South Africa: Structural oppression and the future of democracy

I recently attended a meeting of the Unemployment Peoples’ Movement (UPM) in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, which was convened with the aim of exploring the causes of the severe water crisis currently affecting thousands of residents in the poorer areas of Makana Greater Municipality. Many of those affected have been without water for over ten months. The Makana Municipality has done little to address the crisis and it is not treating it as severe humanitarian emergency. The meeting was well attended by affected residents, but it had to be cut short because a group of men who identified themselves as ANC (African National Congress) Youth League members deliberately sabotaged the meeting with loudly and unremittingly voiced insults, accusations and threats. Things were looking like they could turn violent and the security of those in attendance could not be guaranteed. The police were called on several occasions by the organisers, but when they arrived they were turned away by one of the saboteurs before they could enter the venue where the meeting was being held.

The UPM is an independent grassroots movements aimed at empowering the poor. One would expect that the ANC would openheartedly support such initiatives, especially given that movements such as the UPM have no electoral ambitions. But clearly those who disrupted the event perceived it as a potential threat to the ANC. Many unsubstantiated threats were made, including incoherent allegations aimed at one of the speakers, hydrologist and director of the Institute for Water Research at Rhodes University, Professor Denis Hughes, and the chairperson of UPM, Mr Ayanda Kota. Both were accused of being Democratic Alliance- sponsored members of the AWB (Afrikaner Resistance Movement). It is revealing that such incoherent and unsubstantiated accusations were levelled, as it suggests that the saboteurs find it difficult to imagine that members of a social movement could be motivated by a genuine concern for justice rather than for obtaining favours from one political organisation or another. And this in turn strongly suggests that the saboteurs themselves are not motivated by justice. Revealingly, I was accused –presumably because I was one of the few middle class white faces present – of personally sponsoring Mr Kota to the tune of 15 million rand, something I could not possibly afford to do. In any case, the saboteurs made no effort at all to substantiate these wild allegations and it is clear, from the purely disruptive style of their interventions, that they had little interest in the facts or in genuine justice.

The saboteurs had no interest, for instance, in providing evidence in support of local government against claims that it was doing far too little to address the desperate water situation. They could have done this in question time, but decided instead to sabotage the event from the moment it started, strongly suggesting that they were merely interested in blindly defending the perceived interests of the ANC, even if morally dubious. ‘This is the ANC government’, one of the saboteurs claimed, ‘so the ANC will have the last say’. In other words, ‘We are in power and we do what we like’. A corollary to this claim is, ‘Don’t you mess with us’.

Local municipal officials, Mr Dabulo Njilo (director of Technical and Infrastructural Services), Mr Mongezi Mabece (assistant director for Water Services), and Ms Ntombi Baart (Municipal manager), were invited by the UPM to discuss the water crises at the meeting, but they replied that they would not attend because proper procedures had not been followed. It may be the case that they were not – according to Mr Xola Mali of UPM, experience has taught them that going through intricate official ‘accountability structures’ always leads to nothing—but the situation is so dire and the local government’s response has been so minimal that one cannot be blamed for suspecting that local officials have little interest in the plight of their constituency. Or, equally disturbingly, they are not fully aware of the scale of the problem, of what it means for thousands of human beings to live without water.

In conversation with UPM members, I was informed that this sort of sabotage, perpetrated by those stating their allegiance to the ruling party, has happened regularly during meetings convened by them. And, sadly for our democracy, this sort of oppressive behaviour in the name of the ANC seems to be part of a general trend of violence exerted against social movements.

What happened in Grahamstown is an example of what has become an all too disturbing trend across the country, affecting informal groups of concerned residents, and more established movements such as UPM, Abahlali baseMjondolo, and the Landless People’s Movement as recently reported, among others, by Professor Jane Duncan of Rhodes University and Mr Niren Tolsi of the Mail & Guardian. But, given the environment of intimidation and, except for and handful of exceptions, the lack of interest by the media in systematically reporting violations against the poor, these incidents tend not to be widely discussed in public space. And, yet, the health of our young democracy depends on there being clarity regarding what sorts of undemocratic political pressures are being exerted on a large percentage of the generally voiceless electorate.

What I have said above could be thought of as evidence that the ANC leadership is coordinating things from the top, but I don’t know that it is. And there probably would be little reason for them to do this given that there are structural conditions in place that will encourage grassroots oppression to mushroom spontaneously across the country, without the need for centralised coordination. But the fact that the relevant structures are not decisively being undermined from the top should be seen as a grave failing on the part of the ruling party, and should shed doubt on their commitment to the ideals they claim dearly to uphold.

Briefly, here is a list of key structural features that are encouraging widespread grassroots oppression: First, a culture of patronage where ultra-loyalists tend to obtain favours from local government. Second, poverty, unemployment and low skill levels make it the case that for some ultra-loyalist grassroots activism in favour of the ruling party is pretty much their only viable career path. Finally, there is a deep culture of blind quasi-fanatical allegiance to the ANC, making it seem in the eyes of ultra-loyalists as if any movement outside of ANC structures deserves to be crushed. This quasi-fanatical loyalty is fuelled by a deep lack of tolerance for dissenting voices among the ANC elite, as evidenced most recently by a statement by South African Communist Party deputy general secretary, Mr Jeremy Cronin, where he attacks voices of dissent coming from grassroots independent social movements on the grounds that they unwittingly aid those who are opposed to social transformation.

For genuine democracy to prosper in our country, these abject structural pressures, and no doubt others as well, need vigorously to be exposed and opposed.

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* Professor Pedro Alexis Tabensky is in the Department of Philosophy, Rhodes University, South Africa.
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