COPYRIGHT and CITATION CONSIDERATIONS for THIS THESIS/ DISSERTATION O Attribution — You Must Give Appropriate Credit, Provide

o Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

o NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

o ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

How to cite this thesis

Surname, Initial(s). (2012) Title of the thesis or dissertation. PhD. (Chemistry)/ M.Sc. (Physics)/ M.A. (Philosophy)/M.Com. (Finance) etc. [Unpublished]: University of Johannesburg. Retrieved from: https://ujcontent.uj.ac.za/vital/access/manager/Index?site_name=Research%20Output (Accessed: Date). ‘Amakomiti’ as ‘Democracy on the Margins’: Popular Committees in South Africa’s Informal Settlements

Trevor Ngwane

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DLitt et Phil in Sociology

Johannesburg, 2016

I declare that this dissertation/ thesis is my own unaided work. It is submitted for the degree of DLitt et Phil in Sociology in the University of Johannesburg. It has not been submitted for any other degree or examination in any other university.

______Trevor Ngwane

1 May, 2016.

ABSTRACT

The global economic crisis has arguably led to a crisis of democracy as perceptions that governments serve the rich and powerful rather than ordinary people abound. The quest for solutions and alternative forms of democracy including the dream of a society where the economy and the state are run and controlled by the people themselves, to the equal benefit of all, was seriously set back and tarnished by the defeat of the socialist experiment in the Soviet Union and other countries. This dissertation is a search for signs and instances of democratic practice that can inspire and inform political practice in the endeavour to retrieve and realise that dream.

The dissertation looks at the widespread practice whereby informal settlement dwellers in South Africa operate popular committees that address and take care of each shack community’s collective affairs. Forty-five out of 46 shack settlements researched in four South African provinces operated such committees, called “amakomiti” (in the isiZulu language). The research findings suggest that shack dwellers collectively improvise forms of self-government and self-management because their settlements are often established and managed without the blessing and support of the state. They have to take over land and organise the allocation of households to stands, provision of basic services, crime prevention, etc. They assume functions normally carried out by the state in the course of their struggle for land and shelter. The dissertation proposes that this collective self-management points to the existence of a form of “democracy on the margins” in the informal settlements which is distinct from the dominant democratic state form. Can we learn anything from this grassroots form of democratic practice during this era of crisis in democratic governance?

A key empirical question is why amakomiti continue to thrive while other grassroots forms of community self-organisation that emerged during the struggle against apartheid, such as the township civics and street committees, have declined in the post-apartheid era. The dissertation analyses the nature, character and operation of the amakomiti in the light of international, historical and often revolutionary forms of working class self-organisation such as the Russian soviets, Italian factory councils and Iranian shuras (workplace and neighbourhood councils). The dissertation argues that amakomiti should be understood as forms of working class self-organisation and as such part of the explanation for their continued existence lies in the dialectical relationship between their role as organs of struggle and as organs of democratic self-government. In both guises the committees are most effective when

3 they are firmly rooted in their respective local workplaces or living spaces while simultaneously linked to structures that allow them to be part of a broader movement whose goals and vision they largely share. This conclusion has important theoretical and strategic implications for those searching for alternative democratic forms of government, such as the reviving workers’ movement in South Africa and elsewhere in the world.

CONTENTS

Title Page ………………………………………………………………………..… 1 Declaration…………………………..……………………………………….……. 2 Abstract ………………………………………………………….………………… 3 Contents …………………………………….……………………………………... 5-12 Acknowledgements …………………….…………………………………………. 13 Abbreviations ……………………………………………..………………………. 14-15 List of tables ………………………………………………….…………………… 16 List of figures………………………………………………………………………. 17 List of photographs ………………………………………………………………. 18-19 List of maps ……………………………………………………………………….. 20

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………… 21 1.2 Aims ………………………………………………………………………... 29 1.3 Rationale …………………………………………………………………… 30 1.4 Research hypotheses ……………………………………………………….. 32 1.5 Theoretical framework ……………………………………………………... 33 1.6 Research questions …………………………………………………………. 35 1.7 Methodology ……………………………………………………………….. 36 1.8 Chapter outline ……………………………………………………………... 36

Chapter 2: Shack dwellers’ popular committees and the theory and practice of working class self-organisation

2.1 Introduction ………………………………………………………………… 38

2.2 Definition of key terms in the theoretical framework……………………….. 40

2.2.1 Democracy, participatory democracy and “democracy on the margins” 40

2.2.2 Hegemony and state power…………………………………………… 45

2.2.3 Protest and mobilisation of social and working class movements…… 46

2.3 The social and economic roots of working class self-organisation ………... 47

2.3.1 Utopian socialism and economic determinism …………………..… 48

2.3.2 Modes of production ……………………………………………….. 49

2.3.3 The political economy of labour ………………………………..….. 52

2.4 The capitalist housing crisis and the informal settlements ……………..….. 54

2.4.1 From “the housing question” to “the right to the city”………….….. 55

2.4.2 Housing provision in different countries ………………………..…. 58

2.5 Class and the informal settlement dwellers …………………….………..… 61

2.5.1 Contested class identities ……………….………………………..… 62

2.5.2 The “underclass” debate ……………………………………….…… 67

2.5.3 The concept of “marginalisation”……………………………..….… 70

2.5.4 The rise of the squatter movement and the Iranian Revolution……. 73

2.6 Working class self-organisation and the Marxist classics …………………. 81

2.6.1 Marx: Lessons from the Paris Commune …………………………... 81

2.6.2 Lenin and Luxemburg on the party and the soviets ..……………..... 83

2.6.3 Workers councils: The ideas and experiences of Trotsky, Lukács and Gramsci ….…………………….……..…………..……………. 93

2.6.4 Evaluation and synthesis of Marxist classics ……………………… 97

2.7 Self-organisation under colonial and post-colonial conditions…………….. 100

2.7.1 The problematic of universalism: Post-colonialism ………….……. 101

2.7.2 The Russian experience: The debate between the Slovophiles and the Western European “modernisers”……………………………… 105

2.7.3 Frantz Fanon: The dangers of “false decolonization”..…………….. 106

2.7.4 Mass mobilization of the class and the nation: Nyerere, Mbeki and Wolpe………………………………………………………………. 115

2.7.6 Synthesis of African scholarship: Classes and masses…………….. 121

2.8 Gaps in the literature……………………………………………………….. 123

2.9 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….. 126

Chapter 3: Theory and history of the role of shack settlements in the South African struggle

3.1 Introduction …………………………………………………………..……. . 128

3.2 Migrant labour, proletarianisation and the emergence of shack settlements in South Africa ………………………………………………… 129

3.3 The squatter movement in the 1940s...……………………………………... 133

3.4 The 1952 Defiance Campaign ………………………….………………….. 143

3.5 Shack dwellers and the United Democratic Front …………………………. 146

3.6 Informal settlements and the struggle in post-apartheid South Africa……… 150

3.7 Conclusion …………………………………………………………….…… 155

Chapter 4: Methodology

4.1 Introduction ..……………………………………………………..………... 156

4.2 The necessity of a “public sociology” ……………………………………... 156

4.3 Positivism or reflexivity? ………………………………………………….. 159

4.4 Research methods …………….……………………………………………. 163

4.4.1 Research design ……………………………………………………. 162

4.4.2 Research techniques ……………………………………………….. 166

4.4.3 The interview ………………………………………………………. 166

4.4.4 Participant observation …………………………………………….. 169

4.4.5 Observation …………….………………………………………….. 171

4.4.6 Documents………………………………………………………….. 172

4.5 Theory and data ……………………………………………………………. 171

Chapter 5: Overview of informal settlements (results of the visits)

5.1 Introduction ………………………………………………………………… 174

5.2 Profile of the informal settlements …………………………………….…... 175

5.2.1 Location, size and date of establishment of the settlements ………. 176

5.2.2 Naming and names of the settlements.…………………………..… 179

5.2.3 Infrastructure and services in the settlements ……………………... 182

5.3 Categories of popular committees …………………………………………. 184

5.3.1 People’s committees ……………………………………………….. 185

5.3.2 Ward committees ………………………………………………….. 189

5.3.3 ANC committees.…………………………………………………... 190

5.3.4 Community policing forums ……………………………………….. 192

5.3.5 Community development forums ………………………………….. 195

5.3.6 Headman committees ……………………………………………… 196

5.3.7 Ad hoc protest committees ………………………………………… 197

5.4 Relationship of committees with each other ………………………………. 198

5.5 Relationship of accountability of committees to their communities……….. 200

5.6 Relationship of committees with the state …………………………………. 202

5.7 Protest in the settlements …………………………………………………… 206

5.8 “Democracy on the margins”…………………………………………….…. 209

5.9 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………….…. 213

Chapter 6: Case study 1: Duncan Village

6.1 Introduction ………………………………………………………………… 214

6.2 Physical attributes of Duncan Village ……….……………………………... 214

6.3 Historical context …………………………………………………………... 215

6.4 The state of the popular committees in Duncan Village today……………... 221

6.4.1 Area committees …………………………………………………..... 221

6.4.2 Ward committees …………………………………………………… 213

6.4.3 ANC committees …………………………………………………… 226

6.4.4 Other committees in Duncan Village ………………………………. 227

6.4.5 Relationship of the committees with each other …………………… 227

6.4.6 Relationship of the committees with the community ……………… 229

6.4.7 ANC hegemony and the role of the committees …………………… 232

6.5 Theoretical and political significance of the committees in Duncan Village…………………………………………………………... 234

6.6 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………. 237

Chapter 7: Case study 2: Nkaneng

7.1 Introduction ………………………………………………………………… 239

7.2 Physical attributes of Nkaneng ……………………………………………... 239

7.3 History of the committees in Nkaneng ……………………………………... 243

7.4 The state of the popular committees in Nkaneng today ……………………. 252

7.4.1 People’s committees ……………………………………………….. 252

7.4.2 Iinkundla committees ………………………………………………. 253

7.4.3 Ward committees …………………………………………………... 257

7.4.4 ANC committees …………………………………………………… 259

7.4.5 Community policing forums ……………………………………….. 259

7.4.6 Protests and strikes in Nkaneng ……………………………………. 260

7.5 Theoretical and political significance of the committees in Nkaneng………...... 261

7.6 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………. 262

Chapter 8: Case study 3: Thembelihle

8.1 Introduction ………………………………………………………………… 263

8.2 Physical and social attributes of Thembelihle ……………………………… 263

8.3 History of the committees in Thembelihle …………………………………. 268

8.3.1 Earlier committees: Establishment and consolidation of Thembelihle…………………………………………………………. 270

8.3.2 Later committees: The struggle against relocation ………………… 275

8.4 The state of the popular committees in Thembelihle ………………………. 279

8.4.1 ANC committees …………………………………………………… 279

8.4.2 The ward committee...... …………………………………………... 281

8.4.3 The Thembelihle Crisis Committee ………………………………… 282

8.4.4 Other committees operating in Thembelihle ……………………….. 283

8.4.5 Relationship of the committees with each other …………………… 284

8.4.6 Relationship of the committees with the community ……………..... 285

8.5 Theoretical and political significance of the committees in Thembelihle……………………………………………………………… 287

8.6 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………. 288

Chapter 9: Comparative analysis of the three case studies and the overview research visits

9.1 Introduction ………………………………………………………………… 290

9.2 Categories of committees ………………………..…………………..…………… 290

9.3 History of the communities and committees……………………………….. 296

9.4 Political economy and location……………………………………………... 299

9.5 Immediate and ultimate goals ……………………………..………………. . 302

9.6 Size and composition of the three committees ………………………..……. 304

9.7 Duties and functions …………………….………………………………….. 306

9.8 The committees and democratic practice …………………………………... 307

9.9 Levels of organisation and complexity……………………………………... 308

9.10 Relationship with other committees ………………………………………... 310

9.11 Gender………………………………………………………………………. 311

9.12 ANC hegemony, political culture and “democracy on the margins”……….. 313

9.13 Elections and the committees……………………………………………….. 316

9.14 Relationship with the state …………………………………………………. 317

9.15. Protests …………………………………………………………..…………. 318

9.16 Xenophobia in the settlements……………………………………………… 318

9.17 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………. 320

Chapter 10: Conclusion

10.1 Introduction ………………………………………………………………… 325

10.2 Relating the findings to the research questions: General summary...... 325

10.3 Revisiting the history of the South African squatter movement………….… 328

10.4 Implications of amakomiti for Marxist theory and practice ………………... 334

10. 5 A new research agenda ………………………………………..……………. 346

10.6 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………. 349

Bibliography

11.1 Dissertations and Published Works…………………………………………. 351

11.2 Archives, Official Documents, Newspaper Articles, etc…………………… 405

Appendices

11.3 Interviews…………………………………………………………………… 415

11.4 Maps………………………………………………………………………… 420

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Professor Peter Alexander my supervisor and comrade for patience, encouragement and scholarly guidance. And all the books he lent me that I must return!

Mrs Lucinda Bercony the administrator at the UJ Research Chair for Social Change for facilitating finances, logistics, office space, paperwork, etc. Thanks for the support.

Comrades, colleagues and friends at the UJ Research Chair for Social Change for a conducive intellectual, politically-charged atmosphere especially the Friday seminars. The Rebellion of the Poor team who agreed to my using some of their data and kept the project wheels going while I was busy writing this. Luke Sinwell for encouragement and doing the final edit.

The National Research Foundation for providing me with the funds for my research.

My examiners for taking the time to read, assess and advice. And letting it through!

My comrades in the Socialist Group, Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, Thembelihle Crisis Committee, Democratic Left Front and United Front for making history rather than writing about it. Also, comrades of Keep Left Socialism from Below. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa for the NUMSA moment. The platinum miners and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union for the Spirit of Marikana – the future.

My mother Zanele who always graciously told me that my studies were important even if it meant less time visiting her, and then giving me such a grand welcome when I did visit that I couldn’t help feeling guilty. And the little envelopes that made the difference between a Spartan existence and some little extras to brighten my cupboard.

My dear Sam (Ashman), for saying I must keep going. Hey, it helped. I did.

My daughter Lindiwe who always took care of family matters on my behalf while I was busy writing. Hloni, Thato and Bongani who are great kids to have in all respects. Miranda for taking care of our children despite everything.

My informants in all the informal settlements I conducted research in especially in Nhlalakahle, Duncan Village, Nkaneng and Thembelihle. I dare say Thembelihle is an inspiration to all in the struggle for houses, improved living conditions and a workers’ future.

The working class for being the revolutionary subject that Karl Marx said it was.

ABBREVIATIONS

AAC All-African Convention

AbM Abahlali baseMjondolo

AEC Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign

AMCU Associated Mining and Construction Union

AMPLATS Anglo American Platinum

ANC African National Congress

ANCWL African National Congress Women’s League

ANCYL African National Congress Youth League

APF Anti-Privatisation Forum

AZAPO Azanian People’s Organisation

CAHFA Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa

CDF Community Development Forum

CoGTA Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs

COJ City of Johannesburg

COSATU Congress of South African Trade Unions

CPF Community Policing Forum

CPSA Communist Party of South Africa

CSIR Council for Scientific and Industrial Research

DA Democratic Alliance

DVRA Duncan Village Residents Association

EFF Economic Freedom Fighters

FLN Front de Libération Nationale

IDC Industrial Development Corporation

IFP Inkatha Freedom Party

ISN Informal Settlement Network

LACOM Labour and Community Resources Project

LPM Landless People’s Movement

NEUM Non-European Unity Movement

NUM National Union of Mineworkers

NUMSA National Union of Metalworkers’ of South Africa

OKM Operation Khanyisa Movement

RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme

RSA Republic of South Africa

SACHED South African Committee for Higher Education

SACP South African Communist Party

SAHO South African History Online

SANCO South African National Civic Organisation

SAPA South African Press Association

SARB South African Reserve Bank

SECC Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee

StatsSA Statistics South Africa

TCC Thembelihle Crisis Committee

UDF United Democratic Front

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization"

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 5.1: Number of informal settlements visited by province TABLE 5.2: Year of birth (establishment) of the informal settlements TABLE 5.3: How the informal settlements were established TABLE 5.4: State of basic services in the informal settlement TABLE 5.5: List of categories of committees found in the settlements TABLE 5.6: Duties of people’s committees TABLE 5.7 Protests in South African informal settlements as a percentage of total number of protests

TABLE 5.8: Incidence of protests TABLE 5.9: Protest issues TABLE 5.10: Issues that residents are unhappy about (Disaffection) TABLE 6.1 Periodisation of history of committees in Duncan Village TABLE 7.1: Periodisation of history of committees in Nkaneng TABLE 8.1: Periodisation of history of committees in Thembelihle TABLE 9.1: Categories of committees found in the three case studies

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 5.1 Protest issues in South African protests with housing second on the list of grievances.

LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS

Image 5.1 Office of the Makuase Community Development Forum in Makause, Germiston. Image 5.2 A shack threatening to keel over in Chris Hani, Somerset East. Image 5.3 A shack below the floodline and too close to a stream in Princess, Roodepoort. Image 5.4 The Jeffsville community office. This informal settlement in Pretoria was named after Comrade Jeff who led the land invasion that established the settlement.

Image 5.5 People’s committee leader at home, Vrygrond informal settlement, Graaff- Reinert. Image 5.6 People’s committee leader at home, Duma Nokwe, in Mdantsane township, East London.

Image 5.7 People’s committee leader at home, KwaS’gebenga-Khayelitsha in Ngcambedlana Farm, Mthatha.

Image 5.8 Members of the civic, ward and ANC committees in Zenzele, Randfontein. Image 5.9 Leader of the people’s committee in Nhlalakahle, Pietermaritzburg, at home. Image 5.10 Leader of the Malinda Forest, East London, at home. Image 5.11 Leader of the Makause Community Development Forum, General Moyo. Image 5.12 Leader of the Makause Community Development Forum (MACODEFO) in green AMCU shirt at the forefront of a march to the Johannesburg mayor’s office.

Image 5.13 Community office in Zenzele, Randfontein. Image 5.14 Connecting shacks to the electricity grid in Duncan Village, East London, without state sanction.

Image 5.15 Members of the community development committee in Bhambayi, Inanda, Durban.

Image 6.1 Member of a Duncan Village ward committee soup kitchen team preparing to cook.

Image 7.1 Creche in Nkaneng owned and run by Ms Gladys Kani. Image 7.2 Nkaneng settlement with the Bleskop hostel visible in the background. Image 7.3 Inkundla yaseLibode (the inkundla of Libode) meeting. This meeting consisted of goat owners worried about and discussing the problem of stock theft in the area.

Image 8.1 TCC youth leader leading the song in a demonstration in support of the platinum miners’ strike at the Chamber of Mines building, Johannesburg.

Image 9.1 Leaders of the Itireleng Community Development Forum, Laudium-Pretoria, in front of their office.

Image 9.2 Women arrested for contravening pass laws in Duncan Village, about 1965. Image 9.3 Members of the people’s committee in Spooktown, Bekkersdal-Randfontein. Image 9.4 Member of the Spooktown people’s committee, Bekkersdal, Randfontein. Image 10.1 Thousands of people live in this type of privately-owned rental accommodation in KwaZulu-Natal and other provinces (“Emqashweni”).

Image 10.2 The workers’ committee that led the Lonmin strike before the Marikana Massacre in Rustenburg, August 2012 (Photo: Greg Marinovich)

LIST OF MAPS

Map 1: Duncan Village location in relation to East London Central Business District. Map 2: Duncan Village location in relation to Mdantsane township. Map 3: The different sections of Duncan Village. Map 4: Rustenburg showing its location in the North West Province. Map 5: Rustenburg City to the north and Nkaneng to the south and Marikana (site of the massacre) further east.

Map 6: Nkaneng and Photsaneng separated by railway lines. The road D108 runs along the northern border of Nkaneng. The Bleskop Hostel which is shown as a rectangle to the south of Nkaneng.

Map 7: Locating Thembelihle. Map 8: Thembelihle and its relocation sites.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction Working-class self-organisation was central in Karl Marx’s vision of social transformation. He saw the working class as the revolutionary subject which would, by liberating itself, liberate the whole of society from oppression and exploitation (Marx 1844a:8). The proletariat would lead the struggle for socialism by developing itself theoretically and organisationally; it had to convert itself from a class in itself to a class for itself (Marx 1975:117, Marx 1954:108-109). It had to develop its own revolutionary theory, Marxism, and form its own independent economic and political organisations, namely, trade unions, political parties and workers’ governments (Marx 1993:11). In 1871, Marx saw in the Paris Commune what he regarded as the practical enactment of ideas and themes that he had largely arrived at mostly through philosophical speculation and deduction with respect to the role of the proletariat in revolution (Kolakowski 1978:130),1 and in particular, the proletarian seizure of power. The Parisian workers had organised themselves and taken action to create a workers’ government, thus realising in practice, and giving flesh to, the bare bones of his revolutionary eschatology. As Marx (1966:146) put it:

It [the Paris Commune] is not the political self-government of the country through an oligarchic club and the reading of the Times newspaper. It is the people acting for itself by itself.

In other words, through self-organisation the proletariat had established, according to Marx, the world’s first prototype revolutionary workers’ state. This was a model that was to inspire revolutionaries for many years to follow (Ross 2015).

More than a century-and-a-half has passed but Marx’s assertion that the Commune was “the people acting for itself by itself” arguably continues to resonate in theory and practice. For

1 According to Kolakowski (1978:130) Marx first “discovered” the proletariat in 1844 when “he had seen very little of the actual workers’ movement; yet the principle he formulated at this time remained the foundation of his social philosophy.” On the other hand David McLellan (1973:86-87) states: “after his [Marx’s] arrival in Paris [in October 1843]…[his writings] revealed the immense impact made on him by his discovery there of the class to whose emancipation he was to devote the rest of his life. Paris, the cultural capital of Europe, had a large population of German immigrant workers…[he] attended meetings of most of the French workers’ associations.”

21 example, in my research into working-class self-organisation I found that in post-apartheid South Africa there exist a proliferation of arguably commune-like popular committees formed by inhabitants of the country’s many informal settlements for the purpose of managing and improving community life and living conditions.2

I visited 46 informal settlements and 45 of them operated a type of committee. The functions of some of these committees were, inter alia, to lead the land invasion that establishes the settlement, plan the layout of the new settlement, allocate stands to new residents, fight off eviction by the state, organise basic services, maintain law and order, negotiate with the authorities, organise community protests, etc. In effect, the committees acted as a form of local state. I had not expected this level of organisation because the township civic structures and shop steward councils that had thrived during the height of the 1980s anti-apartheid struggle, that is, the local participatory structures of self-organisation and self-rule such as street committees and people’s courts, have largely disappeared two decades after the formal demise of apartheid (Jacquin 1999, Mayekiso 1996, Zuern 2006).3 Why and how has this particular form of self-organisation survived and thrived in the shantytowns? In what ways, if at all, are these forms of self-organisation relevant in the struggle for a new type of state that Marx, inspired by the Paris Commune, envisaged would be thoroughly democratic and egalitarian?

Two major concerns drive the dissertation. The first, largely empirical, is to describe and analyse the popular committees, amakomiti in isiZulu, that exist in nearly all South African informal settlements, inquiring into their variety, role, history, form, relationship to struggle, and so forth. The second is theoretical and political. I want to understand the amakomiti in relation to organs of working class self-organisation, in particular the soviets that arose in Russia, which, albeit for a few years only, provided the basis for a workers’ state. Theorisation of workers’ self-activity and workers power is a central concern for Marxism, especially the classical Marxism that emphasises change “from below.” In my view it is critical for the study of social change, specifically in South Africa. While soviets both in Russia and elsewhere, were

2 According to Harding (1983b:122): “Marx’s conception of the commune…was…extremely decentralized, even the smallest country hamlet was to organize itself as an autonomous unit…The initiative in the scheme was always from the bottom upwards, from the periphery to the centre.” My use of the term “commune-like” refers to the “bottom up” participatory democracy that is organized and run by ordinary working class people in a specific location and/or for a defined constituency and which, if we follow Marx’s account, was one of the main characteristics of the Paris Commune. 3 Mayekiso (1996:83) notes that during the heyday of the civics in the 1980s “our ‘liberated districts,’ the AAC [Alexandra Action Committee] and other civic organisations had achieved an ‘embryonic state of “people’s government”… inasmuch as People’s Communes exist, inasmuch as they are a power in the townships and have replaced apartheid institutions of rule.’”

22 at the heart of socialist democracy, amakomiti are, I will argue, a form of “democracy on the margins.” And while soviets were relatively short-lived, amakomiti still thrive 21 years after the fall of apartheid.

The dissertation seeks to identify factors behind the continuance of the shack dwellers’ committees in periods of reduced class struggle while comparable working class grassroots structures tend to decline during such periods. Of the different types of committees found in the shack settlements the most prevalent is what can be called a “people’s committee,” that is, a structure formed autonomously by a shack community and whose origins and character bear close resemblance to and in some cases can be traced back to the civic structures and street committees that played a crucial role in the struggle against apartheid. The emergence and proliferation of working-class or popular forms of self-organisation such as “civics” in South Africa and “soviets” in Russia is associated with periods of political upheaval and an upsurge in the level of struggle (Barker 2008:3, Cohen 2011:48, Legassick 2007:564) The fact that shack dwellers’ organisations continue to operate and thrive during periods of political lull requires investigation and explanation. Such investigation may throw new light on processes of self-organisation and, in particular, of the shack dwellers, a component of society that is sometimes defined as a “surplus population” and to whom scant revolutionary potential is attributed.4 Are they a section of the working class? Do employed workers live in South Africa’s shack-lands? Can we regard people who live in shacks as part of Marx’s revolutionary subject? Is there commonality between the struggle of those who live in shacks and those who live in formal houses in the townships?

Throughout the dissertation I refer to the grassroots structures created by the shack dwellers as “popular committees” rather than “workers’ committees.” The use of the term “popular” refers to the “popular classes”, that is, employed and unemployed workers, peasants and the lower middle class but excluding the upper classes and upper middle class.5 “Workers’

4 Mike Davis (2006) wrote a book titled The Planet of Slums highlighting the proliferation of informally housed people. In his view the collective action of slum dwellers is primarily anti-social and confused rather than political and self-conscious. I will engage with the nuances in his argument in Chapter 2 including Frantz Fanon’s (1963:103) contrary argument that, during the anti-colonial struggle, “this people of the shanty towns…constitutes one of the most spontaneous and the most radically revolutionary forces of a colonized people.” 5 Peter Dwyer and Leo Zeilig (2012:43-44) consider a current definition of the popular classes in Africa as including “the lumpenproletariat of the shantytowns, unemployed youth, elements of the new petty bourgeoisie, laid-off workers, and university students.” They call for a more precise definition and analysis of the working class in the light of its changing composition and its historical mission of relating to and leading popular struggles.

23 committees” refers to committees composed of actual workers usually formed at the workplace. I further distinguish between “shack committees” and civics or residents’ committees. On the one hand, the latter are structures that proliferated in South African black working class townships and were formed by local residents in an attempt to involve everyone at grassroots level in the struggle against apartheid although the initial duties could seem quite mundane, for example, crime-fighting, cleaning campaigns, etc. The “street committee” is emblematic of the civic movement as in most areas it formed the primary organisational building block of local self-organisation; as a result some people use civic and street committee interchangeable. They were “popular” in characer and compositions because they tended to include other class elements besides the working class.6

In this dissertation, on the other hand, “shack committees,” “shack dwellers’ committees,” or “amakomiti” (the isiZulu language version, in Sesotho “dikomiti”) refer specifically to the various types of committees formed and operated in the informal settlements of South Africa. Lastly, there is the “people’s committee” which refers to a type of committee formed by residents themselves as opposed to other forms of committees that might be formed in collaboration with or at the instigation of the state such as ward committees and community policing forums. The people’s committee is in the informal settlements the direct counterpart to the civic in the township. The importance of these definitions and distinctions will become apparent and clearer in the presentation of my study’s empirical findings in subsequent chapters of the dissertation.

The distinction between popular and workers committees is also made in the literature and is crucial in this dissertation given the fact that one of my major arguments is that shack dwellers’ committees should be understood as forms of working class self-organisation. My argument is that just as workers form committees in the workplace they do likewise in their living spaces. At the workplace these workers’ committees could be part of union structures but sometimes these are formed independently of the unions especially during periods of struggle.7 Examples of workers’ committees are factory committees, factory councils, joint

6 See, for example, Rosenthal (2010) on the role of the middle class in the Soweto Civic Association in the 1980s. 7 Luke Sinwell (2015) document a recent instance of workers’ strike committees formed by platinum miners independently of their union in 2012 during the strike wave that hit the South African platinum belt and that is linked to the Marikana Massacre. See Alexander, Lekgowa, Mmope, Sinwell and Xezwi (2012) on the massacre. During the height of the struggle against apartheid in the 1980s workers formed “joint shop steward councils.” These were union structures that linked worker leaders across factories and industries (Friedman 2011:110). In this dissertation I discuss soviets and factory committees formed by workers in Russia and Italy

24 shop steward councils (South Africa), commissioni interni (Italy), the Rate (Germany), soviets (Russia), shora (Iran), etc. (Callinicos 1991:111, Friedman 2011:110). However, it is organisation in the workers’ living spaces that forms the focus of this dissertation. I am interested in identifying and teasing out the specific role and form of participation of workers in the popular committees found in their residential areas, in particular, in the informal settlements. How do workers take forward the struggle for their needs by their participation in such committees? To what extent do these committees help workers and residents achieve their purpose? In other words, I set out to establish the working class character of the popular committees in the shacks.

In this dissertation I use the term “informal settlement” to refer to housing developments that are marked by the use of “non-conventional housing built without complying with legal building procedures” (Tshikotshi 2009:1) which are usually built at the edges of cities and towns in unsuitable or cheap land (Moser and Satterthwaite 2008). In the literature the term “informal settlement” is often used interchangeably with terms such as “slum,” “shack settlement” and “shantytown” (Silk 1985, Meier 2000). However, some writers have criticised the use of these terms arguing that their discursive effect is to undermine the oppressed, deligitimise their struggle and justify policies that are hostile to shack dwellers (Pithouse 2008:71-71).8 Patricia Sithole (2002) questions the ontological distinction between “informality” and “formality.” Shack dwellers, like street traders whose economic activity is defined as part of the “informal sector” and thus occasionally fall victim to state harassment, will sometimes have their rights trampled upon using the argument of the informal status of their settlements.9 However, this is a terminology and distinction that shack dwellers themselves make in their struggle for decent “formal” housing (Zikode 2005).10 My use of these terms is based on practical considerations and does not represent support for the agenda of the ruling class nor is it aimed at disregarding the views of those opposed to this terminology.

respectively. A comprehensive consideration of these workplace forms formed by workers in struggle in different parts of the world is found in Ness and Azzellini (2011). 8 The use of these terms is “a return to the older language of colonialism, and often with overt hostility, slums…The discursive common sense around ‘informal settlement’ assumes that it is something that needs to be developed (usually by the entrepreneurial energies of its inhabitants) while the assumptions around ‘the slum’ are that it is something that needs to be ‘cleared’ away (Pithouse 2008:71-72). 9 See Huchzermeyer (2011). 10 Zikode (2005:2): “In the Kennedy Road settlement we have seen how Mhlengi Khumalo, a one year old child, died in a shack fire last month. Seven others have died in fires since the eThekwini Metro decided to stop providing electricity to informal settlements.”

South Africa is a country that is characterised by high levels of protest activity.11 Research into protest action in South Africa suggests that many protests are organised by shack dwellers and township residents (Alexander and Pfaffe 2013:4). The South African Research Chair in Social Change’s Rebellion of the Poor Protest Monitoring Project at the University of Johannesburg found that informal settlements account for 21,5% of community protests in South Africa in the period between 2004 and 2012 (Maruping, Mncube and Runciman 2014:30).12 The dissertation will explore the role of the shack committees, amakomiti, in facilitating or frustrating protest action in the light of the high rate of protest in the shack settlements. An important observation made by researchers is that in South Africa community protests tend to be fragmented in character with individual communities separately taking to the streets without much solidarity with each other – there is “no sense of connections to the battles of workers, and only limited recognition of benefits to organising alongside people in neighbouring communities” (Alexander, Runciman and Ngwane 2015:10).13 The research will explore the role of amakomiti in organising protests including whether and to what extent they make links with other movements and sectors of the working class in the course of struggle.

The high levels of protest action in the country occur in a context where revolt challenging neoliberal policies and realignment to the left of neoliberal governments is taking place in many parts of the world, for example, the rise of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party in Britain, Syriza taking office in Greece in the context of anti-austerity struggles in Europe and the pro-democracy Arab political revolution (“the Arab spring”) (Shihade, Flesher and Cox 2012). In South Africa new parties such as the Economic Freedom Fighters with radical policies have emerged and appear to be gaining support (Shivambu 2014). Also, events culminating in, and subsequent to, the Marikana Massacre, where 34 miners on strike were shot dead by state police (Alexandra 2013, Alexandere et al 2012), suggest the beginnings of a

11 Researchers have found that post-apartheid South Africa has a very high rate of community protests. Alexander (2012) reports that the South African police have recorded a 40% increase in “unrest incidents” from an average of 2.1 per day in 2004 to 2009, to 2.9 in the 2009 to 2012 period. See Alexander (2010), Alexander et al. (2014), Alexander et al. (2015a), Mottiar and Bond (2012), Municipal IQ (2012), Nyar and Wray (2012), Vally (2009). 12 This is a high proportion given the fact that only a portion of the South African population lives in the informal settlements. The 2011 census data stipulates that 1,249,777 households, containing 3,306,697 individuals, live in (stand alone) shacks and not in other people’s backyards (Housing Development Agency 2012:22). 13 Alexander, Runciman and Ngwane (2015:5) note: “Action is highly localised, usually involving no more than a single township or informal settlement, though sometimes extending to a collection of villages, a whole town or part of a city.”

26 new wave of mass mobilisation in post-apartheid South Africa which is set to include organised labour (Ashman and Pons-Vignon 2015, Gentle 2014b).

Organised labour was important in the struggle and victory against apartheid; developments suggest that political realignment in post-apartheid society will again include this sector of society. It is noteworthy that the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) decided in its 2013 Special National Congress to break with the ANC-SACP- COSATU, the ruling “historic bloc” in South Africa.14 NUMSA further resolved to form a United Front of labour and community struggles, and also to explore the formation of a workers’ party. In this regard a congress resolution reads thus in part:

Although there are protests everywhere and every day in the country, the Alliance is not an instrument in the hands of these struggling masses nor does it provide leadership to these struggles which is largely leaderless struggles [sic]. The reality is that there is a political vacuum and the working class is on its own (NUMSA 2013a:6).

My research suggests that far from being “leaderless” shack dwellers have developed and maintain grassroots structures in the form of popular committees that define the political life of these settlements. This suggests a need to conduct research into the self-organisation of the shack dwellers in order to provide accurate information about this constituency that can inform strategic analysis and political action. Writing about Latin America, Manuel Castells (1975:55- 57) made a similar argument about the need for research with regard to forms of self- organisation found in the barriadas and favelas (shantytowns) of cities such as Lima, Rio, Caracas, Buenos Aires, etc. He wrote that these informal settlements are not:

Districts of “social disorganisation,” but that, on the contrary, the internal cohesion of [shantytown dwellers] is greater than in the rest of the urban area and even takes the form of locally-based organizations (Castells 1977:55).

In South Africa social researchers have noted the historical and contemporary local organisation and social movement activism found in the shack settlements (Pithouse 2005, Sapire 1992). However, there are notable differences in approach and interpretation of the politics of the shack dwellers. These debates provide the immediate theoretical and empirical background to my study and to a certain extent frame it. In the study of the anti-apartheid

14 A “historic bloc” is “an alliance of different class forces politically organized around a set of hegemonic ideas that gave strategic direction and coherence to its constituent elements” (Gill 2002:58). See Gramsci (1971).

27 struggle inside the country there can be a tendency to either downplay the role of shack settlements or fail to adequately appreciate the distinctive character of their role by making emblematic the community and political activism that took place in the townships on the one hand; on the other hand we might emphasise the distinctive character of the shack dwellers’ political activism even suggesting that it should be viewed as separate and different from the broader township-based movement that was at the forefront of the struggle against apartheid (Cole 1987, Mayekiso 1996, Seekings 2000, van Kessel 2000). Contemporary studies of shack dwellers’ movements arguably exhibit this dividing line in analysis with some researchers downplaying the importance and/or distinctive character of their struggle on the one hand, and on the other hand, some researchers emphasising its importance and distinctiveness to the point of, according to some critics, exaggeration and even distortion (Pithouse 2005, Mdlalose 2014, Levenson 2012). This debate is related to how the shack dwellers are located in the social structure in analysis, namely, are they part of the oppressed black majority or the working class or do they form a separate stratum or underclass with interests that are separate from the rest of the subalterns. This is a central question for this study and I grapple with it in the next chapter on theory and elsewhere in the dissertation.

To summarise, this dissertation sets out to study the character and operation of the popular committees that occur in South Africa’s informal settlements noting their proliferation and continuance over a long period from the days of apartheid to the present. By comparison, the historical life-span of other forms of working class organisation such as soviets and township civics has been relatively shorter, that is, in their original form. The explanation for this difference is, I believe, of historical and theoretical interest and can add valuable insights to the literature on working class self-organisation.

In order to gain greater insight into the questions posed in this dissertation, I have found it necessary to delve into the experiences of working class self-organisation in other countries and other historical periods. This is important because these international experiences provide the historical background to Marxist theorisation of self-organisation and their examination allows for a critical engagement with theory. I have considered in some detail the soviets that arose during the Russian Revolution because they operated in the periods before and after the revolution whereby they provided the organisational basis for a new workers’ state. I will also consider the factory councils that arose during the Bienno Rosso in Italy because they provided the immediate context for Antonio Gramsci’s theorisation of hegemony in the struggle of the

28 working class.15 Hegemony is a concept that is used in this study to explore the political dynamics affecting the role of amakomiti in the struggle of the shack dwellers to improve their living conditions in the past (apartheid) and the present (post-apartheid) eras.

1.2 Aims

 To find out more about the nature, operation and significance of the popular committees found in South Africa’s informal settlements. The empirical aspect of the study involves finding out about the historical origins of these committees, the political dynamics behind their formation and operation, their structure, their duties and functions, their role in protest action, their place in the country’s democratic processes and their possible trajectory going into the future.  To seek an explanation for the proliferation and continuance of the shack dwellers’ committees from the apartheid era into the post-apartheid democratic era. The longevity and durability of these committees is brought into sharp focus when compared with the relatively short-lived existence of the Russian soviets and the South African township civics including the joint shop steward councils.  To deepen our understanding of the popular committees, the study will explore aspects of the history of the 1940s squatter movement, and the explosion of land invasions in the 1980s and early 1990s that led to the establishment and growth of many of South Africa’s informal settlements. Closely related to this history is that of the rise of the struggle for national liberation in the 1950s and its climax in the anti-apartheid mass mobilisations of the 1980s, which the study will explore focusing on those aspects that shed further light on the emergence and the main characteristics of shack dwellers’ committees.  To explore the emergence of the soviets in Russia as forms of working-class self- organisation and compare these with the rise of “Western Soviets” in Italy. And to use insights from this comparison to illuminate the role of shack dwellers’ committees and other South African alternative forms of self-organisation and their significance in the struggle for social emancipation.  To present and evaluate the ideas of key classic Marxist writers on working class self- organisation and relate these to current theory and practice on the subject. The goal will

15 The Bienno Rosso was a period of political upheaval in Italy immediately after the end of the First World War.

be to assess the adequacy of these ideas in making sense of new or peculiar forms of self-organisation, in particular, that of the shack dwellers. A key question here will be whether shack dwellers can be regarded as part of the working class rather than an “underclass” or “surplus population.” A related question is whether Marxist tools of analysis require “stretching”16 to accommodate this social category whose size is increasing in the context of the global capitalist crisis and its apparent failure to provide adequate shelter for all.  To approach the subject matter in a manner that unites theory to practice by locating it in the broader struggle for emancipative social change, in particular, the struggle to improve the economic and social conditions of shack dwellers; while paying attention to political questions related to the development of a working class movement of struggle in South Africa and the world.  To self-consciously and critically employ a reflexive research methodology that combines a strong empirical approach with a well-developed theoretical framework. To employ Buroway’s (2005) call for a “public sociology” that generates socially useful knowledge and empirical research that contributes to theory formation.

1.3 Rationale

The starting point of my approach to the subject matter is that the self-organisation and self- activity of the working class are key tenets of Marxism as a theory of organisation, history and revolution. This takes concrete form and is “institutionalised” in worker and community- controlled structures. The participatory-democratic components of these structures is brought to the fore in the course of the struggle because of the need to involve as many people as possible in the process of mobilisation. These forms of self-organisation emerge during periods of political upheaval and upsurge in the struggle and in some cases leading to their assuming both the roles of organs of struggle and of self-government. They thus raise the vision of the new society by developing a democratic practice that prefigures the future form of democracy and state.

In revolutionary situations there might develop forms of “dual power” whereby the ruling class is forced to surrender aspects of its power to the mass movement; for example, the emergence of street committees and people’s courts run by the civics in South Africa during

16 Pithouse (2006:9) observes: “Thinking about the shanty town requires, as Fanon noted with respect to the colonial city, that Marxism be stretched.”

30 the struggle against apartheid. However, dual power is an “unstable” political situation and resolves itself into victory or defeat for the revolution. In the case of victory, for example in the Russian Revolution, the institutions of working-class self-rule assumed the role of the new power and became the building blocks of the new Russian state. In the case of defeat, for example in Italy in the 1920s, the fascist regime used state repression to decimate the factory committees that had emerged to lead the struggle of the working class.

In this dissertation I will explore whether shack dwellers’ committees can be viewed as organs of working-class organisation in the light of the general theoretical and historical approach that I have briefly sketched above. Soviets, it should be remembered, were based on a long tradition of various forms of working class self-organisation and peasant institutions (Gluckstein 1985:23, Skocpol 1979:139).17 One of the innovations of the factory council movement in Italy especially in the city of Turin was the use of existing workers’ “internal commissions” (commissioni interne). These were “tame” union-linked committees operating in particular workshops, and turning them into revolutionary factory councils (Gluckstein 1985:189,185; L'Ordine Nuovo 1921)18. This suggests that shack committees have the potential to change their role and character in the event of a radical change in the political situation such as the development of a revolutionary situation. They could become organs of struggle in their own right or be incorporated into whatever new forms of organisation that would be thrown up at that given moment. Or they could become part of the forces and institutions that oppose revolutionary change. In the 1980s, for example, hostel dwellers and their “hostel-dweller committees” got drawn into violent confrontations with local township communities led by civic associations and “comrades” (Segal 1991). The political prognosis of the shack committees is of interest to both researchers and political practitioners.

There is a need to look ahead and explore the types of democratic institutions of self- rule that might be formed in the event of radical changes to social and political structures. Difficult historical circumstances and bad political choices led to the Russian Revolution losing its way, a point I will explore further in the next chapter of this dissertation. The profound

17 Gluckstein (1985:23) notes: “The practice of workplace organization and election which underpinned both the soviet and factory committees dated back to the first efforts at collective organization in the early years of the century.” Skocpol (1979:139) links the state of peasant communal organization to revolution arguing that “the qualitatively different basis of the obshchina [peasant commune] provide the key to the content of the peasant victory in Russia…during 1917, the pace of the peasant revolution was set where the obshchina was strongest.” 18 A report to the Executive Committee of the Communist International stated that: “The lists of candidates for the committees (the Internal Commissions) were drawn up by the trade-union hierarchies, who showed a preference for workers of opportunist tendency; workers who would give no trouble to the bosses and would stifle any mass action before it could start” (L'Ordine Nuovo 1921:6).

“bottom up” participatory workers’ democracy that the soviets arguably embodied fell victim to various countervailing forces, including the civil war, the famine, the physical and political decimation of worker leaders, and the rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy (Carr 1950:252-255, Harman 2003b:18-19, Skocpol 1979:215). In South Africa, the civic and shop steward movements have declined in the post-apartheid democratic era. The factors behind the decline require examination and some researchers have begun work on this (Adler and Steinberg 2000, Seekings 2000c). More research is necessary in order to draw lessons from this progressive democratic tradition.

What are the most important elements of this progressive tradition that should form part of the new society? How would it contribute to deepening democracy in society today? Are there aspects of democratic practice of the shack committees that could be taken over into a new and improved democratic dispensation in South Africa and other countries? The rise of new movements in South Africa such as the call for “decolonisation” and for free education by university students and an end to outsourcing underlines the relevance of these questions. For example, what type of grassroots democratic structures will be serve as drivers of the new movements? Is there a place for shack dwellers and their committees in the new movements? These are some of the questions my approach to the topic raises. I cannot hope to answer all of them given their complexity and the constraints of time and space. It is also important to note that the solutions to working class problems will emerge from a working class movement in motion. Left academics, scholar activists and the organic intellectuals of the working class should begin the theoretical and research work necessary to generate knowledge that can be of use to the movement (Barker 2013:2-3, Bevington and Dixon 2005:186).

1.4 Research hypotheses

My study is driven by Marxist theory in the manner advocated by Burawoy (2009:13).19 The hypotheses below served as a guideline when amassing the empirical data, analysing it and formulating my main arguments and conclusions.

19 Burawoy (2009:13) suggests that in conducting research: “We don’t start with data, we start with theory. Theory is the necessary lens that we bring to our relationship to the world and thereby to make sense of its infinite manifold. Everyone necessarily possesses theory – understanding how the world works, linking cause and effect – but some specialize in its production. The practice of social science is becoming aware that theory is its precondition.”

Basic axiom: The working class possesses an organic capacity to lead the struggle for social change because of its peculiar location in capitalist social relations (Marx 1844a:8).

Hypothesis 1: The shack dwellers’ popular committees are forms of working-class self- organisation that express the organic capacity of the working class.

Hypothesis 2: The self-organisation of the shack dwellers, like the township civics, takes place at the workers’ living spaces while factory committees and shop steward councils occur at the workplace. These represent two aspects of the same process in the development of working class politics and action.

Hypothesis 3: The working class movement walks on two feet, namely at work and in the home. There is a historical and strategic need to unite labour and community struggles. Shack dwellers’ organisations are an important component of past, present and future processes to achieve this.

Hypothesis 4: The continuance of the shack dwellers’ popular committees and their durability reflects their dynamism and adaptability to the changing circumstances and needs of their constituencies and their ability to restructure themselves and/or their operations in order the better to satisfy these needs.

1.5 Theoretical framework

I have chosen the works of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg, Gramsci and Lukács, among others, as representing the basic or classic Marxist approach to the question of working class self-organisation. It is not that they are the “best” writers on the subject, rather it is because some aspects of their treatment of the question will serve to illuminate and illustrate my particular approach to the question. The unity of Marxist theory as a body of thought hopefully means that its basic tenets are not lost in choosing only a handful of writers to illustrate my point. Antonio Gramsci’s ideas on civil society relate most directly to my research questions and therefore his theorisation of working class self-organisation is particularly important in my analysis. However, the subject matter I deal with my study consists of the specific characteristics of life in South Africa’s informal settlements and the role of committees formed by the shack dwellers therein. This requires theorisation informed by the workers of researchers who have dealt with themes closely related to this topic and an effort on my part to integrate these themes within the broader Marxist framework that provides the theoretical bedrock of this dissertation.

Gramsci is particularly relevant for this study because: firstly, he was practically involved in the setting up of factory councils in Italy during the Biennio Rosso and wrote a lot on the question during the course of that struggle. These councils can be regarded as spontaneous forms of working class self-organisation at the workplace. My study focuses on self-organisation as a key concept in understanding the formation and operation of shack dwellers’ committees. Secondly, Gramsci seminally theorised the role of the state and of hegemony whereby he explained how the ruling class keeps a grip on, consolidates and extends its power (Gramsci 1978, 1971). His basic argument in this respect is that rulers use, in addition to force, leadership and consent to consolidate their rule. He argues that for hegemony to be effectively exercised, “force should appear to be supported by the agreement of the majority, expressed by the so-called organs of public opinion – newspapers and associations” (Gramsci 1971:407).20 It is these “associations” formed by shack dwellers that my dissertation focuses upon in so far as they can be regarded as organs of civil society that are amenable to be used by the ruling class to win the consent of the subalterns in their own domination. However, hegemony is not a given, it involves a contestation that is on-going and context-specific, the ruling class might find these same organs used against it to challenge or undermine its hegemony.21

The theoretical kernel of my approach will be that the shack dwellers’ popular committees should be regarded as part of civil society, as “associations,” and as such are open to ideological or hegemonic contestation. There are different types of committees that exist and one important type is the “people’s committee,” a category of committee that I define as one that is formed independently of the state. There are other categories of committees such as ward committees, community policing forums and community development forums which are statutory in nature and are formed at the behest of the state. The ANC as the ruling party is obliged to, and does, engage in a contestation for hegemony over local communities and politics including seeking to control or otherwise influence the popular committees found in the shack settlements. My research findings suggest that in many instances where the ANC dominates or has influence over a particular settlement’s committees it warrants the conclusion that it is thereby hegemonic. The power of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony is that it allows us

20 See Joll (1977:99). 21 Hegemony as a process is concrete, contingent and conjunctural. There is therefore a need for a study of concrete situations in order to develop a picture of the (dynamic) power relations between the rulers and the ruled (Gramsci 1996:185, Hart 2009:119).

34 to view forms of civil society organisation politically, that is, as important players in the class struggle.

Is the role of the shack committees reformist or revolutionary, hegemonic or counter- hegemonic? To what extent do local conditions, that is, the political culture intertwined with regional, national and global dynamics, affect the answer to this question? The study tests and challenges not only Gramscian theoretical categories but also those of social movement studies and the Marxist theory of organisation and seeks to develop, if necessary, concepts that reflect reality more accurately. Before going into the research field I coined the concept of “democracy on the margins.” This refers to the development and practice of local democratic practices and cultures by “neglected” communities that have little apparent power to influence mainstream political developments because of their disadvantaged political and economic insertion into unequal power relations in society. I viewed the operation of popular committees in the shacks of South Africa as an aspect of this democratic practice and ethos that operates side by side with the dominant liberal-democratic form but which is largely not acknowledged or adequately theorised.

1.6 Research questions

 Which factors define and shape the nature and character of different forms of working-class self-organisation that have emerged in history?  Do these different forms suggest the existence of different models of working class self-organisation and participatory democracy?  Can we understand shack committees as one form or model of working class self- organisation?  What are the factors that must be taken into account when assessing the political orientation and practice of a shack committee?  How does the dialectic between the role of working class forms of self-organisation as organs of struggle and as organs of self-government express itself in the soviets, factory councils, shop steward councils and township civics?  To what extent is this dialectic relevant towards our understanding of shack dwellers’ committees?  What lessons do the shack committees offer in developing a Marxist understanding of working class forms of self-organisation and self-government?

1.7 Methodology

My research methodology borrows from Burawoy’s (2009:21) “extended case method” which is based on a reflexive model of science whereby the empirical component of the study is both theoretically informed and is aimed at contributing to theory construction. The study uses interviews, observation, participant observation and documentary analysis. The research design consists of two major components. The first component was an overview study that involved an excursion visiting 46 informal settlements whose aim was to establish the state of self- organisation in the settlements. About ten informal settlements were visited in each of four provinces, namely, Gauteng, Eastern Cape, North West and KwaZulu-Natal. The second component of the field work involved the selection of four case studies which allowed me to conduct an in-depth investigation of the operation of committees in each one of these four areas. The cases were located in the four provinces that were covered during the overview component of the study. In my analysis and presentation of findings I have focused my attention and that of the reader on data from three cases rather than four for manageability and due to time and space constraints. The data from the fourth case study is however incorporated in the analysis of the overview study and will be presented in future publications in scholarly journals. A special case study where I used the method of participant observation was Thembelihle, an informal settlement with which I have had a long acquaintance as an activist and researcher. The dynamics, ethics and methodological issues arising out of my positionality in respect of this case study are discussed in detail in Chapter 4.

1.8 Chapter outline

Chapter 2 consists of the general literature review where I present the main theoretical and empirical writings informing my approach to the study including definitions of the main concepts followed by a consideration of the housing question as it relates to informal settlements, a discussion of the class identity of shack dwellers and whether they can be regarded as an “underclass,” a discussion of “marginalisation,” an account of the Iranian squatter movement during the 1979 revolution, a survey of some key classical Marxist thinkers on self-organisation, a brief consideration of the Russian debate on the peasant road to socialism, followed by a survey of selected key African writers on the subject of self- organisation, and finally the identification of gaps in the literature.

Chapter 3 looks at the history of the squatter movement in South Africa, its relationship to the 1950s defiance campaign, and to the 1980s township uprising. In the discussion I focus on the

36 class dynamics of the anti-apartheid struggle identifying the working class as a crucial component in this struggle. I end the chapter by a consideration of the movement of informal settlments in South Africa today.

Chapter 4 focuses on the methodology, the choice of a reflexive approach as opposed to positivism, a brief discussion of “public sociology,” a presentation of the research design, methods and techniques used, including the challenges I faced in the field and a justification for using insights and data collected in my role as an activist in the context of the Thembelihle case study.

Chapter 5 is a discussion of the research overview excursion that I undertook that covered 46 informal settlements, including a presentation of the main categories of committees I found, discussing each one of these in turn and rounding off by considering the applicability of the concept “democracy on the margins” which I coined to describe the proliferation of committees in the informal settlements.

Chapters 6, 7 and 8 focus on my case studies, namely, Duncan Village in East London, Nkaneng in Rustenburg, Thembelihle in Johannesburg. Each chapter looks at the different types of committees found in each area, their history, their role and functions, their political orientation and their relationship to each other, to the state and the community.

Chapter 9 is a comparative chapter where the findings from the three case studies are compared to one another and then related to the overview study. In this chapter I try to focus on the main themes arising out of the empirical work without delving much into theory.

Chapter 10 is the concluding chapter that takes stock of all the discussion in the dissertation and brings together and relates the empirical findings to the theory and my hypotheses. In this chapter I revisit the history of the anti-apartheid movement focusing on working class self- organisation in work and living spaces, followed by a reconsideration of the Marxist treatment of working class self-organisation in the light of lessons from the South African experience especially of the self-organisation of shack dwellers. I then consider the implications of my research in the search for a stronger way forward in research and political practice.

CHAPTER 2 SHACK DWELLERS’ POPULAR COMMITTEES AND THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF WORKING-CLASS SELF- ORGANISATION

2.1 Introduction

There is a vast literature on working class self-organisation that provides the body of knowledge from which this chapter will draw. I will however focus on those works that are closer to my theoretical approach and bear some relation to the empirical subject matter of this dissertation, namely popular committees formed by shack dwellers. The following discussion will serve the purpose of delineating the conceptual parameters of this study and distinguishing what I suggest is my unique approach to the subject matter and contribution to the body of scholarship.

The thrust of my argument is that the formation of popular committees in the informal settlements is an expression of the agency of working class people in the sphere of social reproduction rather than production, in other words, at their places of residence as opposed to the workplace (Ballard et al. 2006:410, Burawoy 2003a:231).22 I further propose that the durability and continuance of the shack dwellers’ popular committees (amakomiti) is found in the ability of these structures to adapt and respond effectively to objective changes in the life circumstances and needs of their constituencies, in particular, the struggle to survive in a context where many of their basic needs are not adequately provided for by the state and society.

I propose that we should view the practice of self-organisation by shack dwellers as constituting a form of democracy from below that not only complements and augments present dominant state democratic forms but may also provide clues on how democracy could be substantively improved and deepened in a future ideal society (Wright 2010:6).23 In other

22 Richard Pithouse (2004:182) has argued that “most resistances in contemporary South Africa are at the point of consumption (basic services, housing, healthcare, education, etc.) rather than production, and are largely community rather than union driven” and that as a result this “freed many from …the fetish of the proletariat as the only viable agent of challenge to capital.” Ballard et al. (2006:411-412) disagree with this “suggestion of union impotence in the face of resurgent community activism.” The Marikana Massacre and the labour militancy and political ferment it wrought arguably underlined the importance of the workplace as a site of struggle (See Alexander 2013). 23 Erik Olin Wright (2010:6), in his quest for an “emancipatory social science,” sketches out some characteristics of a more just society as part of developing “utopian ideals that are grounded in the real

38 words, the role of self-organised grassroots structures of the working class ought to be understood as related to the struggle to satisfy workers’ needs in the present and the struggle to institute a new form of (workers’) state in the future. My argument is that the demise of workers’ grassroots structures has historically been due to obstacles put in the way of their development as organs of struggle and of self-government.24

This chapter begins by delving into the political economy of working class lives, agency and organisation in order to ground the analysis within a Marxist framework. The housing crisis provides the structural conditions whereby capitalist commodification of the provision of shelter forces millions to live in substandard conditions in shacks, barrios, favelas and other forms of informal housing. From consideration of structure the discussion moves towards questions of agency focusing on the question of the class identity of shack dwellers where I argue that they should be regarded as part of the working class. This allows me to approach shack dwellers’ popular committees from the point of view of the Marxist theory and historical practice of working-class self-organisation. In the chapter I then consider classical Marxist theorists on the question of self-organisation focusing on the Paris Commune, soviets and factory councils as these have historically developed in Europe. A key question here is how and why these workers’ structures came into and out of being, the dialectical relationship between their role as organs of struggle and organs of self-government, and their operation in pre- and post-revolutionary periods.

