spread</a>. </p>
<p>But most people live in the same conditions as the poor of the “Third World”. Facilities designed for the “First World” one-third of the population cannot meet the needs of the other two-thirds. The elite’s deep admiration for the “First World” ensures that the government always wants to rely on what works only for the one-third because only this is “respectable”.</p>
<p>The issue is not that many South Africans are wealthy and live well – so do elites in other African countries. It is that the country is divided into two worlds. An entire economy and social system serves one-third of the people and excludes the rest from its benefits. This shapes attitudes as well as who gets what. The government may be elected by people outside the charmed circle but it is a product of it, hence its response to COVID-19. </p>
<h2>Exceptionalism</h2>
<p>Another consequence, common to South Africa and much of Latin America, is that those who live in “First World” conditions tend to see those who don’t as people who have not attained their exalted standards: they must be told what to do and controlled if they do not listen. Working with the majority to fight the virus isn’t possible when they are seen as “backward” embarrassments.</p>
<p>Many South Africans like to think the country is unique in sub-Saharan Africa. Its contrasts of wealth and poverty certainly are one of a kind. Its response to COVID-19 shows how much this prevents the government from doing what it needs to do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142732/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman 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>Glaring capacity gaps aside, the failure to curb COVID-19 is not so much due to a lack of technical know-how but to a particular view of the world.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1413162020-06-25T16:00:32Z2020-06-25T16:00:32ZSouth Africa’s Freedom Charter campaign holds lessons for the pursuit of a fairer society<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344092/original/file-20200625-33546-11z276w.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">Photo by Frédéric Soltan/Corbis via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/HIST/freedomchart/freedomch.html">Freedom Charter</a>, the document that became the blueprint for a free South Africa, turns 65 this year. </p>
<p>It was adopted by the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/congress-people-kliptown-1955">Congress of the People</a> in Kliptown, Soweto, on 26 June 1955. The meeting brought together several organisations and individuals allied to the liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC). </p>
<p>Much has been written about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-south-africas-freedom-charter-60-years-later-43647">enduring significance of the document</a>. This includes its vision for a just social and economic order, its influence on South Africa’s widely celebrated <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03768350600556570">constitution</a>, and the degree to which changes in the country since the end of apartheid in 1994 have <a href="http://wwmp.org.za/images/pubs/60yrsofFreedomCharter-WEB.pdf">lived up to the ideals</a> of the charter.</p>
<p>Less attention has been devoted to the underlying process of collecting, collating and representing the voices of ordinary South Africans in preparing the Freedom Charter. This article briefly reflects on this process. </p>
<p>It argues that this exercise remains a pioneering effort directed at capturing mass opinion and using it as a broad framework to inform public policy. Every generation of South Africans has its own “Freedom Charter moment”, when fundamental questions are asked about the type of society desired, and the true meaning of freedom. </p>
<p>Today, the Freedom Charter campaign process holds lessons concerning the importance of inclusive, bottom-up governance and active citizenship as the basis for addressing the challenges, needs and aspirations of South Africans across gender, class, generational and other lines. </p>
<h2>Genesis of a vision</h2>
<p>The Congress of the People idea was put forward by <a href="http://uir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/4181">Professor ZK Matthews</a>, president of the ANC in the Cape, at a provincial conference of the organisation in August 1953. He maintained that <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/11808/Working%20Paper%20Number%208.pdf">the time had come for</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>convening a national convention, a congress of the people, representing all the people of this country irrespective of race or colour, to draw up a Freedom Charter for the democratic South Africa of the future. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This proposal was adopted, and subsequently endorsed by the ANC national conference in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/42nd-african-national-congress-conference-resolutions-20-december-1953">December 1953</a>. </p>
<p>Planning of the congress campaign was organised through the Congress Alliance, comprising the National Action Council of the ANC, <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv03445/04lv03446/05lv03502.htm">South African Indian Congress</a>, <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv03445/04lv03446/05lv03464.htm">South African Coloured People’s Organisation</a> and the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv03445/04lv03446/05lv03466.htm">South African Congress of Democrats</a>. </p>
<p>The Congress of the People campaign process was mapped out at a meeting of the alliance in March 1954. This entailed the establishment of provincial committees, followed by committees at workplaces, villages and black urban residential areas, known as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/township-South-Africa">townships</a>.</p>
<p>At the heart of the process was the recruitment of a vast corps of “freedom volunteers” to inspire awareness of the Congress and to collect demands for incorporation into the charter.</p>
<h2>The will of all the people</h2>
<p>In the months that followed, a tide of rallies, meetings, and door-to-door canvassing took place. This led to thousands of public demands</p>
<blockquote>
<p>flooding in to COP headquarters, on sheets torn from school exercise books, on little dog-eared scraps of paper, on slips torn <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=GtWgrbO7CXEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">from COP leaflets</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The demands were written in multiple languages, and varied in style from pithy one-liners to wordier contributions, including the odd essay. Sadly, only a small set of the individual demands have been preserved in archives. </p>
<p>In April 1955, while final logistics for the Kliptown event were under way, the subcommittees of the National Action Committee sorted the multiplicity of demands thematically. A small drafting committee eventually used these materials to prepare the charter. </p>
<p>This document text was hurriedly prepared, primarily by Lionel “Rusty” Bernstein of the South African Congress of Democrats, with the ANC leadership seeing it only on the eve of the Congress of the People. Around 3,000 delegates assembled at the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/congress-people">two-day congress</a>, approving each clause in the charter with a show of hands. The charter was adopted before the apartheid police halted the proceedings. </p>
<p>The Freedom Charter campaign and document have been the subject of <a href="http://wwmp.org.za/images/pubs/60yrsofFreedomCharter-WEB.pdf">wide-ranging, ongoing theoretical and political debate</a>. This has touched on organisational and ideological foundations, interpretive differences on content, as well as the degree to which the public demands are reflected in the final drafting process. </p>
<p>It led to fierce debates between <a href="https://mistra.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Focus-on-the-Charter_M-Ndletyana.pdf">“Africanists” (African nationalists)</a> in the ANC Youth League and “Charterists”. The former rejected the ANC’s non-racialism and the Freedom Charter, with its assertion that</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/HIST/freedomchart/freedomch.html">South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white</a>. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This precipitated the breakaway that culminated in formation of the <a href="https://pac.org.za/about-us/">Pan Africanist Congress</a>, led by <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/robert-sobukwe">Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe</a>. </p>
<p>The Freedom Charter, nonetheless, remained a programmatic vision for the ANC for more than 30 years, and continues to have a broad influence on the policies of government, such as those aimed at <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/broad-based-black-economic-empowerment-act">addressing past injustices</a> and <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/employment-equity-act">promoting equity</a>. </p>
<h2>Abiding relevance</h2>
<p>The Freedom Charter process was an imperfect but impressive attempt at capturing the will of the people and articulating an alternative vision to apartheid South Africa. The approach, scale and reach of the undertaking during exceptionally fraught times has relevance to contemporary debates about liberal democracy, public opinion and public policy. </p>
<p>From a democratic theory perspective, the Freedom Charter process has abiding relevance. It showcases the importance of ascertaining the pressing needs of citizens, as well as holding the elected to account in responding to the priorities inherent in this <a href="http://repository.hsrc.ac.za/bitstream/handle/20.500.11910/9562/9124.pdf">“public agenda”</a>.</p>
<p>It was ahead of its time: not just from a human rights perspective, but also in capturing the concerns and hopes of the public, and using this to inspire and mobilise for progressive change. </p>
