tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/feesmustfall-21801/articles#feesmustfall – The Conversation2024-02-29T14:40:07Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2239842024-02-29T14:40:07Z2024-02-29T14:40:07ZSouth Africa’s business students want their own industry superheroes and success stories in the syllabus – study<p>In the past few years there’s been much discussion globally about the need to <a href="https://globalchallenges.ch/issue/10/decolonising-education/">decolonise education</a>. Decolonisation is the process of undoing the impact of colonial thinking and its influence in the present. </p>
<p>Scholars have <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-cant-decolonise-the-curriculum-without-defining-it-first-63948">differing opinions</a> about <a href="https://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/sajhe/article/view/4875">the best way to achieve this</a>, or whether it’s even necessary or desirable. </p>
<p>In South Africa, the issue of decolonisation was spotlighted by students during 2016’s <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/trending/141333/feesmustfall-leaders-explain-what-decolonised-education-means/#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CFees%20Must%20Fall%20is%20an%20intersectional%20movement%20within,imperialist%2C%20colonial%2C%20capitalist%20patriarchal%20culture%2C%E2%80%9D%20the%20statement%20said">#FeesMustFall protests</a>. Eight years on, I was interested in finding out what the current cohort of students thought decolonisation could look like in their classrooms. So I asked final-year students in the management and commerce faculty at a rural campus in the country’s Eastern Cape province to take part in <a href="https://sajournalofeducation.co.za/index.php/saje/article/view/1637/1288%205">a study</a> that would centre their voices and opinions.</p>
<p>Students expressed a desire for decolonisation to embrace two important activities, especially in commerce education. First, students needed their curriculum to feature more business and industry leaders (framed in my study as “superheroes”) from South Africa and the continent more broadly. Second, students advocated for more localised stories and case studies in the courses taught in higher education. </p>
<p>The main issue and thread uniting the two findings? Relatability. These findings offer insight into how a decolonised curriculum can be created by striving for the infusion of <a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/relatable">relatable</a> “superheroes” and stories. </p>
<h2>The status quo</h2>
<p>Much of management and commerce teaching globally can be described using the acronym “<a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100630132850.htm">WEIRD</a>”: it’s dominated by western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic countries. This reality was flagged by many of the participants in my research. </p>
<p>They saw it, for instance, in which theorists’ and experts’ voices were used versus whose were not. Take US economics scholar Michael Porter: in 1979, in an article for the Harvard Business Review, Porter outlined what have come to be known as “<a href="https://www.isc.hbs.edu/strategy/business-strategy/Pages/the-five-forces.aspx">the five forces</a>”. His framework is useful in understanding the factors that drive competition in industries. </p>
<p>Students extolled the value of this work and did not suggest that it be removed from the curriculum. Instead, they suggested that more African examples be included – for instance, the work of the late Zimbabwean scholar <a href="https://theconversation.com/lovemore-mbigi-will-be-remembered-for-his-teaching-on-ubuntu-in-business-leadership-209260">Lovemore Mbigi</a>, who contributed enormously to research on ubuntu (a concept that emphasises the importance of including everyone and building a strong community) in business leadership.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lovemore-mbigi-will-be-remembered-for-his-teaching-on-ubuntu-in-business-leadership-209260">Lovemore Mbigi will be remembered for his teaching on ubuntu in business leadership</a>
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<p>To the participants, decolonisation meant giving voice to scholars like Mbigi and increasing the volume of their contribution in classrooms. This would require lecturers to be more intentional in spotlighting what they called “superheroes”: African researchers and experts whose work was relatable to the students’ own context.</p>
<p>There have been efforts in South Africa to encourage case-based teaching similar to what my study advocates for. For instance, the Gordon Institute of Business Science at the University of Pretoria has a dedicated portal that <a href="https://www.gibs.co.za/about-us/faculty/pages/case-study-hub.aspx">houses and offers resources on case-based teaching</a>. Many of these case studies are from South Africa or elsewhere on the continent.</p>
<h2>Context and relatability</h2>
<p>One participant said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In our (focus) group there appears to be consensus of the need for a change. The type of change that places importance on the role of giving more South African and even African business leaders a chance to be heard. This for us was what decolonisation was all about.</p>
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<p>The students suggested that management and commerce teaching lent itself to decolonisation by the very nature of the discipline, which focuses on problem solving and case studies.</p>
<p>One participant reported how their focus group saw decolonised teaching having resonance when it came to business protagonists (that is, leaders in their fields):</p>
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<p>At the core of strategic management instruction is a protagonist, the one that is faced with a dilemma. There needs to be more effort in seeing case examples and the lives of protagonists we can relate with.</p>
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<p>Another group reported:</p>
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<p>(We) made important links with the entrepreneurship space. There is (a) need to bring in the experiences of entrepreneurs from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/township-South-Africa">township</a> and even rural community to the classroom. (This) would edify the teaching experience.</p>
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<p>And another said:</p>
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<p>Some great stories from South African business leaders fail to see the light of day in making it to the classroom. The challenge could be that researchers are not being active in making sure these stories make it to the classroom.</p>
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<p>The students said some lecturers did introduce such examples in class and praised them for creating a pathway for African stories into the curriculum. </p>
<h2>So what happens next?</h2>
<p>I propose three points of consideration, especially for those working in higher education. </p>
<p>First, lecturers should be aware of the context in which they teach, including the material conditions around the students in their classroom. </p>
<p>Second, lecturers need to look for “superheroes” their students can relate to. Such examples are everywhere and their experiences are potentially rich learning fodder for the classroom.</p>
<p>Third, lecturers should be deliberate about making content more relatable. The process could be to train students in case-based writing or investigation skills. Students, through partnering with their lecturers, can help get local cases into the classroom.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223984/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Willie Tafadzwa Chinyamurindi 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>Students want more relatable examples, both of business leaders and of industry case studies.Willie Tafadzwa Chinyamurindi, Professor, University of Fort HareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2008512023-03-15T13:37:56Z2023-03-15T13:37:56ZToyin Falola: 3 recent books that explain the work of Nigeria’s famous decolonial scholar<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514433/original/file-20230309-28-bgy994.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Toyin Falola has turned 70.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy Olusegun Olopade</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://notevenpast.org/professor-toyin-falola-living-and-globalizing-the-humanities/">Toyin Falola</a>, distinguished <a href="https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/history/faculty/falolaoo">professor of history</a>, is one of Africa’s most accomplished intellectuals. Born Oloruntoyin Falola in 1953 in the Nigerian city of Ibadan, he grew up in a sprawling, polygamous household that practised Islam, Christianity and ancient Yoruba spirituality. </p>
<p>This confluence of multiple worldviews and religions reflects in his thinking and in his massive academic output. Falola has produced something like 200 books in all areas of the human and social sciences, and travels widely to deliver lectures at conferences and public events.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nigerian-historian-and-thinker-toyin-falola-on-decolonising-the-academy-in-africa-184188">Nigerian historian and thinker Toyin Falola on decolonising the academy in Africa</a>
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<p>Africa and its diasporas (including Africans in the US, Brazil, Cuba and the Caribbean) are his overriding concern and sites of study. In Falola’s handling, Africa is endlessly fascinating and resourceful, both culturally and intellectually. </p>
<p>Since he is so productive, it’s difficult to offer a cohesive account of his multifaceted work. In the process of working on a book about Falola, I think perhaps the best way to understand his impact is to identify his core values and philosophies and how they recur across his recent output.</p>
<p>His 70th birthday has been celebrated with a renewed flurry of books. I’ll focus on just three of them here.</p>
<h2>1. African Spirituality, Politics, and Knowledge Systems</h2>
<p>Published in 2022, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/african-spirituality-politics-and-knowledge-systems-9781350271944/">African Spirituality, Politics, and Knowledge Systems</a>: Sacred Words and Holy Realms was in part inspired by Falola’s interactions with a Nigerian political scientist, <a href="https://carleton.ca/africanstudies/people/samuel-ojo-oloruntoba/">Samuel Oloruntoba</a>. Falola used Oloruntoba, who engages in intense late night prayer sessions, as a sounding board in writing the book.</p>
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<p>Here, Falola is interested in the spiritual power of the spoken word, a concept not only familiar to Christianity and other religions, but also to Nigeria’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yoruba">Yoruba</a> <a href="https://web.ccsu.edu/afstudy/supdt99.htm">spirituality</a> – in this case ogede, a ritual form of incantation. The spoken word is seen as being imbued with life and power and therefore has the ability to transform lives.</p>
<p>While Falola explores African spiritual formations, in the book he also seeks links to global cultural practices. In the process he affirms our common humanity and the continuities across cultures. He draws links between Christian worship and Orisa spirituality, a religion that is polytheistic (worshipping many gods) and is practised in south-west Nigeria, parts of Benin and Togo. It was also spread across the world through the transatlantic slave trade.</p>
<p>In this book, Falola is refocusing our attention on the primal power of the spoken word as an agent of consciousness and transformation.</p>
<h2>2. Decolonizing African Studies</h2>
<p>Also in 2022, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decolonizing-african-knowledge/1296996BE948B52843872FAA948447BE">Decolonizing African Studies</a> was released. This book is particularly relevant for the South African context. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/feesmustfall-the-poster-child-for-new-forms-of-struggle-in-south-africa-68773">#FeesMustFall</a> student protest movement that grew out of the University of Cape Town as part of an attack on the legacy of the arch-colonialist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecil-john-rhodes">Cecil John Rhodes</a> became a nation-wide campaign. It sparked fervent debates on <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-decolonisation-131455">decolonisation</a> and the institutional legacies of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid’s</a> white minority rule.</p>
<p>European colonialism had a <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/07/how-africas-colonial-history-affects-its-development/">devastating impact</a> on the African continent. Slavery, colonial rule and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/neocolonialism">neocolonialism</a>, which is a covert and often non-violent form of ongoing colonialism, had a similar impact on all African communities.</p>
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<p>Indeed what these harmful encounters did to the African self was to effect a schism or disconnect within it, which has resulted in many forms of identity crisis – what the US sociologist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/W-E-B-Du-Bois">W.E.B. Dubois</a> called “<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-consciousness/">double consciousness</a>” and other thinkers have called a form of alienation. Simply put, colonial belief systems, morals and culture were imposed on traditional African belief systems, causing this tension. </p>
<p>In this book, Falola attempts to heal the broken African self by bypassing colonial archival sources. Instead, he undertakes a form of intellectual therapy by engaging with “alternative archives created by memory, spoken words, images and photographs”, as the blurb of the British edition puts it. A key component is the use of autoethnography (ethnographic research drawing on the researcher’s own life story) for recovering traces of African memory lost in the colonial haze. In this book, oral narratives and personal viewpoints merge in creating an authentic African knowledge system.</p>
<h2>3. African Memoirs and Cultural Representations</h2>
<p>The most recent major book by Falola is <a href="https://anthempress.com/african-memoirs-and-cultural-representations-hb">African Memoirs and Cultural Representations</a>, released in 2023. In this work, Falola analyses the memoirs of grossly under-studied west African writers who worked largely in the traditional vein – that is, within the perspectives of precolonial west African thinking. </p>
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<p>In this manner, African perspectives, beliefs and norms are recuperated as a way of furthering a decolonial project. In addition, the book highlights the nature and purity of the African voice beyond the colonial framework. In other words, what it means to hear African voices outside the strictures or filters of colonial thought systems.</p>
<p>What these three books do is to outline Falola’s positions on a global decolonial project. He has also recently co-edited the <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-45759-4">Palgrave Handbook on Islam in Africa</a> and a multi-volume <a href="https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-3-030-28099-4">book project</a> on women’s studies and female agency in Africa. Such is the scope of this African scholar.</p>
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<p>Falola’s copious research outputs debunk the fallacy that Africa was without history, consciousness or mind. Such myths were promoted in the grand narratives of colonialism and the European imperial project. And more importantly, Falola’s work serves as a powerful antidote to the constant onslaughts of <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/afropessimism">afropessimism</a> and probably by extension, <a href="https://thebrooklyninstitute.com/items/courses/new-york/what-is-afropessimism-politics-society-and-anti-blackness/">anti-blackness</a> in the contemporary age.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200851/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sanya Osha receives funding from the Andrew M. Mellon Foundation but writes in his personal capacity.</span></em></p>With over 200 publications to his name, his three most recent books give a sense of why he is so famous as a historian.Sanya Osha, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1986772023-01-31T10:05:33Z2023-01-31T10:05:33ZSouth Africa’s dysfunctional universities: the consequences of corrupt decisions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507045/original/file-20230130-14-707210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The integrity of the academic project should underscore universities' work at all times.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">xtock/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What happens when those responsible for managing universities cannot trust each other to act with integrity? In a nutshell, as I discuss in <a href="https://witspress.co.za/page/detail/Corrupted/?K=9781776147946">my new book</a>, Corrupted: A study of chronic dysfunction in South African universities, dysfunction is the consequence.</p>
<p>This is the situation playing out in some South African universities – sometimes with fatal results. In early January 2023, a protection officer who was guarding Fort Hare University vice-chancellor Professor Sakhela Buhlungu was <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2023/01/07/fort-hare-vc-at-safe-location-after-bodyguard-killed-in-assassination-attempt">shot dead</a> in an apparent assassination attempt. The shooting has <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/university-of-fort-hare-killings-higher-education-institutions-becoming-a-cradle-for-criminality-20230110">been linked</a> to <a href="https://www.siu.org.za/siu-authorised-to-investigate-four-contracts-and-degrees-at-the-university-of-fort-hare-and-five-public-works-and-infrastructure-tenders-including-parliament-properties/">ongoing investigations</a> into corruption at the university.</p>
<p>This appears to be just one example of how eroded trust has led to conflict among university managers that’s spilled into the public domain.</p>
<p>The principal conclusion I reach in my book is that chronic dysfunction in a sample of South African universities can be explained by two intertwined factors. One is institutional capacity. This is the expert ability to lead, manage and administer universities. The other is institutional integrity – the steering academic values that buffer universities against instability. Where both capacity and integrity are weak, dysfunction is inevitable. </p>
<h2>Integrity matters</h2>
<p>Individual integrity involves a person acting honestly and doing the right thing. It means consistency in the values that connect words and actions.
An <a href="https://satoriproject.eu/media/1.e-Institutional-Integrity.pdf">institution with integrity</a> has been described as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>an organisation that defines and acts within a strong code of ethical conduct and positive values.</p>
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<p>It doesn’t tolerate deviance from the code by its employees or partners.</p>
<p>Universities with high levels of institutional integrity vigorously pursue their core mandate. This is rooted in a strong sense of academic values. It is the glue that holds functional universities together and focuses their operations. Those academic values also steady an institution in turbulent times. </p>
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<p>Such values centre on high-quality teaching, higher learning and cutting-edge research. Together these values advance social and human development. They are prominent on management’s weekly meetings agendas, on senate’s term meetings and on council’s quarterly meetings. Everything revolves around the academic project.</p>
<h2>The case of student protests</h2>
<p>One of the most important functions of academic values is to hold the institution together in times of challenge. For instance, how does an institution react when the integrity of the academic degree is at risk because of a prolonged shutdown?</p>
<p>In 2015 and 2016, students embarked on <a href="https://theconversation.com/student-protesters-must-move-beyond-hashtags-to-real-change-51138">historic protests</a> at campuses across South Africa. They demanded free and decolonised higher education. The press for free higher education arose because degree studies were becoming more expensive. This excluded more and more people from university. The decolonisation movement at formerly white universities protested that the curriculum was too European, the professors too white, and the institutional culture too alienating. </p>
<p>In response to the disruptions, the better-resourced, formerly white universities quickly transitioned to emergency remote teaching to ensure that the academic year was not lost. This highlights the importance of academic values to those institutions.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-protests-it-cant-be-business-as-usual-at-south-africas-universities-50548">After protests, it can't be business as usual at South Africa's universities</a>
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<p>By contrast, in 2021, after a dysfunctional university specialising in the health sciences <a href="https://www.heraldlive.co.za/opinion/2021-11-11-how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-smu/">was shut down</a> by routine protests for months on end, the students received their degrees as if nothing had happened.</p>
<p>The academic project was seriously compromised. But there was little institutional concern about the integrity of the degrees.</p>
<p>It is quite possible to see a structure or an organisation and to misrecognise it as an institution of higher learning. It would be easy to be fooled by the symbolic functions – like graduation – and administrative routines – such as registration – of university life and mistake these for a university. As I have <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/340/Jansen%20%282005%29d.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">argued elsewhere</a>, a university ceases to exist when the intellectual project no longer defines its identity, infuses its curriculum, energises its scholars, and inspires its students.</p>
<h2>When integrity is undermined</h2>
<p>The crisis of dysfunctional institutions commonly arises when universities make compromised decisions on everything from tenders for infrastructure to appointments of key personnel. Such decisions compound foundational weaknesses and increase the risk of systemic failure. This is how institutional dysfunction begins and is sustained: through the breaching of institutional integrity.</p>
<p>The institutional integrity of vulnerable institutions is weakened, for example, through the decisions it makes about personnel appointments and promotions. Critical skill sets are compromised by populating crucial positions in administration with friends and family members. In one instance, as I document in the book, a whistle-blower at a serially dysfunctional university gave the new administrator “a list of all the family members appointed by the vice-chancellor”. Action was promised. None was taken.</p>
<p>The integrity of the academy is undermined even more when people who would not enjoy such elevation at an established university are promoted to senior academic positions in the name of equity. </p>
<p>And the governance of an institution is placed at serious risk through the appointment to council of junior members who have never governed anything in their lives. A university council is the most senior body responsible for governance. It should consist of senior people from professional fields with the experience to govern a higher education institution.</p>
<h2>Tackling the crisis</h2>
<p>There is no shortcut to restoring the institutional integrity of a chronically dysfunctional university. </p>
<p>It requires the appointment of smaller, professional councils without political interference. It demands competent leaders who are not beholden to political parties or factions. These leaders must hold strong convictions about the importance of academic values in the gradual rebuilding of a university.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited excerpt from <a href="https://witspress.co.za/page/detail/Corrupted/?K=9781776147946">the book</a>, Corrupted: A study of chronic dysfunction in South African universities (Wits University Press, 2023).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198677/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Jansen 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>Where both capacity and integrity are weak, dysfunction is inevitable.Jonathan Jansen, Distinguished Professor, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1959492022-12-07T14:39:13Z2022-12-07T14:39:13ZWhat is RET and what does it want? The Radical Economic Transformation faction in South Africa explained<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499500/original/file-20221207-3544-nqjswm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Loyalists of the ANC's Radical Economic Transformation (RET) at the Olive Convention Centre in Durban. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rajesh Jantilal/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been standard for some years, in any analysis of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), to refer to the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2022-01-11-the-ret-faction-wants-total-control-of-everything-in-the-state-and-society-as-an-end-in-itself/">“radical economic transformation”</a> (RET) faction. Yet, there has been little serious analysis of what it is. </p>
<p>The RET is difficult to define. It has no clear shape, leadership, membership, rules or policies. It is rather an aggregation of the aggrieved and aspirant within the ANC, linked by a set of broadly shared attitudes towards the state and power. Nor, in conventional terms, is the faction particularly “radical”. The “economic transformation” it seeks is the displacement of white racial domination, rather than the overturn of capitalism.</p>
<p>Despite its vagueness, the RET has become central to the contemporary ANC. It is destined to remain a powerful bloc within the party, and under President Cyril Ramaphosa, a constant constraint on his leadership and any effort to reform the economy and promote clean governance. For that reason, it needs to be understood.</p>
<h2>Growth and composition</h2>
<p>Its origins lie in the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/zuma-like-a-tsunami-wave-20050307">“tsunami wave”</a> which led to the defeat of Thabo Mbeki as ANC president <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-18-zuma-is-new-anc-president/">in 2007 by Jacob Zuma</a>, followed by Zuma’s elevation as state president in 2009. During Zuma’s presidency (<a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/jacob-gedleyihlekisa-zuma-mr">9 May 2009 – 14 February 2018</a>), the RET faction overlapped heavily with his support base, which was drawn heavily from KwaZulu-Natal, his home province. Yet it was also closely aligned to ANC heavyweights in the other provinces, notably those dominated by the then <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/news/anc-suspensions-death-of-the-premier-league-9492a864-f3f0-4792-a94a-7c6a9080a0e6">“premier league”</a> – provincial premiers in three mainly rural provinces Mpumalanga, Free State and North West. Simultaneously it drew heavily on the support of black business lobbies doing business with the state, notably at provincial and local government levels. </p>
<p>By implication, the RET faction was often implicated in the corrupt practices referred to as <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/state-capture-report-public-protector-14-october-2016">“state capture”</a>. Yet there was more to it than that. While various “Indian” business people who were tied to Zuma, especially in KwaZulu-Natal, were on the periphery of the RET, the faction itself was largely Africanist politically, protesting a continuation of white power under a veil of democracy.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/factionalism-and-corruption-could-kill-the-anc-unless-it-kills-both-first-116924">Factionalism and corruption could kill the ANC -- unless it kills both first</a>
