On 11 Nov 99, at 17:49, Mr P.A. Van Heusden wrote:
> ... In the South African case, 'civil society' has come to mean those
> politically active and interested groups outside of government who can
> influence government - so that's NGOs (which in South Africa historically
> played an important role in the 'progressive' movement), CBOs (Community
> Based Organisations - the 'civics' which grew up to represent township
> residents in the 1980s), and so forth. One of the arguments put forward by
> some people on the 'left' in South Africa is that coalitions of this
> 'civil society' - i.e. political activity outside of the government and
> the ANC - could be the basis for working class consolidation and
> organisation against the government.
>
> While there is something to be said for the argument (and Patrick B. could
> probably say it with more force), there is very often a danger that
> participation in 'civil society' could mean little more than a talk shop
> organised on the basis of foreign donor funding.
(That debate, by the way, just transpired within the relatively important SA NGO Coalition, and it appears that the left position, aimed at social struggle not neoliberal-populism, has won out. At least rhetorically.) (Cde Grinker, control yourself please.)
Elite Transition--From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa (February 2000):
... All the more reason to briefly revisit the continued radical instincts of a few high- quality unions, community-based organisations, women's and youth groups, Non-Governmental Organisations, think-tanks, networks of CBOs and NGOs, progressive churches, political groups and independent leftists. Their 1994-96 surge of shopfloor, student and community wildcat protests had subsided, true, yet IMF Riots continued to break out in dozens of impoverished black townships subject to high increases in service charges and power/water cutoffs. Yet while virtually invisible to the chattering classes, this mode of South African politics was just as-- perhaps far more--likely to inform ANC Alliance rhetoric in coming years as was the banal defensiveness about the first democratic government's failure to fully appease the privileged.
What, then, did radical civil society think about post-apartheid policy? Those most often in the firing line were the ANC economic team. Manuel and his bureaucrats were condemned by left critics not only for sticking so firmly to Gear when all targets (except inflation) were missed, but also for sometimes draconian fiscal conservatism; for leaving VAT intact on basic goods, and amplifying (especially in 1999) his predecessors' tax cuts favouring big firms and rich people; for real (after-inflation) cuts in social spending at the same time the Finance Ministry demonstrated a fanatic willingness to repay apartheid-era debt; for restructuring the state pension funds to benefit old-guard civil servants; for letting Anglo American, Old Mutual, and South African Breweries (three of the country's largest corporates) shift headquarters to London; for liberalising foreign exchange and turning a blind eye to capital flight (in particular allowing Standard Bank to give œ50 million to its London subsidiary to cover bad Russian loans); for granting permission to demutualise the two big insurance companies; for failing to more aggressively regulate financial institutions (especially in terms of racial and gender bias); for not putting discernable pressure on Chris Stals to bring down interest rates; for initially putting forth legislation that would have transferred massive pension fund surpluses (subsequent to the stock market bubble) from joint- worker/employer control straight to employers (though Cosatu prevented this); and for publicly endorsing controversial figures like Camdessus and Harvard Business School's Michael Porter, whose deregulatory, export- oriented advice generated none of the promised benefits.
Likewise, minister of trade and industry Alec Erwin was attacked for the deep post- 1994 cuts in protective tariffs leading to massive job loss (including a 1999 European Free Trade deal which would deindustrialise SA even further, and endorsing a controversial US version of the same strategy); for his weakness, as president of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, in allowing the neoliberal agenda to prevail on issues such as the Multilateral Agreement on Investments and continuing structural adjustment philosophy; for giving out billions of rands in `supply-side' subsidies (redirected RDP funds) for Spatial Development Initiatives, considered `corporate welfare'; for cutting decentralisation grants which led to the devastation of ex- bantustan production sites; for inserting huge loopholes in what was once a tough liquor policy; for a dreadful record of small business promotion; for lifting the Usury Act exemption (i.e., deregulating the 32 percent interest rate ceiling on loans) at a time when even Manuel was decrying moneylenders' rip-off interest rates; and for failing to impose a meaningful anti-monopoly and corporate regulatory regime.