<p>As the late anti-apartheid activist Denis Goldberg said in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/chapter-27-freedom-charter-explained">Freedom Fighter and Humanist</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Freedom Charter was drawn up after about 10,000 meetings with the people of South Africa. It is special because it was not drawn up by a small group of visionaries seeking to impose their ideals. It is an authentic reflection of the views of the mass of the people who wrote down and submitted their wishes for the future of their country… </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The process of preparing the charter resonates well with the unprecedented times South Africans find themselves in. The COVID-19 pandemic will worsen poverty, unemployment, inequality and indebtedness in the country. Now, more than ever, an urgent need exists for robust public engagement and debate around a vision and social compact that will shape the post-COVID society in South Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141316/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Roberts receives funding from various national and international funding institutions for a programme of research on understanding social attitudes in South Africa.</span></em></p>The Freedom Charter process was an imperfect but impressive attempt at capturing the will of the people and articulating an alternative vision to apartheid South Africa.Benjamin Roberts, Chief Research Specialist: Developmental, Capable and Ethical State (DCES) research division, and Coordinator of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), Human Sciences Research CouncilLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1406472020-06-15T15:08:26Z2020-06-15T15:08:26ZDecade-long study shows why South Africa needs to stop stereotyping young black men<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341476/original/file-20200612-153849-anwyvd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A man steps outside a small art studio in Alexandra Township.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Ludbrook/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/youth-day">Youth Day</a> celebration on the 16th of June, just after my birthday on the 15th, remained a special day in my life as a young black man. But the day also raised questions for me. A lot gets said in the media about the youth of today, especially young black men who (unlike the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">young lions</a> of 1976) are generally described and depicted as reckless, irresponsible, aggressive and violent. </p>
<p>These young black men are also berated for being more concerned with bashes, parties, excessive drinking and branded clothes. Over the years, terms such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/17/world/in-south-africa-a-lost-generation.html">‘lost generation’</a>, <em>Yizo-Yizo</em> generation (with reference to the <a href="http://thebomb.co.za/item/yizo-yizo-1-2-3/">TV drama</a>), YFM generation (with reference to the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/1997-11-07-yfm-is-a-youth-thing/">radio station</a>), Coca-Cola kids; <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34570761">born free generation</a>; <a href="https://phmuseum.com/ilvynjio/story/the-born-free-generation-nelson-mandela-s-generation-of-hope-5f3653e54c">Mandela’s children</a> and WhatsApp/Facebook generation also gained popularity to describe them. </p>
<p>It is against this backdrop that my psychology <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/jspui/handle/10539/11759?mode=simple">research interest</a> <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/11759/Malose%20Langa%20Final%20PhD%20report%20%282012%29.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y">developed</a> to understand the factors that facilitate or hinder young men’s <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14330237.2010.10820410">search</a> for alternative forms of masculinity, which is the focus of much of my book, <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/becoming-men/"><em>Becoming Men</em></a>. </p>
<p>In the book, I track a group of young black South African boys over a period of 11 years, from 2007 to 2018, from when they were adolescents of 13 to 18 years until they were young adults between the ages of 24 and 28. <em>Becoming Men</em> explores how these adolescent boys negotiate their transition to adulthood in the context of the predominantly working-class <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2013/oct/30/alexandra-township-johannesburg-pictures">township</a> of <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-10-18-waiting-to-exhale-the-story-of-alexandra-township/">Alexandra</a>, as well as how they negotiated the construction of masculinities.</p>
<h2>Positive findings</h2>
<p>Studies about young black men in South African townships are not new, but many tend to associate young black men with gangs, crime and violence. What is new in this book is the focus on young black men who do not subscribe to stereotyped ideas of being a black township man. </p>
<p>These are young township men who are not engaging in risk-taking and other problematic behaviours often associated with them, such as belonging to criminal gangs and committing violent crimes as part of constructing their masculine identities. </p>
<p>Furthermore, these young black men put more emphasis on academic success and long-term career goals, despite lack of bursaries for some to pursue their studies beyond matric. Pursuing academic work was seen by this group as an investment in the future and as a possible means to breaking the cycle of poverty in their lives in the township.</p>
<p>Their narratives revealed positive signs of change, ambition and the aspiration to achieve certain career goals. This and a willingness to sacrifice alignment with dominant or popular positions in the present. They thus entertained non-hegemonic or alternative identity positions.</p>
<h2>Not easy to be different</h2>
<p>It is clear in the book that not all young black men succumb to peer pressure to perform versions of “township” masculinity. But this resistance comes at a cost. Young men who do not subscribe to “township” practices of masculinity are often subjected to bullying, verbal and physical abuse, exclusion, ridicule and humiliation. Derogatory names such as <em>dibhari</em> (fools) or <em>makwala</em> (cowards) are often used against them. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341491/original/file-20200612-153832-1bwbhon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341491/original/file-20200612-153832-1bwbhon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341491/original/file-20200612-153832-1bwbhon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341491/original/file-20200612-153832-1bwbhon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341491/original/file-20200612-153832-1bwbhon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341491/original/file-20200612-153832-1bwbhon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341491/original/file-20200612-153832-1bwbhon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341491/original/file-20200612-153832-1bwbhon.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Thabang Modiba standing in the middle of the street he lives off in Alexandra, from a photo essay on the youth of the township.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Ludbrook/EPA</span></span>
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<p>It is a painful experience for any young man to be called these names. Some feel compelled to behave in a particular way (often getting involved in risky behaviour) to publicly show that one is a “real” township boy. This performativity reveals the artificiality of a male identity that one continuously needs to prove in the eyes of other boys and men.</p>
<p>However, the research for the book also provides rich personal stories of how some young black men are living out alternative versions of masculinity. By alternative I mean non-violent, non-risk taking, non-homophobic and non-sexist.</p>
<p>These entailed rejecting the dominant view that a young man needs to be violent, defy teachers’ authority at school or have multiple girlfriends to show that he is a “real” boy. Strategies that these young black men relied on are revealed in this book, which included vacillating between multiple positions, simultaneously accepting and rejecting certain practices of township masculinity. </p>
<h2>That guy in the middle</h2>
<p>What becomes apparent in my study for the book is that some young black men had conflicting feelings about identifying with alternative voices of masculinity. Some wanted to be popular and yet still achieve good grades at school or stay away from gangs. They had to manage these contradictions in order to maintain and sustain school-oriented and non-violent voices of masculinity by being “in-being” or “in the borderland”. </p>
<p>They accepted that it was better to be “in between” and a “simple guy” who was neither “popular” nor a “loser”. However, being in the middle constituted a dilemma as they still wanted to be considered “real” township boys by doing what other boys did, such as socialising and spending time with peers on street corners, but still being different. </p>
<p>The balance was difficult to achieve and this evoked strong feelings of depression, anxiety, hesitation, shame and ambivalence about being a “different” young black boy. These are psychic and interpersonal tensions that young black men experienced in negotiating the paradoxes of township masculinity and that their narratives were characterised by contradictory sentiments and ambiguities that it is not easy to be a “different” boy who consciously adopts non-popular masculine positions.</p>
<h2>Rejecting stereotypes</h2>
