Among other things, he writes:
>IMF Riots continued to
break out in dozens of impoverished black
townships subject to high increases in service
charges and power/water cutoffs.
Riots they were but disorganised and fragmented (or sometimes coopted by reactionary forces like Inkatha) - a coherent movement with some kind of programme - no. Nobody except Patrick to my knowledge called them IMF riots.
>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
Who were these critics? They certainly did not constitute a coherent movement.
> 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); f
Attacked by a few union leaders whose organisations were losing members - there was no mass activity in response
>or 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
Pathetically there was no active resistance to the SDI strategy. In the backrooms of the Alliance people certainly kicked up a row but this never translated into public action. The Eastern Cape NGO Coalition and Cosatu produced a critique or two of government strategy but this remained strictly an insider discussion.
> Land affairs and agriculture minister Derek Hanekom was jeered by emergent farmers associations and rural social movements for failing to redirect agricultural subsidies;
A few jeers do not make a mass movement - the many millions of impoverished people of the rural sector remain (depressingly) the most unorganised - unless you're talking about white farmers who remain quite organised and radically reactionary. The rural trade unions hardly exist.
>for
allowing privatisation of marketing boards; for
redistributing a tiny amount of land
So what is the real response to the shockingly small amount of land redistributed? The new minister is under so little pressure that her main concern currently seems to be the demands of white farmers! Even her senior bureaucrats (former radical activists) are leaving in disgust or being purged for being too radical.
> 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.
Yes, Patrick, along with a few others, did a good job on them. But Sankie is under so little pressure that she's even dumping the minimal subsidy scheme that currently exists. Unfortunately, as I recall it, the crappy housing policy was largely invented by NGO activists anyway.
> 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.
Yes Sangoco ran a good (elite) campaign on this but with no mass component. Similarly, campaigns around grants have mainly been run by a few effective NGO types, the Black Sash etc. There's no mass response but then no mobilisation was attempted.
And so it goes on, as Patrick says, ad nauseam. Resistance to numerous rightward shifts by government remains confined to a small group of vocal and organised NGO activists and a handful of radical academics, often the same people "wearing different hats". Real organised pressure from below remains minimal. This is why so many ANC leaders remain so susceptible to pressure from the old business establishment.
The real disaster area for me is the decline of the once vibrant union movement. Here little is left of genuine militant action, let alone solidarity action. Incorporation is the name of the game in major sectors with leadership unwilling to disrupt its cosy relationship with the employers in a variety of bargaining structures. The ongoing public sector dispute is the best recent example, with the minister just ignoring the machinery and imposing a settlement, knowing full well that the leadership didn't have the bottle to stand up to her and call any real action.
I've studied Patrick's "21kb of lefty civil society struggles against the 1994-99 neolib policies and personalities of the SA state" and am the first to regret that they don't really warrant the name struggle. Industrial action is up and little explosions, sometimes very violent, break out every now and then. Today for instance, several hundred unemployed activists marched demanding that foreigners be expelled as they allegedly steal "our" jobs. Unfortunately "resistance" these days is more likely to be anarchic and directionless violence, vandalism or attacks on foreigners than the organised working class or "working class civil society" activity of Patrick's ideal and progressive world.
I don't believe I'm being cynical in my observations - just realistic. That's always a good place to begin.
Russell