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<p>The faction also drew energy from black professionals fighting against what they depicted as white domination of their professional spheres, and the radical black student lobbies which emerged during the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvmd84n8?turn_away=true">“RhodesMustFall”</a> and <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/south-africa-student-protests-explained/">“Fees must fall”</a> protest waves of the late Zuma period. </p>
<p>By the time of the <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/anc54-breaking-ramaphosa-elected-anc-president-12453127">December 2017 ANC elective conference</a>, the RET faction was strongly anti-Cyril Ramaphosa and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-ramaphosas-victory-mean-for-south-africas-economy-89420">pro-Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma</a> in the race for the ANC presidency. The narrowness of Dlamini-Zuma’s defeat has provided it with a strong oppositional presence within the ANC during the Ramaphosa presidency, hampering his efforts at reform. </p>
<h2>Understanding the RET faction</h2>
<p>If it is difficult to pin down who belongs to the RET, it is equally difficult to define what they want. Nonetheless, four broad themes emerge.</p>
<p>First, the motive behind the faction seems to be black economic empowerment, but not the empowerment originally envisaged by Thabo Mbeki with its carefully regulated industrial charters <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40283176#metadata_info_tab_contents">and targets</a>. The RET version was a generalised insistence that the state machinery (government departments, provincial and local administrations, and state-owned enterprises) be leveraged to allocate contracts to black businesses. </p>
<p>This is justified by attacks upon <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-monopoly-capital-good-politics-bad-sociology-worse-economics-77338">“white monopoly capital”</a>, arguing that the South African economy has changed very little since democracy in 1994, and that white business is covertly determined upon maintaining white power. </p>
<p>The second thrust, closely related to the first, is a generalised attack on the constitutional settlement of 1994-96. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-wrong-to-blame-south-africas-woes-on-mandelas-compromises-96062">“Mandela compromise”</a> is criticised as having done little to ease the poverty and unemployment of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/economic-policy-remains-hotly-contested-in-south-africa-this-detailed-history-shows-why-138378">black population</a>.</p>
<p>The RET is highly ambivalent about the constitution’s defence of property rights but has little respect for the other laws, rules and regulations which the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">constitution</a> puts in place. By implication, the judiciary is regarded as suspect, as its function is to <a href="https://theconversation.com/rule-of-law-in-south-africa-protects-even-those-who-scorn-it-175533">see that the constitution is enforced</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-the-anc-survive-the-end-of-south-africas-heroic-epoch-57256">Can the ANC survive the end of South Africa's heroic epoch?</a>
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<p>Third, an overlap with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which depicts itself as <a href="https://blackopinion.co.za/2019/12/30/the-effs-%EF%BB%BFmarxist-leninist-fanonist-thought-as-founded-by-mngxitama/">Marxist-Leninist-Fanonist</a>, sees the RET faction driving the call for the state to extend its right to the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-05-31-expropriation-without-compensation-anc-eff-toenadering-on-state-land-custodianship-its-all-about-the-politics/">compulsory expropriation of land</a>. The impetus comes from the fact that, despite the government’s programme of land reform, a hugely disproportionate amount of land suitable for agriculture remains in <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201802/landauditreport13feb2018.pdf">white hands</a>. The faction, like the EFF, appears to admire the Zimbabwean land reforms of the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14725843.2022.2032591?journalCode=cafi20">early 2000s</a>, which saw mass expropriation of white farms, but rarely advocates this openly.</p>
<p>Fourth, the RET faction is a strong supporter of state enterprises. Although the faction would not object to the transfer of state enterprises into black hands, privatisation is feared as likely to result in acquisition of state businesses by white companies. </p>
<p>In any case, the RET faction is heavily embedded within the state owned enterprises. Their operatives allocate valuable contracts to black <a href="https://www.gov.za/tenderpreneurship-stuff-crooked-cadres-fighters">“tenderpreneurs”</a> – business people who feed on government contracts. By implication, it is opposed to all versions of “structural reform” touted by the Ramaphosa government and lobbies attached to “big business”.</p>
<h2>What the RET faction wants</h2>
<p>Trying to work out precisely what the RET faction wants is difficult because it has <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/the-ret-manifesto">no agreed manifesto</a>. However, three problems stand out:</p>
<p>First, it remains unclear what the RET faction would put in place of the existing constitution. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-insists-its-still-a-political-vanguard-this-is-what-ails-democracy-in-south-africa-141938">The ANC insists it's still a political vanguard: this is what ails democracy in South Africa</a>
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<p>Should the constitution be reworked, and if so, how? What are the specific flaws in the constitution as it stands? For the moment, all we are left with are generalised attacks on the judiciary for individual judgements the RET dislikes, demands for changes of the expropriation clause in the constitution, and so on.</p>
<p>Second, the RET faction has no general plan for land reform. Crucially, it ignores the increasing domination of agriculture by <a href="https://theconversation.com/land-reform-in-south-africa-is-failing-ignoring-the-realities-of-rural-life-plays-a-part-190452">huge agri-businesses</a>.</p>
<p>These mega-firms are hugely complex operations. It is one thing to expropriate small white farms; quite another to engage in a battle with huge corporations which probably incorporate foreign as well as local ownership. And what would happen to food production if the state were to take them over?</p>
<p>Third, it is common knowledge that South Africa’s parastatals are failing. <a href="https://mybroadband.co.za/news/investing/461772-eskoms-failure-in-four-charts.html">Eskom</a>, the power utility, can’t deliver enough electricity and is burdened by <a href="https://mg.co.za/business/2022-10-26-mtbs-government-to-take-a-chunk-of-eskoms-debt/">unpayable debt</a>. <a href="https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/transnet-decline-inside-business-big-battle-for-private-rail-20221129">Transnet</a>, the transport parastatal, is in chaos, unable to maintain infrastructure needed for business to operate efficiently. The public railway system is a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60202570">shambles</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-oldest-surviving-party-the-anc-has-an-achilles-heel-its-broken-branch-structure-150210">Africa's oldest surviving party – the ANC – has an Achilles heel: its broken branch structure</a>
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<p>South African Airways, the national airline, has collapsed financially and is being propped up by <a href="https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/the-days-of-bailouts-are-gone-saa-to-start-flying-ahead-of-takatso-deal-20210922">state funding</a>. The Post Office is <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2022-10-05-ag-highlights-sapo-mess-as-it-faces-collapse/">unable to deliver the post</a>. The reasons for these failures are many, ranging from the ANC’s systematic undervaluation of technical ability to run complex operations, its <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">political deployment strategy</a>, and the mass looting of state bodies that took place <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-state-capture-commission-nears-its-end-after-four-years-was-it-worth-it-182898">under Zuma</a>. </p>
<p>Turnaround strategies have failed. The difficult question for the RET (and the ANC at large) is: if not privatisation, then what?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195949/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall 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>Despite its vagueness, the RET has become central to the contemporary ANC. It is destined to remain a powerful bloc within the party, and a constant constraint on Ramaphosa leadership.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1887772022-08-16T14:27:02Z2022-08-16T14:27:02ZSouth Africa’s Marikana 10 years on: survey shows knowledge of massacre is low<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479382/original/file-20220816-5614-dzeno6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman at a protest in support of victims of the Marikana massacre outside the South African parliament.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>To explore the patterns of collective memory in South Africa after nearly three decades of democracy, we set out to establish how much of the country’s recent history people in the country still remember. </p>
<p>Close to 3,000 people over the age of 15 responded to the annual round of the <a href="https://hsrc.ac.za/news/latest-news/striking-pain-memory-trauma-and-restitution-a-decade-after-the-marikana-massacre/">South African Social Attitudes Survey (2021)</a> by the <a href="https://hsrc.ac.za/">Human Sciences Research Council</a>. The nationally representative data suggests that there is low public awareness in the country about key historical events. The <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana massacre</a> – the killing of 34 striking miners by police on 16 August 2012 – is one of them.</p>
<p>Just over 40% of the survey respondents said they had heard of the massacre but knew very little about it, while 17% said that they were unaware of it. Only 40% reported knowing enough about Marikana to be able to explain it to a friend. </p>
<p>The findings seem to suggest that public awareness of the tragedy is relatively low among the South African public. This raises uncomfortable questions about collective memory in the country, implying a weak acknowledgement and appreciation of important turning points in its modern national history. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479399/original/file-20220816-9774-hiye6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479399/original/file-20220816-9774-hiye6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479399/original/file-20220816-9774-hiye6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479399/original/file-20220816-9774-hiye6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479399/original/file-20220816-9774-hiye6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479399/original/file-20220816-9774-hiye6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479399/original/file-20220816-9774-hiye6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">South African Social Attitudes Survey, 2021.</span></span>
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<p>To put the finding in perspective, we compared the responses to the Marikana massacre with other big historical events in the country. These included the <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/south-africa-student-protests-explained/">#FeesMustFall Movement</a> (2015/16), the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">1976 Soweto Uprising</a>, and the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">Sharpeville massacre</a> (1960). </p>
<p>The results show that awareness of the Marikana massacre was very similar to knowledge about the #FeesMustFall Movement, with 16% having heard of it, 41% displaying limited knowledge, and 40% no awareness (Fig 2). </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479400/original/file-20220816-26-6grk0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479400/original/file-20220816-26-6grk0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479400/original/file-20220816-26-6grk0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479400/original/file-20220816-26-6grk0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479400/original/file-20220816-26-6grk0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479400/original/file-20220816-26-6grk0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479400/original/file-20220816-26-6grk0p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">South African Social Attitudes Survey, 2021</span></span>
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<p>Familiarity with the 1976 Soweto youth uprising against apartheid education was marginally lower. Awareness of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, in which 69 peaceful protesters against restrictions on the movement of black people were shot dead, was even lower. The share of respondents who were confident they would be able to describe the historical events to someone else ranged between 26% and 40%. </p>
<p>These findings suggest that awareness is likely to be event-specific. And that it’s influenced by how recently events have happened. But overall the level of knowledge about historical events remains generally quite shallow.</p>
<p>As the philosopher George Santayana once <a href="https://bigthink.com/culture-religion/those-who-do-not-learn-history-doomed-to-repeat-it-really/#:%7E:text='Those%20who%20do%20not%20learn,are%20condemned%20to%20repeat%20it.%E2%80%9D">said</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Skewed memory</h2>
<p>Women were slightly less knowledgeable about the Marikana massacre than men. A high percentage of young people – especially 16 to 19-year olds – as well as those over the age of 65 knew very little. The group that knew the most were aged between 35 and 49. </p>
<p>Less educated and rural adults displayed significantly lower awareness of the Sharpeville massacre. The influence of education is especially pronounced in shaping awareness. Access to information also has a bearing. People with a television at home or internet access displayed higher knowledge levels than those without. </p>
<p>Looking across all these attributes, more than a fifth of youth (16-24 years) and students, those with less than a high school level education, rural residents, and those living in North West, Northern Cape, Free State and Eastern Cape provinces reported not having heard of the Marikana massacre.</p>
<p>The most surprising finding was the relatively low awareness among those in North West province, where the massacre happened. This raises the question of whether this historic event is not adequately represented in the media platforms accessible to this community.</p>
<h2>A desire to remember?</h2>
<p>Apart from social and demographic characteristics, the survey also found that individual beliefs about the past and its relevance for the present had a strong influence on awareness of the Marikana massacre (Figure 3). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479401/original/file-20220816-8518-5u5jp5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479401/original/file-20220816-8518-5u5jp5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479401/original/file-20220816-8518-5u5jp5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479401/original/file-20220816-8518-5u5jp5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479401/original/file-20220816-8518-5u5jp5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479401/original/file-20220816-8518-5u5jp5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479401/original/file-20220816-8518-5u5jp5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Firstly, the extent to which people expressed interest in “the history and cultures of South Africa” was found to be a significant factor. Those who were very interested in local history and culture were nearly four times more likely to have high awareness of the massacre than those not at all interested (55% compared to 14%). </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/marikana-massacre-south-africa-needs-to-build-a-society-thats-decent-and-doesnt-humiliate-people-188534">Marikana massacre: South Africa needs to build a society that's decent and doesn't humiliate people</a>
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<p>A similar pattern was found based on the degree to which South Africans recognised the importance of the past for the present. Those who believed that historical events were very important were two-and-a-half times more likely to confidently explain the events of Marikana, relative to those who did not (55% versus 22%). </p>
<p>Finally, adults were less knowledgeable of the Marikana massacre (37% could explain the event) if they held the view that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>we should forget the past, move on and stop talking about apartheid.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Those challenging this viewpoint displayed a distinctly higher level of awareness (52%). </p>
<p>Given the importance of such beliefs, it is encouraging that many South Africans recognise the importance of the past for the present. Overall, 71% were interested in South African history and culture (38% very, 33% somewhat), while 78% said that historical events such as the Marikana massacre were very or somewhat important today (47% very, 32% somewhat). </p>
<p>More ambiguously, 45% agreed that South Africans should forget the past and move on, while 31% disagreed and 24% were neutral or uncertain. </p>
<h2>Commemoration, accountability and justice</h2>
<p>The tenth anniversary of the Marikana massacre raises many lingering and uncomfortable questions. These include issues of accountability and culpability, the nature of corporate power and state violence in democratic South Africa, and ultimately of social justice, restitution and healing.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/disconnect-between-business-and-state-contributed-to-marikana-massacre-121507">Disconnect between business and state contributed to Marikana massacre</a>
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<p>A failure to remember and address the issue of reparations will, as William Gumede, Associate Professor at the Wits School of Governance, has argued, pose the societal risk of <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2020-08-16-how-workplace-democracy-can-undo-many-of-apartheids-ills/">“many more Marikanas”</a>.</p>
<p>As former public protector Thuli Madonsela stated in a 2020 Marikana <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-08-14-remembering-and-renewal-thoughts-on-building-a-positive-future-for-the-marikana-region/">memorial lecture</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Marikana happened because we forgot to remember. We forgot to remember our ugly, unjust past and the legacy it left us … We forgot to heal and we focused on renewal. A renewal without a foundation can’t work.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Samela Mtyingizane, a doctoral researcher at the Human Sciences Research Council, contributed to the research and writing of this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188777/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Roberts receives funding from various government departments and non-government organisations for the fielding of commissioned content in the annual South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) series. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jare Struwig receives funding from various government and non-governmental organisations as part of a body of work connected to the South African Social Attitude Survey. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Gordon works for the Human Sciences Research Council as a senior research specialist. He is a member of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) research team. In addition, he is affiliated with the University of Johannesburg. </span></em></p>Individual beliefs about the past and its relevance to the present strongly influenced awareness of the Marikana tragedy.Benjamin Roberts, Acting Strategic Lead: Developmental, Capable and Ethical State (DCES) research division, and Coordinator of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), Human Sciences Research CouncilJare Struwig, Chief Research Manager, Human Sciences Research CouncilSteven Gordon, Senior Research Specialist., Human Sciences Research CouncilLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1865822022-07-12T07:27:35Z2022-07-12T07:27:35ZZondo Commission’s report on South Africa’s intelligence agency is important but flawed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473381/original/file-20220711-14-lesf18.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Cyril Ramaphosa, right, receives the final State Capture Report from Chief Juistice Raymond Zondo. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s judicial probe into state capture and corruption, the <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">Zondo Commission</a>, has concluded that the <a href="https://www.ssa.gov.za/">State Security Agency</a> was integral to the capture of the state by corrupt elements. These included former president Jacob Zuma’s friends, <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/how-gupta-brothers-from-india-landed-south-africas-ruling-party-in-its-biggest-crisis-397138">the Gupta family</a>.</p>
<p>The agency has been unstable for some time. <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/international-development/Assets/Documents/PDFs/csrc-background-papers/Intelligence-In-a-Constitutional-Democracy.pdf">Previous</a> <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">investigations</a> have made findings to improve the performance of civilian intelligence. Yet problems relating to poor performance and politicisation persist. They escalated during <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/The_Zuma_Years.html?id=BwxbDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Zuma’s tenure</a>.</p>
<p>The commission’s <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">hearings</a> were remarkable for an institution that had become <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-01-26-commission-hears-of-alleged-covert-ops-in-media-judiciary-civil-society-academia-and-unions-costing-taxpayers-hundreds-of-millions/">used to operating secretly</a>. Spies testified in detail, and in public, about what had gone wrong at the agency during the Zuma era (<a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">May 2014 to February 2018</a>). Some did so <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-01-28-security-alert-images-circulating-on-social-media-may-put-state-capture-commissions-unidentified-witnesses-at-risk/">at great personal risk</a>.</p>
<p>I have researched intelligence and surveillance, and served on the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">High Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency</a>. In my view, the Zondo report is a globally significant example of radical transparency around intelligence abuses. But it lacks the detailed findings and recommendations to enable speedy prosecutions. It also fails to address the broader threats to democracy posed by unaccountable intelligence. </p>
<h2>Covert operations</h2>
<p>The commission heard evidence pointing to fraud, corruption and abuse of taxpayers’ money at the agency. It also heard how the Guptas benefited from these abuses. The agency shielded them from investigations that indicated they were a national security threat. </p>
<p>The most significant recommendation is that law enforcement agencies should further investigate whether people implicated in the report committed crimes. The commission expressed particular concern about covert intelligence projects that appeared to be “special purpose vehicles to siphon funds”. It made specific reference to three people who should be investigated further.</p>
<p>The first is former director-general <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/investigations/arthur-fraser-a-law-unto-himself-helped-by-zuma-to-hide-pure-crime-linked-to-r600m-spy-network-20220624">Arthur Fraser</a>, for <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-12-05-the-principal-agent-network-pan-dossier-zuma-and-mahlobo-knew-about-arthur-frasers-rogue-intelligence-programme/">his involvement</a> in the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-12-06-the-principal-agent-network-pan-dossier-part-2-bugging-the-auditors-dumb-and-dumber/">Principal Agent Network</a>. This was a covert intelligence collection entity outside the State Security Agency. It has been controversial for over a decade after investigations pointed to the abuse of funds.</p>
<p>The second person is former deputy director-general of counter-intelligence <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-15-confessions-of-a-dangerous-mind-a-divinely-inspired-zuma-spy-thulani-dlomo/">Thulani Dlomo</a>. He was responsible for the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/investigations/ssa-declassified-i-networks-which-looted-r15bn-from-spy-agency-still-in-place-as-investigations-collapse-20220221">Chief Directorate Special Operations</a>, a covert structure which the report says ran irregular projects and operations that could well have been unlawful.</p>
<p>The most significant of these was <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/investigations/ssa-declassified-illegal-operation-mayibuye-allegedly-siphoned-millions-from-ssa-to-jacob-zuma-20220226">Project Mayibuye</a>, a collection of operations designed to counter threats to state authority. In practice, they and others sought to shield Zuma from a growing chorus of criticism of his misrule.</p>
<p>The commission <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202206/electronic-state-capture-commission-report-part-v-vol-i.pdf">found</a> that the project destabilised opposition parties and benefited the Zuma faction in the ruling African National Congress. </p>
<p>The third person is the former minister of state security, <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/live-norma-mngoma-david-mahlobo-to-testify-at-state-capture-inquiry-20210409">David Mahlobo</a>. The commission found that he became involved in <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-05-19-former-state-security-minister-david-mahlobo-distances-himself-from-apartheid-assassin-and-jacob-zuma-poisoning-projects/">operational matters</a> instead of confining himself to executive oversight. It also found that his handling of <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-03-09-cash-parcels-to-minister-spying-on-media-and-infiltration-of-anti-zuma-movement-highlighted-in-report-on-sa-spy-agency/">large amounts of cash</a>, ostensibly to fund operations, needed further investigation.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/state-capture-in-south-africa-how-the-rot-set-in-and-how-the-project-was-rumbled-176481">State capture in South Africa: how the rot set in and how the project was rumbled</a>
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<p>According to the commission, Mahlobo’s predecessor, <a href="https://www.pa.org.za/person/siyabonga-cyprian-cwele/">Siyabonga Cwele</a>, did the same by <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-11-26-how-zuma-and-state-security-minister-cwele-shut-down-2011-investigation-into-the-guptas/">stopping an investigation</a> into the Guptas and their influence on Zuma’s administration.</p>
<p>The commission concluded, based on overwhelming evidence, that Zuma and Cwele did not want the investigation to continue. Had it continued, it could have prevented at least some of the activities that led to the capture of the state by the Guptas and the loss of billions in public money through corruption.</p>
<h2>Recipe for abuse</h2>
<p>The commission also addressed some of the deeper factors that predisposed the <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/42/state-security-agency-ssa">State Security Agency</a> to abuse.</p>
<p>One of these was the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/merger-of-spy-agencies-led-to-cabinet-ministers-giving-ssa-operatives-illegal-instructions-20210915">amalgamation</a> of the domestic intelligence branch, the National Intelligence Agency, with the foreign branch, the South African Secret Service, into a new entity, the State Security Agency, in 2009.</p>
<p>The commission found that the amalgamation had disastrous consequences, as it allowed most of the abuses it examined to happen. The two entities were merged in terms of a presidential proclamation. Yet the constitution <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng-11.pdf">requires</a> intelligence services to be established through legislation. This meant that until <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/general-intelligence-laws-amendment-act-0">legislation</a> was introduced in 2013, the security agency operated without a <a href="https://pmg.org.za/tabled-committee-report/4715/">clear legal basis</a>.</p>