<p>It is argued in this book that being a different boy is “hard work”, so it is important that young adolescent boys are assisted in negotiating these challenges of boyhood and also the transition into healthy manhood. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341494/original/file-20200612-153849-k9ifx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341494/original/file-20200612-153849-k9ifx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341494/original/file-20200612-153849-k9ifx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341494/original/file-20200612-153849-k9ifx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341494/original/file-20200612-153849-k9ifx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341494/original/file-20200612-153849-k9ifx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341494/original/file-20200612-153849-k9ifx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341494/original/file-20200612-153849-k9ifx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University Press</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>It is important for researchers and policy makers to understand what happens psychologically when young black men negotiate such multiple voices of masculinity in their daily lives.</p>
<p>As South Africans celebrate youth month, it needs to remember not to stereotype all young black men as inherently violent, callous, risk taking and exploitative of girls and women – as the opposite is certainly evident in this book.</p>
<p><em>This article is based on an extract of a book by Malose Langa called</em> <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/becoming-men/">Becoming Men: Black Masculinities in a South African Township</a>. <em>It is published by <a href="http://witspress.co.za">Wits University Press</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140647/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Malose Langa receives funding from National Research Foundation, Mellon Foundation and CoE. He works with the Center of Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR)as a Senior Researcher.</span></em></p>Young black men are often viewed through a criminal lens. A new book based on an 11-year-long study of adolescent men in a South African township upends the stereotypes.Malose Langa, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1381712020-05-13T13:40:27Z2020-05-13T13:40:27ZWhat South Africa needs to forge a resilient social compact for Covid-19<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334400/original/file-20200512-82397-mqplfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Abuses by police and the army point to the need for citizens to be involved in security and other crisis response measures </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/full-speech-cobid-19-crisis-will-not-last-forever-but-impact-needs-extraordinary-budget-ramaphosa-20200421">called for</a> “a new social compact among all role players – business, labour, community and government – to restructure the economy and achieve inclusive growth”.</p>
<p>In South Africa, ‘social compact’ has often been used narrowly to describe pacts between stakeholders on specific sectoral issues. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17502977.2019.1682925">A resilient social compact,</a> as we use the concept, requires a dynamic agreement between the state and society on how to live together, and how to address issues of power and resources. </p>
<p>For such an agreement to contribute to peace and societal well-being, it must be reflected in the mechanisms, policies and responses that uphold the agreement. This needs to be done in a way that’s flexible and responsive, especially in times of crisis.</p>
<p>This approach recasts the concept of social compact (or social contract) as a tool for addressing issues of conflict, crisis and transition. <a href="http://www.socialcontractsforpeace.org/publications/#FindingsDocuments">Research across nine countries</a>, including in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17502977.2019.1706436">South Africa</a>, found that social cohesion is a key driver. <a href="http://www.socialcontractsforpeace.org/research/concepts/">Social cohesion</a> builds on the concept of social solidarity, which lies in areas of trust and respect, belonging and identity, and participation. </p>
<p>Its achievement also rests on progress by other drivers. These are inclusive political settlements addressing core issues dividing people, and institutions delivering fairly and effectively. </p>
<p>To move in the direction of a resilient social compact, Ramaphosa’s call will fall on deaf ears unless there are some fundamental changes to the way in which the pandemic is being managed.</p>
<h2>Solidarity and cohesion</h2>
<p>The first is that there needs to be a critical focus on how vulnerable groups are affected differently.</p>
<p>South Africa’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/pandemic-underscores-gross-inequalities-in-south-africa-and-the-need-to-fix-them-135070">stark socio-economic inequalities</a> – within and across racial groups – are core issues that continue to divide people. This is true economically as well as spatially, psychologically, socially and politically. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lockdown-is-riling-black-and-white-south-africans-could-this-be-a-reset-moment-138044">Lockdown is riling black and white South Africans: could this be a reset moment?</a>
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<p>Lockdown restrictions, therefore, affect people differently. In <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/southafrica/publication/the-economics-of-south-african-townships-special-focus-on-diepsloot">townships</a> – apartheid-era residential areas that are predominantly black – loss of work means loss of livelihoods with <a href="https://socialjustice.sun.ac.za/blog/2020/04/statement-policy-brief-coronavirus-covid19/">grave challenges</a> accessing food, health and education. Suburbanites – who are mostly white – on the other hand, have tended to be more preoccupied by loss of freedoms related to jogging, dog-walking, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/lockdown-is-riling-black-and-white-south-africans-could-this-be-a-reset-moment-138044">accessing liquor and cigarettes</a>.</p>
<p>These differences demand, secondly, that greater attention be given to how policies are being implemented. </p>
<p>Addressing these issues could ensure that social cohesion and social solidarity are nurtured through this crisis. </p>
<p>People need to feel included and that they belong – and that policies and practices deliver on expectations and agreements. When this fails, and human rights are violated in the process, these bonds and relationships suffer. Trust in the state, its institutions and associated legitimacy needed for their functioning, falters.</p>
<p>Human rights abuses by the security forces in the wake of the lockdown have included shootings, baton and gun beatings, teargassing, humiliation, abusive language, water bombing, invasion of private backyards, and <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/da-calls-for-military-ombudsman-to-investigate-abuse-by-sandf-members-during-lockdown-45758138">even death</a>. This has occurred especially in townships.</p>
<p>The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights recently identified South Africa as among <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/raises-alarm-police-brutality-covid-19-lockdowns-200428070216771.html">15 countries</a> where human rights violations associated with COVID-19 restrictions were <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25828&LangID=E">most troubling</a>.</p>
<h2>What’s missing</h2>
<p>In the current COVID-19 context we are seeing fissures that dangerously undermine the bonds and relationships between the state and citizens. These are common in fragile and transitional contexts.</p>
<p>Many security forces members are following on the path Ramaphosa set with his peaceful <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2020-03-27-in-quotes--ramaphosa-on-police--army-as-a-force-of-kindness-chancers-and-saving-lives/">messaging</a> to guide them in defending citizens against the pandemic.</p>
<p>But, some are <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/da-calls-for-military-ombudsman-to-investigate-abuse-by-sandf-members-during-lockdown-45758138">abusing their power</a>. </p>
<p>These abuses echo the experiences of black South Africans under apartheid when obedience was secured with authoritarian rule and aggression. </p>
<p>In addition, developing a national COVID-19 response has brought glaring inequalities to the fore – and the country’s persistent <a href="https://journals.co.za/content/journal/10520/EJC-19f475f86a">racial geographies</a>.</p>
<p>These too challenge the goal of achieving a resilient social compact.</p>
<p>Resentment among some township residents has grown, and various forms of civil disobedience have resulted. Vuyo Zungula, leader of the African Transformation Movement, one of the smaller parties represented in parliament, observed on his Twitter page:</p>
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<p>Until I see Whites, Indians getting the same treatment for breaking the Lockdown rules I will view the SANDF and SAPS as the enemy of the people.</p>
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<h2>Way forward</h2>
<p>If the lockdown is enforced through coercion rather than consent, and the dignity of citizens is not respected, a resilient social compact won’t ever be viewed as anything more than rhetoric. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-has-raised-social-grants-why-this-shouldnt-be-a-stop-gap-measure-138023">South Africa has raised social grants: why this shouldn't be a stop-gap measure</a>
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<p>COVID-19 presents profound challenges for citizens and the state. Building trust and cooperation, between state and society, and between social and stakeholder groups in society, is paramount.</p>
<p>What then is needed?</p>