Land affairs and agriculture minister Derek Hanekom was jeered by emergent farmers associations and rural social movements for failing to redirect agricultural subsidies; for allowing privatisation of marketing boards; for redistributing a tiny amount of land (in part because he adopted a World Bank-designed policy); for failing to give sufficient backup support to large communal farming projects and for not fighting Constitutional property rights with more gusto.
Housing minister Sankie Mthembi- Mahanyele (and her former Director-General Billy Cobbett and indeed Joe Slovo before his 1995 death) came under fire from the civic movement for lack of consultation, insufficient housing subsidies; for `toilets-in-the-veld' developments far from urban opportunities; for a near-complete lack of rural housing; for gender design insensitivity; for violating numerous detailed RDP housing provisions; and for relying upon bank-driven processes- -via behind-closed-door agreements that the banks immediately violated with impunity-- which were extremely hostile to community organisations.
Welfare minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi was bitterly criticised by a church, NGO and welfare advocacy movement for attempting to cut the child maintenance grant by 40 percent; and for failing to empower local community organisations and social workers.
Education minister Sibusiso Bengu was censured by teachers unions, the student movement and movement education experts for often incompetent--and typically not sufficiently far-reaching--restructuring policies; for failure to redistribute resources fairly; and for a narrow, instrumentalist approach to higher education.
Minister of constitutional development Valli Moosa was condemned by municipal workers and communities unhappy with the frightening local government fiscal squeeze; for intensifying municipal water cut-offs; for the privatisation of local services (on behalf of which he tried to divide-and- conquer workers and community activists); for low infrastructure standards (such as mass pit latrines in urban areas); and for preparations underway to effectively end--by siting at vast distances--local democracy for millions of South Africans (by closing half the country's 843 local municipalities through amalgamation).
Aside from his role in certifying arms sales to regimes like Algeria (which he defended for having had recent `elections,' no matter that the government refused to recognise their results), water minister Kader Asmal earned the wrath not only of unions for his privatised rural water programme, but also of beneficiary communities for whom the majority of the new taps quickly broke (the vast majority of waterless South Africans remained without water, notwithstanding Asmal's RDP commitment to supply all with at least emergency supplies); and he was condemned by environmentalists and Gauteng community activists for stubbornly championing the unneeded Lesotho Highlands Water Project expansion.
Defense minister Joe Modise and deputy minister Ronnie Kasrils were denounced for their R30 billion `toys-for-boys' approach to rearmament (with obfuscating `spinoffs' justification); as well as for arms sales to repressive regimes in and beyond Africa. Likewise, intelligence head Joe Nhlanhla was criticised for not shaking up the National Intelligence Agency, which cannibalised itself in spy versus spy dramas.
Safety and security minister Sydney Mufamadi was considered weak for not transforming policing services more thoroughly (thus generating active protest from the Popcru union); for allocating far more resources to fighting crime in white neighbourhoods and downtown areas than in townships; for allowing a top-down managerial approach to overwhelm potential community- based policing; and for failing to sustain his battle with George Fivas.
Foreign minister Alfred Nzo was ridiculed by Democratic Movement solidarity organisations for chaotic and generally conservative foreign policy, including flipflops on both Nigeria generals (first hostile then friendly) and Laurent Kabila's Democratic Republic of the Congo (once friendly then hostile); for cozying up to Indonesian dictator Suharto (Cape of Good Hope medalist a few months before popular revulsion sent him packing); for the Lesotho invasion fiasco; for often playing a role as US lackey; for prioritising arms sales over human rights; and for the failure of South African leadership to put forward or sustain progressive positions in the Non-Aligned Movement, the Southern African Development Community, Organisation of African Unity, the Commonwealth, and other venues.