To bring the discussion closer to home and partly as a response to post-colonial theory’s critique of (Marxist) Eurocentrism,25 I consider in some detail African approaches to working class self-organisation and popular mobilisation. I also discuss the Middle East experience of squatter organisation and mobilisation focusing on Iran in order to locate the discussion more broadly in the global South. I critically engage with the international literature on the subject of the political character of slum dwellers’ organisations arguing for a revolutionary Marxist understanding of their struggles, that is, they should be approached as part or variants of working class struggle rather than as distinct battles waged by social elements that are distinct

potentials of humanity, utopian destinations that have accessible waystations, utopian designs of institutions that can inform our practical tasks of navigating a world of imperfect conditions for social change.” 24 In other circumstances alternative paths of development are opened which might lead to the continued existence of workers’ forms of organisation albeit resulting in significant changes in their character and mode of operation, for example, when workers’ committees re-constitute themselves as (part of) trade unions (See Sinwell 2015). 25 Vivek Chibber (2013a) considers and responds to the post-colonial theory challenge focusing on subaltern studies, an important tendency in this school of thought.

39 from the working class – the “underclass,” “precariat,” “lumpenproletariat” and other such conceptions. I conclude by identifying gaps in the literature that this study sets out to fill.

2.2 Definition of key terms in the theoretical framework

2.2.1 Democracy, participatory democracy and “democracy on the margins” In the Marxist literature the main reason proffered for workers forming their own organisations is that these self-organised forms are more democratic and responsive to workers’ needs (Barker 2008:1).26 This approach is based on a critique of the liberal (“bourgeois”) conception and practice of democracy. Modern liberal democracy as a political ideology and a form of government is based on the notion of a “social contract,” rule of law, the separation of powers, protection and promotions of liberal freedoms (of speech, assembly and association), and regular elections where political parties compete for office (Callinicos 1991:118). Multi- partyism and regular elections based on a universal franchise has arguably become emblematic of, and the chief criteria for states to qualify as democratic. Criticisms of modern liberal democracy abound in the literature and can be categorised broadly as falling within and outside the Marxist conception.

The advent of neoliberalism has led to a criticism that modern states are more responsive to the demands and needs of big corporations rather than to those of ordinary people (Harvey 2005:77).27 Some writers have argued that there is a “hollowing out” of Western democracy (Mair 2013:1). The critique of liberal democratic systems and their parliaments and why they are not responsive to the wishes of the “people” has led to the growth of a literature that splits into those who want to reform the system and those who want to transcend it. On the one hand, some writers focus on the various mechanisms and procedures that are created to facilitate increased public participation in government affairs and their efficacy in achieving this (Fung 2006, Mill 1977, Roelofs 1998). On the other hand is the Marxist critique which is arguably more fundamental.

Marxists identify fatal flaws in the very conception and structure of “bourgeois democracy,” suggesting that these cannot be redeemed. Marxist critics point to the class

26 Barker (2008:1) states: “Central to Marxism is the notion that the existing order of society needs to be overthrown by popular revolution, replacing the present form of state(s) with immensely more democratic political forms of direct popular rule. These new forms – first discovered/witnessed in the briefly lived institutions of the Commune of Paris in 1871, and further developed and explored in the ‘soviets’, ‘workers’ councils’ and ‘factory councils’ of Russia, Germany, Italy and elsewhere…” 27 Harvey (2005:77) notes: “The state typically produces legislation and regulatory frameworks that advantage corporations, and in some instances specific interests such as energy, pharmaceuticals, agribusiness, etc.

40 inequalities inherent in the capitalist economic and political system, and the related fact that private ownership and control of economic resources affords the owners of the means of production a bigger say in all capitalist societies (Callinicos 1991:109, Marx 1977). Marxists view democracy under capitalism as very limited. It is a democracy that extends only as far as the election of political representatives and, in some countries, occasional referenda. It does not involve recall or accountability of the elected. In many respects it undermines rather than encourages popular participation in political processes, for example, key decisions are left to “experts” employed by the state bureaucracy As Callinicos (1991:114) puts it: “The insulation of the state bureaucracy from parliamentary supervision is one of the commonplaces of twentieth-century political science.” Capitalist democracy does not generally permit the election or recall of state officials. Parliamentary institutions have proven incapable in many instances of making the executive accountable to citizens, for example, in South Africa there has recently been a huge brouhaha about “state capture” of the republic’s president by a group of businessmen (Public Protector RSA 2016). Critically, there is no democratic control by ordinary people (including workers) over production. The “captains of industry” willy-nilly make decisions (investment, divestment, product development, retrenchment, mergers, etc.) that affect the lives of thousands, and even millions of people, without any mechanism for those affected to directly influence these decisions (Cho, Surendra and Park 2008, Miliband 1969, Toussaint 2003).

Non-Marxist criticisms of liberal democracy tend to focus on procedural aspects of the system and on the distinction between representative and participatory democracy. Thus, there are concerns that “the procedural aspect of the democratic system do little to create a politically informed and motivated body of voters” and that “if we rely upon representatives we can relinquish our power to political elites” (Todd and Taylor 2004:8-9). Here we hear echoes of the anarchist critique of representative democracy (Proudhon 1989, Woodcock 1975:15). The solution to the problem tends to be procedural and it focuses on the development of public participation mechanisms in government affairs (Fung 2006). There has emerged, however, a more radical response that, in its search for democratic practice, goes beyond the state form. Some authors in social movement studies, for example, call for a form of “democracy from below or ‘direct democracy,’ which differs from ‘representative democracy’” (Martin 2004:29); the aim being “the development of a new conception of democracy” (della Porta and Diani 2006:239), or “a new model of democracy” (Martin 2004:29). This approach extends the definition of democratic processes to include popular struggles and extra-parliamentary

41 activities as essential aspects of democracy, in particular collective action used as a mechanism for “intervening in the political decision-making processes” (della Porta and Diani 2006:240).

The South African state, like other liberal democratic states, has developed various official mechanisms to increase public participation in government affairs. These have taken the institutional form of ward committees, imbizos (government-sponsored assemblies), Integrated Development Planning (participatory town planning processes), public submissions to legislatures, public hearings, etc. (Bénit-Gbaffou 2008a:5; Harriss, Stokke and Törnquist 2004). However, these South African state mechanisms are generally viewed as inadequate for a variety of reasons (Ballard, Bonnin, Robinson and Xaba 2006, Bénit-Gbaffou 2008a:5-6).28 The criticisms of these participatory mechanisms is linked to the development of a huge body of literature in development studies that centres on the notion of “participation in development.”

Luke Sinwell (2009:49) provides a useful summary of the evolution of the debate concerning the authenticity and quality of so-called “participation in development” among development theorists and practitioners. He writes:

Participatory approaches to development emerged forcefully in the 1970s due to concerns that development practices were top-down and therefore failing to meet the needs of intended beneficiaries. In the 1980s, participation quickly became mainstreamed in development projects throughout the world and was projected by its proponents as intrinsically positive and faultless. By the mid and late 1990s, radical academics and, to a lesser extent policy makers and practitioners, questioned the purpose and outcomes that resulted from mainstreamed participatory processes. By the turn of the century, they began to argue that participation serves the interests of those in power since it provides a discourse through which to impose their priorities.29

As a consequence there has developed two contradictory evaluations of attempts to democratise development processes, namely, “the binaries of participation as tyranny or [as]

28 For example, Claire Bénit-Gbaffou (2008b:26): “[T]he study of participation patterns in different neighbourhoods in Johannesburg…demonstrates that institutional channels (be it representative democracy, or various participatory institutions and instruments) are currently not working in Johannesburg…[the reason] broadly [is] we question the lack of importance of participatory democracy in the ANC and in the government agenda, despite the political discourses claiming the contrary.” 29 Some key texts in this debate in the international literature are: Chambers (1983, 1997); Cornwall (2000, 2002, 2004); Hickey and Mohan (2004). In South Africa: Ballard, Bonnin et al. (2006); Bénit-Gbaffou (2008); Miraftab and Wills (2005); Pithouse (2006b); Sinwell (2009); Williams (2008).

42 transformation” (Sinwell 2009:49). Sinwell’s theoretical project is to advance beyond these binaries by “focusing on the multiple processes through which participation unfolds in practice.” In other words, he is arguing that in practice the outcome is not dichotomous, the democratic content of participation in development is concrete and contingent. But as Sinwell himself recognises, the struggle for genuine and empowering participation in development takes places within, and is largely shaped, and hamstrung, by the capitalist mode of production.30 In the search for true or authentic democracy, Lebowitz (2003:163, 203) has argued that a close reading of Marx reveals an expansive understanding of democracy as a human process whose purpose is human development itself. The decisions that human beings make, as is the case with most of their activities including in the economic sphere, are directed towards the realisation of human capabilities in the fullest possible way. Marx (1844:55) criticised the classical economists for having a one-sided view of human beings as mere economic beings whose life activity centres upon acquiring wages or profits. Marx’s approach is a step forward in that it points to an essential aspect of democracy – it should allow the fullest development of a human being – that goes beyond the state form, encapsulates all areas of life and, in theory at least, traverses different historical epochs and social systems. With respect to the state form, the notion of socialist democracy as an alternative to limited to modern liberal democracy is proffered in line with this Marxian understanding and analysis of historical experience (Callinicos 1991:114). In practice our evaluation of what is democratic will depend on concrete considerations and criteria. From a working class point of view the economic, political and ideological impositions and strictures of capitalism will complicate democratic processes in so far as the development of political consciousness among workers will be uneven. Historical context is important, for example, the operation of soviets before and after the revolution arguably set different challenges and tasks that require adjusting the criteria we set to evaluate the adequacy of democratic practice.31 Historically the notion of vanguardism arises out of the observation that only a minority of workers will at first arrive to revolutionary conclusions about society

30 Cornwall (2000:1) notes that: “Their [development practitioners’] concerns centre on the use of participation as a legitimating device that draws on the moral authority of claims to involve the poor to place the pursuit of other agendas beyond reproach.” 31 Trotsky (2008:748) defends the Russian Revolution from critics who argue that the Russian Revolution was imposed by a minority on the majority as if the decision for an insurrection could have been taken by a vote or referendum by the masses of workers: “The difference in level and mood of the different layers of the people is overcome in action. The advance layers bring after them the wavering and isolate the opposing. The majority is not counted up, but won over.”

43 and as such are catapulted to provide political leadership to the majority. In other words, while the revolution requires maximum participation and support from the majority of workers, a minority of them guides the revolutionary movement to victory. Without such leadership and guidance it is difficult to imagine a successful social revolution (Trotsky 2008:742-744).32 I would argue that it is necessary to take into account the historical period, the political content, the purpose and the form of democratic organisation and processes in order to pass judgement on democratic processes. Taking into account this observation and Marx’s approach, I propose the following working definition of democracy: Democracy is the process whereby decisions are taken collectively based on consensus and/or majority rule with the purpose of broadly achieving human development. This working definition caters for decisions made in community-wide meetings, committee structures, and also in state structures, including the appointment or election of leaders and representatives. A working definition of participatory democracy is that it is the practice of involving those affected by a decision in a continuous process of making it and monitoring its implementation and evaluation of its outcomes. These conceptual clarifications allow me to turn to my proposed concept of “democracy on the margins.” Shack dwellers form popular committees, amakomiti, that operate largely, but not always, along participatory democratic lines. They are a form of collective decision-making that is designed to be responsive to the needs of their constituency. The fact that they exist in various forms in almost all the informal settlements suggests that they emerge from the challenges faced by the dwellers and carry out tasks that are necessitated by the conditions of life therein. They have arguably become part of the political culture of these places. They are a form of self-organisation and collective decision-making that does not take place within the state liberal democratic form and as such can be understood to constitute a form of democracy that exists outside of, or parallel to the dominant form. I propose that this self-organised form can be called “democracy on the margins” because it occurs on the margins of the dominant form and serves communities that can be said, with some important qualifications, to be “marginal” to dominant socio-spatial processes (Meier 2000:5-6).33 Unlike other forms of

32 Le Blanc (1990:276) explicates Trotsky’s analysis thus: “Only if these working-class resources [numbers, solidarity, cadres] are consciously mobilized in a particular way can the framework of capitalism be transcended [i.e. taking power as opposed to overthrowing the old regime]. The working class, a vast and complex social formation composed of individuals with diverse experiences and inclinations, cannot spontaneously – as if with a single mind and will – formulate such a plan of action.” 33 Meier (2000:5-6) argues that African squatters in Cape Town were marginalized geographically, economically, socially and legally. I will address objections to the notion of “marginalisation” in Section 2.5.3 below.

44 working class or popular self-organisation structures that thrive during periods of political upheaval and decline during retreats or lulls, amakomiti traverse these periods in their operation. They are neither strictly committees of struggle nor of self-government; rather they present with both characteristics, and perhaps sometimes of neither, according to the conditions they find themselves in at any given time.34 In this way, an important characteristic of “democracy on the margins” as reflected in the nature and character of the committees, is that it is permeable (open to influence) and adaptable, and as such, is responsive to shifts in the circumstances of the shack dwellers in a given settlement at a given time. I will argue that this is an important factor in the continuance and durability of the committees and hence of this form of democracy. 2.2.2 Hegemony and state power An important concept in this dissertation is that of hegemony which Gramsci deploys in relation to state power in capitalist society and the struggle of the working class in the face of and against it. For Marxists, political power has to be understood in the context of class society and of the class struggle. In the sphere of the state political power is “merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another” (Callinicos 1991:131) in the sense that the state overseers a society characterised by class inequality and therefore riven by class antagonism.35 It is in this context that the role of hegemony should be understood. Hegemony can be defined generally as the practice or process of dominance of the ruling class over the ruled exercised through the former’s grip on state power. In this respect Gramsci crucially noted that: The “normal” exercise of hegemony in the area which has become classic, that of the parliamentary regime, is characterised by a combination of force and consensus which vary in their balance with each other, without force exceeding consensus too much…force should appear to be supported by the agreement of the majority (Gramsci 1971:407). Because hegemony is not simply a question of the exercise of brute force by the ruler over the ruled, it is a delicate process that is open-ended and dynamic involving “balance” between force and consent. As such it does not simply occur in the sphere of formal politics or political institutions but involves the operation of organs of civil society such as trade unions, educational institutions, associations, community committees, etc. In South Africa, civics and

34 This emerges clearly in the case studies documented in this dissertation (See chapters 6, 7 and 8). 35 This is so despite perspectives that have “evolved beyond mere notions of ‘who benefits?’, ‘who is getting exploited?’, ‘how badly are they exploited?’, to understanding the dynamic, capillary and decentred nature of circuits of power, which are always unstable and vulnerable to resistance and transformation” (Pieterse 2008:5).

45 shack dwellers’ committees can be regarded as constituting organs of civil society and thus, I propose, play a crucial role in the process of hegemony. I elaborate further on this concept in the section on Gramsci below and further on in the dissertation. 2.2.3 Protest and mobilisation of social and working class movements Social movement theory tends to focus on local organisation in the context of protests organised and conducted collectively by a community or group of social actors. Protest(s) can be defined as collective action that “place demands on people who hold or benefit from political power” Alexander (2010:26). This definition of protest derives from and is applicable to the South African situation which has seen a meteoric rise in the frequency of protests in the past decade or so (Alexander 2010, Vally 2009). The protests take place in working class and poor communities mainly due to dissatisfaction with the provision of basic services such as water, sanitation, electricity and housing. As a result they have been labelled “service delivery protests” although the evidence suggests that this characterisation is too narrow as the issues raised by protesters are wide-ranging; for example, many communities are aggrieved by the quality of democracy in relation to the lack of responsiveness and accountability of elected government officials (Alexander 2010:25-26, 37; Pithouse 2007). Protest politics is relevant in this dissertation because shack dwellers’ committees often address issues pertaining to the provision of basic services and it is often around these matters that protest action is organised. However, my approach distinguishes itself from research approaches that only pay attention to local organisation in the context of protest by focusing on shack dwellers’ committees also in contexts devoid of protests including noting that committees might in some instances not support protest action. It is important to comment on how social movements are approached in the literature in order to distinguish my approach to the subject matter of shack dwellers’ committees. Social movement theory in the 1970s and 1980s shifted its focus to the “new social movements” which were characterised by a “decline in class-based politics” and the replacement of working class movements as fulcrums of organising for social change and whose “support bases were difficult to define in class terms” (Garner 1997:34). This process reflects economic and socio-political changes associated with the decline of trade unions, workers’ parties and the socialist vision as vehicles for radical social change and the observation that the manual workers or the labouring classes have declined both in number and in social power (Callinicos 1989: 127, Habermas 1987:79). Charles Tilly (1993-4:2) seminally defined a social movement as consisting “of a sustained challenge to powerholders in the name of a population living under the jurisdiction of those powerholders by means of repeated public displays of that population's numbers,

46 commitment, unity and worthiness.” This suggests that social movements can be said to exist when there is sustained public activity, including protest action, by a group of people. Tilly went on to suggest that social movements do not aspire to take power but rather: “Social movements call instead for powerholders to take the crucial actions” (Tilly 1993-4:7). In other words, social movements put pressure on the authorities or otherwise influence them to make policy changes or take action that addresses the group’s concerns. Tilly’s approach to social movements has been questioned by other researchers notably by Marxist theorists such as Colin Barker (2015:3) who argue that it unnecessarily circumscribes social movement politics within a reformist rather than transformative- revolutionary framework.36 This is an important observation because history suggests that working class self-organisation in the form of working class movements is quite capable of and has indeed sought to remove and replace powerholders rather than merely seeking to influence them, for example, the role of the soviets in the Russian Revolution. With respect to shack dwellers’ committees it should be noted that in addition to calling on powerholders to take action these committees sometimes take matters into their own hands such as when land invasions are organised, crime-fighting mechanisms are developed, disputes resolved, etc. This suggests the useful but limited applicability of the social movement theoretical framework in understanding local organisation in the informal settlements which does not end with putting pressure on authorities but often is called upon to take action normally reserved as the preserve of the state or its agencies. In this dissertation I argue for a Marxist theoretical framework that is founded on an inquiry into the political economy of social movements and self-organisation whose conceptualisation of incorporates both reformist and revolutionary imperatives in social change. 2.3 The social and economic roots of working class self-organisation Political and economic developments in the world today reflect and are an expression of the crises of the capitalist system (Foster and Magdoff 2009, Posner 2009, Stiglitz 2010). It is mostly ordinary working class people and the poor that bear the brunt of such crises as evidenced by the rise in unprecedented levels of inequality and the concomitant proliferation of protests and uprisings in many countries (Andersen 2011, Burgen 2015, Davis 2006, Piketty 2014). Marx’s discussion of the origins of trade unions suggests that workers are compelled to

36 Freeman (1983:3) notes in this respect that: “With a few notable exceptions, the belief systems of most movements in the sixties and seventies were extensions of basic liberal concepts that dominate our public philosophy.” This points to the need to study the ideology of social movements.

47 organise in order to defend their living standards from capitalist attacks.37 In other words, the self-organisation of the working class has a material basis to it. However, two distortions have historically and theoretically arisen from this observation, namely, the problem of economic determinism and that of regarding workers as economic categories rather than as human beings. The next section addresses these problems in order the better to explicate the concept of working class self-organisation.

2.3.1 Utopian socialism and economic determinism

Economic determinism arises out of two separate but related theoretical observations made by Marx which I will deal with in turn. The first one is about the relationship of existence or being to consciousness and the second one concerns the theory of the historical progression of modes of production or the stages of social and economic development in society. Marx (1859:1) wrote that:

The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men [sic] that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.

This statement has sometimes been misconstrued to mean that human consciousness mechanically reflects economic conditions (Molyneux 1995). This misunderstanding actually precedes Marx, and the culprit is Robert Owen, one of the so-called “utopian socialists” that Marx and Engels criticised and whose ideas they sought to transcend (Engels 1880). Owen, an inspired social reformer and working class sympathiser, set out to create ideal conditions which would mould and produce the ideal human being (Owen 1816). Marx did not agree with this approach both on practical-political and theoretical grounds. Practically, he argued that the attempt to create islands of utopian communities in the midst of capitalism, while admirable, was bound to fail because of the dominance of the system whose power and influence could

37 Marx (1978:168) states: “Large-scale industry concentrates in one place a crowd of people unknown to one another. Competition divides their interests. But the maintenance of wages, this common interest which they have against their boss, unites them in a common thought of resistance—combination...”

48 not be evaded nor ignored.38 Owen’s dream of an ideal socialist society could only be achieved with the overthrow of the capitalist system.39

The theoretical-philosophical critique of Owen is found in Engels (1880:7-9) and Marx’s (1970:121) statement in the Third Thesis on Feuerbach where he challenges the utopian socialist’s approach:

The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men [sic] and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.

Marx restores agency to human beings by refuting that consciousness is shaped by conditions but that there is an active interaction between the two and that it is in the course of this process that human beings are changed and, to be precise, change themselves. Social engineering by enlightened leaders and state officials, that is, top down reforms, no matter how radical, are not the method favoured by Marx for effecting progressive social change. The people themselves have to do it. Forced collectivisation and other inspired but coercive impositions on the working class by the Soviet state fell into this trap that Marx had foreseen and wrote about. His prescience in this respect is apparent when he warns that such an approach will “divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.”40

2.3.2 Modes of production

38 While Marx (1981:571) approved of worker co-operatives he also wrote that they reproduced “all the defects of the existing system.” They did not go beyond profit-seeking and competition; they remained an isolated system “based on individual and antagonistic interests” using the means of production to “valorise their own labour.” See Lebowitz (2003:89) 39 “To convert social production into one large and harmonious system of free and co-operative labour, general social changes are wanted, changes of the general conditions of society, never to be realised save by the transfer of the organised forces of society, viz., the state power, from capitalists and landlords to the producers themselves” was Marx’s (1866:346) fundamental critique of co-operatives which he nevertheless gave his critical support. 40 James Scott (1998:4,223,318) has developed an interesting argument that the implementation of “high- modernist” policies by social reformers/revolutionaries such as Lenin, Mao and Nyerere, entailed the imposition of good ideas without regard to the “mētis,” that is, “forms of knowledge embedded in local experience.” In a different context, Hilary Sapire and Jo Beall (1995:8) define modernism as characterised by “optimism in the possibility of solving urban problems through major planning intervention.” In other words, there is a scepticism to forms of social engineering conceived by “experts” without the participation of the people who must live with the consequences.

Let us now turn to the Marxist theory of social development in order to correct an approach to historical development that at times has had a disastrous impact on political practice. This relates to the Marxist understanding of the historical progression of humanity through different modes of production. Marx’s characterisation of the historical development of human society as passing through definite modes of production, namely, ancient, feudal, capitalist and socialist – he added the Asiatic mode of production to characterise, among other things, societies that did not seem to fit into this schema – has had a profound impact on history.41 Revolutionary strategy and, even more importantly, post-revolutionary governance, have been developed based on this formulation whereby revolutionaries wanted to carry out “historical tasks,” that is, programmes and tactics that were in line with the Marxist schema. However, the rigid and prescriptive application of this formula has been questioned by Marxists, most recently by Jairus Banaji (2010) in a book that won the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher award in 2012. I will briefly discuss Banaji’s contribution because of its importance in overcoming some problems in Marxist theory and practice that resulted from the theoretical lacunae around the notion of the mode of production which are relevant for this dissertation. This is not to underplay the importance of other debates and controversies around this topic.42

The thrust of Banaji’s clarification is to be found in what Marx (1877:1) wrote when he revolted against the attempt to:

metamorphose my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into an historico-philosophic theory of the marche generale [general path] imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself, in order that it may ultimately arrive at the form of economy which will ensure, together with the greatest expansion of the productive powers of social labour, the most complete development of man.

Banaji (2012:227) argues against a unilinear understanding of historical development pointing out that Marx used the term “mode of production” in two senses, namely, as an “epoch of production” and as a “mode of labour.” The former refers to a broader economic formation of society such as capitalism, while the latter refers to a labour process or form of production that is specific to a given type of industry. In other words, a point that in fact goes to the heart

41 As Banaji (2010:351) notes: “References dispersed across Marx’s writings have generated a canonical genealogy which sees Europe’s past (more precisely, the past of Western Europe) moving from slavery to feudalism to capitalism in a sort of inflexible succession spanning whole centuries.” 42 For example, the famous (Robert) Brenner debate (See Aston and Philpin 1985).

50 of Banaji’s insight, a mode of production broadly defined will employ different forms of production narrowly defined and as “seen from the technological point of view” (Marx 1976:1026).

The distinction Marx made between the mode of production broadly defined and the mode of labour has been, according to Banaji (2010), the source of confusion for our understanding of this concept. There has been a tendency for the reduction of modes of production to their forms of labour exploitation, that is, of the former to the latter. It is not the form that the exploitation of labour takes, for example, wage or slave labour, that defines a historical epoch of social production, rather it is the “laws of motion” of a particular mode of production that define it. Banaji (2010) liberates analysis from the strictures of an inherited formalism whereby various forms of labour coercion that occurred in, say, the colonies, were understood from perspectives that presumed an identity between wage labour (defined as “free labour”) and capitalism. This meant, by definition, that where labour was not “free” there was no capitalism and the theoretical problem arising from this conclusion would be solved by recourse to the notion of “articulation of modes of production” (Banaji 2010:359). Marx (1973:449) wrote, with respect to the so-called slave mode of production: “The fact that we now not only call the plantation owners in America capitalists, but that they are capitalists.”43 This is because, according to Marx (1968:302-303), in the plantations, where “production is intended for the world market, the capitalist mode of production exists, although only in a formal sense.”44 Banaji (2010:280) clarifies this point by reference to Marx’s distinction between the “formal subsumption” of small independent producers by merchant capital by way of controlling the fruits of their labour, and “real subsumption” in which capital takes over and organises the labour process itself. In the former “the labour-process remains continuous with earlier modes of labour, [but] the process of production has become the process of capital itself, that is, of the self-expansion of value, of the conversion of money into capital” (Banaji 2010:280).

Banaji (2010) provides evidence and a theoretical explanation for the occurrence of wage labour in pre-capitalist societies that existed a millennium ago. Tellingly, he illustrates how some non-Western pre-colonial societies developed forms of capitalism much earlier than has hitherto been believed to be the case. By doing this he has managed to expand the historical

43 See Banaji (2010:352-353). 44 See also Banaji (2010:353).

51 treatment of the genesis of capitalism to include countries outside of Europe. This theoretical feat is very important for this dissertation because it provides firmer ground for my key methodological assumption, namely: (1) the applicability of the concept of class in studies of the self-organisation of the labouring classes across historical epochs and geographical spaces; (2) the political implication that the emancipation of labour is a universal historical project that, despite the variety of organizational forms and practical challenges, provides a basis for viewing all struggles of the exploited as ultimately constituting one struggle and all the movements as ultimately constituting one movement – the working class movement, the movement of the labouring classes. My engagement (below) with arguments put forward by post-colonial theorists responding to their charge of Eurocentrism against Marxism benefits from Banaji’s (2010) theoretical breakthrough. Marxist analysis is not a straitjacket that is imposed willy-nilly on history, nor is it a magic formula that unlocks the complexities of historical development; it is rather an analytical tool that helps us understand, after much careful study, the similarities and differences in historical developments in different societies at different times without getting lost in an empiricism that cannot account for the dynamic behind these developments (Blackledge 2006:14).45

2.3.3 The political economy of labour

There is a gap in Marx’s treatment of the historical agency of the working class which needs to be filled in order to fully understand the organic capacity of this class to lead historical change. It is a gap within political economy, the bedrock of Marxist analysis, and filling it will further develop the theoretical framework in our discussion of working-class self-organisation. In his award-winning book Lebowitz (2003) argues that when Marx wrote Capital his analysis focused on the operation of the capitalist system from the point of view of capital rather than that of labour.46 While the capital/wage-labour relation is two-sided, in Capital it is explored only from the perspective of capital. Lebowitz marshals an impressive amount of quotes from Marx’s writings including notes and correspondence which, had he lived longer, he would have used to write a book, for which he had drawn an outline, where he would address the question from the point of view of labour.47 Lebowitz (2003:78) claims that “the side of wage-labour is

45 Blackledge (2006:14) points out, against the empiricists, that “there is no necessary contradiction between Marx’s conception of social structure and the demand that historians attempt to richly describe historical processes.” 46 Lebowitz’s book is titled Beyond Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of the Working Class (1992/2003). The book won the Tamara and Isaac Deutscher award in 2004. 47 For example, Marx (1988:44-45) states: “The problem of these movements in the level of the workers’ needs… do not belong, where the general capital-relation is to be developed, but in the doctrine of the wages of

52 present in Capital – latently.” His argument therefore is that Capital helps us to understand the “political economy of capital” and that there is a need to ascertain “the political economy of labour.” This argument is similar to Eddie Webster’s (1985:12) observation that “with the exception of Chapter 10 in Volume I it is capital and not labour that is the central actor.”48

Since the capital-labour relationship is a “unity of opposites” what emerges is that the political economy of labour tends to be the opposite of that of capital. Whereas capital’s inner nature and purpose is a “self-valorising value,” the purpose of wage labour is “human development” itself. The life project of a human being is not wages (nor profits) but the development of his or her human capacities as a whole. “The political economist,” Marx (1844b:55) wrote, “reduces everything… to man [sic], i.e., to the individual whom he strips of all determinateness so as to classify him as capitalist or worker.” This narrow view facilitates the reduction and subordination of human beings to the blind laws of capital.

What then is the political economy of capital and how does it differ from that of labour? Lebowitz argues that capital divides workers and instills competition among them as a mechanism to rob them of the fruits of cooperative production. Instead of defending their collective interest workers compete with one another as individuals, groups, communities and across industries. Thus: “Individual self-seeking and competition constitutes the political economy of capital” (Lebowitz 2003:99). Whereas:

The political economy of wage-labour, by contrast, begins from the recognition that social productivity results from the combination of social labour, from the cooperation of the limbs and organs of the collective worker. And only by reducing the degree of separation, that only through combination and unity can wage labourers capture the fruits of cooperation for themselves and realise their “own need for development”…The two victories for the political economy of the working class revealed the goal (the “new form” of production) and the means to achieve it (Lebowitz 2003:99).

This truth is not immediately apparent to workers because capitalist morality is contextually affirmed, its “features [are part] of the life imposed upon workers every day” (Grossman 1996:6). It is necessary to analyse the capital-wage relationship as a whole in order to reveal

labour…The only thing of importance is that it [the level of workers’ needs] should be viewed as given, determinate. All questions relating to it as not a given but a variable magnitude belong to the investigation of wage labour in particular and do not touch its general relationship to capital” (quoted in Lebowitz 2003:47). 48 Webster (1985:12) quotes Cleaver (1979:28) where the latter suggests that Capital only concerns itself with abstract laws of motion “in that it completely ignores the way actual working class power forces and checks capitalist development.”

53 the true nature of capital as the product of exploitation and ascertain the irreconcilable differences between the capitalist class and the working class.

The concept of “totality” is central in avoiding the mystifications, what Lukács calls reification, that accompany judging capitalist reality based on appearances rather than on its essence and underlying dynamics:

Proletarian science is revolutionary not just by virtue of its revolutionary ideas which it opposes to bourgeois society, but above all because of its method. The primacy of the category of totality is the bearer of the principle of revolution in science (Lukács 1972:27).

This underlines the importance of Marxism as a science of the working class in its struggle against capital. The struggle ought to be waged, as Engels (1956:33, see Lebowitz 2003:172) notes, “pursuant to its three sides – the theoretical, the political and the practical-economic (resistance to the capitalists) – in harmony and in its interconnections, and in a systematic way.” The concept of totality leads to an accurate grasp of the political economy of capital and the conclusion that only its negation by the political economy of the working class can liberate humanity from its shackles. The implication for my analysis of amakomiti is that these are formed “spontaneously” as an aspect of the political economy of the working class and because there is an “objective need” whereby cooperation is essential for collective survival.49 However, even the formation of the soviets in the course of the Russian Revolution did not spontaneously translate into the conclusion by the mass of workers that “the power to be confronted is that of capital as a totality” (Lebowitz 2003:96). Instead, as Marx (1866:348, Lebowitz 2003:96) argued in relation to the trade unions, the committees wage “a guerilla war against capital” because their struggle tends to be confined to the purely economic: land, shelter, basic services, etc. Marx (1866:348) admonished the trade unions to become organizing centres for the working class “in the broad interest of its complete emancipation.” In other words, the defensive battles led by workers’ organisations, including amakomiti, must become offensive wars aimed at overthrowing and replacing the capitalist system.

2.4 The capitalist housing crisis and the informal settlements In a seminal work Mike Davis (2006:13) estimates that “that there were at least 921 million slum-dwellers in 2001: nearly equal to the population of the world when the young Engels first

49 Trotsky (1971: 122) explaining the creation of the Petersburg workers’ council wrote: “The Soviet came into being as a response to an objective need – a need born of the course of events.”

54 ventured onto the mean streets of Manchester.” Informal settlements are not unique to South Africa: favelas, barrios and squatter camps exist in most cities of the Third World, that is, countries once colonised and still dominated by imperialism.50 The universal nature of slums is important because it immediately suggests the relevance of global processes in addition to the local and national. It also underlines the economic inequalities and social injustices that characterise modern society whereby millions of people live in sub-standard conditions in the context of a highly developed and technologically advanced world. Shelter is a basic necessity for human existence but millions lack decent housing in the less developed countries and in the advanced capitalist countries people lose their homes due to economic difficulties as happened with the unprecedented rise in foreclosures in the USA during the 2008 global economic crisis (Harvey 2010). A walk through downtown Los Angeles exposes one to the plight of the homeless who live in the street in a city that houses the glitzy and excessively rich Hollywood precinct. It is reasonable to conclude that the existence and proliferation of slums is a problem that is unlikely to disappear in the near future unless there is a radical change in urbanisation and economic policy at a global scale.

2.4.1 From “the housing question” to “the right to the city”

The provision of adequate shelter is closely related to the nature of the economic and social system that people live in (Castells 1977, Harvey 1985a). The mode of production provides the general framework within which the organisation of shelter takes place. Capitalism is a mode of production characterised by the commodification of goods including housing. Capitalist development leads to a spatial concentration of populations in cities giving rise to the need for large scale provision of housing. Early social reformers were concerned with the poor working and living conditions that the world’s first industrial working classes were subjected to. Friedrich Engels, Marx’s comrade and collaborator, was the first to address the problem from a Marxist perspective. Among the books he wrote there was one focusing on the “housing question” (1872). His The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), based on a study of workers’ living conditions in mid-nineteenth century England, was a damning condemnation of the poverty generated by the Industrial Revolution.

Engels (1872:1) saw the housing question as closely related to how the capitalist system operates. Under 19th century capitalism with its rapid urbanisation processes, the provision of

50 Davis (2006:13) further notes: “Residents of slums constitute a staggering 78.2 per cent of the urban population of the least developed countries and fully a third of the global urban population.”

55 houses for workers and other classes was subjected to the anarchy of the market leading to housing shortages. The attempt to turn workers into homeowners as a solution could not work because they were paid poor wages in the context of escalating land and building material costs. Another problem was that workers often were unable to live in one place for long because, as the “light infantry of capital,” they had to march to those places where capital requires their labour (Marx 1976:818). However, pressure from the emerging workers’ movement, badgering by social reformers and concerns about public health forced the English capitalist state and some capitalist owners to institute reforms including providing accommodation for workers.

Subsequent writers developed the Marxist approach to the housing question. Henri Lefebvre (1973, 1991), one of the pioneers of the Marxist method in the study of the urbanisation process, gave us the concepts of “the right to the city” and “the production of social space.” His basic idea was that space is socially produced and that capitalist urbanisation produced a city that reflected unequal power relations:

(Social) space is a (social) product [...] the space thus produced also serves as a tool of thought and of action [...] in addition to being a means of production it is also a means of control, and hence of domination, of power (Lefebvre 1991:26).

This idea has been further developed by writers notably Manuel Castells (1977) and David Harvey (1985), representing the structuralist and human agency approaches to the urban question respectively.51 Castells (1977:7) warns against the use of “highly ideologised” concepts and understandings of urbanisation suggesting that only a Marxist theoretical perspective can solve what he calls “an ideologically determined conceptual imprecision.” An evolutionist theoretical problematic is wrongly used to understand urbanisation which is defined as a process of increasing concentration of populations and diffusion of certain “modern” values, attitudes and behaviours (Castells 1997:9). This benign definition begs too many questions, according to Castells, exactly because it seeks to present urbanisation as a natural and largely desirable process. But a basic historical analysis of the production of cities reveals that a city exists only when the population is divided into social classes, the political system allows class domination, investment institutions into culture and technology operate

51 Castells (1977:ix) states that “on the theoretical plane, I have proposed an adaptation of Marxist concepts to the urban sphere, using in particular the reading of Marx given by the French [structuralist] philosopher Louis Althusser.” Harvey (1985a: xv): “Yet there are moments, events, people, and experiences that impinge upon imagination in unexpected ways, that jolt and jar received ways of thinking and doing, that demand some extra imaginative leap to give them meaning…The city, Henri Lefebvre is fond of saying, ‘is the place of the unexpected.’”

56 and there is a system of external exchange (Castells 1977:12). We ought to study the production of spatial forms on the basis of the underlying social structure. If we transpose this perspective from cities into social formations (countries), that is, from urban studies to development economics, then the so-called problem of “underdevelopment” appears in a very different light because:

[it is in fact] not a question of different sequences of a single development, but of forms of expansion of a given historical structure, the advanced capitalist system, in which different social formations fulfil various functions and present characteristics corresponding to these functions and to their form of articulation (Castells 1977:43).52

Similarly, Harvey (1985a:xii-xiii) bemoans “the tendency [by sociology’s greats: Marx, Weber, Durkheim] to give time and history priority over space and geography.” Social scientists, and not just geographers, ought to take the question of space and its production seriously in the light of Giddens’ argument that time-space relations are “constitutive features of social systems”( Giddens 1981:30, Harvey 1985a:xii). Importantly, Harvey criticises what he calls “ad hoc adjustments” to basic Marxist tenets that are largely devoid of space analysis.53 “Historical materialism,” he argues, has “to be upgraded, therefore, to historico-geographical materialism. The historical geography of capitalism has to be the object of our theorizing” (Harvey 1985a:xiv).

Harvey (2008:23) is one of many scholars and movement practitioners inspired by Lefebvre’s concept of the “the right to the city” in so far as it informs opposition and resistance to what is largely regarded as the exclusion and marginalisation of people from the main levers of power, and of untrammelled use of space, in the neoliberal city (Friedmann 1995, Isin 2000, Soja 2000). However, some scholars have argued that the adoption of Lefebvre’s concept might be problematic in that people do not understand the depth and implications of his critique (Purcell 2002). Whereas, “[p]resent forms of [liberal democratic] enfranchisement revolve predominantly around the structures, policies, and decisions of the formal state,” Lefebvre’s

52 Thus, rather than “speak of underdeveloped countries it would be better to describe them as ‘exploited and dominated, with a deformed economy’” (Castells 1977:43). 53 Harvey (1985a:xiii) states: “Historical materialism appeared to license the study of historical transformations while ignoring how capitalism produces its own geography. This left Lenin and the theorists of imperialism with a huge gap to fill…and provoked an alternative rhetoric of exploitation in which centers exploit peripheries, the First World subjugates the Third, and capitalist power blocs compete for domination of space (markets, labour supplies, raw materials, production capacity). But how can we reconcile the idea that people in one place exploit or struggle against those in another place with Marx’s view of a capitalist dynamic powered by the exploitation of one class by another?”

57 emphasis on the production of urban spaces entails demanding much more than this (Purcell 2002:102). He provides a solution to a problem that is increasingly being felt with the ascendancy of neoliberalism, namely “the growing power of capital and the increasing inadequacy of liberal-democratic political structures as a means to check that power” (Purcell 2002:106).

Lefebvre’s target is “the current structure of both capitalism and liberal-democratic citizenship” (Purcell 2002:100). The inhabitants of the city should have a say in the processes of the production of space including the investment decisions of capital. His aim is to shift power away from the state and capital toward the urban inhabitants. Thus:

His right to the city is not a suggestion for reform, nor does it envision a fragmented, tactical, or piecemeal resistance. His idea is instead a call for a radical restructuring of social, political, and economic relations, both in the city and beyond…Instead of democratic deliberation being limited to just state decisions, Lefebvre imagines it to apply to all decisions that contribute to the production of urban space (Purcell 2002:101).

Mark Purcell (2002:101) advocates caution to those who embrace the concept too readily without understanding its true implications: “It is important,” he says, “to think carefully and critically about the right to the city, because realizing it would not mean the completion of a new urban revolution; rather, it would mark its beginning.”

2.4.2 Housing provision in different countries

In 1890 the Housing of the Working Class Act was passed by the British parliament opening an era of the provision of council housing for workers. Before this philanthropists and some factory owners had begun providing houses for workers. The First World War spurred the process of building houses and in 1930 slum clearance laws were passed. Millions of houses were destroyed during World War II spurring another round of house building. In the last quarter of the twentieth century state neoliberal policies spearheaded a process of privatisation whereby local authorities gave way to housing associations in the administration of social housing (Forrest and Murie 1988, Lawrence 2011). Countries in Western Europe, like the United Kingdom, also went through their own checkered histories of housing provision for the working classes related to the specific historical and political conditions in each country and the general processes of capitalist development and global geopolitics. A common theme, albeit

58 with important variations, is the initial provision of housing on a social basis for the working class and the increasing intrusion of the market into this sphere of social reproduction (Vickers and Wright 1989). This happened within the context of the dismantling of the welfare state. In comparison, the USA’s significant moments in housing provision were the New Deal and the post-war suburbanization boom (Jackson 1985). The latter process led to the neglect of the inner cities and the 1960s were a period of revolt mostly by black people and the poor who found themselves stranded in these areas. The neoliberal era reversed the problem as gentrification drove them out of their homes (Flores 2014).

Latin American cities have the highest growth rates in the world (Angel, Parent, Civco and Blei 2011:46).54 The pattern of urbanisation, like in many former colonies, is out of sync with industrial development (Castells 1977:52).55 The region is characterised by high levels of income inequality and poor housing. High migration rates from the countryside to the urban areas combined with decades of government neglect had resulted, by 2010, in “many of the region’s city inhabitants [being] poorly housed. Of the 130 million urban families in the region, 5 million rely on another family for shelter, 3 million live in houses that are beyond repair, and another 34 million live in houses that lack either title, water, sewerage, adequate flooring” (Bouillon 2012:1). Latin American cities are known for their vast favelas, barriadas and shantytowns. Various governments have developed programmes to address the problem with varying degrees of success, but the slums continue to exist resulting in a form of permanent “ecological segregation” (Castells 1977:57).

Africa is not much better off. The biggest city in Africa, Lagos in Nigeria, is reported to have 70% of its population living in slums and about the same proportion living on less than US$1,25 (Kay and Ibukun 2014:1). The second biggest economy in Africa is South Africa which also boasts a high percentage of people living in shantytowns in the cities and about half below the state-defined poverty line (Nicolson 2015a:1). African governments are reputed to be spending too little on housing and in most cases any increase in the housing stock is by private developers building houses that are out of reach of the working class and the poor

54 Angel, Parent, Civco and Blei (2011:46) note the high urbanisation rates in Latin America. The urban population in the region totals around 470 million people and is expected to exceed 680 million by 2050. 55 Castells (1977:52): “What is certain and essential is that the impact of industrialization on the urban forms [of eleven Latin American countries] does not take place through an increase of industrial employment, and that, consequently, the social content of this urbanization is very different from that of the advanced capitalist countries.”

(Giddings 2007:1). The shantytowns appear to be a permanent feature of African urban existence.

What has been the South African government’s track record in housing delivery? After 21 years in power, the government of national liberation has failed to provide decent houses for all, an aspiration contained in its statements of intent, in its policy documents, and indeed that forms part of its raison d”être.56 The government has built three million subsidised houses since it took power “of which just over half have been formally transferred to their beneficiaries” (CAHF 2015:1). Despite strong criticism in the quality and location of such housing,57 this is impressive in the light of “government-subsidised housing stock [being] estimated to comprise 24% of all residential properties on the deeds registry” and this could rise up to 38% if the unallocated houses were handed over to beneficiaries and title deeds issued (CAHF 2015:1). More people than ever live in formal housing in the country’s history (StatsSA 2011:26).58 Thus it cannot be denied that “a lot has been done” by the ANC government in this respect. Why is it then that that housing remains one of the main grievances raised by protesters in the country?59 Why is it that the demand for housing “is increasingly being expressed with anger and frustration” (CAHF 2015:1)?

Pauline Morris’s (1981:143) understanding of “the causes of the black housing problem” under apartheid is intriguing when viewed from the vantage point of the challenges of the post-apartheid period. She identifies “the political or ideological framework…and the perceptions of the authorities towards low income housing and standards” as the main causes

56 The Freedom Charter, the lodestar document of vision during the struggle against apartheid especially for the African National Congress, the ruling party, states that: “There Shall be Houses, Security and Comfort! All people shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security…” http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=72 57 Government-built subsidised houses in South Africa are known as “RDP houses” derived from the Reconstruction and Development Programme that was the initial economic programme of the ANC government when it took power in 1994 before it adopted a neoliberal programme, the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) programme in 1996 (Bond 2000a). These RDP houses have been criticised for being “worse than the apartheid matchbox houses.” For example, a problem facing the community of Braelyn Extension, East London, is “the disintegration of RDP houses” (Mbi 2011:1). This is a big problem in Grahamstown’s Joza township (UPM 2012:1). 58 According to the 2011 Census: 77.6% of households lived in “formal dwellings” as opposed to 65.1 % in 1996. Households in “informal dwellings” dropped from 16.2% to 13.6%. The total number of households in South Africa is estimated at 14,450,161. This means nearly two million households live in shacks (where “informal dwelling” is distinguished from “traditional dwelling;” 7.9 % households are classified as living in the latter). Since “household average size” is 3.4 then it means about 6.8 million people live in shacks. The total population was 51.7 million in 2011 (StatsSA 2011d: 14, 26, 52-54). 59 Housing is among the top four issues that have been identified by research into South African community protests. The others are “service delivery,” water and sanitation, and political representation (Alexander, Runciman and Ngwane 2014).

60 of the problem. Interestingly she considers as “[s]ubsidiary causes (inadequate finance, inconsistent and ad hoc policies, lack of freehold tenure and inadequate black participation)” (Morris 1981:143). Mainstream assessments of the causes of the housing crisis in democratic South Africa assume that the “political or ideological framework” has been sorted out and would elevate some of Morris’s “subsidiary causes” into fundamental causes of the problem.60 But has the ANC government adequately resolved the underlying political or ideological problems? For the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa (CAHFA 2015:1) the problem is that “South Africa’s housing sector is not delivering at the rate and scale needed, nor is it serving the diversity of the market given varying levels of affordability and access to credit.” Why not? “The primary issue on the demand side is affordability” (CAHFA 2015:1). In other words, the capitalist housing market is such that many people, whether they qualify to receive a government-subsidised house or not, simply cannot afford to buy or rent decent accommodation. This suggests that in the search for solutions there might be a need to consider challenging the ideological moorings of the capitalist housing market. If the majority of people were historically deprived of housing for political and ideological reasons (apartheid, capitalism), then one can expect anger and frustration when the problem is not addressed at its root (race, class).61 Decent housing for South Africa’s shantytown dwellers will require the political will to confront vested interest.

2.5 Class and the informal settlement dwellers What is the class identity of informal settlement dwellers? Marxism attributes to the working class a special role in leading the struggle for historical change that will emancipate humanity from all forms of oppression and exploitation (Marx 1844a:8). Are informal settlement dwellers a part of the working class? Or are they part of a separate “underclass”? Is it legitimate to view their committees as an instance of working class self-organisation? The class identity of informal settlement dwellers and, more generally, of unemployed and under-employed workers is a highly contested subject in the international and local literature (Alexander, Ceruti, Motseke, Phadi, and Wale 2013; Ceruti 2010; Davis 2006; Seekings 2013; Seekings and Nattrass 2005; Standing 2011; Zeilig, Seddon and Dwyer 2007).

60 Some problems identified as causes of the housing crisis or backlog are: lack of state capacity, inadequate finance, poor planning and staffing, ill-conceived delivery models and mechanisms, mismanaged government tenders, corruption, etc. (Moroke 2009:14-20, Moss 2008). 61 With respect to, for example, to the legacy of apartheid geography in the post-apartheid era, Sapire and Beall (1995:4) state: “Social divisions and hierarchies in Southern African cities continue to be expressed spatially, albeit in patterns which are less rigid than the overtly racialised versions under colonialism […] the urban form does not change at the stroke of a constitutional pen.”

This debate provides the context for my contention that informal settlement dwellers are part of the working class. If I am correct in defining informal settlement dwellers as part of the working class then it allows me to apply a Marxist theoretical framework in my quest to understand their peculiar forms of self-organisation which, in South Africa, takes the form of amakomiti. In this respect there are two positions that I have to contend with and argue against. The first one is the contention that the shantytowns, favelas, barrios, slums or informal settlements are not populated by the working class but rather by a class or social stratum that occupies a distinct and lower place in the class structure. From this point of view, shack dwellers are part of the poorest of the poor, the lumpenproletariat, the precariat or the underclass, depending on the nomenclature employed by the analysts concerned. The second and closely related contention is that because of this distinct class position of the shack dwellers, their social interests are divergent from those of the working class, defined as employed workers. In other words, shack dwellers’ political orientation, forms of organisation and action are regarded as qualitatively different and therefore cannot be understood using the same categories as those applied in the analysis of working class politics.

2.5.1 Contested class identities My entry point to this debate is to, firstly, clarify what is meant by “the unemployed,” as opposed to employed workers, and whether or not they can be regarded as part of the working class. Secondly, I will consider the question of whether the people who live in shack settlements are overwhelmingly the unemployed or not. Marx defined the working class as a class consisting of people who live by selling their labour power to the capitalist class in exchange for a wage. They have to do this because they do not own the means of production (factories, farms, machinery, etc.). Marx explains why workers find themselves with nothing and the capitalists in possession of capital partly by reference to two related processes, namely, the primitive accumulation of capital and proletarianisation. He shows how in England, the first industrialised economy, enclosures alienated peasants from the land pushing them into the towns and thereby turning them into a working class (Marx 1976). In colonised societies such as South Africa the process was repeated through wars of conquest and dispossession including the use of various extra- economic mechanisms to coerce the indigenous people into becoming proletarians or wage slaves (Legassick 1974:255). These accounts provide the background to understanding the unemployed, or what Marx referred to as the “surplus-population” and/or the “industrial reserve army” (Marx 1976: Chapter 25 Section 3). These are people who are available to work

62 for capital but whose numbers are over and above capital’s needs for labour at any given time or place. What is distinct about the Marxist analysis, and which distinguishes it from other schools of economic thought, is that it regards the surplus-population as not only generated by the capitalist system but as also necessary to its successful functioning. In other words, unemployment is not an aberration but is inherent in the very nature of the system. Marx (1976:794) observed that capital required labour for its self-valorisation but to maximise the production of surplus-value it also requires the existence of a surplus-population which he disaggregated into three categories, namely, “the floating, the latent, and the stagnant.” The “floating” are workers who are laid off in line with capital’s profit-making needs and who might get re-employed as these needs change, for example, the rhythms of the business cycle, new investments, etc. The “latent” live in the poverty of the rural areas and small towns; their status as workers becomes apparent when some of them move to the industrial centres looking for work. Marx (1976:796) defines the “stagnant” thus: This forms a part of the active labour army, but with extremely irregular employment. Hence it offers capital an inexhaustible reservoir of disposable labour-power. Its conditions of life sink below the average normal level of the working class, and it is precisely this which makes it a broad foundation for special branches of capitalist exploitation. It is characterised by a maximum of working time and a minimum of wages.

These various components of the surplus population are crucial in meeting capital’s labour needs in response to the seasonal, cyclical and accidental movements of capital. Marx argues that the capitalist system is characterised by various contradictions including this very one where people who can only live through selling their labour are deprived of this opportunity by the system itself. He predicted that over time the contradictions of the system will multiply and become intractable leading to the collapse of the system itself. He noted the tendency of the organic composition of capital to increase, that is, the displacement of human labour with machines. It can be argued that, in the light of high unemployment rates in many capitalist countries today, the system is indeed reaching a stage where the rate of production of a surplus- population threatens social stability and the economic viability of the system itself. Many people experience long spells of unemployment which leads to great physical and mental hardship creating all sorts of social problems. It also means that the human capabilities of the chronically unemployed – their labour, purchasing powers, etc. – are left unused leaving society the poorer for it.

It does not, however, follow that being an unemployed worker stops one from being part of the working class because, as Claire Ceruti (2013:103) puts it: Using the classic Marxist phrase, what the long-term unemployed share with workers is not whether they have sold their labour power or on what terms, but that they have nothing else to sell… A common general relation to exploitation is obscured by its concrete expression when the labour market is shrinking and work, therefore, appears as a scarce resource rather than the natural power of any human.

This argument is backed by extensive research into the class structure of Soweto, South Africa’s biggest township (See Alexander, Ceruti, Motseke, Phadi and Wale 2013).62 One of the main findings from the research was that, empirically, there is little social distance between employed and unemployed workers – in many instances they were found living in the same area, neighbourhood and even the same household. The researchers conclude that the employed and unemployed of Soweto belong to the same class, the proletariat, and that there exists a differentiated unity between the residents (Ceruti 2013). Mike Davis (2006) argues the opposite in relation to the slum dwellers of the world. Noting the high unemployment rate in Third World cities, he views the slums and their proliferation as a neoliberal phenomenon and abodes for those social strata whose labour is superfluous to capital’s needs. Slum dwellers, who to Davis are the unemployed, are marginal to capital’s needs and also marginalised in terms of political and social power. While he does not describe them as an “the underclass” or use a similar term, his analysis implies that slum dwellers somehow form a class that is distinct from the working class as classically defined. He suggests that they may not be meaningfully regarded as part of this class. This has important implications for his analysis of the agency of the slum dwellers. He reads off their structural location (as a distinct class) the likely form of their political agency. He argues that slum inhabitants tend to engage in fragmented and diffused political activism and as such may not possess the historical agency that Marx attributed to the working class.63 Instead, he characterises them as a hybrid social stratum rather than a “monolithic subject” that could, like the working class, be regarded as capable of leading movements of struggle. Their “myriad

62 The pioneering study was extensive involving a survey that was conducted in June and July 2006 that included “a representative sample of 2 340 respondents” plus “two main rounds of qualitative fieldwork” (See Alexander, Ceruti, Motseke, Phadi and Wale 2013). 63 Davis (2006:2001) poses the question: “To what extent does an informal proletariat possess that most potent of Marxist talismans: ‘historical agency’?” This question, according to Ceruti and Zeilig (2007:2) is based on the idea that: “Slums, in Davis’s account, symbolise the total reconstitution of class structures in the Third World.”

64 acts of resistance” constitute a “chaotic plurality” of “charismatic churches and prophetic cults to ethnic militias, street gangs, neoliberal NGOs and revolutionary social movements” (Davis 2006:201). Davis is quite wrong to assume that slum dwellers are the unemployed. There is strong evidence to suggest that a significant proportion of slum dwellers are in fact employed even if on an irregular basis. Firstly, it has been shown that the very location of informal settlements is closely related to prospective work seekers searching for accommodation that is closer to work opportunities (Nieftagodien 2015:3).64 The proliferation of informal settlements on the platinum belt, for example, is closely linked to the boom in mining in the Rustenburg area in the past couple of decades (Makgetla and Levin 2016:9, 12; Bowman and Isaacs 2014:3).65 As a consequence many informal settlement inhabitants are either miners or employed in other industries or sectors related to mining. It is of course the case today that with the decline in mining and the general slowdown in the economy the rate of unemployment has increased in Rustenburg’s shack lands. However, the high rates of unemployment affect both those who live in built-up areas and in the informal settlements. Secondly, Davis overlooks the irregular nature of work in the 21st century, a feature of neoliberalism. In Soweto, a category of workers was identified, namely, “partial workers” defined as “those who do occasional piece-work and may work full time for a week or a month interspersed with periods of unemployment” (Zeilig and Ceruti 2007:6). Also, people’s employment status and history should be considered over time (longitudinal) rather than statically.66 Many workers go in and out of long spells of employment alternating with those of unemployment. The Soweto study shows that these complexities happen as much in built-up areas as in the shack settlements and as such suggests

64 Nieftagodien (2015:3), in his studies of historical squatter movements in Johannesburg, identifies “three broad categories of squatters based on their primary objectives, the strategies deployed in their occupations and the type of land they chose to occupy. The first group comprised individuals and families who were mainly driven by proximity to work opportunities. They tended to occupy open spaces and farms very close to emerging industrial concerns.” 65 Makgetla and Levin (2016:12): “The population of Rustenburg and Madibeng grew by almost 300 000 from 2001 to 2011, or 40%, to reach just over a million, with around half a million in each municipality. In contrast, the population of South Africa as a whole climbed only 16% from 2001 to 2011, and the rest of the North West by 10%... By 2011, 34% of the residents of Madibeng and Rustenburg lived in informal housing, compared to a national average of 14% and, in Gauteng, 19%. The number of informal residences in Rustenburg and Madibeng climbed from 80 000 in 2001 to 123 000 in 2011.” Bowman and Isaacs 2013:3, 5 ): “[It] is clear that the [platinum] mining companies were highly profitable during the 2000-2008 commodities boom… platinum shareholders have done extremely well over the last fourteen years in comparison to labour. Combined with continued poor living conditions on the platinum belt… Between 2000 and 2008 workers at South Africa’s three largest platinum producers received only 29% of value added produced.” 66 As Zeilig and Ceruti (2007: 7) observe, “[T]here are many people outside of the formally employed who have some experience of a workplace, however irregularly. This contact with wage-labour will affect their understanding of solidarity and the ‘class struggle.’ The same could also be said for those retrenched in the jobs massacres over the past decade.”