<p>First, there needs to be vigilant government commitment against coercion. Swift action must be taken against abuses by the security sector. And there needs to be effective communication with those affected by the abuse. This should accompany strong assurances of accountability and justice, and upscaled training of the military and the police in crisis response functions.</p>
<p>Second, <a href="https://socialjustice.sun.ac.za/downloads/posts/2020-04-ml-csj-statemement-on-policy-responses-to-coronavirus-covid19.pdf">two-way communication channels</a> that offer the means to build trust and legitimacy of government actions need to be established. These should focus on fostering <a href="https://www.sfcg.org/our-media/">innovative ways</a> for citizens to access information and participate in crisis response strategies. This can occur through surveys, via radio and mobile applications, or radio call-in shows. </p>
<p>Township and suburban residents must take part in the security and other crisis response measures. Widely accessible and consistent messaging is needed, such as the township education undertaken by the <a href="https://c19peoplescoalition.org.za/">C-19 People’s Coalition</a>. The alliance brings together social movements, trade unions, and community organisations working to provide an effective, just and equitable response to the pandemic.</p>
<p>Its members distribute leaflets in Gauteng townships in local languages, as they demonstrate social distancing and the wearing of masks while they mobilise and strengthen networks of food production, distribution and consumption. These may well have benefits beyond the COVID-19 crisis. </p>
<p>Finally, social solidarity is forged when each segment of society works together for the greater social good. Such efforts are widespread in <a href="https://www.solidarityfund.co.za/">South Africa</a> and <a href="https://thedetail.tv/articles/activist-response-to-covid-19">around the world</a>. These stories need to be shared with a view to strengthening longer-term transformation efforts in the country.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138171/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ramaphosa’s call for a new social compact will fall on deaf ears unless there are some fundamental changes to the way in which the pandemic is being managed.Erin McCandless, Associate Professor, School of governance, University of the WitwatersrandDarlene Ajeet Miller, Senior Lecturer, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1230532019-09-10T08:40:39Z2019-09-10T08:40:39ZXenophobia: time for cool heads to prevail in Nigeria and South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291544/original/file-20190909-109943-1h6fkvp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C152%2C1628%2C1044&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, left, with his Nigerian counterpart Muhammadu Buhari in late August in Japan.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/governmentza/48663894001/in/photolist-2h9eocY-2h9gXVu-2h9eobW-2h9gbpo-2h9gXSZ-2h9eo89-2h9gbmT-2h9eo7s-2h9gXNk-2h9eo4w-2h9gbgc-2h9enLn-2hc93x8">GCIS/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The latest <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/live-peace-migrants-fearful-sa-attacks-190904051255164.html">xenophobic attacks</a> in South Africa have ignited the long-standing tensions between the country and Nigeria. These are captured in the retaliatory attacks on <a href="https://www.biznews.com/global-investing/2019/09/05/xenophobia-mtn-shoprite-nigeria-ramaphosa-tweets">South African businesses in Nigeria</a> and the diplomatic outrage by Nigerian authorities.</p>
<p>Nigeria also boycotted the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/350546-breaking-nigeria-recalls-ambassador-to-south-africa.html">in Cape Town</a>. More critical was the temporary closure of South African missions in <a href="https://www.thesouthafrican.com/videos/xenophobia-nigeria-shoprite-attacks-video/;https://www.voanews.com/africa/nigerians-attack-south-african-businesses-retaliation">Abuja and Lagos</a> and Nigeria’s decision to <a href="https://punchng.com/breaking-xenophobia-nigeria-recalls-ambassador-to-south-africa-shuns-wes/">recall its ambassador</a>. </p>
<p>But in the larger scheme of things, xenophobia is a distraction from the leadership role that Nigeria and South Africa should play on the continent on fundamental issues of immigration and economic integration.</p>
<h2>A constant irritant</h2>
<p>Accurate figures are hard to get. But Statistics South Africa put the number of Nigerian migrants at <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201908150322.html">about 30,000</a> in 2016, far below Zimbabweans and Mozambicans.</p>
<p>Xenophobia has remained a constant irritant in Nigeria-South Africa relations since the major attacks on African migrants in poor neighbourhoods in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/world/africa/20safrica.html">in 2008</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/report-blames-media-xenophobic-panic-africa-160406102827284.html">2015</a>. But, contrary to popular perception, xenophobic attacks do not disproportionately target Nigerians. Nigerians often exaggerate the effect of violence on their citizens. That is probably because Nigeria has a better organised, savvy, and loud <a href="https://punchng.com/killing-of-nigerians-in-south-africa-will-no-longer-be-tolerated-fg-warns-sa/">diaspora constituency</a> in South Africa.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the loudness of the Nigerian diaspora transforms victimhood into foreign policy, generating the reactions that have been witnessed recently. It also plays into the naïve narrative of the <a href="https://www.enca.com/africa/south-africa-should-be-eternally-grateful-to-nigeria-for-defeating-apartheid">“liberation dividend”</a>. This entails Nigerians seeking to be treated uniquely because of their contribution to the struggle for majority rule in South Africa. There were no such expectations from the other countries that supported South Africa’s liberation struggle.</p>
<p>This narrative has taken on an equally economic tinge. South African companies are heavily invested in Nigeria. So, they often become targets of <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190905-nigeria-south-africa-businesses-attacks-xenophobic-violence">Nigerian ire</a> in times of xenophobia. </p>
<p>The accurate picture is that <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/09/south-africa-years-of-impunity-for-xenophobic-crimes-driving-the-latest-attacks/">xenophobia affects all African migrants</a>. These are mostly migrants from Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and, increasingly Ethiopians, Kenyans and Somalis. Nigerians are affected. But they’re not on top of the list.</p>
<p>The Nigerian responses are understandable in light of the <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/enough-is-enough-says-nigerian-govt-over-violent-attacks-in-south-africa-20190903">frequency of these attacks</a>. But, it is important to <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-research-reveals-about-drivers-of-anti-immigrant-hate-crime-in-south-africa-123097">probe the drivers of xenophobia</a> to understand it more deeply.</p>
<h2>What drives xenophobia?</h2>
<p>First, some <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12288405">studies reveal</a> that the intrusion of foreign migrants into vulnerable communities beset by joblessness and despair inevitability produces <a href="https://www.polity.org.za/article/unemployment-and-immigration-in-south-africa-2013-05-24">a tinderbox</a> that <a href="https://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/handle/10413/3186">sparks violence </a>. </p>
<p>Migrants are easy targets. That’s because they are seen as being better off by the locals. They therefore become targets of people who feel their circumstances have not been addressed by government. It is no surprise that xenophobic attacks have typically occurred in poor <a href="https://theconversation.com/protests-soar-amid-unmet-expectations-in-south-africa-42013">neighbourhoods that have been affected</a> by service delivery protests since the mid-2000s.</p>
<p>Second, xenophobia thrives on ineffective policing in South Africa. Barely two days after the Johannesburg attacks started, the national police spokesman admitted that the police were running out of resources to manage the violence. This prompted the Premier of Gauteng, the country’s economic hub, to threaten to also <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/riots-in-gauteng-draining-police-resources-20190903">deploy the army</a> if the violence continued.</p>
<p>Examples of the police’s inability to maintain order and respond to threats to property and livelihoods are <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/News/xenophobia-police-have-no-plan-as-crime-intelligence-is-caught-napping-20190909">legion</a>. This, in part, forces people to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africa-can-turn-the-rising-tide-against-vigilantism-72986">take the law into their own hands</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-africa-can-turn-the-rising-tide-against-vigilantism-72986">How South Africa can turn the rising tide against vigilantism</a>
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<p>But the police are sometimes complicit in stoking anti-foreign sentiments. The July 2019 raids on foreign-owned businesses in Johannesburg in apparent efforts to <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/08/08/gauteng-top-cop-vows-to-remove-counterfeit-good-from-joburg-cbd">stamp out illicit goods</a> added to the current climate of xenophobia. When some business owners retaliated against the police, some local leaders appropriated the language of “threats on South Africa’s sovereignty” to <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/police-union-condemns-mob-attack-on-police-in-johannesburg-30264628">justify the police response</a>. </p>
<p>Reforms are urgently needed to create a competent, less corrupt, better-resourced, and civic-minded police service. </p>