Environment minister Pallo Jordan was seen to be exceedingly lazy in enforcing environmental regulations, particularly when it came to mining houses; as well as for failing to generate innovative community-based tourism opportunities to attract the ANC's international supporters. His department, while paying lip service to `consultations' with environmentalists, was considered an inactive, untransformed bureaucracy which failed to conduct rudimentary monitoring and inspection and instead passed the buck to ill- equipped provinces.
Labour minister Tito Mboweni was, while in Cabinet (before taking up a position as governor-designate of the Reserve Bank in June 1998), attacked by trade union experts for a Labour Relations Act that disempowered unions by overemphasising what were seen as co-optive workplace forums. His successor Membathisi Mdladlana was understood to have won the job because, as the Mail and Guardian put it, `he was so vocally contemptuous of trade unions in the ANC caucus that Mbeki decided he was the man to sort out the workers.'
Notwithstanding periodic denials, posts and telecommunications minister Jay Naidoo was regularly criticised not only for condoning the Americanisation of broadcasting (under an excessively heavy hand of the state); but for his partial sale--and hence rapid commercialisation--of Telkom, which entailed dramatic increases in local phone tariffs and price cuts for international calls.
Health minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was attacked by progressive health workers not only for lethargy on AIDS (such as the refusal to provide cheap anti-virals to pregnant women, and deep pedagogical confusion as witnessed in the Sarafina 2 episode) but also for cutting too deeply into hospital budgets before promised clinics materialised; for deemphasising community health workers and more innovative primary health care strategies, and for failing to mobilise allies in civil society before going into sometimes suicidal (though salutary) battle against tobacco companies, international pharmaceutical corporations (and with them Al Gore and the US government), urban doctors, medical aids firms and insurance companies.
Transport minister Mac Maharaj became notorious for ignoring his RDP mandate to promote public transport (`It is a living document,' he would quip); for deregulating many areas of formerly-regulated transport; for failing to convincingly curb violence and bring order to the murderous taxi industry; for allowing the train system to decay; for privatising and outsourcing large sections of his department (and pushing the commercialisation ideology on municipalities); and for allowing subsidies to impoverished commuters to stagnate (and indeed suffer phaseout) without sufficient changes in apartheid-era socio-economic and geographical relations (yet Maharaj described himself, as late as 1998, as a `marxist').
No one understood public works minister Jeff Radebe's dramatic reduction in national staff capacity (retrenching most of his civil servants and outsourcing many functions); his department's tendency to favour old-guard consulting firms and to leave communities out of local `community-based' projects (which in any case received a surprisingly low priority); the high level of provincial public works incompetence and corruption; the lack of progress on establishing an indigenous construction industry (notwithstanding tendering opportunities); and extremely low pay for contract workers on rural public works projects.
Energy minister Penuell Maduna's critics included many concerned about the corrupt nexus he nurtured involving local and Liberian con artists; his baseless, unsuccessful attack on the auditor general's bona fides (which, he later conceded in court, he `couldn't be bothered' to publicly remedy once proven wrong); the liberalisation of nuclear energy (and, via a state bureaucrat, the scandalous deal that exempted mining houses from radiation regulation); his failure to transform power relations in the mining and energy industries; and his lack of attention to the needs of small-scale miners and to most new electricity consumers whose tariffs were five to ten times as much as those paid, per kilowatt hour, by Alusaf, Billiton and other favourites of Eskom.
Public services minister Zola Skweyiya was criticised for not moving quickly enough in slimming down apartheid-era bureaucratic activity in the state and establishing new, more appropriate, developmental job opportunities for the unemployed and unskilled.
Public enterprises minister Stella Sigcau was criticised for a completely shallow, foreign-influenced approach to privatising parastatals (but applauded for being extremely inefficient in winning support and carrying privatisation through).
Justice minister Dullah Omar was considered weak for leaving enormous residual power in old-guard judicial and prosecutorial hands; for allowing enormous problems in the criminal justice system to develop; for his uncreative approach to formalising community-based justice institutions; for failing to reform court procedures in cases of sexual offenses against women; and for not transforming the legal aid system, hence effectively ignoring Constitutional guarantees of access to courts which for most South Africans are denied due to lack of affordability.