<p>It was highly centralised, allowing a super-director-general to control all activities. This made abuse easier for an appointee with corrupt intentions. The agency was also based on a state security <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">doctrine</a>, rather than a people-centred doctrine. This doctrinal shift prioritised the protection of the state from criticism, and the president more specifically, rather than the security of society. <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/merger-of-spy-agencies-led-to-cabinet-ministers-giving-ssa-operatives-illegal-instructions-20210915">Ministerial political overreach</a> into operational matters heightened the potential for abuse.</p>
<p>The commission also found that the <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/committee-details/169">Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence</a>, the <a href="https://www.oigi.gov.za/">Inspector General of Intelligence</a> and the <a href="https://www.agsa.co.za/">Auditor General</a> had failed to exercise proper oversight. This meant the external checks and balances on the State Security Agency were weak to non-existent.</p>
<h2>Weighing the Zondo report</h2>
<p>The struggle for more accountable intelligence has been strengthened through the Zondo report’s exposure of abuses. But many of the findings and recommendations are vague and general. The commission could have been more specific about upgrading the Inspector General’s independence, for instance. Likwewise the Auditor General’s capacity to audit the agency.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-state-capture-commission-nears-its-end-after-four-years-was-it-worth-it-182898">South Africa's state capture commission nears its end after four years. Was it worth it?</a>
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<p>The commission could also have made more of the evidence presented to it. And it could have been more categorical about when it thought criminality had occurred. At times, the report does little more than restate the recommendations of previous enquiries.</p>
<p>These include an <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-11-09-spooks-and-spies-the-pan-progamme-arthur-fraser-and-eight-years-of-investigations/">investigation</a> into the Principal Agent Network programme in 2009, providing prima facie evidence of criminality. </p>
<p>Another is the report of the 2018 <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">High Level Review Panel</a>, which showed that the agency had been politicised and repurposed to benefit Zuma. </p>
<p>An important gap in the Zondo report relates to the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-07-01-civil-society-organisations-release-boast-report-demand-accountability-for-rogue-spying/">infiltration and surveillance of civil society</a>, and the agency’s broader threat to democracy.</p>
<p>Little is made of the fact that, according to a recently 2017 declassified <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/580662166/Boast-Report#download&from_embed">performance report</a>, the agency claimed to have infiltrated <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/">Greenpeace Africa</a>, the <a href="https://www.r2k.org.za/">Right2Know Campaign</a>, trade unions and other civil society organs.</p>
<p>The spies masqueraded as activists. They reported back to the agency on supporter strengths, main actors, ideology, support structures and agendas. The report’s author, a security agency member, <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/580662166/Boast-Report#download&from_embed">boasted</a> about these and other accomplishments, such as infiltrating the social media networks of the Western Cape <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1753-59132021000400006">#feesmustfall</a> student movement. </p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>In the preparations to investigate and prosecute wrongdoers responsible for the abuses by the State Security Agency, its infiltration of civil society must not be allowed to fall under the radar. It must receive as much attention as all the cases of grand corruption that are going to keep the <a href="https://www.npa.gov.za/">National Prosecuting Authority</a> busy. </p>
<p>Otherwise, the social forces that could potentially bring deeper and more meaningful changes to society may remain targets of state spying, as <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745337807/activists-and-the-surveillance-state/">has been the case elsewhere</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186582/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Duncan receives funding from the Open Society Foundation for South Africa and Luminate. She served on the 2018 High Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency. </span></em></p>The commission could have made more of the evidence and been more categorical about when it thought criminality had taken place.Jane Duncan, Professor, Department of Communication and Media, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1569662021-03-11T16:28:03Z2021-03-11T16:28:03ZA close look at how the net has tightened on the right to protest in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389051/original/file-20210311-22-1rh4exy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters clash with police in February in Cape Town over student funding.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s public order policing is as ill as it ever was. This has been illustrated in recent <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-11/protests-spur-south-africa-to-bolster-university-student-funding">student protests</a> spreading across the country’s campuses. In Johannesburg <a href="https://mg.co.za/education/2021-03-10-why-am-i-being-shot-witnesses-describe-last-moments-of-man-shot-during-wits-protests/">police shot dead</a> a pedestrian at a protest outside the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. </p>
<p>In March 2020 the government imposed a <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2021-01-19-south-africas-new-lockdown-regulations-explicitly-ban-all-political-gatherings/">ban</a> on political gatherings as part of a host of interventions aimed at managing the COVID-19 pandemic. The move was <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/article/government-using-lockdown-decide-who-may-or-may-no-protest/">unprecedented</a> in the country’s post-apartheid history. </p>
<p>Since then there has been a distressing level of uneven and inconsistent policing of gatherings. The message this has sent is that the police were going easy on some gatherings, while taking <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/article/continued-prohibition-political-gatherings-irrational/">tough action</a> on others to suppress dissent. </p>
<p>As a scholar of the <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/323143697/Introductin-to-Protest-Nation-The-Right-to-Protest-in-South-Africa#from_embed">right to protest</a> I have not been surprised by the heavy handed action. In my view the state has merely been reproducing behaviour patterns entrenched over the past two decades.</p>
<p><a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.2989/CCR.2020.0009">Research I conducted</a> prior to the lockdown pointed to anti-democratic patterns of behaviour towards protesters. This is despite a 2018 Constitutional Court <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2018/45.html">judgment</a> in South Africa that affirmed people’s right to protest. </p>
<p>I concluded from my findings that much more needs to be done at municipal level to ensure that the judgment changes how the state regulates and polices protests. South Africa’s Regulation of Gatherings <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/regulation-gatherings-act">Act</a> requires a convener to give notice of their intention to hold a gathering to their local authority, in most cases their municipality.</p>
<h2>Understanding local practices</h2>
<p>The Constitutional Court <a href="https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/mlungwana-v-the-state/">found</a> in the <em>Mlungwana and Others v S and Another</em> judgment that a convener’s mere failure to give notice of an intention to hold a gathering should not be criminalised. </p>
<p>The court argued that criminalisation was an unjustifiable limitation on freedom of assembly. It argued that less restrictive means could be used to encourage notification, which it recognised served important public purposes.</p>
<p>The ruling covered all gatherings. But it was particularly significant for the right to protest. This is because protests are more susceptible to government repression than ordinary gatherings.</p>
<p>Using notification as a lens through which to view the state’s treatment of protests, I explored whether actual municipal practices on the ground were opening or closing spaces for protests, and what impact <em>Mlungwana</em> was likely to have on these practices.</p>
<p>I drew on two datasets, which provided rich detail about actual municipal practices over the past decade. The first was collected from 12 municipalities between 2012 and 2013 around the country by a team of researchers under my direction. The second was sourced from the <a href="https://www.saha.org.za">South African History Archives</a>. It had assisted a public interest law clinic to send access to information requests to all municipalities in the country where an information officer’s contact details could be found. Many municipalities simply ignored their requests.</p>
<p>The documents they obtained covered the period 2015 onwards. </p>
<p>I supplemented these datasets with interviews with municipalities, activists and lawyers.</p>
<p>The research results did not paint a flattering picture of municipal practices. Municipalities used pre-emptive restrictions on gatherings, and especially protests, as a matter of course. </p>
<p>For example, municipalities impose onerous conditions that are not required by, or even supported by, the Act. Some require conveners to pay fees to hold a gathering. </p>
<p>In addition, the Act should regulate gatherings in a content-neutral manner with the narrowest prohibitions possible on harmful forms of expression. Yet, there was evidence of municipalities interfering in the lawful expressive content of protests.</p>
<p>In one municipality conveners had to provide information about whether placards would be displayed in gatherings, the names and copies of the identity documents of people who were going to give speeches at the gathering, as well as the duration of the speeches.</p>
<p>Another required conveners to provide details of whether speeches would be made at gatherings, and if so, by whom. In two others they required conveners to give descriptions of the placards and slogans to be displayed.</p>
<p>These requirements risk chilling freedom of expression in gatherings as speakers may be unwilling to be identified in advance out of fear that their speeches may make them targets for harassment or intimidation.</p>
<p>The datasets revealed that municipalities held preparatory meetings for most gatherings they’d received notices about. This is in spite of the fact that in terms of the Act, meetings are needed only if the responsible officer has concerns about the gathering.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-student-protests-in-south-africa-have-turned-violent-66288">Why student protests in South Africa have turned violent</a>
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<p>My research showed that outright prohibitions or refusals of requests for gatherings were a rarity. However, municipalities have also been known to impose blanket prohibitions on gatherings during special events – such as around the time of the 2010 football World Cup and, more recently, the 2016 local government elections – effectively suspending the right to gather in public spaces outside of a State of Emergency.</p>
<h2>A shift</h2>
<p>Municipal over-regulation of protests, coupled with over-policing, suggests a doctrinal shift in how they are viewed by the government. Instead of recognising protests as a democratic right and legitimate form of expression, increasingly protests have been framed as threats to domestic stability and, consequently, national security.</p>
<p>For example, I found no evidence from my research that the national government stepped in to curb abuses.</p>
<p>This shift is not confined to South Africa. It reflects a more conflictual global social order, declining respect for democracy as a political form, and consequently increasingly common framings of protests as riots and protesters as mobs. </p>
<p>State conduct during the lockdown has been yet another sign of this doctrinal decline.</p>
<p><em>Mlungwana</em> was an important step towards reforming the problematic notification process. But, unless the judgment is followed by a deeper and more consistent ideological and doctrinal commitment to respecting the right to protest and ensuring a more genuine incorporation of the majority of South Africans into the political system, then the changes are likely to be limited.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156966/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Duncan receives funding from the Open Society Foundation for South Africa and Luminate.</span></em></p>Instead of being a democratic right and legitimate form of expression, protests have increasingly been framed as threats to national security.Jane Duncan, Professor, Department of Journalism, Film and Television, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1554872021-02-17T12:11:13Z2021-02-17T12:11:13ZWhat a real state of the nation address would say about South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384729/original/file-20210217-13-1barp5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The rights entrenched in South Africa's progressive constitution work for some, but not those living in abject poverty. </span> </figcaption></figure><p>Every year in February South Africa’s president delivers a state of the nation address. One theme which is never addressed is the state of the nation.</p>
<p>The address, <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/state-nation-address-president-cyril-ramaphosa">given this year</a> by President Cyril Ramaphosa, marks the opening of parliament. Every year, it is treated with expectation way out of line with its importance and is followed by loud disappointment. </p>
<p>No talk could possibly live up to the hype which envelops it and, despite the name, it is actually an outline of the government’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/SONA2021#">plans for the year</a>. This is rarely exciting, particularly in a country in which everything the government says in the national debate is dismissed as ‘empty words’ by opposition parties and much of the media <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2021-02-15-carol-paton-with-time-running-out-backsides-need-to-be-booted/">(as this year’s address has been)</a>. This is not true of voters, most of whom support the governing African National Congress (ANC).</p>
<p>But what would a real state of the nation address sound like – one which spelled out where South Africa is and might be going? In a couple of academic <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333701830_The_More_Things_Change_South_Africa's_Democracy_and_the_Burden_of_the_Past">journal</a> <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325964285_Containing_the_crisis_what_the_ANC_conference_did_-_and_did_not_do">articles</a> and a forthcoming <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Past-African-democracy-minority-ebook/dp/B08MB19769">book</a>, I have tried to address the question. The answers are quite different to those offered by much current political talk.</p>
<p>The standard view on where South Africa is goes something like this. In <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-african-general-elections-1994">1994</a>, the country put its past behind it by adopting new political rules and ways of implementing them – what scholars call institutions. It broke with its past of racial domination and set out on a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/world/africa/south-africa-1994-election-photos.html?">democratic, non-racial path</a>.</p>
<p>But the new institutions could not prevent greedy and power-hungry politicians, during the tenure of former president <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/voices/the-wasted-zuma-years-20191221">Jacob Zuma</a> (<a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">May 2009 - February 2019</a>), from damaging the <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/economy/analyst-zumas-damage-to-sa-economy-seems-too-high-to-mend-13316530">economy</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-patronage-and-state-capture-spell-trouble-for-south-africa-64704">institutions</a> themselves. Ramaphosa was meant to mend both but has failed because he cares more about unity in the governing party <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2021-02-16-will-it-be-people-of-sa-or-the-anc-steenhuisen-takes-swipe-at-ramaphosa/">than the country</a>.</p>
<p>None of this stands up to scrutiny.</p>
<h2>What really happened</h2>
<p>Zuma and his allies did not defeat the constitution – the constitution defeated them. His hold on the ANC and government was defeated by the courts, freedom of expression expressed through a variety of media, and free elections. It was the fear that the ANC would lose the 2019 election if it was led by a president whom voters believed was <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-07-21-00-vote-for-ndz-or-else-mabuza-told/">too close to Zuma</a> that won Ramaphosa <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-anc-has-a-new-leader-but-south-africa-remains-on-a-political-precipice-89248">the ANC presidency</a>.</p>
<p>Zuma is currently <a href="https://theconversation.com/zumas-defiance-is-a-grave-moment-for-south-africa-but-its-not-a-constitutional-crisis-155392">in breach</a> of a Constitutional Court <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2021/2.html">judgment</a> because he refuses to appear before the <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">Zondo Commission</a> into state capture. This is more evidence that the institutions are working as intended because the courts and the commission are signalling that the former president is not above the law.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/zumas-defiance-is-a-grave-moment-for-south-africa-but-its-not-a-constitutional-crisis-155392">Zuma's defiance is a grave moment for South Africa. But it's not a constitutional crisis</a>
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<p>More than a quarter century <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/04/how-south-africa-changed-since-apartheid-born-free-generation/">after democracy was achieved</a>, the freedoms entrenched in the constitution live – people use them routinely to say what they feel, to get together with others to campaign, and to vote in ways which, contrary to widespread belief, do send messages to politicians which influence what they do.</p>
<p>There is, however, a big ‘but’. They work for only some. People living in poverty vote, and so they speak briefly. But, between elections, they can rarely use the courts, the media <a href="https://theconversation.com/voices-of-the-poor-are-missing-from-south-africas-media-53068">rarely expresses their concerns</a> and, as the book tries to show, only the third of the population who have both the resources and the connectedness to the economy to enable them to speak are heard.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-president-extends-special-covid-19-grant-why-this-is-not-enough-153942">South African president extends special COVID-19 grant. Why this is not enough</a>
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<p>The reason for this is not that the institutions don’t work, but that the economy and the society doesn’t work for most South Africans and so only some people can use the rules the democratic constitution created.</p>
<p>This is so not because, as is often claimed, the parties who represented the majority at the negotiations of the 1990s <a href="http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/631">compromised too much</a> but because they bargained on too little. They reached a deal which changed the political rules, but not the economy and society.</p>
<h2>Insiders and outsiders</h2>
<p>South Africa before 1994 was a country run by an exclusive club to which people could belong only if they were white. The club has admitted new, black, members but remains exclusive because it excludes most people. The older members have more powers and privileges than the new recruits.</p>
<p>To be more concrete, the country was divided into insiders and outsiders before 1994. <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-2019-poll-showed-dangerous-signs-of-insiders-and-outsiders-121758">It still is</a>. Some insiders are now black, although very few of the outsiders are white. Not all insiders are equal and, in the economy, the professions, education, culture and even sport at times, the older white members have advantages the newer black ones lack.</p>
<p>There are several reasons for this, but an important one is that the old economic, social and cultural leadership and the new political leaders shared a key view – that the goal of the ‘new South Africa’ was to extend to everyone what white people enjoyed under apartheid.</p>
<p>So, the chief goal of the elites since 1994 has been not to change what existed before democracy but to squeeze as many black people into it as possible. A <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2018-10-23-neva-makgetla-big-businesss-hold-on-economic-power-spawns-pervasive-inequality/">concentrated economy</a> which it was difficult to enter remained, but black people joined its boards and senior management. The professions remain as they were but black doctors, lawyers and accountants can now do what their white counterparts have been doing, in much the same way. It took <a href="https://theconversation.com/history-of-south-african-student-protests-reflects-inequalitys-grip-66279">student protests</a> to shake most universities out of their belief, as the educationist James Moulder put it, that black students (and faculty) should change so that the university did not have to change (“The predominantly white universities: Some ideas for a debate”, in Jonathan Jansen (ed) <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-power-South-Africa-perspectives/dp/0947479619"><em>Knowledge and Power in South Africa</em></a>, 1991, (pp.117/118).</p>
<p>It is easy to see why this route was chosen. Whites lived well under apartheid and it is not absurd for black leaders to want all to live in the same way. But what <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/i228849">one in ten</a> South Africans had because they used force to keep out the other nine-tenths cannot be extended to everyone, which is why South Africa since 1994 still excludes so many.</p>
<h2>Divisions that stop progress</h2>
<p>In a country whose politics is dominated by an obsession with individuals and power struggles, these realities are often ignored by the public debate, even if they lurk behind it, shaping what is said and done in ways not even those who say and do them always realise.</p>
<p>Because this reality cannot build a South Africa which offers hope to all, it explains many conflicts – and disappointments – which dominate the headlines. It is also why this country often lags behind others in its ability to create wealth and opportunity or to make government work and democracy a system which offers everyone a voice and a choice. And it explains why the change from one president to another has changed little, even though the new president has, unnoticed by the debate, charted a very different course to the one he replaced.</p>
<p>As long as this is ignored, the yearly ritual in which the state of the nation addresses are said to promise so much but are found to offer so little will continue. So too will the divisions which prevent the country becoming more of what it could be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155487/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>Whites lived well under apartheid and it is not absurd for black leaders to want all to live in the same way.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1487512020-11-08T09:11:55Z2020-11-08T09:11:55ZUnderstanding violent protest in South Africa and the difficult choice facing leaders<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365540/original/file-20201026-19-uiops5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A police van lies in flames after white farmers went on a rampage in Senekal, South Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tracy Lee Stark/The Citizen.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Protests and social mobilisation are the lifeblood of democracy. They enable the discontent of citizens to be communicated to political elites between elections, and when intra-institutional processes have lost their efficacy. But <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/aug/24/protest-movement-failings-i-dont-believe-in-it-anymore">most protests never lead to sustainable change</a>. They peter out because of one or other reformist measure. Or they lose support because they tend to take on <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world">violent overtones</a>.</p>
<p>Most protesters and leaders engage in peaceful mobilisation. But there are always some leaders and activists who are intent on violence. This is because protests and social movements always involve heterogeneous communities with multiple expressions, political factions and leaders. </p>
<p>Some of these expressions and political factions believe in violent direct action and behave accordingly in the protests. Add to this the opportunism of criminals who use the protests as a cover to conduct criminal activity, and it is not hard to imagine why protests can turn violent.</p>
<p>Much of this is reflected in the contemporary protests and social mobilisation around the world. All of the movements - <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/educator-resources/lesson-plans/black-lives-matter-from-hashtag-to-movement">#BlackLivesMatter</a>, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49317695">Hong Kong Democracy Movement</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/03/who-are-the-gilets-jaunes-and-what-do-they-want">Gilets Jaunes</a> in France, <a href="https://theconversation.com/feesmustfall-the-poster-child-for-new-forms-of-struggle-in-south-africa-68773">#FeesMustFall</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall">#RhodesMustFall</a> in South Africa - were in the main peaceful. But they nevertheless manifested in violent direct action on occasion.</p>
<p>Protest leaders often expressed disquiet and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VLtWdilSKI">dissociated themselves from the violence</a>. But on many occasions, they also excused the violence, suggesting that it could not be compared to that experienced by protesters at the hands of police or by the victims of oppression and exploitation. This may be true in most cases. But it evades the strategic issue that violence can often undermine and erode the legitimacy of protests. It creates the opportunity for police and security forces to repress the social action itself.</p>
<p>Protest leaders also often blame the violence on criminals or on aggressive police action. Again much of this is true. Criminals use protests to conduct criminal activity including, among others, looting and theft when the opportunity arises. Moreover, aggressive policing and repressive actions by security services can often turn the tide of peaceful protests and prompt violent acts by some protesters. </p>
<p>But these explanations do not account for all forms of violence in protests.</p>
<h2>Why peaceful protests turn violent</h2>
<p>Perhaps the foremost scholar on social movements and political violence is political scientist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=utI_trMAAAAJ&hl=en">Donatella Della Porta</a>. She holds that violence in protests is a product of two distinct developments: aggressive police action and <a href="https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/schools/cas_sites/sociology/pdf/EventfulProtest.pdf">political factionalisation</a>, in which distinct political groups try to dominate the leadership of social movements. The explanation of aggressive policing is uncontested by most progressive intellectuals. They often refer to it to explain the violence. But they often ignore the second explanation because it involves a collective self-reflection and a political confrontation with movement participants. </p>