<p>Xenophobia is also an outcome of a rickety migration and border control regime. Efficient border controls are one of the hallmarks of sovereignty and the first line of defence against xenophobia. Broken borders breed criminality. These include <a href="http://www.702.co.za/articles/308313/human-trafficking-rife-in-south-africa-with-more-women-lured-into-dens">human</a> and <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2017-05-16-migration-of-the-nigerian-mafia">drug</a> trafficking. Human and drug trafficking feature prominently in the discourse on xenophobia in South Africa.</p>
<p>How, then, does xenophobia distract South Africa and Nigeria from what should be their leadership on core African issues?</p>
<h2>Overreaction</h2>
<p>The weighty issues of creating a humane and just society for South Africans and migrants alike will ultimately be led by the South African government. Outsiders can make some diplomatic noises and occasionally boycott South Africa. But these actions are unlikely to drive vital change. </p>
<p>In fact, the <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/09/03/zambia-cancels-bafana-friendly-due-to-attacks-on-foreign-nationals">overreactions</a> by Nigeria and other African countries simply undercut the South African constituencies that have a crucial stake in wide-ranging reforms that address the multiplicity of problems around xenophobia.</p>
<p>In the previous instances of xenophobic violence, Nigeria urged the African Union (AU) to force South Africa to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/02/nigerians-africa-living-fear-attacks-170221155456218.html">take action</a>. But such unhelpful statements only inflame passions and prevent civil diplomatic discourse.</p>
<p>Instead, the best policy would be for Nigeria to engage South Africa through their existing <a href="http://www.dirco.gov.za/abuja/bilateral.html">binational commission</a>. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is scheduled to visit South Africa next month.</p>
<h2>Taking the lead</h2>
<p>Rather than the perennial relapse into shouting matches and hardening of rhetoric, it is essential for Pretoria and Abuja to take decisive leadership at the continental level. The two nations must articulate immigration policies. </p>
<p>The newly-inaugurated AU <a href="https://www.ilo.org/africa/areas-of-work/labour-migration/policy-frameworks/WCMS_671953/lang--en/index.htm">Free Movement of Persons Protocol</a> will not be implemented if South Africa and Nigeria do not join hands to <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/belt-and-road/tito-mboweni-has-called-for-the-free-movement-of-africans-within-the-continent-31930766">make it a reality</a>. More ominously, migration to South Africa as the premier African economy will only get worse in the coming years. This, as Europe and the United States tighten their borders <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/financial/2019/05/23/op-ed-the-future-of-africas-diaspora-is-in-africa/">against African migrants</a>.</p>
<p>Also, without the leadership of its two major economies, Africa is not going to make any traction on the new treaty establishing the African Continental <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-work-lies-ahead-to-make-africas-new-free-trade-area-succeed-118135">Free Trade Agreement</a>. Ironically, the WEF meeting in Cape Town addressed ways to boost intra-African trade. Nigeria should not have boycotted it because of xenophobia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123053/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gilbert M. Khadiagala 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>South Africa and Nigeria need to lead policy debates on long term measures to address migration in Africa.Gilbert M. Khadiagala, Jan Smuts Professor of International Relations and Director of the African Centre for the Study of the United States (ACSUS), University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1221332019-09-01T09:22:14Z2019-09-01T09:22:14ZBlack South Africans explain who they voted for in last poll, and why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289629/original/file-20190827-184229-uu1t3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africans who receive welfare grants vote for the governing African National Congress more than any other party. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In May this year South Africans went to the polls to vote in the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/south-africans-vote-today-sixth-national-elections-apartheid">sixth national and provincial elections</a> of the democratic era. The election was a test of strength for the governing African National Congress (ANC), whose electoral support has declined <a href="http://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/the-anc-in-terminal-decline/">over the last decade</a>. </p>
<p>The election affirmed the pattern of ANC decline, with its <a href="https://www.elections.org.za/IECOnline/Reports/National-and-Provincial-reports">worst electoral performance to date</a>. The <a href="https://effonline.org/about-us/">Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)</a>, founded in July 2013 by expelled former ANC Youth League President, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/julius-sello-malema">Julius Malema</a>, and which describes itself as a far-left political party, saw growth in its support. Meanwhile the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), a broadly liberal party, saw a <a href="https://www.elections.org.za/NPEDashboard/App/dashboard.html">decline in support.</a> </p>
<p>But who voted for these parties and why? </p>
<p>To answer this question, the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg surveyed over 5,000 voters in an exit poll on the day of the election. Twenty three sites across eight of South Africa’s nine provinces were surveyed, with most sites concentrated in Gauteng, the economic hub of the country. The survey focused primarily on <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/southafrica/publication/the-economics-of-south-african-townships-special-focus-on-diepsloot">townships</a> and informal settlements, whose residents are mostly poor and black; 91% of respondents were black African, and 22% lived in informal dwellings or shacks. </p>
<p>Similar surveys were also conducted on the day of the 2014 national and provincial <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/115/460/419/2195267">elections</a> and the <a href="https://www.uj.ac.za/newandevents/Documents/LGE%202016%20Report%20CR%2011%2001_Final%20Cover%20Included.pdf">2016 local government election</a>. </p>
<p>The survey asked a range of demographic questions – such as age, gender, race, ethnicity and employment status – as well as questions about participation in protests, and who respondents voted for and why. </p>
<p>The survey sample was not nationally representative. But, the areas chosen provide a crucial insight into the historic heartlands of support for the governing ANC.</p>
<h2>Who votes for what party?</h2>
<p>The survey asked about all political parties but we concentrated our analysis on the three largest political parties: the ANC, the DA and the EFF. </p>
<p>As the ANC continues to experience declining electoral support, our survey provides some understanding of the patterns that lie beneath deepening electoral competition in South Africa. Age, gender, ethnicity, receipt of government benefits, and participation in protest were all found to significantly correlate with voters’ choices of different parties. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.uj.ac.za/contact/Documents/Final%202019%20election%20report.pdf">Our analysis</a> shows that the ANC and the DA secured their greatest support among older voters, while the EFF secured the greatest support among younger voters, as one might expect. </p>
<p>In line with our previous surveys, we found that women were more likely than men to vote for the ANC. Nearly two-thirds of women (64%) voted for the ANC, compared to only 55% of men. </p>
<p>Nearly half of all DA voters surveyed had full time jobs compared to about a third of ANC and EFF voters. </p>
<p>The data also revealed interesting ethnic differences. IsiXhosa speakers were most likely to vote for the ANC while Sepedi speakers were most likely to vote for the EFF. </p>
<p>In previous surveys, we found that the ANC, then under the leadership of President Jacob Zuma, drew particularly strong support from isiZulu speakers. But in this round of the survey, we observed that while support for the ANC was still strong among isiZulu speakers, they were also the most likely to vote for opposition parties beyond the EFF and DA. </p>
<p>The findings also reveal that those who had reported taking part in some form of protest action over the last five years were more likely to vote for opposition parties. </p>
<h2>Why do people vote?</h2>
<p>The survey included a series of six questions that asked respondents to rate the reasons that they came to vote by “a lot”, ‘“a bit” or “not at all”. The two most influential reasons were “because it is my responsibility to vote” and “to improve the economy”, with 90% and 87% of respondents, respectively, saying that these factors influenced them “a lot”. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, different reasons influenced voters who supported different parties. Nearly two thirds of ANC voters, compared to only half of DA voters, said that the prospect of government benefits influenced their decision to vote.</p>
<p>In contrast, about three quarters of EFF voters agreed that “land redistribution” influenced their decision to vote, compared to less than half of DA voters. </p>
<h2>Explaining voter choices</h2>
<p>The survey also asked people to explain why they voted for a particular party. Personal identification, including reasons based on a sense of trust, loyalty or a personal affinity with a party, was most common among ANC voters.</p>