65 that it is not accurate to view the slums, favelas and barrios of the world as abodes of the unemployed.67 The argument that slum dwellers are marginal to capital’s needs is also not necessarily true. Davis pays little attention to Marx’s classical approach to the unemployed as a “surplus- population.” If he did he would have taken into account Marx’s three distinctions of the floating, latent and stagnant surplus-populations; this would suggest that some informal settlement dwellers might constitute the “industrial reserve army” which Marx regards not only as a part of the working class but also as crucial in the process of capital accumulation. For example, the chronically unemployed are functional in the (physical) reproduction of the working class (Marx 1976), and they are politically useful in not only depressing wages but also in “processes of restructuring when capitalism is in crisis” (Byrne 2006:43, see also Ceruti 2013:121). The marginality of shack dwellers to the needs of capital, as Davis argues, was horribly disproven when 34 miners were shot dead in South Africa’s platinum belt. The Marikana Massacre focused public attention on the measly contribution made by the platinum mine owners in meeting the housing needs of their own workforce, a key grievance of the striking miners (Evans 2014). Rustenburg has the highest proportion of informal settlements vis-à-vis other South African cities with more than 40% of the working class living in shacks as a result of this failure by employers to provide adequate housing (Rustenburg Local Municipality 2008). Miners can choose to live in the apartheid-created single-sex hostels or compounds on mine property, or receive a monthly “living out allowance” and build themselves a shack not far from the mine where they work. In other words, following Engels’s analysis of the “housing question” under capitalism, the miners are cheaply housed in a “free” mode that allows capital’s instant access to their labour as and when required. This costs capital very little because the responsibility for the proliferation, servicing and curbing of informal settlements is firmly put at the door of the state. The fact that capital is the real beneficiary of the existence of informal settlements is thus hidden. Capital’s parasitism is also hidden by the argument that those who live in the slums are marginal to its needs. Zeilig, Seddon and Dwyer (2007) have looked at class struggle in Africa and found that shack dwellers are in fact quite active in struggles led by social movements. They dispute

67 “[In Soweto] the jobless and formally employed are not hermetically sealed off from each other, in terms of either the household or neighbourhood. Nor are they clustered in the ‘informal’ slum settlements of Soweto…employed and partial workers also live in shacks, though in smaller numbers than the self-employed, while the majority of the self-employed, like the majority in all these categories, live in a brick house of some kind” (Zeilig and Ceruit 2007:5).

Davis’s jaded view of the political activism of the shack dwellers and his treating them as a separate social stratum or political category distinct from the working class. In South Africa, for example, shack dwellers organise many protests for better services and political representation. These authors argue that they exhibit the organic capacity for leading the struggle that Marx spoke of in relation to the working class. As Alex Callinicos (2007:1) has observed, contrary to Davis’s negative assessment, “Sub-Saharan Africa…is host to many great slum settlements—but is also the site of a series of major mass strikes.” Shack dwellers are part of these strikes and other forms of mass mobilisation in the struggle to improve working class lives. 2.5.2 The “underclass” debate It is important to address the claim that the people who live in the informal settlements constitute an “underclass” including the veracity of the concept itself in order not to leave some theoretical questions unanswered as I develop my main argument in this dissertation. The argument for the existence of an underclass is somewhat similar to what Davis argues in relation to the class identity of the slum dwellers except that his sympathy with this social group, and the working class, cannot be questioned whereas the concept has mostly been used with less than noble intentions in other countries, particularly in the U.K. and USA as I will briefly illustrate below. The key proponents of the concept in South Africa are Seekings (2013, 2003), and Seekings and Nattrass (2005) who deploy it ostensibly in sympathy with the condition of the underclass but, as I will argue below, the implications for social analysis and policy making arising from their treatment are questionable from the point of view of the working class and the poor. Seekings (2013:3) is aware that in the advanced capitalist societies the concept has been abused, or at least misused, stating that “the term suffers…‘a long and undistinguished pedigree.’”68 However, he insists that in South Africa “there are strong empirical grounds” for it. Seekings (2003, 2013) sees the South African class structure as a three-layered pyramid consisting of an upper, middle and lower class wherein is found at the bottom the “marginal working class” and an “underclass.” The latter are defined as people who live in “the many households that have no members in waged employment and [have] weak or no ties to households that do” (Seekings 2013:34). The “underclass” stands very little chance of ever

68 MacNicol (1987:296) traces the idea from its birth in the 1880s’ concern with “the apparent existence of an economically unproductive residuum of social outcasts,” to the “social problem group” (1930s), the “problem family” and “culture of poverty” (1960s), “cycle of deprivation” (1970s), “underclass” (1980s) and finally to the 1990s’ “social exclusion” buzzword.

67 getting employed because they lack skills and “social capital”, that is, social networks necessary to help them get a job. Seekings suggests the existence of a divergence of interests between the underclass and the working class. He disagrees with “Marxian theory [which] does not provide much guidance in understanding any differentiation within the non-capitalist population” (Seekings 2013:34). The pivot of the debate between Seekings and his (Marxist) critics is whether there is differentiation within the working class, implying a unity of interests, or stratification, suggesting a divergence of interests. Seekings (2013:8) seeks to establish the existence of “important gradations of disadvantage or ‘marginality’ among the 90 percent of South African households that are not obviously upper class.” The Soweto study referred to above leads Ceruti (2013:97) to conclude that “Soweto’s proletariat is a differentiated unity” whereby Sowetans “share a dependence on availing themselves for exploitation” (p.119), but may be divided by the labour market, living standards and household tensions arising out of “forced dependencies” (p.120). In other words, they belong to the same class but experience existential differences that may divide them. Further, and as noted above, the proximity in the life circumstances and living spaces of the employed and the unemployed belies the claim that these social groups do not belong to the same class and that there exists a separate “underclass” (Alexander, Ceruti, Motseke, Phadi and Wale 2013). With respect to political orientation and action, a key problematic for Marxists, Alexander and Pfaffe (2013:5) develop this differentiation further by identifying a social category they call “the poor” which is distinguishable from workers in that they are “unemployed, underemployed…and defined as ‘not in the labour force.’” This is expressed in collective action whereby, because of the respective groups’ location in the labour market, they have “different social relationships to the means and ends of protest.” Workers have use of the strike weapon while the poor’s disruption tactics take different forms. The implication is that though the two groups tend to engage in collective action separately; this is “a hinged contrast—the contrasting responses of two forces linked to a single core” rather than a “class separation” and in fact, “the longer term interests of the poor—at least in South Africa—are nearly always bound up with those of workers” (Alexander and Pfaffe 2013:2-3). Seekings provides no clear evidence to contest Alexander, Ceruti, Motseke, Phadi and Wale’s (2013) important insight about the implications of proximity of the various segments of the working class. However, he notes that Soweto is an exceptional township in respect of the proximity suggesting that there will be more distance between the various segments in smaller towns and the rural areas (Seekings 2013:26). This is a point that the Soweto study authors acknowledge stating “we cannot say anything about the rural areas (including former

68 homelands, farms and mines), the population of which constitutes nearly half the country’s total” (Alexander, Ceruti, Motseke, Phadi and Wale 2013:9). Seekings concludes that ultimately the argument can only be resolved by way of further empirical research and “cannot be resolved through debating the competing claims of Marxian and Weberian theory.” While I agree with him on this point I think his Marxist opponents (Alexender et al. 2013, Alexander and Pfaffe 2013, Ceruti 2013) have developed a coherent, logically consistent and nuanced argument in the manner in which they deploy and develop Marxian theoretical categories without abandoning or straying too far from its basic tenets and problematic. Alexander and Pfaffe (2013:4), for example, base their argument on the “patterning of class” which “varies from country to country shaped, in particular, by different histories of class formation and classed culture.” This represents the use of the South African case to contribute to the development of class analysis to the benefit of scholars working in other parts of the world. The policy implications of the underclass concept appear, in South Africa as in other parts of the world, to be controversial. Seekings (2013:4) contrasts his “social democratic disposition” to the Marxist scholars’ “explicitly anti-capitalist agenda,” and sets out a policy agenda that promotes low wages to facilitate job creation (to benefit the underclass) as opposed to the high wages enjoyed by the “core working class” in South Africa. There are many problems in Seekings’ call for low wages as a mechanism for job creation and improving the lives of the “underclass” if not the working class. His argument is based on the false notion that jobs are created as a function of the level of wages paid to workers (Card and Krueger 1994, Dube et al. 2010). In reality jobs are created because there is investment and it is the nature and extent of such investment that determines in which sector of the economy, which type of jobs and how many jobs and at what level of wages such jobs are created (Asker et al. 2015, Crotty 1990, Lazonick 2015). It is unlikely that capital scans the globe looking for investment opportunities based solely on wage levels. There are many other factors to be considered including the availability of raw materials, technology, skills, tax regimes, transport, logistics, markets, state policies, etc. Even in places where wages are artificially kept low, such as in export processing zones, there are a gamut of other factors that make it possible for investment to occur. Organised labour’s opposition to a low wage development strategy is well documented and in South Africa the battle lines are drawn between capital and the state, on the one hand, and organised labour on the other over the youth wage subsidy (Malikane 2012, Goldstein 2008). The interests of Seekings’ “underclass” are unlikely to be served by siding with capital and the state whose policies are arguably responsible for the sorry condition of the poorest of

69 the poor in the first place. They are better off standing with organised labour the thrust of whose struggle is to diminish the enormous power and wealth that capital holds in society. In other words, even if Seekings was correct in his support for low wages, in practice he would win the battle for job creation only to lose the war for the equalisation of power and privilege in the world. Katz (1989:196, 235) argues that presenting “an image of the poor people as split into two sharply divided groups, underclass helps perpetuate their political powerlessness by strengthening the barriers that for so long have divided them against each other” (Katz 1989:196, 235). In other words, scholarly interventions can “under cover of describing marginality, contribute to moulding it by organizing its collective perception and its political treatment” (Wacquant 2008:10). My research into informal settlements focuses attention on the life circumstances and world-view of the informal settlement dwellers themselves rather than to apprehend them through the lens of “the pre-constructed object” using concepts that in many contexts have been shown to be devoid of theoretical and empirical veracity. We need to understand through empirical investigation the challenges facing informal settlement dwellers, how they define them, how they organise around them, and how they relate their daily struggles for survival to broader questions of social change.

2.5.3 The concept of “marginalisation”

My notion of “democracy on the margins” necessitates motivation in the light of debates around the concept “marginalisation.” Here I will consider the debate between Davis (2006) and Zeilig, Seddon and Dwyer (2007).69 The gist of this debate relates to how marginal informal settlement dwellers are in the social metabolism of capitalism. I have already presented some aspects of this debate above, here I will focus on those themes that help me motivate my use of the concept “democracy on the margins.” Davis argues that slum dwellers are economically and socially excluded hence marginalised while Zeilig, Seddon and Dwyer (2007) contest this arguing that slum dwellers are integrated within society through, for example, their participation in the informal economy. At the heart of the debate is a political assessment, namely, whether slum dwellers are part of the struggle of the working class or not.

69 An early critique of the concept is found in Legassick and Wolpe (1974). Interestingly their critique was aimed to bolster the argument that the “surplus-population” in the Bantustans was functional to capital accumulation associated with the industrialisation of the South African economy at the time.

I would say that both parties elide between presenting marginalisation as an objective process (geographic, economic) and as a subjective process (class consciousness, political exclusion). They also tend to equate the employed with the formally housed and the unemployed with the informally housed. With respect to geography and economic exclusion we can note that in South Africa shack settlements are found in the vicinity of built-up residential or commercial areas. Some are a distance away while others are found in the interstices of these areas. The degree of interaction with the “host” community will differ according to distance between the settlement and the formally built area, social characteristics (race, class, nationality) and the historical-political situation. For example, in some instances host communities provide services to the shack settlement; these might be voluntarily shared, bought or appropriated unilaterally by the shack dwellers. The host might attempt total exclusion or denial of access.

The evidence suggests that it is not useful to categorically reject the notion of marginalisation. It depends on a number of contingent factors and also on exactly what is meant by marginalisation. Castells (1977:57), for example, in his opposition to the use of the concept traverses different levels of abstraction. He brings onto one plane structural and agency factors without discerning the specificity of experience and of politics as distinct from, albeit influenced by, underlying economic dynamics.

In a study of shack dwellers in Cape Town, Meier (2000:5-6) suggests that:

Squatters were marginalized as Africans, as urban proletarians, as rural migrants, and where it applied, as women. In the most obvious sense, they suffered spatial marginalization, as their settlements progressively were extruded to the periphery of Cape Town and various others cities in South Africa. This marginalization was more than symbolic – it negatively affected the everyday lives of Africans in a multitude of ways, and made problematic their very existence. The resulting physical isolation that they endured greatly heightened their immiseration, as they lacked access to affordable and efficient transportation and basic services such as water, waste removal, and electricity. It also served to reinforce their status as third-class, quasi-citizens, banished to the outer boundaries of the built environment.

Meier (2000:6) adds that the squatters were “also marginal in a legal sense” because they were deemed to be illegally occupying the land and thus were subject to being “awakened in the middle of the night, hauled off to the police station, and subsequently fined. The uncertain and

71 precarious nature of squatter life exacted a high toll in terms of psychic unease, social dislocation, and personal humiliation.”

The concept must be contextualised with respect to the object of its application. Davis (2006) discusses the marginalisation of slum dwellers from broader societal processes, and their political marginalisation from the working class and its struggles. Zeilig, Seddon and Dwyer (2007) appear to focus on the latter, albeit inconsistently, hence their insistence that marginalisation does not exist. The conflation of the two aspects confounds analysis. My proposed concept of “democracy on the margins” arises from the geographic, economic and social marginality of many informal settlement dwellers with an emphasis on their attendant political marginalisation from broader democratic processes. During the struggle against apartheid their political marginality was shared with all the disenfranchised although they suffered the additional hardship of the regime’s war against squatting (Ellis 1983, Desmond 1971, Silk 1981). Their hardships continue under the democratic state and this compels them to organise, to form movements, and to operate local democratic organisations, amakomiti, through which they practise a kind of democracy from below in their quest to improve the quality of life in their areas. The cry from all the informal settlements is arguably that they want to be part of the new South Africa, to have water and electricity like everyone else, to live in houses made of brick and cement like everyone else, to live with dignity and build a future for their children. Many feel marginalised by the hegemonic democratic form and economic system. This was poignantly captured by the shack dwellers’ organisation, Abahlali baseMjondolo, leader Sbu Zikode (2006) in his widely published and heart-rending article “We are the Third Force.”

With respect to historical agency, the shack dwellers contribute significantly to the high rate of protest action in South Africa (Maruping, Mncube and Runciman 2014:30). The community protests focus on “service delivery” and, as the Rebellion of the Poor project has shown, increasingly on improving the “poor quality of democracy in South Africa” (Alexander, Runciman and Ngwane 2015:9-10). The protests tend to be fragmented and isolated from each other, a point that leads Davis (2006) to question the historical agency of the shack dwellers. However, in South Africa there is no national movement that unites protesting communities and fragmentation is a feature of all protest rather than that organised by the shack dwellers only. Historically the organic capacity of the working class to lead struggle is expressed in the fact that different sections of the class will at different times take a leading position in various struggles. This includes, for example, employed workers in the

1973 Durban strikes, students in working class schools on June 16 1976, township residents and youth in the mid-1980s uprising, etc. (Clark and Worger 2004:71, 72, 76, 91, 92). It can be argued that shack dwellers and their settlements are today at the forefront of the current “rebellion of the poor” in South Africa (Alexander 2010). Despite their marginalisation in certain important spheres, their prolific protest action is arguably an expression of their organic capacity as a component of the working class. 2.5.4 The rise of the squatter movement and the Iranian Revolution Working class forms of political organisation tend to flourish during upsurges in the struggle of workers (Barker 2008:1, Cohen 2011:48). Leon Trotsky (2008:743), who chaired the important and pioneering Petersburg Soviet of Workers’ Deputies in 1905, categorically states that “apart from revolution they [soviets] are impossible.” In this section I explore the applicability of this assertion on the organisations set up by informal settlement dwellers. I do this by considering the rise of the squatter movement, and the setting up of squatters’ organisations, during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. I have chosen Iran because it is in the global South and is not in Africa thus broadening the geographical scope of my analysis. Also, the role of the squatters during the revolution is well documented and theorised by Asef Bayat, a leading scholar in the field who grapples with the question of the divergence in the political orientation of the poor, the unemployed workers, slum dwellers and squatters vis-à-vis the working class and the radical middle classes.70 Critical engagement with his treatment of the rise of the squatter movement allows me to evaluate in a concrete historical context the theoretical issues that I have been discussing in this section, namely, the class identity of the informal settlement dwellers and the veracity of the concepts: marginalisation and the underclass. It is also of interest that Bayat makes some comparisons between South Africa and Iran.

During the 1979 Iranian Revolution homeless people successfully invaded buildings in the city of Tehran and turned them into their homes. Bayat (1997) argues that the squatters succeeded in doing so because of the political turmoil and crisis of authority that accompanied the revolution. The squatters formed committees called shuras that organised the provision of basic services and worked at making the occupied buildings habitable once successfully occupied (Bayat 1997:65-66). These committees were formed in the context of the flourishing of organisational structures that were thrown up during the revolution such as those found in “the underclass neighbourhoods. The community-based organizations of the Islamic Consumer

70 See Bayat (1997, 2010, 2013).

Cooperatives and Neighbourhood Councils served as the most effective link between the revolutionaries and the underclass communities” (Bayat 1997:51). This atmosphere of struggle facilitated the rise of the squatter movement whereby the demise of the old elites’ authority and the tolerant attitude of the new (revolutionary) elite created the political opportunity for squatters to take over the buildings (Bayat 1997:75). Although Bayat emphasises the fact that initially the “poor” were not greatly involved in the mass mobilisation that took place against the regime, it is clear that at the height of the revolution the poor, including slum dwellers and squatters, were very much a part of the revolution. There was cross-pollination that traversed the class lines identified by Bayat (1997:56) as he points out:

Youth played a decisive part in this process. The young revolutionaries from better-off areas went into the popular neighbourhoods where they found the underclass youth ready for mobilization.

[But] [u]ntil the very end, the disenfranchised, the squatter poor in particular, remained on the fringe of revolutionary events. Only at the end were they drawn into the discourse and the practice of the Islamic Revolution, primarily through the activities of popular organizations, the Islamic Consumer Cooperatives, and the Neighbourhood Councils.

I would say that for all purposes the committees of the squatters, although late in coming according to Bayat, once formed became part of the Popular Organisations, that is, the array of organs of the revolution that organized and led other sectors of society in the revolution. Indeed, the occupation of buildings by the burgeoning squatter movement was an expression of the revolutionary fervour and action that gripped the country.71 From this point of view the committees formed by squatters can be regarded as organs of struggle.

The squatters’ committees that organised the occupation of buildings as organs of struggle transposed into organs of self-government. As soon as a building was occupied “the most urgent need for the settlers was to obtain water and electricity. Later on came sewerage systems, refuse collection, clinics, schools, roads, and cultural activities” (Bayat 1997:83). The committees, called shuras, bore the responsibility of tackling problems that could jeopardize the inhabitants’ security of tenure. They were to upgrade the community, deal with day-to-day problems, maintain cleanliness, resolve disputes, and administer cultural events. More

71 The occupation of buildings was extensive. For example, in only three neighbourhoods (Dowlatabad, Shahrak-i Najafabad and Gilanshahr) over 4 500 villas were occupied in the first months of the revolution (Bayat 1997:61). In Islamabad about 400 households took over 308 homes on December 21, 1979.

74 immediately, they were to coordinate the relations of the communities with the outside world, including hostile neighbours and especially the original owners of the properties (Bayat 1997:66). This was happening in a context where Neighbourhood Councils were set up in many poor neighbourhoods which arguably operated like the South African township civics in that they were “loosely structured local bodies” formed “in order to protect, regulate, and upgrade local communities” (Bayat 1997:89). He compares the situation to that which occurs in South Africa where shack dwellers appropriate urban services and refuse to pay (Bayat 1997:4). The council “exemplified the social and civic (as opposed to purely political) aspect of the revolution” (Bayat 1997:90). They operated alongside other community-based structures such as the Local Consumer Cooperatives. A culture of local committees and of self-organisation thrived during the revolution which survived into the post-revolutionary era (Bayat 1997:90). However, the new Islamic regime’s enthusiasm for “councilism and decentralization” soon disappeared as the proliferation of grassroots forms of autonomous organisation was found to be at odds with “the monopoly of power and paternalistic and selective mobilization of progovernment individuals” (Bayat 1997:91). Councils were recognised in the Islamic Constitution but in general their activities were attenuated and many members became victims of state repression (Bayat 1997:95). And, although it took many years and with mixed success, many of the squatters were removed from the buildings they occupied thus opening the door for quieter and more “silent” forms of encroachment by the poor (Bayat 1997:74).

In order to compare the squatter shuras with soviets, township civics and other similar working class self-organised grassroots structures, it is salutary to note Bayat’s (1997:73) assessment that the squatter movement was largely successful because:

the emergent political space created by the revolution and the initial support of the populist clergy justified to a considerable degree the squatters’ cause. The radicalism of the poor and that of the populist clergy had a reinforcing effect upon each other.

In other words, and in line with the dominant assessment in the (Marxist) literature, the organs of struggle and of self-government of the squatters thrived during an upsurge in struggle. Bayat (1997:21) refers to how grassroots mobilisation in South Africa was possible only when the apartheid regime experienced a crisis of legitimacy to make the point that these participatory forms of democracy are not possible under autocratic regimes.72 Despite Bayat’s observation

72 Bayat (1997:21) notes: “The repressive policy of the state renders individual, quiet, and hidden mobilization a more viable strategy than open, collective protests. Under such conditions, collective and open direct action

75 and emphasis that the squatters’ organising efforts came later in the revolution, it seems reasonable to conclude that they were very much a part of the revolution: born of, shaped by and shaping it. The same has been said about the soviets, factory councils, township civics and similar organs of struggle and of popular self-governance.

Bayat refers to the marginality of the squatters whereby they were excluded from urbanisation processes in Iran’s cities. His emphasis on the specific and distinct interests of the squatters is an argument pointing to the specificity of the problems they face (homelessness) and their marginalisation from formal urban processes. However, during the course of the revolution their marginality was not so pronounced that they were barred from participating in the revolution. They were very much a part of it and indeed, as Bayat (1997:43) observes, both the left and the Islamic revolutionaries found it necessary to incorporate them in the struggle practically or through rhetoric albeit at different times and for different reasons.73

Bayat uses categories “underclass,” the “poor” or the “disenfranchised” when dealing with the class identity of the squatters, slum dwellers and the unemployed. He rejects the notion that the poor engage in “‘fake, black and unhealthy occupation’ such as begging, drug-dealing, and prostitution [because these] constituted no more than a small fraction of their activities” (Bayat 1997:31). Instead he quotes a study that suggests that in 1971 “over 80 per cent of squatters were involved in unskilled or semiskilled jobs, including construction, street vending, and low-paid government employment.” Further, they “remained jobless on average between three to five months of the year.” Notably:

Slum dwellers seemed to have higher incomes and job security. They were also less distant, geographically and socially, from mainstream urban life and were descended from older migrant generations. Many of them had been born in the cities (Bayat 1997:31)

takes place only at exceptional conjunctures – in particular, when states experience crises of legitimacy such as the revolutionary crisis in Iran during 1979; Egypt after the 1967 defeat; and South Africa after the fall of apartheid in the early 1990s.” 73 Bayat (1997:43) notes that at first Ayatollah Khomeini did not talk much about the poor but later did. The clergy, according to Bayat (1997:43), directed their attention to the mustaz’afin (the lower classes) after the revolution because “the lower classes were seen as a solid social basis for the new regime…because lower-class radicalism in the postrevolution forced the clergy to adopt a radical language…because the clergy’s emphasis on the mustaz’afin could disarm the left’s proletarian discourse after the revolution.” The left, as we have seen, played a key role in the occupation of buildings including organising “literary and language classes, [holding] political and ideological meetings, and [teaching] social skills to the youngsters” (Bayat 1997:65).

This suggests that the slum dwellers constitute a section of the working class. They are workers albeit poorly paid and suffering from very high job insecurity.

When discussing his concept of a “marginalized urban underclass,” Bayat (1997:31- 32) states:

by the late 1970s one could observe a sizeable marginalized urban underclass, identified by their geographical, social, and to a large extent economic exclusion from the formal mainstream of urban life… vulnerability in everyday life remained the salient feature of their collective existence – in securing a place to live and a subsistence job, in debt payment and in maintaining their dignity (abirou).

Bayat (1997:32) argues that the slum dwellers “carried their identities in the public discourse” using terms such as Mardum-i Javadiyeh which “described the social identity of the slum dwellers in…Javadieh,” and the squatters “saw themselves and were chiefly viewed as zahgehnishinan or alounaknishinan (literally settlers of shacks and shanties).” In South Africa the biggest organisation of shack dwellers calls itself Abahlali baseMjondolo which literally means settlers of shacks (Zikode 2006). After the Islamic Revolution “the poor were granted an element of agency, when the term mustaz’afiin began to dominate the public language” (Bayat (1997:33).

I am not convinced that Bayat’s use of the term the underclass should be interpreted as him suggesting that there is class differentiation between the working class and the poor, the squatters, slum dwellers and the unemployed. For one thing he provides information that shows that slum dwellers are employed albeit sometimes intermittently and at very low wages. It is to be expected that different occupations, levels of income and other distinctions will characterise the working class. This is how capitalism operates, it creates differences and divisions between and within classes. The arguments I put forward in the earlier discussion above concerning the class identity of informal settlement dwellers as an underclass apply to Bayat. In particular, Alexander and Pfaffe’s (2013:4) observation that the “patterning of class,” that is, how it is constituted, shaped and expressed, “varies from country to country shaped, in particular, by different histories of class formation and classed culture.” Their conclusion with respect to South Africa “the longer term interests of the poor…are nearly always bound up with those of workers” (Alexander and Pfaffe 2013-2-3) arguably applies to Iran in the light of the

77 occupational profile of the Iranian slum dwellers and other points made by Bayat elsewhere in his book.74

How then should we evaluate Bayat’s emphasis that the politics of the poor is distinctive and differs from that of other popular classes? For Bayat not only did the poor come late into the revolution, but in the post-revolutionary period they disengaged and turned to political methods he claims are characteristic of this social stratum (“silent encroachment”). Beyond the revolutionary upheavals and the invasions and occupations of land and buildings begins a period of attenuation or dilution of politics. For him the committees might continue operating but their nature, character and strength are modified as they turn their focus on practical matters. Their ties to the ascendant revolutionary forces tend to weaken as revolutionary fervour subsides and the new rulers settle down to ruling the country. Bayat suggests that despite taking advantage of political situations, including supporting ascendant ideological causes and forces, on the whole, the poorest of the poor tend to be non-ideological in their political approach preferring rather to focus on winning concrete gains for themselves. He argues that:

The fact is that the disenfranchised cannot afford to be ideological. Most of the poor seem to be uninterested in any particular form of ideology and politics, whether governmental (e.g. Islamic as in Iran) or oppositional (e.g. leftist). Their interest lies in those strategies and associations that respond directly to their immediate concerns (Bayat 1997:159).

What this suggests is that during periods of lull or consolidation of the political order, informally housed people (and their committees) divest themselves of the politics and ideologies that once inspired them during revolutionary upheavals and that in any case those positions were never held with as much conviction as it first seemed.

According to Bayat (1997:161) the poor are prone to a special type of politics which are neither organised nor institutionalised but rather consists of a “vast array of often uninstitutionalised and hybrid social activities – street politics.” This politics consists of

74 Bayat (1997:20) notes, for example, that “a large number of the once well-to-do and educated middle classes (government employees and students) and public sector workers, as well as segments of the peasantry are pushed into the ranks of the urban poor in labor and housing markets. The state’s unwillingness and inability to offer adequate work, protection, and urban amenities puts these new urban poor in a similar collective position, if not a collective identity, as the unemployed, squatters, slum dwellers or street subsistence workers – in short, they become potential street rebels.”

“continuous grassroots activism” and “quiet direct action” rather than in organised social movements and formalised organisations. In his later writings, Bayat (2013:1) develops the concept of “non-movements” which he defines as “the collective action of dispersed and unorganised actors.”

It is however possible that the post-revolutionary period will present the “poor” with conditions that either encourage or discourage political organisation and collective forms of political intervention. Bayat (1997:95) himself points out that the post-revolutionary religion- based regime soon became repressive and clamped down on independent forms of grassroots organisation. It is unlikely that the politicisation of the squatters during the revolutionary upsurge would spontaneously subside and even evaporate without leaving a trace. It is more likely, as Bayat (1997:95) notes, that as “the independent shuras were dismantled and their members purged…As autonomous and grassroots institutions were gradually dismantled due to political pressure and their own shortcomings,” their demise had less to do with the inherent character of the politics of the poor and a lot to do with the repressive character of the post- revolutionary regime. In Italy the rise of fascism came with brutal suppression of workers including the stamping out of their factory councils. While the process was more complex in the Soviet Union it is also true that at some point the Stalinist regime suppressed the soviets. In South Africa, as I will argue in the next chapter, there was active demobilisation of the township civics and other popular organisations including those of the radical youth and the joint shop steward councils. South Africa is an interesting case because the “poor” in the shack settlements, as research into the “Rebellion of the Poor” shows, is at the forefront of collective protest, a form of “street politics” that does not follow the pattern suggested by Bayat (Maruping, Mncube and Runciman 2014:30).

Finally, Bayat’s work on the struggles of the poor in Iran during the revolution is illuminating, raises many interesting points and has provided a concrete context to apply some of the concepts and issues raised in this section of the dissertation. However, his treatment of the subject matter would benefit from Marxist theoretical insights. Bayat is in line with the Marxists in noting that political upheavals and a rise in struggle opens the door for increased political activism and the formation of organs of struggle by the poor. He however fails to focus on the transformative potential and pre-figurative significance of the organisational forms that workers create in their daily struggle to survive, a hallmark of the Marxist approach (Barker

2008:3).75 He sees the shuras as primarily organs to achieve immediate and practical purposes rather than seeing this profundity in their participatory democratic operations. Consideration of fundamental social change raises ideological questions but these are not necessarily abstract. In Iran they were not only the concern of the religion-based and left revolutionaries but they also concerned the homeless, the slum dwellers and the unemployed because their lives are not only determined by what happens at the local level but also by broader political and economic conditions.

It is also the case, from a Marxist point of view, that at the heart of poverty and inequality is the capitalist system whose chief characteristic is private ownership of the means of production. The latter affords the capitalist class tremendous power over society, a power that ultimately is used to create obstacles in the path of those seeking the satisfaction of their needs: food, water, housing, healthcare, etc. To address the problems of the poor and of workers requires confronting this power and to solve them in any significant way requires overcoming this power. This cannot be possible with a politics that eschews ideological questions. More importantly, it requires mobilisation of the broadest layers of society. This means the Iranian squatters, if they are to succeed to win gains and sustain them, need to make common cause with other sections of the working class and other class forces in an endeavour to wage a common struggle against capitalist rule locally and on a global scale. In this regard the squatters’ organisations must be viewed not just as mechanisms to address immediate problems, but rather as containing the potential of being the seeds or building blocks of a future alternative state that would be more democratic and whose raison d’etre would be to serve all sectors of society including the marginalised poor.76

To conclude this section, during periods of political upsurge workers have historically formed popular organs of self-rule that arise out of an objective necessity – the immediacy of struggle. What is distinctive about such organs is that they often represent alternative political forms that are both a vast improvement on and a break with the bourgeois democratic state form. These organs do not totally disappear during periods of political lull but may attenuate their activities or even atrophy according to the particular circumstances. But while they exist

75 As Barker (2008:3) emphasises: “It is a hallmark of a revolutionary Marxist approach to movements to keep alive and open the question, how far such a capacity for ‘remaking society’ is revealed in a given movement’s practice.” This is the capacity of the oppressed “to begin constructing a new basis for social life, rooted in their own needs” (Barker 2008:3). 76 In 1905, Lenin (1965:19) suggested “that the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies should be regarded as the embryo of a provisional revolutionary government.”

80 they represent or prefigure a new type of democracy, one fashioned by subalterns. Informal settlement dwellers throughout the world form such popular organs or committees in order to establish their settlements, manage them, provide basic services and defend themselves from eviction. The literature on workers’ democracy and its organs of self-organisation has generally been silent on such committees. However, some researchers such as Bayat (1997), Davis (2006), and Hardoy and Satterthwaite (1989) have documented this phenomenon. In the above I have critically engaged with Bayat’s (1997) seminal work on this subject and found a disjuncture between the approach of workers’ democracy scholars such as Barker (2008) who emphasise the potential of working class committees to (politically and ideologically) spearhead fundamental social change and Bayat’s approach who argues that through quiet encroachment and non-ideological means the poor are able to effect great social changes. I now turn to the classics to delve deeper into the Marxist approach to working class self-organisation with a particular eye on the historical contexts and political debates in which the various theoretical positions in this school of thought were forged.

2.6 Working class self-organisation and the Marxist classics 2.6.1 Marx: Lessons from the Paris Commune Marx and Engels (1965) postulated that social being shapes consciousness.77 This is an important observation which I will use to approach the discussion of the Marxist classics on working class self-organisation below where I will consider the ideas of a few selected authors, namely, Marx, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, Lukacs and Gramsci. My aim is to establish the existence of a tradition of working class self-organisation in Marxism and to review it critically assessing its strengths and weaknesses including the convergences and divergences in approach by the authors that will be considered. I will relate the ideas on the subject to the historical circumstances in which they were produced and the challenges that the authors sought to address. I will thus be relating agency to structure, and theory to history. This will allow me to assess their relevance for our understanding of present forms of self-organisation including that of the shack dwellers. A central thread in the discussion will be to identify and assess the tradition of democracy “from below,” including the creation of structures that allow the participation of ordinary workers in democratic decision-making in the struggle to meet their needs. In this respect I will consider the dialectical relationship between the role of such

77 Marx and Engels (1970:47): “Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. In the first method of approach [idealism] the starting point is consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second method [materialism], which conforms to real life, it is the real living individuals themselves, and consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness.”

81 structures as organs of struggle and as organs of self-government as I believe that this dialectic is key in understanding the role of self-organisation in the workers’ struggle for self- emancipation. I begin with Marx’s discussion of the Paris Commune in which he presents his vision of the future workers’ state whose existence, according to him, will be the first step in creating a society that is characterised by maximum participatory democracy and the satisfaction of everyone’s needs. The Paris Commune of 1871 provided Marx with a model of a workers’ state. In his ‘The Civil War in France’ (Marx 1977:236), he documented his interpretation of the events that involved the workers in Paris taking over the reins of government for a few months before the experiment was drowned in blood by the ruling class. The chief lesson from the debacle, according to Marx, was that the working class cannot take over the bourgeois state, it had to be smashed and a new kind of state built based on the foundations of working class self- organisation. This was a break from his earlier position when writing about the 1848 revolutions where he had called for “a seizure of state power at the centre. The proletariat was to dispose of, build up and utilize state power in order to spread the revolution outwards from the centre to the periphery” (Harding 1983b:230). He saw the Commune as the first practical enactment of a workers’ government. He noted the political and procedural steps that the Parisian workers took to abolish the standing army, the police and judiciary as independent (hovering above society) institutions enforcing bourgeois class rule. Mechanisms to subordinate the state to society included eradicating the distinction between the executive, the legislative and the judiciary, paying delegates in the workers’ parliament an average workers’ wage, subjecting them to recall, election of state officials, etc. The Commune provided the elements of a model of workers’ self-rule and self-government. In the following discussions I will refer to this as “the commune model” (see Harding 1983b:220). Marx laid the theoretical foundations for all future socialist states. He however did not pay enough attention to how workers would actually run the state on a daily basis. He focused on parliament and the repressive arm of the state and how workers would deal with the concentrated and centralised power of the bourgeois state. While his vision of a workers’ state was maximally democratic and participatory, his writings focused on power as exercised at the “top” rather than the “bottom” of the political structure. His basic idea was nonetheless that a workers’ state would be run from the “bottom.” For example, he said that each ward and hamlet would be self-governing. But questions still remain such as how would every ward and hamlet participate in the drawing up of the national plan of production that he

82 advocated for the new society?78 He also did not say much about how workers’ councils, and perhaps neighbourhood committees, would organize the self-management and self-rule of the proletariat in the factories, schools and residential areas. While practical mechanisms such as the right of recall can be applied at all levels of the political system, the broad strokes he painted left out crucial details such as: How would his commune model apply, for instance, in a country as vast as Russia? In other words, “how is it possible for a class millions strong to rule and what mechanisms could enable such a larger group [than the Paris communards] to exercise its own dictatorship?” (Harding 1983b:222). These questions were left to subsequent Marxists to answer without the advantage of his prescient guidance. His was a groundbreaking and foundational but incomplete broaching of the subject.

2.6.2 Lenin and Luxemburg on the party and the soviets Lenin has sometimes been presented as the man who advocated tight, top-down party organisation which excluded participation of ordinary workers while Rosa Luxemburg is presented against this as a strong believer in bottom-up organisation and struggle. They were both ardent Marxists who indeed at one point engaged in polemics with each other on the question of how the socialist party should be organised and what the attitude of socialists to working class spontaneity in struggle should be (Le Blanc 1999:82, Liebman 1975:30-31). This is an important debate that has shaped subsequent Marxist thinking, including the image of Marxism to others, and will serve here to elucidate some key features of the Marxist approach to self-organisation. It will answer the question of whether the “real” Marxist approach to organisation is top-down or bottom-up. It should be noted that there is in fact a lot in common in their respective approaches and that the divergences often derive from their responses to different historical circumstances and problems that they grappled with (Le Blanc 1990:84, Liebman 1975:31).79 As Tony Cliff (1959:42) has argued:

It is only by juxtaposing Luxemburg’s and Lenin’s conceptions that one can attempt to assess the historical limitations of each which were, inevitably, fashioned by the special environment in which each worked.

78 Schecter (1991:17) is concerned that: “Marx lauds the commune as a ‘thoroughly expansive political form’ which organizes politics in the smallest country hamlet, yet at the same time, national production is to be regulated by a common plan. The question then becomes, who will formulate this common plan and how will its designer be held accountable?” 79 Le Blanc (1990:84) wants us to “to take note of the common ground shared by Lenin and Luxemburg, which is far more considerable than is generally acknowledged. In fact, much of what Luxemburg has written seems like an elaboration of the ‘Leninist conception of the party.’ Even in her 1904 polemic, she stresses the need for ‘a proletarian vanguard, conscious of its class interests and capable of self-direction in political activity.’”

Luxemburg criticised Lenin’s conception of the revolutionary party for being ultra- centralist, undemocratic and likely to substitute itself for the working class.80 This was in response to Lenin’s book What Is To Be Done? that came out in 1902 where he basically called for a tight and highly disciplined party consisting of professional revolutionaries which would adopt the role of a proletarian vanguard.81 What was particularly galling for Luxemburg was Lenin’s express prohibition of the election of party bodies which he said were to be appointed by higher structures. Lenin also exhibited a deep distrust of spontaneity including his now infamous assertion that left on its own the working class would not spontaneously develop a revolutionary consciousness (Lenin 1902:17).82 This contrasted sharply with Luxemburg’s (1970a) faith in the organic capacity of the working class upon which she developed a revolutionary strategy based on spontaneous working class action and highlighted the power of the mass strike. But it seems that their differences arose out of their different situations and experiences. In Russia, the socialist militants faced harsh repressive conditions including infiltration by the Tsarist police of the scattered and loosely structured socialist groups trying to organise and influence workers. In Germany, the biggest socialist party in the world, the German Social Democratic Party, was being subjected to a bureaucratism which stultified worker action and which, alarmingly for Luxemburg, was increasingly adopting reformist positions (Le Blanc 1999:85-86).83

The 1905 revolutionary upheavals in Russia had a profound impact on the thinking of both revolutionaries indicating the importance of context in evaluating their ideas and their disagreements. The Russian strike wave of 1896-1905 led Luxemburg to write a long pamphlet in 1906, “The Mass Strike,” in which she extolled the revolutionary power of this form of struggle and reiterated her views on the revolutionary spontaneity of the working class. Lenin was also profoundly affected by these developments to the extent that he revised many of his

80 Her critique entitled “Organisational Questions of Russian Social Democracy” appeared in the Neue Zeit, a German socialist theoretical magazine, in 1904 (Le Blanc 1990:80). 81 He elaborated his organisational ideas in other writings including the important “Letter to a Comrade on Our Organisational Tasks,” published in 1904, where “Lenin explains at great length the hierarchical system that the Party must establish if it intends to put into practice the principle of centralization” (Liebman 1975:39). 82 As Lenin (1902:17) put it: “We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without.” 83 As Max Shachtman (1938:144) explains: “The ‘professional revolutionists’ whom Luxemburg encountered in Germany were not, as in Russia, the radical instruments, for gathering together loose and scattered local organizations, uniting them in to one national party imbued with a firm Marxist ideology and freed from the opportunistic conceptions of pure and simple trade unionism. Quite the contrary. In Germany, the ‘professionals’ were careerists, the conservative trade-union bureaucrats, the lords of the ossifying party machine, the reformist parliamentarians, the whole crew who finally succeeded in disembowelling the movement.”

84 views on the character of the party, the working class and the relationship between the two. His position arguably shifted closer to Luxemburg’s as reflected in her critique of Lenin’s concept of the party. Whereas he had previously laid very strict rules and even barriers to party membership, he now called for the opening up of the party to the masses to join especially the youth (Liebman 1975:45-46). Thus the membership grew from 8 400 in January 1905 to 48 000 in 1906 and 84 000 in 1907 (Liebman 1975:47, Keep 1963:288). Lenin now called the party a mass party: “This description did not refer merely to the number of members, but also implied a change in the Party’s structure, a new conception of the relations between Party and the proletariat” (Liebman 1975:48). This change of approach was also reflected in his assessment of the soviets which had been spontaneously formed by workers during the 1905 revolutionary upheavals.

“All power to the soviets!” is a slogan that put the soviets, the Russian workers’ councils, at the centre of the working class revolutionary movement and led to the conceptualisation of the Russian workers’ state as a soviet state (Lenin 1917, 1918). What is often forgotten is that this is a position that was gradually and even ex post facto adopted by the Bolsheviks in response to developments on the ground rather than a product of their a priori theoretical and programmatic thinking. Indeed, when the Petersburg Soviet was established on October 13th, 1905, a day after a general strike, consisting of delegates representing 250 000 workers in the Russian capital, many Bolsheviks reacted to the development with “skepticism, incomprehension, and even sometimes outright hostility” (Liebman 1975 :86). They quoted passages from Lenin’s book What Is To Be Done? which advocated reliance on a tightly organised political party exactly to obviate the reliance on spontaneous mass activity which it was felt led to economistic rather than political demands and exposed militants to infiltration and arrest by the Tsarist police. Lenin (1906:251-252) had a hard time persuading his comrades to work with and support the soviets even though he himself was no starry-eyed enthusiast of these “peculiar instruments of embryonic revolutionary authority” which had suddenly and initially emerged to organise the strikes and to lead working class attacks on the Tsarist regime including organising strike-disrupted supplies and services.84

It is thanks to Lenin’s prescient perspective that the Bolsheviks followed the lead of their rivals, the Mensheviks, in supporting the soviets as organs of struggle during the revolutionary upsurge. His suggestion that “politically the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies should

84 See Le Blanc (1990:107) and Liebman (1975:89).

85 be regarded as the embryo of a provisional revolutionary government” (Lenin 1965:18)85 broached the subject (among the Bolsheviks) of their role as workers’ organs of struggle and of self-government.86 In answer to some Bosheviks’ rhetorical question of what was more important, he responded:

the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies or the Party?...the decision must certainly be: both the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies and the Party…It seems to me that the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, as an organization representing all occupations, should strive to include deputies from all industrial, professional and office workers, domestic servants, farm labourers, etc. from all who want and are able to fight in common for a better life for the whole working people (Lenin 1965:17-18).87

He disagreed with the view of some Bolshevik leaders that these soviets should be regarded as transient strike committees and that they should be made to adopt the programme of the party. As the quotation above suggests, he wanted the (Saint Petersburg) Soviet “to extend its range of activity still further and enlarge its audience, especially among the soldiers and sailors, so as to prepare the way for an alliance between the peasantry and the industrial proletariat” (Liebman 1975:88). In other words, the role of the soviets as organs of struggle was to unite the working class as a whole and to forge the broadest possible unity of the oppressed and exploited including non-proletarian elements. This would also serve to lay the basis for a new provisional government.

Lenin’s position on the soviets in 1905 was similar to that of Luxemburg who placed a great premium on working class self-organisation. She believed in the organic capacity of the working class and on this basis theorised a revolutionary strategy based on spontaneous working class action and focusing on the mass strike. Through mass action, she argued, the masses learn about politics and develop a revolutionary consciousness, more than they could learn from books and speeches written by socialist leaders (Luxemburg 2004:191). She was suspicious of political leaders who abrogated to themselves revolutionary prescience to a degree where they felt they knew better than the masses themselves. She saw the necessity of the party but was suspicious of “vanguardist” tendencies exhibited by party officials. She

85 See Liebman (1975:88). 86 According to Lenin (1906:251-252) the Menshevik newspaper edited by Trotsky “Nachalo regarded the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies as organs of revolutionary local self-government, while Novaya Zhizu [a Bolshevik paper] regarded them as embryonic organs of revolutionary state power that united the proletariat with the revolutionary democrats.” (See Le Blanc 1990:107-108). 87 See Le Blanc (1990:116).

86 believed that the mass of the workers should lead their own struggle and that institutions of grassroots working class self-organisation such as workers’ councils or soviets were key to this (Schecter 1991:29). Despite her emphasis on working class spontaneity she saw the importance of organisation. She supported trade unions and was active in building workers’ parties. She increasingly saw the need for organs of self-management and self-rule of the working class – workers’ councils (Schecter 1991:29). She saw the latter, as Lenin did, as structures that could include all workers irrespective of party or trade union affiliation. Workers’ councils would be the basis for “the most active, unlimited participation of the mass of the people, of unlimited democracy” in a post-revolutionary state (Luxemburg 1970b:393).

Lenin made his revolution while Luxemburg fell victim to the reaction.88 Lenin’s victory was based on a judicious combination or partnership between the party and the soviets. While Luxemburg cannot be blamed for the defeat of the revolution in Germany, it is also true that she did not theoretically solve the riddle of the relationship of the councils to the party especially as this related to the concrete steps that would need to be taken in seizing power and establishing a new state (Schecter 1991:31). Her support for the party, the unions and the workers’ councils begged the question of the relationship between these forms of organisation especially in the light of her anti-vanguardist position. She was insistent that the party should represent the whole class rather than its vanguard but offered no alternative theorisation on how the functions associated with the party would be carried out in her scheme (Rose 2015:16). Her treatment of the question of the role of workers’ councils both during the course of the revolution and in a workers’ state, when compared with that of Lenin as we will see below, can therefore be said to be one-sided or not going deep enough to address the fundamental issues of democracy that she raised (Schecter 1991:29). But her critique of Lenin on several questions particularly the question of organisation provides a basis for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of Leninist practice in the course of the Russian Revolution especially with respect to the relationship of the party to the workers’ mass organisations. It is this practice that the rest of this section focuses upon.

Lenin viewed the soviets, like other mass organisations of the working class such trade unions, as very important organs of workers’ struggle and power that nonetheless needed to be influenced and guided by the party, the custodian of revolutionary working class politics. As

88 Luxemburg had her skull smashed by a soldier’s rifle butt on 15 January 1919, the same day the forces of reaction killed her comrade Karl Liebknecht. Thousands of workers were also murdered when “[r]ight-wing Social Democratic leaders and generals of the old Kaiser’s army joined forces to suppress the [German] revolutionary working class” (Cliff 1959:16).

87 we have noted above, events compelled him to reevaluate his initial position that left on its own the working class would not spontaneously develop a revolutionary consciousness (Lenin 1902:17).89 Like Marx, his entire political strategy was based on the notion of the working class being the revolutionary subject. He believed in the organic capacity of the working class to change history. In other words, within the class lay a (spontaneous) revolutionary impulse that had to be developed and given direction because, for Lenin, material and ideological conditions, within which the workers lived and struggled, were characterised by the dominance of the capitalist class and its allies. Therefore, there ought to be a dialectical relationship between the conscious and spontaneous elements, the leadership and the class, the party and the soviets.

Lenin successfully guided the workers’ revolution to victory based on this formulation. The party and the soviets played their parts as he had more or less envisaged them in his overall strategy.90 It was arguably in the post-revolutionary context that holes began to appear in his scheme. His commitment to a workers’ state run by workers themselves was made eloquently and unequivocally in his The State and Revolution (Lenin 1976) where he envisioned a future stateless society where, because of the maximisation of participatory proletarian democracy, the state gradually became a mere tool for administration shorn of its repressive character (Harding 1983b:127). The power of his analysis, which opened the door for the victory of the revolution, lay in the immediacy with which he saw the revolution overthrowing the monarchy, smashing the state and replacing it with a new form of state under the hands of the workers themselves thus averting the economic catastrophes wrought by the First World War (Harding

89 He clarified his position saying: “We all know that the Economists bent the stick in one direction. In order to straighten the stick it was necessary to bend it in the other direction, and that is what I did” (Lenin 1961:487- 489). He accused the Economists of focusing exclusively on economic rather than political struggle. Le Blanc (1990:63) takes the dominant view in the literature that this statement by Lenin meant that he was retracting his statement on the question of socialist consciousness “from without.” However, Lars T. Lih (2006:27) has argued robustly that this was not the case, it was a clarification rather than a retraction. He quotes the next sentence in the “bending the stick” quotation which says: “I am convinced that Russian Social-Democracy will always vigorously straighten out whatever has been twisted by opportunism of any kind, and that therefore our line of action will always be the straightest and the fittest for action.” My reading of the passages before the controversial “bending the stick” sentence is that Lenin reiterates his position though adding some nuance. For example: “Have I not said time and again that the shortage of fully class-conscious workers, worker-leaders, and worker-revolutionaries is, in fact, the greatest deficiency in our movement? Have I not said there that the training of such worker-revolutionaries must be our immediate task? Is there no mention there of the importance of developing a trade-union movement and creating a special trade-union literature? Is not a desperate struggle waged there against every attempt to lower the level of the advanced workers to that of the masses, or of the average workers?” (Lenin 1961:489). 90 There were of course many twists and turns on the way, some of which exposed shortcomings in Lenin’s approach on specific questions and highlighted the weaknesses of Bolshevism. However, he and the Bolsheviks often responded with theoretical and tactical adjustments to changing circumstances. In many situations, according to Liebman (1975:56), “Leninism showed its great flexibility.”

1983b:119, Lukács 2005). He nevertheless stumbled theoretically and practically on the concrete question of the nature of the transitional state according to the views of the two critics I will briefly consider below.

Neil Harding (1983b:126), having demonstrated Lenin’s absolute and even religious conviction (“a dialectical act of faith”) that power ought to be transferred to and wielded by the working class masses (thereby proving Lenin’s “bottom-up” democratic bent), argues that the great leader had, on the eve of revolution, greatly exaggerated the ease with which the masses could take over and run the state. This practical realisation “appeared to necessitate and justify the swift re-introduction of specialists and one-man management” by the new Bolshevik government (Harding 1983b:126). Mészáros (1995:902), on the other hand, points to a theoretical lacuna in Lenin’s strategy. Could the state, a “self-sustaining” entity, become a “self-transcending” one? This was a question about the nature and character of the state during the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. Lenin had specified the role of the soviets as supreme bodies allowing the full control of the proletarian state by the mass of workers.91 But, according to Mészáros (1995:903-904), he had failed to adequately answer the primary question of whether, let alone how, socialism could be built in an economically “backward” country. This question was closely related to the type of state that would be put in place.

The Bolsheviks had grappled with the question of whether a proletarian revolution could be made to survive, let alone flourish, in Russia – a country whose level of social development was lower than that envisaged by Marx as necessary for a socialist transition. Marx had suggested that socialism would arise out of highly developed forces of production and a politically, culturally and technologically astute working class. Lenin’s answer was that the constellation of international class relations had made Russia into the weakest link in the imperialist chain and that there would be concomitant revolutions in the advanced capitalist countries (partly sparked off by the Russian Revolution) that would support and ensure the triumph of his revolution. In the immediate the revolution would be made in Russia led by the Bolsheviks, but its survival would depend on developments outside the control of the Bolsheviks (Mészáros 1995:634). When the revolutions in the West were defeated the Soviet state was left alone to face its own problems.

91 Lenin (1964c:107-108) called on the masses stating: “Not the police, not the bureaucracy, who are answerable to the people and placed above the people, not the standing army, separated from the people, but the people themselves, universally armed and united in the Soviets, must run the state…get together, unite, organize, yourselves, trusting no one, depending only on your own intelligence and experience…”

In making their revolution the Russian working class, led by Lenin and the Bolsheviks, unflinchingly confronted and triumphed against insurmountable odds. But this happened at a great cost. Millions died as a result of the civil war, foreign invasion, famine and the general hardship resulting from extensive and unprecedented socioeconomic disruption associated with the revolution (Skocpol 1979:220, 224). Many workers who had been leaders and participants in the soviets died and those who remained became state functionaries and political commissars (Harman 2003b:17-18). The soviets, shorn of leaders, declined in the face of the need for a strong centralised state necessary to ward off the revolution’s enemies and to deal with the economic collapse: “With the emergence of this system [of War Communism whereby the state took over all economic functions], workers’ control of industry was an immediate casualty” (Skocpol 1979:219). Pragmatic policy retreats such as the New Economic Policy introduced and resuscitated political dynamics and economic processes that, on hindsight, irrevocably derailed the revolution (Cliff 2003:39).92 The party itself, including Lenin, changed its political-strategic outlook as it was left floating in ideological limbo because the decimation of its working class social base had left it the sole defender and arbiter of the revolution (Harman 2003b:22-23).

Alone in the world as a revolutionary state, without a strong working class base, and under attack by domestic and international enemies, the Bolsheviks soldiered on. It is in this besieged frame of mind that pragmatism replaced idealism. The vision of a “bottom-up” state where “all of the people would govern directly through job rotation and elected and recallable representatives [had been strongly asserted]. But in the conditions that Russia and the Bolsheviks faced by 1918 this vision was impossible, at best a utopia for the far-distant future” (Skocpol 1979:215). The golden years of soviet participatory democracy did occur but they were very brief and were soon overtaken by the top-down bureaucratic and undemocratic socialist party-state, the polar opposite of Lenin’s dream in The State and Revolution and Marx’s The Civil War in France (Skocpol 1979:214). Lenin (1960:89) answered his critics by invoking action rather than theory in his pamphlet “Can the Bolsheviks retain state power?” writing, “The October 25 Revolution has transferred this question raised in this pamphlet from the sphere of theory to the sphere of practice. This question must now be answered by deeds, not words.” It was under his leadership and as a pragmatic response to changed and difficult conditions that the affairs of the soviets, as expressions of proletarian bottom-up control of the

92 The First Five-Year Plan, that followed the New Economic Policy’s pragmatic flexibility allowing capital accumulation, “now sought the rapid creation of the proletariat and [state] accumulation of capital, in other words, as quickly as possible to realise the historical mission of the bourgeoisie” (Cliff 2003:56).

90 state, “in practice…became increasingly dominated by executive committees, which were ‘elected’ through Party influence or intervention” (Skocpol 1979:214), and in essence “the commune model increasingly receded into the background to be replaced by the dictatorship of the proletariat” (Harding 1983b:220).93

An important change in Lenin’s strategic outlook, a practical thinker who always oriented his thought to effectively address concrete challenges as they arose in the course of the unfolding revolution, was his narrowing of the role of the masses to that of advanced workers – the vanguard. He increasingly put his faith in the Petrograd proletariat and other advanced layers to an extent that these arguably came to substitute for the masses:

[T]he proletariat featured now not simply as the leader of the mass but as the sole repository of administrative skills, the only class with the title to govern…the sphere of self-activity and self-administration was dramatically narrowed from the popular mass to the class, from the people at large to the proletariat (Harding 1983b:220).