<p>There is no doubt that in many of these movements, there are individual activists and political groupings who explicitly hold the view that <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-08-31-in-defence-of-black-violence/">violent action is legitimate</a>. They use the circumstances to actively drive such behaviour, as I explain in detail in Chapter 9 of my 2018 book, <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rebels-Rage-FeesMustFall-Adam-Habib-ebook/dp/B07P626QB4">Rebels and Rage</a></em>. </p>
<p>These proactive commitments from factions within these protest movements suggest that violence is as much internally driven from within the social movements as it is a response to the repressive actions of the police and security services.</p>
<p>This then necessitates a reflection on the strategic efficacy of violence as a means of sustainably achieving social justice outcomes. Of course, this reflection must be contextually grounded. It must be understood in the context of the democratic societies within which the protests occur. After all it is the democratic character of these societies, flawed as they may be, which establishes the parameters of legitimate political action and the consequences for the violations thereof.</p>
<h2>Rage versus violence</h2>
<p>Social mobilisation requires rage but not violence. When the two get confused, the cause of social justice itself may be delegitimised or defeated. Rage is important because it can inspire people, galvanise them, and as a result enable collective action against injustice. It also need not always lead to violence. Neither does it need to lead to emotionally driven acts of impulsiveness.</p>
<p>If there is a lesson to be learnt from the life of the late statesman <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Mandela</a>, it is that effective leadership of a social or political struggle requires an understanding of the political lay of the land. It also requires an assessment of the prevailing distribution of power among social forces, an acute grasp of the leverage available to political actors opposed to the social justice cause, and a plan for how to overcome these without compromising on the ultimate social outcome.</p>
<p>Much of the case of young activists for adopting violence as a strategic option is predicated on the presence of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/structural-violence">structural violence</a>. This refers to the prevailing economic and political conditions which produce not only deep social marginalisation within and across nations, but also the implicit racism that is codified in institutions and daily practices. </p>
<p>If there is such structural violence present, it is held, is there no legitimacy to acts of physical violence that are targeted to address the marginalisation and oppression? </p>
<h2>Social pact in a democracy</h2>
<p>The answer to this lies in the social pact that undergirds democratic society. Citizens <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190679545.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190679545-e-13">cede the authority of legitimate violence to the state</a> in exchange for security and rights. The alternative to this is that all bear the right to legitimate violence, thereby making society vulnerable to the rule of the strongest and the most forceful. The real victims of such an environment are the poorest and weakest in society.</p>
<p>Yet what does one do if political factions or individuals resort to violence in a peaceful protest? This after all is one of the major challenges that confront leaders of protests. Most of them are committed to peaceful social mobilisation, but are confronted with individuals or political factions who violate the peaceful character of the mobilisation – either proactively or as a response to aggressive police action. </p>
<p>The protest leaders have to then engage in a rearguard battle in which they have to explain why there is violence accompanying the protest, even though they have expressed a commitment to peaceful social mobilisation. Inevitably the leaders come off as unconvincing or duplicitous or as making excuses for the violence.</p>
<p>Of course those who are committed to violent direct action are aware of this reluctance by protest leaders to identify them. They realise that most protest leaders will not identify the perpetrators of violence because they would not want to be seen as abetting the authorities. </p>
<p>The perpetrators of violence can then behave in a manner that explicitly defies the collective underlying principles of the protest without having to fear any sanction. Essentially the political norms disable the incentive structure for political factions to abide by the strategic principle of peaceful social action.</p>
<p>The only way out of this dilemma is to change the rules. Leaders must either explicitly exclude political factions or individuals who are committed to violent social action. Or they must make explicitly clear that they will identify those who violate the principle of nonviolence that serves as the guiding philosophy of the protest. </p>
<p>Of course the political factions or individuals are unlikely to meekly accept this state of affairs. But leaders are going to have to explicitly manage this political challenge by openly debating the issue with movement participants, explaining why this is necessary for the success of the protest itself. Otherwise, such leaders will forever remain hostage to factions and small unaccountable political groups who serve as parasites on the progressive social cause.</p>
<p>This then is the challenge for protest leaders. </p>
<h2>Exercising leadership</h2>
<p>Political leadership sometimes requires difficult choices. Such difficult choices are not simply required from those leading institutions and governments. It is sometimes also demanded of leaders of social movements. This is particularly true when individual acts of violence can compromise the outcomes of the protest itself.</p>
<p>Protest leaders have a choice: either they allow acts of violence and, therefore, play to a political script not of their own making, or they act in a manner that keeps the social mobilisation on a path that they have explicitly chosen. This is especially important because the alternative path will not only erode the broader legitimacy of the cause. It will also provoke reactions that could undermine the protest and the sustainability of the social justice outcome. </p>
<p>This choice of enabling or containing political violence is, therefore, the central strategic challenge confronting the political leadership of contemporary protests both in South Africa and around the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Habib 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>There are individual activists and political groupings who believe violent action is legitimate and use the circumstances to actively drive such behaviour.Adam Habib, Vice-Chancellor and Principal, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1372802020-07-15T14:49:02Z2020-07-15T14:49:02ZOn decolonising teaching practices, not just the syllabus<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336491/original/file-20200520-152298-1o0kfsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Student protests dubbed #FeesMustFall in 2016 in Pretoria.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cornel van Heerden/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In South Africa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-south-africa-students-protest-tuition-hikes-49620">student calls</a> for free, quality, decolonised higher education have coincided with demands for the transformation of canons, curricula and pedagogies. </p>
<p>At the height of the protests assembled around the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-student-protests-are-about-much-more-than-just-feesmustfall-49776">#FeesMustFall</a> movement since 2014, some students at the University of the Witwatersrand formed their own reading groups, attempting to develop their own curricula. </p>
<p>They presented memorandums demanding that their disciplines decolonise the universals they base their assumptions upon. Assumptions like the very non-secular secularism that shapes all aspects of what the practice of knowledge is; the separation of nature and culture; and the primacy of Western canons as universal and not particular. Students wanted the university to better reflect their experiences and contexts. </p>
<p>Danai Mupotsa’s paper <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026119892403">Knowing from Loss</a> considers the practice of teaching in the light of these student protests. Aretha Phiri spoke with her. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Aretha Phiri:</strong> You paper is primarily situated in the Fees Must Fall ‘moment’. How did the student protests help shape your teaching?</p>
<p><strong>Danai Mupotsa:</strong> This paper has <a href="https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004356368/B9789004356368_003.xml">had</a> and will likely have a number of afterlives. I started my first full time teaching position in 2015 and I was excited and energetic and certainly thinking about what teaching as a practice means. Being confronted with questions of what the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-46176-2_3">classroom is</a>, what it is for, how people learn in that context, was acutely present. </p>
<p>In my paper, I give the example of the student in a second-year course on post-independence Africa, who, once we were reading Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s <a href="https://www.jamesmurua.com/a-review-of-adaobi-tricia-nwaubanis-i-do-not-come-to-you-by-chance/"><em>I Do Not Come to You by Chance</em></a>, was a bit teary. The story is told around Kingsley, who places his hopes in education. Kingsley graduates as an engineer, but education is no longer the language of success in Nigeria. After reading this novel, the student felt that perhaps getting an education might not promise the freedom he imagined – also realising the cost of this education to his family – and he could not reconcile with the narrative and what it might represent. </p>
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</figure>
<p>It made me think about the responsibility that we bear as teachers in contexts of rare optimism. A day later, the university was <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2015-10-26-wits-to-stay-shut-as-feesmustfall-protests-continue/">shut down</a> because of #FeesMustFall protests. I had to think about the spaces that I occupy. </p>
<p><strong>Aretha Phiri:</strong> Your paper title, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026119892403">Knowing from Loss</a>, specifically references the work of US poet, critic and theorist <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/fred-motens-radical-critique-of-the-present">Fred Moten</a>. Are you attempting to apply his analyses of blackness (in America) to the current ‘decolonial’ South African moment?</p>
<p><strong>Danai Mupotsa:</strong> My turn to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23128740">Moten</a> came out of a workshop on literary traditions in the face of <a href="https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=6024&context=lkcsb_research">decolonisation</a>. There were people in the room who were broadly dismissive of students who were turning to <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/article/685969">Afropessimism</a> as a line of thought or to Blackness as the condition that oriented their political vocabulary.</p>
<p>Some of the statements from colleagues, I just found reactionary. But there were also those who were dismissive because of their non-expertise in Black intellectual traditions such as Moten’s, which thinks through the space between Black and Blackness, experience and our knowledge of that experience.</p>
<p>In my writing, my questions often begin with experience – with intimacy, with relation. I use the tools and methods at my disposal to write embodied ‘love letters’. What feminist critic <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1354255">Barbara Christian</a> asks us to think about when we use the word ‘theory’. When theory is removed from the context of its emergence, it works to exclude Black people, queer people and womxn among others from the work of theory. Christian’s reminder is that theory is in the practice of culture, of Black social life. </p>
<p><strong>Aretha Phiri:</strong> In discussions arising from your paper, you describe your deliberate deployment of ‘embodied teaching’. Could you explain how that might contribute to quality decolonised education? Or be useful for women and queer bodies in higher education in particular?</p>
<p><strong>Danai Mupotsa:</strong> <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/cecb/0a74a48bf4db6343cf055bfd9b1c077aa87c.pdf">Peace Kiguwa</a> has done substantial work on what it means to be a queer Black person in the classroom and how one mobilises this position to <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-46176-2_6">engage students</a> on important questions. I find this work instructive. Being embodied, for me, is about dealing with myself, and participants in a classroom, as living, whole creatures. </p>
<p>So it might be a small thing like, it’s 8am on a Monday and we are a bit tired, so we start with a laughing meditation. People will laugh. Perhaps it’s ridiculous. But even if they’re laughing at me, we are now engaged with each other – we are in conversation. It means that what you bring to the classroom in the way of experience matters. It is part of what informs your judgements long before language helps ‘explain’ it. I ask people to be attentive to the pull of the stomach. To the moment when the hair on the skin rises. This expands the terrain and capacity of ‘intellectual’ engagement.</p>
<p><strong>Aretha Phiri:</strong> Your analysis also offers ways in which embodied teaching and learning can disrupt Black Atlantic studies and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/arts/paul-gilroy-holberg-prize.html">Paul Gilroy’s</a>
1993 text <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674076068">The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness</a>. What do you predict as the future of Black Diaspora Studies?</p>
<p><strong>Danai Mupotsa:</strong> I think Black Diaspora studies exist in multiple lives, temporalities, futures, presents and pasts. It is the way that Black people make/ think/ do life. It is the mundane, the ordinary, the radical, the intimate, the erotic, the poetic, the relational. It’s a fundamentally dense knot but equally exciting promise.</p>
<p><em>This article is part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=%23BlackAtlanticsSeries">series</a> called Decolonising the Black Atlantic in which black and queer women literary academics rethink and disrupt traditional Black Atlantic studies. The series is based on papers delivered at the <a href="https://stias.ac.za/events/revising-the-black-atlantic-african-diaspora-perspectives/">Revising the Black Atlantic: African Diaspora Perspectives</a> colloquium at the <a href="https://stias.ac.za">Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137280/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aretha Phiri is an NRF rated researcher and has been a fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS).
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danai Mupotsa receives funding from the EDIT: Equality and Democracy as Transformation
Project (University of the Witwatersrand, University of Addis Ababa and Helsinki University)
funded by the Academy of Finland (nr. 320863, 2019-2022). </span></em></p>An African literature lecturer shares how embodied teaching can help students feel that their lives and stories matter.Aretha Phiri, Senior lecturer, Department of Literary Studies in English, Rhodes UniversityDanai Mupotsa, Senior Lecturer in African Literature, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1392382020-05-24T07:49:03Z2020-05-24T07:49:03ZCompendium of new research celebrates African solutions to national and global problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337030/original/file-20200522-124845-8cyoxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of outgoing Senegalese President Macky Sall cheer during a rally ahead of presidential elections in 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Seyllou/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.gov.za/AfricaDay2020">Africa Day</a> celebrates the foundation of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963. It’s all about <a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/pan-africanism/african-liberation-day-celebration-resistance">recognising</a>, as the First Congress of Independent African States held in 1958 in Ghana put it, “the determination of the people of Africa to free themselves from foreign domination and exploitation”. Indeed, it was previously called African Liberation Day. </p>
<p>The continent is now formally free of colonial rule. Nevertheless, the aim of remembering and furthering the fight for self determination remains relevant as ever. This year has seen Africa – once again – characterised as a set of helpless states that face devastation by the coronavirus pandemic.</p>
<p>Such lifeless and homogenising depictions fail to recognise the ability of African communities and governments to overcome major health challenges such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-nigeria-beat-the-ebola-virus-in-three-months-41372">Ebola</a>. They also ignore the remarkably varied and dynamic – and in many cases effective – response of different groups and individuals to the COVID-19 pandemic. As Kenyan writer and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola recently <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/coronavirus-colonialism-africa/">put it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Africa is not waiting to be saved from the coronavirus.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A new major publication – the <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/page/african-politics/the-oxford-encyclopedia-of-african-politics">Oxford Encyclopaedia of African Politics</a> – contains many important chapters that make the same point on a wide variety of topics. With 122 authors, 109 articles and more than a million words, it is one of the largest volumes on African politics ever published. </p>
<p>Chapter after chapter shows the ability of leaders, intellectuals and activists to find their own solutions to national and global problems.</p>
<h2>Recognising African agency</h2>
<p>All too often, the achievements of African countries are overlooked. Conflict and controversy make for more attention-grabbing headlines than peace and democracy. Yet, while the continent features more than its fair share of <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/authoritarian-africa-9780190279653?cc=gb&lang=en&">authoritarian repression</a>, in some respects African countries are leading the way.</p>
<p>As political scientist Mamoudou Gazibo points out, countries like Ghana and Senegal became democracies despite the fact that they faced a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?redir_esc=y&id=JVmtCAAAQBAJ&q=agains+the+odds#v=snippet&q=agains%20the%20odds&f=false">particularly challenging context</a>. They lacked the kind of national wealth, strong state and large middle class that many theories suggest are necessary for a smooth transition out of authoritarian rule. Yet they have proved that <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-702">democracy is feasible in Africa</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, Liberia and Sierra Leone should also be seen as remarkable – but not, as is usually the case, because they had horrific civil wars. Instead they should be recognised for overcoming extreme and prolonged violence to forge a pathway back to democracy. In addition to maintaining political stability, both countries have experienced peaceful <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-the-change-of-power-in-sierra-leone-is-a-big-win-for-the-people/a-43269230">transfers of power</a> via the ballot box.</p>
<p>In all these cases a combination of good leadership, institution building, and the support of ordinary people for democratic values has enabled African states to change their futures for the better. </p>
<p>Yet this story is rarely told.</p>
<p>One reason is that stories like this don’t fit with the popular narrative that democracy is somehow “unAfrican”. In other words, that modern governance was introduced to the continent by the West. </p>
<p>This is not only untrue. It also turns history on its head.</p>
<p>As political scientist Kidane Mengisteab <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-1347">shows</a> in one of the chapters of the book, in many countries “traditional institutions of governance” featured important checks and balances on how power could be exercised. These measures were typically destroyed, eroded, or radically transformed by colonial rule. This paved the way for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-colonial-rule-predisposed-africa-to-fragile-authoritarianism-126114">emergence of authoritarian regimes</a> after independence.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337039/original/file-20200522-124832-f372ei.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337039/original/file-20200522-124832-f372ei.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337039/original/file-20200522-124832-f372ei.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337039/original/file-20200522-124832-f372ei.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337039/original/file-20200522-124832-f372ei.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337039/original/file-20200522-124832-f372ei.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337039/original/file-20200522-124832-f372ei.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
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</figure>
<p>Similarly, multiparty elections were not reintroduced in Africa in the early 1990s simply because the UK and the US decided this was a good idea. These freedoms and rights were <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/422153?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">fought for</a> by activists, opposition leaders, trade unionists, religious leaders and ordinary citizens who risked their personal safety to bring down authoritarian governments. Some paid with their lives.</p>
<h2>Recognising African genius</h2>
<p>A major casualty of the tendency to overlook the creativity and contributions of African leaders and intellectuals is the neglect of African political thought. Africa has produced some of the most thoughtful and articulate leaders in the world on how political systems can best be designed. These have included <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3819276?casa_token=4ihOwPICM8cAAAAA:tuJTaO6aWc2YH22kj6GBoPdo211VsS1syG1Wqex_4V2QGqZwKy5sM8TLSP9esDopBollzQxv76yD2nfykzJVQCa28jlP9zhwpnMBxJzpeGztfOtx0qu7#metadata_info_tab_contents">Kwame Nkrumah, Tom Mboya and Leopold Senghor</a>. Yet the continent is often treated as if it is devoid of interesting political ideas and ideologies.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-kwame-nkrumah-used-metaphor-as-a-political-weapon-against-colonialism-129379">How Kwame Nkrumah used metaphor as a political weapon against colonialism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is one reason why many African intellectuals have been attracted to the idea of the African renaissance. In his chapter <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-720">Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni</a> describes this as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a ‘re-membering’ of a continent and a people who have suffered from ‘dismembering’ effects of colonialism and ‘coloniality’. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This concept continues to inspire both ideas and action, and fed into the #rhodesmustfall and “decolonize the university” campaigns that began in South Africa and had ripple effects across the world. </p>
<p>Yet despite this, African contributions continue to be downplayed – even within intellectual movements that are supposed to be all about breaking down racist assumptions and hierarchies. Take post-colonial theory, which analyses the enduring legacies of colonialism and disavows Eurocentric master-narratives. It is often said that African intellectuals have played a minor role in developing post-colonial critiques. Yet <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-830">Grace Adeniyi Ogunyankin</a>, an expert in gender studies and critical race theory identifies</p>
<blockquote>
<p>African thinkers and activists who are intellectual antecedents to the post-colonial thought that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is often overlooked, she points out, because some – though by no means all – of those working in these frameworks have been “dismissive of African theorising”.</p>
<h2>Recognising African leadership</h2>
<p>The path-breaking leadership shown by many African countries has also been criminally overlooked. When asked to name two of the most advanced and progressive constitutions in the world, how many people would say Kenya and South Africa? Outside of the continent, my guess would be almost no one. Yet as legal and constitutional expert <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-1324">Muno Ndulo argues</a>, the constitutions introduced in these countries over the last years 30 years enshrine democratic norms and values. They also go well beyond their European and North American counterparts by institutionalising socio-economic rights (South Africa) and the principle of citizen participation in the budget making process (Kenya).</p>
<p>While including a clause in a constitution doesn’t mean that it is automatically respected, historically marginalised groups have mobilised creatively to demand the rights they are supposed to enjoy under the law. African women, for example, are not waiting for others to save them from patriarchy. They are mobilising across the continent to claim their rights. According to <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-852">Robtel Pailey</a>, an activist, academic and author,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>African women have simultaneously embraced and challenged cultural and socio-economic norms to claim and secure citizenship rights, resources and representation. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Recognising African diversity</h2>
<p>These are, of course, just a small number of the stories that deserve to be told. The encyclopaedia includes articles on everything from political parties and elections to the role of China and migration, oil and religion. But despite featuring a chapter on every sub-region, political institution, and major trend, there is still so much more that needs to be said about a continent that is remarkably diverse.</p>
<p>That is one reason why we should celebrate <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/continent-brilliant-free-african-journalism/">the showcasing</a> of the voices of African journalists and researchers, and share them far and wide. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00007046">Nelson Mandela once said</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139238/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nic Cheeseman is the editor of the volume discussed in this article.</span></em></p>Africa is now formally free of colonial rule. Yet, the aim of remembering and furthering the fight for self determination remains relevant as ever.Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1334502020-03-11T13:19:25Z2020-03-11T13:19:25ZPasha 57: Adam Habib on higher education in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319816/original/file-20200311-168321-16agrbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Higher education in South Africa has undergone some tough times in recent years. There have been numerous protests over fees and affordability. One of the university leaders at the centre of the debates was Adam Habib, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. </p>
<p>In today’s episode of Pasha he looks at the challenges of higher education in South Africa. He also discusses solutions and the lessons the country should take from the protests. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Photo:</strong>
By Novikov Aleksey. Graduation cap, books and diploma on the flag. <a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/graduation-cap-books-diploma-on-flag-1582753180">Shutterstock</a></p>
<p><strong>Music</strong>
“Happy African Village” by John Bartmann, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_Bartmann/Public_Domain_Soundtrack_Music_Album_One/happy-african-village">FreeMusicArchive.org</a> licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a>.</p>