<p>DA and EFF voters most frequently expressed a desire for “change” as influencing who they voted for. Although it must be noted that a high proportion of ANC voters also expressed the idea of “change” as motivating their decision to vote for the ANC.</p>
<p>A fifth (20%) of EFF voters explained their vote choice in terms of their satisfaction with the party’s policies. This could be related to the <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/the-effs-2019-election-manifesto-iv">EFF’s manifesto</a> pledges on the issue of land redistribution. We found that land redistribution was a strong motivator for bringing EFF supporters out to vote. Meanwhile, 17% of DA voters explained their vote choice as being related to the desire to increase electoral competition and to put pressure on the governing party.</p>
<p>Our survey was also able to give insight into whether government benefits, in the form of social grants or government housing, may have played a role in influencing party choice. Our findings show that social grant recipients were statistically more likely to vote for the ANC. Receipt of a government house, however, did not have a statistically significant relationship to voting for the party.</p>
<h2>South African electoral politics</h2>
<p>The fault lines identified in the survey may deepen, to the extent that political parties emphasise them in campaign messaging. </p>
<p>At the same time, the salience of factors such as social grants and land redistribution highlight that party policies and performance in government matter as well. As electoral competition continues to escalate in South Africa, it will be useful to monitor the relative significance of, and interaction between identities, policy preferences, and government performance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carin Runciman receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the University of Johannesburg Research Committee.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marcel Paret 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 survey findings show that people who had taken part in protests over the last five years were more likely to vote for opposition parties.Carin Runciman, Associate professor, University of JohannesburgMarcel Paret, Assistant professor, University of UtahLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1202362019-07-11T11:32:28Z2019-07-11T11:32:28ZSpat over toll roads in South Africa shows poor people don’t count<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283666/original/file-20190711-173338-1vzbhx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An electronic toll gantry on a Johannesburg highway.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Beate Wolte</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most South Africans are poor. But this does not prevent politicians treating them as though they don’t exist.</p>
<p>The invisibility of poor people in the country, who are estimated to make up <a href="https://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-south-africas-official-poverty-numbers/">55,5% of the population</a> was on display recently as David Makhura, Premier of Gauteng Province, the country’s economic heartland, and the Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni, <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/news/mboweni-vs-makhura-heated-twitter-war-over-e-tolls-saga-28756404">aired their differences on Twitter</a>. The topic was the electronic tolling (known locally as e-tolls) of freeways in Gauteng.</p>
<p>The Gauteng African National Congress (ANC), which Makhura leads, has responded to a backlash against the tolls by urging that they be <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/2030791/anc-gauteng-peoples-march-against-e-tolls-another-election-ploy-da/">removed </a>. The national government in which Mboweni serves, and is also led by the ANC, imposed the tolls and continues to support them, at least in principle. So, while the spat transfixed people who believe that interesting human activity happens only on Twitter, the fact they were arguing was of no great moment: both were expressing the position of their sphere of government.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the exchange was revealing – but not for the reasons which fascinated the Twitter-struck media. It showed once again how invisible poor people are in South Africa’s politics.</p>
<h2>Opposition to e-tolls</h2>
<p>The battle against electronic tolls in Gauteng is usually portrayed as the fight of “the people” against an unjust government. In reality, it is a revolt by car owners who don’t want to pay for the freeways on which they drive. Buses and minibus taxis, the transport used by the poor, are exempt from the tolls. So, people who can afford to own a vehicle pay to use the freeways on which everyone drives. </p>
<p>This is a textbook example of progressive taxation -– those who have more pay for services so that they are available to the poor too.</p>
<p>Owners rebel against paying for public goods around the world and so it is not surprising that car owners have mobilised against the tolls. Nor is the fact that Makhura and the Gauteng ANC want the tolls gone -– people who can afford cars are plentiful in Gauteng, and so the tolls have dented the ANC’s <a href="http://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/gauteng-anc-to-discuss-e-tolls-at-provincial-conference/">voter support in the province</a>. It’s also not surprising that the Congress of South African Trade Unions, which is in a governing alliance with the ANC, is a strong opponent of tolls: many union members own cars.</p>
<p>What is surprising is that opposition to e-tolls is an article of faith among organisations and people who claim to want a fairer distribution of society’s wealth: it is odd when people who claim to be fighting for the poor condemn anyone who suggests that car owners should be tolled so that poor people can use freeways without paying. If they take the side of the car owners, who speaks for the poor?</p>
<p>The obvious answer would surely be the government which has introduced the tolls. We should expect to hear national government explaining that e-tolls are a boon to the poor and so help to build a fairer economy. We might also expect that, when car owners are campaigning for the tolls to be scrapped, government politicians would be mobilising support among the poor, explaining that their right to ride on the highways for free is under threat.</p>
<p>But, as Mboweni’s response to Makhura shows, government representatives never defend the tolls as a pro-poor tax. The minister’s argument is an energetic defence of the “user pay” principle – the idea that public infrastructure should be paid for by those who use it. This is not necessarily pro-poor because it could mean that poor people who use it should pay the same as well-off users. Not once during the exchange does Mboweni suggest that e-tolls are a good idea because they help the poor.</p>
<h2>Pro-poor by default</h2>
<p>Mboweni’s lack of interest in pointing out that the tolls help the poor is standard – there is no record of any government politician defending tolls because they help poor people. And so, it comes as no great surprise that the decision to exempt buses and minibus taxis was taken some time after the government decided to introduce the tolls. It was a response to lobbying and was not the government’s idea. Nor is it surprising to hear complaints that minibus taxi drivers have difficulties in receiving exemptions to which they are entitled.</p>
<p>E-tolls help the poor not because the government wanted this but because this deflected pressure. They are pro-poor not because of the government but despite it.</p>
<p>So, the poor are ignored by those who claim to speak for them and by the government which seemed to care about them but doesn’t.</p>
<p>This reality is not restricted to the e-toll debate. It is common for debates about poverty to exclude poor people. The only group who have been ignored in the debate over land expropriation are landless people. A few were taken to <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2018/08/04/parly-concludes-public-hearings-on-land-expropriation">public hearings</a> on the issue because the people who arranged for them to attend knew they would support their position. But no-one made a serious attempt to listen to what the landless had to say about land.</p>
<p>It is also common for measures which would hurt the poor – like scrapping e-tolls – to be portrayed as pro-poor. A well-known example is free higher education which would allow the rich to study for free. Another is the revival of the demand a couple of decades ago that <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/southafrica/publication/the-economics-of-south-african-townships-special-focus-on-diepsloot">township</a> residents – who are mostly poor – pay a <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/News/Soweto-residents-want-flat-electricity-rate-but-use-energy-hungry-appliances-20150510">flat rate</a> for services. This means that those who have more pay the same as those who have almost nothing.</p>
<p>Why is it so common for activists and politicians to pass off measures which help the better off as boons for the poor? One possibility is that this is a legacy of the fight against apartheid.</p>
<h2>Apartheid legacy</h2>
<p>A key apartheid strategy was to divide people – and black people in particular. And so, it became a key goal of the movements trying to free people from white minority rule to stress the unity of black people. They knew that some had more than others, but mentioning this would undermine the unity which the movements prized. Those who worried out loud that important differences were being ignored were told that they would be addressed after the system was defeated. </p>
<p>But old ways of thinking and acting become ingrained and so, ignoring the difference between the well-off and the poor survives, whatever slogans people use.</p>