This is in contrast to the vision he had painted on the eve of the revolution whereby “the masses themselves…without ‘supervision’ from above…a universally armed people” would participate "in all fields of [post-revolutionary] state activity” (Lenin 1964c 19:107). 94As Lenin (1917:1) put it: “A commune means complete self-government, the absence of any supervision from above.”95 The pragmatic and perhaps even necessary shift to a party and vanguard ensconced on top of society in the name of the dictatorship of the proletariat (over the popular masses) undermined this vision. Indeed, on his deathbed, his last testament was an

93 The literature is a bit confusing on what is exactly meant by “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Liebman (1975:354-355) argues that for Marxists “the dictatorship of the proletetariat could assume a variety of forms…it might also produce a less rigorous system – the sine qua non always being an organized leadership, or hegemony, of society by the working class…[where] the influence formerly wielded by the bourgeoisie was transferred to the victorious proletariat;” Lenin had defined it “broadly and vaguely…in his Left-Wing Communism.” Liebman (1975:355) sees the period 1917 to early 1918, when there existed a “vacuum created by the absence of a structured Soviet system and the organizational weaknesses of the Bolshevik Party” as one that can be described as the dictatorship of the proletariat because: “There were too many examples of submission of the Bolshevik Party to this elemental force [the masses] for it to be deniable that, in a sense, ‘government’ (if we ignore the formal significance of the word) was, in that period, in the hands of the proletariat itself.” Harding (1983b:220) on the other hand describes this period as one dominated by the “commune model” and the later period of consolidation of state bureaucratic power over society as the dictatorship of the proletariat. For Liebman (1975:356) during this later period: “There was, then, no longer any question of a dictatorship of the proletariat as such” (his emphasis). Carr (1950:255) argues that “it would…be a fundamental error to suppose that the experience of power brought any radical change in Lenin’s philosophy of the state…Theory could in itself give no ground for certainty about the right course of action or the prospect for the immediate future;” the problem lay in the dichotomy between the “absolute vision of the ultimate goal” and the “highly realist and relativist analysis of the historical process” characteristic of Marxist thought. 94 See Harding (1983b:121). 95 See Harding (1983b:122).

91 admission of defeat when he lamented that the party and the state had become too bureaucratised, too top-down. His unconvincing solutions, such as opening the party gates and flooding the party with thousands of ordinary workers, suggest that he, of all people, was at a loss as to how the situation could be remedied (Mészáros 1995:904).

The revolution lost its way after Lenin’s death and Stalin took over (Trotsky 1937, 1972). But even during Lenin’s tenure, as we have seen above, many mistakes were made. Luxemburg (1940:54) sympathetically noted the almost insurmountable odds that faced the Bolshevik revolution and how this was a constraint in instituting the ideal state: It would be demanding something superhuman from Lenin and his comrades if we should expect from them that under such circumstances they should conjure forth the finest democracy, the most exemplary dictatorship of the proletariat, and a flourishing socialist economy. By their determined revolutionary stand, their exemplary strength in action and their unbreakable loyalty to international socialism, they have contributed whatever could possibly be contributed under such devilishly hard conditions.96 She nevertheless criticised the Bolsheviks for compounding the objectives constraints with their own subjective mistakes, for example, she was very critical of the Bolshevik restrictions on democracy in the new state: “Yes, dictatorship! But this dictatorship consists in the manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination…But this dictatorship must be the work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class” (Luxemburg 1940:54). She opposed the idea that socialist transformation could be conceived as a “ready- made formula” which “lies completed in the pocket of the revolutionary party” arguing that it was instead an open-ended affair that could only be “an historical product, born out of the school of its own experiences, born in the course of its realisation, as a result of the developments of living history.” Socialism could not be decreed from above, it cannot be “a clique affair” but should involve the participation and creativity of the mass of workers (Luxemburg 1940:47-48). Finally, while accepting the necessity for retreats, twists and modifications of socialist policy, Luxemburg points to an overarching and very serious problem of theory and method in Bolshevik revolutionary practice which she denounced and which is a warning to all Marxist practitioners:

96 See Cliff (1959:55).

The danger begins only when they make a virtue of necessity and want to freeze into a complete theoretical system all the tactics forced upon them by these fatal circumstances, and want to recommend them to the international proletariat as a model of socialist tactics (Luxemburg 1940:55, Cliff 1959:55). This is a very important point for the struggle of the working class moving forward. It suggests the need to revisit and review some of the Marxist shibboleths that have been inherited from the deviations of the Russian Revolution. Stalinism stands as an ugly monument in this regard: it is a system of political thought and practice that in essence is not Marxist (James 1949, Molyneux 1983). While Leninism cannot be blamed for Stalinism, it is still necessary to explore the mistakes made during Lenin’s time precisely in order to effectively fight the distortions of Stalinism. One of them was the sidelining of the soviets which was an expression of the restrictions placed on workers democracy and workers control by Lenin’s revolutionary state. This robbed the revolution by frustrating the independent initiative and creative power of workers.97 2.6.3 Workers councils: The ideas and experiences of Trotsky, Lukács and Gramsci The importance of soviets and workers councils was a topic covered by other Marxists as extensively as did Lenin and Luxemburg. In this section I briefly consider the writings of Leon Trotsky, Georg Lukács and Antonio Gramsci. Their work is considered here to illustrate the centrality of working class self-organisation among these early Marxist theorists and to show how the different emphases and nuances in their respective treatments of the subject is partly a result of their individual political circumstances and purposes. Trotsky, for example, not yet a Bolshevik, became the chairperson of the Saint Petersburg soviet in 1905, an experience that must have had a huge impact on his views on the subject. His History of the Russian Revolution (1933), written in three volumes, is a brilliant scholarly account by an insider which also provides a theorised history of the soviets. Lukács was a Marxist revolutionary philosopher of note who wrote the classic, History and Class Consciousness (1972), in which he addresses some major Marxist philosophical themes that include a discussion of the important role of workers councils in the workers’ state. A Hungarian revolutionary leader, he fell victim to Stalinism and was forced to recant some of the positions he had put forward in his great book. Gramsci was actively involved in the building of the factory councils in Turin, Italy and is

97 As James Scott (1998:179) pithily puts it: “[A] vanguard party can achieve its revolutionary results in ways that defeat its central purpose.”

93 better known for his theoretical exegeses on hegemony and other subjects which he wrote in a fascist jail. Trotsky, like Lenin, understood the soviets to be very important both as organs of struggle and as organs of worker self-government but he emphasised the role of the party in giving direction to their role. Workers created them out of an objective need arising out of the revolution itself. In his historical account of the 1905 revolution he noted that the Petersburg Soviet soon became “the axis of all events, every thread ran towards it, every call to action emanated from it” (Trotsky 1971:122). The Soviet was a “purely class-founded, proletarian organization,” non-party “and based on broadest representation” thus earning their position of “authority in the eyes of the masses” (Trotsky 1971:122-123). It represented the first “democratic power in modern Russian history” which he described in terms that evoke Marx’s characterisation of the Paris Commune: It constitutes authentic democracy, without a lower and an upper chamber, without a professional bureaucracy, but with the voters’ right to recall their deputies at any moment (Trotsky 1971:268).98 These are the characteristics of the political structures of the future workers’ state. However, Trotsky pointed to the need for the party to consummate the transition from the present to the future state because on their own the soviets could not effect this. “To overthrow the old power is one thing; to take the power in one’s own hands is another,” wrote Trotsky (2008:741).99 Strong leadership was needed for this. The soviets, for example, were once under the sway of the Mensheviks before the Bolsheviks took over at the revolutionary helm, notes Trotsky. In 1917 before the October revolution, the soviets, gripped by the “general spirit of national- democratic unity” had “handed much of their power over to a predominantly bourgeois provisional government” (Le Blanc 1990:278). Trotsky thus argued: The soviets receive their program and leadership from the party…[they] comprise the whole class…The problem of conquering power can be solved only by a definite combination of party with soviets – or with other mass organisations more or less equivalent to soviets (Trotsy 2008:743).

98 See Le Blanc (1990:115). 99 See Le Blanc (1990:276)

Lukács also emphasised the essential role of the party in spreading true class consciousness as opposed to the actually existing working class consciousness. The two forms of consciousness differed in that:

one consciousness corresponds to the economic and social position of the class as a totality, while the other sticks at the immediacy of a particular and temporary interest (Lukács 2000:71-72).100

Like Trotsky, he pointed to the important role of the party in leading and guiding the revolution to triumph which involved winning workers to a revolutionary perspective. He emphasised the importance of workers’ councils or soviets in the revolutionary process. He also delved into the question of how the revolutionary state would run society. The revolutionary state would require hard work and sacrifice by the working class especially in the context of a revolution that occurred in an economically less developed country like Russia. How would this work out in practice? This is the question that Lenin did not fully address (see above). Lukács theorised two possible solutions to this problem: The workers would support and defend their revolution through self-discipline and sacrifice “from below,” or the workers’ state would impose discipline on the working class “from above” compelling it to do what needed to be done (Lukács 1968 51-52).101 In his earlier writings Lukács did not find the latter option attractive but he realised that that there was a real possibility that things would turn out that way. The first option was possible if workers’ councils were developed and thrived as institutions of worker self-management. The revolution would lose its way, Lukács (1920: Section 4) said, unless the soviets, in addition to the party, were the custodians of the post-revolutionary society.

History was not on his side and as the revolution became bureaucratised the party began to see his writings, in promoting soviet-based worker self-management in the workplace and in society, as problematic and threatening (Meszaros 1989:312). He was called upon to recant his theoretical errors (Mészáros 1995:312). Decades later a lost document titled “Tailism and the Dialectic” (Lukács 2000) was found in which he appears to restate the recanted position in support of workers’ councils (Hudis 2001:1, Le Blanc 2013:48-49, Wolfreys 2000).102 The fate of the document reflects the difficulties that intellectuals faced under the Stalinist party

100 See Le Blanc (2013:65). 101 See Mészáros (1995:905-906). 102 Le Blanc (2013:61) states: “‘Tailism and the Dialectic’ is a powerful polemic which effectively defends History and Class Consciousness from its critics.”

95 dictatorship but a critical reading of its contents suggests that Lukács’s position somewhat continued to vacillate between his advocacy for a thoroughgoing proletarian state from below based on workers’ councils and his elevation of the party above the class as the embodiment and arbiter of the “totality” that he believed the revolution to represent. In fact, his famous most important book, History and Class Consciousness, reflected this equivocation in so far as the first chapter promoted and the last chapter denounced workers’ councils (Mészáros 1995:371).103 The greatness of Lukacs as a Marxist intellectual was marred by this theoretical fiasco.

Antonio Gramsci’s life as a revolutionary of the working class began in earnest when he supported and theorised the factory committees and councils that emerged in Italy’s industrial centres at the beginning of the 20th century (Rosengarten n.d.). His writing skills were honed and got to be known when he wrote numerous articles in the L’Ordine Nuovo (The New Order), a socialist weekly that largely focused on the factory council movement. He saw the factory councils as the Italian version of soviets, as the building blocks and organisational form of the impending proletarian revolution (Gramsci 1920:1). The councils received a lukewarm reception from the Italian Socialist Party and the trade union leaders because they were seen as competing with the power of these working class organs. This left Gramsci with the task of theorising and developing arguments in support of the factory committees. His work in this regard builds on the Marxist tradition that emphasised the organic capacity of the working class and the argument that the workers are their own liberators. Gramsci was not disappointed because the Italian workers spontaneously and against the reluctance of their trade union and the socialist party leaderships built the factory committees and councils into impressive structures of worker control and self-management, and in many instances forced the bosses and the unions to acknowledge their power (L'Ordine Nuovo 1921, Trudell 2007:6). Gramsci saw that the power of the factory committees, which were linked to each other to form the councils, lay in the fact that they involved every worker in a factory irrespective of craft, trade union and party affiliation. He viewed them as expressing the undiluted voice and will of the workers especially against the conservative views of their trade union leaders. They were thus the building blocks of a mass-based proletarian democracy. At the same time

103 What remains debatable is whether Lukacs changed his positions largely because of Stalinist political pressure, forced “to enlist actively in the fight against his life and thought” (Berman 1999:185), or he revised his thinking on the subject also because “the dilemma remains as acute as ever” whereby Marxist theorisation of the post-revolutionary state and the transition to it requires addressing some truly difficult questions. See Wolfreys (2000:4) and Mészáros (1995:841-845).

Gramsci saw the need for the party, for an organising centre focused on taking power (Thomas 2009:437). He theorised a need for a dialectical interaction between the workers’ movement from below and the organising and coordinating role of the party from above (Gramsci 1978:169). However, in his earlier and youthful writings he seemed to have exaggerated the importance of the factory committees linking them too directly with the impending workers’ state and downplayed the role of the party and the trade unions.104

Later, and especially in his ‘Prison Notebooks,’ he began to place greater emphasis on the role of the party as providing hegemonic leadership to the mass-based participatory institutions of civil society (Thomas 2009:437-438). This shift partly reflected, on the one hand, his brief experience working under the dominance of the Bolshevik model of the party-state consequent to the triumph of the revolution in Russia (Schecter 1991:33). He also had to contend with, on the other hand, the harsh reality of defeat of the revolution in Italy and the rise of fascism that saw him spend the rest of his days in jail. During the Biennio Rosso, the period of revolutionary political turmoil that followed the end of the First World War, the workers showed tremendous courage and revolutionary spirit, but this happened in the absence of strong leadership by the communist party and the factory council movement was smashed. Gramsci began to seek a solution in his theory of hegemony whereby the foundations of the new society had to be laid within the old society through challenging, by means of a “war of position,” the hegemony of the ruling class (Thomas 2009:148-150). The concept of hegemony represented an appreciation that power could not be based on force alone and that cultural and political factors are important in cementing and challenging domination. These fertile lines of inquiry nonetheless left the question of self-management and self-rule of the working class in the new proletarian state through mass-based institutions inconclusive in his analysis. Their relationship to the state was not further clarified by the increasingly ailing Gramsci before he died.

2.6.4 Evaluation and synthesis of the Marxist classics

104 Thus Gramsci (1920:4) wrote that, “the birth of the workers’ Factory Councils represents a major historical event—the beginning of a new era in the history of humanity.” Earlier in the same text: “The true process of the proletarian revolution cannot be identified with the development and action of revolutionary organizations of a voluntary and contractual type, such as the political party or the trade unions” (Gramsci 1920:3). Trudell (2007:8) acknowledges this but argues that (though) “Gramsci at times underemphasised the role of the revolutionary party in this process. This was due to his mistrust of the revolutionary capabilities of the PSI rather than any ‘spontaneist’ tendencies. His conception of the factory councils’ role was bound up with his frustration at the PSI [Italian Socialist Party] and the urgent necessity to reorient the party.” See also Callinicos (1977:9) who notes how Gramsci later “revise[d] this mechanical reduction of politics to the economy” whereby he had failed to grasp that “workers’ control in the factories and the conquest of political power by the Soviets are different sides of the same revolutionary process.”

These earlier Marxist treatments of the question of working class self-organisation prepared the ground for later theorisation and practice. All the writers mentioned here supported the idea of mass-based proletarian self-organising and the actual building of soviets, workers’ councils and factory committees. Critically, their ideas covered the role of these workers’ organs before and after the revolution. This roughly corresponded to their role as organs of struggle and as organs of self-government although in practice the two roles overlapped and interconnected.105 Their different approaches and emphases reflect the different circumstances and imperatives including the terms of the debate at the time, the state of the workers’ struggle and the peculiarity of their personal involvement. An important point that emerges and which has characterised subsequent Marxist writings on the topic is the idea that workers’ alternative structures emerge during periods of social and political upheaval (Barker 2008:1). Disruption in the production and distribution of goods creates an objective need for self-improvised working class intervention, control and management of these processes. In other words, political and economic crises push workers to take action and to take over. In the course of the 20th century various countries experienced such crises leading to the emergence of alternative structures of workers’ self-rule and organisation of struggle (Barker 2008:1-2, Gluckstein 1985:7, Wallis 2011:12-13).

The specific model or form of working class self-organisation and self-rule that emerges will depend on the particular circumstances. Barker (2008:1-2) provides a succinct summary of the historically and geographically dispersed occurrence of this phenomenon and the various forms that it takes:

These new forms – first discovered/witnessed in the briefly lived institutions of the Commune of Paris in 1871, and further developed and explored in the “soviets,” “workers’ councils” and “factory councils” of Russia, Germany, Italy and elsewhere during the revolutionary years at the end of the First World War, and re-invented under various names in subsequent popular revolutionary movements in such places as Spain 1936-7, Hungary 1956, Chile 1972-3, Iran 1978-9, Poland 1980-1 or Argentina 2001 – represent the political form within which the working class will be able to work out how to remake society in non-capitalist ways.

105 In 1905, “The soviet took on various governmental functions, forced the tsarist regime to negotiate with it, and mobilized the working class and its allies in the struggle against the autocracy” (Le Blanc 1990:115).

An analysis of developments in each country would yield a clearer picture of the processes involved and the specific form that self-organisation takes in each instance. However, what is common is how certain favourable or “fertile” conditions (intense political activity and upheaval) that allow for the emergence of the new organisational forms which then thrive and flourish before they are either pushed back, re-absorbed or smashed (Wallis 2011:11-12). In rare instances, such as with the soviets in Russia, they become the building blocks of the future workers’ state (Carr 1950:153).

The Russian case represents, as it were, the triumph and tragedy of these alternative participatory political forms. Lenin and the Bolsheviks idealised the “commune model” but quickly had to retract from it due to the realities of defending and taking forward a revolution in difficult circumstances. Lenin’s writings reflect this shift which I have argued was pragmatic rather than a theoretical retreat from the model of the commune as first identified by Marx. His writings before the shift arguably reflect more faithfully Marx’s vision and provide a better guideline for those seeking a model for working class self-government and self-rule. Lukács vacillated partly because of uncertainty in his own mind but also because of a political and theoretical context that became hostile to his earlier ideas. Luxemburg understood the problems faced by the Bolshevik revolution but was critical of the lack of democracy. She and Gramsci also equivocated according to their own particular circumstances as noted above. Subsequent Marxist writers and revolutionaries have grappled with the questions and answered them in the best way they can (Barker 2008, Callinicos 1991, Gluckstein 1985, Ness and Azzellini 2011). In this dissertation I too want to join the debate, doing so from the vantage point of the popular committees formed by shack dwellers in South Africa.

As the capitalist crisis wreaks havoc on living standards all over the world, we see an explosion in the number of people who are inadequately housed (Davis 2006). Do the Marxist classics provide any clear guideline in respect of this social category of people? Luxemburg (in The Mass Strike and other writings) and Lenin (in his earlier writings in The State and Revolution and “Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?”) embrace the popular masses beyond the proletariat narrowly defined; this suggests that slum dwellers can be incorporated in the vision of working class self-activity and self-organisation. The soviets, although defined as class-based structures, included all kinds of people, committees and organisations (Gluckstein 1985:23). While we cannot ignore Lenin’s narrowing of his vision whereby only the advanced layers of the proletariat could participate in the administration structures of the workers’ state, his earlier generous embrace and broader definition will be used here as a basis for proceeding

99 with the analysis. After a consideration of contemporary debates focusing specifically on shack dwellers and their self-organisation and the findings from the empirical research, I will be in a position in the last chapter of this dissertation to take stock, restate the questions, and arrive at some general conclusions. I now turn to how these questions have been dealt with in the African context.

2.7 Self-organisation under colonial and post-colonial conditions My discussion of the Marxist classical texts has entailed a focus on concepts and themes emanating from and addressing the European context (Marx, Lenin, Luxemburg, etc.). I now turn to Africa, exploring the theory and practice of working class self-organisation that has emerged on the continent. My treatment is not meant to suggest homogeneity in the African experience but rather to move closer to home, South Africa, the immediate context of my theorisation and the location of my research sites, in order to address the post-colonial critique of Eurocentric approaches to non-European realities. My basic argument in this whole study is based on assuming a degree of commonality in the experiences of the oppressed and exploited across historical and geographical contexts and as crystallised in the concept of class – the universal applicability of Marxist class analysis. The essence of post-colonial theory has been to question the applicability of European concepts on non-Western contexts and this critique poses a challenge to my basic thesis and requires a response.

In what follows I will consider the works of Frantz Fanon and Mahmood Mamdani who address the colonial and post-colonial condition in Africa including critically examining the Subaltern Studies, an intellectual trend within post-colonial theory, whose approach to these questions was shaped by a re-evaluation of Indian historiography. I then briefly consider the debate between the Slovophiles and “modernists” in Russia before the formation of the Bolshevik Party and the crystallisation of a Marxist revolutionary approach to the struggle that culminated in the Russian Revolution. There are similarities and parallels regarding how this debate was conducted and resolved with developments in the theorisation and practice of the African national liberation movement. I then consider the political thought and theoretical positions of Julius Nyerere, Govan Mbeki and Harold Wolpe in order to argue that the lessons from the African experience point to the continued relevance of the revolutionary Marxist perspective that puts the working class at the centre of struggles for social change aimed at human self-emancipation. My discussion dwells longer on Frantz Fanon’s ideas because of his emergent theoretical and political importance in struggles in South Africa and other parts of

100

Africa especially among the militant youth. However, let me begin with Mamdani and his critique of Eurocentric universalism in the study of African history.

2.7.1 The problematic of universalism: Post-colonialism In a letter to Engels, Marx wrote:

For us the difficult question is this: the revolution on the Continent [of Europe] is imminent and its character will be at once socialist; will it not be necessarily crushed in this little corner of the world, since on a much larger terrain the development of bourgeois society is still in the ascendant (Marx 1858).

This quotation suggests that Marx did not expect historical development to follow a single path, the path followed by England or Europe, even though his theory sought to explain development of society at a global scale across many historical epochs.106 Marx has been criticised for his theoretical ambition and here I want to focus on the critique emanating from post-colonial theory. I have to do this because the thrust of my argument in this dissertation is based on the premise of the universal applicability of the concept of class and the unitary nature of the working class movement, that is, there is a fundamental commonality in its struggle throughout the world.

What I call the “problematic of universalism” is a general argument that theories and concepts developed in Western Europe’s advanced capitalist and imperialist societies cannot do justice to the reality of post-colonial societies in the global South. With respect to historiography, the basic critique is the observation that the history of the world has been largely written by and from the point of view of Europeans (Chakrabarty 1992:1). There is therefore a need for a “refusal to write histories which are predicated on Western-derived priorities or concepts” (Childs and Williams 1997:8).

Mahmood Mamdani (1996:12) is concerned that the state in Africa has not been studied sui generis but rather by way of “a history by analogy rather than a history as process,” that is, using the European experience as a touchstone for understanding African historiography. The result is “Eurocentrism. The central tendency of such a methodological orientation is to lift phenomenon out of context and process” (Mamdani 1996:12). Mamdani (1996:24) therefore questions the Marxist understanding of the colonial state in Africa arguing that it is “not the labour question, but the native question” which is key. The colonial state was above all

106 See Marx (1877) quotation on p. XX of this dissertation.

101 concerned with keeping the colonised subjugated by a minority of colonists. That is why we had stratagems such as “indirect rule” which preserved and used African lands and institutions to maintain colonial rule. Africa will follow its own path of development and not that of Europe as Marxist political economy suggests (Mamdani 1996:7).

Mamdani explains the migrant labour system in South Africa from this point of view of the primacy of the native question. The coloniser promoted a “free peasantry” in order to control it by subjecting it to rule by puppet chiefs that was based on customary laws that were re-engineered to serve the colonial master. Africans would have their sovereignty in the rural reserves (“tribal lands”) while the white settler would be safe and unbothered in the urban economic centres (Mamdani 1996:6). In this respect South Africa was not exceptional in Africa:

[A]partheid usually considered unique to South Africa, is actually the generic form of the colonial state in Africa...what Smuts called institutional segregation, the British termed indirect rule, the French association…it is a common state form that I call decentralized despotism (Mamdani 1996:8).

The discovery of gold and diamonds required “the [continued] reproduction of autonomous peasant communities that would regularly supply male, adult, and single migrant labour to the mines” (Mamdani 1996:18). The African working class had no rights in the urban areas and could exercise them in the Bantustans, they were “subjects” not “citizens” hence the title of his book because in any case the chiefs were not at all democratic in the rural areas (Mamdani 1996:190).

Mamdani is not opposed to class analysis per se so it could be argued that the labour and native questions – arguably the economic and political aspects of colonial rule – were inextricably linked and possibly equally important. His critique is correct if it aims at Marxist analyses that are Eurocentric and “labour-centric” (Banaji 2010).107 I have addressed this problem in Section 2.3.2 of this chapter where I present Banaji’s critique of the (Stalinist) unilinear characterisation of historical development especially with respect to the rigid

107 Chibber (2013b) distinguishes between two forms of Eurocentrism, namely, a “natural,” “neutral and benign” kind and a “pernicious form.” The former emanates from the fact that “[the] study of Europe…all the Western theories we know of up to the late nineteenth century overwhelmingly drew their evidence and their data from Europe, because the scholarship and the anthropological and historical literature on the East was so underdeveloped.” The latter “is where knowledge based on particular facts about the West is projected onto the East and might be misleading…[including] concepts and categories that might be inapplicable… [and] systematically [ignoring] evidence that is available and might generate better theory.”

102 sequencing of modes of production. The Soviet Union became the model that all revolutionary societies had to follow including Africa. There was and there is no one single path of capitalist development – usually presumed to be the European road – but various societies exhibit different dynamics and processes.108 This means that Mamdani’s evidence showing that Africa might have developed differently than hitherto assumed and that theories and concepts more appropriate to the African experience must be employed instead of “history by analogy” is compatible with the Marxian approach.

Mamdani is correct to question “labour-centric” analyses given how some South African scholars employed the notion of the articulation of modes of production as an explanatory framework. Banaji (1977:30) has shown this approach to be inadequate because of its presumed identity between forms of labour exploitation and the mode of production concerned. I must reiterate that the contested universalism of the Marxist approach is divested of the dangers of Eurocentrism by Banaji when he points to the different paths followed by the capitalist mode of production in its development and domination of the world. The post- colonial critique, from this point of view, becomes a constructive challenge and positive impetus to conduct further research and engage in theory building by opening up the possibility of applying Marxist analytic tools “to the difficulty and complexity of production of post- colonial histories and alternative periodizing”(Childs and Williams 1997:9).

Mamdani is a scholar of the post-colonial condition who seeks to apply universal theoretical categories on Africa on the grounds that the historical development on the continent is not an aberration or peculiar but is worthy of study in its own right and based on its own distinctive processes. There has however developed a brand of post-colonial theory that denies altogether the applicability of Western or European theories in Africa, Asia, Latin America and other non-Western contexts. This approach has emerged strongly in the field of area studies and has sought, and in the case of South Asia succeeded, to replace or eclipse Marxist class analysis (Chibber 2006:358). The debate around this intellectual development has focused on Subaltern Studies, an approach within post-colonial theory that, in its study of India, expressly argues against the applicability of Marxist concepts because of their European origins and the very different way in which Indian political culture has evolved from that of the West (Chakrabarty 2000, Chatterjee 2004, Guha and Spivak 1988).

108 This is an insight dependency theory made but “[t]hough many dependency writers identify themselves as Marxists, their analysis is not entirely compatible with Marxian arguments” (Weeks 2012:100). They tend to locate exploitation at the level of exchange (between countries) and not between classes.

103

A key argument of Subaltern Studies is that capitalist development has not managed to change India along the same lines as happened in the West and as envisaged in the ideas of the Enlightenment.109 The ruling class in India enjoy "dominance without hegemony," that is, they rely on coercion alone (Guha 1998:134) instead of with (Gramscian concepts of) force and consent (Gramsci 1999:248).110 Capitalism failed to change Indian people in the modernist image such that, according to Chatterjee (2004:4), “the post-colonial world [is characterized by] the presence of a dense and heterogeneous time. In those places, one could show industrial capitalists delaying the closing of a business deal because they hadn’t yet had word from their respective astrologers.” Also, in India the “subalterns draw on a pre- bourgeois, often community-oriented culture — when they mobilize, they don't do so as individuals or in defense of their individual interests” (Usmani 2013:33).111

Vivek Chibber (2013a) has written a wide-ranging and seminal critique of Subaltern Studies from a Marxist perspective focusing on what he regards as the undeniable universalism of (basic) human needs and the fact that while capital’s global excursions do change people’s ways of life, it does not require them to change beyond its self-valorisation requirements. In other words, the universalising mission of capital does not translate into the homogenisation of cultures as the advocates of Subaltern Studies seem to suggest should be the case (See Chakrabaty 2000). Nor is it true that the democratic space enjoyed by subalterns in the advanced capitalist countries results from an enlightened bourgeoisie’s hegemonic machinations (See Guha 1983).112 This space was won through class struggle and the greater gains made by Western subalterns “reflect both the greater class capacities and larger social product associated with a longer and more successful history of development” (Usmani 2013:34). Finally, when “Subalternist theorists put up this gigantic wall separating East from

109 For subaltern proponents “different cultures construct human beings of irreconcilably different constitutions…class is just one of several ways in which society can be sliced…and the Enlightenment [is] one long war crime” (Usmani 2013:32). 110 Guha (1983:134): “the bourgeoisie [in Western Europe] had led the struggle against feudalism and established its hegemony over the peasantry, whereas in India the influence it gained over the rural population in the 1920s and 1930s did not develop into a full-fledged hegemony because of its reluctance to break with landlordism.” 111 Or more broadly: “The insistence [by Subaltern Studies] that subaltern groups in the East operate with their own political calculus and forms of consciousness, different from that of elite groups and from what is projected on to them by Western theory” (Chibber 2014:618). 112 Chibber (2013a) argues that leading proponents of Subaltern Studies have completely misconstrued historical development in Europe in this respect and with implications for their understanding of Indian historical development. Desai and Vahed’s (2016) critique of how Gandhi’s political biography is understood by, for example Guha (2013), arguably adds weight to Chibber’s general critique. “We show that his [Gandhi’s] tactics were shaped in crucial ways by a conservative defence of class, race and caste privilege,” is Desai and Vehad’s (2016:25) robust critique of aspects of Indian historiography.

104

West”, they are undermining the possibility of international subaltern unity in the struggle for universal human emancipation because:

For two hundred years, anybody who called herself progressive embraced this kind of universalism. It was simply understood that the reason workers or peasants could unite across national boundaries is because they shared certain material interests (Chibber 2013b:1).

2.7.2 The Russian experience: The debate between the “Slavophiles” and the “Western European modernisers” The debate between those advocating a Russian road to socialism and those who saw Western modernism as the path to follow in 19th century Russia provides an interesting vantage point to evaluate some of the arguments pertaining to the post-colonial condition. For example, a leading Subaltern Studies scholar, Partha Chatterjee (1986:131-166), in his political assessment of the Indian nationalist leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, criticised him for opting for a modernising project for the development of India leading to the country’s “continued subjection” in the global order. 113 Mamdani (1996:3) similarly identifies a problem in Africa whereby the political elite is split between the traditionalist Africanists and the modernisers on which path must be followed; the failure to solve this riddle has led to a “paralysis of perspective,” that is, there is no clear way forward for Africa. Like in many colonial societies, in Russia the capitalist mode of production was brought in “from without” leaving the peasant way of life and modes of self-organisation relatively intact unlike, say, in England where the endogenous development of capitalist relations greatly transformed the life condition of the peasantry (Moore 1966:459-460). The Slavophiles, like the Africanists, theorised a unique Russian road to socialism based on the “mir” – the peasant commune. Russia would skip the stage of capitalist development and go straight into socialism on the strength of communal land ownership in the mir, also known as the obschina, a social structure underpinned by the values of social solidarity and collectivism. There was no need for Western European tutelage because Russia would do it its own way. This perspective had profound implications for political practice. Marx’s (1881) opinion was that the mir was contradictory having both private and communal property ownership forms and saying this contradiction could be resolved by

113 To Nehru, “the spirit of the age demanded industrialization, without it, not only would the basic economic problems of poverty remain unsolved, but even the political foundations of independent nationhood would be threatened” (Chatterjee 1986:143).

105 revolution if the mir was not to succumb to capitalist development. Lenin (1899: Chapter VII) conducted an empirical study and concluded that capitalism had long ago penetrated the Russian countryside and that it was utopian for the Narodniki, the political heirs to the Slavophiles, to ignore this development. It was theoretically wrong to focus on the form of land ownership of the mir and ignore broader historical-social development towards a commodity economy (Lenin 1972:9). To use Banaji’s formulation, the peasant commune (mir) no longer operated according to the laws of motion of a feudal (commodity) economy, rather it had been subjected to capitalist relations. There was no skipping the capitalist stage because it already existed. The Narodniki strategy in any case proved disastrous because their wrong theoretical formulation failed to galvanise the peasants and their turn to terrorist methods invited harsh repression and led to the decimation of their movement (Pedler 1927:130). The moral of the story is: eschew Russian exceptionalism and look to the working class rather than the peasants in the search for a revolutionary subject. The Narodniki’s theory and strategy was discarded but their revolutionary-utopian vision was retained and, armed with a more realistic analysis of the situation and a better strategy, the Bolsheviks led a successful revolution that ushered in a workers’ state. Are there lessons for Africa from this account? How has revolutionary thought and practice developed in Africa? Is Mamdani’s dichotomy between modernity and traditionalism helpful in making sense of past, present and future struggles on the continent? What are the implications for the post-colonial / decolonisation project? Below I look at some of these historical and theoretical questions in an attempt to identify the kernel of African thought on self-activity and self-organisation. This will lay a basis for the ensuing discussion of the South African peasantry, its proleterianisation, the movement to the cities and resultant struggles of the squatter movement in the 1940s in the next chapter of the dissertation. For now I turn to Fanon, a theorist whose ideas have a complex relationship with Marxism. 2.7.3 Frantz Fanon: The dangers of “false decolonisation” Fanon was an active and leading member of the FLN (National Liberation Front), the leading organisation in the Algerian anti-colonial struggle. His project was total liberation, that is, he wanted to get rid of all forms of oppression and exploitation and not just the replacement of the coloniser’s flag (Fanon (1963:101,144,147).114 A psychiatrist by training, political theorist of note, militant activist and revolutionary publicist, he wrote four books in a life that was cut

114 “There's nothing save a minimum of readaptation, a few reforms at the top, a flag waving: and down there at the bottom an undivided mass, still living in the middle ages, endlessly marking time” writes Fanon (1963:147) about the post-colonial state.

106 short by leukemia. This suggests that rather than regarding him “as a trendy cult figure” it would be wiser to study his ideas “as a significant figure whose thought was still in formation at the time of his early death” (Birchall 1973:25). His thinking was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre, Aimé Cesairé, Hegel and Marx, among others. But it was his practical experiences and observations of the violence and racism of colonialism that radicalised him and later saw the young psychiatrist participating actively in the Algerian struggle against French colonialism (Gendzier 1974, Zeilig 2016:64).115 The original fecundity of his thought, his intellectual and moral courage and his revolutionary impatience and youthful yearning for action resulted in a style of writing that is both profound, urgent and inspiring. His contempt for theoretical “mimicry” and abstractions allowed him to present his ideas in an accessible, gripping and novel manner hence the popularity of his writings, that is, besides the very important political and theoretical issues he was addressing (Fanon 1963, 1970, 1986).116

At the heart of his political thought is the idea that revolution would redeem Algeria and the colonial world as a whole. As a psychiatrist he saw the interconnection between psychological pathology and the human alienation deriving from the oppressive and exploitative social institutions of colonialism, racism and capitalism (Bulhan 1985:5, 63). The solution to human suffering was to radically change the social conditions that create and perpetuate poverty, subjugation and alienation. His experience of the extreme violence deployed by the French against the struggling Algerian people profoundly affected his theoretical and political practice. He was spurred to commit himself wholly to the Algerian revolution thus connecting his theory to praxis. He adopted the political banner of the FLN, and his weapons were the armed struggle combined with unflinching theoretical and political critique. As Reiland Rabaka (2011:126) has argued:

Frantz Fanon… decidedly committed himself to: revolutionary decolonization; the Algerian revolution; revolutionary Pan-Africanism; revolutionary humanism; and a distinct African-centered brand of democratic socialism with serious implications for revolutionary re-Africanization.

115 According to Zeiling (2016:64), Fanon’s “experience in Lyon with North African communities, the racism he had encountered, had convinced him of the necessity,” according to Fanon (1986:180), that “the enslavement of man by man [must] cease forever.” 116 Irene Gendzier (2007:25) asks: “Who can read the burning pages of Black Skin, White Masks, A Dying Colonialism, Toward the African Revolution, and above all, The Wretched of the Earth, without feeling that these uncommon texts had been issued as part of a global alert, demanding that people awaken from the deep sleep of indifference and a dead-end politics to allow for a meaningful survival?”

107

Many militants of the national liberation struggle thought like Fanon, but it is his particular and nuanced approach to these questions that distinguishes him as a thinker and revolutionary leader.

Fanon was critical of French colonialism and French society including the French left which was his social milieu when he lived there in Paris (Gendzier 2007:27, Zeilig 2016:11).117 He saw hypocrisy in the humanistic exegeses of the European Enlightenment and the brutal manner in which the European coloniser treated the colonised. His experiences of French psychiatric practice only confirmed the antimony he began to strongly feel against Europe and its ways.118 He was also not impressed by the French working class, indeed with the European “masses,” which he saw as complicit in the oppression of the colonised peoples (Fanon 1963: 106).119 His personal experiences and political observations led him to pass a scathing judgment on Europe as a whole: “When I look for man in European lifestyles and technology I see a constant denial of man, an avalanche of murders [sic]” (Fanon 1963:236).

Fanon’s attitude to Marxism has correctly been regarded as contradictory, complex or ambivalent (Gendzier 1974, Rabaka 2011, Zeilig 2016). But what strikes me is his theoretical and moral courage, his willingness to use, modify and discard those aspects of a system of thought based on his own assessment of its applicability and utility in addressing the reality he sought to understand and change. On the one hand, his thinking was fundamentally shaped by and even schooled by Marxism which he treated, as Amilcar Cabral put it, as one of the “weapons of theory” that had to be used in the struggle against colonialism (Rabaka 2011:133-134). On the other hand, Fanon was strongly opposed to a politics that mimicked Europe.120 Zeilig (2016:11) argues that the French left, during Fanon’s close acquaintance with it, was then under the spell of Stalinism and though supportive of the struggles of the colonised: “The conservative dogmas of the French Communist Party relegated the Algerian struggle to a subsidiary role in a global revolutionary movement to be led by the French

117 Azzedine Haddour (2015:72) discusses Fanon’s relationship to the French “liberal left” defined thus: “I am using the term ‘liberal left’ to refer to the broad coalition that represented the parliamentary left, namely the Section franc¸aise de l’Internationale ouvrie`re (SFIO) and the Parti communiste franc¸ais (PCF), as well as the non-parliamentary democratic elements that militated on ‘the left’.” 118 According to Bulhan (1985:268), Fanon saw Western psychiatry, because it did not addressing the inhuman conditions of the oppressed, as a “bandaging operation” to contain those not assimilated into the system. 119 Fanon (1963:106) admonished: “This huge task which consists of reintroducing mankind into the world, the whole of mankind, will be carried out with the indispensable help, of the European peoples, who themselves must realize that in the past they have often joined the ranks of our common masters where colonial questions were concerned. To achieve this, the European peoples must first decide to wake up and shake themselves, use their brains, and stop playing the stupid game of the Sleeping Beauty.” 120 Fanon (1963:236) categorically stated: “We can do anything today provided we do not ape Europe, provided we are not obsessed with catching up with Europe.”

108 proletariat, which infuriated Fanon.”121 This shaped Fanon’s approach to and relationship with Marxism. His overall judgment was critical:

This is why Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched every time we have to do with the colonial problem. Everything up to and including the very nature of precapitalist society, so well explained by Marx, must here be thought out again (Fanon 1963:40).

The immediate context of these words was his proposal that the main divide in the colonial world was that between coloniser and the colonised who were racially defined.122 He understood the reality of colonial existence as not corresponding with Marxist analysis. However, he appeared to see himself as engaging critically with Marxism rather than rejecting it in toto or in principle (Rabaka 2011:132).123 Thus he quoted Marx: “The social revolution…cannot draw its poetry from the past, but only from the future” (Marx 1954:3; quoted in Fanon 1986:174). His comment: “Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it (1963: 206),” suggests that it was his analysis of a particular historical context and phenomenon, colonialism, which made him critical of Marxist positions. Historicisation, a fundamental tenet in Marxist analysis, is apparent when he writes: “I do not come with timeless truths” (Fanon 1967:7). He saw his ideas as germane to the period he lived in with its attendant problems. He thus used Marxist categories in so far as, and modified them to the extent that, they helped him make sense of the reality he was addressing.

Fanon (1963:99) fought for national liberation, Pan Africanism and socialism. In this regard he stated clearly:

Capitalist exploitation and cartels and monopolies are the enemies of underdeveloped countries…the choice of a socialist regime, a regime which is completely orientated

121 Further: “Stalinist Marxism’s justification of capitalist development and imperial intrusion as an essentially progressive force repelled Fanon” (Zeilig 2016:11). 122 In the passage before this quotation, Fanon (1963:40) writes: “When you examine at close quarters the colonial context, it is evident that what parcels out the world is to begin with the fact of belonging to or not belonging to a given race, a given species. In the colonies the economic substructure is also a superstructure. The cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich.” 123 According to Rabaka (2011:132): “The Fanonian intellectual-activist, like the Cabralian intellectual-activist, has a deeply dialectical rapport and critical relationship with Marxism, one that simultaneously critiques most Marxists’ inattention to racism and colonialism (or, rather, racial colonialism), but greatly appreciates their thoroughgoing critique of capitalism.”

109

toward the people as a whole and based on the principle that man is the most precious of all possessions, will allow us to go forward more quickly and more harmoniously.

However, always the independent thinker and never one to shy away from saying what he thought, he wanted an Afrocentric rather than a Eurocentric socialism. His scathing admonishing of African comrades: “waste no time in sterile litanies and nauseating mimicry” of the European left’s ideas expressed his frustration with their brand of Marxism which he felt, in its focus on political economy, did not address racism and colonialism adequately (Fanon 1968:311). It can be argued that his nationalist perspective demanded a kind of theoretical sovereignty that matched the political independence he was fighting for. Lenin (1894:271), an avowed orthodox Marxist, also calls upon the “socialist intelligentsia” to study their national situation: “the THEORETICAL work must be directed toward the concrete study of all forms of economic antagonisms in Russia, the study of their connections and successive development.” Revolution, for Fanon, meant starting on a new slate, creating the “new man”: “The human condition, plans for mankind, and collaboration between men in those tasks which increase the sum total of humanity are new problems, which demand true inventions [sic]” (1963:312-313). However, despite his strongly couched: “We today can do everything, so long as we do not imitate Europe, so long as we are not obsessed by the desire to catch up with Europe,” he noted that the “positive contributions from the oppressor’s culture and other cultures” can be of use to the revolution and building the new socialist society (Fanon 1963:312).

The new society could not be successfully built under the leadership of the post- colonial national bourgeoisie because:

In under-developed countries, we have seen that no true bourgeoisie exists; there is only a sort of little greedy caste, avid and voracious, with the mind of a huckster, only too glad to accept the dividends that the former colonial power hands out to it. This get-rich-quick middle class shows itself incapable of great ideas or of inventiveness. It remembers what it has read in European textbooks and imperceptibly it becomes not even the replica of Europe, but its caricature (Fanon 1963:175).

As a consequence Fanon (1963:120) wrote: “the bourgeois phase in the history of the underdeveloped countries is a useless phase.” Zeilig (2016:240) understands this to be Fanon’s disagreement with and attack upon the two-stage theory of revolution that dominated the national liberation movement influenced by “Stalinised communist organisations.” Fanon

110 wanted the national bourgeoisie to be fought by “the masses, regimented by a party… of keenly conscious intellectuals” (Fanon 1963:119). According to Ruth First (1970:58) Fanon was concerned that these:

[C]areerist heirs to independence [would reoccupy] themselves with an “Africanization” of the administration which…gave them openings previously filled by white men. Africanization, like the transfer of power, occurred within the largely unaltered framework of the colonial system. Power was transferred from a colonial bureaucracy to African auxiliaries in politics and administration. This is Fanon's “false decolonization.”

Fanon (1963:15) emphasised the role of the self-activity of the masses, counterposing the passivity and subjugation of the masses under colonialism – “the colonial subject is a man penned in” – to the liberatory and humanising effects of the struggle. The self-activity of the masses was central to Fanon’s philosophy and politics, an important point to note for my argument. National liberation roused the masses and humanised them:

we must first and foremost rid ourselves of the Western, very bourgeois, and hence very disparaging, idea that the masses are incapable of governing themselves. Experience has proven in fact that the masses fully understand the most complex issues (Fanon 1963:130).

He extolled violence as a virtue and said it had a therapeutic effect on the oppressed (Fanon 1963: 20). This is a call to armed struggle. He nevertheless, as a psychiatrist, had to work and treat people traumatized by violence including French soldiers – the enemy. A price had to be paid for violence and his humanism and compassion emerges from this activity (Zeilig 2016:65). Indeed, the Algerian Revolution (1954-1962) left close to a million people dead and tremendous disruption affecting millions of people (Horne 1978:538). From this point of view his incendiary calls for and glorification of violence were at odds with his humanistic philosophy and vision and suggest that his ideas could sometimes lose their mooring in material reality (Gendzier 1974, Birchall 1973), or be contradictory. The predominance of violence has never been a great facilitator of democracy for the masses.

Fanon’s (1963:129) class analysis, involving his “stretching” of Marxist theoretical categories, led him to identify the peasantry and the lumpenproletariat as the revolutionary subject:

111

the lumpenproletariat, that horde of starving men, uprooted from their tribe and from their clan, constitutes one of the most spontaneous and the most radically revolutionary forces of a colonized people.

It was “the landless peasantry, who make up the lumpenproletariat, [who] leave the country districts…rush towards towns, crowd in tin-shack settlements” and engage in spontaneous anti- colonial activity (Fanon 1963:129). The peasantry in the colonies, according to Fanon, was not the same as those in the West, it forms spontaneous revolutionary movements (Zeiling 2015:201). Fanon was dismissive of the proletariat defining it as a privileged class whose political character he identified as close to that of the middle class and emergent national bourgeoisie. He nevertheless acknowledged the “impressive striking power” of the trade unions and how the colonial structure “staggers under their blows” (Fanon 1963:122). He argued that the “urban poor”, the “dregs” of society, as opposed to the “pampered” proletariat, will form the force that will violently challenge colonialism and saw the slums of Africa as the locus for revolutionary organising (Fanon 1963:129).

David Macey (2000) has suggested that despite his acute percipiency, Fanon’s description of the class situation in Algeria was inaccurate. It is not true at all that the workers in Algeria were “pampered by the colonial regime” or were in any way “bourgeois.” The African working class was weak and small in Algeria and other parts of Africa. It was displaced and its leadership assumed by the petty bourgeois nationalists which Fanon himself had warned about. Rather than the peasants, the working class is a social force that arguably stood the best chance of challenging and winning against the emergent national bourgeoisie who derailed decolonisation into neocolonialism.124 The peasantry fights but its social location and conditions of life preclude it from being a leading force in social change aimed at creating a new (socialist) society. Fanon (1963:137) recognised this weakness of the peasantry, he warned against the “ignorance and incomprehension which are the weaknesses of the lumpenproletariat.” His ideas were undoubtedly influenced by what was going on around him, namely, the FLN’s revolutionary-military strategy that migrated from the urban to the rural areas, and felt compelled to intellectually acquiesce to the domination of the struggle, and of the peasantry, by the very middle class leadership that he famously denounced and warned

124 Sylla (2014:41), discussing current struggles in Africa, notes that: “In the public sector, strikes are regularly organized by teachers and health agents [workers] in almost all the countries in the [West African] region. These two social categories… have great capacity for mobilization – owing to their important numbers and the congruence of their interests.”

112 against.125 In this respect Shatz (2001:1) ponders disquietingly: “One has the tragic sense…of an intellectual determined to prove himself among men with guns.”

There is a debate about the gist of Fanon’s intellectual heritage with some commentators emphasizing its ambiguity and open-endedness. Henry Louis Gates Jr (1999:252), for example, opines:

whether his writings are rife with contradiction or richly dialectical, polyvocal, and multivalent; they are in any event highly porous, that is, wide open to interpretation, and the readings they elicit are, as a result, of unfailing symptomatic interest: Frantz Fanon, not to put too fine a point on it, is a Rorschach blot with legs.

This has led to very different readings and understandings of Fanon which, according to Rabaka (2011), can be distilled into two basic and opposing approaches, namely, “critical” and “revolutionary.” He points out how, for example, “Gates provides…a part poststructuralist, part postmodernist, and part postcolonialist read of Fanon that surreptitiously serves as a theoretical substitute for the Frantz Fanon” who was, in reality, or from one point of view, a committed revolutionary who was practically and intellectually involved in the Algerian revolution, and who raised the banner of “revolutionary Pan-Africanism” and “revolutionary humanism” (Rabake 2011:126). In other words, we should be wary of an overly scholarly reading of Fanon that obscures the revolutionary kernel in his theory and practice.

David Johnson (2013) shows that in their “travels” Fanon’s theories have mutated such that there is a divergence across political lines (right versus left) in their interpretation; but in South Africa there is divergence within the left over how his intellectual legacy should be interpreted. In the first instance he points to the attempt by top ANC leaders and government ministers to use Fanon to justify pro-capitalist post-apartheid policies, including a reference to the 1970s when some Black Consciousness leaders in the townships promoted “buy black” campaigns in Fanon’s name (Johnson 2013:58). He notes the influence of Fanon’s ideas on Steve Biko, the leader of the Black Consciousness movement who was murdered by the

125 Shanin (1971:256) observes that: “Yet in the long run it is the basic weaknesses of the peasantry [in political struggle] which have tended to stand out. The peasantry has provide no match for smaller, closely knit, better organized and technically superior groups, and has, time and time again, been ‘double-crossed’ or suppressed politically and by force of arms.” Zeilig (2016:68) observes that “in reality such movements were far from peasant-led, instead [they] were dominated by sections of the middle class intelligentsia. It was this intelligentsia, not the peasantry, who after independence became the new nationalist elite that Fanon despised.” Legassick (2007:368) notes that: “The FLN initially propped up capitalism in Algeria. Subsequently, under a military regime, state-run collective farms and a nationalized oil and gas industry became the main economic ventures.”

113 apartheid police. Recently the shack dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, has been reported to claim Fanon as its intellectual guru with its president suggesting that he was introduced to Fanon’s ideas by a prolific South African Fanonian scholar, Richard Pithouse, who in turn collaborates with Nigel Gibson in the project to foist Fanonian categories on the movement (Johnson 2013:67, Gibson 2011, Pithouse 2014). Some of this would be viewed with a jaundiced eye by Ashwin Desai (2006) who has warned against the political and ethical problems that may arise in academic researchers playing the role of intellectual exponents of social movements including the ideological physiognomy that they project on the movements.126 The name of Fanon has been closely associated with the Black Panthers in the 1960s who adopted his views on violence and his designation of the urban lumpenproletariat as the revolutionary subject (Bargainer 2011). Recently,the militant, youthful political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, that is currently shaking the political scene in South Africa, and that won a million votes in a national election within four months of its birth, characterises its official ideology as Marxist-Leninist-Fanonian (Shivambu 2014). Finally, the rise of a student movement in South Africa’s university campuses in the year 2015 has been inspired by Fanon’s ideas on decolonisation including rescuing the ideas of Black Consciousness and Pan Africanism from the history book and making them relevant for practical struggle.127 I will return to the political and theoretical significance of some of these developments in the last chapter of this dissertation.

Any thinker and activist will make some mistakes and Fanon did. These must be identified and his strengths be built upon such as his strong belief in the self-activity of the masses, his distrust of the national bourgeoisie, his Pan-Africanism and internationalism. Some of these themes are closely related to post-colonial theory, for example, Subaltern Studies’ critique of the shortcomings of the Indian post-colonial bourgeoisie. His revolutionary anti- colonial project that embraced the Third World did not reach the heights he would have wished for with many ex-colonies still subjected to imperialist domination. I will discuss his legacy in

126 According to Desai: “The problem here, comrades, is grave. It verges on thuggery.” However, he says for the sake of enabling “a constructive and non-defensive debate on these issues” he has kept his critique on a general level. However, he specifically refers to “the oft-abused Frantz Fanon,” who is mostly invoked in relation to the South African shackdwellers’ movement, and calls for: “those middle-class women and men who have troubled you so can meet the challenge of how to support movements of the Poor without becoming gatekeepers, vanguardists, losing the ability to be critical and using movements to advance our academic careers.” 127 The movement began as a demand by University of Cape Town students for the removal of the statue of Cecil John Rhodes from the campus lawns because of his alleged colonial crimes. It became known as the #RhodesMustFall campaign. It later became a national university student and worker movement demanding no fee increase in tuition and an end to outsourcing of cleaning, security and other university operations. See Luckett and Pontarelli (2016) and Ngwane (2016). Also Booysen (forthcoming/2016).

114 relation to the outcomes of his political and theoretical practice in the African national liberation movement after my discussion of three key thinkers and practictioners of radical nationalist struggle in Africa below.

2.7.4 Mass mobilization of the class and the nation: Nyerere, Mbeki and Wolpe a. Julius Nyerere and ujamaa The dream of a united and liberated Africa, free from colonial and neo-colonial domination, was put forward arguably most clearly by, Julius Nyerere, a staunch nationalist and Pan Africanist thinker and philosopher who headed his country, Tanzania, for 25 years. He is remembered most of all for leading his country’s socialist experiment, “ujamaa,” a version of “African socialism.” It became (the then called) Tanganyika’s official policy in 1967 contained in the historical Arusha Declaration (Nyerere 1967). “Ujamaa,” which is Swahili for “familyhood,” was “a policy of socialism with a human face, unlike that of the Marxist brand” (Mwakikagile 2006:32). In other words, it was an attempt at finding an African road to socialism. Nyerere’s experiment was not a great success: “It was, in fact, a disaster in economic terms and retarded Tanzania’s economic growth for more than a decade” (Mwakikagile 2006:32). However, it had its achievements such as instilling a spirit of national unity, pride and egalitarianism among the people (Mwakikagile 2006:32).128 Its brief consideration here focuses on how in Africa organising mass participation of workers and peasants in post- colonial and post-revolutionary states has been approached. Nyerere built his party, the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), and successfully led and won the struggle for independence from British colonialism without armed struggle (Smith 2011:52). Nyerere surprised everyone when he resigned only six weeks after becoming the country’s first prime minister in 1962 saying that he wanted to focus on “our new objective – the creation of a country in which the people take a full and active part in the fight against poverty, ignorance and disease” (Nyerere 1962, cited by Smith 2011:78). He claimed that the country needed a good government and:

[a] strong political organization, active in every village, which acts like a two-way all- weather road along which the purposes, plans and problems of the government can

128 In a speech Nyerere said: “The fact is not that the Arusha Declaration has banished poverty even by an iota – nor did it promise to do so. The Arusha Declaration offered hope. A promise of justice, hope to the many, indeed the majority of Tanzanians continue to live this hope. So long as there is this hope, you’ll continue to have peace” (quoted in Shivji 2012:113). Shivji (2012:114) surmises: “In this speech, Nyerere is at his best as the philosopher-king. The Arusha Declaration was a legitimising ideology without which the country would break up into violence.”

115

travel to the people, at the same time as the ideas, desires and misunderstandings of the people can travel direct to the government. This is the job of the new TANU (Nyerere 1962).129

The focus on the people paid off, for example, among some of the successes of the new government was an increase in literacy from 10 to 75% (Meredith 2005:259). This was made possible by a national programme emphasising collectivism, voluntarism, self-reliance and a two-year development-oriented National Service for all college graduates (Mwakikagile 2006:32-33).

Nyerere was a staunch Pan-Africanist who turned Dar es Salaam, the country’s capital then, into the headquarters of many Southern African national liberation movements allowing some of them to set up military camps in the country. He inspired his countrymen and women to support this despite the risks involved and Tanganyika (later renamed Tanzania) being one of the poorest countries in the world. His socialism was idealistic in the sense that it was based on commitment, belief and moral vision. His leadership was pastoral in that he led by example and persuasion. His passionate advocacy for and ambitious programmes of mass participation in political and developmental activities was unequalled among African leaders. His economic programmes failed while the fantastic success of his social programmes (health care, education, water, etc.) could not be sustained given the economic problems (Meredith 2005:259). His comrade and friend, Nkrumah (1967:1-2), was in any case sceptical of the viability of an “African socialism” that was based on a utopian platform; their joint project of uniting Africa, supported by leading African thinkers and fighters such as Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral, crashed on the rocks of historical, economic and political realities including the neocolonial factor that they had identified as the biggest enemy of their cause (Nkrumah 1965:12).