Sports minister Steve Tshwete was considered excessively lenient in allowing sports bodies to retain existing race, gender and class privileges; and especially for failing to establish viable recreational opportunities for the mass of low-income South Africans.
To be sure, there were occasions when at least one minister, Dlamini-Zuma, revelled in (and was praised by civil society activists for) taking on extremely powerful corporations and vested interests. Yet as noted, these fights also showed a penchant for going it virtually alone, bringing on board none of Dlamini- Zuma's likely civil society allies. In that context, her public image as a heat-seeking missile was never effectively countered, even though it would not have hard to have positioned herself as intermediary between protesting grassroots social movements and corporate titans. And this indeed sums up the broader character of `talk-left, act-right' politics; for even the exception proves the rule.
The contrast with what could have been done, were ANC ministers in true alliance with the grassroots social-change movements, was hinted at in `The State, Property Relations and Social Transformation,' where Netshitenzhe insisted that, in view of `counter-action by those opposed to change,'
Mass involvement is therefore both a
spear of rapid advance and a shield
against resistance. Such involvement
should be planned to serve the strategic
purpose, proceeding from the premise
that revolutionaries deployed in various
areas of activity at least try to pull in the
same direction. When `pressure from
below' is exerted, it should aim at
complementing the work of those who
are exerting `pressure' against the old
order `from above.'
This honourable strategy--essentially, encouraging ruling politicians to build (and offer public respect to) a `left flank' in civil society as a buffer against the Old Guard-- was, frankly, void in reality. Virtually all first- term ministers' gaping digression from Netshitenzhe's approach cannot be explained simply by the perceived need for emergency social stabilisation measures--such as calling out the army to quell mid-1994 wildcat strikes by transport workers--or Mandela's often stern, consensual-patriarchal approach to governance. Lumping mass-action protests together with the shooting of policy, Mandela warned at the opening of parliament in 1995,
Let it be clear to all that the battle
against the forces of anarchy and chaos
has been joined ... Some have misread
freedom to mean license, popular
participation to mean the ability to
impose chaos ... Let me make
abundantly clear that the small minority
in our midst which wears the mask of
anarchy will meet its match in the
government we lead ... The government
literally does not have the money to
meet the demands that are being
advanced ... We must rid ourselves of
the culture of entitlement which leads to
the expectation that the government
must promptly deliver whatever it is that
we demand.
The conflict-ridden gap between ANC rulers and subjects stems, more, from the conflict between neoliberal social policies adopted by the government in the mid-1990s, and the policies that people actually required to have a chance to change their lives. The result was a need to demobilise the left-flank movements, or when not demobilising them (for instance, in giving the SA National Civic Organisation more than a million rand during the mid-1990s so as to keep it alive), controlling them.
But given South Africa's traditions of militant civil society self-organisation and autonomy, controlling or even channelling the `pressure from below' was not always easy. One of the most confident (and, pre-1994, left- leaning) of ministers, Derek Hanekom, exemplified relations between neoliberal politicians and radical civil society in early 1996, when--in the context of Constitution- writing and a march to Pretoria against the property rights clause--Hanekom disdainfully remarked of the National Land Committee advocacy group, `They don't understand.' Not: `The Old Order must now realise that any defense of land based on property rights will come under attack not just from government but from social movements.' Or: `The tempestuous history of rural struggle in South Africa is a warning to us all that it would be suicidal to not deliver the goods.' Or even: `The National Land Committee is a serious network of the major social movements and we must listen carefully to their grievances.' Instead, on a national public radio broadcast: `They don't understand.' Later, Hanekom would publicly accuse rural critics of being `frivolous' and `ultraleft' when they raised complaints about the shockingly slow pace of land reform and his thoroughly deregulatory orientation when it came to state support for black farmers.
(ad nauseum)