<p>As long as this continues, poor people will remain unheard - and will be forced to endure plans to better their lives which do nothing for them and a great deal for those who don’t need help.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120236/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman 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>Politicians oppose toll roads on Johannesburg’s highways, yet they are textbook example of progressive taxation that favours the poor.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1026162018-09-06T13:24:43Z2018-09-06T13:24:43ZXenophobia in South Africa: why it’s time to unsettle narratives about migrants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235025/original/file-20180905-45178-58lmld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Four people died in the latest violence and looting to hit shops owned by foreign nationals in Soweto, Johannesburg. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sowetan/Thulani Mbele</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Foreign nationals have, yet again, been attacked, displaced and had their shops looted in <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-09-03-xenophobia-triumphs-in-gauteng/">South Africa</a>. This is an unfortunate – but entirely unsurprising – way to mark the anniversary of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/world/africa/20safrica.html">2008 xenophobic attacks</a> during which tens of thousands were displaced and more than 60 people killed. </p>
<p>Even before 2008, a handful of scholars and activists were urging the government <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-03-06-somalis-are-easy-prey">to do more</a> to protect those targeted for violence because of their geographic origins. Only after the 2008 melee did the <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/docs/other-docs/nap.html">government</a> join civil society and <a href="https://www.iom.int/news/one-movement-launched-combat-xenophobia-and-racism-south-africa-new-study-released">international organisations</a> in committing to ensure that such bloodletting would never happen again. But, it has.</p>
<p>Why? Firstly, both the government and civil society are culpable. The government continues to sideline xenophobic violence the same way it does most violence affecting <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/south-africa-s-crime-epidemic-how-townships-descend-into-vigilante-violence-pqkrgql7m">poor South African communities</a>. It has naturalised anti-outsider violence by blaming it variously on criminality or the natural resentment poor South Africans feel towards those they perceive as “stealing” opportunities from them.</p>
<p>Civil society efforts have fared little better in arresting the violence. Many organisation, foreign and domestic, have responded in a classic <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2392088">“garbage-can”</a> fashion, matching ready-made solutions to problems they only poorly understand. The results include innumerable <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/gauteng-premier-joins-anti-xenophobia-march-20170328">marches</a>, education campaigns, <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2014/09/24/Combating-xenophobia-a-national-issue">rights awareness symposiums</a>, and social cohesion <a href="http://www.fhr.org.za/latest_news/social-cohesion-summit/">summits</a>. Various bodies, including the one I work for, regularly document the abuse of migrants at the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/safrica-migrants-corruption/">hands of police</a>, authorities and <a href="http://www.savi.uct.ac.za/xenophobia_community-social-cohesion-profiles">neighbours</a>.</p>
<p>The solution doesn’t lie in simply doing more of the same. What’s required is to recalibrate how xenophobia is covered, particularly how stories are told about migrants – their rights, suffering, and their relationship to the citizens around them. The way it’s currently done is doing more harm than good. </p>
<p>South African coverage of migrants falls into what the president of the global Ethical Journalism Network, Aidan White, recently noted was a trend towards <a href="https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/migration-reporting-solutions">“victim journalism”</a> in global migration coverage. </p>
<p>But changing course means going against the grain of the dominant narratives. It means destabilising the language and approaches used to speak about violence and immigration. This is as true in South Africa as it is elsewhere in the world. </p>
<p>When one does this, as Tanya Pampalone and I have tried to do in the book <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/i-want-to-go-home-forever/"><em>I Want to Go Home Forever: Stories of Becoming and Belonging in Africa’s Great Metropolis</em>.</a> the stories are often difficult to digest. They are uncomfortable because they upset easy binaries and accusations. They also point to new opportunities to build communities that are inclusive and safe. </p>
<h2>Victim journalism</h2>
<p>The accounts of migrants described in White’s article are very recognisable in South Africa. Many of the accounts offered by South African civil society and scholars rapidly descend into a parade of miseries and indignities. As if the more people suffer, the more deserving they are of not only sympathy, but a place in a hosting country. It’s as if the only way one is allowed to stay is if you completely deserve pity. </p>
<p><a href="https://americanethnologist.org/features/interviews/ae-interviews-miriam-ticktin-innocence-ethnography-and-politics-beyond-the-human">Miriam Ticktin</a>, a leading migration scholar, similarly observes how migrants need to ensure they are read as helpless, needy and innocent to secure access to protection and help. While such claims may get you “in”, they also feed perceptions that migrants are wards, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-fears-about-jobs-drive-anti-migrant-sentiment-in-south-africa-101053">stealing resources</a>.</p>
<p>The problem of focusing on migrants’ rights and victimisation is that it does little to hold the political and criminal elements leading – and benefiting – from the violence against migrants responsible. It also prevents empathy from citizens grappling with the competition for scarce resources such as houses, or for jobs, as well as the ethical dilemmas of migration. Migration is a complex process that by its nature transforms communities. It introduces new languages and customs. It creates new forms of economic and social exchange. These can be unsettling and disorienting, especially during times of economic hardship and political transition.</p>
<p>Framing xenophobic violence as a question of immigrant victimisation invites divisions between neighbours. There are multiple examples, such as accounts of immigrants as somehow superhuman people who have suffered violence and persecution across a smorgasbord of sites, yet heroically continue commerce to feed their families. </p>
<p>Journalists and scholars overlook or suppress unsavoury elements of migrants’ histories and activities. This is often for fear of feeding anti-immigrant reactions. Perhaps more importantly, migrant-oriented journalists and activities too quickly condemn South Africans as thoughtless purveyors of violence. </p>
<p>Both sides become caricatures, people without politics or the complexities that are inherent to all humans.</p>
<h2>Humanising migration</h2>
<p>It’s true: there are many stories of victimisation. But there are a host of other accounts that reflect a complexity often ignored in the simple narratives. </p>
<p>There are the geriatric refugees from Ethiopia who fear reprisals for political actions taken decades ago. There are conflicts among immigrant families far more vicious than anything South Africans are offering. There are immigrants who make court cases against them disappear. </p>
<p>There are also thoughtful, patriotic South Africans convinced xenophobia is socially just. For them, overcoming apartheid’s legacy means redirecting resources and opportunities to the citizens who most suffered from it. For them, sharing the country’s wealth and urban space with “others” can only frustrate a transformation agenda that has been too slow to bear fruit.</p>
<p>There are also stories – seldom told – that can salve and offer direction. They remind those willing to listen that while immigrants live in almost all <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/southafrica/publication/the-economics-of-south-african-townships-special-focus-on-diepsloot">South African townships</a>, violence against them is remarkably infrequent. It’s not random or driven solely by rage, but calculated, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiPkIKjop_dAhUII8AKHVBjAmIQFjAAegQIABAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffreedomhouse.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2FSouth_Africa_Community_Social_Cohesion_Profiles_Synthesis%2520Report.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0cbij09H5SrnjVunIsGnjt">purposeful, and directed</a>. </p>
<p>What is more, there are poor, black South Africans who know that foreigners are not the problem. They are perfectly aware that foreigners aren’t the reason they are jobless, homeless, and frightened to walk the streets. Better than most, they know that it is officials’ false promises and unwillingness to counter corruption, violence, incompetence and institutional incapacity that are to blame. </p>