At the heart of ujamaa was Nyerere’s analysis of “Tanzanian traditional society as homogeneous and egalitarian…[characterised by] opposition to individualistic European culture…The Tanzanian peasantry were natural socialists who had been corrupted by the colonial system” (Spalding 1996:104). This echoes the position of the Slavophiles and the Narodniki in Russia discussed above. Nancy Spalding’s (1996) research suggests that there was individualism, entrepreneurialism and differentiation in Tanzanian villages before

129 See Smith (2011:78).

116 ujamaa.130 Nyerere’s approach, despite his rhetoric and populism, was essentially state-centric and top-down:

Nyerere perceived the state as the agency both for nation-building and economic development as well as a unifier and organiser of society... His well-intended policies were meant for the people executed by the state from the top. A top-down approach is a distinctive feature of Nyerere’s political rule (Shivji 2012:104).

Thus, while “the ujamaa village campaign was a case of large-scale social engineering by a relatively benign and weak state” (Scott 1998:223), in November 1973, in the light of the slow process:

Nyerere removed the element of voluntarism and directed that by the end of 1976, the whole rural population should have moved into villages. Thus began the forced villagisation in which millions of peasants were resettled in villages (Shivji 2012:110).

Closely related to these impositions on the people was the state clampdown on the workers’ committees that had been formed during a period of upsurge in industrial action that included workers taking over factories (Shivji 2012:110). Like the Italian internal commissions, these structures had been formed to instill discipline on the shopfloor but were turned by workers into organs of struggle circumventing the state-controlled trade unions (Kapinga 1986).

Nyerere’s socialist experiment came to nought and the “vultures,” the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, came into Tanzania with a vengeance after his resignation from office in 1985. The nationalist project, despite strenuous and visionary effort on his part, and on the part of the people of Tanzania, met too many obstacles primarily the fact that Africa’s poverty and underdevelopment is a function of global capitalist processes. The fact that most if not all African countries failed in their national development projects suggests the failure is not a national phenomenon but results from the configuration and operation of the global capitalist system. I am not excusing in any way the mistakes Nyerere and other African leaders made, some of which can even be seen as constituting crimes against humanity, but I am making the point that the nationalist and by extension Pan Africanist perspective does not go far enough in attacking African problems at their root. This is also suggested by the South African experience, a relatively well-developed country compared to Tanzania but which, as

130 Spalding (1996:104) identifies an underlying conceptual fallacy: “This suggests a confusion of colonial capitalist exploitation with indigenous individualism, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Tanzanian political culture.”

117 we will see in the discussion of Govan Mbeki and Harold Wolpe below, has also largely failed to deliver a better life to the majority of its people and remains subjected to global economic interests (Terreblanche 2012). b. Govan Mbeki Govan Mbeki (1964) spent 27 years in Robben Island, a notorious apartheid jail, but before that he conducted research into the peasantry in South Africa during the Phondo peasant revolt of 1960. As a disciplined cadre of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) he “gave primacy to the urban proletariat” in the struggle (Drew 2011:80). However, his involvement with the struggle of the peasants helped to develop new insights that influenced the line of the ANC and CPSA including revising the parties’ understanding of the relationship between urban and rural struggles.131 These organisations had previously paid little attention to rural struggles (Drew 2011:80).132 Mbeki saw advantages in the lie of the land in the rural areas which did not exist in the urban areas in a battle with the enemy (Mbeki 1964:130-131). This is the concept of “tactical mobility” that was later developed by Eric Wolf (1987:371-372, Drew 2011:81). His ideas influenced Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the ANC’s guerilla army. The SACP also learned to appeal to the peasants’ aspirations rather than viewing them as variants of the proletariat (Slovo 1996:146). His ideas found an echo in the Algerian FLN’s strategy and when Mandela visited it looking for military support he later reminisced: “The situation in Algeria was the closest model to our own in that the rebels faced a large white settler community that ruled the indigenous majority” (Mandela 1994:179). Mbeki’s “discovery” of the peasants tailed the Non- European Unity Movement (NEUM) and its constituent organisation, the All-African Convention, who were Marxist-Trotskyists who prioritised the land question and develepoed a peasant-based liberation movement (Hirson 2015:1). Its leader, I.B. Tabata (1974:68), joined the peasants’ opposition to the Smuts government’s 1945 Rehabilitation Scheme which was meant to stop the soil erosion and economic deterioration in the black reserves by relocating people, reducing animal stock and fencing off the land. It was the apartheid policies of creating

131 Bundy (1987:255) observes: “The ANC… had never – since its formation in 1912 – established an effective presence in the Transkei, in the 1940s, however, it began more persuasively than before to mobilise certain groups and individuals. Much of the new impetus came from the efforts of the energetic political organizer, Govan Mbeki.” 132 Drew (2011:80) quotes a number of sources to the effect that the ANC and the NEUM refused to give the peasant rebels the arms that they formally asked for because they viewed this step as premature.

118

Bantustans and giving more power to the chiefs in order to stamp out the resistance that provoked the Phondo peasant rebellion (Mbeki 1964:38, 75).

How was the rebellion organised? Tabata (1974:70) notes that: “In some villages the people formed their own ‘people’s committees’ and collected money for the defence of the arrested men.” Further: “They held meetings in the hills under their newly-formed organization, the Kongo” (Tabata 1974:70). Supporting the struggle were the Transkeian Organising Bodies, of which Mbeki was secretary-general, and the Transkei Voters’ Association, in which Mbeki was also an office bearer, but at the forefront were self-organised committees called “indlovu” (Xhosa: the elephant) which, because they met in the mountains, were soon referred to as the mountain committees (Drew 2011:76). There was a symbolism about the mountain, a place where the spirits dwelled, and it was also a place that provided physical safety from the enemy.133 Significantly, a chief “could attend mountain meetings only if they came as an equal, a commoner, not a chief” (Mnaba 2006:43-45, 75-77; Drew 2011:76). In other words, everyone was equal on the mountain, or more accurately, a different democratic ethos was applicable.

It is important to note that, since the rebels had either violently or through threats deposed hated chiefs and headmen, they began to establish an alternative power:

The mountain committee took over judicial and administrative functions. It set up people’s courts in the absence of chiefs, arbitrated over civil disputes, allocated land and hut sites and meted out punishments for informers and those who supported Bantu Authorities (Drew 2011:78-79).

A constitution of a local Kongo committee, urging compliance with its system of self-rule and self-management opened with the words: “Obey the Congo” (Drew 2011:79). The apartheid regime brutally crushed the rebellion leaving authority in the rural areas in the hands of the chiefs. Govan Mbeki got involved in the ANC’s guerrilla campaign when this organisation got banned in 1960 and was eventually caught and sentenced to life imprisonment on “the island” (Bundy 2012). But as the decision by the Marikana strikers to move to the mountain on 2012 and the formation of inkundla committees in Rustenburg by migrant miners from the Transkei

133 There is a haunting echo with the mountain at Marikana where striking workers camped until 34 were shot dead by the police (Alexander et al. 2012). A significant number of the dead were from the Transkei.

119 will show, the peasant revolt has left unexpected traces in the unfolding class struggle and forms of self-organisation in South Africa.134 c. Harold Wolpe Wolpe’s (1972) seminal paper argued that the apartheid system was in fact the state form of a system of capital accumulation based on the exploitation of cheap black labour.135 He theorised the mechanisms of this system by reference to the articulation of modes of production. The paper’s importance derives from the conjuncture in which it was published, Wolpe’s membership of the SACP and how it inspired a whole school of Marxist thought and activism in South Africa and abroad (Friedman 2015:2). At that time the SACP was arguably trapped in a sterile form of Marxism that was largely informed by Stalinism and designed to provide theoretical justification for the party’s subordination of the socialist project to the ANC’s nationalist project (Legassick 2007:204).136 Its theory of colonialism of a special type (CST) directed it to struggle within a framework of a national democratic revolution (NDR) (SACP 1962), whereby the struggle was divided into two stages, namely: “the immediate fight for national liberation and democracy” and a “long-term mission of winning a socialist South Africa based on workers’ power” (Lerumo 1971:97). Wolpe’s article exposed big business as a beneficiary of apartheid by directing scholarship and activism towards seeking the economic roots of apartheid in the capitalist system. This broke asunder the nationalist shackles of CST and sparked off a vigorous theoretical and strategic debate about the socialist component of the struggle and the role of organised labour within it (Friedman 2015:12-13, 94, 96). Despite criticisms from Marxists and liberals (p. 53), “Wolpe broke new ground by explaining apartheid in Marxist terms” (p. 15). Wolpe’s membership of the SACP was a double-edged sword in that it provided a healthy imperative for theorisation that was relevant to the needs of a real movement of struggle, but he also allowed this to limit the vistas of his intellectual work to fall within the bounds of party loyalty and orthodoxy (Alexander 2007:8-9, Friedman 2015:22-23,74).137

134 Inkundla is a chief’s court. My case study into informal settlement committees revealed a structure called inkundla in Rustenburg’s Nkaneng settlement. I report on this at length in Chapter 7 of the dissertation. 135 The paper was, “Capitalism and Cheap Labour-Power in South Africa: From Segregation to Apartheid” (Wolpe 1972). 136 Bunting’s (1975:230-231) observation with regard to the 1950s is instructive: “Whatever the Communists did was done through the channels of the [African National] Congress movement and in pursuit of policies laid down by the Congresses. Apart from one or two minor instances, nothing was done by the [SA]CP which was in conflict with Congress policy.” See Legassick (2007:204). 137 Wolpe apparently believed that the party should set the priorities for social research. Alexander (2006:10) disagreed with this position saying it made Wolpe less critical and that “intellectuals should be left to formulate their own research questions, though this might be done in consultation with movement leaders and activists… it is the only guarantee of developing theories in which the ‘sociological imagination’ can be applied to a

120

Thus, while “Wolpe’s theoretical contribution to the ANC as it prepared to govern and after it took office was concerned to avoid the inertia of the past – to ensure that the new order achieved significant change” (Friedman 2015:248), his marriage to CST and two-stage theory was not helpful in this regard.

Wolpe was a party loyalist despite his theoretical critiques of CST. He stuck to the party line until the end.138 However, he did respond to his critics and adjusted some of his analyses. For example, Sam Nolutshungu (1982:62) had argued against a view of race as a form of “false consciousness that might, at best aid a national democratic transformation which would…be a prelude to socialism.”139 Archie Mafeje (1981:133,131,137) accused him of being insensitive to and out of touch with the black experience because of his overemphasis on the economic aspects of apartheid, his ignorance of conditions in the rural areas and his Eurocentrism.140 Tellingly, Mafeje (1981:131) criticised Wolpe of abstract structuralism and being guilty of “the fallacy of a history without subjects,” that is, leaving out the aspect of human agency. This related to the application of the idea of the articulation of modes of production. This point was also made by social historians who felt that structuralist analysis attributed too much power to capital and the state and failed to discern the ways in which people resisted their impositions (Bozzoli and Delius 1991:19-20; Friedman 2015:168). Grossman (1985:426) criticises Wolpe for “a mechanist reductionism in terms of which the emergence of apartheid is explained simply in terms of its function” because of a methodology which “precludes an examination of the political dynamics of the process out of which apartheid emerges.” Friedman (2015) surmises that Wolpe took on board the criticism and in his book Race, Class and the Apartheid State (1988), he strove to find a balance between structure and human agency.

2.7.5 Synthesis and evaluation of African scholarship: Classes and masses

changing world that exists beyond the priorities of the movement” (Alexander 2006:8-9). Friedman (2015:25) sees a dilemma between “academic integrity and political loyalty.” 138 Ben Fine’s (2006:5) recollection is of a Wolpe who “was [towards the end of his life] raising doubts about whether Colonialism of a Special Type, CST, and the National Democratic Revolution, NDR as part of a two- stage transition to socialism were still appropriate for comprehending and strategizing for South Africa… [he] seemed aware that the emerging black elite was the exact antithesis of an agent committed to progressive developmental change…” 139 See Friedman (2015:178). 140 Race loomed large in Mafeje’s analysis, for example, in a different context he criticised Joe Slovo, the SACP secretary-general, as “a confirmed Stalinist” who led a party formed by “white émigré communists” who had no constituency in South Africa and had “succeeded in splitting the black national movement right in the middle” (Mafeje 1990 in Maloka 2013:106). Among presumably less hostile SACP cadre, it was still the case, according to Friedman (2015:87) that “experience made a Marxism which assumed that only class mattered implausible for black activists.”

121

All the authors considered here were active in a struggle against domination of one social group by another, an emancipatory struggle for self-determination. There are differences and nuances in their approaches but all four are in agreement on the necessity of mass involvement in the struggle against colonialism and/or racial domination and in the process of rebuilding a new society free from such domination. They differed on which section of the oppressed masses and which method would be the “motive forces.” Steven Friedman (2015:133) appears to grasp the nettle when he argues, in relation to the question of which class and which method, that:

The issue was not whether guerilla war or worker organization was most likely to end apartheid. It was the purpose of the “struggle” – the more it relied on working people [as opposed to an elite guerilla force], the more likely was it to redistribute wealth and power, not simply transfer control from one elite to another.

Hence, the involvement of the rural folk in struggle was important if their aspirations were going to be prioritised and addressed by the post-colonial state; similarly the concept of “working class leadership” (bandied about quite a lot in South African trade union circles during the height of the anti-apartheid struggle) laid the basis for workers’ interests to be high on the agenda of the post-revolutionary state.

Fanon and Nyerere’s vision for post-colonial politics had at the centre popular self- organisation, mass involvement and participation in political and economic matters. But historical hindsight suggests that calling for mass involvement without class analysis, even if done in order to achieve racial solidarity to win national liberation, is a strategy that leads to a failed economic emancipation project for those very masses. Marxist class analysis posits the working class as the revolutionary subject with the programmatic consequence of placing the proletariat at the head of the movement for emancipation including putting emphasis on self- activity of the class. Top down state strategies thus are bound to fail in the long run. Guerilla militarism tends to exclude the masses and even if victorious does not necessarily achieve total liberation. This has been the bane of the nationalist project in Africa and elsewhere (Zeilig 2016).141 Wolpe was correct in shifting the focus onto classes and hence on the differential

141 Zeilig (2016:77) notes, for example, with respect to Algeria: “The FLN seemed overwhelmingly fixed on militarily weakening the French army to force a ceasefire. There was an ‘absence of ideology,’ as Fanon noted in 1960: at no point did Algeria’s leading national liberation movement outline, even briefly, a project of economic and social reform, except a few slightly platitudinous references to a ‘democratic and social’ republic.”

122 material circumstances of the oppressed people in order that a plan would be developed to address their needs in the post-liberation society.

This is the main focus of this dissertation, namely, the role and nature of popular self- organisation in the struggle for emancipation. The above discussion, especially the entanglement of race and class, and the tension between the goals of nationalism and socialism, suggest the need for theoretical clarity in making sense of and resolving these questions in practice. The discussion arms us for what follows: a presentation of the history of proletarianisation processes in South Africa, that is, the formation of the working class, followed by a consideration of the 1940s squatter movement in Johannesburg. The red thread I am tracing is working class self-organisation and its dynamics.

2.8 Gaps in the literature My study of shack committees positions itself within the Marxist theoretical framework and seeks to locate these committees within a long tradition and history of working class self- organisation aimed at searching and struggling for alternatives to the capitalist system. Few Marxists have tried to do this because the study of working class self-organisation has tended to focus on workers at the workplace and, when studying working class communities, the focus has been on built-up working class areas and/or without specific attention being paid to informally housed workers. The location of theorists in advanced capitalist centres has also meant that theories of workers of the global South have been influenced by perspectives from the North. Thus, workers in the South, the majority of whom are precariously employed and informally housed, have tended to be viewed as either not being part of the working class or exhibiting characteristics that are fundamentally different from those of workers in the North. The rise of post-colonial theory, representing a search for theories more appropriate to Southern conditions, has tended to defeat the purpose as it has led to a total rejection of historical and theoretical commonality between the South and the North. My study seeks to understand and correct this by reasserting the eligibility of shack dwellers and applicability of Marxist theory on their efforts of self-organisation.142 Classical Marxism is united in positing the working class as the revolutionary subject and the self-activity of the class as the foundation of the struggle for self-emancipation. However, the discussion above has identified differences of emphases and nuances among the

142 For example, Davis (2006) views shack dwellers as not being part of the working class. Fanon (1963) extolls the virtues of shack dwellers, which he views as the lumpenproletariat, as the revolutionary subject on the grounds that he is “stretching” Marxist analysis.

123 theorists considered which I have argued are related to the specific problems each was addressing and context they operated in. Individual theorists also changed or modified their positions over time. This suggests the need to revisit and reconsider the question of self- organisation of the working class in the light of past and present developments including different political and economic conditions in different contexts. What are the lessons from the past and how should the theory address present conditions? My study seeks to address these questions from the vantage point of an inquiry into the political practice of shack dwellers who live in South Africa, a country in the global South with a well-documented history of working class struggle. Can the experience of the self-organisation of shack dwellers in this country inform the development of Marxist theory and practice locally and internationally? This is a question that few scholars have sought to systematically address. I believe my choice of constituency will shine new light on the subject and hopefully raise previously underexplored theoretical and strategic questions for Marxism and other schools of thought. The discussion above has identified the two roles attributed to workers’ grassroots organisations in the literature, namely, as organs of struggle and organs of self-government or self-management. Historical accounts suggest that soviets, workers councils and workers’ committees often begin their political career serving a different role which they later discard to become organs of struggle and of self-government. For example, in Tanzania the workers’ committees that later led the factory occupations began as management structures to discipline workers, and factory councils in Italy began their lives as union-linked internal commissions set up to facilitate smooth operations on the shop floor. The literature suggests that when there is an “objective need” for organs of struggle these are thrown up in the course of the struggle. My study explores the question of whether and to what extent the existing shack dwellers’ committees, during future upsurges in struggle, would change their character to assume a larger political role as organs of struggle and of self-government. Few analysts view working class structures as in the process of becoming, that is, perceiving in what they are what they can become.143 Liberal scholars of urban studies, housing and homelessness tend to underplay the potential political role of shack dwellers as makers and changers of history. Sympathy for the poor conditions that this social group finds itself in provokes a humanitarian or problem-

143 Barker (2008:3) has criticised a seminal work on “poor people’s movements” thus: “Piven and Cloward [1977] express a deep suspicion of ‘organization,’ seeing in it only the process of bureaucratic containment of popular impulses; they do not pose questions about alternative forms of political organization, or the formation of new institutions.”

124 solving policy response. They are thus theorised as the poor, homeless, marginalised, underclass, and so on, arguably robbing them of their agency. Social movement theorists, on the other hand, recognise and restore the agency of the shack dwellers as political and historical actors. This study seeks to build on this approach. However, it is worth noting that the main researchers of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the organisation of shack dwellers in South Africa, work within a social movement theory framework and a left Fanonian perspective (Gibson 2007; Pithouse, 2004, 2013). This dissertation fills the gap by re-asserting a classical Marxist theoretical approach to the study of and the debates around the movements of shack dwellers locally and globally. Commentators have noted the phenomenal incidence of community protests in South Africa, with many of them occurring in the informal settlements. My involvement in a project that monitors the incidence of protests has allowed me access to data and insights about the involvement of informal settlement dwellers in protests. This study benefits from this. However, not enough has been done by way of researching the political culture from which these protests emerge. Social movement theory tends to focus on struggles, action and people on the move. What happens in between when there is no protest in the informal settlement? How do shack dwellers engage with each other and solve their daily problems? It is in the context of their daily life that they address various problems and issues (basic services, community building, engagement with the state, etc.). My study’s focus on amakomiti, structures that arguably address the day-to-day problems of the shack dwellers in a collective manner, seeks to advance our understanding of this aspect of the agency of shack dwellers. The study broadens its lens onto political culture and self-organisation sui generis as it occurs in the informal settlements. The insights that will be generated by this approach will hopefully shed more light on movement-building, community organising and protest activity. Democratic theory is in crisis because the advent of neoliberalism has accentuated the power imbalance between those who are democratically elected by the people to make decisions and those who, by virtue of their ownership of capital, hold an effective veto on the world’s parliaments (Callinicos 1991:108-109, Purcell 2002:99). Increasingly major decisions are taken above the heads of ordinary people including decisions by local governments, that is, governance structures that are meant to be closer to and more responsive to the people (Jessop 1997). The search for solutions takes political analysts and activists to many places but rarely to the people themselves, to find out what they think about what is going on and what is their solution to the problem. Part of the solution may lie in understanding the ways in which the popular masses engage with and create their own forms of democracy and participation,

125 learning from this, and sharing the lessons with each other in the hope that this may inspire alternative theories and practices of democracy in the present and with an eye to the future. Marx’s understanding of the post-revolutionary state was enhanced by his study of the Paris Commune. This study of shack dwellers’ committees might make a unique and valuable contribution to this process. Social movement studies have been criticised by Marxists for its failure to locate movements within the social and political context and the imperatives of the capitalist system (Barker et al. 2013:2). To this I would add: they fail to locate their work within a theoretical and political problematic that seeks to find solutions and alternatives to the system’s problems. However, Marxism has got its own problems too. Given all that has happened to Marxism, its victories and defeats, its moments of pride and shame, it is necessary to revisit and re-examine various aspects of Marxist theory, history and practice in the light of all that. This is a task for committed and critical Marxists. I locate myself within this broad intellectual and political project. There is a need to extend Marxist tools of analysis to new areas and vistas that were either neglected or did not warrant special treatment earlier but now require our attention, and to revisit old problems whose character has changed due to a changing historical context. My study will attempt to do this in the context of its subject matter. 2.9 Conclusion Marxism is in crisis because the collapse of the Stalinist Soviet Union has not led to a rejuvenated political theory and practice whereby the mistakes and shibboleths of the past could at last be fully realised, acknowledged and discarded. Instead there is a tendency for the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater in that the work of sifting the good from the bad, the contingent from the necessary, has hardly started.144 With respect to working class self-activity, self-organisation and self-government there is no better time than today to revisit all the old questions under the bright and harsh light of hindsight. As Marxists we need to know what went wrong in order not to repeat it and also what went right which must be recovered and saved. The study of past forms can help us to understand present forms and inform the development of political forms and a practice that will serve us well in facing and conquering the future. The quest for universal human emancipation is and should still be on our agenda.

The discussion in this chapter suggests that historically the working class has formed organs of popular struggle and rule that in leading the struggle for self-emancipation also

144 Callinicos (1991) is one of the few works attempting this from a classical Marxist perspective.

126 prefigure new and alternative political institutions. In the case of Russia the soviets became the building blocks of the new society. In the discussion I have tried to illustrate the symbiotic relationship between theory and practice in the development of working class self-organisation at the turn of the twentieth century. I then focused on the self-organisation of the shack dwellers exploring points of intersection and divergence with the experiences of the working class as a whole in relation to theory and practice. I hope I was able to convincingly argue for the validity of approaching the question from the point of view that shack dwellers are part of the working class. However, this is also a historical and an empirical question which the following chapters will hopefully further elucidate.

127

CHAPTER 3

THEORY AND HISTORY OF THE ROLE OF SHACK SETTLEMENTS IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN STRUGGLE

3.1 Introduction

Sociological analysis must be grounded in a historical context because social structures are made and re-made as part of a historical process (Thompson 1980:10). A key sociological observation by theorists of working-class self-organisation is that it is during periods of upsurges in class struggle that workers tend to form alternative forms of political organisation (Barker 2008:1, Cohen 2011:48). How does this theoretical insight help us understand self- organisation in South Africa’s shack settlements? To answer this question, in this chapter I look into salient aspects of the history of the squatter movement in South Africa in the mid- twentieth century and then during the resurgence of struggle against apartheid in the 1980s. I build on the theoretical and historical discussions in the previous chapter which covered aspects of popular self-organisation in the international arena including in Africa and explored in some details key concepts and debates that are important for this dissertation. My intention in this chapter is to trace the historical antecedents of grassroots organisation in the shacks locating the analysis within the political economy of country and of the working class (Lebowitz 2003), and in the process develop a theory of the role of informal settlement dwellers in the South African working class struggle. This is an exercise within the broader context of exploring the dialectical interaction between structure and agency in the unfolding struggle of the working class and the popular classes to secure viable livelihoods and adequate shelter for themselves.

I begin by looking at proletarianisation processes in South Africa noting their interaction with and expression in labour migrancy. I focus on Mpondoland because, among other important considerations, it is from these areas that migrant workers in one of my case studies, Nkaneng informal settlement, in Rustenburg, hail from. I then consider the history of the squatter movement in the Johannesburg area in the 1940s, a movement that emerged in response to the influx of work seekers from the rural areas who were drawn by the labour needs of the war industry, among other factors, and the related slow pace of the state’s house-building programme (Alexander 2000). I then move the discussion to a consideration of the 1952 Defiance Campaign with the aim of correcting some aspects of the historiography of the period by focusing on the class dynamics of this movement of the “people” distinguishing the different

128 visions, strategies and interests that drove the black petty bourgeoisie as opposed to the working class. This perspective provides a critical lens when I next consider the final political upsurge against apartheid in the mid-1980s focusing on the relationship of shack dwellers to the United Democratic Front, whose essence as a popular front soon became apparent as the struggle reached its zenith in the demise of apartheid.145

I conclude by observing that the past struggles, strategies and forms of organisation noted in this chapter have a bearing to a greater or lesser extent on the present-day forms of struggle and organisation in South Africa’s shack settlements today. I argue that the proliferation and durability of shack settlement organisation is partly explained by these historical antecedents and the depth of their rootedness in popular culture and consciousness. And that, in particular, it is the structural factors related the lack of adequate services that lies behind the formation and maintenance of people’s committees in South Africa’s informal settlements.

3.2 Migrant labour, proletarianisation and the emergence of shack settlements in South Africa At first capitalist relations presented themselves in the form of an invasion by merchant capital in the Cape. The first indigenes to feel the early winds of what was to become the hurricane of conquest, dispossession and colonialism were the Khoi and the San (the “Hottentots” and the “Bushmen”). The former were pastoralists who had lived in the area since the fifth century while the latter, hunters and gatherers, lived in the southern tip of Africa for millennia. Research suggests we might all be descended from the San (Henna 2011:5154). The interaction between the Khoi and the white settlers was marked by violence as the latter fenced the land on which the indigenous people reared their Nguni herds. On the other hand the San were hunted like animals by the newcomers and were forced to move north. The Khoi’s relatively stable and prosperous nomadic way of life was shattered by the arrival of the settlers (SAHO 2015c). They were subjugated and integrated into the new colonial order as labourers, lovers and later as soldiers.

In 1820, 4 000 British immigrants settled further east on the doorstep of amaXhosa, amaMfengu, amaMpondo and other tribes and clans living there (SAHO 2015d). The white

145 A “popular front” historically “meant [French] Communists [in 1934] seeking alliances [against Nazism] not just with the social democrats, but also with ‘liberal’ mainstream capitalist parties” (Choonara 2007:12). This was viewed as a mistake by non-Stalinist revolutionary Marxists who saw the danger of the working class subordinating its programme to that of capitalist parties.

129 settlers were sent by the empire as reinforcements in the light of the perceived threat of the African societies who were ruled by kings, chiefs, clan leaders and powerful household heads and whose mode of production can be described as tributary (Stapleton 1994). Behind the empire were the dynamics of merchant capitalism and its rapid transformation back home into manufacture and then industrial capitalism; the political history of class struggle in South Africa that began with the decimation of the Khoi and San way of life now found permanent definition and shape in the contradictory and tumultuous interaction, from the point of view of political economy, of the capitalist and tributary modes of production (Van Binsbergen and Geschiere 1985:151, Bonner 1980: 83). Earlier forms of capitalist relations in these parts of the world were characteristically commercial and agricultural, but with the discovery of gold and diamonds the ground was laid for the development and dominance of the capitalist mode of production proper with all its laws of motion operative within the confines of a colonial and peripheral economy. But, as Mamdani (1996:23-24) has argued, the colonists could not ride in willy-nilly and take over these independent African societies, they had to fight and find other ways and means of subjugating them, they had to use force and consent, brutality and guile.

The social, economic and political organisation of the Eastern Cape African societies was based on the homestead which was the basic and main unit of production and consumption. A cluster of homesteads could find unity and governance in the person of a chief or prominent clan leader whose rule was premised on exacting tribute from homestead heads in the form of goods and services, mainly cattle and labour service. William Beinart’s (1982) study of the amaPondo of Pondoland provides us with a detailed picture of their way of life at the turn of the twentieth century. The chiefs or headmen, including homestead heads with large households, regularly held councils, generally known as iinkundla, in which the affairs of the homestead, clan, community, chieftaincy or kingdom were discussed. Inkundla (singular) and iinkundla (plural) literally refers to an open space or “courtyard” with a strong connotation of processes taking place therein being transparent and occurring before the eyes of everyone.146 The relevant patriarch and leader chaired iinkundla sessions and this typically involved a lot of listening by him and then having the prerogative of closing the discussion with a ruling. The iinkundla also had a dispute resolution function adjudicating between warring parties; it also acted as a court that had the powers to try and if necessary punish offenders usually in the form of fines.

146 Inkundla was also a physical space used for public cultural events such as dancing and weddings.

130

Anthropologists suggest that in pre-colonial times the king or chief was often compelled to be extremely responsive to the various interests and wishes of his “subjects,” and in fact, in many instances he would be elevated to his position by his peers who were regarded as his equals (Moore 1986, Abel 1979). Also, as Mamdani (1996:119) has argued “in 19th century Africa…kin groups contested with and balanced the claims of state authority.” The colonial state interfered by giving chiefs more powers over the people, powers backed by its might thus introducing a despotism that had in many instances not previously existed (Mandela 1994:14, Mamdani 1996:22-23; Moore 1986:55-58, 1972:744).

The preservation of indigenous institutions such as the chieftaincy, communal land ownership and a “free” peasantry has tended to be understood within the articulation of modes of production paradigm. Most famously, Harold Wolpe (1972) advanced the “cheap labour power thesis” whereby the native reserves served to reduce the cost of labour reproduction by keeping wages down thus benefiting capital. I have briefly considered some of the criticisms levelled against Wolpe in the section above. Here I will focus on the articulation of modes of production notion noting that it underlies other schools of thought in development such as dependency theory and the imperialism thesis where it is argued that the penetration of (imperialist) capital did not aim to develop the periphery in a rounded fashion but rather developed only those sites that served capital’s interest and thereby also tended to underdevelop rather than develop indigenous economies, or at best led to uneven development (Frank 1966, Amin 1976). The thrust of Beinart’s (1982) research findings on amaMpondo lead him, despite formally accepting the articulation model, to question the loss of agency by the colonised implied by these explanations. In his book he provides evidence to suggest that the pattern of labour migration in Pondoland at the turn of the century was not simply the result of colonial state policy or the related interests of mining and/or agricultural capital.

The deteriorating economic circumstances in Pondoland, a result of natural disasters and the encroachment of the colonial state and capitalist relations, led to a form of labour migrancy that was partly determined by the specific response of the amaMpondo to their changing circumstances, including the struggle of the chiefs to maintain their economic and political power. While the chiefs could and were subjected to the imperatives of colonial policy and the economic interests it embodied, often pitting them against the people and sometimes provoking criticism and resistance, Beinart (1982:156) found that the commoners supported the chiefs and chieftaincy as an institution because they stood for and supported communal land ownership thus guaranteeing everyone land for living and grazing. The amaMpondo

131 buffeted, as it were, by the harsh winds of a rapacious capitalism, could negotiate better terms for their incorporation into its circuits from a position of relative strength as a society with a semblance of economic security (Beinart 1982:6). They were arguably not primarily trying to escape the spread of capitalist relations but to adjust and adapt. They were struggling not merely to preserve the old way of life but rather to invoke it in a war of position that strengthened their hand in the encounter with the new conditions of life in a capitalist economy.147 The system of cattle advance illustrates this.

A system of payment preferred by household heads for sons that went to work in the gold mines was cattle advance whereby a beast would be handed over by the labour tout, usually a white trader, before the migrant worker left for the mines. This ensured that the migrant contributed directly to the maintenance and growth of the domestic herds, and these were crucial to the homestead economy. It was also an effective mechanism to stop the sons from spending their money in the city. This suggests active engagement with rather than passive surrender to the power of capital. It is also an answer to Mamdani’s poser: it suggests that amaMpondo were neither “modernists” nor “traditionalists,” but rather were pragmatists attempting to negotiate their way around both sets of constraints. This analytical approach recovers the migrant workers’ agency including that of their peasant communities. As V.L. Allen (1992) has pointed out, mineworkers shape their own history despite the odds being heavily stacked against them in the mines.

The framework of the articulation of modes of production, while it has helped generate valuable data and insights, is a misnomer and fails to apprehend the true dynamics of the amaMpondo situation. A perspective that sees two distinct modes in operation in a form of dualism is not helpful nor accurate. By the turn of the century, and especially with the later phenomenal expansion of migrant labour in the region, the colonial and Mpondo economic situations were for all intents and purposes aspects of one mode of production, capitalism. AmaMpondo, as Beinart shows, had been engaging in trade for a long time that involved selling their cattle, skins and grain. The circulation of economic goods within the Mpondo economy through the payment of tributes, cattle loans, lobola (bride price) and labour service was intercepted, modified and articulated to commercial exchange between amaMpondo and white traders, amaMpondo and other African groups, including amaMpondo themselves. The laws of motion of the tributary mode of production had gradually been subsumed – and rapidly so

147 As Friedman (2015:280) puts it: “But as Archie Mafeje and others noted, the plans of the dominators cannot be grasped unless the response of the dominated is understood too.”

132 with the discovery of gold and diamonds – to those of the capitalist mode. The fact that the process of proletarianisation took the form of migrant labour, and that a peasantry with access to communal land was preserved, does not dissuade from this fact. It is the laws of motion rather than the form of labour exploitation or of land ownership that define the essence of a historical epoch of social production (Banaji 2010:60).148

This suggests that migrants were not oscillating between capitalist centres and a precapitalist way of life, in other words, between two dualistic political economies. Home was as much bound up by capitalist relations as was the place where they worked. There could be and were important differences in terms of culture, levels of urbanisation and development, and so on, but, thanks to Banaji (2010), the blindfold of dualism has been removed. These insights illuminate our understanding of the squatter movements that developed in the 1940s in so far as they suggest that a theory of squatter movements should be founded on an analysis of the political economy that eschews dualism and focuses on the agency of social actors in their struggle for livelihood in the context of exploitative and oppressive social, economic and political structures.

3.3 The squatter movement in the 1940s Some elements of the physiognomy of self-organisation in today’s informal settlements in South Africa are arguably discernable in the squatters’ movement of the 1940s. South Africa has a rich history of the establishment of squatter camps and the concomitant resistance against demolition by hostile and racist authorities. The influx of workseekers into the urban areas and the failure of the (white) state and capital to provide adequate shelter compelled communities and their leaders to take matters into their own hands and some instances giving rise to squatter movements. The camps established by these movements inexorably faced a hostile state which took action according to local political dynamics and economic processes related to capital’s labour needs. In Cape Town, for example, the squatter camps established in the 1940s and 50s met the fate of many others other parts of the country: demolition and the herding of the people into black townships by the apartheid government that had been installed in 1948 (Benson 2015:370). However, further influx into the urban areas followed in the late 1960s due to economic expansion which at first was tolerated by the state and then followed by another spate

148 Banaji (2010:359) summarises his argument thus: “The upshot of all this work is that relations of production are not reducible to forms of exploitation of labour, since capitalist relations of production are compatible with a wide variety of forms of labour… To construe the ways labour is exploited and controlled as distinct relations (and therefore modes) of production is to end with a model that sees the capitalist world-economy as structured by an articulation of different modes of production.”

133 of demolitions with the recession; in Cape Town the affected settlements were Modderdam, Unibel and Wekgennot (Ellis 1982:110, Silk 1985). Crossroads, which later became the site of major struggles, was established as a transit camp in 1975 in the course of these demolitions and forced removals (Benson 2015:371). Umkhumbane (Cato Manor), the largest shack settlement in Durban, noted for its vibrant cultural and political life, was demolished in the early 1960s after protracted struggle (Maylam 1983).

In this section I will focus on mainly on the Sofasonke movement in Johannesburg, Soweto, as a case study of internal camp processes related to committee organisation, without completely neglecting the development of similar movements in other urban centres of South Africa. The movement at its height in the second half of the 1940s involved “between 63 000 and 92 500 Africans [who] settled in squatter camps in and around Johannesburg” (Stadler 1979:93). It commanded the attention of the state, oppositional political organisations and ordinary workers, was driven back by the South African state under the United Party government and finally routed by the apartheid “hard” men who took power in 1948. It nevertheless achieved its goal of forcing the state to build houses for the working class. It also inspired resistance to racial and class domination and can be regarded as the lodestar of the mass movement that coalesced and began to challenge “racial capitalism” in the 1950s, “a decade of organisation and struggle – of mass demonstrations, boycotts, defiance, strikes and near-uprisings – against poverty wages, the pass laws, price and fare rises, Bantu Education, ‘Bantu Authorities’, ‘cattle-culling’, police repression, and all the other burdens” (Legassick 2007:189).

The focus of the squatter movement was “houses for all,” its epicenter was Orlando township,149 and its undisputed leader James Sofasonke Mpanza, the founder of the Sofasonke Party (French 1983:85, Hirson 1989:150).150 The movement was born on Saturday 25th March 1944 when Mpanza exhorted hundreds of Orlando sub-tenants and other poorly-housed workers to follow him and cross the River Jordan, that is, to defy state laws and engage in direct action in the struggle for housing by setting up a camp of improvised shelters on an open veld across a small stream next to the township (Bonner and Segal 1998, French 1983:78,

149 Built in 1931, Orlando and Pimville-Klipspruit were the nucleus of what would later become Soweto, the biggest black township in South Africa (Bonner and Segal 1998:13, 17). 150 Hirson (1989:150) notes that: “Several men emerged in 1944-45 as shantytown leaders, but it was James Sofasonke Mpanza who initiated, inspired, and planned the greatest shantytown of all.”

134

Hirson 1989:150).151 This audacious act caught everyone by surprise, in particular the Labour Party-controlled Johannesburg City Council, and thus was born Shantytown, or Sofasonke Village, a squatter camp that took the authorities 16 years to finally “clear” (French 1983:293).

From Shantytown the movement spread to various parts of Johannesburg including Pimville, Alexandra, Sharpeville, Albertynsville, Zuurbekom, etc. (Hirson 1989:155-158, Bonner 1990:89). Everywhere the modus operandi was the same: (self-) organise a group of people in need of houses, identify a piece of land, erect shelters and demand that the state builds houses or else the camp stays put (Hirson 1989:156-158). In a few instances the squatters occupied partly half-completed council-built houses en masse (Stadler 1979:97, Bonner and Segal 1998:25). Mpanza’s leadership and focus seems to have been his constituency in Orlando and the broader movement was inspired rather than led by him (French 1983:183). He was an outspoken, charismatic, shrewd, brave and fiercely independent political organiser and fighter who influenced and embodied the spirit of the squatter movement at its strongest moments (French 1983:350). The dimensions of this spirit, I would argue, are autonomy, independence, irreverence, popular democracy, mass mobilisation, direct action and challenging the authorities and the system of private property that they defend. Mpanza’s intervention in the politics of housing in Johannesburg, and to an extent in the politics of black opposition to white rule was to match words and appeals to reason with mass mobilization and action. The militancy of the ANC Youth League that saw the ANC turn to the masses and lead the defiance campaigns of the 1950s was preceded by the “thousands of men, women, and children who set up their shacks on the veld, in the face of a hostile Council and government, and withstood all attempts at removing them, who had carved out the land. Mpanza, in leading these people, put himself at the head of the biggest social and political upheaval of the war years” (Hirson 1989:154).

The ANC and CPSA were not impressed. The ANC’s problem was that it did not entertain any independent action by the masses, and for the CPSA it was a problem of political method whereby they found it hard to relate their theory of revolution to grassroots dynamics (French 1983:350, Grossman 1985:195).152 For the ADP (African Democratic Party), in addition to other political problems, its leaders such as “Paul Mosaka and Self Mampuru were

151 Bonner and Segal (1998:22) put the date of the land invasion as Saturday 20 March 1944, probably a typographical error as Saturday was on the 25th. 152 Grossman (1985:195) argues, in general, that: “The political method of the Party promoted the isolation from the mass of workers… it was a political method and the substance of policies of the third period which did not connect, or provide the theoretical means of connecting, with the concrete situation.”

135 committee men, not activists…their dark suits and ties marked them as strangers in the midst of hessian shacks and cardboard shelters” (Hirson 1989:154). These political parties increasingly found themselves losing the battle to “the short term, rather immediate, localised and personal nature of Mpanza's politics. Also his ability to exploit popular sentiments” (French 1983:60). It has been argued that squatting as a form of struggle is “an immediatist struggle in the sense that Foucault means it” whereby the protagonists’ focus is localised and the enemy is immediate rather than a “chief enemy”, and “nor do they expect to find a solution to their problem at a future date (that is, liberations, revolutions, end of class struggle)” (Foucault 1982:780 quoted in Lopez 2013:881). Hence: “Unconcerned about long term goals or national party programmes, Mpanza was less constrained in the means he was prepared to use to achieve his ends,” (French 1983:63) including the use of strong-arm tactics, self- promotion, flexibility in tactics and allies, etc. Nevertheless, primarily “Mpanza was able to sway his audience. He spoke their language, the language of those who hungered for houses... He was looked upon with reverence as the man who fought for and spoke on behalf of the underdog” (French 1983:60).153

The power of Mpanza and the squatter movement was self-organisation and mass action. All the land invasions or squats of the 1940s had a leadership but the people were expected to be actively involved in the process including erecting their shelters, paying money to the organisation, braving the harsh conditions and defending the camp against attacks by the authorities. Organising an invasion and running a camp required a lot of meetings with the leaders consulting with and guiding the constituency. Mpanza himself, although he was severely criticised for his lapses in this respect, “never failed in all his civic activities to obtain a mandate from the residents… he said a leader should always get a close connection with the people. He said a good leader must be a follower of the people” (Mampuru 1983:1 quoted in French 1983:314). It is thus possible to speak of a form of popular democracy that operated in the squatter camps. This can be contrasted with the democracy on offer from the state at the time, namely, a racially discriminatory Advisory Board system that was in any case largely ignored by the Council when it came to decision-making.154 Women were expressly excluded

153 An assessment by French (1983:350): “It was Mpanza's brilliance as an organiser, his deeply rooted empathy with the ordinary people, specifically the working class and his ability to translate this into action… his daring at placing himself at risk in a struggle for working class goals which has kept him alive in the minds of working people today… the Mpanza who organised the squatters, against the threat of the Council the Mpanza who gave them houses, the Father of Soweto.” 154 The sub-tenants who constituted the bulk of the squatter community could not vote in Advisory Board elections because to qualify you had to the registered household head of a Council house and be up to date with your rental to the last month preceding the election (French 1983:262)

136 from voting and in any case, without a husband, “widowed, deserted, young unmarried, or newly arrived women faced ejection from the township if discovered”, whereas “in the shantytown they enjoyed a new freedom” and as a result “women were among the group’s most devoted members” (Hirson 1989:149).

The Council and the government were mostly driven by a fear, real or exaggerated, that: “Wherever Natives have been allowed to develop a township without being under municipal control, the result has been disastrous” (Minister of Native Affairs quoted in French 1983:95). But “Mpanza was maintaining order in the camp” and special people were assigned to combat crime, enforce the camp’s laws and carry out communal duties (French 1983:92, Stadler 1979:105). As a rule, the associations and committees running the various squatter camps took care of affairs: “Their leaders controlled site allocation and provided amenities, had their own ‘strong-arm’ corps, meted out justice in courts, levied fines and floggings, and controlled entry to the camp” (Hirson 1989:149, Bonner and Segal 1998:23). Mpanza went further: “The fuel depot was being run as a co-operative store by this stage selling coal and wood at less than 20% of Orlando prices” (French 1983:92).155 Entry into the camps was controlled and traders’ vehicles paid a levy to the “office” for the privilege of coming into the camp to do business (Stadler 1979:102). In most camps “followers paid a weekly toll…All monies were in the hands of the leaders, to be used at their discretion” (Hirson 1989:149). The money was used to pay the camp workers including the crime- fighters and, in the case of Mpanza, to also fund the various legal cases that he initiated or had to defend against the state.156 It was also used to organise the cleaning of the camp, fund trips carried out in the name of the camp, and related expenses. Noor Nieftogodien (2015:15), discussing a land occupation and squatter camp set up on 1 August 1946 in Eastonville (Evaton Extension 1) in the Vaal, about 40 km south of Johannesburg City, by “Leihlo la Motse” (Eye of the City), notes:

There [was] much in common here [in Eastonville camp] with Mpanza’s [M]asakhane camp, including the emphasis on internal and autonomous organisation, on adherence

155 Bonner and Segal (1989:23) note that: “In an attempt to overcome the extreme material hardships faced by the squatters, the committee handed out coal, firewood and milk bought with the funds from the Sofasonke Party.” Further: “He employed 28 of his own policemen, set up his own courts and meted out punishment to those who disturbed the neighbourhood peace” (Bonner and Segal 1998:23). 156 Some of these cases were of a personal nature but some, such as when he faced deportation (endorsement out of the city including the state providing a rail ticket to a Natal) for his activities as a squatter camp leader, were regarded even by his political rivals, the ADP, ANC and SACP, as worthy of their support because of their political nature (French 1983:147-148).

137

to regulations and the imposition thereof both by an internally constituted law enforcement group and the official police force and on the creation of a moral order.

These similarities on how the camps were set up and run go beyond Johannesburg and the Vaal into other areas in South Africa and traversing different time periods. Nieftogodien (2015:3), however, makes an important distinction between camps that were set up by desperate workseekers who sought abodes near job opportunities, aspirant property-owners and, as in the case of Orlando, “those initiatives that resembled the squatter movements around Johannesburg (Mpanza, Bhaduza, etc) that sought to occupy municipal and public land to force their authorities to respond to their need for houses.” However, in all instances the aspect of a degree of self-management can be discerned, something which irked the authorities.

The “Municipal control over the Orlando township… is practically nil” and the squatter leaders “had arrogated to themselves ‘all state and governmental functions in Tobruk and Alexandra camps’” (Stadler 1979:105).157 These were arguably seedlings of “dual power” emerging in the camps with the committees and their leaders taking over powers normally exercised by the municipality. However, this is not how the CPSA, ADP and an oppositional Vigilance Committee operating inside the Shantytown saw it, theirs was a critical and indignant response to Mpanza’s methods of running the camp especially in relation to the collection of monies, operation of a people’s court, and the compulsory taking of Sofasonke membership by camp inhabitants. The authorities tried to capitalise on these sentiments in their struggle with Mpanza who was projected as an agitator operating behind the scenes, “a native who according to evidence accumulating in the files of the authorities, exploits simple minded natives in Orlando. The law abiding natives consider his influence dangerous” (Johannesburg Council memorandum quoted in French 1983:141). The vilification of Mpanza by the state was part of a concerted campaign to undermine the autonomy of the camp, which was embodied in his person and leadership style, and to restore its control over the camp. It has been noted, following Castells, that:

Squatting is an urban movement in which there is a close connection between a broad range of political activities (meetings, demonstrations, direct actions, campaigning, etc.) and a practical development of collective self-management on many dimensions of life (Lopez 2013:870).

157 This is a quotation from a Johannesburg City Council Supplementary Memorandum submitted to the Moroka Commission, August 1947, that was set up to investigate a violent eruption in Moroka, a slum in the (Soweto) area.

138

The aspect of “self-management” might have posed the greatest threat to the government because not only was it the fruition of a struggle against and defiance of the state, but it also disproved the theory that “natives” could do nothing by themselves and needed the paternalistic hand of the white state. In the words of the Minister of Health: “the squatter movement should be controlled by the authorities instead of being left to spontaneous, sporadic eruptions, or worse still, to organisation and control by unlawful elements” (quoted in French 1983:176). The main concern “was one of control. The actual responsibility of providing housing was secondary” as evident in the words of the Secretary of the Department of Native Affairs: “The most pressing need of the Native community is adequate housing. Only by the provision of adequate shelter in properly planned native townships can full control over urban natives be regained” (quoted in French 1983:192). This explains why the Council often viewed the action of squatters “as a trial of strength rather than emanating from legitimate grievances. Hence the call for force” (French 1983:142). Martin Legassick (2007:184) has argued that the main constraint on the South African state during the era of the squatter movement and beyond has been the necessity of controlling the working class, in particular containing the struggles of black workers, in order to maintain the cheap labour system. The peculiar uneven development of the capitalist economy made the suppression of wages the key factor in maintaining profit levels as other cost factors were beyond the control of the mine owners (Legassick 2007:185). Though the South African economy grew rapidly between 1947 and 1954, the heyday of Mpanza and the squatter movement, African living standards declined (Legassick 2007:188). It is in the city that “contradictions in the capitalist mode of production therefore play themselves out most forcefully” because cities are “the spatial forms that most emphatically support the production and circulation of capital” (Bond 2000b:6). From this point of view, there were real constraints to the capitalist state in South Africa adopting a liberal reformist approach to labour and only the struggles of the workers themselves could force concessions out of capital.158 As a result when the party of apartheid took power in 1948: “The task confronting the NP government was to reinforce the cheap labour system – against a movement of the oppressed working class that had suffered defeats, but was still rising” (Legassick 2007:187).

158 Flirtation with granting limited concessions say in the form of wage increases for skilled African workers, a policy that Jan Smuts’ government considered briefly, was seen as holding the danger of not only threatening the white workers upon which the state relied for support but would also open the floodgates as all the African workers would demand a better deal (Legassick 2007:185).

139

Peter Alexander (2000:119), in his study of labour militancy during the war years, provides a clue to the political economy of the emergence of the squatter movement:

the character of capitalist development in the 1940s had implications for urbanization. It encouraged a massive growth in the total number of Africans who were living in the cities at any one time, whilst simultaneously ensuring that many, if not most, such people were not settled urban dwellers.

The state was constrained both politically and economically when it came to the provision of housing to African workers. On the one hand was the Stallard Commission: “The Native should only be allowed to enter into the urban areas…[only] when he is willing to enter and minister to the needs of the White man, and should depart therefrom when he ceases so to minister” (quoted in French 1983:22). This represented a desire to halt, brake or control the process of proletarianisation from the point of view of racialist capital and the state. A Sisyphean task as the case of the 3 000 squatters at Orlando West in September 1946 proved: many came from the Pimville tanks where they had been housed by the state “temporarily” for 41 years and, more importantly, most were employed in Johannesburg; there was thus no legal grounds for the Council to tell them, as was its habit, “to go back to where they came from” (French 1983 164,189).159 Moreover: “Secondary industry, wanting to take advantage of a more mobile labour force, exercised considerable influence on the central government” and contradicted the Council’s Stallardist stance (French 1983:71). On the other hand, the state and the Council faced real financial and material constraints in the provision of housing. Thus:

Even the seemingly uncommodified built environment that blacks were confined to (e.g., rental housing, and highly restricted and underdeveloped commerce) respected the most crucial capitalist rules (e.g., the cost structure limitations of low-income housing construction, or the power and capacity of monopoly suppliers of building materials) (Bond 2000b:6).

The squatter movement was a working class urban movement, it involved “struggles in which the working class [was fighting] in establishing themselves as a community” (Stadler 1979:123). It was a movement mostly of sub-tenants, what today is called “backyarders,” and

159 The Native Urban Areas Act of 1923 stipulated that only “natives” that were employed could live in the city French (1983:164, 189).

140 other “houseless” people.160 However, this was a working class still in the making with many people fresh from the rural areas and still struggling to find their toehold in the city and establish themselves either permanently or as migrant workers. The migration into Johannesburg is estimated to have swelled the black population by 69% in the 1940s (French 1983:52, Stadler 1979:109), and significantly the proportion of females migrating increased (Bonner and Segal 1998:19). The futile and harsh efforts of various state structures to halt or otherwise control and re-direct this exodus created a lot of hardship for workers and provoked movements of resistance such as the squatter movement. Understanding the dynamics of the social movement, its political character, the nature of leadership and its organisational forms is no easy task. As Patrick Bond (2000b:37) notes:

It is not always feasible to specify the construction of social movement identity in urban settings, where conjunctural features are legion, but where overt market processes have torn asunder land relations, rural ties, indigenous culture, and many forms of pre-existing authority and social control.

As such there is a difficulty in theorizing the movement using concepts that are common to social movement theory such as political opportunity structure, resource mobilization, framing, and the related. The main difficulty is the tendency of these theories to overlook or underplay class contradictions in society which, from a Marxist approach, are fundamental.161

In his critique of Piven and Cloward’s (1977) theory of “poor people’s movements,” French (1983:108) notes the use of “vacuous concepts like ‘poor people’”, and laments the theory’s lack of a “materialist concept of power nor a theoretical commitment to historical specificity.” What is needed, instead, are studies that “show in a more integrated way the actual playing out of the specific historical forces in a specific context” (French 1983:108). A promising line of inquiry is provided by approaching the squatters as workers who needed adequate shelter in the urban areas where they worked or sought work. Alexander’s (2000) research into labour militancy during the war years takes on new light when we so broaden our lens because it suggests that the increase in struggle at the workplace was matched by heightened struggle in workers’ living spaces. Alexander (2000:129) provides data to show

160 Hirson (1989:149) observes: “The [Orlando] sub-tenants had no rights, being in the house and location on sufferance. Ultimately it was these rightless dwellers who took action.” 161 Azwell Banda (2002:x) argues that: “The story of the central and pivotal role of the African working in the struggles against oppression has not been well told…[and it must be] framed in the only viable prism through which African workers can view history – a Marxist perspective.”

141 that “the level of strike action was far greater than officially admitted.”162 In other words, there was a general increase in working class militancy, including in working class residential areas, which suggests the emergence and development of a working class movement during this period (Grossman 1985). This provides a broader context for understanding the squatter movement.

From this account of the squatter movement it is clear that it was a working class movement, that it arose out of the contradictions of the capitalist process, in particular its uneven and combined development, and that in deed, if not in words, it attacked capitalist private property albeit in the form of state land, and developed a “unique” alternative form of self-organisation and political practice that would stretch the conceptual categories of social movement theory to its limits.163 Whereas Mpanza organised the squatters into a political party, the Sofasonke Party, for Castells “autonomy means, basically, a neat separation of activists from institutionalised actors like political parties and unions” (in Lopez 2013:870). This definition fits the manner in which South Africa’s most important movement of shack dwellers, Abahlali baseMjondolo, projects itself (and is understood by its analysts) but differs from Mpanza’s political practice which was complex and multi-pronged.164

Stadler (1979:104) has argued that the 1940s squatter movement tended to be “always inward-looking,” did not develop wider support and longer term political objectives, and did not expand its repertoire of tactics beyond land invasions and setting up camps. Part of developing longer term political objectives would have included linking up with other organisations such as the ANC, ANC Youth League and the SACO, organisations that refused to give their support to the movement (Hirson 1989:154). Stadler (1979:104) argues that the authorities developed a response to the tactic of land invasion and the setting up of squatter camps by providing alternative accommodation which effectively led to the cessation of the camps and the political challenge that they represented. These criticisms are valid. However, they partly reflect the development of a movement in the absence of support from the broader workers’ movement. With hindsight it is apparent that available strength from the workers’ movement was left unused. Opportunities for building a formidable movement against the

162 The Office of Census and Statistics, for example, “recorded 6,587 white strikers…in reality [there were] more than 15 000;” while the strike rate (i.e. the number of strikers per thousand workers per year) were recorded as 2.7 for black and white workers, for the whole decade it was 6.7 for black workers and 8.8 for white workers (Alexander 2000:129). 163 Michelle Williams (2008:7) has pointed out how social movement theories exclude political parties as actors. 164 See Pithouse (2008, 2010) on the politics of Abahlali baseMjondolo.

142 racist and exploitative oppressor were squandered. For example, the authorities’ hands were full at the time dealing with the war and maintaining the war-time industry, worker combativity was on the increase at workplaces and living spaces, the petty bourgeoisie in the ANC Youth League was radicalising and in Africa the politics of national liberation were on the rise. Failure to build the squatter movement to its highest level of militancy and politics was a lost opportunity from the perspective of the workers’ movement and the struggle for national liberation (Grossman 1985:359-360,375).

Mpanza, as a leader of the squatter movement, embraced formal politics including participating in state structures, was a virtuoso in personal political drama and self-promotion, was almost unbeatable in local electoral politics,165 worked and competed with other political parties mostly trumping them, organised mass action that started a movement, encouraged “self-management” skills among his followers and developed improvised “self-government” structures and processes in Sofasonke Village, and so on. He had his faults, perhaps too many,166 but the squatter movement of the 1940s that he spearheaded laid the basis for subsequent counter-hegemonic militant organisation in the country and, I would argue, generates insights and concepts that challenge social movement theory thus opening up new vistas for theorisation and conceptual formation. The latter are the tools I will use and develop in the next chapters as I grapple with three case studies of self-organisation in post-apartheid’s shantytowns.