<p>“Music Box & Sunshine” by Daniel Birch, found on <a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Daniel_Birch/Ambient_Vol3/Music_Box__Sunshine">FreeMusicArchive.org</a> licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Sounds</strong>
“RU Fees Must Fall” by RUTV Journalism Rhodes University. found on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm5WLZnsByg">YouTube</a> licensed under <a href="https://www.youtube.com/t/creative_commons">CC</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133450/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
It's important to focus on the challenges facing higher education before the reach a boiling point.Ozayr Patel, Digital EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1248132019-10-18T10:01:31Z2019-10-18T10:01:31ZOnkgopotse Tiro: revolutionary who paid a heavy price for shaking apartheid to its core<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297643/original/file-20191018-56215-1hgbigw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Onkgopotse Tiro</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Book cover</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The book, <a href="https://www.takealot.com/parcel-of-death/PLID55073335">“Parcel of Death”</a>, is a journey to a revolutionary past. It is a journey but not a return to the past. Former journalist <a href="https://www.panmacmillan.co.za/blogs/news/writing-the-little-told-story-of-onkgopotse-tiro">Gaongalelwe Tiro</a> has written a book about his uncle Onkgopotse Tiro – a revolutionary spirit who powered the student <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">uprisings of June 1976</a> in Soweto, Guguletu – Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Umlazi – Durban, Bloemfontein and Pietermaritzburg. </p>
<p>It is the same spirit that was to galvanise another generation decades later in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/feesmustfall-the-poster-child-for-new-forms-of-struggle-in-south-africa-68773">fees must fall</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/it-will-take-critical-thorough-scrutiny-to-truly-decolonise-knowledge-78477">decolonisation </a> movements at the turn of the century.</p>
<p>Tiro was a student leader at the University of the North, now <a href="https://www.ul.ac.za/index.php?Entity=Home">University of Limpopo</a>, in the early 1970s and one of the early exponents of the revolutionary Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa. He fled to exile in Botswana, where he was killed by a parcel bomb in 1974. It has always been suspected that it was sent by the apartheid security forces.</p>
<p>The book begins with a chapter entitled: “Blown to Smithereens”. The power and emotion contained in this chapter is enough to stop you from continuing. Even though I know the events that are described in the chapter and, had my own emotion and response on the morning of the day in February 1974 when the news of Tiro’s assassination came through, I still read the chapter over and over and hesitated to face up to subsequent chapters.</p>
<h2>Onkgopotse Tiro</h2>
<p>Onkgopotse Tiro was born in Dinokana Village outside the small town of Zeerust, in what is now known as the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/north-west">North West Province</a>, South Africa. These origins automatically define him as son of poor parents.</p>
<p>Like other African young men and women, Tiro somehow managed to make it to university. For him, being of a particular tribal origin, it could only be University of the North, also known as Turfloop, a blacks-only university for students designated for the Tswana, Sotho, Pedi, Venda and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/tswana">Shangaan tribes</a>, located east of Polokwane. This, in line with the Apartheid racist segregation policies of the white minority state of the time.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297534/original/file-20191017-98648-3aqqvl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297534/original/file-20191017-98648-3aqqvl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297534/original/file-20191017-98648-3aqqvl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297534/original/file-20191017-98648-3aqqvl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297534/original/file-20191017-98648-3aqqvl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297534/original/file-20191017-98648-3aqqvl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297534/original/file-20191017-98648-3aqqvl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>The family and social background and experiences that Onkgopotse brought to the university immediately came into conflict with the colonial and racial texture inscribed in every facet of the university life. The critical, questioning mind of the soon to be born philosophy of <a href="http://azapo.org.za/about-azapo/black-consciousness/">Black Consciousness</a> soon showed its real character when Tiro and other black students immersed themselves in debates about how they should organise themselves around their own reality, black reality.</p>
<p>Political existentialism was the core mark of the strategy of black resistance by university students in those early days of black consciousness. Tiro was a key leader in this regard and, this is how this revolutionary edge catapulted him to the helm of student political organisation.</p>
<p>The anger of the white racist administrators and staff at the university and on behalf of all other white racists was provoked beyond measure when Tiro <a href="http://azapo.org.za/graduation-speech-by-onkgopotse-tiro-at-the-university-of-the-north-29-april-1972/">delivered a graduation speech</a> in 1972, that ignited black student political uprising throughout the land.</p>
<p>Thus in the first chapter the author details the events preceding, surrounding and, following the assassination of Tiro. The book depicts how Tiro’s time at Turfloop amounted to a revolutionising political script for generations to come. It is particularly helpful to have this history of the Black Consciousness Movement which provides background to the later assassination of <a href="http://azapo.org.za/azapohistory/bantu-stephen-biko/">Steve Biko</a>, who similarly died brutally at the hands of agents of a white racist regime.</p>
<p>The message is simple: White supremacists murdered Onkgopotse Tiro. They also murdered his associates, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mthuli-ka-shezi">Mthuli Ka Shezi</a>, <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/mapetla-mohapi-1947-1976">Mapetla Mohapi</a> and Steve Biko. The list is long.</p>
<p>Students of Black Consciousness need to grasp this in order to understand the movement and the people that Tiro died for. Deliberately, or not, the author’s choice of the starting point for the biography of his late uncle is inspired by the same spirit that shook the foundations of a racist settler-colonial regime.</p>
<p>The rest of the book walks back to the events that led to Tiro’s assassination. It is a biography that refuses to engage in political narcissism. Its story comes back to us from the future. We understand who Tiro was through the lens of what happened long after he was no more.</p>
<p>It is well written and does not confuscate, not even politically or ideologically. Through the chapters that follow the first one, we come to meet and know the people who gave birth to a movement and died for a country. We also come to understand how relationships change even among the closest of comrades. Readers will be served with the truth of events and intricacies that professional historians and ideologues <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-steve-bikos-remarkable-legacy-often-overlooked-82952">conceal for no good reason</a>.</p>
<p>The biographer is more than a family member. He is himself a player, activist and combatant in the theatre of struggle in which his uncle’s extinction was plotted and carried out. He navigates the terrain professionally and does so like a revolutionary.</p>
<p>The writer shares the initial circumstances that surrounded the moment of political ignition that led to expulsion of Tiro from the University of the North and set the country on fire. This discussion happens, rightfully, later in the book. It helps to remove the temptation to write the story chronologically. As we have said, the story of Onkgopotse Tiro comes to us from the future. For indeed, in his life story, to borrow from <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/18th-Brumaire.pdf">Karl Marx’s unforgettable words,</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>the phrase does not go beyond the content; the content goes beyond the phrase.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is a story that draws its “poetry from the future”.</p>
<p>The book, therefore, shares snippets of the famous graduation speech that led to Tiro’s expulsion from Turfloop and subsequently galvanized black students in all the black campuses to solidarity action. </p>
<p>The rest is history.</p>
<p>The real pity, though, is that the biographer deprived the readers of Tiro’s speech in its totality. It is not enough to have quoted parts of it. It is a classic by itself and in its own right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124813/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Itumeleng Mosala has received funding from universities for his research. He is a patron of the June 16, 1976 Foundation and the owner of Still Nascent Ventures (Pty) Ltd. He is a member of the Azanian People's Organisation and the party's past president. </span></em></p>The book depicts how Onkgopotse Tiro’s time at Turfloop amounted to a revolutionising political script for generations to come.Itumeleng Mosala, Research Associate professor, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1200072019-07-08T15:09:05Z2019-07-08T15:09:05ZMarxist scholar Harold Wolpe’s ideas still speak to South Africa’s problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283097/original/file-20190708-51305-h0uscs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harold Wolpe showed how poor rural areas subsidised low wages of migrant workers' wages.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the apartheid period in South Africa – <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-politics-explainer-the-end-of-apartheid-101602">1948 to 1994</a> – a lively intellectual culture of opposition emerged on some of the country’s university campuses and within the broader anti-apartheid movement. Given the exigencies of the time, it operated underground some of the time. </p>
<p>A key analyst and thinker within this movement was <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/harold-wolpe">Harold Wolpe</a>, the doyen of South African Marxism. Wolpe became active in anti-aparthied activities as a student at Wits University in the forties where he studied law and sociology. He went into exile in 1964 after escaping from prison while awaiting trial for treason with Nelson Mandela and others in the famous <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/rivonia-trial-1963-1964">Rivonia trial</a>. In exile he developed a formidable reputation as a Marxist theorist of social change. He critically aligned his intellectual work with the democratic movement, with all the possibilities, challenges and tensions such a relationship entailed, according to Robert van Niekerk, a professor in public governance at Wits University. In 1991 Wolpe returned to South Africa to set up the Education Policy Unit at the University of the Western Cape. </p>
<p>Reflecting on the recent launch of a <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu/latestnews/raceclassandthepost-apartheiddemocraticstate.html">collection of essays</a>, “Race, Class and the Post-Apartheid Democratic State”, on the late Wolpe’s scholarly contribution, I was struck by the continued relevance of his work. </p>
<p>The theme that runs through the collection is a recognition of the changes that have taken place in post- apartheid South Africa, but also the striking continuities with the past.</p>
<p>As the country confronts arguably the deepest economic and social challenges since the creation of the post-apartheid democratic state, South Africans will find it very rewarding to revisit the rich debates on the left in this volume.</p>
<h2>What’s changed, and what hasn’t</h2>
<p>In the opening chapter I revisit, with my colleague <a href="https://asawu.org.za/vice-president-ben-scully/">Ben Scully</a>, Wolpe’s widely cited <a href="http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/Wolpe%20Economy%20&%20Society%201972.pdf">1972 article</a> on cheap labour. In this article, he argued that the wages of urban migrants were subsidised by the non-wage activities of the household in the rural areas, the so-called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">homelands or bantustans</a>.</p>
<p>These were the ten mainly rural areas under the previous apartheid system where black South Africans were required to live, along ethnic group lines. They were characterised by extreme underdevelopment and poverty. This forced the men and later women to seek work in the city in areas demarcated “white” or to work on the mines or for white farmers.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harold Wolpe in 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rand Daily Mail/tiso black star</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Wolpe argued that the subsidisation of migrant workers by rural areas allowed employers to pay wages below the cost of reproduction. The rural areas performed a social security function by providing welfare for the very old, the sick, and the young.</p>
<p>Migrant labour persists today. But – in some respects – the function of migrant workers has changed. This we tracked through surveys in rural villages.</p>
<p>Interviewing older migrants, they spoke of the low pay and the the danger of work under apartheid but they said they had “work for their whole lives’. Today the career trajectory of a young person is quite different when they migrate to the city. Employment has become more precarious and casual and the rural migrant soon finds herself going back and fourth from urban to rural area as the rural home is a place of secure housing. </p>
<p>While migrant labour persists, it no longer provides a subsidy to capital as rural-urban ties are no longer essential for the reproduction of cheap labour. Instead it provides support for those at the bottom of the wage labour market. But the character of the non-wage activities has changed. The unpaid household labour, especially of rural women, remains essential. But the system of monthly social grant income – to the old, young and the disabled – has emerged as the new non-wage income source, often at the expense of agricultural production. </p>
<p>So Wolpe’s work continues to be relevant in the present as it reminds us of the importance of the interface between the capitalist sector and non-wage activities in the rural areas. </p>
<p>Another theme of Wolpe’s that still resonates today is the state of higher education.</p>
<p>A central preoccupation of Wolpe in his later years was the state of higher education. In a well argued chapter, <a href="https://mellon.org/about/staff/saleem-badat/">Saleem Badat</a> characterises Wolpe’s approach as one in which the tension between equity and development needs to be addressed simultaneously. </p>
<p>But Badat adds, Wolpe felt that there was little appreciation in the democratic movement, that opposed apartheid, of the difficult social and political dilemmas, choices and trade-offs that would be entailed in such an approach. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The student protests of 2015-16 made it clear, be observes, that the HWUs (Historically White Universities) have, largely, lacked the willingness or courage, or failed to forge creative strategies and policies, or both, to transform institutional culture, which is a critical equity as well as development issue (page 276).</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Shunned</h2>
<p>In the concluding chapter <a href="http://www.wits.ac.za/news/sources/wsg-news/2018/meet-wsgs-chair-in-public-governance-professor-robert-van-niekerk.html">Robbie van Niekerk</a>, one of the editors of the volume, speaks of how Wolpe in his later years</p>
<blockquote>
<p>was shunned from any leading policy-making position and was increasingly isolated politically and personally by the liberation movement to which he had dedicated his life (362). </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For the more orthodox, Wolpe’s questioning of the strategies of the national liberation movement was an indulgence and inappropriate.</p>
<p>A gap has emerged in South Africa’s political discourse as the democratic movement – those who fought against apartheid – has moved from state socialism to neoliberalism.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.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">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p><a href="https://sobeds.ukzn.ac.za/staff-profile/emeritus-professors/vishnu-padayachee/">Vishnu Padayachee</a>, author of one of the chapters in the book, pointed out in a panel discussion at the book launch that in the late 1980s Wolpe was rudely dismissive of what he called "Keynesian compromises” as a developmental model. This was because they took the eye off what he saw as the prize of a truly socialist society.</p>
<p>Padayachee surmised: given the deepening levels of inequality and economic stagnation would Wolpe not have supported a more activist macroeconomic policy, and a central role for the state in industrialisation and development, as an economic policy tool today?</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu/latestnews/raceclassandthepost-apartheiddemocraticstate.html">“Race, Class and the Post-Apartheid Democratic State”</a>, is published by <a href="http://www.ukznpress.co.za/">University of KwaZulu-Natal Press</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120007/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies is funded by the Ford Foundation. </span></em></p>During the apartheid period in South Africa – 1948 to 1994 – a lively intellectual culture of opposition emerged on some of the country’s university campuses and within the broader anti-apartheid movement…Edward Webster, Distinguished Reserach Professor, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1162922019-05-02T14:32:46Z2019-05-02T14:32:46ZBook review: one VC’s account of student protests in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272192/original/file-20190502-103078-juwi8q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protest outside South Africa's Parliament demanding amnesty for students arrested during "fees must fall" protests.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nic Bothma/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/feesmustfall-21801">#FeesMustFall protests</a> of 2015 and 2016 have made an indelible mark on higher education in South Africa. The protests left no university untouched. And they elicited significant emotions: for, against or a mixture of the two. </p>
<p>Most could agree with the sentiments that underpinned the protests. Students wanted more equitable access to higher education. They called for free education. But there was significant disagreement and concern around their methods of protest, tactics and outcomes. </p>
<p>Student leaders from the time will rightly claim victory. Tuition increases were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/24/world/africa/south-africa-freezes-tuition-fees-after-student-protests.html">frozen</a> for the 2016 academic year. Support workers who had been outsourced were given <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2017/01/12/wits-spending-r120m-on-insourcing-workers-this-year">permanent employment</a> at some institutions. The government agreed to create a <a href="https://theconversation.com/free-higher-education-in-south-africa-cutting-through-the-lies-and-statistics-90474">fee-free</a> university environment for those below a determined household income threshold. </p>
<p>Those who opposed the protests will argue that the sacrifices made to secure these gains came at too great a cost. Students and staff were traumatised. Infrastructure was destroyed. Books and artworks were burned. The reallocation of financial resources had real consequences in the broader society: government expenditure on the social wage declined in nominal terms, making it more difficult for South Africa’s most vulnerable citizens to survive.</p>
<p>These positions persist and have not been reconciled. More than ever, South African universities need a new social contract that charts a way forward and begins to heal divisions. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272188/original/file-20190502-103063-17gf4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272188/original/file-20190502-103063-17gf4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272188/original/file-20190502-103063-17gf4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272188/original/file-20190502-103063-17gf4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272188/original/file-20190502-103063-17gf4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272188/original/file-20190502-103063-17gf4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272188/original/file-20190502-103063-17gf4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/272188/original/file-20190502-103063-17gf4ta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&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">Jonathan Ball Publishers</span></span>
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<p>Two Vice Chancellors – one who has completed his term, the other still serving– have written books on the issue. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-end-of-south-african-universities-82180">The first</a>, <em>As by Fire, the end of the South African university</em>, was written by Professor Jonathan Jansen. He ran the university of the Free State during the protests. More recently, the vice chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand (known as Wits), Professor Adam Habib published <em><a href="http://www.jonathanball.co.za/component/virtuemart/new-releases-1/2019-releases/rebels-and-rage-reflecting-on-feesmustfall-detail?Itemid=6">Rebels and Rage</a></em>.</p>
<p>My analysis of Habib’s book is that it is a participant-observer account but does little to contribute ideas that might be used to develop such a contract or to move South African higher education forward. This is a pity given that this was meant to be <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2012-11-30-adam-habib-tipped-to-give-wits-the-edge">a central premise</a> of his leadership at Wits. </p>
<h2>Division and contestation</h2>
<p>Habib proffers a set of insights and commentary on the politics and political economy of what took place at Wits and across the sector. He situates his analysis in discussing moments and offering personal reflections. It is an insider view of the protests. </p>
<p>Quite rightly, he argues that a lot was at stake during #FeesMustFall, in particular the integrity of the whole higher education sector. He weaves this narrative throughout a series of chapters that seek to unpack particular moments, events and the individuals involved in this. But often, these end up being derisive of others; questioning tactics, political motivations, aspirations and ideology. </p>
<p>Some of this is understandable, especially when considering some of the deception or miscalculations that took place or when questioning the intellectual basis – such as quoting Frantz Fanon and Steve Biko – for engaging in violence.</p>
<p>But the issues and moments raised remain divisive, contested and are certainly not settled. At times the book feels like an endeavour to settle scores and to use the authority and privilege assigned through being the Vice-Chancellor to set the narrative. He frequently uses hyperbolic, dismissive language. </p>
<p>This creates a real conundrum for Habib when he needs to execute his role as the final point of decision-making. For academics and students derided in the book, can they reasonably expect fair treatment by their Vice-Chancellor on matters pertaining to career and studies? </p>
<h2>Disclosure</h2>
<p>In the spirit of full disclosure, I was present and involved in the protests in 2015 and 2016. I am mentioned in the book, but am not counted among the major role-players and come in for no particular praise nor scorn.</p>
<p>When the protests began, I was an academic and was among the leaders of the Academic Staff Association of Wits University. </p>
<p>Our main role throughout was to be present and try – where possible – to diffuse conflict between students, staff, police and private security and to build understanding. Some of us were tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets, had stones thrown at us or were pushed around by various parties. Sometimes we were effective, and other times we were not. The scar on the back of my head can attest to this.</p>
<p>I witnessed many of the stories and moments Habib describes. He offers insights and reflections that feel familiar and make logical connections, and his account of some events is accurate.</p>
<p>But gaps also emerge among these recollections. </p>
<h2>What’s missing</h2>
<p>Habib contends that this is a personal reflection on the #FeesMustFall movement. Yet he makes assumptions about other people’s intent. Here I think not just of students, but also of some academic staff whom he seems to set up as proverbial boogeymen. To Habib, he was right, and anyone who disagreed with him, was wrong. This is an overly simplistic approach to a complex set of moments and leads to unfair characterisations.</p>
<p>I also found Habib’s lack of self-reflection and ownership over decisions and how some events unfolded striking. The reader gets some glimpses, such as his regret over berating a student for requesting security assistance for student residences. But this is a unique moment and little consideration is given to actions and decisions taken at the senior management level. </p>
<p>For example, was it helpful to issue written warnings to protesters in 2015 threatening arrest for blocking entrance gates? Did it diffuse the situation to use an apartheid era <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201505/act-6-1959.pdf">trespassing law</a>? Finally, how does he reconcile his beliefs with the fact that the protesters were ultimately successful in achieving their ends and what does this mean for social movements in South Africa?</p>
<p>No one emerged from #FeesMustFall a hero or a villain. Everyone made mistakes. Everyone miscalculated. Everyone misunderstood elements of the moment. Instead of pointing fingers and casting blame, what is needed is consideration and thought into how Wits and other South African universities are going to move forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116292/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David J Hornsby 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>More than ever, South African universities need a new social contract that charts a way forward and begins to heal divisions.David J Hornsby, Professor of International Affairs and the Associate Vice-President (Teaching and Learning), Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1114672019-02-09T12:30:39Z2019-02-09T12:30:39ZSouth African president’s education plans don’t quite make the grade<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258008/original/file-20190208-174851-dr6lsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Cyril Ramaphosa delivering the 2019 State of the Nation Address.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2019-state-nation-address-7-feb-2019-0000">State of the Nation Address</a>, delivered in Cape Town on February 7, has attracted a fair amount of <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-02-08-boredom-and-praise-mzansi-reacts-to-sona-2019/">praise</a>. But while the speech scored an A for its vision and plan for economic renewal, it scored an F for education.</p>
<p>If the amount of time spent on a topic during the speech is any indication of where the president’s priorities lie, then those concerned about South Africa’s education system –- at all levels –- have reason to be concerned. Early on, he listed “improving education” as one of the government’s five most urgent tasks, but he didn’t elaborate on this point until well into his second hour of speaking. In fact, more time was given to tourism than education.</p>