<p>These are problems with no easy solutions. Yet that is precisely the message that scholars, activists, and concerned citizens need to hear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102616/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Loren B Landau receives funding from the National Research Foundation and The Open Society Foundation</span></em></p>Framing xenophobic violence as a question of immigrant victimisation invites divisions between neighbours.Loren B Landau, Research Chair on Mobility & the Politics of Diversity. Migration; Urbanisation; Refugees; Xenophobia, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/804192017-07-04T14:42:20Z2017-07-04T14:42:20ZFrom the margins, reggae in South Africa continues to struggle for human dignity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176593/original/file-20170703-7743-13e9e81.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cape Town reggae artist, Teba Shumba.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tuomas Järvenpää</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Anthropologist <a href="http://yfile-archive.news.yorku.ca/2005/11/02/carole-yawney-rastafari-scholar-and-social-activist/">Carole Yawney</a> has documented how on the eve of South Africa’s <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-african-general-elections-1994">first democratic elections</a> in 1994 the African National Congress (ANC) distributed an electoral leaflet in townships with the following <a href="http://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/CA/00/40/02/06/00001/PDF.pdf">message</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Greetings I'n'I! … The ANC recognises that Rastas are part and parcel of the oppressed masses. We all know of the important role the international Rasta movement has played in the liberation struggle in bringing to the attention of the world the message of our struggle through music.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The ANC was trying to acknowledge and capitalise on the role reggae music and the Rastafarian movement played in the struggle against the apartheid regime. Jamaican reggae was essential in bringing international attention to the South African political struggle.</p>
<p>Jamaican artists addressed their lyrical messages directly to the liberation movements of southern Africa. Some of the most notable examples include <a href="https://genius.com/Peter-tosh-apartheid-lyrics">“Fight Apartheid”</a> (1977) by Peter Tosh, <a href="http://www.songplaces.com/Zimbabwe/Zimbabwe/">“Zimbabwe”</a>(1979) by Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer’s <a href="https://genius.com/Bunny-wailer-botha-the-mosquito-lyrics">“Botha the Mosquito”</a> (1986).</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Bunny Wailer with his song ‘Botha the Mosquito’, from the album ‘Liberation’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As early as the 1970s young people in South Africa’s townships had adopted Rasta beliefs and reggae music as a part of their anti-establishment counterculture. The first wave of <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/reggae-south-africa">homegrown reggae</a> followed quickly. Artists such <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/carlos-djedje-pioneer-african-reggae">Carlos Djedje</a>, <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/directory/colbert-mukwevho">Colbert Mukwevho</a> and <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/legends-sa-music-lucky-dube">Lucky Dube</a> managed to defy the state censorship. They launched the genre as one of the most popular music styles in the country in the 1980s and early 1990s.</p>
<p>During the second part of the nineties in democratic South Africa, reggae lost much of its former visibility and commercial potential. This was partly because it was so deeply and specifically connected to the struggle years and the protest against apartheid. </p>
<p>Yet, the Rastafarian counterculture continued to hold relevance in marginalised urban settings. Those are the areas where it had initially been rooted back in the 1970s. In this new post-apartheid era, the protest spirit of reggae turned to voice concerns over the socioeconomic inequalities that continued to escalate throughout the 1990s and 2000s.</p>
<p>Reggae and Rastafari are currently <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2011-10-14-the-rise-and-of-rastafari">flourishing</a> especially in the Western Cape province and its capital, Cape Town. </p>
<h2>Township reggae circuit</h2>
<p>I first started doing anthropological <a href="http://epublications.uef.fi/pub/urn_isbn_978-952-61-2424-7/index_en.html">research</a> on Capetonian reggae in 2013. I assumed somewhat naively that the township reggae circuit of the city would be relatively closed from outsiders, especially from white foreigners like me. But it soon became apparent that I was actually travelling along a well beaten path during my field research. </p>
<p>Reggae musicians held wide social connections to foreign artists, producers and managers across the city as well as across the world. Many were using online platforms to collaborate with individuals, some of whom they had never met.</p>
<p>This shouldn’t have come as a surprise. After all, I’d embarked on the research partly because of the international circulation of South African reggae music. Four years earlier I had become fascinated by Capetonian reggae music in Finland, my home country. There a Finnish reggae band, Suhinators, had released <a href="https://www.discogs.com/Suhinators-Suhinators/release/1764267">an album</a> featuring two Capetonian vocalists, <a href="https://teba.bandcamp.com/">Teba Shumba</a> and <a href="http://www.crosbybolani.com/">Crosby Bolani</a>. </p>
<p>I remember being captivated by their music, particularly their militant lyrical style that seemed exotic and out of the ordinary to me. In Finland reggae music isn’t politicised in similar fashion.</p>
<p>In Cape Town, I learned that this collaboration between Capetonian and Finnish reggae artists wasn’t an isolated case. Teba Shumba also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XgZYFpEm7U">works</a> with a Brazilian music producer, for example. Crosby Bolani further collaborates with hip-hop legend <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/dj-krush-mn0000949143">DJ Krush</a>. <a href="https://soundcloud.com/daddy-spencer-1">Daddy Spencer</a> voices <a href="http://segnaledigitale.org/dev/en/albums/digi-signa-013/">tracks</a> with the Italian production team <a href="http://segnaledigitale.org/dev/en/">Segnale Digitale</a>. <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/directory/black-dillinger">Black Dillinger</a> tours European music festivals. These are just a few of the recent intercontinental ventures of Capetonian reggae musicians.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Crosby Bolani collaborating with DJ Krush.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In addition, well-established Capetonian singers <a href="http://gugszoro.weebly.com/">Zoro</a> and <a href="http://vido-reggae.de/">Vido Jelashe</a> emigrated to Europe some years ago, but they still draw from township reality in their lyrical storytelling. </p>
<h2>Street cred via the ghetto</h2>
<p>In fact the lyrical and visual depictions of Cape Town’s ghetto conditions are central in rendering the artists with street credibility in all of these collaborations. In this sense, Capetonian reggae music is a part of a broader musical trend, where the metaphor of the ghetto has become central in the formation of transnational musical connections.</p>
<p>Cultural anthropologist Prof <a href="http://www.uva.nl/profiel/j/a/r.k.jaffe/r.k.jaffe.html">Rivke Jaffe</a> <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2012.01121.x/abstract">states</a> that,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>ghetto-based identifications allow the mobilisation of a broader, transnational belonging against the injustice of this immobility, helping to undermine the stigma of poverty and social marginality. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Identification with Rastafarian reggae music and its visual and lyrical narratives has indeed offered South African musicians inclusion in a global story of exclusion and injustice.</p>
<p>Rivke continues:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ironically, it is the collective frame of immobility… which connects ghetto dwellers worldwide. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This rings true for the Cape Town reggae scene. It’s practically invisible and inaudible in the main music venues of the city where the township audiences are not seen as a lucrative target group. Instead this township scene has formed a vibrant existence in YouTube music videos and in foreign music festivals. </p>
<p>Based on my experience as a researcher it seems that the main political significance of reggae music in general does not lie in its explicitly political lyrics. Instead it’s in the grassroots cultural connection that it has enabled. </p>
<p>Yet the question remains whether these international cultural connections are able to sustain solidarity between marginalised groups of people. Or is South African reggae music, for example, consumed abroad in ways which enforce stereotypes about the “notorious hoods” of the African cities among middle-class white audiences? </p>
<p>In addition, the financial rewards from these collaborations and tours are often very modest or non-existent for South African reggae musicians. </p>
<p>The musicians are very aware of the risk of financial or symbolic exploitation in the international circulation of their music. But what they find worthwhile are the symbolic rewards, such as the possibility to share a festival stage with Jamaican artists. Experiences like these are powerful because they once again grant outside recognition for the struggle for human dignity in South African cities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80419/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Authors' fieldwork in Cape Town was realized as a part of the research project “Youth Music and the Construction of Social
Subjectivities and Communities in Post-apartheid South Africa” led by Tuulikki Pietilä and based at
the University of Helsinki in the discipline of social and cultural anthropology and funded by the Academy of Finland (grant number 265976).</span></em></p>Reggae in South Africa has lost its visibility and prominence inside the country after apartheid. But local artists have built up extensive international links.Tuomas Järvenpää, Teacher in media culture and communication studies, University of Eastern FinlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.