3.4 The 1952 Defiance Campaign The victors write the history books. It seems to me, with hindsight, that the historical accounts of the struggle in South Africa during the 1950s deserve a harsher and more radical re-assessment than many authors have been prepared to carry out.167 The critics of the incomplete revolution carried out by the ANC are not as critical as they should be of this organisation’s conduct of the struggle during this period. For example, John Saul (2014:49, 53) observes that the ANC used the 1950s to rise from “a rather desultory existence over

165 For two decades Mpanza participated in Orlando local elections for seats in the Advisory Boards mostly in the form of a joint slate with the African Democratic Party in what proved to be a winning alliance that consistently trumped the South African Communist Party’s candidates (French 1983:117, 129). 166 French (1983:350-351) argues that Mpanza was a practical Africanist but did not develop his ideology. Without a theoretical campus, in later life he lost touch with his working class base as the camps were dismantled by the state and was pulled towards collaborating with apartheid authorities in the Urban Bantu Council structures. These were denounced as ‘sell-out’ structures by the 1970s and 1980s anti-apartheid civic movement. Thus his political career ended in ignominy. 167 See Lodge (1983), Saul (2011), Murray (1994), Clark and Worger (2004), Ellis and Sechaba (1992). Closer to the augmented critical perspective I am advocating are: Hirson (1989), Grossman (1985), Alexander (2002).

143 much of the period between the two world wars” and to create a “historical memory” arising out of the campaigns of that period, that would “help to consolidate the reputation of the ANC as a political actor of unique legitimacy as later it began to revive its own fortunes.” This is true but the question is what actually happened in the 1950s, what was its political import and outcome, and does this historical memory merit the accolodes that the ANC showers on itself or is it an exercise in myth-making? There is a need to subject “the celebrated Defiance Campaign of 1952” (Saul 2014:53) to the harsh eye of hindsight – i.e. radical, critical class analysis – in order to point out the holes and tears in the cloth upon which is embroidered the “the real high water marks of resistance in the 1950s” and thereby conclude that, after this exercise, we are sadly left with a rag in tatters. I have alluded above to how the ANC and the CPSA/SACP failed to relate to and support the squatter movement of the 1940s as a result of the petty bourgeois and self-centred outlook of the ANC leaders and the abstract ideas and faulty political method of the communists.168 The political orientation that led to this failure carried over into the political initiatives and campaigns of the 1950s that involved these two organisations. What was this orientation? Saul (2014:52) has identified it as “an elitist cast that continued to mark the politics of ANC-led resistance even during this period [of the celebrated ‘turn to the masses’].” This idea that the petty bourgeois nature of the ANC leadership was a problem is not adequately developed by Saul, and indeed even less so by other authors, with respect to its implications for the struggles of the 1950s.169 The tendency has been to project the “turn to the masses” led by the ANC Youth League as marking a fundamental break with the “elitism” of the earlier ANC leadership and then to point out “weaknesses” in the campaigns and attribute these to various factors. Saul (2014:53) lays primary blame on state repression and also alludes to a strategic shortcoming, namely: “the difficulty the ANC had in striking an effective balance

168 Grossman (1985:408-409) argues that the celebrated period of political ferment and radicalism of the ANC Youth League (CYL), the prelude to the “turn to the masses,” in reality was about: “The primary task to which the CYL turned was the preparation of a politicised elite. The support of the masses would be called for, once the politicised leaders were in place. Thus it was that for crucial parts of its development, the CYL was turned inward, fighting for dominance within the petty bourgeoisie.” 169 Bill Freund (1998:224-225) argues that during the 1950s, Africans rejected a “political conceptualization of their lives” as indicated by the growth of independent churches and the 1949 rioutous attacks on Indians in Durban in 1949; thus: “political organisations failed to come up with programmes and, more crucially, associations and action that could counter the pressures felt by black South Africans.” See Saul (2014:52). Freund’s analysis focuses on race and organisation rather than on class. Tom Lodge (1983: 153) argues that “despite promising objective conditions, mass response to African political organization was uneven and often disappointing” and, in respect of the struggle in the countryside “its [ANC] social and ideological orientation during the 1950s helped to distance it from rural culture.” See Saul (2014:53-54). My argument is that this problem also existed in the urban areas and undermined the power of the ANC’s mobilisation of the working class.

144 between broadly national political objectives and organizational initiatives on the one hand and the generation of local self-confidence and self-empowerment on the other.” Jonathan Grossman’s (1985) explanation is even more critical and is firmly rooted in class analysis and in what follows I will borrow from it. He argues that the ANC was led by petty bourgeois elements over the decades but in the 1940s and 50s the character of this petty bourgeoisie changed significantly, from doctors and clergy to teachers and lawyers (Grossman 1985:365). This new element did not have the connections with liberal sympathisers that the earlier group had, nor were they inclined to this form of struggle as a result of their radicalisation arising out of the turbulent political conditions at the time including the war, their own oppression and, more importantly, the increased combativity of the working class. However, their radicalisation must be carefully distinguished from the ebbs and flows of working class action because to conflate these, as the SACP and the ANC Youth League did, is fatal for analysis and political practice (Grossman 1985:502). The balance of forces are determined by the principal classes in society, the capitalist and the working classes, and the petty bourgeois find a bigger or lesser role in the light of the perimeters set by this class struggle. The 1950s were a theatre of struggle marked by the convergence and divergence of petty bourgeois and proletarian political activity and action. In 1944 when James Mpanza led the squatter movement, and there was a second bus boycott in Alexandra and strikes by power, coal, baking and milling workers, the ANC Youth League militants were still busy organising themselves to challenge the ANC leadership in order to win hegemony and implement their radical programme of action. When the ANC Youth League was ready and calling for the masses to take action, the working class was on the retreat as its various but separate struggles were being pushed back by the state for lack of coordination and mutual solidarity (Grossman 1985:237, Hirson 1989:161-162). This misalignment also related to the methods and targets of mass action with the petty bourgeois Youth Leaguers prone to substitute themselves for the masses rendering workers supporters rather than actors, choosing targets in line with their politics rather than those already identified by the working class in struggle, and capitulating to the enemy at crucial points of the struggle.170 Given this political tragi-comedy of errors it

170 Grossman (1985:480) points out that when the Sofasonke Party defied the law and set up Shantytown they fought to the bitter end and to victory. With the Defiance Campaign: “The law was now to be defied - but the punishment of defiance accepted. When a law was passed which specifically outlawed defiance …amongst some of the Campaign leadership…the defiance could no longer proceed.” Similarly, when the Suppression of Communism Act was passed, the CPSA resolved to dissolve itself in the light of this law rather than defying it: “Neither the 1962 programme nor the Party historians make any attempt to identify the source of these legalistic

145 is no wonder that the ANC and the SACP were unable to develop the full revolutionary and organisational potential of the period. 3.5 Shack dwellers and the United Democratic Front There is debate and controversy over the role of informal settlement dwellers in the struggle against apartheid during the upsurge of anti-apartheid struggle in the 1980s. On the one hand some writers have argued that in addition to, or together with, the townships, it was in the shacklands of South African cities and towns, where the poorest of the poor live, that political activism against the apartheid state was most pronounced (Marx 1992, Lucas 2000). On the other hand, others have taken the view that the poorest of the poor in fact tended to distance themselves from the township-based heightened political activism of the 1980s and that in some instances the distance between shack settlement and township politics was so great that it opened the door for the informal settlements to be used as springboards to launch pro- apartheid violence against the anti-apartheid movement (van Kessel 2000:62, 230; Cole 1987:40).171 The first assertion is premised on the theoretical postulation that those with little to lose, such as shack dwellers, have a lot to gain if they involve themselves in struggle. The second assertion argues the opposite stating that those with little tend to cling hard to it and do not want to risk the little that they have and hence distance themselves from political activism. These are two irreconcilable theoretical positions whose respective merits are hard to weigh in the abstract because they are based on different premises and visions of shack dwellers. For example, the first position tends to see this social group as part of the working class while the second position emphasises the distinction between the employed and unemployed, between the formally housed working class and the informally housed “underclass.” A promising approach to resolving this debate is to embark on an empirical investigation to find how shack dwellers have actually fared, in the past and in the present, in the course of the struggle against apartheid.

With respect to the immediate past, in what follows I briefly consider the United Democratic Front (UDF), an organisation that was formed in 1983 to unite and give focus to numerous local and sectoral struggles that were the hallmark of this period of heightened

illusions, the point at which they emerged, the process by which they arose, or the extent to which they affected other aspects of the Party's work and analysis” (Grossman 1985:478-479). 171 Van Kessel (2000:62) argues that: “Until 1989, squatters were less overtly confrontational toward the state than township residents. Many were illegal dwellers and therefore vulnerable. The visible, confrontational politics of civics and youth organisations had little appeal for squatters…they did not flock in large numbers toward township-based community organizations.” Cole (1987:40) relates how Crossroads informal settlements split into pro- and anti-UDF factions with the latter backed by the state and gaining the upper hand on the comrades many of whom were violently driven out of the settlement.

146 opposition to and mass action against apartheid (Clark and Worger 2004, Murray 1994, Seekings 2000a, van Kessel 2000). The UDF contributed a great deal to the final push against the apartheid system that saw the regime capitulate and agree to open negotiations with its anti- apartheid adversaries thus laying the basis for the ushering in of a democratic order. The UDF also facilitated the emergence of the ANC as a dominant player in the anti-apartheid opposition forces (van Kessel 2000:2).172 The success of the UDF should – rather than not – make us appreciate the important role played by the myriad of local organisations that were its affiliates in the struggle against the apartheid state. It is in any case at the level of the local that civic, street and block committees were formed and where the organisation and coordination of campaigns and actions that involved millions of ordinary South Africans in the anti-apartheid struggle took place.173 What role did shack dwellers and their organisations play in the UDF? This approach to the question of the role of shack dwellers in the struggle might resolve the debate in the concrete rather than in the abstract because it focuses on a particular period, the 1980s, and on a particular organisation that arguably represented a significant section of the anti-apartheid forces.

An important aspect of the UDF’s political approach was its claim that it represents “the people” as a whole (Seekings 2000a:61, van Kessel 2000:4).174 All sectors of society, barring the apartheid regime and its (official) supporters, were embraced as its constituency – it follows that it embraced shack dwellers. The question that has been debated in the literature is which voice or voices were politically dominant in the UDF? A multi-class organisation will in theory reflect everyone’s views but there will be an inflection towards one class and its interests and outlook rather than others. And even with respect to such a class particular elements or social groupings within it will have more influence than others. Officially the UDF embraced the idea of “working class leadership” but it has been argued that in practice it tended to be dominated by middle class leaders – the petty bourgeoisie – and was thus directed by “populist” rather than working class politics (van Kessel 2000:67, 71). This debate is not only found in the pages of historical commentators’ writings but was in fact a burning controversy at the time of the operation of the UDF. It divided the trade unions at the time into the so-called “workerist” and “populist” camps, and at some point turned violent when Black Consciousness

172 Van Kessel (2000:2) observes that: “The UDF played a vital role in bringing the banned African National Congress (ANC) back on the center stage of South African politics.” 173 Mostly, according to Seekings (2000a:121) the “UDF was forever ‘trailing behind the mases,’ as Popo Molefe [UDF general secretary] put it.” 174 The UDF’s founding declaration stated that its task was that of “uniting all our people wherever they may be, in the cities and countryside…” (Seekings 2000a:61).

147 organisations were declared “enemies of the people” by the UDF as the concept of race became entangled with that of class in the immediate sphere of political strategy.175 The UDF’s detractors accused it of neglecting the interests of the black working class in favour of a reformist politics that would likely serve the interests of the middle class and capital.176

Van Kessel (2000:304-305) has argued that the UDF did indeed neglect the interests of the poorest of the poor, or what she terms the “marginalized,” if not those of the working class per se, in a process she sees as “inclusion and exclusion” in the creation of a new nation. Her case studies conducted in Sekhukhune, Kagiso and Cape Town reveal that in the 1980s hostel and informal settlement dwellers did not seek affiliation with the UDF and that shack dwellers’ vulnerability given their tenuous foothold in the urban areas discouraged them from participation in “confrontational” politics with the state (van Kessel 2000:62-68). Indeed, with the dawn of the “new South Africa,” fissures in the people’s camp became apparent especially at the local level where “the marginalized and the outsiders in the new South Africa [became] most clearly visible: farmworkers, migrants, rural communities, squatters, immigrants, and sections of the youth, now dubbed ‘the lost generation’” (van Kessel 2000:305). With respect to the rise of “gigantic new squatter camps…around the main cities” this was due to tensions between township landlords and backyarders as the former increased rent in the context of housing shortages, overcrowding and rapid urbanisation (van Kessel 2000:305). It is the outcome as reflected in the plight of “the marginalised” in the post-apartheid order that inform and bolster her argument that the UDF was guilty of subsuming, and even neglecting, their interests in the course of the anti-apartheid struggle. There is a need to complement this ex post facto analysis with results from studies of the actual process of organisation and mobilisation of informal settlements during the era of the UDF such as in Alexandra township where shack dwellers lived side by side with formally-housed township folk.

Justine Lucas’s (2000) study of civic structures in Alexandra during the 1980s reveals that shack dwellers participated in different ways in the township grassroots organisation project as a result of different structural and political factors. She found a marked difference

175 Van Kessel (2000:38) observes that “the UDF was becoming more and more intolerant of those who refused to join forces under its wide umbrella. By early 1986, the UDF had excluded its Africanist rivals from ‘the people’s camp’ and was identifying them as enemy forces.” Seekings (2000a:146) notes that there was a view that “the UDF and ANC embraced the whole of the ‘people’s camp,’ and anyone else must therefore be part of the ‘ruling camp.’” 176 Zeilig (2016:90) notes that: “National liberation parties were frequently brutal popular fronts incorporating a vast array of contradictory forces, even in the radical ANC in South Africa, as Roger Southall writes, ‘there was a significant class element…which was distinctly pro-capitalist.’” He is referring to Southall (2013:92).

148 between the mode of participation of shack dwellers who lived in the township’s yards, consisting of about ten formal structures and ten shacks, and those who lived in free-standing shack settlements that filled the empty spaces inside and around the township. She argues that where there was no landlord relationship in a yard, the tenants tended to create and maintain a well-functioning yard committee that served to address the practical problems of the inhabitants and provide an enabling social environment for healthy social relations. The Alexandra Civic Organisation (ACO) provided the political guidelines for setting up such committees and used them to take forward its township-wide campaigns. ACO admitted that they had not done so well organising in the standalone shack areas as a result of not doing enough and apparently because their organisational model, based on yards, did not work well in these areas. There was also the problem of bad and opportunistic leadership whereby a “political entrepreneur” organized one shack settlement employing patronage and autocratic leadership giving rise to a “politics [that] was a combination of resistance, quasi-traditional leadership and intimidatory practices, a pattern that largely conforms to the stereo-type associated with informal settlements” (Lucas 2000:160).

Despite all the problems, Lucas (2000:173) observes that: “These yard committees are an inspiring example of self-organization and participatory democracy in the face of poor leadership and harsh material conditions.” She surmises that in civic organisation there are underlying factors that go beyond the quality of organisational leadership and political strategy. She observed that there appeared to be more social coherence, collectivism, co-operation and solidarity in the well-organised yards as a result of kinship and other social ties, while people living in the free-standing shacks had very little social connection and interaction with each in the past and present. She concludes that “civic organization [is] a complex phenomenon, with internal contradictions and frequent transformations generated by, and embedded in, social dynamics” and that while leadership and organisation are important, “a broader understanding of civics can only be addressed if one also undertakes to examine these underlying social dynamics” (Lucas 2000:174). This argument is related to her observation that at the local level political “support for the ANC [and participation in civic structures] has never been a purely political development. It often acted as a marker indicating social relations and identity, and embodying certain norms and values: in short, a political culture” (Lucas 2000:169). This conclusion points to the need to contextualise the debate about the propensity or otherwise of shack dwellers to participate in struggle. It is necessary to view political phenomena with a wider lens taking into account many surface factors and underlying dynamics such as those

149 identified by Lucas (2000). I would add an important aspect of the broader political context, namely, that “[t]he process of popular mobilisation took off in a general atmosphere of rising militancy throughout the country and of escalating state repression” (van Kessel 2000:302). This points to the centrality of class struggle reminding us that civic organisation in the townships and shack settlements is partly a reflection of the level of combativity of the working class and the response of the state to this underlying dynamic. Ideological clarity, organisational coherence and strategic proficiency on the part of the movement and its enemy decide the outcome in the course of specific encounters that all together decide the victor in the war.

3.6 Informal settlements and the struggle in post-apartheid South Africa

Informal settlements in South Africa have come a long way and their history can be roughly divided into the apartheid and post-apartheid era. The formal demise of apartheid arguably radically transformed state policy and the political terrain within which the struggles of the informal settlement dwellers to improve their conditions took place. It is however also the case that there have been many continuities between the past and the present and the main one, from the point of view of the informal dwellers themselves, being the fact that many continue to live in poor conditions. In this section I am going to consider how the literature has approached the plight of informal settlement and their struggle for adequate housing and viable livelihoods. However, my review will be selective as my main aim is to provide an “update” on the state of the struggle of informal dwellers in post-apartheid South Africa.

The earlier literature is important in providing a background to how the approaches and issues have changed over time. Baruch Hirson (1989) has written about the migration of African work seekers to the cities of South Africa in the first half of the 20th century and how they had to improvise their own accommodation in the absence of state provision. Studies conducted during and about this period focused on the sociological aspects of slum dwelling including highlighting the miserable conditions therein and attempted to understand the urbanisation processes involved (Hellman 1948, Longmore 1959, Mayer 1971). Subsequent studies covering diverse aspects of the urbanisation process and tended to focus on the Witswatersrand with some focusing on the informal settlements were published notably by the University of Witwatersrand’s History Workshop (Bonner 1990; Bozzoli 1987, 1991; Hindson 1983, Sapire 1988, 1992). This work has been complemented by various theses and dissertations focusing on various aspects of informal settlements and working class townships

150 including a body of work focusing on the history of forced removals of squatters and the resistance to this (Benson 2009, Kinkead-Weekes 1992, Kondlo 1993, Meier 2000, Silk 1981, Tshikotshi 2009).

The recent literature has dealt with the plight of informal settlements in post- apartheid South Africa motivated by a desire to understand why the problem of poorly housed people continues to exist and is mostly critical of government policies in this respect (Huchzermeyer 2009, 2011; Huchzermeyer and Karam 2006, Groenewald 2011). Some important detailed studies of poverty in the informal settlements have been recently conducted (Mosoetsa 2011). There is also a growing literature on social movements and resistance in the informal settlements (Gibson 2007, Pithouse 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, Thorn and Oldfield 2011) including some noteworthy dissertations and theses (Le Roux 2013, Pingo 2013), work conducted under the auspices of public interest organisations (Clark 2014, CALS 2006, Tselapedi and Dugard 2013), and work focusing on governance and participatory processes (Bénit-Gbaffou 2008a, 2008b; Miraftab and Willis 2005, Sinwell 2009). Pithouse’s prolific work has concentrated on the shack dwellers’ organisation, Abahlali baseMjondolo, which he has correctly projected as the biggest movement of shack dwellers’ in South Africa. However, his work has recently been questioned as a result of a controversy surrounding his political and academic relationship to this movement (See Mdlalose 2014). This has raised many issues about the ethics and veracity of academic research in the field of social movement studies and unfortunately served to distract attention away from the actual struggle of the shack dwellers which I turn to towards the end of this section.

The theoretical underpinning of explanations for the early growth of shacks in South Africa and government action to stop this is arguably characterized by the split between liberal and Marxist explanations whereby racism was blamed and seen as irrational by the liberals and greed was blamed and seen as rational (for profit-making) by the Marxists.177 A synthesis of the two poles of the debate suggests that the shack settlements grew because the pre-apartheid governments of segregation were keen to maintain the migrant labour system and were in any case reluctant to spend much on black housing. The apartheid government wanted to remove “black spots” in a project to keep South Africa white and segregated. The economic dynamics behind the mass evictions in the rural areas in the 1970s were explained by reference to the need to create a cheap supply of labour by evicting blacks from the white farms

177 See Friedman’s (2015) perceptive discussion of the liberal versus neo-Marxist debate in South Africa in the 1970s.

151

(Desmond 1971, Platzky and Walker 1985: 33). In the urban areas the explanation centred on apartheid’s influx control laws which Doug Hindson (1987) later questioned showing that these laws were not so much designed to keep blacks out of cities than to allocate black labour to sites where it was required. In sum, therefore, it was the needs of apartheid capitalism, with its racist, sexist and exploitative motivations, including the need for strict social control, which explained the growth and state attacks on the informal settlements – derogatively called “squatters” by the officials.

In post-apartheid South Africa analysts are challenged to explain why, despite the ANC government’s building over 2 million “RDP” (government-subsidised) houses, informal settlements proliferate. This is a question that apparently the government cannot answer and its response has been to strive to “eradicate slums in the ten year period ending in 2014” according to then Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu (2005). Not only have progressive scholars been opposed to this policy which amounts to a declaration of war against people who are actually victims of the government’s failure to solve the housing crisis, but they have had to explain why the government is doing this. Nigel Gibson (2011) and Pithouse (2008) have suggested that there is a process of gentrification arising out of the needs of the real-estate market. Zachary Levenson (2012) has disputed this on the grounds that it does not explain many evictions that occur in areas where it could be argued there is profit to be made from ground rent. Huchzermeyer (2004, 2011) focuses on government policy which she criticizes as being “high modernist” seeking to attract foreign investment by projecting an image of “world class” cities in which informal settlements are viewed as blotches. She is also critical of the “top-down” delivery of housing and the obsession with meeting targets (Huchzermeyer 2011). She advocates “the right to the city” a solution that Levenson (2012:139) finds unconvincing as a route to decommodification of shelter because it is based on a constitutionalism that is contradicted by the fact that “many of the gains Huchzermeyer does cite [by shack dwellers] have been won through circumvention of legal frameworks, not through them, most notably in the case of land invasions.”178 This suggests, as Purcell (2002:101) has argued, that many who invoke Lefebvre’s call for the right to the city may be unaware of the revolutionary implications of his position.

Two organisations have attempted to unite South Africa’s shackdwellers on a national basis, namely, Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Informal Settlements Network. The latter has

178 This is the more so because Huchzermeyer admirably supports militant shack dwellers’ movements such as Abahlali baseMjondolo. Levenson suggests that the problem is the limitations of rights discourse.

152 been drawn into a self-help and lobbying circle of organisations that are affiliated to the Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) and have formed a South African Alliance that includes, among others, the South African Homeless People’s Federation, organisations that pursue a strategy of the “politics of patience,” negotiation and accommodation rather than confrontation with the state authorities while demanding accountability and a bigger say for shack dwellers (SDI 2015, Khan and Pieterse 2004:3). Abahlali baseMjondolo is a shackdwellers’ organisation that is based in Durban and its surrounding areas and has a presence in Cape Town which has adopted a social movement form of politics (Gibson 2007). These two organisations are relatively small in relation to the potentially vast constituency they could organise. The organising strategies of Abahlali baseMjondolo have worked somewhat but there is clearly room for growing the movement nationally. Abahlali have been victims of state repression including violent attacks and arrests (Neocosmos 2009:1). The movement’s mission to unite shack dwellers on a broadly left-leaning pro-working class struggle platform is politically significant.

Do informal settlement dwellers vote for the ANC? This is an important question which my research suggests should be answered in the affirmative. Support for the ANC is evident in the naming of the settlements after struggle heroes such as Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo, Winnie Mandela, Elias Motsoaledi, etc. My research suggests that the ANC was associated with the fall of the apartheid regime which was accompanied by the collapse of the influx control system that stopped black workers coming into the towns and a weakening of the state’s ability or willingness to demolish squatter camps. As a result many informal settlements were established during this time of transition from the apartheid to the democratic order. Political histories of informal settlements considered here suggest that the ANC was able to capitalise upon this movement and turn it into electoral support for itself, for example, Duncan Village, Thembelihle and Nkaneng. My own experience as a former ANC local leader and campaigner suggests that informal settlements are regarded as an important source of votes by the ruling party. The practice of voting for the ANC is related to this history of the transition to democracy and the fact that this party has the power to build houses and shack dwellers look to it for this. Even when the ANC disappoints electoral support for it is maintained. Analysts such as Susan Booysen (2007:31) have noted how communities protest against the ANC-led government but, come elections, continue voting ANC. However, as we will see in the Thembelihle and Nkaneng case studies below, the apparently unassailable electoral advantage enjoyed by the ANC might be under threat in some settlements.

153

Informal settlement communities have a history of sometimes making common cause with township residents according to local conditions, politics and circumstances. This was clearly the case in Duncan Village where historically there was a closer cooperation and solidarity between those who live in shacks and in brick houses. However, my informants and other researchers suggest that this bond has weakened over time (Ndhlovu 2015:58). In other areas it is poorly-housed township people who leave their cramped homes or rented rooms to occupy land and set up settlements. This becomes a basis for solidarity across the two constituencies. In other areas there historically exist obstacles to this including race, class, politics and other factors. Organised labour in South Africa has in many instances not made common cause with working class communities, nor with shack dwellers (Ngwane 2012). This could be related to the lowering of struggle and possibly demobilisation and fragmentation of the workers’ movement that accompanied the transition to democracy which some commentators argue allowed for the continued dominance of capital without strong opposition from the working class (Alexander 2002). The ANC-SACP-COSATU Alliance is said to have stemmed union militancy and being unwilling to unite labour and community struggles. This phenomenon was observed in the case of the squatter movement in the 1940s whereby the ANC and SACP at the time did not readily reach out to or support the movement.

The Marikana Massacre, 16 August 2012, gave rise to a new mood of willingness to struggle and a spirit of defiance among ordinary people in struggle in South Africa. Many land invasions and house occupations that happened in the period after the massacre were named Marikana, for example, the occupation of government houses in Mzimhlophe, Soweto; the informal settlement born of a land invasion in Philippi, Cape Town; the informal settlement born of a land invasion in Tlokwe, Potchefstroom, the land invasion in Durban, etc. (Ngwane 2015:23, Pithouse 2014:191-195). Clearly Marikana grabbed the popular imagination as a struggle that showed determination in the face of heavy odds. Informal settlements are in the cauldron of the burgeoning community protest movement in South Africa with the Rebellion of the Poor Project at the University of Johannesburg estimating that 21% of the protests are by informal settlement dwellers or in informal settlements (Maruping, Mncube and Runciman 2014:30). The country has seen an increase in the number of community protests that suggests an impending upsurge in struggle (Ngwane 2012, 2015).

The history of the shack dwellers’ movement in various parts of South Africa from the mid-twentieth century to the present suggests that the structural conditions facing this social group of mostly working people compels them to express their agency in their struggle in the

154 face of these conditions. They do so through organising themselves and by developing strategies and mechanisms of challenging the authorities with a view towards accessing housing and other basic services that they require. This often includes organising themselves to provide such services themselves beginning with taking over land and building their own shelters. At various times and places they face a hostile state that not only fails to provide such services but is often intent on demolishing their flimsy shelters and forcibly relocating them. They may in many instances find themselves isolated, stigmatized and divided from the broader working class because of state policy and the differences in circumstances and problems including the peculiarity of their situation which is often characterized by extreme insecurity and vulnerability vis-à-vis the rest of the class. However, this impediment in building unity in struggle is sometimes overcome as a result of unifying ideological and practical bases for collective action including the identification of a common enemy. Today shack dwellers continue with their organisations and movements in the light of the continued hardships they face as a result of the failure of states to provide them with adequate shelter and services. In South Africa their struggle is a legacy of and finds inspiration in the history of apartheid- capitalist marginalization and oppression and the resistance to this.

3.7 Conclusion

In this chapter I linked theory to history by way of considering the question of self-organisation in the shack settlements within a broader context of struggle in South Africa. I began by looking at the process of proletarianisation in South Africa focusing on the Eastern Cape considering the literature informed by Banaji’s (2010) theoretical insights which approach social development from a dialectical rather the rigid formulas of crude Marxism. My critical assessment of the 1952 Defiance Campaign in South Africa hopefully brought out what is an enduring theme in this chapter and dissertation, namely, an argument against nationalistic particularism in favour of class analysis and internationalist universalism. I ended the chapter with a consideration of the South African literature on informal settlements in which I concluded by implying that it is struggle rather than policy debates or constitutionalism that will secure decent housing for the shack dwellers. I will develop this argument further in Chapter 10 in the light of the empirical data which I present in the following chapters starting off with a discussion on methodology in the next chapter.

155

CHAPTER 4

METHODOLOGY

4.1 Introduction

In a world wreaked by crises of various kinds, political, economic, social and cultural, there seems to be a greater responsibility on those who conduct scientific research to come up with solutions to problems facing humanity. This raises the question of the relationship between research methodology and the scientific model assumed by researchers. The model is underpinned by philosophical questions such as what are the goals of scientific inquiry. I think it is important to continually re-examine these questions rather than assume that there is a consensus on the answers. In other words, I am arguing for a re-examination of the means and ends of social scientific research in the light of the crises facing humanity in the 21st century.

In this chapter I will address philosophy of science questions before delving into methodological issues which are directly related to my research into the popular committeees found in shack settlements. With respect to the former I will explore the relationship between science, social practice, ethics and politics, and the implications for the scientific model we assume when conducting social research. With respect to the latter I will discuss my research approach, design and techniques including the problems and issues that came up in the course of conducting my fieldwork. For the sake of clarity my presentation will be done in this form: 1) reflections on the theoretical and practical components of my study, 2) an exposition of two contrasting approaches to scientific social inquiry and, 3) a presentation of the research methods and techniques employed.

4.2 The necessity of a “public sociology” What is the purpose of science in society? This question has been answered in different ways over time particularly as it relates to social scientific inquiry (Comte 1844, Gouldner 1970, Mills 1959:5-7). There was, initially, a close identification between the moral good, human progress and the promise of science as a form of knowledge.179 Over time science came to be seen more and more as a kind of morally neutral technology that operated according to its own internal laws rather than influenced in any direct way by questions of morality. While this view

179 Burawoy (2004:5) suggests: “In its beginning sociology aspired to be such an angel of history, searching for order in the broken fragments of modernity, seeking to salvage the promise of progress.” This is in relation to Marx, Durkheim and Weber.

156 could be sustained with limited success in the natural sciences, the attempt to transfer it to the social sciences met stiff opposition especially as it relates to method (Kuhn 1962, Lazarsfeld and Rosenburg 1955, Popper 1959, Weber 1949). In Sociology, the debate between the positivists and those who advocated the interpretative method revolved around questions of epistemology and ontology but underlying it was a deeper disagreement between means and ends, about the raison d'être of the discipline and its relationship to society (Habermas 1971). Marx’s class approach raised the stakes considerably when he argued that science was irretrievably enmeshed in social relations and inevitably served one or other class in a society riven by class contradictions (Marx 1975, Marx and Engels 1965). Over the years the debate has taken many twists and turns often reflecting the balance of social and intellectual power in society. At the dawn of the twenty-first century leading sociologists have called for a morally accountable and politically interventionist sociology, a return to the source (of the founding pioneers of the discipline) as it were. Thus Michael Burawoy (2004), in his presidential speech to the International Sociological Association, made a strong plea for a “public sociology” in addition to the professional, critical and policy types of sociology. An important and interesting debate ensued (Burawoy 2004; Clawson et al. 2007; de Lagasnerie 2011; Webster 2004).180

There is some discomfort about the position and role of social science vis-à-vis the inequality, oppression and exploitation found in the world. Edward Said’s seminal work on the role of knowledge production in conquest and colonial domination opened the door to fundamental critiques of the social sciences as developed in the advanced and imperialist capitalist societies (Said 1995, Childs and Williams 1997). Marxist scholars, in addition to post-colonial theorists, have also written on the role of social science as handmaiden of colonialism and class domination (e.g. Banaji 1970). The critique not only pries open positivism’s defences related to its claims to neutrality and objectivity, but it seeks to impose an obligation upon social science to help undo the damage that it helped create. This is a call for a kind of scientific reparations whereby scientists are required to set up research programmes based on the decolonisation problematic (Kerr 2014, Zavala 2013). However, the injustices emanating from the capitalist system have not only visited people in the South. The neoliberal scourge has seen the dismantling of the welfare state, brutal austerity programmes, rising inequalities, high poverty levels, foreclores, less democracy, and so on; this is happening throughout the world including in the advanced capitalist countries (Harvey 2005). The calls

180 See also Burawoy (2003b) Gouldner (1970, 1973), Gans (2002), Jacoby (1987).

157 for a “public sociology” or a socially conscious social science appears most appropriate and it arguably traverses the continentally and historically-bound post-colonial theory intervention, with important and diverse contextual effects.

There is an impending crisis for humanity as a whole. The global economic crisis appears insoluble especially if the world’s ruling classes insist on sticking to their policy positions despite the catastrophic consequences for other people.181 Analysts of neoliberalism point out how governments increasingly lose their sovereignty and are reduced to being transmission belts for policies developed by the economic elite (Cox 1987:253-256, Robinson 2004:125 quoted in Cox and Nilsen 2014:148).182 State processes and policies are subjected to the power and needs of capital rather than the subaltern classes (Amin 2011, Nabudere 2006, Sylla 2014). In South Africa, the nation and the world is still reeling from the Marikana Massacre where state and capital colluded in spilling the blood of workers on strike (Alexander 2013, Alexander et al. 2012). It is in such a context that sociology and its community of scholars have to face their nemesis and answer the call to engage themselves in and to support a “public sociology.” In the words of Burawoy (2004:24): “In times of market tyranny and state despotism, sociology—and in particular its public face—defends the interests of humanity.” Following Gramsci, Burawoy (2004:7, 8, 23) locates sociology in the sphere of civil society and argues that now is the time for intellectuals, traditional and “organic public sociologists,” to take up the cudgels in defence of this very civil society which is under threat of being quashed by dominant interests. Gramsci’s (1971) theory of hegemony alerts us to the importance of the sphere of civil society in the struggle to cement or undermine the (brutal) status quo.

In South Africa, the practice of public sociology faces some problems that are specific to post-apartheid society, a social formation that came about as a result of a “passive revolution” (Hart 2013:315, 2014:225).183 The concept refers to a situation where major reforms in the political and economic functioning of a country are imposed from the top by “a narrow, modernizing elite” (Budd 2007:1). An important aspect of the passive revolution in

181 The 2000-2015 long Greek economic crisis is an example of how, in the words of Mészáros (1995:xiv), “globally saturated monopoly capital cannot tolerate…the practice of parliamentary political pluralism that once upon time could provide the self-justification of reformist social democratic strategies.” 182 However, this assessment ignores complexity and must be corrected by noting that transnational capital ingratiates and integrates with the “politico-administrative elites” thus forging intimate links (Cox and Nilsen 2014:149). 183 Callinicos (2010:492) understands “passive revolution” to be “one of Gramsci’s most fertile ideas, which seeks to conceptualise processes through which systemic transformations are achieved by non-revolutionary means.”

158

South Africa was the denouement of a vigorous and critical academic corps that had developed during the struggle against apartheid.184 Many radical social scientists who had served the working class movement and the struggle against apartheid joined the government or the business sector and arguably abandoned the practice of critical scholarship, as did many unionists, civic, women and youth leaders. As one commentator lamented, “during the decade [something] changed perceptibly in South Africa’s practical political life: the gradual ebbing of the strategic clarity of progressive forces as all manner of deal-making exercises ensued” (Debate 1997 in Bond 2000b:xxiv). It has been argued that many academic intellectuals who constituted the Marxist left during the struggle embraced neoliberal policies and worked hard to implement these in their newfound positions.185 This development has led to lamentations about the blunting of what was once a critically sharp sociological scholarship in the country (Sitas 1997:12). This suggests a great need for a type of scholarship and research that replenishes and reinforces the denuded ranks of public sociology in the country.

4.3 Positivism or reflexivity? At stake in South Africa is a revolution that, to use Martin Murray’s (1994) words, was “deferred.” This situation has been described in various ways but is perhaps captured succinctly by Neville Alexander (2002:64) when he states that:

Ownership and control of the commanding heights of the economy, the repressive apparatuses of the state, despite the ingestion of former guerillas by the army and the police, the judiciary, the top echelons of the civil service, of tertiary education and strategic research and development, have remained substantially in the same hands as during the heyday of apartheid.

This lack of transformation, especially as it relates to the control of the economy, in a world characterized by the ascendancy of neoliberal economics and the concomitant despotic dominance of finance capital, has had and continues to have dire consequences for the masses. Most social indicators related to human development suggest that, given “the chronic, apparently irremediable pauperization of more than half of the population because of the consistently rising rates of unemployment, large doses of hardship, pain and suffering are the daily lot of the majority of people” (Alexander 2002:7). These are the realities that, I would

184 Late apartheid experienced the rise of vigorous neo-Marxist scholarship in South Africa, for example, Legassick, Wolpe, Davies, Saul, Webster, van Onselen, Moodie, Innes, Hindson, etc. See Burawoy (2003b) and Friedman (2015). 185 Bond (2000b) provides evidence of ideological turncoats who worked in the sphere of housing and urban policy.

159 like to argue, provide the context for a consideration of the methodological debate between positivist and reflexive sociology.

If we start with the methodological question: which is the most appropriate method to create knowledge about social reality? We immediately notice that this begs another question: what types of knowledge are worth our while? These questions summarise the centrality of a scientific model, that is, the particular philosophy of science that informs our approach to research. Auguste Comte is introduced to sociology students as the “founder” of sociology (Coser 1977). He pioneered positivism arguing that social science must adopt the methods of natural science because social reality operated according to certain laws that could be discovered (Comte:1866). He warned against entanglement with the object of one’s study advocating distance and the mediation of investigative procedures because there was a truth out there that the scientist had to discover uncontaminated with his or her perceptions, values and the related. Early critics of Comte contested his notion of objectivity as not only impossible but not even desirable.186 Comte had followers such as Durkheim (2013) who embraced but modified his method. Over the course of time positivism took many different guises but in essence its advocates are unable to sustain the basic arguments of the approach and today’s positivists are those sociologists who prefer survey methods over ethnography, or who insist on the approach because they view it as more scientific and rigorous and necessary in the light of the manifold complexities of social reality (Cicourel 1964, Lazarsfeld and Rosenburg 1955). Perhaps more importantly, positivism still manages to tap into the power of the idea that the social scientist must be “neutral” or not allow his or her political or moral judgments to influence their research production.

“Reflexivity” can be understood, in computer parlance, as the idea that engagement with reality is not unilinear but has a feedback loop, and there is a give and take between cause and effect, between the subject and the object. With respect to social research it is the recognition that the study of human beings is conducted by human beings who are already enmeshed in the social relations and systems that they seek to study and as such cannot do so “from the outside” (Gouldner 1973:104).187 This way of thinking can be traced back to

186 Wilhem Dilthey (1883), for example, made a strong case for the “humanities” arguing that human nature was not only not amenable to the so-called scientific method, but that knowledge so produced would be wrong. 187 In his argument against Weber’s “salvational myth of a value-free social science,” Gouldner (1973:115,116) proposes that “one possible meaning of objectivity in social science is the contribution it might make to a human unity of mankind. But to make such a contribution the social sciences cannot and should not be impartial toward human suffering; they must not make their peace with any form of human unity that complacently accommodates itself to or imposes suffering.”

160 humanistic philosophers, phenomenologists, existentialists, scholars of hermeneutics, etc. Its implication is that we need a different approach when studying human affairs because the scientist cannot escape implication, so to speak, from the object of his or her inquiry. It is fair to note that Comte also thought that scientific sociology had a duty to lead and improve society, an idea that some of his followers divested from the positivist system (Mill 1865, Durkheim 2013). Marx argued that Marxism was a science at the service of humanity because of its partisan stance vis-à-vis the class struggle (Marx 1844a). This idea has been taken forward within the discipline of sociology and is related to the call for a public sociology. In general “reflexivity” has been used by those who want to explicitly use their social research and scholarship to benefit society, especially to help those perceived as underprivileged or otherwise in need of support. It is also an answer to the methodological difficulties arising from positivism and is popular in ethnographic research.

How than can we reconcile or choose between positivism and reflexivity? Burawoy (2009:39), a major proponent of reflexivity, refuses to altogether reject positivism, or what he calls “positive science,” because he thinks it has its uses within its own logic. This is related to his broad definition of science as “falsifiable and generalizable explanations of empirical phenomena” (Burawoy 2009:23). However, he advocates a “reflexive science,” defined as an approach that embraces and uses the scientist’s being part of social reality rather than seeing this as a hindrance (Burawoy 2009:39). He suggests a number of principles and procedures in this respect, namely, the researcher should be regarded as a participant and as such enters into dialogue with the object of his inquiry. In the collection of data the participant observer is guided by theory against which he or she bounces off findings both to test the theory and guide the empirical investigation. Reflexive science uses the ethnographic method which seeks to understand social process through grasping the meanings and routines that constitute the subject’s life. It is in essence an exercise in the understanding and interpretation of culture (Geertz 1973:5).188 Burawoy (2009:23) defines “ethnography” simply as “writing about the world from the standpoint of participant observation.”189 Burawoy advocates the research

188 Geertz (1973:5) explains the ethnographic approach thus: “Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning.” 189 I propose that my research methodology approximates and aspires to be ethnography. This is a deference to the vast amount of experience amassed by practitioners of the craft and its complexities. Burawoy (2009:17) suggests that: “There is no way to predetermine how long the observer is in the field, but it has to be long enough to discern the social processes that give integrity to the site.” The nature of my research design and practical constraints precluded me from spending as much time as I would have wished for in the various sites that I conducted my research in.

161 method he calls the “extended case method” whereby the researcher more or less uses various techniques, primarily observation, interviews and theoretical sensibility to understand the subject of inquiry. The researcher must enter into a dialogue with the subject, and locate this in a second dialogue between local processes and “external forces,” and then relate this to theory (Burawoy 2009:90). Theory is key to the whole exercise and it is deployed deductively rather than inductively, that is, it is explicitly assumed before going into the field rather than deemed to “emerge” from the data as positivists would have it. The dialogue between the researcher and the researched, the relationship between the local and broader societal processes, and the exchange between theory and data, and theory with other theories, all these factors constitute the extended case method and its foundation, reflexive science.

Burawoy’s (2004) contribution is a brilliant synthesis and affirmation of how engaged and radical scholars have been conducting research or could do so. He makes very useful methodological and theoretical insights building upon a research tradition that already exists: strengthening, clarifying and legitimating it in the eyes of the scientific community. His methodology is open, flexible and adaptable; it can be used by all those who wish to conduct research that uses or approximates the ethnographic approach. The power of his contribution perhaps lies in what must be his underlying purpose, namely to develop a method that is compatible with a public sociology. As such there is a lot in common and of use in his approach to “activist scholarship,” that is, participatory research and other approaches that seek to reduce the gap between the world of the researcher and the researched as a mechanism to facilitate intervention in the political process.190 His emphasis on theory and his motivation for the development of a “research programme” that is informed by theoretical and political tenets provides guidance and space for researchers to develop long-term individual and/or collaborative projects that are more likely to have an impact on the social process than once- off studies. His methodological approach and scientific model is the one that I broadly embraced and used in conducting my research. I now turn to the specifics on how I carried this out in practice. It will be apparent that although I had to make certain important adjustments to his extended case study method, it proved useful in providing basic guidelines especially when conducting fieldwork.

190 Participatory Action Research is a model that is premised on conducting research that is relevant and contributes to human emancipation (Cornwall and Jewkes 1995, Freire 1972, Rahman 1993:5, Sinwell 2009:30).

162

4.4 Research methods I will first report on my research design which consisted of two phases, namely, a survey of informal settlements found in four provinces in South Africa and in-depth fieldwork conducted in four identified research sites that I called “case studies.” This is followed by an account of the research methods (techniques) that I used in the field. These were primarily interviews, observation and documentary analysis. I also relied on “inside” information that I have gained over the years as a participant in people’s organisations and movements. The report below is interspersed with a consideration of strengths and weaknesses, challenges and lessons that emerged in the course of my research. It will be apparent that at the heart of my empirical investigation was a set of theoretical propositions that I continually tested by rubbing the data against them. This process was ongoing throughout the study, and continuous in the writing. A brief discussion of this theory-data dialectic constitutes the concluding part of this chapter.

4.4.1 Research design In this section I explain the logic behind my research design provide reasons for the selection of the informal settlements that constituted my research sites. My research design consisted of two phases, namely, an overview excursion involving visits to many research sites and a few in-depth case studies. This was necessitated by the need, on the one hand, to have a broad overview of the state of local organisation in South Africa’s informal settlements because there is not much information in the literature concerning the state and extent of self-organisation in informal settlements in the post-apartheid era. There was also a need, on the other hand, for the in-depth case studies that sought to approximate the ethnographic method by conducting interviews and observing “the rhythm of their [informal settlements dwellers’] life, in their space and their time” (Burawoy 2009:17). The first phase was a broad overview that took the form of an excursion visiting at least 46 informal settlements in the provinces of Gauteng, North West, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. This was an adaptation of the survey method associated with quantitative research methods and the positivist approach to social research. However, as was mentioned above, unlike other researchers such as Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) who set out to create a distinctive philosophical foundation and scientific model for a reflexive sociology, Burawoy (2009:39) advocates “a methodological dualism – the coexistence and interdependence of two models of science – positive and reflexive.”191 In

191 Burawoy (2009:283) motivates his position thus: “The distinction between reflexive and positive science does not have ontological foundations; it does not depend on the nature of the world being studied…but in the relation of scientist to object.” This suggests that both approaches are also applicable in the natural sciences.

163 any case once I arrived at a research site I proceeded to use ethnographic or qualitative methods. In this dissertation I refer to the first phase of the study as the “overview” or the survey research visits. . The overview proved very fruitful in that it established the existence of processes of self- organisation in 45 of the 46 informal settlements visited.192 This had been my “hunch” based on the literature and my own experiences with informal settlements. It also affirmed my theoretical assumption concerning working class self-organisation.193 The method of the overview was simple, I just drove up into an informal settlement and asked the first person I met where I could find the ikomiti. However, I should first explain the method of selecting the informal settlements visited.

A number of factors had to be considered in selecting the research sites including geographic spread whereby I used South Africa’s provinces which arguably, because of history, social and economic processes, contained certain distinctive feature. For example, Gauteng is without doubt the industrial heartland of the country and the most urbanized; North West is a largely rural province within which is found the world’s largest deposits of platinum (Capps 2012:66). It is also the case that the North West contained the biggest number of shacks per capita in the country (StatsSA 2011c:26).194 There are nine provinces in South Africa. Time and other resource constraints did not allow me to conduct research in every province. The selection of the four provinces and 46 informal settlements visited was in any case not meant to be representative because it would be difficult to argue that a province or informal settlement “represents” another. It is also the case that the positivist notion of representativeness is based on the study of individuals whereas “the situation rather than the individual is the unit of analysis” in my study (Burawoy 2009:282).195 While finding various types of committees was theoretically satisfying, it begged the question of why and how the committees existed and thus

192 Based on the 2011 official census, it is estimated that 6.8 million people live in shacks in South Africa among a total population of 51.7 million people (StatsSA 2011d). See footnote no. 65 in Chapter 1 of this dissertation. 193 This is the idea from Marx (1970) of the “organic capacity of the working class” as the revolutionary subject. Left circles have codified this in the idea of the ‘self-activity’ of the working class. See Mandel (1995) and Mandel and Novack (2002). 194 According to the 2011 national census 13.6% of South African households lived in informal dwellings; the North West province leads with 21.2% living in informal dwellings. 195 To explain this: “Situation effects threaten the principle of representativeness. Insofar as meaning, attitudes, and even knowledge do not reside with individuals but are constituted in social situations, we should be sampling from a population of social situations and not a population of individuals. But we have no idea how to determine the population of relevant social situations, let alone how to draw a sample” (Burawoy 2009:36-37). Further: “We do not worry about the uniqueness of our case since we are not as interested in its ‘representativeness’ as its contribution to ‘reconstructing’ theory” (Burawoy 1998:16).

164 necessitated further investigation in the form of the case studies. I refer to the different types of committees as “categories” of committees because of variations in their character and operation despite appearing to be of one “type.”

The second phase of the study consisted of in-depth investigation of four case studies in order to delve deeper and identify the internal structural factors, political dynamics and meanings that shape the character of local organisation in the shack settlements. The case study method is the most appropriate in covering contextual conditions and uncovering underlying factors that may not be immediately apparent to the observer (Yin 1984). The four cases were Duncan Village in East London, Nkaneng in Rustenburg, Thembelihle in Johannesburg, and Nhlalakahle, in Pietermaritzburg. Due to time constraints the analysis of the latter case study has not been included in this dissertation as it proved cumbersome to compare four case studies. However, the data and insight emerging therefrom has not been lost with some of it integrated in the overall findings of the study.196 The case studies proved very useful in shedding more light and complementing the data collected in the first (overview) phase of the study. During the analysis the case study material helped clarify some factors that emerged but could not be fully grasped in the course of the overview and, in turn, the overview provided a broader context and background for the second phase of the study. For example, it was difficult to explain why a certain category of committee existed and not another in an informal settlement. In this way the overview also generated the questions that guided the case study phase of the research. This process was arguably an aspect of the reflexivity of this approach to research.

What are the methodological underpinnings of the selection of case studies in my research? There is a literature developing around a “multi-sited ethnography” that is inspired partly by world systems and postmodernist approaches whereby more than one research site or case is studied (Marcus 1995:86).197 Burawoy (2009:202) advocates this approach preferring to call it the “multicase method” because of his desire to avoid the positivist trap of adopting a so-called non-theoretical empiricist attitude (the research site “speaks for itself”) rather than recognizing that the researcher brings theory into the field and as such constitutes the site “into a case of something” as per the researcher’s inquiry and theoretical attitude. This proved to be true in my case whereby my choice of which of the 46 informal settlements I would select as case studies was and could only be theoretically informed. A discussion with my supervisor,

196 It is my intention to take further the analysis of the data from Nhlalakahle in my planned post-doctoral scholarship writing. 197 Marcus (1995:86) notes that this is a “mobile ethnography [that] takes unexpected trajectories in tracing a cultural formation across and within multiple sites of activity.”

165

Professor Peter Alexander, considered various practical and theoretical factors before I chose the four sites based on geography (they had to be in different provinces), size (some had to be large settlements and some smaller), history (one, Duncan Village, was chosen because of its illustrious and well-documented history of anti-apartheid era civic organization and struggle), accessibility (my very close acquaintance with Thembelihle would greatly facilitate this and provide an element of “insider” information), etc. Underlying these considerations and choices was my theory of working class self-organisation whereby, following Marx (1970), I postulated that material conditions impel workers to organize themselves in their struggle to wrest a living and against a class enemy.

4.4.2 Research techniques My primary techniques of investigation or research methods were the interview, observation and documentary analysis. Most interviews were one-to-one but I also conducted a few group interviews (See list of areas visited and people interviewed in the appendices, Section 11.3). With respect to observation, it took two forms, namely, formal or “outsider” observation and participant observation. The latter included participating in the activities of community under observation as one of them, that is, in the course of political activism. The latter refers to research conducted in Thembelihle, an informal settlement I have visited over a decade in this capacity. The next four sections look at the use of each of these methods in the course of my investigation.

4.4.3 The interview

The interview is the most direct and immediate way of getting information from participants and, depending on how it is used, can prove to be a fruitful conversation for both researcher and researched. Once rapport has been established, people are often keen to share their thoughts and experiences because of the inherent benefits of sociality arising from interpersonal communication.198 The semi-structured in-depth interview serves the purpose of allowing the researcher to ask questions of “greater depth” for research purposes. As Johnson (2002:105) argues:

[the in-depth interview is useful] where the knowledge sought is often taken for granted and not readily articulated by most members, where the research question involves

198 I base this on general social psychological principles whereby communication is an essential aspect of being human. Sharing one’s thoughts and listening to another doing the same is a normal and often enjoyable process. See Ramaraju (2012:71) and Schutz (1958).

166

highly conflicted emotions, where different individuals or groups involved in the same line of activity have complicated, multiple perspectives on some phenomenon.

I would argue that it also allows the informant to share a bit of his or her humanity with the researcher, an exercise that people find satisfying. The situations mentioned by Johnson (2002:105) are aspects of life that people sometimes do not talk about and therefore deal with or confront. A well-handled interview provides a “safe environment” for an informant to ponder over some issues, clarify their thoughts and emotions, and could even have an unintended therapeutic effect. These remarks underlie the relevance of Burawoy’s reflexive approach whereby research is conducted in real life and involves dialogue, and dialogue is a two-way stream, that is, it cannot just be about the researcher’s intentions and priorities. The semi-structured and in-depth interview has got its limitations in that the interviewer must walk a thin line between prioritising his or her research objectives, coaxing the informant to answer the questions asked, and allowing the latter to tell their story without too much structuring, leading and even silencing of some aspects by the interviewer.

The problem of what positivist science would regard as “contamination” of the research site or the undue impact of the researcher on the responses of the researched is approached quite differently by reflexive science. The latter accepts that the interview is “an intervention” into the life of the person being interviewed.199 This is what positivist science calls “reactivity” and which must be minimised, a view not shared by reflexologists who believe that this situation, where the informant is taken out of her routine, can be beneficial as it can provoke revealing responses that normally would not be visible (Burawoy 2009:39). This is a challenge and a profound reassurance for someone like myself who was trained in positivist research methods and in both quantitative and qualitative methods.200 In practice I tend to follow the reflexive method but abstractly inside my head I am often left uncomfortable because of this training. From this point of view the elaboration, promotion and legitimation of the reflexive method is a liberation for social scientists trapped in the clutches of positivist training and sensibilities.201

199 Burawoy (2009:39): “The interview extracts her [interviewee] from her own space and time and subjects her to the space and time of the interviewer.” 200 In my first job after university study I worked for a research institute conducting research from a positivist perspective including conducting excruciating quantitative analysis of qualitative data (content analysis). 201 Burawoy (2009:31-32) demonstrates how a positivist social scientist in practice “radically destabilizes his methodological principles” of the ‘4Rs’, namely reliability, replicability, representativeness and the injunction against reactivity.

167

There is a problem of the limitations of the interview method whereby asking people about “something that happened in the past the interviewees may not have remembered exactly what happened. Moreover, over time they may have subconsciously remembered only what they wanted to” (Sinwell 2009:26). This is a problem. However, from a reflexive point of view this should not be a great problem if there are other means to “verify” the facts as indeed we should. It is important to note that the power of reflexivity is to turn an apparent weakness into strength, that is, we need to take note and inquire why people choose to remember and forget certain aspects of history. Often people remember the past in a way that helps them deal with the present and I imagine it is those links that researchers ought to establish in understanding and theorising about social reality. A technique that I used in the field in circumstances such as this was to raise the question again in subsequent interviews and then present the informant with the “accurate” facts. Often this yielded “gold.”202 Similarly, there can be a problem of “interviewing different groups of people about the same event, I sometimes saw that there were conflicting versions of what happened” (Sinwell 2009:26). This is, from the point of view of reflexivity, to be expected as people engage with reality according to their predilections, intentions and interests. Ours is to “dig deeper” for the reasons behind the different interpretations of events in order the better to understand the meanings, interests and dynamics of the situation.

There exists also the “problem” whereby in one settlement my informants tended to be concentrated on one side of the political divide in a highly factionalised community, Nkaneng, as a result of snowball sampling. In such a situation one has to make a judgment call whether to make the best of the situation by finding out more from that particular group or to risk losing its trust by ingratiating oneself with the other group. Fortunately though tending to lean to one faction (the ANC “region”) I was still able to interact and access informants and information from the other group (allied to the independent councilor). Being clearly an outsider, an observer and interviewer, and driving an official-looking car with a university logo, made things easier and defined my neutrality despite attempts to present me as the man from the (ANC) head office by one grassroots ANC leader. Since this faction was a very active group that in some instances was hard at work doing door-to-door work in the community, organising

202 Sinwell (2009:44): “As the interview was coming to a close, this leader gave me the ‘gold’. There was no prompting necessary and no question that could have been asked in order to receive what was, to me, unfiltered commentary about…”

168 the Department of Home Affairs’ ID-issuing roadshow, and so on, in some instances I had to join in and help, making me a participant observer.