<p>One can appreciate that the president had many pressing points to make about the country’s <a href="https://www.gsb.uct.ac.za/SOE-crisis">dysfunctional parastatals</a>, and <a href="https://www.news24.com/Columnists/MaxduPreez/the-time-is-ripe-for-a-massive-corruption-clean-up-campaign-20190122">weeding out corruption</a>. It’s likely that the audience he was most concerned about were potential foreign investors, not ordinary citizens concerned about the safety of their children on university campuses after a week of <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/witsshutdown-continues">protests</a> or those who worry about the quality of basic education. </p>
<p>But it would have been good to hear Ramaphosa use his brief time at the podium to give a considered, thoughtful – and sobering – assessment of the state of South Africa’s entire education system. He could have acknowledged that, after 25 years as a democracy, the country’s education system hasn’t yet turned the corner from deep dysfunctionality to sustained success. And this critical assessment should have been accompanied by a strategy to map the way forward.</p>
<h2>Basic education</h2>
<p>Instead, Ramaphosa spoke of his government’s commitment to basic <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2019-state-nation-address-7-feb-2019-0000">infrastructural backlogs</a>, such as toilets. Ensuring that schools have basic infrastructure in place is critical. But the fact that the president had to raise this as an issue at all is a shame to the minister of basic education. Ramaphosa made similar promises in his <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/has-ramaphosa-kept-his-2018-sona-promises">2018 State of the Nation Address</a> about school infrastructure development which the department of basic education hasn’t delivered on. </p>
<p>These infrastructural problems should have been sorted out a decade ago especially given that the department has been taken to court to make it happen. The focus now should be on substantive educational issues. It would have been important to hear the president comment on South Africa’s ongoing challenges in <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-south-africas-matric-pass-rate-means-for-universities-109441">producing school leavers</a> who are qualified for first year university mathematics. </p>
<p>The president also created a fanfare by announcing the rollout of e-tablets for all school children. If he sincerely believes that access to this form of technology is one of South Africa’s most pressing problems, he has been badly advised by his minister. Technology is a merely a tool for teaching and learning. If the teaching and learning experience is poor for a variety of reasons, access to a tablet will make no difference. </p>
<p>Where are the country’s skills going to come from to compete in the fourth industrial revolution? Probably not from giving pupils access to e-tablets when the principles of basic numeracy are still not properly taught. </p>
<h2>Higher education</h2>
<p>With respect to the technical and vocational education and training sector, Ramaphosa echoed the same promises that have been made before, vowing to build up this sector so it can contribute to the development of technically skilled graduates. No one will disagree with this. </p>
<p>But what should have been discussed was the progress or lack thereof that has been made in the past five years to strengthen this important sector. This was among the former Minister of the Department of Higher Education and Training’s priorities, and is high on the current Minister’s list, too. So: what progress has there been on their watch?</p>
<p>The week leading up to Ramaphosa’s speech saw student protests erupt on a number of university campuses. One protest ended in tragedy: Mlungisi Madonsela, a student at the Durban University of Technology, was <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-02-06-is-this-your-government-outrage-as-dut-student-shot-and-killed-amid-protest-action/">shot dead</a> – allegedly by a security guard hired to protect the campus. Ramaphosa acknowledged both the protests and Madonsela’s death.</p>
<p>But the sector urgently needed some stabilising assurances. Will the promise of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-students-are-protesting-again-why-it-neednt-be-this-way-109964">free education</a>” for the poorest be delivered on now and in the future? Is the state thinking beyond the current crises to issues of financial sustainability for the future? What happens to academically eligible students whose <a href="http://www.nsfas.org.za/content/">National Student Financial Aid Scheme</a> funding runs out after four years?</p>
<p>Finally, Ramaphosa rightly lauded the achievements of the <a href="http://www.ska.ac.za/">Square Kilometre Array</a>, which will be the world’s largest radio telescope when it’s completed in the mid-2020s. </p>
<p>But the reality is that sustaining this kind of research will require investment in South African universities’ research capacity. It would have been good if the President had acknowledged the deplorable conditions of research funding in universities and the huge risk this presents to the country unless it is addressed. Academics and the public need to know that this is on the President’s radar – and, specifically, how this trend will be reversed.</p>
<p>Overall, the president failed to convince ordinary South Africans that education – arguably one of the most important contributors to a thriving society – is in good hands.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111467/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suellen Shay 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>Education remains one of government’s key priority sectors yet it continues to be in a crisis.Suellen Shay, Professor, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1099642019-02-08T10:00:58Z2019-02-08T10:00:58ZSouth African students are protesting – again. Why it needn’t be this way<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257923/original/file-20190208-174851-11vccf1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students shut the University of the Witwatersrand down during protest action. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bhekikhaya Mabaso/African News Agency (ANA) </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s the beginning of South Africa’s academic year and once again, campuses have been brought to a standstill by <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/protests/2078996/refrain-from-excessive-force-during-student-protests-amnesty-international-sa/">students protesting</a> against a host of issues that have plagued the country’s universities. These include registration fees, student accommodation, food and other issues, compounded by the inefficiency of the country’s student financial aid scheme. </p>
<p>The protests and the employment of private security on campuses has appallingly led to the <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/dut-student-shot-dead-by-campus-security-in-durban-20190205">death of a student</a>, and have once again brought the problems besetting higher education to the fore. But the current situation was entirely predictable.</p>
<p>In the wake of nationwide campus protests from 2015 to 2017, former president Jacob Zuma’s administration <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/zuma-announces-free-higher-education-for-poor-and-working-class-students-20171216">opportunistically extended funding</a> for tertiary education to a broader cohort of students. This didn’t resolve the government’s flawed approach to the students’ demand for free higher education. </p>
<p>It was inevitable that the promise of “free education” would come back to haunt the government. That’s because leaders fail to understand what’s really at stake in the demands for genuinely free quality education for all. University administrations expected the government’s student funding agency – the <a href="http://www.nsfas.org.za/content/">National Student Financial Aid Scheme</a> – to solve the problem of affordability. </p>
<p>But the scheme has experienced a succession of bureaucratic problems. This has again led to <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/protest-threat-as-nsfas-rejects-poor-students-18630832">the rejection</a> of tens of thousands of financial aid student applicants. This, in turn, sparked widespread protests and campus shut-downs. </p>
<p>Government could have taken another route by adopting the carefully researched and argued suggestions that some academics, civil society and others made to entrench the right to education as a public good. </p>
<p>As one <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/the-nsfas-is-not-out-of-the-woods-higher-education-dept-20180816">news report</a> said, the aid scheme has simply failed to “pay the right amount of money to the right students at the right time”. A senior department official was also quoted as saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Despite the daily support of departmental officials and support teams, the National Student Financial Aid Scheme was not able to put in place adequate solutions to address the problems coherently and quickly. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It needn’t be this way. We’ve always <a href="https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/facultyofeducation/cert/Documents/CERT%20FEES%20COMMISSION%20SUBMISSION%20Hlatshwayo_Maharajh_Marawu_Motala_Naidoo_Vally.pdf">argued</a> that free higher education for all is not only desirable, but entirely possible. In <a href="https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/facultyofeducation/cert/Documents/CERT%20FEES%20COMMISSION%20SUBMISSION%20Hlatshwayo_Maharajh_Marawu_Motala_Naidoo_Vally.pdf">our submission</a> to the <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/release-report-commission-inquiry-feasibility-making-high-education-and-training">Heher Commission</a> – a commission instituted by government to advise it on the question of tertiary student funding – we set out a number of recommendations. But these have been ignored.</p>
<h2>The search for a solution</h2>
<p>In our arguments we focused on a range of issues related to the role of higher education as a public good and for supporting the objectives of social transformation. </p>
<p>Our view is that public universities are society’s key institutions for developing knowledge through their role in research and teaching. By fulfilling these functions, institutions contribute to social, economic, cultural and intellectual development. </p>
<p>But for this to happen there needs to be an enabling environment. This includes decent accommodation and food for students as well as financial, infrastructural and intellectual resources. </p>
<p>We argue that free higher education is not an end in itself. Rather, it’s essential for the achievement of the social, political, cultural and transformative goals of a society characterised by the legacies of racist oppression and exploitative social relations. </p>
<p>Policies that are designed to provide for the full cost of study are essential to an overarching social objective of developing a democratic and socially just society. </p>
<p>We argue that with careful and systematic planning, this social vision is entirely achievable. </p>
<h2>Solutions</h2>
<p>We didn’t argue for the increase of value added tax as this hits the poor the hardest. We suggested taxing the super rich, where some <a href="http://www.africanmonitor.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IFF-Report-1.pdf">don’t pay</a> the taxes due by them. </p>
<ul>
<li>Similar ideas of taxing the super rich are set out in detail by French economist <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Economy/Piketty-suggests-wealth-tax-for-SA-20151003">Thomas Piketty</a>, US senator <a href="https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/sanders-proposes-wealth-tax-piketty-reich-applaud">Bernie Sanders</a>, and UK Labour Party leader <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/12/corbyn-government-new-labour-tax-rich-tories">Jeremy Corbyn</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p>In addition we argue for: </p>
<ul>
<li>Stopping the outflow of capital. In the past 18 months alone <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/capital-outflow-r350billion-has-left-south-africa-10264790">R350 billion</a> has left South Africa. In the period from 2002 to 2011, illicit outflows have been estimated at approximately R1,4 trillion ($100.7 billion) by the organisation <a href="http://www.africanmonitor.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IFF-Report-1.pdf">Global Financial Integrity</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>We argue that the state has the potential – if it has the will – to stop the extraordinary levels of capital outflow. This would provide it with sufficient funds to support free higher education for all and the chronically underfunded universities. </p>
<p>Although individuals will not be equal when education is made free, our approach is dedicated to ending the culture of corporatism and business models that still dominate the university system. </p>
<h2>Untenable situation</h2>
<p>The present situation – where thousands of students are turned away while others are drowning in debt – is simply untenable. It deepens the crisis faced by students. University managements should make common cause with students and pressurise the state instead of relying on charity, band-aid solutions or even worse, the violence of private security. All of these are unsustainable.</p>
<p>The state’s continued indecisiveness and unwillingness to engage with carefully researched and argued proposals from those within the higher education sector does not bode well for change. Using the bureaucratic devices of National Student Financial Aid Scheme to mediate this crisis will fail and only deepen social conflict.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109964/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Salim Vally receives funding from the DHET-NRF for the SARChI Chair in Community, Adult and Worker Education which he currently holds. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mondli Hlatshwayo receives funding from the National Research Foundation.. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siphelo Ngcwangu receives funding from the National Research Foundation Centres of Excellence (COE) for Human Development. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Enver Motala 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 students are protesting and have brought university campuses to a stand still. This could have been avoided.Salim Vally, Director of the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation and Associate Professor of Education, University of JohannesburgEnver Motala, Researcher, Social Sciences, University of Fort HareMondli Hlatshwayo, Senior Researcher in Labour Studies and Education, University of JohannesburgSiphelo Ngcwangu, Senior lecturer, sociology, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1097312019-01-14T11:05:04Z2019-01-14T11:05:04ZCheat sheet for VCs running universities in turbulent times<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253366/original/file-20190111-43541-14kc3xb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African students protest outside Parliament in support of students convicted over the #FeesMustFall protests. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At least once a month a headhunting firm calls me seeking advice on a search for a university vice-chancellor. They want to pick my brains because of what I’ve learnt, sometimes the hard way, over seven years as a vice-chancellor, 12 years as an academic dean and two years as an administrator of struggling universities.</p>
<p>By the time the headhunter makes the call, the university would have advertised the position more than once but simply couldn’t find the right person for the job. </p>
<p>I often advise on three starting criteria. In addition, my long tenure in higher education has also taught me that there’s additional knowledge that’s useful for a university leader to have, particularly in these turbulent times facing higher education.</p>
<p>Let me start with the criteria that head hunters should be looking for.</p>
<p>First, candidates need to be major scholars in their field of expertise. Your credibility as an academic is critical in a serious university. If your Senate cannot respect you, you will sound foolish trying to make the case for enhancing the standards of the professoriate or demanding quality scholarship in learned journals. </p>
<p>Second, a competent manager with broad knowledge across the range of university functions – from information technologies to residence management to internal auditing. No vice-chancellor is an expert in more than one of these managerial disciplines. But candidates must know enough to ask their directors or heads of department the right questions. </p>
<p>And third, an inspiring leader who has the ability to connect with – and command the respect – of diverse people across the institution from workers to junior lecturers to senior professors. </p>
<h2>Some pointers for candidates</h2>
<p>Potential candidates should consider what they need to offer inspiring leadership and effective management to universities. Based on my experience, this is what you need to know, and how you need to be.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>A good dose of humility</strong>. The four opening words from the best-selling book, in The Purpose Driven-Life by evangelical pastor and author Rick Warren is all you need to read: </li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s not about you. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>People will sing your praises but they will demand things from you. They will look up to you but they will also blame you. In good times and bad, remember, it’s not about you. You are privileged to lead your institution but on behalf of others. The adulation could go to your head. Keep telling yourself it is about the students, the academics, the staff and the workers. You exist to serve them. It definitely is not about you.</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>A sense of your own limitations.</strong> A vice-chancellor stands or falls by the quality and cohesiveness of the senior team. It’s crucially important that the absolute best people are hired as deputy-vice chancellors for the key portfolios such as finance, research, teaching and information technologies. These are persons who should complement the competency set of the vice-chancellor and who are resolutely committed to the academic mission of the university. The vice-chancellors role is to keep them together (not always easy) and listen to their counsel.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>A singular ambition.</strong> Sitting in the main office, you tend to overreach by wanting to do everything on a long list of goals. Do one or two big things well and you are more likely to make an impact. That ambition may be to dramatically raise the academic standard of a mediocre university or to stabilise the finances of an institution after a near terminal crisis. Choose a few things that resonate with the university community and put all your energy into making those commitments real.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>A short line to your boss.</strong> Your nominal boss is the Chair of Council. It is the single most important relationship you should develop. Most universities that fall into crisis do because of a breakdown between governance (Council) and management (Executive). Meet at least once a fortnight to build the interpersonal relationship, share your agenda and remind each other of the line that must not be crossed—managers do not govern and governors don’t manage. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Invest in your own development.</strong> Make sure you build into your contract negotiations with Council the necessary time off to continue your own research and writing especially when your goal is to re-enter academic life at a later stage. A vice-chancellor who is academically active sets a powerful example to both staff as well as students. Furthermore, taking off regular time to rebuild your energies in a demanding job is the best way in which to continue doing your job well.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>It is a university.</strong> The constant protests and instability on some campuses constantly threaten to distract vice-chancellors from the core business of a university. Find ways of delegating demanding functions like constant negotiations with students or workers to offset protests. Be there, but not all the time. You are running an academic institution and that focus could be easily lost in a context or climate where crisis management redefines the role of the head of a university. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Use the platform.</strong> A vice-chancellor has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address burning issues in the broader society from an institutional platform. Do not draw inwards and disappear from public view. Draw on your specialist training and speak to critical concerns. Whether you like it or not, a vice-chancellor is a public persona who is likely to be listened to by government, the media and the broader community by virtue of the position.</p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109731/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Jansen 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>Certain criteria are needed to lead a university but additional knowledge is also useful.Jonathan Jansen, Distinguished Professor, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1095822019-01-10T13:36:09Z2019-01-10T13:36:09ZThe University of Cape Town’s recent history matters as much as its past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253047/original/file-20190109-32151-1kcarwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UCT will honour Sarah Baartman by naming a hall after her.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The crown jewel in <a href="http://www.uct.ac.za/">University of Cape Town’s (UCT’s)</a> symmetrically pleasing main campus is its hall. The campus lies in linear regularity against the iconic backdrop of Devil’s Peak, part of the spectacular mountain range that circles the city. The triangular parapet of the hall reaches for the peak even as its steps cascade down towards the busy streets of Rondebosch, the suburb below. </p>
<p>With UCT ranking as the <a href="http://www.uct.ac.za/main/research/rankings">top university on the continent</a>, this stock image has come to symbolise more than just one campus, but African excellence itself.</p>
<p>The physical view of the campus changed forever in 2015, with the removal of the brooding statue of British colonialist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecil-john-rhodes">Cecil John Rhodes</a> at the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32236922">foot of the staircase</a>. Now, in 2019, the scene will change symbolically too. Jameson Memorial Hall stands, but its name falls: going forward, it will be known as the <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/uct-renames-jammie-memorial-hall-to-sarah-baartman-hall-20181213">Sarah Baartman Hall</a>. <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/sara-saartjie-baartman">Baartman</a>, a Khoi woman sold into slavery and eventually exhibited as a curiosity in England in the late 18th Century, has long been a powerful symbolic figure in contemporary South Africa. This remarkable UCT turnabout moves the commemoration narrative. As the <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2018-12-13-renaming-memorial-hall-sarah-baartman-hall">official UCT announcement</a> notes, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>it is fitting that Baartman, a victim of colonial inhumanity, should replace a perpetrator of colonial crimes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The announcement was made by incoming Vice-Chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng in her December 2018 robing ceremony. It had, in fact, been in the works from <a href="https://theconversation.com/decolonisation-debate-is-a-chance-to-rethink-the-role-of-universities-63840">2015’s Fallism protest movement</a>. At the time then-Vice-Chancellor Max Price created a task team and <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2016-06-23-council-agrees-to-change-name-of-jameson-hall">invited renaming suggestions</a>. At that point, Jameson Hall, named after Rhodes’ political ally <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dr-leander-starr-jameson">Leander Starr Jameson</a>, was temporarily given the generic placeholder of Memorial Hall. This was a gesture to the centrality of institutional memory, but strategically vague as to what kind of memory that should be.</p>
<p>Now, after extensive consultation both within the university community and with Khoi community representatives, the decision has been made. It’s one the university itself is naming “potent” and “historic.” But how radical is it?</p>
<p>It’s undoubtedly encouraging - more than that, exciting - to see UCT nail their colours to the mast in what feels like an embrace of structural transformation, not to mention a powerful signal of a commitment to a <a href="https://theconversation.com/it-will-take-critical-thorough-scrutiny-to-truly-decolonise-knowledge-78477">decolonial</a> agenda.</p>
<p>Yet I have reservations.</p>
<h2>A much deeper problem</h2>
<p>Let us be frank: Sarah Baartman Hall is not named as an abstract decolonial gesture. It’s not a simple symbolic reference to a closed chapter of history, chosen at random from hundreds of alumni submissions. It is so named explicitly because of the direct trauma that people of colour experienced from the ongoing campus exhibition of an underclad statue of Baartman from 2000 to 2018 in the Science and Technology section of the main library. The statue stood not 200 metres from the main hall. </p>
<p>These are not marginal concerns: in response to <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/quarrel-over-sarah-baartman-sculpture-at-uct-20180303">escalating and often powerfully performative campus protests</a>, the UCT public artworks committee held an interactive exhibition of the statue last year entitled <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2018-09-21-dignifying-sarah-baartman">“Sarah ‘Saartjie’ Baartman: a Call to Respond.”</a></p>
<p>More, the Hall is named because of the repeated strategies students adopted, including the use of the statue to expose, as it were, the hostility of an under-transformed university environment where they themselves continued to feel unwelcome, a curiosity. The statue, by Willie Bester, was exhibited as recently as October 4 last year. The uneasy campus culture is ongoing.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253031/original/file-20190109-32124-9u8ew5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Barbour</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There surely can be no Sarah Baartman Hall without acknowledgement of Sarah Baartman’s entwined history with the land – and legacy – of Rhodes at the institution. Yet these potent contestations are entirely absent from the <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2018-12-13-renaming-memorial-hall-sarah-baartman-hall">university’s announcement</a> of the name change. This frames Baartman’s “humiliation” as ending in 2002 with the restitution of her remains from France’s <em>Musée de l'Homme</em> and <a href="http://www.baviaans.net/listing/sarah-bartman">ceremonial interment in Hankey, Eastern Cape </a>.</p>
<p>There is no mention of Bester’s statue, no mention of the countless protests, debates and performative interventions staged around the symbolism of Baartman’s body that have marked the past 18 years of campus engagement with the statue.</p>
<p>Baartman’s name can be elevated to the highest point of the campus, but if it is not accepted that her legacy is built into every brick, each classroom and every interaction, the honour is more than hollow, it is inappropriate. Baartman has, after all, been the figurehead for countless ideologies, both in and out of her time. To place her historic name on a building while eliding the contemporary pain that prompted this naming from its origin story is to make Sarah Baartman once again an object to gaze at in a centre of learning.</p>
<h2>The alternative</h2>
<p>But that doesn’t have to be the case. For this gesture to stand in the spirit for which it was clearly (and commendably) chosen, the university must own its own institutional complicity in Baartman’s – and South Africa’s – loaded history and institutional culture that continue to alienate students and staff of colour from fully being at home on campus. To move forward meaningfully there must be a frank acknowledgement that Rhodes’ legacy did not end in 2015 and a clear commitment to practical as well as symbolic change.</p>
<p>The naming decision has garnered overwhelmingly positive responses, with graduating students taking to social media in droves, expressing what it meant to them to graduate in a hall bearing the name of Baartman. I certainly share this joy. But we shouldn’t let the renaming of a hall overshadow the need for careful institutional and self-examination. </p>