4.4.4 Participant observation

“The first principle [of the extended case method],’’ according to Burawoy (2009:17), “is the extension of the observer into the community being studied. The observer joins the participants in the rhythm of their life, in their space and their time.” I was able to do this to a limited extent in the case of two research sites, namely, Duncan Village and Nkaneng-Bleskop where I spent two three-week long visits in each area in the course of a year. I feel that I did not spend enough time in the two areas and would have preferred to have stayed longer. However: “The second principle is the extension of observations over time and space. There is no way to predetermine how long the observer is in the field, but it has to be long enough to discern the social processes that give integrity to the site” (Buroway 2009:17). I think it was long enough to achieve my purpose but a longer stay would have deepened my insights. It was the constraints of time and resources that kept me from staying longer especially because the two areas are quite far from Gauteng where I live. In the course of my visits I was however able to conduct interviews with some key informants, attend some meetings, observe a few community activities, and spent some time engaged in informal conversations with locals. It also helped that during the overview research phase I visited these research sites in addition to conducting research in the other settlements. I also made a special additional week-long visit to Nkaneng in order to fill some gaps in my data. On reflection I should have used the telephone more especially with those informants who were enthusiastic and had said they were open to follow-up telephonic interviews.

The case of my participant observation in Thembelihle is special. Through my political activism as a member of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, Anti-Privatisation Forum, Operation Khanyisa Movement, Socialist Group and Democratic Left Front I have repeatedly visited the settlement which is about 10 km away from Soweto where I live. In the course of my visits I have attended various types of meetings in particular general meetings involving the “whole” community. I have also gone there to participate in mass action especially in the form of protests organised by the Thembelihle Crisis Committee. I have held numerous meetings with individuals and groups of Thembelihle activists in Thembelihle, Soweto and Johannesburg. Most of these interactions took place when I had no intention of conducting research in the area. However, I have in the past two years visited the area specifically to

169 conduct interviews and also as an activist. I recently visited the area during a community protest and ended up spending five days in jail with 32 Thembelihle residents arrested during the mass action.203 Due to having worked alongside activists for more than a decade I have gathered information and insights that have shed additional light into my understanding of the area.

From the positivist perspective this involvement with the Thembelihle community is a problem. Positivist researchers are meant to conduct research at a distance to avoid affecting the research site or subjects. However, reflexive ethnography would see this as a great advantage as it provides me with “inside” information and greater insight into the community processes therein. It is also a good coincidence that the type of political activism and relationship that I have developed over the years with Thembelihle comrades is a critical, searching and challenging one. The political practice in the Thembelihle Crisis Committee is explicitly and formally guided by a socialist vision. Over time this has meant the encouragement of discussion, debate, self-criticism and mutual criticism within and across organisations. It was therefore not a big jump for me to look at Thembelihle and the self- organisation there critically and with a theoretico-political lens. I would even say that in the eyes of some activists in Thembelihle my value to them is exactly this, namely a dispassionate assessment of the political situation and state of the organisation and struggle in the area which is shared as a basis for finding a strong way forward for the Thembelihle Crisis Committee.204

This engagement with the Thembelihle community fits within the reflexive paradigm and in particular with Alvin Gouldner’s (1970:488-489) statement that:

A Reflexive Sociology is and would need to be a radical sociology. Radical, because it would recognize that knowledge of the world cannot be advanced apart from the sociologist's knowledge of himself and his position in the social world, or apart from his efforts to change these.

A problem could have arisen whereby the community finds out that I am now coming in the guise of a researcher “seeking information” rather than as an activist. However, the fact that my research unit, the Research Chair for Social Change, is itself involved with the community in various ways and levels meant that this was not a problem at all. Some activists from the

203 This happened on 22 February 2015. Charges against me were later dropped for lack of evidence. The case has since been concluded after plea bargains resulted in community service sentences for the group. However, four refused to plea bargain but the state has postoponed the case indefinitely no doubt because of lack of evidence. 204 See Pingo (2013:114).

170 area have themselves been employed as researchers by the Chair or have been exposed to its research work either as informants, invitees to workshops and events, and so on. Of course this is an exceptional situation but it shows what is possible when sociology becomes public. Another possible challenge would be the internal differences that exist in most organisations. These would require an “outsider” like me to maneuver around them but as in some respects as an “insider” I would be implicated thus causing a problem for the research process. This has however not happened as far as I know. I think the only great concern that I have and which I share with some activists is the amount of time I am spending doing academic work rather than activist work. This is a serious challenge for scholar activists because time is limited. Perhaps all the more reason for public sociology to be hegemonic in the academy, it will broaden the scope of academic work to include more politically relevant work.

4.4.5 Observation

I have already alluded to the fact that I had occasion to attend and observe meetings and political activities in some of the communities that I researched. I should note that it was not only in respect of the case studies. Sometimes my visit to an area in the course of the overview phase of the project would coincide with a public event. I also observed voter registration campaigns, social grant payouts, clean-ups, sport and other activities in different communities. These were important because social life is multi-faceted and to understand it one must widen one’s lens. One of my challenges during these public events especially meetings was not being able to tape or video record the events. In the future I should make an effort to request permission to do so before or early in the meeting. Even if they refuse this they would in any case have allowed me to attend. (See the list of selected events I managed to observe in the appendices).

4.4.6 Documents

Due to the heavy load of doing field research it was not possible to spend a lot of time going through archives. However, some informants were kind enough to share with me their documents from their private archives. Some of the latter were quite impressive in terms of the amount of documents and the long time they have been kept preserved. It was difficult to take the documents for photocopying so I mostly read through them quickly and where possible photographed a few key ones. In this way I perused some documents of the Duncan Village Residents’ Association, the Thembelihle Crisis Committee and minutes of the first ward committee in Nkaneng. I want to thank Anele Mbi in Duncan Village who, himself a social

171 researcher and writer, had no problem sharing some of his documents with me. Future research to develop the work started here will require visiting the archives in order to match the oral histories presented by informants with documents from popular organisations and officialdom. This would increase the credibility of the historical versions presented in this dissertation.

The internet allowed me to scan newspaper articles from the past where these were available and relevant to my research questions. I have listed only those newspaper articles that are expressly referred to in the course of my presentation. Given more time I would have visited several newspaper archives in order to get a rounded picture of historical and political developments involving my case studies. In the course of my fieldwork I took more than a thousand photos and several short videos which helped me in reconstructing and recollecting the various faces, stories and situations in the many settlements visited. These will prove useful in the future development of this research project which I hope to carry out in the course of my post-doctoral studies. More work is needed to fill the gaps, rectify any inaccuracies and deepen the theoretical insights.

4.5 Theory and data To conclude, in general my research project did not encounter very difficult or insurmountable problems and was largely carried out according to plan. However, as to be expected, in the course of the research I had to revise my theoretical perspective as the data sometimes refused to conform to the theory. I however experienced this challenge as both a learning process and a necessary one in that reflexivity starts off with a theory and engages with the data to modify and develop the theory.205 It is also the case that I engaged in this project as part of a “Marxist research programme” whereby my intention was to employ concepts from this theoretical perspective and test and elaborate them in the light of present conditions (Lakatos 1978:48). Castells (1977:3) points to the necessity of:

The slow and difficult work that has to be undertaken in matching the general concepts of historical materialism with situations and processes very different from those that were the basis for the production of these concepts.

David Harvey (1985a:xvi) views this question thus:

205 There is a debate whereby authors such as Katz (2004) do not agree and rather adopt a method called “analytic induction.” Burawoy (2003) is criticised for postulating the effectiveness of the theory a priori to empirical investigation and for presenting “the micro… as a vignette of the macro” (Boutet and le Méner 2015:126).

172

The path between the historical and geographical grounding of experience and the rigors of theory construction is hard to negotiate. I conceive of it as mediated by processes of reflection and speculation. By speculation, I mean interrogation of the conceptual apparatus through which experience is mediated, the adjustment of conceptual filters and the juggling of perspectives so as to create fresh windows and dimensions to our interpretation of experience.

This is the only path to theory construction, according to Burawoy (2009:53).206 It is this goal that runs through and gives direction to the inquiry pursued in this dissertation. It informs and frames the presentation of the empirical data in the next several chapters.

206 Burawoy (2009:53) suggests that: “In our fieldwork we do not look for confirmations but for theory’s refutations. We need first the courage of our convictions, then the courage to challenge our convictions, and finally the imagination to sustain our courage with theoretical reconstruction.”

173

CHAPTER 5 OVERVIEW OF THE POPULAR COMMITTEES

5.1 Introduction In this chapter I present data emanating from research overview visits in which I visited 46 informal settlements in four provinces (Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, North West and Eastern Cape) with the aim of exploring the existence and nature of the local committees that informal settlement inhabitants form in their struggle for a better life. This form of self-organisation has been documented by other researchers (Bayat 1997:63, Castells 1977:57, Hardoy and Satterthwaite 1989: 17). In the course of the visits I found that 45 out of 46 informal settlements had one or more committee(s) in operation. In all the informal settlements visited I would simply drive up and ask the first person willing to talk to me the question “Where can I find amakomiti?” (isiZulu language term for “committees”). I would then without fail be directed to a person or shack or building where I was told I would find ikomiti (the “committee”: singular). If the person was not sure he or she would ask someone else to give me the information or direct me to a person who was sure to know. The committees I came across were of different types or categories. At the completion of the overview excursion my findings indicated that I had come across seven different categories of committees, namely, people’s committees, ward committees, ANC committees, headman committees, community policing forums (CPF), community development forums (CDF) and ad hoc protest committees. Each committee is described below after a brief discussion of the profile of the settlements visited.

In each settlement there would be one or more category of committee in existence. Table 5.5 further below lists the categories of committees found and their frequency across the 46 informal settlements visited. The questions that I seek to answer in this chapter are: What is the character of the popular committees found in the informal settlements? What is their ich history and tradition? What are their roles and functions? Of what significance are they in the struggle against poverty and for development? What role do they play in organising protest? Where are they located in the interface between democracy and development? The literature suggests that informal settlements come into existence mostly without official sanction or support and that this necessitates improvised forms of self-management and self-government in the organisation of community life (Bayat 1997:65-66, Hardoy and Satterthwaite 1989:14, 17). I am interested in the form and content of this self-organisation and pose the question of whether this represents a form of democracy, that is, collective and inclusive mechanisms of

174 making decisions by communities that are economically and socially disadvantaged. The key questions that guided my foray into the 46 research sites were: Are shack dwellers’ comittees expressions of a form of “democracy on the margins” that people create for themselves? And if so, how do these forms intersect with the dominant liberal democratic form of the post- apartheid state?

Image 5.1 Office of the Makuase Community Development Forum (MACODEFO) in Makause, Germiston. (Photograph by author)

5.2 Profile of the informal settlements It is important to give the reader a picture of the kind of settlements that were visited and the reasons why these particular settlements were visited and not others. However, I will not dwell much on methodological issues as these have been addressed in the previous chapter. I will also provide only the most essential information on the profile of the informal settlements due to space constraints. However, the reports on the three cases studies in the next three chapters provide greater detail and hopefully will give the reader more insight into conditions in those particular settlements. I will synthesise the findings from the case studies with findings from this overview in Chapter 9, an exercise that I hope will provide additional information and insight on the 46 informal settlements visited. My priority in this dissertation is to use as much space as possible focusing on the self-organisation processes in the settlements rather than on

175 physical, social and economic conditions although these are quite important as they provide the context for the formation of committees.

Image 5.2 A shack threatening to keel over in Bebelele, Duncan Village, East London. (Photograph by author)

5.2.1 Location, size and date of establishment of the settlements I visited four provinces in the course of the overview study. Table 1 below summarises the distribution of the communities visited by provinces:

TABLE 5.1: Number of informal settlements visited by province

Gauteng North West KwaZulu-Natal Eastern Cape Total

10 10 10 16 46

Source: Compiled by the author based on field research.

It will be noticed that I spent a little bit more time in the Eastern Cape because I had to stay longer due to the longer distances involed in driving through this vast province. This allowed me to visit a slightly bigger number of informal settlements. The settlements visited ranged from small to very large. The smallest would consist of a small cluster of about 20 shacks or less and the biggest about 8 000 shacks or more. Most

176 shack settlements visited were of small to medium size, that is, they had between 100 and 500 shacks.207 Most shacks were established in 1990-1994 as Table 5.2 below indicates: TABLE 5.2: Year of birth (establishment) of the informal settlements

Year Number of % established settlements Where N=46 1985 – 1989 6 13% 1990 – 1994 12 26% 1995 – 1999 2 4% 2000 – 2004 4 9% 2005 – 2009 2 4% 2010 – 2013 3 7% Unknown 17 37% TOTAL 46 100% Source: Compiled by the author based on field research.

This is in line with the literature where researchers observe that the last years of apartheid were characterised by a relaxation of influx controls in the build-up to the new dispensation and a steady stream of migrants from the rural to the urban areas (Harber 2011:10, Sapire 1992:114).208 The prospect of black majority rule possibly emboldened people to defy apartheid laws, take over land and erect their shacks. It should also be noted that the establishment of informal settlements continues unabated in the post-apartheid society but the peak was undoubtedly the period between 1990 and 1994, that is, between the year of the unbanning of political organisation and the release of political prisoners, and the year of independence. Table 5.3 below indicates that land invasion was the main method used in the establishment of the settlements: TABLE 5.3: How the informal settlements were established

Method of establishment Number of % settlements Where N = 46 Land invasion 20 44% Rent / negotiation 4 9% Silent encroachment 6 13% Government relocation 7 15% Village in-migration 2 4% Unknown 7 15% TOTAL 46 100% Source: Compiled by the author based on field research.

207 Further research is necessary to verify these figures beyond impressions including the more important question of whether and to what extent they can be generalized to South African shack settlements as a whole. 208 Mayekiso (1996:131) notes that in 1989 “the AAC [Alexandra Action Committee] estimated that 1 000 shacks were being constructed each month in Alexandra by incoming residents.”

177

This is an important point to note because when a settlement is set up by the government it is to be expected that the state will be in charge and people will look to it for their immediate needs such as the allocation of stands, provision of basic services such as water, and so on. On the other hand a land invasion requires the people to organise themselves and cater for their own needs in the absence of the state. In some instances a hostile state will necessitate the invaders organising “their defence against the threat of bulldozing” (Hardoy and Satterthwaite 1989:17). When a landlord, usually a white farmer, is willing to engage in negotiations with informal settlement dwellers, there will be a person or people who do so on behalf of the community (Resident, KwaBoyana, Vryheid, interview 39, 5/2/2013). In this instance the KwaBoyana settlement was named after Mr Boyana who successfully negotiated with the landowner. This raises the issue of the naming and names of informal settlements which I will turn to but first let me explain the terms used on the table. “Land invasion” is self-explanatory, a group of people identify a piece of land and then start erecting shacks without official sanction. “Rent/negotiation” is when people usually already living on the land approach the owner to make a formal arrangement to allow the people to continue living there and, in some instances, to allow more people to do so. “Silent encroachment” is a term coined by Bayat (1997:7-8) and refers to the invasion of land almost by stealth whereby one or two people erect their shacks and then more people follow in dribs and drabs “silently” before the authorities even begin to notice. “Government relocation” refers to instances where the authorities relocate people often “temporarily” into a “camp” consisting of informal building material. “Village in-migration” occurs in rural towns where a village gradually begins to look like a shack settlement as people moving closer to town erect shacks in an area hitherto consisting of village-type structures (brick and cement, wattle and daub, etc.). In some informal settlements there was unclarity or contradictory versions of how the place was first established hence the category “unknown.” Land invasions are not a new phenomenon in South Africa. The erection of shelters without permission from the authorities has occurred in South Africa since the movement of the people from the rural areas to the urban areas began, for example, the first shacks in Durban were erected in the late 1880s (COHRE 2008:1). However, these took the form of encroachments rather than invasion. Land invasion requires a movement, that is, a group of mobilised people with a plan and the basic materials to collectively take over a piece of land and erect shelters. The bigger the group the more the action qualifies to be an invasion. When this happens it attracts the attention of the authorities who often will attempt to demolish the people’s shelters and reclaim the land. At this point it becomes a power game between the state

178 and the invaders. My research suggested that demolition of shelters does not often demoralise the invaders who might persist and rebuild repeatedly until the authorities give up and let them be, for example, this is what happened in the establishment of the Nhlalakahle settlement in Pietermaritzburg. Other factors may come to play tilting the balance in favour of the state or the invaders such as leadership, organisation and tactics of both sides; for example, the apartheid state struggled for many years to get rid of the Sofasonke Village, a squatter camp established under the leadership of James Mpanza which is discussed in Chapter 3 of the dissertation, because of Mpanza’s tactical finesse. The tactic of invading land has continued through the decades into the post-apartheid society with my research revealing continued invasions of land which often does not make the headlines. 5.2.2 Naming and names of the settlements Why do informal settlements have the names that they have? Who gives them these names? Is there a significance in the names? The question of the names and naming of informal settlements deserves a little attention if we are to have a rounded picture of the political life and culture of these places. Places, like people, have an identity and the names are an aspect of it. I will keep this discussion brief by referring primarily to the names of the informal settlements that I visited to make a few points about this issue (See list of interviews in the appendice section with names of informal settlements and where they are located). Other researchers into informal settlements have noted patterns and themes in the naming of informal settlements that are somewhat similar to South Africa. For example, Bayat (1997:27) states that: The squatters usually called their communities by the terms that described the mode of their construction. Thus Muftabad meant the community built free of charge; Zoorabad, by force; Halabiabad, those made of containers; and Hasirabad, of bamboo leaves.

179

Image 5.3 A shack below the floodline and too close to a stream in Princess, Roodepoort. (Photograph by author)

A number of informal settlements have names that refer to their “mode of construction.” There is Vrygrond which means free ground (in Afrikaans). A most common name for informal settlements in South Africa is Nkaneng or Nkanini which means “by force” or “[constructed] through defiance” (SeSotho/Xhosa). Another common name is Baipei which means “those who put themselves there,” that is, without official sanction (SeSotho). Siyahlala means “we are staying here” (Zulu). Zenzele and Itireleng mean in Zulu and SeSotho respectively “do it yourself” or “self-help.” All these names arguably underline the agency involved in establishing an informal settlement and some of them point to the spirit of defiance or taking matters into your own hands. Some names describe the conditions of life in that settlement and often refer to the early days. Thus we have Dunusa which is rude and means “showing your bums” and usually refers to a time when there were no toilets and people exposed themselves without dignity. There is also Vez’unyawo which means “showing your foot (feet)” which might refer to the days when the shelters were so small people’s feet stuck out when they were asleep. Other names describe the geographic area where the settlements are found such as eSiteshini, “[near] at the [railway] station,” and SASKO referring to the bakery company next to the informal settlement. Bleskop refers to a mine shaft next to the informal settlement concerned. Some settlements are named after political figures and mostly ANC national leaders such as Mandela Park, Mandelaville, Mandela View, Ramaphosa, Duma Nokwe, Chris Hani, Tamboville, etc. Others are named after

180 the founder of the settlement who could be a prominent political figure like Mshenguville referring to Ephraim “Mshengu” Tshabalala (his clan name) who was a Sofasonke Party leader, or a local leader such as Jeffsville which is named after Comrade Jeff who planned and led the land invasion that established the settlement (See Image 5.4 below).

Image 5.4 The Jeffsville community office, Pretoria, named after Comrade Jeff who led the land invasion. (Photograph by author)

Some settlement names express the vision and hopes of the inhabitants. For example, Thembelihle, which means “[place of] good hope;” Nhlalakahle, “a place where we [can] live well.” Significantly the latter settlement was established by refugees from political violence during the turbulent 1980s in Natal. There is Khayelitsha, “the new home;” and Sibantubonke which means “we are all people,” a reference to the settlement welcoming everyone who needed a place they can call home. Other names have unique origins and meanings such as Yizo Yizo which refers to a popular television programme featuring youth and crime, Beirut referring to violence that once characterised the area, Gomorrah referring to what people perceived as the immoral behavior once endemic in that settlement, etc. The transition to a democratic order has seen a change of naming patterns and themes. New settlements are today unlikely to be named after ANC leaders probably because the novelty of freedom and the lionisation of the leadership is not so widespread. Today the ANC leaders are more likely to be in charge of a state that is intolerant of land invasions. Marikana has become a popular name for new settlements established through land invasions or occupation of government houses. The name

181 refers to the Marikana massacre whereby 34 striking miners were shot dead by the state police (Alexander et al. 2012, Alexander 2013). For the land invaders it arguably symbolizes the spirit of defiance against a state that subalterns increasingly appear to see as unresponsive and uncaring. A settlement will often start off without a name or proper name and then later adopt a name. Some names such as Dunusa may be changed later because they are felt to be too rude and a “better” name is then chosen and used. Sometimes it is only when the state recognizes a settlement that the community is prompted to find a suitable name. This is often achieved by way of a decision by the community, its leaders or the state. It will be apparent from this discussion that names do indeed give us a clue as to how the settlement is viewed by its inhabitants and by others at a certain point in its history. 5.2.3 Infrastructure and services in the settlements The physical infrastructure in the settlements visited was poor as Table 5.4 below indicates. It need not be mentioned that almost all the “houses” were shacks made up of mostly corrugated iron although in some settlements such as Nhlalakahle, Pietermaritzburg, it was wattle and daub. However, one or two people will build a brick house among the shacks. In Barcelona, Lamontville, this was not allowed by the shack dwellers because they wanted to look poor and similar in the eyes of the state (People’s committee member, Barcelona, Lamontville/Durban, interview 29, 29/1/2013). The majority of settlements did not have (official) electricity (70%). However, some settlements organised self-connections to the grid, for example, Duncan Village in East London, Makause in Germiston, etc. The larger settlements tended to have self-connections although the organisation, extent and quality of the connections differed. Every shack settlement that was connected had a story about when, why, and how the people came to connect themselves. Two of my three case studies have self-connections and I will refer to their story in the following chapters. Most settlements had access to one or more communal taps (65%) but I noticed that they could be quite far from some residents and in one instance some residents complained that they had to lug their water up a very steep hill (Resident, Siyahlala/Dunusa, Newcastle, interview 34, 4/2/2013). Where there were no toilets (39%) people either individually dug long-drops or used the bush. A VIP toilet is a “Ventilated Improved Pit Latrine” sometimes provided by the state that “has been fitted or built with a vent pipe and a fly screen” to reduce the smell (CSIR n.d.).

182

TABLE 5.4: State of basic services in the informal settlement

Service Number of % settlements Where N = 46 No electricity 32 70% No toilets 18 39% No water 5 11% Communal tap 30 65% Electricity 6 13% Communal toilet 5 11% Bucket toilet 5 11% Toilet (VIP) 3 7% Source: Compiled by the author based on field research. I don’t think that the self-organisation of the informal settlements can be understood apart from the fact that people live in these poor conditions.209 However, the nature of organisation does not directly reflect the level of development (or underdevelopment) of a particular settlement. Other factors mediate the relationship between the objective need and the form that agency takes in response to the felt needs. For example, some settlements will not connect themselves to the grid because of internal and external political dynamics while others will. The importance of agency will be apparent in the following presentation covering the different categories of committees found and how they operate.

209 The literature is unanimous on the poor conditions suffered by shack dwellers historically and at present (See Hellmann 1948, Kondlo 1993, Ndhlovu 2015, Silk 1981, Tshikotshi 2009).

183

TABLE 5.5: List of categories of committees found in the settlements Legend: PC = people’s committee, WC = ward committee, CPF = community policing forum, CDF = community development forum, ANC = ANC committee, HC = headman committee

n %

Settlements with PC (with/without other committees) 35 76% where N = 46 Settlements with WC 21 45% Settlements with ANC 8 17% Settlements with CPF 5 11% Settlements with CDF 4 9% Settlements with HC 3 7%

Settlements with PC and WC 9 20% Settlements with WC and HC 3 7% Settlements with PC and ANC 2 4% Settlements with WC and CPF 1 2% Settlements with WC and CDF 1 2%

Settlements with PC, WC, ANC 2 4% Settlements with WC, CPF, ANC 1 2% Settlements with PC, WC, ANC, CPF 1 2% Settlements with PC, WC, CPF, CDF, ANC 1 2%

No committee 1 2%

Settlements with PC only (no other committees exist) 16 35% where N = 46 Settlements with WC only 3 7% Settlements with ANC BEC only 1 2%

Source: Compiled by the author based on field research.

5.3 Categories of popular committees Table 5.5 above lists the committees found and their frequencies. The narrative that follows brings out the richness, diversity and complexities in their operation. I have provided descriptions and definitions of each of the different categories of committees. However, it will be apparent that the same category of committee does not always operate the same way in different contexts. In some instances a particular category of committee will change the way it operates in same informal settlement over time. Also, diverse categories of committees will exist and cease to exist in the course of the particular history of a community. For example, a people’s committee might lead the initial land invasion that establishes the settlement and then later a ward committee is set up because the settlement has won recognition by the state. In this

184

regard it can be argued that the operation of a committee or set of committee is peculiar, and even unique, to the particular settlement in which it is found. However, for the sake of analysis it is necessary to identify some discernible similarities and differences in order to have a general picture or pattern of self-organisation in the informal settlements of South Africa.

It should be noted that the first group of committees in Table 5.5 refers to the existence of a particular category of committee irrespective of whether it exists alone or with other committees. The other groups refer to the existence of combinations of committees. The last group of committees refers to instances where a category of committee exists alone. For example, the people’s committee (PC) is found in 35 settlements, it exists alone in 16 settlements, it co-exists with a ward committee in 9 settlements, it co-exists with a ward committee and an ANC committee in 2 settlements, etc. If we state this information in terms of percentages it will be apparent that the most frequently found committee is the people’s committee. With respect to the headman committees it is important to note that they exist in rural areas governed by traditional leaders. This means that they are under-represented in my sample in so far as I visited more areas not governed by traditional authorities. However, I believe that this table does give the reader an approximate overview of the occurrence of different categories of committees in the 46 settlements visited. Let us look at each category of committees found in turn. 5.3.1 People’s committees People’s committees are formed by communities independently of the state with the mandate of representing the interests of an informal settlement community as a whole. They are similar in structure and functioning to the township “civic” organisations of the 1980s.210 They come in many forms such as “street committee,” “block committee,” “civic” and “iso lomuzi”’ (Xhosa/Zulu: “the eye of the community”).211 They were found to exist in 35 out of 46 settlements visited (76%), and were the most prevalent category of committee. In 16 settlements (35%) no other committee except the people’s committee existed. Their main function is to establish the settlement and to improve living conditions. After a land invasion life must be made bearable through the provision of basic services: water, sanitation, energy, schooling, health care and crime prevention. In the absence of state provision, some settlements visited had organised the installation of water taps into people’s yards, dug long-drop toilets

210 For a description of township civics see Mayekiso (1996) and Murray (1994:167-178). 211 There are other historical roots of the committees such as the “Sofasonke Village Management Committee” set up by the Orlando East squatters (French 1983:88), and the vigilance associations and “iliso lomzi” (watcher of the community) formed by late 19th century African communities in the Eastern Cape (Bundy 2000:30).

185 and connected themselves to the electricity grid. Table 5.6 below lists the duties of people’s committees as mentioned by informants in the course of the interviews. The table gives the reader an idea of the duties that people associate with the people’s committee but I make no claims with respect to the validity or otherwise of the table. I merely recorded the number of informants who mentioned a specific duty when asked about the functions of the committee. Informants would mention more than one duty. The figures relate to settlements where a people’s committee existed.

TABLE 5.6: Duties of people’s committees

Duty Number of times mentioned in the interviews

Development 10 Allocate stands 9 Solve disputes (people’s court) 9 Crime prevention (marshals) and safety 8 Liaison with councillor 5 Services 4 Housing 4 Allocate project jobs 3 Lead land invasion 3 Solve problems of residents 3 Attend municipal meetings 2 Negotiations with municipality 2 Organise resistance to eviction 2 Future of settlement 2 Attend to court case 1 Organise protests 1 Do [control] everything 1

Source: Compiled by the author based on field research.

The level of organisation and structure of people’s committees varies from simple and sparse to complex and elaborate. Sometimes what passes for a people’s committee might be one person or a handful of people operating loosely without any clearly defined division of labour and attending to certain civic matters with varying degrees of rigour and vigour. Committee and public meetings might be held episodically according to need and office bearers might serve (long) unspecified terms in the absence of annual general meetings. In other settlements people’s committees are well-developed and formalised bodies consisting of chairpersons, secretaries, organisers, and so on, and may be at the apex of a system of block and street committees that report to an executive centre. There might be a constitution, a set of guiding policies, well-kept minutes of meetings, a dues collection system, and in some instances the committee might make common cause with an external structure such as Abahlali

186 baseMjondolo.212 An annual general meeting and a battery of regular meetings might be held including with other committees such as the CPF, the ward committee and/or the councillor. The level of organisation will differ between these two poles of simple and complex; a particular committee might exhibit varying levels of organisation in its life cycle.

Image 5.5 People’s committee leader at home in Vrygrond, Graaff-Reinert. (Photograph by author)

People’s committees may be the original form of committee because their existence is often traceable to the birth of a settlement while other categories of committees are only formed later; this emerges from individual histories of settlements and is suggested by the fact that 18 of the settlements visited were established before the legislative birth of the ward committees, the second most prevalent committee (See Table 5.2).213

212 Abahlali baseMjondolo is a social movement-type umbrella organisation that organises primarily Durban and Cape Town informal settlements, see http://www.abahlali.org/ 213 According to le Roux (2013:85): “It is important to note that although WCs (ward committees) were legislated in the 1998 Municipal Structures Act, the establishment of these organs only occurred after December 2000, once the Municipal Systems Act of the same year had been enacted into law.”

187

Image 5.6: People’s committee leader at home, Duma Nokwe, in Mdantsane township, East London. (Photograph by author)

The ethos of the people’s committees appears similar to that of the township civic movement whose ideological foundations were “to build non-hierarchical, participatory forums where everyone was included in decision-making processes” (Rosenthal 2010:251). The people’s committee was said to be answerable to the community and was expected to cater for the needs of everyone equally or fairly, for example, when allocating stands and when resolving disputes between residents. Informants acknowledged the possible occurrence of self-serving agendas among committee members but such practices were generally denounced by those interviewed. I give these self-serving agendas some consideration in the in-depth accounts contained in the three case studies.

188

Image 5.7 People’s committee leader at home, KwaS’gebenga-Khayelitsha in Ngcambedlana Farm, Mthatha. (Photograph by author)

5.3.2 Ward committees Ward committees are statutory bodies created by legislative edict that spells out their composition and function.214 They were found in 25 settlements visited (45%) and tend to co- exist with people’s committees and enjoy sole existence in only three settlements (7%). State policy on ward committees has evolved over time but the basic idea is that they are forums through which citizens participate in matters of governance at local state level (RSA 2000, 2005). They are advisory in nature, have “no original powers and duties” with their functioning governed by the municipal councils concerned (RSA 2000: Clause 2.3.3). The evolution of government policy has been towards the standardisation of the operation of ward committees with the government publishing a set of detailed guidelines in 2005 (RSA 2005: Clause 2). In 2012 the Independent Electoral Commission conducted the ward committee elections whereby ten members were to be elected to serve for five years filling the following portfolios: environment and infrastructure, housing, health and social welfare (two portfolios), transport, development planning, community development (two portfolios) and public safety. This approach is called the “sectoral electoral model” as opposed to the “geographic model” in the

214 They are regarded in the literature as “‘invited spaces’ (those induced by the government)” as opposed to “‘invented’ (grassroots or autonomous movements)” (Sinwell 2009:4, 82-83). See Cornwall (2004:75, 80).

189 guidelines legislation (2005: Clause 9.3). Committee members receive a R500 monthly stipend that some municipalities “top up” to R1 000 (Ward committee member, Cambridge, East London, interview 53, 24/2/2013; ward committee member, H39, Newcastle, interview 31, 3/2/2013). The purpose is to cover “out of pocket expenses” according to the the legislation guidelines which state that “[n]o remuneration is to be paid to ward committee members” (RSA 2005: Clause 16.1). In 2009 a government notice provided firmer guidelines on the amounts to be paid for out of pocket expenses stating that it should range between R500 and R1 000 (CoGTA 2009). Committee members receive training. Committee meetings are held monthly and chaired by the ward councillor. The legislation empowers ward committees to call public meetings but these must be chaired by the ward councillor (RSA 2005: Clause 11.4b).

There is diversity in how ward committees operate and in their influence. Ward demarcation determines the extent of informal settlement representation. If the ward boundaries coincide with those of the settlement, the latter can enjoy full and sole representation on the committee. But in the majority of cases there is no such fit and informal settlements will have one or two representatives on the ward committee, and sometimes none. Where committee representation and influence is weak, the people’s committee often holds fort including carrying out the function of liaison with the state. Some ward committees have access to facilities provided by the municipality such as an office to carry out their duties (Ward councillor, Duncan Village, East London, interview 54, 25/2/2013; participant observation of office operations by the researcher, 25/2/2013). Some ward representatives spend time visiting the sick and families in dire straits, help to organise government welfare grants to those in need, help rebuild collapsing shacks, and so on (Ward committee member, Cambridge, East London, interview 53, 24/2/2013; ward committee member, H39, Newcastle, interview 31, 3/2/2013). However, researchers into the functioning of ward committees found that “[one] of the more discouraging findings that emerges out of the case studies is how little direct influence ward committees appear to have on council decision-making” (Smith 2008:53).

5.3.3 ANC committees ANC committees operate and have influence in some informal settlements. They were found in eight of the settlements visited mostly co-existing with other popular committees and in only one case were they the sole committee. Other political parties exist but were relatively weak. ANC presence is pervasive because it has branches in every ward, but some informants complained that it does not service informal settlement constituencies adequately (People’s committee and ANC member, Nhlalakahle, Pietermaritzburg, interview 26, 27/1/2013;

190 people’s committee and DA member, Tsakane Extension 10, Brakpan, interview 21, 23/1/2013). In areas where the ANC is dominant it appeared to lead the other committees and acts as a hegemonic “committee of committees” coordinating and supervising everyone such as in Bhambayi, Inanda; Zenzele, Randfontein; and Duncan Village, East London.

Image 5.8 Members of the civic, ward and ANC committees in Zenzele, Randfontein. (Photograph by author)

A majority of people interviewed critically supported the ANC in government. Many informal settlements are named after ANC struggle icons such as Joe Slovo (Cape Town), Winnie Mandela (East Rand), Chris Hani (East London), Elias Motsoaledi (Soweto), etc. Many informal settlements were established during the period of heightened struggle and the subsequent transition to democracy wherein the ANC was at the forefront of the struggle against the apartheid state (Mashabela 1990, Sapire 1992:125). Hope was put on the ANC to build houses. The ANC is criticised by many shack dwellers for being slow in housing provision and failing to provide basic services. However, there is awareness of its potential power to bring development and influencing it towards this end is an important political project in the informal settlements. ANC leaders often go to informal settlements seeking electoral support for party or government positions – as do other political parties. Failure to deliver on the promises in the course of canvassing support creates resentment and some informal settlements respond by threatening to withhold their vote as in the “No house, no land, no

191 vote!” campaign (Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers 2011:xi). Insult is added to injury because there is a feeling that the ANC politically exploits informal settlements’ great need for socioeconomic improvement (Residents, KwaS’gebenga [Khayelitsha], Mthatha, group interview 60, 27/2/2013). Dissatisfaction and even hostility to the ANC is rising in some settlements as the following quotation suggests:

The ANC lost the ward to the DA because it is not working. We have been here 25 years with the ANC promising to fix things all these years. People are now saying it is better to go back to Inkatha [Freedom Party]. As leaders we distribute ANC pamphlets but people don’t want to see it anymore. Also, we say we are ANC but when we go to the ballot box we don’t do what we say [we surreptitiously don’t vote ANC] (People’s committee and ANC member, Nhlalakahle, Pietermaritzburg, interview 26, 27/1/2013).

5.3.4 Community police forums CPFs are statutory bodies that involve communities in crime-fighting. They were found in only five settlements (11%) despite the big problem of crime in the country. Informal settlement dwellers tend to be suspicious of the police. In several settlements visited there were no CPF structures despite attempts by the local committees to set them up. Some residents did not want police brought into their area “to arrest them” (CPF member, Siyahlala-Dunusa, Newcastle, interview 33, 4/2/2013). This might be related to a desire for freedom and autonomous living away from the prying eyes and heavy hand of the state (Bayat 1997:11-12).215 The CPF has, in some settlements, taken over the functions of the people’s courts and community patrols that used to solve disputes and keep the peace in some working class areas during the anti-apartheid struggle. CPFs tend to exist in informal settlements where the hegemony of the ANC is well established and the settlement enjoys state recognition and there is hope of development in the near future.

215 Bayat (1997:12) suggests that: “The two chief goals of the disenfranchised – redistribution and autonomy – are quite interrelated. The former ensures survival and a better material life; the latter serves not only as an end in itself but also as a means to achieve the objective of the redistribution: acting autonomously from the state, poor individuals may be able to obtain public goods (illegal land, shelter, and so on) that they are unlikely to attain through legal and institutionalized mechanisms, unless they demand these goods through a powerful collective mobilization.”

192

Image 5.9 Leader of the people’s committee in Nhlalakahle, Pietermaritzburg, at home. (Photograph by author)

The CPF consists of a handful of community members that attend joint meetings with the police where crime prevention strategies are discussed. The CPF members interviewed saw their role as supporting the police in fighting crime. Their value lay in their intimate knowledge of their area and the people therein. They reduce the burden on the police and the justice system by, for example, solving minor disputes (CPF member, Tamboville – Glenwood, Pietermaritzburg interview 25, 27/1/2013). An aspect of crime prevention that is peculiar to informal settlements begins with the stereotype that they are labyrinths of criminality where fugitives from the law are impossible to track down. Residents in built-up areas sometimes demand the relocation of shacks complaining about falling property values and how they bring criminality into the vicinity. It is to ward off these allegations that people’s committees are sometimes compelled to take measures against criminal activity (CPF member, Siyahlala, Newcastle, interview 33, 4/2/2013). Given the high levels of crime, in the absence of a CPF it is the people’s committees that carry out patrolling functions and solve local disputes. Informants put crime prevention and community safety third on the list of duties of people’s committees. The first one is “development” followed by the allocation of stands (See Table 5.6 above).

193

Image 5.10 Leader of the Malinda Forest CPF, East London, at home. (Photography by author)

A CPF provides direct access to the police in cases of crime and emergencies such as fires and floods. But sometimes the police are not as cooperative as they should be. CPF members might not be provided with the necessary equipment to carry out their functions such as identification bibs, torches and the like. The absence of high mast lights, failure to cut long grass and other measures that would make it easier to fight crime frustrates CPF members (CPF member, Tamboville, Pietermaritzburg, interview 25, 27/1/2013). Some members have a broad approach and want the youth kept busy by providing recreation facilities, and the provision of counselling services to romantic couples in order to prevent domestic discord (CPF member, Siyahlala, Newcastle, interview 33, 4/2/2013; CPF member, Zenzele, Randfontein, interview 18, 22/1/2013). There is a vision of alternatives that goes beyond incarceration and a punitive approach to crime fighting. Meanwhile the South African Police Service has removed the “community” in CPF replacing it with the new “Sector Policing” programme which is emblematic of a backward slide away from the original progressive vision that informed the formation of these structures (Pelser et al 2002:Chapter 3).216 This lost element is arguably an

216 Pelser et al (2002: Chapter 10) surmise thus: “The analysis above has indicated that the objectives of South Africa's community policing policy have changed over the past eight years, from an initial emphasis on oversight of the police through a focus on relationship-building and the creation of partnerships to help improve police services, towards a much greater concentration on community mobilisation for crime prevention.”

194 aspect of “democracy on the margins” that the CPF as an invited space had a problem accommodating and is in the process of discarding.

5.3.5 Community development forums Community development forums (CDF) are established by residents to manage and monitor local development projects; in some instances they are formed as a result of prompting by the state. They existed in five settlements out of 46 begging the question of why they were so few in areas so much in need of development. Autonomously formed CDFs were found in H39, Newcastle, in Itireleng, Pretoria, and in Makause, Germiston. In the latter case the residents’ organisation renamed itself the Makause Community Development Forum after a decision was taken to focus on development alternatives for the area (CDF member, Makause, Germiston, interview 20, 23/1/2013). These three CDFs had a difficult relationship with their ward councillors, ward committees and the ANC. The opposite was the case in Bhambayi at Inanda, and Duncan Village in East London, where the CDFs were referred to as “development committees” and worked closely with the ANC, ward committee, people’s committees and the councillor.

During the era of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), CDFs existed in many working class areas. The ANC encouraged their formation in order to realise the goal of “people-driven and people-centred” development.217 A couple of years after independence the RDP office was closed down as the ANC government adopted the Growth, Employment and Redistribution Programme (GEAR) which advocated a capital-driven, trickle-down development model (Miller 1996). The CDFs collapsed with the abandonment of the vision. However, some communities have re-established these structures and they are sometimes seen as useful by the local state while others, such as in Makause, Germiston, challenge the state and demand development.

217 The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) was the ANC’s vision and policy framework for changing the “new South Africa” in favour of the poor and those disadvantaged during the apartheid era. It set specific targets for economic development and was the ANC’s election manifesto during the first democratic elections. See ANC (1994).

195

Image 5.11 Leader of the Makause Community Development Forum, General Moyo. (Photograph by author)

5.3.6 Headman committees The Communal Land Act of 2000 gives power over communal land to traditional councils while the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Amendment Act of 2003 establishes a governance partnership between traditional councils and local municipalities (RSA 2000, RSA 2003). The chiefs control land while councillors control municipal budgets in traditional communities which have been estimated to consist of about 40% of the population (Khan, Lootvoet and Vawda, 2006:89). Headmen or women sit on the 30-member king or chief’s traditional council with 40% elected and the rest appointed by the chief. This creates a hybrid system of elected and appointed headmen and headman committee members on the one hand, and elected ward committees on the other.

The growth of peri-urban areas represents “the societal zone where the centrifugal forces of the city collide with the implosion of the countryside” (Davis 2006:46). In South Africa parts of this “urban edge” falls under the jurisdiction of traditional authorities; when people move into the urban areas they erect shacks such that villages located on the outskirts of rural towns begin to look like informal settlements. The headman allocates stands to the newcomers, handles civil cases, engages in conflict resolution, and acts as the link between the community and the chief or king. He or she does this working with the headman committee. The pressing issues in the traditional areas visited were service delivery and development.

196

Traditional authorities look to municipalities for this and this provides the basis for cooperation and conflict between the respective institutions of traditional authority and those of liberal democracy (Beall 2005:8, 17; Khan, Lootvoet and Vawda 2006:86). The role of headman committees is however inadequately covered by the literature on traditional authorities and governance.

5.3.7 Ad hoc protest committees Residents will form an ad hoc committee called a “task team,” “concerned residents committee” or “crisis committee” to address a burning issue or intolerable pressure felt by the community.218 These are extraordinary measures and suggest a failure of the existing committees and channels to resolve the issue concerned. Such structures can thus be regarded as protest committees because protest action usually follows their formation. Many settlements visited had protested or nearly did so at least once. Existing popular committees tend to lead peaceful protests whereas protests led by improvised protest leadership tend to be disruptive.

In South Africa, informal settlements are at the forefront of the burgeoning protest movement (Maruping, Mncube and Runciman 2014:30). My research overview excursion revealed that land invasions and housing occupations are widespread. In Vryburg, the existing popular committees were pushed aside as sections of the community invaded an adjoining RDP housing project (Ad hoc protest committee member, Siyahlala, Vryburg, interview 6, 6/12/2012). A generational dynamic was involved as the elderly leader laments below:

People put me to be the leader because I fought [during the invasion that established the informal settlement]. But today the youth are not paying attention to my committee, they are moving into the RDP houses by force, occupying the new houses. Then they hire out their old shacks. There is no truth anymore (People’s committee member, Phola Park, Vryburg, interview 8, 6/12/2012).

Researchers have noted the prominent role of the youth in protests (Alexander 2010:31, Alexander and Pfaffe 2013:9, Dawson 2014:868). A young committee member reported that he and other youth had led most protests in their village (Ward committee member, Dinokana, Zeerust, interview 3, 5/12/2012). Many land invaders were young adults under pressure to set up their own homesteads away from their overcrowded parents’ homes in Ikageleng township (People’s committee member, Baipei, Zeerust, interview 4, 5/12/2012). In a group discussion

218 See Sinwell et al. (2009).

197 composed of adults and youth, it was the youth who insisted that protest action was needed to register their unhappiness with a ward councillor who did nothing for their area (Residents, eSiteshini, Newcastle, group interview 35, 4/2/2013). The youth appear to have the time, the energy and feel the pressure to take action in order to improve their lives.

Image 5.12 Leader of the Makause Community Development Forum (MACODEFO) in green AMCU shirt at the forefront of a march to the Johannesburg mayor’s office. (Photograph by author)

Existing popular committees will lead protests, sometimes they will be unwilling to do so, or they will stand aside and watch especially if the protests are disruptive. Various stipulations in the legislation, guidelines, constitutions and code of conducts of ward committees expressly prohibit ward committee members from participating in protest activity while simultanesouly affording them little power vis-à-vis officialdom.219 There were mixed views on protests by popular committee members. We can conclude that there is diversity and variation in the approach to protest by the popular committees. Protest tends to create tension, uncertainty and disruption in the functioning of existing committees.

5.4 Relationship of committees to each other

219 A common and portmanteau prohibition is against bringing a municipality into disrepute. Various mechanisms skew the power balance in favour of the municipality, for example, some municipalities give themselves the power to dissolve a ward committee including a procedure for a ward committee to make such a recommendation to the council (e.g. Knysna Municipality 2012:Clause 22).

198

The conceptualisation of informal settlement committees must take into account the simultaneous co-existence of different committees in a particular setting. The question of the relative power and influence of each of the committees in existence arises. In 25 settlements (54%) visited there was more than one committee in operation. Where there was only one committee in operation in a settlement, it was the people’s committee in existence alone in 16 settlements (35%). This committee co-existed with a ward committee in 9 settlements (20%), and in 6 other settlements (13%) it existed with one or more of CPF, CDF and ANC committees (See Table 5.5). Besides co-existing with a people’s committee, the ward committee co-existed with one or more of CPF, CDF, ANC and headman committees in 10 settlements (22%). The picture that emerges is of the prevalence of people’s committees followed by the ward committees, and the widespread co-existence of different categories of committees. What form does this co-existence take in practice and what are the implications for theory?

The size of the settlement and the level of organisation coincide. The existence of multiple committees occurs in large urban settlements such as Duncan Village, East London; Bhambayi, Inanda; and Zenzele, Randfontein. There exists a high level of organisation with coordination and cooperation between the different committees realised through regular meetings and a system of communication. The life cycle of popular committees in the large settlements preceded the new democratic order. For example, Duncan Village had street, block and area committees during the heyday of the civics in apartheid times. Smaller settlements will have simpler and fewer structures.

The political character of the committees cannot simply be read off their category names, for example, the CDF in Itireleng, Pretoria, is an independently-formed committee that is highly critical of the government, the ANC BEC and local councillor; while the development committee in Bhambayi, Inanda, was formed with the blessings of the ANC authorities and is integrated into the system of committees that is hegemonised by the ruling party. The dominance of the ANC further confounds the theory. For example, in Bhambayi, Duncan Village and Zenzele informal settlements the ANC committee dominated all the committees and everyone appeared agreed on, or acquiesced to, the pursuance of the common goal of achieving ANC hegemony in their areas.

199

Image 5.13 Community office in Zenzele, Randfontein. (Photograph by author)

In rural areas run by traditional authorities there will be a headman committee and a ward committee. There was peaceful coexistence in the operation of these structures in the areas visited and cooperation typically took the form of a representative from the one structure attending the meetings of the other (Ward committee member, Dinokana village, Zeerust, interview 3, 5/12/2012). Disillusion with slow service delivery was behind rivalry that developed between the traditional and municipal authorities in one rural settlement (Residents, Sibantubonke, Mount Frere, group interview 60, 28/2/2013). Studies into the operation of traditional and municipal institutions that explore their modus vivendi suggest that the common objective, besides development, is hegemony over the people with chiefs keen to have their power on the allocation of land secure while municipalities prioritised party political dominance (Khan, Lootvoet and Vawda 2006:109-110).

5.5 Relationship of accountability of committees to their communities The committees claim to act on behalf of the communities that they serve. This suggests that they ought to be accountable to their constituency. What mechanisms are used to effect this and what is the extent of this accountability? These are the questions I will look at here briefly. Almost all the amakomiti I came across made the claim that they account to the people. The election of committee members took various forms including self-appointment. In some instances people were regularly elected while in others terms of office were more or less a lifetime in scale, for example, in Thembelihle the committee conducts annual general meetings

200 while in Nhlalakahle the main leader had been holding this position since the establishment of the settlement more than twenty years ago. However, every several years he would ask for a new person or persons to be elected to help him. With some committees it was clear that the leaders were recallable and in fact during disputes or dissatisfactions community members would threaten to recall leaders. It was probably more difficult in instances where a leaders was dominant and had been in power for a long time. The accountability of leaders could be formal or informal in the sense that procedures could be explicity spelled out or were implicit in the understanding and the practice; in Thembelihle the committee has a constitution, calls regular meetings including weekly general meetings and monthly or bi-monthly “mass” meetings, whereas in Graaf-Reinert the leader visited people in their homes in executing his duties and would call a meeting according to need. Trust appeared to be an important currency in the operation of the amakomiti with people expressing their trust in leaders by seeking their assistance or opting to take their problems somewhere else if they had little confidence or trust in a particular leader or committee. Accountability is also affected and expressed by the attendance of meetings. The leaders enjoyed legitimacy if their meetings were well attended. Poorly attended suggested little confidence in the leadership but also meant that the leaders were accounting to a small section of the community they claimed to lead. For this reason the methods of calling meetings were important including the use of loudhailers, the time and venue of the meeting and the topics to be discussed. Accountability of the leadership to the people was also reflected in instances where the leaders negotiated with the authorities or some other party in the name of the community. Accountable leaders take a mandate in community-wide or committee meeting and give report backs. In some instances community members would be suspicious of leaders claiming that they “work for themselves” in the sense that when they meet the authorities they seek personal gain as a priority. This suspicion could also be expressed in the notion of “selling out” whereby leaders were said to take the side of the enemy or adversary in return for money or favours rather than carrying out the people’s mandate. In Nkaneng the local leadership rebelled against the ANC because it objected to nominating a ward councillor candidate who was viewed as an opportunist in this sense. Accountability also related to questions of resources whereby the community would pay money or posses assets that leaders were in charge of. Leaders proved their mettle by being honest and desisting from abusing such resources or using them for their personal gain.

201

In general, accountability of amakomiti to their communities did not necessarily correspond with the degree of formality of procedures such as written constitutions, regular elections of leaders, and so on. However, these mechanisms were important safeguards and markers of the seriousness with which the amakomiti and their constituency regarded accountability. Demanding and enforcing accountability is easier when one can point to procedures and processes that have been agreed upon and are known by all. 5.6 Relationship of committees with the state The relationship of the popular committees to the state is complex, dynamic and diverse. With respect to the people’s committees, their relationship to the state varies from antagonistic to symbiotic in ways and permutations that do not fit neatly within the invited versus invited spaces imaginary.220 Relations were adversarial where the settlements were established by way of land invasions (People’s committee member, Jeffsville, Atteridgeville/Pretoria, interview 22, 24/1/2013). The people’s committees that lead invasions are fighting committees that are antagonistic to the state. Nonetheless, at some point the community turns to the state for assistance in the provision of basic services. The state may be uncooperative and only provide water tanks or install communal taps as a constitutional obligation. Alternatively, the state might accept the de facto existence of the informal settlement and later develop plans to formalise the settlement, provide services and build houses. But even so it might take a long time to provide the most basic of services. In the informal settlements surveyed 30 out of 46 (65%) shared communal water taps, 32 (69%) had no access to electricity and 18 (39%) were not provided with sanitation irrespective of de facto or de jure recognition by the state.

Engagement with the state may lead to a loss of independence or autonomy in the long term. In some areas we find people’s committees that work very closely with the local ANC councillor, the ward committee, the CPF and the ANC BEC such that they can be seen as part of the architecture of ANC hegemony and state control. Other people’s committees will jealously guard their independence and continue to play the role of demanding services from the authorities. Maintenance of adversarial relations with the state may eventually translate into withdrawal of electoral support for the ANC as happened in Jeffsville and Thembelihle where the community organisations ran independent candidates in local government elections

220 Miraftab (2004:1) distinguishes thus: “While the former grassroots actions [in ‘invited spaces’] are geared toward providing the poor with coping mechanisms and propositions to support survival of their informal membership, the grassroots activity of the latter [in ‘invented spaces’] challenges the status quo in the hope of larger societal change and resistance to the dominant power relations.”

202

(People’s committee member, Jeffsville, Atteridgeville/Pretoria, interview 22, 24/1/2013; Pingo 2013:57).

Image 5.14 Connecting shacks to the electricity grid in Duncan Village, East London, without state sanction. (Photograph by author)

In most cases the relationship of the people’s committee to the state, or to the ward councillor as the government’s local agent, is ambiguous or ambivalent as the two quotations below suggest:

Sometimes our councillor comes, she talks well and she makes promises. She too will finish her term without doing anything [like the others before her]. But she might do something, we don’t really know (People’s committee members, Thambula Phansi, Mthatha, group interview 61, 27/2/2013).

There is no toyi toyi here because we think for our councillor. You see, we grew up together, she is our sisi [big sister]. But we clashed one day in a meeting. I asked her why when she formed her committee she did not include us [from the informal settlement]. We also clashed over water. I told her we don’t want disrespect and that I had trusted and hoped for much better [from her] (People’s committee member, Vrygrond, Graaff-Reinert, interview 43, 17/2/2013).

203

The relationship of ward committees to the state can take many forms despite the fact that they are established by the state. The ward councillor is central in the operation of the ward committee both as chairperson of the meetings and as the lynchpin between the committee and the municipality. Some ward councillors were reported to be doing well ensuring the successful operation of ward committees and fostering healthy relations with the communities they serve. In other instances some ward committee members were found to be in constant conflict with the ward councillor and there was disaffection in the community. In one case the ward councillor stopped attending ward committee meetings for four months at which point the community broke out in protest and, among other things, burnt down the councillor’s house (Resident, Top Village, Mahikeng, interview 2, 4/12/2012). This incident took place in a township sharing a ward committee with Top Village, an informal settlement in Mahikeng. Informal settlement inhabitants are sometimes drawn to support such action since they have grievances of their own, but often their ward representatives find themselves conflicted. They need a stable structure and reliable communication channels to convey the many needs and grievances of their community to the state and may be less interested in power struggles involving people living in brick and cement houses that they may view as ANC “politicking.” Some ward and people’s committees members positioned themselves neutrally in relation to such fights hoping that a working relationship with the councillor was a more certain route to bringing development to their areas (Ward committee member, H39, Madadeni/Newcastle, interview 31, 3/2/2013).

The relationship of the CDF to the state was determined by whether the committee was formed autonomously by residents or through state prompting. In Itireleng informal settlement the autonomously formed CDF was in competition with the ANC for control of resources, development projects and community support. In contrast, in Bambayi, the “development committee,” formed with state sanction, worked well with all structures and seemed to act as a policeman to ensure that project work does not stop and no materials are stolen. This role might be viewed, from a critical perspective, as falling short of the RDP expansive vision of the CDF as a conceptualiser and overseer of projects on behalf of the community (Miller 1996).

204

Image 5.15 Members of the community development committee in Bhambayi, Inanda, Durban, at the local projects office. (Photograph by author)

The Itireleng CDF demanded the right to a more expansive role in development, a challenge supported by the community, but this has led to a total breakdown of relations with the (ANC) ward councillor who then refused to call or attend any public meetings in the area (CDF members, Itireleng, Laudium/Pretoria, group interview 24, 24/1/2013). Although CDF structures were originally conceived as politically non-partisan, in Itireleng, Makause and H39 it is not so. The attempt to keep alive the vision of popular participation in development as espoused by the RDP is a struggle against the top-down model currently in operation whereby plans and projects are developed by the state and foisted upon the people. Sometimes even the ward councillors did not have much say over development. Often the only thing left for communities was to protest in order to register their development preferences (Alexander 2010:37).221

221 According to Alexander (2010:37): “The protests reflect disappointment with the fruits of democracy…This has rekindled the socio-political divide between ‘citizen and subject’ (to use Mahmood Mamdani’s formulation), with people responding by attempting to exert political influence through the development of a collective, community voice, as distinct from formal local politics.” .

205

5.7 Protest in the settlements Protests are widespread in South Africa (Alexander 2010, Alexander et al. 2015b, Alexander and Pfaffe 2013, Booysen 2011: Chapter 12, Runciman, Ngwane and Alexander 2012, von Holdt et al. 2011). Many protests take place in informal settlements as the following table and chart indicates:

Table 5.7 Protests in South African informal settlements as a percentage of total number of protests Demographics 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Total Number of 1 31 12 36 32 66 59 39 99 375 protests 7.7% 29.2% 24.2% 24% 19.5% 21% 23.4% 18.9% 21.1% 21.5% Percentage Total Number 13 106 50 168 162 314 252 206 470 1 741 of protests [Source: Maruping et al. 2014, adapted by author]

Figure 5.1 Protest issues in South African protests with housing second on the list of grievances. [Source: Alexander et al. 2014]

In the overview study I did not witness a protest but my informants told me about one or more protests that occurred in their area. Table 7 below indicates the number of informal settlements that had protested in the previous 5 years or less:

206

TABLE 5.8: Incidence of protests

Incidence of protests Number of % settlements Where N=46 Settlements that protested 25 54% Settlements with no protest 17 37% Unknown 4 9% TOTAL 46 100% Source: Compiled by the author based on field research.