<p>The Vice Chancellor has demonstrated a powerful understanding of being the change she wants to see at UCT. Her donation of part of her inauguration budget to pay student debt was a remarkable combination of symbolic and deeply practical gesture. Under her leadership, the university must surely be best placed to open up space for transformation, not close down debate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109582/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carla Lever receives funding from the American Society of Theatre Research (ASTR) to research statue-based protest and performance in SA and the US. She is a research fellow at the University of Cape Town, examining protest, spectacle and commemoration in Cape Town.</span></em></p>Sarah Baartman’s name can be elevated to the highest point of the University of Cape Town’s campus, but if her legacy isn’t built into each classroom and interaction the honour is hollow.Carla Lever, Research Fellow at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1064582018-11-14T13:58:05Z2018-11-14T13:58:05ZSurvivors of sexual violence in South Africa are finally finding their voices<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244804/original/file-20181109-34102-1tzl9m9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cheryl Zondi bucked the trend of rape accusers staying anonymous in South Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">African News Agency (ANA)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The story of Cheryl Zondi, the brave young woman who took the stand in a South African court to testify against Nigerian pastor and rape accused Timothy Omotoso has recently <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/2020717/court-hears-how-omotoso-sexually-assaulted-14-year-old-zondi/">dominated news headlines</a>. The televangelist and senior pastor of the Jesus Dominion International Church faces multiple charges. These include rape, human trafficking and racketeering. </p>
<p>Under harsh, degrading, <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/omotoso-trial-cheryl-zondis-cross-examination-brutally-inhumane-dlamini-memela-20181018">cross examination</a>, Zondi, a 22-year old university student, courageously faced her alleged abuser and his jeering congregants to tell her story of alleged sexual assault that started when she was 14. In coming forward to testify in open court – despite death threats and <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/omotoso-trial-cheryl-zondi-received-god-will-kill-you-threat-before-testifying-20181021">attempts to silence her</a> – she was not just another faceless victim of sexual violence.</p>
<p>There are many such faceless victims. According to the Crime against Women in South Africa <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/Report-03-40-05/Report-03-40-05June2018.pdf">2018 report</a>, there has been a 53% increase in sexual offences against women in a short period - from 31 665 in 2015/16 to 70 813 in 2016/17. And the real numbers are probably higher; as is the case across the globe, many incidents of sexual assault go unreported. So the statistics don’t paint a full picture. </p>
<p>Based on the available data, the number of women raped in South Africa is 138 for 100 000 women. These numbers are among the <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/Report-03-40-05/Report-03-40-05June2018.pdf">highest</a> in the world.</p>
<p>So, why don’t girls and women come forward to tell their stories of sexual assault? <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14725840701253894?journalCode=cafi20">Research</a> shows that the reasons are complex and influenced by a web of inter-related, <a href="https://rapecrisis.org.za/rape-in-south-africa/#prevalence">social-psychological factors</a>. These include feelings of shame and humiliation, self-blame, fear and even denial. These are influenced by the prevailing patriarchal and cultural norms of societies and communities that suppress, silence and shame these girls and women.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1186/1758-2652-13-6">highly gender unequal</a> and patriarchal country like South Africa, violent and entrenched masculinities legitimise men’s power over women. This exacerbates sexual violence. Naturally, women have severe anxieties about the repercussions and backlash if they speak out. </p>
<p>Another factor is that South Africa’s intractable history of political and gender-based violence has resulted in deep distrust of the justice system. According to <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-10-11-crime-is-increasing-and-were-more-fearful/">Statistics SA</a>, satisfaction in the police and the courts has continued to fall since 2013/14. </p>
<p>But there are indications that the tide is turning in South Africa: not only in the way women are coming forward but how people rallied around Cheryl Zondi.</p>
<h2>The tide is turning</h2>
<p>Zondi’s courage garnered the respect and <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/cheryl-zondi-expresses-gratitude-for-fierce-and-unwavering-support-17558016">overwhelming support</a> of ordinary South Africans, the government, civil society and women’s groups. The Minister for Women in the Presidency supported her during the trial, as did the Women’s League of the governing African National Congress (ANC), among others. </p>
<p>Contrast this with another high profile sexual assault trial in 2006, which took a very different turn. A young woman named Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo, then known only as <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017-09-14-zuma-took-me-to-his-bedroom/">Khwezi</a> accused ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma of rape. </p>
<p>She was vilified, marginalised and threatened by Zuma’s supporters and the ANC Women’s League turned their back on her. She was denigrated and <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/Voices/Time-to-shut-slut-shaming-factory-down-20150918">slut-shamed</a> by the patriarchal court system, shunned, and fled the country after the trial. Zuma was <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2006-05-08-zuma-found-not-guilty">acquitted</a> and went on to become the country’s president. </p>
<p>A great deal has changed in the ensuing 12 years.</p>
<p>Women at the country’s universities have been at the forefront of speaking out about a culture of rape on campuses, <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-south-african-defamation-law-stands-on-naming-and-shaming-58246">“naming and shaming”</a> the perpetrators. This has gained momentum in the wake of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/feesmustfall-the-poster-child-for-new-forms-of-struggle-in-south-africa-68773">#FeesMustFall</a> mass student movement that swept the country in 2015, demanding deep change at universities.</p>
<p>Survivors of campus rape want to tell their stories on their own terms. One such event was the <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Local/PE-Express/play-focuses-on-attacks-on-women-20181022">Rape Textile</a>, which used performance art, monologues, dance and poetry to narrate the trauma of a violent campus rape of two Nelson Mandela University students.</p>
<p>Higher Education and Training Minister, Naledi Pandor recently informed Parliament that <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20181009130251203">47 students</a> had been raped on campuses in 2017 and named the institutions involved. There is an urgent need for universities to discuss the ways in which to address sexual assault and rape on campuses.</p>
<h2>Fighting gender-based violence</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/after-a-deadly-month-for-domestic-violence-the-message-doesnt-appear-to-be-getting-through-105568">Strategies</a> to fight gender-based violence must educate society about why and in what ways sexual violence affects everyone. Men’s voices are critical in the fight and, here, role models are especially important. South African campaigns should also look at holding the public accountable for preventing gender-based violence.</p>
<p>Technology is a game changer in fighting gender-based violence in the 21st century – think of the powerful <a href="https://theconversation.com/metoo-a-year-on-media-troll-women-when-journalists-should-be-tackling-causes-of-sexual-abuse-104804">#MetToo</a> and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/survivors-explain-not-reporting-sexual-assaults/">#WhyIDidn’tReport</a> and other social media campaigns. But <a href="https://theconversation.com/metoo-has-arrived-in-india-and-its-changing-how-technology-is-used-to-fight-injustice-105755">technologies</a> like safety apps and global hashtags that include shared text messages, pictures and videos in private groups must be made more accessible to all South African women.</p>
<p>The availability of economical, lightweight <a href="https://theconversation.com/metoo-has-arrived-in-india-and-its-changing-how-technology-is-used-to-fight-injustice-105755">mobile technologies</a> could empower South African girls and women to share their stories and name their perpetrators. It is not only prevention but prosecution that is pivotal in getting justice for the country’s women.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lyn Snodgrass 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>Prevailing patriarchal and cultural norms in some societies prevent women victims of sexual crimes from talking out by shaming them.Lyn Snodgrass, Professor and Head of Department of Political and Conflict Studies, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/921932018-02-27T15:21:17Z2018-02-27T15:21:17ZThe case against free higher education: why it is neither just nor ethical<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207289/original/file-20180221-132647-1ki41rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Those demanding free higher education don't realise this would be a regressive policy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s just-ousted Minister of Finance committed another <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/national%20budget/2018/speech/speech.pdf">R57 billion</a> to higher education and training over the next three years. In his first (and last – he was removed from the portfolio less than a week later) budget speech, Malusi Gigaba followed through on former president Jacob Zuma’s <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/zuma-announces-free-higher-education-for-poor-and-working-class-students-20171216">controversial promise</a> in December last year of fee-free higher education. </p>
<p>The minister’s announcement is likely to be well-received by those who have supported <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/27/africa/fees-must-fall-student-protest-south-africa-explainer/index.html">the demand</a> by relatively small student groups that “Fees Must Fall”. Yet there is a major fault that is ignored by those who favour free higher education. It fails to provide a justification for increased allocation of resources to higher education on the grounds of equity or social justice. </p>
<p>There are <a href="http://www.chet.org.za/presentations/university-cape-town">persuasive</a> <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20160223145336908">arguments</a> that free higher education will be <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20150605131029778">unambiguously regressive</a>. This is because it involves a transfer of resources from lower to higher income individuals within a national population.</p>
<p>This has been evident in certain other African and South American countries, as well as in Western Europe. Some countries do offer free tertiary education. Germany and Norway are current examples. But, first, they are rich in per capita income terms. And, second, “free” is ambiguous because it covers only selected components and not the full cost of this level of education.</p>
<p>Free higher education must be judged inherently regressive. It <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20160223145336908">certainly will contribute</a> to South Africa’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-is-south-africa-the-most-unequal-society-in-the-world-48334">already high inequality</a> by international standards. </p>
<h2>From a social justice perspective</h2>
<p>To understand the social justice dimensions of the question requires that attention be paid to the end of the process of higher education, the outcome, not the beginning when the focus is on costs and who bears them.</p>
<p>The bulk of graduates in every higher education system enter the labour force’s upper echelons. This places graduates well up in the top 10% to 15% brackets of the national distribution of earned income. </p>
<p>Most significant from a social justice perspective, university graduates receive considerably more income than the median taxpayer, or those within the median tax bracket, who inhabit the middle of the array of taxable income levels in every country.</p>
<p>This observation applies to <em>direct</em> taxation: personal income tax, company or corporate tax, wealth taxes and estate duty levied on individuals or corporate entities. But the regressive nature of the income transfer to university graduates is even more striking when attention is directed to <em>indirect</em> taxation. Examples include VAT, fuel levies, import and excise duties and a large set of user charges. </p>
<p>Indirect taxes are not levied directly on liable persons or their income generating entities like companies and corporations. Yet ultimately such taxes are paid by all consumers, irrespective of their levels of income, because they are paid by entities who are not individual consumers. This makes them regressive: <em>everyone</em> in South Africa will pay 15% VAT and a higher fuel levy from now on, in line with the <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/national%20budget/2018/speech/speech.pdf">2018 budget speech</a>.</p>
<p>Regressive transfers financed by the state – taking from taxpayers and giving to students in the form of free higher education – is the main reason why international examples of free higher education are so few and far between. That is why the <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/financing-higher-education-worldwide">international literature</a> is generally sceptical – even hostile – to demands for free higher education. </p>
<p>One example widely cited is Australia where free higher education was decisively rejected in recent times. When a student loan scheme was under debate there about 20 years ago, the opponents of free higher education coined the slogan: <em>Why should bus drivers pay for the education of lawyers?</em> Why indeed? Today Australia possesses one of the world’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-does-australia-run-one-of-the-most-generous-student-loan-schemes-in-the-world-52696">most successful</a> national student loan schemes.</p>
<h2>Social justice matters</h2>
<p>In the real world of course, there are individual students who fall through the net and do not graduate. They miss out on becoming high-earning members of a national labour force. Consequently, a number of once enrolled students end up burdened by debt obtained while studying, either from private sector sources like banks or from the state under a tertiary education loan system.</p>
<p>But these individuals, together with entering higher education students from poor households who are eligible for subsidy from state sources in many countries, must be treated as <em>personal</em> cases. They are judged legitimate or not legitimate candidates for free higher education provided by government. </p>
<p>Each individual case has to be decided on its own merits. But when viewed as a <em>group</em>, usually small in number compared to total enrolment, they certainly do
not constitute a justification for free higher education throughout a given national system.</p>
<p>Another issue that should be a serious concern is that fiscal authorities in a country short of revenue simply cut the allocation to post-school education - universities and technical and vocational colleges. This has been the case for many years in South Africa, and happens because universities and post-school colleges are not an important constituency in the competition for resources. </p>
<p>This has led to <a href="https://chet.org.za/resources/sustainable-higher-education-funding-and-fees-south-africa">chronic underfunding</a>, a fact which has not been recognised by “Fees Must Fall” and free education activists. This is highly likely to continue as a major problem in the future if higher education is held to be nominally “free” in publicly stated policy.</p>
<p>If there are circumstances specific to South African higher education which might justify a claim for more resources to be devoted to post-school education, then these circumstances must be explained upfront and in detail. Thus far no “Free Education Planning Groups” at universities appear to have done so.</p>
<p>Every university has a responsibility to clarify the values by which it functions. This is a responsibility to all its members, as well as to the concerned public outside. The neglect of social justice in South Africa’s ongoing free higher education debate is highly surprising. It is also undermining of the values that must be explicit in the public sector allocation of resources.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92193/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Archer 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 ethical and political reasons to avoid free higher education are unambiguous.Sean Archer, Research associate, School of Economics, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/923582018-02-27T08:16:53Z2018-02-27T08:16:53ZSouth Africa: Ramaphosa administration lacks a long-term perspective<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208004/original/file-20180227-36696-1jm28o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa needs to formulate a long term strategy for economic growth with an eye on the 2019 elections. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/state-nation-address-president-republic-south-africa%2C-mr-cyril-ramaphosa">state of the nation address</a> and the <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/national%20budget/2018/speech/speech.pdf">budget speech</a> delivered by Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba – who was <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2018/02/26/watch-live-ramaphosa-reshuffles-his-cabinet">removed</a> from the job less than a week later – had something in common: they both lacked an animating narrative. And they both looked backwards rather than forwards.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa pinned his hopes on the <a href="https://www.gov.za/issues/national-development-plan-2030">National Development Plan</a> which was released six years ago, suggesting that he has not had much time to think about long-term economic recovery. </p>
<p>Gigaba’s budget speech was defined by the bad legacy of former president Jacob Zuma. The parlous state of governance and weak leadership of the economy has been costly to the economy. Essentially, South Africans are bearing the cost of poor leadership. </p>
<p>Both addresses didn’t leave a sense that there has been much reflection on the years ahead, the depth of the economic malaise gripping South Africa, and the storms that lie beyond the <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/newsmaker-2019-elections-results-will-be-credible-20171015-2">2019 general elections</a>. </p>
<p>The budget contained desperate increase in taxes, and some piecemeal allocations to various <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Budget/above-inflation-adjustments-to-social-grants-20180221">social causes</a>. But citizens were left with no clarity on what the future will look like. This includes the new character of government, the structure of state-owned enterprises, and long-term development commitments of the current administration.</p>
<p>Trying to formulate a long-term strategy a year before the elections is a tough act, especially since the mind of a politician tends to be constrained by short-term considerations and desire for popularity. But if the administration under Ramaphosa is going to be successful, this is precisely what it has to do – craft a sensible and bold long-term strategy for economic recovery.</p>
<h2>Tensions and interests</h2>
<p>In the medium-term, the effects of the budget will be felt by public-sector workers, who are likely to be squeezed hard during wage negotiations. As Gigaba indicated, one of the cost containment measures that government will pursue is limits to public sector wage increase.</p>
<p>Negotiations for a three-year framework are <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2018-01-18-public-service-wage-outcome-will-set-the-tone-for-other-sectors/">currently underway </a>. Depending on what the outcome is – and they are likely to last until June 2018 – they may very well complicate the proposed budgetary framework.</p>
<p>Some progress has been made in the negotiations between the government and the public-sector unions. But they are still at different positions on what the wage increase, over and above inflation, should be for the next three years. Unions are demanding consumer price index +3%, while government is offering consumer price index +1.5% for employees at lower levels. </p>
<p>This means that the public sector wage bill will increase. The only question is by how much.</p>
<p>On the positive side, major items in government spending remain those that matter to the poor. For example, R792bn has been allocated to basic education, R668bn to health and R528bn to social grants. </p>
<p>The budget has always included commitments that address issues of equity. This was true in Gigaba’s budget too. But, in the absence of a long-term plan for economic leadership, this too may come under threat once the general elections are out of the way.</p>
<p>There are other re-distributive measures targeted at constituencies that are important to the governing party. The R57bn allocation for free higher education may have been unplanned, but it helps government to stem any <a href="https://theconversation.com/feesmustfall-the-poster-child-for-new-forms-of-struggle-in-south-africa-68773">#Fees MustFall</a> protests that might snowball into rolling mass protests on the eve of the elections. </p>
<p>The largesse extended to business start-ups to the tune of <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-02-21-gigaba-budgets-r21-billion-for-small-business">R2.1bn</a>, and allocations to black producers in agriculture are all aimed at giving government a powerful platform to project its developmental credentials. </p>
<p>There are clearly tensions in the budget, with strong pressure to curtail public spending and to increase taxes on the one hand, while maintaining a pro-poor and developmental face on the other hand. This works in the short-term, but without a credible recovery plan the future looks foggy.</p>
<p>Further, what’s missing are clear plans to introduce greater efficiency in the public sector given that a lot of wastage happens across different spheres of government – as shown by various reports of the Auditor General –- as well as in state-owned enterprises. </p>
<p>Merely alluding to reform of these entities doesn’t help when there is no clear strategy on how government will shake things up – or by when. The statements by both Gigaba and Ramaphosa are too broad, and lacking a concrete plan on the reform of the public sector and state-owned entities.</p>
<h2>Need for decisiveness</h2>
<p>A major confidence-boosting action that should have been signalled in the budget speech is the need to reduce the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africa-would-do-well-to-fire-all-its-deputy-ministers-58809">bloated cabinet</a>. Even though this is unlikely to generate significant savings, it would signal government’s commitment to lead by example in cutting fat. Indeed, Ramaphosa has alluded that he will cut the size of the government. What is important is how government is restructured to trim the fat while also positioning it for effective execution. </p>
<p>Some ministries under Zuma were created to accommodate various factional interests within the ANC rather than to enhance the delivery capacities of the state. Similarly, diplomatic missions were a trove for politically connected cronies. These need to be reduced drastically to send a clear message about the priorities of government. </p>
<p>A great deal of work awaits Ramaphosa to get the country moving beyond the budget vote. He has little time to solve some of the major challenges facing the country, ranging from governance to socio-economic challenges. He can ill-afford to spend an inordinate amount of time consulting and building a consensus. South Africa is in the middle of a storm, and that requires some decisive steps (and risk taking). He should not spend too much time in the boardroom. As the former US secretary of state <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=jNusCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=Robert+Gates:+Leader,+firestorm,+powerpoint&source=bl&ots=d3uhId9uA7&sig=CB9x9ZVHMzZX3p9UXK4OcXlbB1g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwic6uL5gLzZAhUMDsAKHblpB0YQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=Robert%20Gates%3A%20Leader%2C%20firestorm%2C%20powerpoint&f=false">Robert Gates put it</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A leader placed in charge of an organisation facing a firestorm should reach for a hose, not a PowerPoint.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92358/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mzukisi Qobo 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>Both the state of the nation address and budget speech didn’t leave a sense that there has been much reflection on the depth of the economic malaise gripping South Africa.Mzukisi Qobo, Deputy Chair: SA Research Chair on African Diplomacy and Foreign Policy, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/920512018-02-20T13:01:19Z2018-02-20T13:01:19ZSouth Africa must resist another captured president: this time by the markets<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207235/original/file-20180221-132680-1l9blwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cyril Ramaphosa addresses MPs after being elected president of South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The African National Congress (ANC) has made a dangerous habit of bringing post-apartheid South Africa to the brink of instability and the common ruin of all. The <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-02-14-president-jacob-zuma-resigns/">resignation</a> of former President Jacob Zuma and his <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/live-goodbye-zuma-hello-president-cyril-20180215">replacement</a> by Cyril Ramaphosa was such a moment. It brought home the point that the over-concentration of power in the office of the president has clearly not worked. </p>
<p>A rethink on president-centred politics and the threats it poses to the democracy are crucial for the post-Zuma period. South Africa needs to re-imagine democratic practice, leadership and how power works. </p>
<p>Some sections of South African society have reduced the Zuma problem to a corruption problem. Dismantle Zuma’s <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/zuma-turned-sa-into-mafia-style-lawless-kleptocracy-saftu-20170805">kleptocratic network</a>, the argument goes, and all is solved. Zuma’s demise and a few high profile prosecutions will suffice. </p>
<p>But another view on the Zuma problem – and one with which I concur – suggests it is a problem of contending class projects inside the ANC. The <a href="http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/1789">neoliberal class project</a> under Presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki saw South Africa integrated into global markets. It maintained stability through modest redistributive reforms. This project laid the basis for a new black middle class to <a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2003/01/01/neoliberalism-and-resistance-in-south-africa/">emerge</a> while systematically <a href="http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/14466/theresponsesoftradeunionstotheeffectsofneoliberalisminsouthafrica.pdf?sequence=1">weakening</a> labour and the left.</p>
<p>But it <a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-neoliberal-squeeze-on-post-apartheid-democracy-reclaiming-the-south-african-dream/28453">surrendered</a> the state (including the presidency) to transnational capital and the power of finance. </p>
<p>The Zuma project, on the other hand, <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Opinion/zumas-radical-economic-transformation-is-state-looting-20170404">advanced looting</a> as the basis of accumulation and class formation. The <a href="https://www.news24.com/Columnists/MaxduPreez/the-fatal-flaw-in-project-state-capture-20171205">extra-constitutional state</a> that emerged deepened the macroeconomic, institutional and legitimacy crisis of the ANC-led state. The left and labour, aligned with the ANC in the tripartite alliance, were <a href="https://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-opinion/sa-workers-must-brace-for-a-dark-new-year/">co-opted</a> and divided. Both these projects are entrenched in the ANC.</p>
<p>Now what? Messiah-centred presidential politics is extremely dangerous. This is particularly true in a country of extreme inequality and with a formal concentration of power in the office of the president. If politics is not represented, thought and acted beyond this, South Africa is going to repeat historical mistakes.</p>
<p>Since the ANC’s December 2017 conference the media, the banks and international institutions have been talking up a narrative of the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/01/25/the-gaining-rand-and-the-cyril-effect-what-it-means-for-your-pocket_a_23343014/">“Cyril effect”</a>. Zuma’s removal is attributed to this. In fact the Cyril effect is a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/02/12/will-sas-economy-really-benefit-from-the-cyril-effect_a_23359238/">narrative</a> of capture of South Africa’s new president by transnational and financial capital.</p>
<p>South Africa’s democracy cannot afford another captured president beholden to <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Economy/ratings-agencies-note-ramaphosas-election-but-swift-upgrade-unlikely-20180215">credit rating agencies</a>, <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/opinion-ramaphosa-isnt-the-only-winner-so-is-the-rand-12486405">currency fluctuations</a>, investment flows and business <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/safrica-economy/south-african-mining-seen-a-winner-as-ramaphosa-woos-investors-idUSL8N1PJ4EN">perceptions</a>. South Africa’s democracy has to be grounded in the needs of its citizens and the mandates given by its Constitution.</p>
<h2>The ‘Cyril effect’ is hyperbole</h2>
<p>The end of Zuma was in fact not because of the Cyril effect. In the main Zuma was removed by the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-17450447">people’s effect</a> which connected the dots of corruption, a mismanaged state and rapacious capitalism. </p>
<p>This resistance was expressed over 15 years through various institutions and social forces. These included:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Battles inside the South African Communist Party (SACP) against <a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/south-africa-zumafication-left-politics-alliance">Zumafication</a> but which led to expulsions;</p></li>
<li><p>By feminists during Zuma’s rape trial and subsequently through <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-10-09-rememberkhwezi-zumas-rape-accuser-dies-never-having-known-freedom/#.Wovpsa6WbIU">#RememberKhwezi</a>;</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.zapiro.com/120520st">Artists</a> and cartoonists lampooning Zuma, including with <a href="https://www.zapiro.com/">shower heads</a>;</p></li>
<li><p>The ongoing struggles in communities against <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-ancs-path-to-corruption-was-set-in-south-africas-1994-transition-64774">corrupt officials</a>;</p></li>
<li><p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/marikana-shining-the-light-on-police-militarisation-and-brutality-in-south-africa-44162">Marikana massacre</a> in 2012. This produced rage among workers and major realignments away from Zuma’s ANC;</p></li>
<li><p>The <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2014/04/20/Numsa-calls-for-Zuma-to-resign">call</a> by trade unions like the metalworkers’ Numsa for Zuma’s removal;</p></li>
<li><p>The <a href="http://www.polity.org.za/article/sa-statement-by-the-sidikiwe-vukani-vote-no-campaign-calls-on-south-africans-to-endorse-campaign-16042014-2014-04-16">Vukani-Sidikiwe</a> campaign during the 2014 elections which opened up a national debate on how citizens should vote; </p></li>
<li><p>The rise of #ZumaMustGo Campaign. This was in response to the sacking of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-removal-of-south-africas-finance-minister-is-bad-news-for-the-country-52170">Nhlanhla Nene</a> as finance minister in December 2015. The NUMSA-led United Front played a crucial role in this;</p></li>
<li><p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-zumamustfall-and-feesmustfall-have-in-common-and-why-it-matters-53115">#FeesMustFall</a> movement. Students’ demands included labour insourcing as well as quality, decommodified and decolonised higher education;</p></li>
<li><p>The <a href="https://www.news24.com/elections/results/lge">2016 local government elections</a>. These were a harbinger of seismic political realignments against the ANC in key cities;</p></li>
<li><p>The role of <a href="http://amabhungane.co.za/">investigative and nonpartisan media</a> in probing corruption scandals. And the publication of the <a href="http://www.gupta-leaks.com/">Gupta-leaks</a> as well as <a href="http://www.jacana.co.za/book-categories/new-releases-65840/a-simple-man-kasrils-and-the-zuma-enigma-detail">“A Simple Man”</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/two-books-that-tell-the-unsettling-tale-of-south-africas-descent-87044">“The President’s Keepers”</a>;</p></li>
<li><p>The courageous role from 2010 onwards of then <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/thulisile-nomkhosi-madonsela">public protector Thuli Mandonsela</a> in drawing attention to ethics and legal violations by Zuma;</p></li>
<li><p>Court decisions affirming the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/display-judicial-independence-south-african-court-denies-zuma-again">judiciary’s independence</a> in relation to Zuma;</p></li>
<li><p>Zuma’s miscalculation in <a href="https://theconversation.com/stakes-for-south-africas-democracy-are-high-as-zuma-plunges-the-knife-75550">firing finance minister Pravin Gordhan</a>, the rallying of activists and the rise of <a href="http://www.savesouthafrica.org/">#SaveSouthAfrica</a>. What followed were some of the largest post-apartheid <a href="https://theconversation.com/rebellion-is-on-the-march-against-zuma-but-will-it-be-enough-to-oust-him-75862">protest marches</a>;</p></li>
<li><p>The powerful voice of liberation struggle veterans like <a href="https://theconversation.com/ahmed-kathrada-exhibit-a-of-the-values-imbued-in-south-africas-freedom-charter-75339">Ahmed Kathrada</a> and others who called for Zuma to resign.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>The ANC’s legitimacy crisis</h2>
<p>As a result of all this activity the crisis of legitimacy in the ANC – and the ANC state – has deepened. This has placed immense pressure on the party to act. In this context, Ramaphosa is playing out his role out of necessity and to secure the ANC’s electoral fortunes.</p>
<p>For middle class and rich South Africans Ramaphosa’s <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/state-nation-address-president-republic-south-africa%2C-mr-cyril-ramaphosa">state of the nation</a> speech represented a return to normalcy – a democracy that works for a few. That’s not to say that the new president didn’t make some important announcements in his state of the nation address. This included his comments about state owned enterprises, redistributive state programmes and anti-corruption mechanisms. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the speech struck chords that resonated with the “return to normalcy” narrative.</p>
<p>But South Africans can’t repeat the mistake made in 1994 when progressive civil society <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2012.666011?scroll=top&needAccess=true">demobilised</a>. The people’s effect has to continue to shape a post-Zuma democracy in the interests of all. The ANC has abused majority support and cannot be trusted with the future of South Africa.</p>
<p>People’s power has to be strengthened and continuously mobilised around strengthening democratic institutions, ending corruption, fundamental economic transformation and advancing systemic alternatives to the climate crisis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92051/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vishwas Satgar receives funding from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and the National Institute of the Humanities and Social Sciences. He has been engaged in various activist initiatives against the Zuma Regime. </span></em></p>Jacob Zuma was removed by the people’s effect, which connected the dots of corruption, a mismanaged state and rapacious capitalism.Vishwas Satgar, Associate Professor, Department of International Relations, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/876882017-11-19T09:17:35Z2017-11-19T09:17:35ZOptions on the table as South Africa wrestles with funding higher education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195208/original/file-20171117-7559-1sfexx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The storm clouds above South Africa's universities could be dissipated with careful fiscal planning.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.presidency.gov.za/press-statements/release-report-commission-inquiry-feasibility-making-high-education-and-training">A report</a> into the feasibility of offering free higher education at South Africa’s universities has finally been released. It has been nearly two years in the making, developed by a commission of inquiry that President Jacob Zuma set up in response to nationwide fee protests.</p>
<p>The lengthy report provides an accurate diagnosis of the state of higher education funding, as well as the problems it faces. But its proposed solutions are problematic. Many of its limitations arise from a failure to properly integrate an understanding of public finance and public economics into the analysis and recommendations.</p>
<p>The Commission’s report gets two critical things right – even though neither will please student activists. The first is that planned student numbers are simply too high and should be revised downwards. The second is that the country simply can’t afford free higher education for all students given its other priorities and weak economy.</p>
<p>But its recommendations are poor. Models are proposed that represent, I would argue, a significant step backwards from scenarios developed by the Department of Higher Education and Training two years ago. The department’s scenarios are indirectly supported in another report that’s just been released, by the <a href="http://www.taxcom.org.za/docs/20171113%20DTC%20report%20on%20funding%20of%20tertiary%20education%20-%20on%20website.pdf">Davis Tax Committee</a>. </p>
<p>The tax committee endorses a hybrid scheme for higher education funding. This would retain and increase grants for poor students’ university fees. It would use loans to fund the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-south-africa-university-is-open-to-rich-and-poor-but-what-about-the-missing-middle-36801">missing middle</a>” – students from households that earn too much to qualify for government funding but still can’t afford higher education. If South Africa’s concern is really about immediate improvements in equitable access to higher education for poor students, this is the option that should be receiving the most attention.</p>
<h2>The Fees Commission report</h2>
<p>I have <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-feesmustfall-protests-some-inconvenient-truths-67516">argued previously</a> that one reason for the current state of affairs has been excessive student enrolment, relative to appropriate standards and adequate resources. Yet various <a href="http://www.dhet.gov.za/SiteAssets/Latest%20News/White%20paper%20for%20post-school%20education%20and%20training.pdf">policy documents</a> <a href="https://www.gov.za/issues/national-development-plan-2030">propose</a> rapid increases to enrolment in the coming decades.</p>
<p>The fees commission correctly argues in its report that these projected enrolment numbers are unrealistic. It points out that such high student numbers threaten quality and make adequate funding even more unlikely. It recommends that the numbers be revised downwards.</p>
<p>The commission also does well in recognising that – <a href="https://theconversation.com/latest-budget-underscores-desperate-state-of-south-africas-finances-86362">given</a> the state of South Africa’s economy, public finances and other important government priorities – free higher education for all – or even most students – is simply not feasible or desirable. It rejects both the possibility of fully funded higher education and the demand for university fees to be abolished. But it endorses the abolition of application and registration fees, along with regulation of university fees.</p>
<p>There are three critical issues within the current student funding system.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>What household income threshold should be used to determine student eligibility for support from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) to ensure all students who need partial or full support are covered?</p></li>
<li><p>What resources are needed to ensure that all students below the threshold receive the adequate funding; up to full cost where necessary?</p></li>
<li><p>How should the support provided be structured in terms of grants versus loans, or combinations of these?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The commission errs in trying to address these questions.</p>
<h2>A worsening of equity</h2>
<p>The fees commission’s fundamental proposal in response to the demand for free higher education is the adoption of an income-contingent loan (ICL) scheme. Under this all students regardless of family income who register for university are funded by loans up to the full cost of study.</p>
<p>These loans would be from private banks based on guarantees of repayment from government. In other words, after a specified number of years either the student or the government would have to start repaying the loan. There are numerous problems with this model.</p>
<p>The ICL would, in some ways, constitute a worsening of equity. Poor students who currently qualify for NSFAS grants would now only get loans. </p>
<p>In the ICL scheme, either students pay or the government does. The current state of the higher education system suggests a significant number of students will not be able to repay such loans. But nowhere does the commission calculate the implications for future government expenditure.</p>
<p>A number of other proposals are seriously problematic. One involves extending the loan scheme to students in private higher education institutions. This constitutes a dramatic change in post-apartheid policy, potentially leading to indirect privatisation of the higher education system without proper consultation or sound basis for doing so. </p>
<p>Another is the suggestion that higher education expenditure should be benchmarked as 1% of South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product. This is wrongheaded because it does not take into account the proportion of young people in the country or the state of the basic education system.</p>
<p>The Davis Tax Commission’s report is more narrowly focused but, perhaps as a result, endorses arguably the best and most feasible way forward for tertiary funding.</p>
<h2>Better scenarios</h2>
<p>The current NSFAS threshold is R122,000, which means that students whose households earn less than this in a year qualify for funding by the scheme. There are two problems: first, not even all students below this threshold are getting all the financial support <a href="http://www.presidency.gov.za/press-statements/release-report-commission-inquiry-feasibility-making-high-education-and-training">they need</a>. Second, there are students in the “missing middle” who are above the threshold. They cannot fully fund themselves but have no access to support.</p>
<p><a href="https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/21700/">In 2015</a> the department of higher education and training provided rough estimates of the cost of raising the NSFAS threshold and fully funding students below the different, hypothetical thresholds.</p>
<p>It estimated that increasing the NSFAS threshold to R217,00 and covering full cost of study for all students below that would require an extra R12.3bil in 2016/17 for approximately 210,000 students.</p>
<p>The Davis Tax Commission effectively endorses this scenario, proposing a hybrid scheme that retains and increases grants for poor students and university fees, but uses income-contingent loans to fund the missing middle. It estimates that an additional R15 billion could be raised annually for higher education through a combination of increasing the rate of income tax for the highest earners by 1.5%; increasing capital gains tax for corporations; and, raising the <a href="http://www.sars.gov.za/TaxTypes/SDL/Pages/default.aspx">skills levy</a> by 0.5%. </p>
<p>In contrast, the commission’s proposals for raising funds for the loan scheme and other proposals – such as taking R50 billion from a surplus in the <a href="http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/legislation/acts/unemployment-insurance-fund/unemployment-insurance-fund">unemployment insurance fund</a> for infrastructure investment – arguably violate some fundamental public finance principles and may be illegal.</p>
<p>The tax committee’s report suggests that the department’s scenario is feasible from a public finance perspective. If the government is genuinely concerned with creating maximally equitable access to higher education for poor students, this is the immediate option that should be receiving the most attention. The design and cost of a more modest income-contingent loan scheme for those students who are not covered, even with expanded support, will require detailed technical analysis and further discussion. Some related work has been done under the umbrella of a separate income-contingent loan initiative, the Ikusasa Student Financial Aid Programme, which could be useful. As the commission report notes in rejecting it, however, there are various concerns about the actual financial aid programme proposal that make it an unconvincing option at this stage. </p>
<p>The different all-or-nothing approaches being proposed by student activists and the fees commission risk the possibility of hundreds of thousands of poor and needy students not being assisted – even though the resources are available to do so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87688/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Seán Mfundza Muller has received support from the Heinrich Boell Foundation to participate in parliamentary oversight processes relating to the 2017 medium-term budget policy statement, and is actively involved in providing technical support and advice to a number of civil society organisations on a range of public finance matters -- including education and higher education funding.</span></em></p>Alternative scenarios for tertiary funding in South Africa are set out in a completely separate report from the Davis Tax Committee drawing from work done by the higher education department.Seán Mfundza Muller, Senior Lecturer in Economics and Research Associate at the Public and Environmental Economics Research Centre (PEERC), University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/845312017-09-28T12:27:44Z2017-09-28T12:27:44ZKing Kong: legendary South African musical returns to a fragmented country<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187988/original/file-20170928-1488-13bkro7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Andile Gumbi beats down his opponent Given Mkhize in the King Kong musical.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Hogg</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After an absence of over half a century, the courageous musical <a href="https://www.kingkongstagemusical.com/about">“King Kong”</a> has smashed its way back into the collective South African consciousness. On tour in South Africa, “King Kong” is one of the most successful and controversial musicals ever to have been produced in the country.</p>
<p>Back in 1959 the jazz musical toured the country’s major cities to, at times, sold out venues. It was seen by roughly 200,000 people before moving to London’s West End. Set to music of composer <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/todd-tozama-matshikiza">Todd Matshikiza</a>, it launched the international careers of musical greats, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/miriam-makeba">Miriam Makeba</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/hugh-masekela">Hugh Masekela</a>, among many others.</p>
<p>The narrative, which does not involve any giant apes (as in the <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/king-kong-years-how-giant-gorilla-has-evolved-1933-982360">film</a> with the same name), follows the life story of 1950s heavyweight boxer Ezekiel Dlamini, who was better known by his ring name “King Kong”. Briefly stated, Dlamini becomes something of a township hero in the darkening days of apartheid by rising to boxing superstardom. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/king-kong-musical-1959-1961">story</a> follows the highs and lows of his life, his fall from grace, and eventual suicide in a hard labour camp. Presenting the harsh realities of life in South Africa’s townships, gangsterism and the belligerent indifference of the apartheid state, the production quickly rose to notoriety. It was a collaborative effort that ignored the racial boundaries so vehemently enforced by the apartheid government. It also drew critical acclaim from multiracial audiences.</p>
<h2>Kong in the era of Fallism</h2>
<p>The timing of this latest production is interesting. Aside from a failed revival attempt in 1979, “King Kong” has been absent for almost 60 years. The musical was originally performed within the historical backdrop of the construction of so-called <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">“grand apartheid”</a> under then prime minister <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/hendrik-frensch-verwoerd">Hendrik Verwoerd</a>. </p>
<p>The 1950s saw a flurry of legislative activity on the part of the apartheid government, affecting everything from education to land, labour and love. The decade also saw 156 people, including Nelson Mandela, put on trial in 1956 and charged with High Treason for their alleged actions against the state. The proceedings, which culminated in charges being dropped in 1961, would become engraved into South Africa’s history and known simply as <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/treason-trial-1956-1961">“The Treason Trial”</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qn7cmLYc9D4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">From the original 1950s ‘King Kong’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the fall of minority rule, Kong showed no signs of returning throughout the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/nelson-mandela-robben-island-rainbow-nation-marian-pallister-0">“Rainbow Nation” years</a> of the late 1990s under the moral, political, and spiritual leadership of figures like Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. No, Kong has returned at an historical moment of unprecedented social strife in the post-liberation era. </p>
<p>Despite over two decades of democracy, over the past two years South Africa has witnessed <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=feesmustfall">protests</a> against colonial and apartheid monuments. Demands for decolonisation across the country’s education system and student protests have been seen unlike anything in recent memory. In the digital age of hashtag student movements and demands for radical transformation, King Kong’s themes of harsh living conditions, socioeconomic immobility, corruption and gangsterism are unsettingly familiar and contemporary for many South Africans. </p>
<p>The country’s relatively peaceful transition from institutionalised racism and disenfranchisement to fully democratic state is often held in high esteem, and rightly so. It was indeed a remarkable achievement, given that many other post-colonial African nations suffered immense turmoil during the colonial withdrawals of the 1960s and 70s. </p>
<p>But South Africans must be careful. In the haste to celebrate the atmosphere of reconciliation, truth and amnesty that largely characterised the transition, the troubling lack of social and economic mobility that the country has experienced since then is often overlooked. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lesser-known-and-scarier-facts-about-unemployment-in-south-africa-83055">Unemployment</a> remains startlingly high, with young black South Africans bearing the largest burden. </p>
<p>Despite a drop in relative poverty in recent years, the country continues to display some of the highest levels of <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-to-fix-its-dangerously-wide-wealth-gap-66355">economic and social inequality</a> in the world. What these issues illustrate are the enduring legacies of white minority rule and the lack of socioeconomic transformation in the post liberation era. “King Kong” has come home after an almost 60 year absence to find that the country does not look so different.</p>
<h2>A tale of two South Africas</h2>
<p>“King Kong” embodies the germinating seeds of two potential and mutually exclusive South Africas. Writing about the opening night in Johannesburg, one columnist for the city’s <em>The Star</em> newspaper mused: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>All I know is that by the end of the evening every one of us in the audience could have leapt up and danced and sung with the cast, such was the magic of the evening.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This column was not written about the 2017 opening night. It was written in 1959. It shows the extraordinary capacity of the arts to transcend the toxic racial politics of the time. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187989/original/file-20170928-1466-yhjxa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187989/original/file-20170928-1466-yhjxa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187989/original/file-20170928-1466-yhjxa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187989/original/file-20170928-1466-yhjxa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187989/original/file-20170928-1466-yhjxa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187989/original/file-20170928-1466-yhjxa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187989/original/file-20170928-1466-yhjxa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187989/original/file-20170928-1466-yhjxa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Miriam Makeba playing the role of the Shebeen Queen in the 1959 production of King Kong.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Irene Menell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During its long absence, the production became emblematic of what could be achieved through collaboration across racial lines. In the post-liberation and post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission age, “King Kong” has the potential to help resuscitate debate around the now fatigued rainbow optimism of the late 1990s.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187993/original/file-20170928-8391-p9911.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187993/original/file-20170928-8391-p9911.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187993/original/file-20170928-8391-p9911.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187993/original/file-20170928-8391-p9911.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187993/original/file-20170928-8391-p9911.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187993/original/file-20170928-8391-p9911.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187993/original/file-20170928-8391-p9911.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nondumiso Tembe as the Shebeen Queen in the 2017 production.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Hogg</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The moral tale of “King Kong” still resonates in contemporary South Africa. As such, the production can just as easily be considered as a poignant reminder that South Africa is still socially and politically fragmented.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84531/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Robert Walker 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 returned musical “King Kong” embodies the germinating seeds of two potential and mutually exclusive South Africas.Gavin Robert Walker, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Ethnomusicology, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.