The protests took the form of marches and/or disruptive action such as blocking the roads with burning tyres. There was a more or less even split between these two forms of protest. The high frequency of protests as reflected in the table above is broadly in line with the protest monitor studies referred to above. I asked my informants what the protests were about and they mentioned the following protest issues as reflected in Table 5.9 below:

TABLE 5.9: Protest issues

Service delivery 4 Against councillor 4 Water 3 Houses 3 Waste removal 2 Electricity cuts 2 Roads 2 Recreation facilities 1 Sewer project stopped 1 Jobs 1 Crèche 1 Employment in project 1

Source: Compiled by the author based on field research.

There is a commonality with these protest issues and those identified by the Research Chair for Social Change Rebellion of the Poor protest monitoring project (See Figure 5.1 above). However, these figures only give an impression and I cannot lay claim to their reliability.

Why did some informal settlements protest and others not? Questions of leadership and organisation, in short, agency, appeared to be critical in this respect. There is a lot of dissatisfaction in the informal settlements, as Table 5.10 below indicates, but organising a protest requires leadership, a specific conjuncture and depends on the response of the

207 authorities. What seems crucial is the role of the ANC. Well organised settlements and those in which the ANC is dominant tend to have less protests. It moves quickly to quell protests by persuasion or threats and this is facilitated by its having its ear to the ground. However, sometimes people will protest irrespective. Below are issues that irked informants about their living conditions regardless of whether or not there had been protest in their area.

TABLE 5.10: Issues that residents are unhappy about (Disaffection)

ISSUE Number of times mentioned

Housing 38 Services 18 Development 17 Electricity 11 Water 9 False promises 6 Schools 4 Toilets 3 Clinics 2 Status/future unclear 3 No hope 3 Jobs 2 Tired 2 No rep on committee 2 Police not cooperating 1 Chemical pollution 1 No law 1 Corruption 1 Cash economy 1 Lazy mayor 1 Moist place 1 Committees fighting 1 Intolerable life 1 Access road ambulance 1 Power abuse 1 Apollo light 1 Demarcation 1 ANC BEC problem 1 Undermining community unity 1 Crime 1 Youth unhappy 1 Source: Compiled by the author based on field research. There are clearly a lot of things that informal settlement dwellers are unhappy about. Researchers have suggested that the notion of dissatisfaction about the “quality of democracy” appears to capture and crystallise the underlying causes behind the protests (Alexander

208

2010:37, Pithouse 2007:1). The protest issue “against councillor” in Table 5.9 and the grievance “false promises” in Table 5.19 corroborates this view. People want substantive democracy, they want democracy to bring positive material improvements in their lives (Cho 2008:7).

5.8 “Democracy on the margins” The complexity in the nature, character and operation of the popular committees in the informal settlements requires a concept that grasps both their individual and collective ontological integrity and the relations that they form with each other and with the state. The invented/invited spaces conceptualisation is inadequate in this respect hence the proposal of the new concept: “democracy on the margins.” In examining and elaborating the concept in this section, the question is posed: What is the nature and character of “democracy on the margins”? The evidence suggests that popular committees are an expression of the agency of informal settlement dwellers that is driven by the search to create communities and improve life conditions in spatially marginal areas that the people would rather not inhabit. The discussion on the different categories of committees and their operation provides some clues from which we can draw the general characteristics of the “democracy in the margins” that is created in the course of this struggle.

Firstly, it is a form of democracy that emerges from and is located within the challenges of everyday life in the informal settlements. It comes into being out of necessity and of the struggle to survive as exemplified by the formation of people’s committees to lead land invasions. Secondly, the leadership and organisation that emerges is purposive and practical in its orientation, it is geared towards realising specific concrete purposes. The tasks of people’s committees that were mentioned most frequently were development, allocation of stands, solving disputes, crime prevention and liaison with the state. Thirdly, “democracy on the margins” has representative and participatory components. Popular committees are not unerringly democratic since some lack formal procedures such as annual general meetings, constitutions, and so on. However, the general pattern is one of a largely democratic system of self-organisation and decision-making with most committees elected and responsive to the needs and views of the communities they serve.

Fourthly, the procedures of “democracy on the margins” are without decorum and airs, they are practical and working class in terms of political culture. The personal histories and circumstances of people’s committee members in particular suggest that members are elected

209 or appointed not primarily because of their status, education or even sobriety, but because they are trusted to serve the interests of the community. Some people more or less appointed themselves because of their vigour and energy in community affairs, but leaders could be sanctioned and changed by the community. Committee members are peers of their electors in that they too live in a shack, might be unemployed or poor, and face the same challenges of everyday life in the informal settlements like everyone else. “Democracy on the margins” does not provide for “separate powers” between the executive, the legislative and the judiciary. Committee members constitute a “working parliament” in the Paris Commune sense: they make the rules and implement them themselves, and are the adjudicators in people’s courts thus contradicting some key aspects of liberal democracy (Marx 1977:177,236).

Finally, this form of democracy is dynamic, permeable and fragile. With the birth of ward committees, for example, these were incorporated into and became part of the popular committees. One immediate problem was how the people’s committee should relate to the ward committee. In some cases attempts were made to displace the people’s committees or undermine their power, in others ward committees sought to realise their work through the people’s committees, or they worked harmoniously as equals or in support of the political project of the people’s committees. Ward committees could be staffed by former members of people’s committees or by new people. Ward committees come with the hitherto unknown practice of regular payment of committee members. This illustrates how “democracy on the margins” is open to influence and change.

“Democracy on the margins” is fragile. Its engagement with the dominant democratic form may introduce ambiguities and contradictions that can undermine it. For example, the state expects ward committee members to act as its agents whereas popular committees are traditionally understood to represent the interests of the community.222 The struggle for power and influence in the local sphere takes new meaning and assumes a hitherto unknown urgency with the possibility of becoming a councillor, winning state tenders and securing well-paying jobs. Power-mongering is a threat to “democracy on the margins” especially because in many cases institutional “checks and balances” mechanisms are rudimentary or informal. This is also apparent in the popular committees’ relationship with the state which is not only more powerful but often demands the acceptance of its programmatic agenda, political vision and hegemony

222 As advisory bodies ward committees are bound by the rules and regulations of the local and national state but do not have the power to change these. It is can be argued that this is a form of asymmetrical participatory democracy.

210 as a condition for its cooperation. But its political project does not necessarily or consistently advance the interests of informal settlement communities.

“Democracy in the margins” is a heuristic concept that I developed before going into the field. However, in the course of my fieldwork visiting 46 informal settlements the concept proved useful because it not only directed my observations but it also helped in the interpretation of the data that I collected. In what follows I will provide some evidence to substantiate the general points I have made above about the character of this form of democracy. Firstly, the amakomiti are structures that are indeed formed in the course of the daily struggle of the shack dwellers, they are, as Lenin (1974:264) put it with respect to the emergence of soviets in the Russian Revolution, “not anybody’s invention.” In Jeffsville, Pretoria, for example, Comrade Jeff the leader of the committee there tells the story of how he and other people who were desperate for a place to live gathered and formed a committee which planned the land invasion that established the settlement (People’s committee member, Jeffsville, Atteridgeville/Pretoria, interview 22, 24/1/2013). The Thembelihle Crisis Committtee, as the detailed account in Chapter 8 will attest, was formed expressly in the course of the struggle to defend the community against the government’s relocation plans and gained political dominance in the area because of its success in leading the resistance (Interview Number 6T, resident and TCC member). Similarly the origins of Duncan Village’s area committees, grassroots structures that organise mainly in the township’s shack settlements, emerged in the course of the struggle against apartheid and the proliferation of informal structures that was spearheaded by the Duncan Village Residents Association (Interview Number 1D, community member, ex-DVRA committee member).

Secondly, the leadership and organisation of the amakomiti is purposive and practically geared towards realising specific concrete purposes. This is a characteristic of “democracy on the margins” which is reflected in the list of tasks that people’s committees were said to carry out (See Table 5.6). In Nkaneng settlement, for example, the iinkundla committees in operation there which I argue are a form of a people’s committee, were first created to take care of affairs when someone passed in the settlement and there was a need to repatriate his or her body back to the rural areas (Interview Number 1, Inkundla yaseLibode group interview). Thirdly, the amakomiti are generally democratic containing aspects of representative and participatory democracy. In Thembelihle, for example, annual general meetings are held to elect the leadership and there are regular community meetings where the views of the community are solicited (Interview Number 6T, resident and TCC committee member). In Duncan Village the

211 area committees are elected more or less annually and hold regular meetings to keep residents abreast of deveopments (Interview Number 5D, area committee member). Itireleng informal settlement, located in Laudium, Pretoria, is a negative example of what happens when there is no democracy in the operation of the local committees. Dissatisfied with what they allege was the imposition of decisions on the community by the ANC, some ANC and civic members broke ranks and formed their own structure, a community development forum that is constantly in loggerheads with the ANC branch and the ANC ward councillor on developmental matters (CDF members, Itireleng, Laudium/Pretoria, group interview 24, 24/1/2013).

Fourthly, the political culture of the amakomiti is without decorum and the leaders’ personal histories suggest that they occupy their positions not because of their status or education but because they are perceived to serve the community. My observations of amakomiti meetings in Thembelihle, Malinda Forest (East London) and Nkaneng suggests that the venues of the meetings, the furniture and other paraphernalia are decorum-free and grounded in the life and circumstances of the settlement; for example, Nkaneng meetings take place under a tree in open patch of land between the shacks, Thembelihle meetings take place under a tree with members sitting on plastic chairs, crates and cement blocks, etc. Leaders such Mdingi in Thembelihle, who led the battle against the bulldozers, had no formal education and were functionally illiterate (Interview Number 4T, resident since the early days). It was apparent to me that the leader of the committee in Rooigrond, Mahikeng, was not sober on the two days that I interacted with him but this did not seem to greatly affect his authority or veneration as a leader.

Finally, amakomiti are forced to constantly deal with change, challenges and influences that require adjustment and adaptation. Thus “democracy on the margins” can be said to be dynamic, permeable and fragile. Thembelihle, for example, did not participate in ward committee structures when they were first established by the state in 2006 but in 2012 they decided to run in the elections and won the housing portfolio (Le Roux 2013). They adapted to the system and today have to address questions of accountability of the incumbent and other challenges arising out their decision to participate in state structures. The case study on Duncan Village provides further evidence of this character of amakomiti and “democracy on the margins.” In Chapter 6 we will see how the area committees which operated as part of the anti- apartheid movement adjusted to the ushering of the new democratic order and became the ground structures in an elaborate system of committees that include ANC branch, ward committee, community development and community policing forums. The overarching civic

212 structure, the DVRA, which orchestrated their formation and operation during apartheid no longer exists necessitating a re-orientation in these grassroots people’s committees. To survive amakomiti have to be dynamic, adaptable and adjust to changes in their social and political environment.

5.9 Conclusion The overview study covering 46 informal settlements in four South African provinces revealed the existence of various categories of committees that are operated by these communities. Moreover, in many settlements there was found more than one committee in operation. This level of self-organisation in the informal settlements, although not unique to this country, is phenomenal. It requires further research and explanation. We can view the committees as an expression of the existence of objective conditions and subjective factors that drive informal settlement dwellers to organise themselves in this manner. We can also view the committees as a means: as organisational vehicles employed by shack dwellers to achieve certain goals. What those goals are and how best to achieve them are questions that Marxist social science poses because it is not satisfied with scientific knowledge for its own sake but seeks the development of knowledge systems that contribute to the cause of human emancipation (Burawoy 2005, Gouldner 1970, Wright 2010). In this respect I began my fieldwork with the hypothetical concept of “democracy on the margins” whereby I proposed that these committees are institutions that are used by shack dwellers to intervene in collectively controlling and changing their reality in their own favour. My conclusions with respect to how the overview study influences my thinking on the concept are recorded in the last section above. However, these conclusions derive from findings that are based on an overview that did not go into enough detail with respect to studying conditions in greater depth in each of the 46 research sites. In my research design I therefore organised for the selection of a few case studies from the bigger sample of settlements in which I would conduct further and in-depth investigation. This constituted the second phase of my study and it is to the case studies that I now turn in the next three chapters of this dissertation. The fourth chapter will consist of a synthesis of the findings of this overview and of the three case studies thus laying the basis for an overall assessment of the applicability of the concept of “democracy on the margins.”

213

CHAPTER 6

CASE STUDY Number 1: DUNCAN VILLAGE

6.1 Introduction There are more shacks than formal houses in Duncan Village, a township in East London, in the Eastern Cape. In this chapter it will be apparent that the operation of shack committees is shaped by the specific historical, political, social and economic conditions found in particular localities as these intersect with broader societal and global processes. The popular committees in Duncan Village operate in both the developmental and political spheres. My observations suggest that they also constitute an essential component in the construction and maintenance of the hegemony of the ANC as a movement and as government in the area. To illustrate this I will focus on the manner in which the “area committees,” components of grassroots structures formed during the1980s phase of “people’s power” under the militant anti-apartheid civic, the Duncan Village Residents Association (DVRA), have been incorporated into the architecture of ANC hegemony in the new democratic order. Their job is no longer to organise protest but to prevent and contain them.

6.2 Physical attributes of Duncan Village It is important to have a mind’s eye view of Duncan Village (See Maps 1 to 3, appendices). It is a township situated a handful of kilometres away from East London town that is run by the Buffalo Metropolitan Municipal Council. It is a very densely populated township with an extensive shack-land involving both stand-alone shacks and backyard shacks; the ratio of shack to brick house is three to one overall (Bank 2011:26).223 There are standard apartheid matchbox houses, single-sex hostels, post-apartheid RDP houses and new housing estates built by Mercedes Benz and other companies for their workers. Everything else in-between, behind, in front and across the houses consists of shacks and more shacks. There is the congestion, chaos and ultra-vibrancy of a multi-layered poorly-planned and overcrowded township. Understanding Duncan Village’s history helps in cognitively apprehending the place by imputing meaning to the physical structures and images that flood the eye.

223 According to UNESCO (2014): “[In 2003] 80,000 people live permanently in Duncan Village in a horrific situation where 50% of the core city's population is crammed onto just 2% of the land. There are 3,500 formal dwellings and 14,000 shacks, while densities exceed 2,500 people per hectare in some areas.”

214

The population of Duncan Village is estimated to be 100 000 people living in 6 000 formal and 15 000 dwellings. The latter are divided into 11 500 free-standing and 3 500 backyard shacks (StatsSA, Census 2011). In 1994 Duncan Village was identified as a Presidential Priority for the Reconstruction and Development Programme, however, nothing much seems to have happened with the area plagued by high unemployment rates (55%), poverty and lack of adequate facilities especially for the thousands of households living in informal dwellings (Fryer and Hepburn 2010:11, UNESCO 2015).

6.3 Historical context A Defiance Campaign meeting called by the ANC iin 1952 was disrupted by the authorities and left nine people dead by the police (Bank 2011:60). This happened in the East Bank area, the precursor to Duncan Village that was also killed by the racists. This brutal act had a significant impact on apartheid state–community relations and culminated in the East London city council in 1960 onwards, on direct orders from Pretoria, demolishing and forcibly removing residents of the East Bank “tin towns” and relocating them to the Ciskei township of Mdantsane, 25 kilometres away. Other residents were rehoused in Duncan Village in standard apartheid style 4-room houses and single sex hostels. A transit camp of one-roomed windowless structures was built at Duncan Village’s C-section to accommodate people awaiting completion of the housing development in Mdantsane (Bank 2011:62). The forced removals tremendously disrupted community life and socioeconomic relations in the area throwing asunder neighbours who had long lived next to each other. Only those residents who qualified according to the apartheid criteria that stipulated employment, male-headed households and length of time living in the city, among others, were allowed to continue living in Duncan Village. Those thrown to Mdantsane had no choice but to savour the semblance of order and quiet after the tumultuous if exciting (Sophiatown-like224) life in the slums of the East Bank. But the economic circumstances of the people worsened and gradually, starting in the factories and later spreading into the living spaces, struggle began anew.225

Both Mdantsane and Duncan Village experienced a growth in community activism and resistance to apartheid in the 1970s and especially in the 1980s. The incoroporation of Mdantsane into the Ciskei Bantustan was a major provocation (White 2008:18). The other

224 Sophiatown was an area in Johannesburg that was renowned for its cultural vibrancy, night-life and interracial living that was demolished by the apartheid regime in 1955 (Huddleston 1956:136, SAHO 2015f). 225 Among other things, the activities of the South African Allied Workers’ Union (SAAWU) opposing the incorporation of Mdantsane township into the newly-independent Bantustan of Ciskei, served to revive mass mobilization and struggle in the township (Bendix 1989:203, MacShane, Plaut and Ward 1984:44).

215 problem was the failure of the apartheid developmental plan of forming border industries such as in East London to take off and provide adequate employment and economic upliftment of the people, including the repressive labour conditions in the employment offered (Phalatse 2000:150-152).226 A peculiarity of the emerging resistance in this part of the Eastern Cape was the fact that at the forefront was the community-oriented and militant trade union, the South African Allied Workers Union (Maree 1982). The leaders of this union, notably Thozamile Gqwetha and Sisa Njikelana, made various efforts to link and mutually support township and workplace-based struggles including, for example, forming an East London Youth Organisation in 1982 (Seekings 2000a:83). This union was arguably one of the influences in the emergence and the character of community structures that were formed in Duncan Village, Mdantsane and other townships in the Eastern Cape.

The story of what happened in Duncan Village is told by Leslie Bank (2011:112) and focuses on the “the rise of the Comrades (amaqabane) as a political phenomenon.” These were youthful activists who were at the forefront of the uprising against apartheid in working class areas. The thrust of Bank’s work dealing with this topic is his attempt to correct “the failure of scholars to situate the social and cultural dynamics of youth identity politics within regional and city-specific histories” which leads to “the urban youth of the 1980s often appear[ing] as a homogenous category” (Bank 2011:112-3). Using ethnographic methods he shows, for example, that the amaqabane of Duncan Village were not a result of a youth urban subculture but rather of an amalgam of rural and urban traditions and styles. This suggests the existence of a variety of influences leading to the emergence of different models of working class self- organisation in working class residential areas. The organisation of Duncan Village into a fighting force against apartheid was led by a civic structure, the Duncan Village Residents’ Association (DVRA), whose strength and power changed the course of history in this small township (Bank 2011:89-90).

The DVRA was formed from “the old anti-removals committee…by 1984 the DVRA was well-organised” in street, block and area committees. (Banks 2011:91). It partly borrowed, as it developed, the model of organisation suggested by Matthew Goniwe in Cradock, leader of the Cradock Residents’ Association (Cradora), about 280 kilometres away, as did many

226 This was part of “grand apartheid” project to develop Bantustans through industrial decentralization for political and economic reasons (Horrell 1973:101). According to Phalatse (2000:151): “The industrial relations legislation introduced in the former homelands of Ciskei, Venda and Bophuthatswana were among the most repressive in the world.” A point also made by Lewis and Woolfrey (1990:241).

216 other townships in the country, modifying it to suit local conditions (Seekings 2000b:70, Bank 2011:93).227 The evidence suggests that the DVRA became powerful in the township and may even be said to have enjoyed a period of “a peculiar form of dual power” (Mashinini 1986).228 Trotsky (2008:150) defines dual power as “in the pre-revolutionary period, a situation in which the class which is called to realize the new social system, although not yet master of the country, has actually concentrated in its hands a significant share of the state power, while the official apparatus of the government is still in the hands of the old lords.” At the height of the struggle, the 1985-86 situation in many South African townships was described in these terms (van Kessel 2000:69).

The DVRA took aim at what was arguably the rampart of grand apartheid’s urban segregation policy, namely, its housing and influx control policy. The apartheid regime momentarily faltered as the relentless amaqabane deposed the local government councillors from the area, seen as regime stooges, leading to a retreat of the local state and leaving a power vacuum. In an unprecedented move the DVRA, taking advantage of the situation, encouraged thousands of rural and urban folk to flood the area and occupy backyard and stand-alone shacks, something that apartheid’s influx control laws had expressly prohibited (Bank 2011:92-93). The context was the historical forced relocation of people to Mdantsane in the 1960s, something the apartheid local state was apparently still intent on continuining with respect to some people of Duncan Village in the 1980s (Ngcaba 2014:52).229 By so doing the DVRA revolutionised the built environment in Duncan Village. Their method included allowing tenants to set up shacks in people’s yards, sometimes against the will of the homeowner and with the tenant not necessarily required to pay rent (“yard socialism”) (Banks 2011:192). People were also allowed to set up shacks in open spaces. The quid pro quo was “joining the struggle”, that is, among things, supporting the rule of the DVRA and amaqabane that included subjecting yourself to their justice (people’s courts) and participating in the people’s governance structures (street, block and area committees). This revolution against apartheid urban planning and private property not only fundamentally changed the demographics and the socio-spatial configuration of Duncan Village leading, for example, to a fourfold increase in

227 Seekings (2000a:70) observes that: “CRADORA was to become a model grasstoots civic organization, based on a system of street committees, each represented on a central structure. The following year, the eruption of township revolt created the conditions for the establishment of such structures in many townships.” 228 This was a formulation made in the ANC “Report of the Politico-Military Strategic Commission” which was subject to a debate between Mashinini and Mzala (Legassick 2007:419). 229 With the 1960s forced removals to Mdantsane, it was “common for the people displaced in this way to return to the ‘African’ areas of Duncan Village and put up shacks in any backyard that was available for rent, just to be close to work” (Ngcaba 2014:52).

217 the population of the township, it also had a great impact on social relations. Greg Ruiters (2015) has described it as a form of “insurgent town planning.”

The DVRA could be said to have been “hegemonic” in Duncan Village during the height of its powers. It managed certain aspects of township life according to its own improvised laws. In addition to being in charge of allocating space to erect shacks, it also took care of crime prevention and ran a people’s court to deal with offenders. As one informant reported during an interview:

Crime was not reported to the police. Some people resisted subjecting themselves to people’s justice. I remember someone who refused to present himself to a people’s court; he left Duncan [Village] and never came back because he knew he had erred. Some people left like that, we said uwel’ulwandle [he crossed the ocean] {laughs} (Interview Number 2D, ward councillor and ex-DVRA committee member).

The DVRA was arguably an expression of the power of the community vis-à-vis the apartheid local state. The state police and justice system’s power over the community was contested. The DVRA was thus also a power over the community in the sense that residents had to heed and yield to its power, as the quote above suggests. At the local level, if we follow Trotsky’s definition of dual power, the DVRA had, “although not yet master,” indeed “actually concentrated in its hands… [a] share of the state power” (Trotsky 2008:150).230

Hardly a few years passed, and following a period of intense repression, the apartheid government relented and bowed down to the pressure. In 1990 it unbanned political organisations, freed political prisoners and initiated negotiations to prepare for a democratic transition (Ellis and Sechaba 1992:197). During this transition the civic and the popular committees continued to operate in Duncan Village but priorities changed fundamentally with the changing political context. The ANC successfully put itself at the head of the mass movement and its presence opened up new debates about the strategic orientation and role of the civic structures (Saul 2014:88-91, Seekings 2000a:207, Zuern 2006:185-187, Ndletyana 1998)231. The debate was about the role of civic structures vis-à-vis the ANC. A national civic

230 Van Kessel (2000:34) has questioned whether the situation could be described as dual power. However, she acknowledges the inroads made by the comrades in their contestation of the apartheid state’s control of the township. 231 Seekings (2000a:207) observes that: “The roles played by civics in the first stage of the transition – from 1990 to 1993 – were thus determined primarily by the emergent relationship between civics and political parties, especially the ANC. The formula agreed upon then was that the ANC would address itself to the struggle for central state power, whilst civics continued to represent the ‘community’ over developmental issues at the local

218 structure, the South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO), was formed in March 1992 in the midst of this debate. The ANC-SACP leadership viewed SANCO as best suited to play a role of a supportive development partner to the envisaged ANC government rather than “playing a watchdog role” as suggested by some civic leaders (Mayekiso 1996:142; also Mayekiso 1992a, 1992b; Nzimande and Skhosana 1991, 1992a, 1992b). The DVRA became a local structure of this new national body (Interview Number 2D, ward councillor and ex-DVRA committee member).

Table 6.1: Periodisation of history of committees in Duncan Village Name of committee Description Term of office South African Allied The union played a key role in mobilizing the 1980s Workers Union community (SAAWU) East London Youth Formed by SAAWU to organize and Formed in 1982 Organisation mobilise township youth giving rise to the “amaqabane” (young lions) who later became the DVRA’s enforcers Duncan Village A civic structure that organized and oversaw Formed in 1984, Residents the formation and operation of yard, street, declined in 1993 Association (DVRA) block and area committees Area committees Operated mainly in Duncan Village’s Formed in 1984 and informal settlements still operating today ANC committees The ANC “took over” the political leadership Unbanned in 1990 of Duncan Village when it was unbanned and still operating with the cooperation of the DVRA today leadership. Five ANC branch committees operate in Duncan Village corresponding to municipal ward demarcations South African The formation of this national body of civics Formed in 1992 and National Civic signaled the beginning of a period of crisis for still operating today the DVRA and other civics in the country as

level.” But as Zuern (2006:198) and Gumede (2005:275) have shown in their analysis, the real question was whether the civics would continue representing the interests of residents in the context of and/or even against ANC rule.

219

Organisation they struggled to redefine their role in the (SANCO) face of ANC political hegemony Ward committees Statutory structures that work closely with 2006 to present elected ward councilors in Duncan Village’s six wards. Mostly work closely with and under the direction of the ANC committee including other committees such as the community policing forums but other political parties are beginning to have some influence Source: Compiled by the author based on primary and secondary sources.

The period from 1990 to 1994 was one of negotiations and political re-alignment and reconfiguration of organisational structures. The ANC emerged as the strongest political organisation and was made stronger by the formation of the ANC-SACP-COSATU Tripartite Alliance in which SANCO was regarded as part of and informally referred to as the “plus one” in the Alliance. SANCO structures got busy in local negotiations preparing the ground for the new local government including sorting out some sticking points such as rent boycotts, racially defined municipal entities, etc.232 In 1995 it nominated comrades to run as ANC candidates in the first democratically elected local government structures in the country (Zuern 2006:183).

The activism of comrades during this period and their unity cemented by the “Tripartite Alliance plus one” meant that many leaders would wear many caps, that is, be members of two or more of the Alliance structures – giving rise to the “two hats” debate (Murray 1994:146, Pillay 1990, Zuern 2006:183).233 Two hats became an issue when the SACP, hitherto operating clandestinely, revealed the names of its leadership on 29 July 1990, at its official launch rally held at the FNB stadium next to Soweto, many of which had been ANC leaders and others COSATU union leaders (Maloka 2013:118, Murray 1994:146). This practice was also partly related to the ANC leadership ethos under Oliver Tambo whereby cadres serve the organisation

232 See Mayekiso (1996:210, 218) for negotiations and deals made in the Johannesburg City Council. 233 Zuern (2006:183) quotes a SANCO leader saying: “How will a SANCO leader, who also holds the position of councilor, conduct himself if he is called on to lead a march of residents against the local authority? Who will he lead the march against – himself?”

220 selflessly and gain seniority through the length and distinction of their service in its various structures as directed by the leadership. Just as the members of the movement, the cadre, were seen as part of the “ANC family” (Callinicos 2004:415), so were, arguably, the different components, branches and divisions of the broader movement perceived: they were all part of the family. The driving force behind the democratic transition was a movement consisting of many organisations striving for more or less the same ends (Grossman 1996:2, 6; Murray 1994:145). In practice the most active comrades would be members and leaders in all the structures of the Tripartite Alliance “plus one” (ANC, SACP, COSATU and SANCO).234 The explanation of the wearing of many caps is important in understanding the nature and character of the committees operating today in the shack-lands of Duncan Village, in particular why many committee members serve or have served in different committees.

6.4 The state of the popular committees in Duncan Village today The following categories of committees exist in Duncan Village: (a) area committees, (b) ward committees and (c) ANC committees.235 Below I will discuss each of these committees individually covering their formation, role and functions, their relationship to each other, and their relationship with the community and the state.

6.4.1 Area committees

Area committees are the main category of popular committee, the most prevalent and most active in Duncan Village. They are the original people’s committees that were set up during the heyday of DVRA people’s power and have survived into the democratic era with features that can be traced back to the anti-apartheid days. Other committees from this era such as street, block and branch committees have not fared well in the new order with many becoming defunct and their functions taken over by area committees and by the new committees such as ward committees, ANC committees and community policing forums (Interview Number 1D, community member and ex-DVRA committee member). There is a consensus among the committee members who were my informants that area committees are the closest and most representative of community interests. They are part of a glorious history and they represent

234 It was expected of a “good comrade” to be active at home and at work and in all the structures of the Alliance as much as possible. I, too, was active in all four organisations in the period between 1990 and 1994 although I was active for only 6 months in the SACP before I resigned. 235 The structures associated with community development workers were not covered in the research, however, they too, like the other committees, were linked to the ANC committees which are covered here.

221 the community “as a whole,” that is, along non-party political lines in the spirit of the old civics (Interview Number 8D, ward committee and area committee member).

Where did the area committees fit in the old civic structures and committees? The organisational template developed by Matthew Goniwe in Cradock had to be adapted to different local conditions including to the very purpose of the people’s local structures (Seekings 2000b:72).236 It should also be remembered that some civics were formed earlier, for example, the Soweto Civic Association and the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation (van Kessel 2000:151).237 In Alexandra, for example, as the struggle heated up in the 1980s, Moses Mayekiso and his comrades formed the Alexandra Action Committee (AAC) on 17 February 1986 and resolved to set up “Yard/Blocks and Streets Committee” (Mayekiso 1996:61). The AAC resolution was informed by conditions in Alexandra where, for example, yards consisted of a main structure and about ten or more shacks clustered around it that allowed meaningful yard meetings and the election of yard representatives. This was the core structure of the Alexandra Civic Organisation (Lucas 2000:148). In addition each yard elected one or two reps to form a street committee. In Duncan Village, yards had fewer shacks and there were also a lot of stand-alone shacks without a yard. Yard problems were reported to the street committees. A handful of streets combined to form a block and each block elected representatives that would join with others to form an area committee. An area committee consists of 15 members. As a former DVRA committee member recalls:

We had committees in the yards and a rep was elected from each yard. About 50 yards would elect 10 people to represent them in the area committee, for example, Area 5. The 10 reps met every Sunday to discuss issues pertaining to life in Duncan, challenges and developmental issues. In Duncan [Village] Proper we designated 8 areas (Interview Number 1D, community member and ex-DVRA committee member).

We should note that Duncan Village consists of several areas, namely, Duncan Village Proper, Ziphunzana, Gompo, Bebelele, C-section, D-section, etc. (See Map 3, appendix). These areas have different features, for example, D-section consists of the former single-sex hostels while another area will consist of mainly of stand-alone shacks interspersed between clusters

236 Seekings (2000b:72) notes that: “At this stage, however, there was little understanding of what these ‘alternative structures’ would involve; it was suggested that ‘a fuller concept of community organization must be developed.’” 237 The Soweto Civic Association was formed in 1979 through a renaming of the Committee of Ten, a body of “elders” formed during the 1976 student uprising (COJ 2015).

222 of formal houses. This means that the basic organisational structure of the civic is modified to suit each area. The “area” might have become important because it more readily suits the adjacent location of a combination of formal houses and the “backyard shacks” clustered around them, streets where the houses stand in rows and clusters of shacks built in the open spaces of the townships. “Blocks” were probably harder to define in areas characterised by stand-alone shacks thus an area was defined as a handful of blocks adjacent to each other. One area I visited had about 200 stand-alone shacks (Interview Number 5D, area committee member). The DVRA divided Duncan Village into about 20 areas with each allocated a number, for example, Area 1 or Area 2 (Interview Number 1D, community member and ex- DVRA committee member). Even today if you ask someone where they live they will say “I live in Area 8, at Ziphunzana”.

Area committees are elected in a general meeting held mostly annually; by-elections are sometimes held to replace members that have stopped being active. Area committees call regular weekly meetings when operating optimally (Interview Number 5D, area committee member).

The old area committees united under the “branch,” the DVRA, which was run by an elected central committee. The DVRA became a SANCO branch in probably 1993 after the formation of the national civic structure during the transition from apartheid to democracy (Interview Number 2D, ANC ward councillor and ex-DVRA member, Interview Number 8, ward committee and area committee member). Internal power struggles led to the demise of the SANCO branch and today the area committees do not have an umbrella body that unites and coordinates their operation. There are however instances when adjacent area committees meet to discuss issues of common interest. Once a quarter the ward councillor of a particular ward will call a general meeting and all the relevant area committees will attend. Without a branch, the area committees report to their constituency and to ANC structures, the ward committees and the councillors (Interview Number 2D, ANC ward councillor and ex-DVRA committee member).

6.4.2 Ward committees

In Duncan Village there are five wards each with its own ward committee (Buffalo City Municipality 2015). The ward committee members receive a stipend of R1 000 from the municipality. To become a ward committee member you need to self-nominate through a process involving the collection of signatures from people who support your candidacy. Getting

223 nominated inside the ANC can involve competition that requires the aspirant candidates to win the support of several structures such as the area committee and relevant ANC committee. Many informants decried the competition among comrades contrasting it with the altruism and sacrifice associated with the anti-apartheid struggle. Thus:

The Freedom Charter says “the people shall govern.” This means that when your turn is over, there is no need to fight, your term has expired. If we don’t want to elect you because you haven’t done much, give us a chance to elect someone else who we think will do what we want. But due to incentives comrades kill each other, beat each other, burn down your house for the position (Interview Number 2D, ANC ward councillor and ex-DVRA committee member).

While perhaps the stakes are not that high in the competition for a position in the ward committee, it is also true that being on the committee could possibly increase one’s chances to get other positions or benefits, for example, getting employed in the various state-led local economic development projects, having a say over who gets employed, being considered for nomination as a candidate-councillor, etc. Many informants suggested that a comrade had to prove themselves through long and loyal service to qualify for nomination (Interview Number 3D, ANC Branch Executive Committee member, ANC Women’s League committee member and SANCO BEC member). They had to work themselves through the various structures of the ANC and community (Interview Number 6D, ANC ward councillor).

224

Image 6.1 Member of a Duncan Village ward committee soup kitchen team preparing to cook. (Photograph by author)

Ward committees work closely with the ward councillor who chairs the monthly meetings. Members are required to sign a code of conduct that prohibits them from acting independently of or against the councillor or the municipality (Republic of South Africa 2005). In Duncan Village there is also a regulation that ward committee members cannot call community meetings, these can only be called by the area committees (Interview Number 6D, ANC ward councillor). These restrictions are an extension of the official regulations that prohibit ward committee members from calling meetings unless this is done in consultation with the ward councillor and he or she is present in such a meeting. This suggests an attempt to hamper independent political action by committee members:

We signed a contract that we cannot meet without the councillor – she is an ex officio, we can talk but we cannot meet without her (Interview Number 8D, ward committee and area committee member).

On the one hand the ward committees are there to facilitate public participation in local government, but on the other hand various mechanisms are put in place to limit and hamper their independent political action. The grassroots participatory democracy of the DVRA days

225 appears to have been jettisoned or diminished rather than enhanced or augmented by the new structures. The quotation below suggests the ascendancy of control over participation in the operation of the ward committees:

So when ward committees started, the street committees died off because it was understood that the people in the ward committees will do everything, but they don’t…You find that it is only those who support the councillor who are part of the ward committee (Interview Number 1D, community member and ex-DVRA committee member).

6.4.3 ANC committees

There are five ANC Branch Executive Committees in operation in Duncan Village because ANC branches are aligned to the local government structures (wards). All popular committee members are members of one or other local ANC structure. I did not come across one non-ANC member among all the committee people I talked to. A comrade could be a member or office bearer (e.g. chairperson, secretary) of the ANC Branch Executive Committee (BEC), the ANC Women’s League, or the ANC Youth League. Councillors often hold elected positions on the ANC BEC and if not they are ex-officio members, that is, they sit on the BEC because they are councillors. The ANC BEC was generally regarded as pivotal in the Duncan Village power structure or good governance model. It was the lynchpin between the ANC as government and as movement, the local political centre (Interview Number 4D, area committee member and ANC BEC member). One BEC member insisted that the councillor could not do anything without the BEC (Interview Number 3D, ANC Branch Executive Committee member, ANC Women’s League committee member). The all-ANC personnel and the importance of the ANC BEC suggests the ubiquitous influence of the ANC on Duncan Village’s popular committees. Since ANC branches coincide with wards the ANC organisation is closely in touch with developments on the grounds while politically aligning the ANC as a movement to the ANC as government. The slogan of the ANC-SACP-COSATU Alliance is “the ANC leads” and this is clearly the case in Duncan Village as all the important decisions affecting the community emanating from the government are first filtered through and cleared by the ANC structures (Interview Number 6D, ANC ward councillor; Interview Number 2D, ward councillor and ex-DVRA committee member).

I spent a few hours at a ward councillor’s office wherein was kept work tools (shovels, rakes, wheelbarrows, etc.) for a public works programme cleaning project. Workers came in

226 during the conversation I was having with the councillor to collect the tools. A supervisor guided the process and took instructions from the councillor who was sitting at her desk. Later when I had a chat with the supervisor she told me that she was an area committee chairperson. This suggested that in Duncan Village there is close coordination between state processes and civic matters as far as the operation of popular committees and state-driven local development projects are concerned. This process is facilitated by the dominance of the ANC and, as a corollary, the fact that the opposition political parties are very weak, and that SANCO no longer enjoys an independent existence because it does not have a branch structure. Without a branch there is no central locus of power thus leaving its constituent structures (the area committees) to get direction from the ANC. Meanwhile the operation of ANC structures tends towards close alignment and even symbiosis between the ANC as government and as movement or party. The result is near total hegemony of the ANC over local politics and no doubt this is also aimed at assuring ANC victory at the polls.

6.4.4 Other committees in Duncan Village

There are other committees in operation in Duncan Village. I was able to interview one committee member of the Community Policing Forum (CPF) that links the community and the police in the fight against crime. These structures meet according to a protocol laid down by the state and, while useful in fighting crime, researchers have noted how what had started as a mechanism to make the police accountable to the community has turned into the community supporting the work of the police (Pelser, Schnetler and Louw 2002: Chapter 3). There are also people active in the community under the title of “community development worker” who are employed by the provincial government to facilitate development issues and improve liaison between the state and the people, for example, helping social grant applicants. There was a sentiment expressed that these structures were not properly integrated into the operation of the popular committees, and indeed there was unclarity about how they were supposed to work with the other committees (Interview Number 1D, resident and ex-DRVA committee member).

6.4.5 Relationship of the committees with each other

The best way of understanding how the committees work with each other is to consider their functions and how these overlap and complement each other. The area committees are structures that are closest to the ground calling weekly meetings attended by ordinary residents. They deal with everyday problems such as minor disputes among residents, developmental or service delivery issues such as problems with water, electricity and housing, and may be called

227 upon to nominate people for employment in state-led projects. They are expected to feed the councillor with information about the needs of the people and in theory this is done through the ward committees, or through the quarterly ward general meeting, but in practice some councillors attend the area committee meetings themselves when they deem this necessary or are called upon to do so by the committees. Since many area committee members are also members of the ANC branch committee they give reports of their work there and get information that they pass on to their constituencies.

There is cooperation between ward committees and area committees. Area committees are on the ground, ward committees only have ten people, they can’t service 10 000 people. Area committees help with communication on the ground (Interview Number 9D, ward committee member).

The area committee takes up issues like service delivery to the upper structures. Issues like crime, dirt, electrical poles, jobs, housing…We want to know why we are still living in shacks but we voted in 1994. We have our meetings as the [area] committee, and general meetings with residents on Sundays. We get their needs and then we go to the councillor and then we report-back. There are 154 legal shacks in my area and about 50 illegal ones (Interview Number 5D, area committee member).238

The relationship between committees is not always smooth or clear. For example, some committees can be viewed as more important than others and sometimes protocol is not followed. In one instance a ward councillor expressed a very low opinion of ward committees and preferred to work directly with area committees (Interview Number 2D, ANC ward councillor and ex-DVRA committee member). He was a stalwart local leader from the days of the DVRA and exuded a confidence and independent-mindedness based on experience and a legendary struggle pedigree. He could arguably get away with his defiant attitude and breaking of party policy because of power derived from his seniority in the movement. He was not the only informant who had a dim view of the ward committee as a structure.

Payment or “incentives” can create problems in committee relationships. The incentives can serve as a disincentive in that, for example, area committee members are not paid at all but some of them might feel that they do an equal amount if not more work than the ward committees. An examination of the life history of a committee member suggests that

238 Legal shacks are those that are in the municipality’s database and the illegal ones belong to people who set up shacks without authority of the state. A legal shack will have a number painted on its door.

228 among some comrades there exists a personal career strategy that involves waiting for one’s turn to be on a paying committee, or to get employed in a local project (Interview Number 6D, ANC ward councillor). Long service in a non-paying committee creates an expectation that in the long run the party will reward the comrade. One area committee chairperson who landed a paying job as a toilet attendant said that other people competed with her for the position but she felt she had been hard working in her service to the community and as such deserved the job (Interview Number 5D, area committee member). Her self-justificatory observations were also related to an accusation levelled at the committees that they allocate jobs to themselves or to comrades, family and friends (Interview Number 10D with seven residents; Interview Number 2D, ANC ward councillor and ex-DVRA committee member). It could be argued that whether by accident or by design the committee members through their interaction soon get to know each other and will collude and/or compete with each other when opportunities appear.

Community and political work that comes with payment, called a “stipend” by the comrades, includes work in a ward committee, being a ward councillor, employment by the municipality, employment by the provincial government, a job as a community development worker, a job in the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) or Community Works Programme. Payment levels differ considerably. Community development workers are hired by the provincial government and are paid better than ward committee members. They can be viewed as facilitators or liaison officers who connect the township people with the provincial offices. Workers in the EPWP are paid standard rates that are on the low side. Large groups of people are employed on a temporary basis by the Department of Transport and Public Works, in conjunction with other departments, to carry out specific infrastructure-related and maintenance jobs locally. In 2008 the Community Works Programme was adopted by the state as the second phase of EPWP. Workers earn about R65 a day for at least eight days a month (Stanwix and van der Westhuizen 2012:4). Municipalities identify work that needs to be done in specific wards and people are then employed. In Duncan Village the local structures are the ones that identify potential workers and this is done through the area committees, ward committees and supervised by the ward councillors, who in turn get instructions or are monitored by the ANC branch structures (Interview Number 2, ANC ward councillor and ex- DVRA committee member). The power to provide lists of workers for employment is important in the life of the various committees in Duncan Village.

6.4.6 Relationship of the committees with the community

229

Members of the community that are not part of the committee structures tended to express a lot of dissatisfaction with the operation of the committees (Interview Number 10D with seven residents).239 There exist unbearable socioeconomic challenges in Duncan Village related to unemployment, poverty, inadequate housing, overcrowding, crime, etc. (Fryer and Hepburn 2010:8-9, Ndhlovu 2015:7, UNESCO 2015). The committees serve to provide a channel for community grievances and one can go to them if one has a problem. They also provide the necessary information about developmental issues. But development is slow with many shack dwellers impatient to get houses. The building of new communal toilets, the promise of electricity connections, the provision of a soup kitchen, and so on, do placate the masses and keep their hopes up, but impatience is growing. It was apparent that one of the main jobs of the committees was to explain government programmes to residents showing how development was both happening and in the pipeline partly as a mechanism for preserving the legitimacy of the government. The committee members complained that some residents did not want to understand processes, that they did what they liked, for example, erecting shacks in areas where they are not supposed to, and that some of them tried to instigate protests and revolts against authority:

The people who cause protests are those who don’t attend meetings, maybe there will be three or four of them. They like turmoil/violence… People just put up a shack anywhere without a plan or in the wrong area. If you try to stop them as committees they want to build by force. They are ungovernable and this leads to protest (Interview Number 8D, ward committee and area committee member).

There were suggestions of political motives behind protests such as the following allegation:

That ward councillor used to organise protests. Now he got the position he wanted. But today he is facing protests [against him] (Interview Number 6, ANC ward councillor).

An informant and ordinary resident who had been very active in the DVRA in the old days felt that dissatisfaction was high because today there was less grassroots democracy. What passed for participatory democracy in the form of the various committees was not genuine or enough. It looked like the people participate but the decisions are actually made at the top.

239 I also talked to residents informally including attending a local ANC meeting. I also spent about six hours with a group of electricity connectors who were busy connecting shacks to the grid. After following them around as they did their job we spent some time talking when they were relaxing after a hard days’ work.

230

Yes, it is participatory democracy from above. They [committees and government officials] must be fed by us, we must tell them what we want, not that it is them who tell us what we want. Even if I am hungry, it doesn’t mean that I want bread. Maybe I want umnqushu [samp] which will make me full. Maybe I am allergic to red meat but that is what you give me. You must ask me: what can I do for you? Or even better, what can we do together? (Interview Number 1D, community member, ex-DVRA committee member).

Protests are widespread in South African townships and informal settlements. In Duncan Village protests also took place although they were few and appear to involve a section of the community when they occur.240 However, some researchers suggest that the rate of protest might be increasing in the last couple of years (Bank 2015, Ndhlovu 2015:18). The committee members were all united in emphasising how transparency, constant communication with the people and timeous response to grievances was important in stemming the tide of protest. Some were proud of the fact that there were few protests in their ward as a result of their work together with their councillor despite the ward having the biggest number of shacks in Duncan Village:

There is very little protest, we are united in this ward, we love each other. If someone [a comrade] is not there, we phone each other and ask: where are you? (Interview Number 4D, area committee member and ANC BEC member).

It is not usual to have protests here. Our councillor works with the people. As soon as we hear that there is something not going well, we say councillor please go and explain to the people about this or that. The councillor moves quickly to solve that problem (Interview Number 8D, ward committee and area committee member).

An incident whereby a young man called a meeting agitating for a march was reported to the police who came and warned him against calling an illegal protest. The protest did not happen:

240 There was a protest in Duncan Village on 2 May 2013 demanding houses, two in 2011 also about houses, and a 27 July 2009 protest demanding the resignation of a ward councillor. These were disruptive with protesters burning tyres, setting up barricades and stoning cars; 16 people arrested during the 1 April 2011 protest (Rebellion of the Poor Protest Monitoring Database). Ndhlovu’s (2015:3) research report builds upon this observation: “In June 2012, some of the residents from one of the informal settlements of Duncan Village, Florence Street, forcefully occupied and vandalised Mekeni houses in protest action.” Bank’s (2015) comments are based on the observation that: “Over the past weeks, the Mdantsane bypass has been the site of almost weekly blockades by service delivery protesters from Duncan Village.”

231

The police told him [protest leader] that he had no permission to stage a march. We supported the protest issue – houses. There are no houses here. But we don’t want something illegal. That boy wanted people to go to the municipality and cause chaos there (ukumosha). We wanted a legal protest. In South Africa unless you stand up nothing will happen. People were happy with the call for protest because it was about housing (Interview Number 5D, area committee member).

It was also suggested that where councillors did not work harmoniously with their committees, whether ward or area committees, there was always the possibility of factionalism and the instigation of protest action (Interview Number 6D, ANC ward councillor).

The photograph (Image 5.15) shows a Duncan Village resident connecting electricity wires to the shacks. I spent the whole day with a team of five young adults busy making new connections and sorting out old connections with problems. This was done openly and no one accosted them. They had no problem with me videotaping the whole exercise and interviewing them on record. Some committee members including one ward councillor made it clear that although they might disagree with illegal connections, there was nothing they could do because the people needed electricity. Clearly, on this frontier the masses have managed to push the state back and current discussion of the issue revolves around the envisaged government project to electrify the shacks.

6.4.7 ANC hegemony and the role of the committees

There appears to be a symbiosis between the ANC as movement and as government and community structures. Cross-cutting membership and the political histories of individual comrades suggest this. It seems the power of the ANC lies in aligning its political structures closely with state and civic structures. The bond is dense and it goes back in time as the case of one ward councillor I interviewed suggests. She is a female councillor who was born in the area, worked her way up through the ranks of the block and the area up to branch level, appeared to know her area well, actively coordinated the work of the various committees, and attended as many area committees as possible to keep in touch with residents (Interview Number 6, ANC ward councillor). Her modus operandi suggested the desire and the ability to synthesise the work of the ANC as government and as movement on the ground. Her political practice could be interpreted, from one point of view, as indicating the manner in which the ANC has effectively taken over the political position and symbolic space once enjoyed by the DVRA and successfully united this with its role as ruling party. The councillor said that her

232 focus was on development and during our conversation she projected the government as not only governing but having a mission to improve the life conditions of the people. As she explained:

You can’t solve the problems of this area [as a ward councillor] when you never lived through them. I grew up in the shacks.

Those area committees were there during apartheid, there were no ward committees then. The ward committee cannot know all the needs of the people, there is a need for area committees to channel people’s grievances (Interview Number 6D, ANC ward councillor).

And as one informant explained, referring to the councillor under discussion here:

You must make an agenda when you call the councillor. But the councillor is not allowed to attend our meetings but she attends because she is a resident, she is a child of this ward, she was born here. She can attend and I don’t think she can get into trouble if she does that (Interview Number 8D, ward committee and area committee member).

The councillor was a busybody. She had an office that was located in a double storey building whose first is hired by the state located on a busy street in Section C. Her office was managed by an ANC Youth League office bearer who was the secretary of the ward committee. The latter received residents who came with their concerns and problems seeking help. At certain times in the morning during my observation of the operation of this office several other ward committee members came in. They sat at the office that had about ten chairs along the walls and the secretary’s desk at the far end. They talked about their work and got involved discussing a problem brought by a resident concerning housing. Soon after the councillor came and was briefed on developments and she in turn gave a report on some errands ran and matters attended to at the municipal offices in town. After about an hour of discussing with me the circus moved to another room in the building where there were piles of food to be prepared for a soup kitchen apparently run by the state. Ward committees and some other women who were all comrades did the peeling and cooking in an adjourning kitchen. The councillor gave some instructions and then pulled me to another room where we conducted the interview.

As we talked her role image, in my mind, changed seamlessly from politician, social worker, civic leader, ANC leader, ANC Women’s League leader, mother, etc. In other words, she embodied the complex and dynamic intersection and overlap between the various roles and

233 spaces occupied by the ANC on the ground in Duncan Village. She arranged for people to be interviewed and all of them had good things to say about her especially how she worked hard and involved everyone. She made it clear how careful she had to be to balance and cultivate all the interests and forces in operation in her sphere of work including higher government and party structures. Being a “good” councillor requires a lot of skill, energy, patience and a positive attitude, it seemed to me.

In the course of our conversation she admitted to the pressure involved in her work. She also pointed out how she had to keep her ear to the ground, be in touch with comrades, area committee leaders and so on. She also talked about the need to walk about and talk to ordinary people to keep in touch, identify problems and to be accessible. She had her hands full because delivery was slow, for example, her ward had the biggest number of shacks in Duncan Village. She does her best under the circumstances keeping people informed of developments, searching for and implementing “soft” delivery programmes such as the soup kitchen, making sure that her ward is prioritised in government programmes such as the Community Development Programme, etc. She suggested that the power to really change people’s lives lay somewhere else:

As councillors our hands are tied, we see parliament on TV like everyone else, we have no power (Interview Number 6D, ANC ward councillor).

The ward councillors appear to embody and to be the lynchpin of the point of overlap between the ANC as government and as movement. In Duncan Village two of the ward councillors that I interviewed, namely the one discussed in this section and another (namely: Interview Number 2D, ANC ward councillor and ex-DVRA committee member), had a long history that went back to the days of the DVRA and the struggle against apartheid. Both talked a lot about the importance of the people but were very clear on the need to maintain the support and always project the ANC positively. The councillors can be viewed as the ambassadors and key organisers of ANC hegemony in the local sphere. Their location in government and in the community made their interaction with Duncan Village’s committees arguably pivotal in shaping and cementing ANC hegemony.

6.5 Theoretical and political significance of the committees in Duncan Village Duncan Village cannot be understood fully without reference to its history as a township organising and fighting against apartheid in the 1950s and the 1980s. Its very physiognomy as a shack-overrun area reflects this. As one resident opined in her autobiography, the

234 proliferation of shacks turned her beloved Duncan Village into “a virtual squatter camp” and that was an observation about the late 1950s, that is, before the DVRA’s “insurgent town planning” that increased the shacks fourfold. Maintaining law and order and its hegemony over the area has seen the ANC government develop a tightly interwoven system of committees that includes modified structures from the DVRA days, new structures such as ward committees, ANC party structures and state structures co-operating in keeping it together, as it were. This is a Herculean task in the light of the great developmental challenges and apparent shortage of state resources to improve the condition of the people rapidly. My research has arguably revealed how this mission is carried out and the role of all the different actors: ward councillors, ward committee members, area committee members, ANC BEC leaders and state structures. It is a daily and arduous task for some and invokes Gramsci’s (1971, 1978) insight that hegemony as a process is concrete, contingent and conjunctural.

The picture I have presented about the architecture of ANC hegemony is of a somewhat cast-iron grip over local state and community political processes by the ANC. Thus I have quoted instances where protest action has been pre-empted and prevented as a result of this. However, I would argue that a closer reading of my account reveals both constraints and possibilities. As Gillian Hart (2002:45) has argued, it is possible to identify “the slippages, openings, and possibilities for emancipatory social change in this era of neoliberal capitalism, as well as the limits and constraints operating at different levels.” I referred to a committee member who had opposed protest action because it involves “ukumosha” (destruction) but also stated that “in South Africa unless you stand up nothing will happen.” Pithouse (2013:96-97) is in agreement with Hart (2002:45) on the importance of “the local state” and “the local” as key terrains for challenging policies and structures that serve the minority and not the majority. With respect to the politics of the committee members, it can be argued that in their role as informants in the course of my interviews they were probably constrained to paint a positive picture of their work and their party, the ANC. However, this should not mislead because “political subjectivities can neither be read off the structure of socio-economic relations nor deduced from hegemonic discourses” (Hart 2002:47).

An aspect worth noting is that daily political practice in Duncan Village, its links to the political history of the place and the present enmeshment with the ruling party, suggests the existence of a specific political culture that defines the place (Lucas 2000:169, Ndhlovu

235

2015:18).241 As a researcher I felt this in that after a few days in the area and talking to committee members in particular, I started to “tune in” into the dominant discourse and outlook, namely, the acceptance and promotion of the ANC as government and movement even as comrades were aware and willing to talk about its shortcomings. However, critical comment was made cautiously and in the “correct” contexts. Conversations with ordinary community members and especially those who were politically active (outside of or on the margins of the framework of the committee system) revealed, on the other hand, a perennial and sharp criticism of the ANC especially in relation to its housing delivery record. These observations suggest the importance of the twin concepts of “political culture” and “ANC hegemony” as important in making sense of the operation of the popular committees in Duncan Village. I will revisit and develop these concepts in Chapters 9 and 10 of this dissertation.

Is the concept of “democracy on the margins” useful in making sense of local democratic practices and the operation of committees in Duncan Village? An important difficulty is the enmeshment of people’s committees – the area committees – with party and state structures arguably on the basis of a legitimising ideology that supports a social order characterised by inequality. This suggests that the democracy of the marginalised is directly subordinated to and supports the ruling elite. Some of the features of “democracy on the margins” as theorised in this dissertation get distorted; for example, those associated with the day to day struggles of the people may be diluted by their association with the hegemonising practices and purposes of the power structure. The dynamism of grassroots forms of democracy may get stifled by the mechanisms of state control which require predictability and continuity rather than the unpredictable effervecence and even insurgency of popular action.

I noted above the revolving doors and transmission belts of the Duncan Village committee structures whereby comrades work their way “up” from grassroots structures in which people serve on the basis of volunteerism towards state bodies which pay stipends and salaries. In other words, the voluntarist ethos of “democracy on the margins” lives and works side by side with the corporatist ethos of the (capitalist) state (bureaucracy). Similarly, area committee members who answer to their constituencies have to contend with state structures that require loyalty and accountability to themselves. All these considerations arguably serve

241 Ndhlovu (2015:18) notes: “Drawing from the fieldwork observation of protests in Duncan Village, it can be argued that protests have become part of the culture in Duncan Village. Every time when electricity went off, children as young as five years were seen unconsciously [sic] gathering tyres and calling for protest action to bring back electricity.” Without being self-conscious about it, is perhaps what is meant by the author.

236 to weaken or dilute “democracy on the margins” in Duncan Village. However, we should note the “slippages, openings and possibilities” that occur in the process of exercising hegemony (Hart 2002:45). The power structure arguably maintains area committees because their “democracy on the margins” characteristics are necessary in the legitimation of the status quo and its political processes. The existence of these characteristics leaves open the possibility of challenging the dominant order on the basis of the legitimising ideology of “democracy on the margins.”

6.6 Conclusion The popular committees in operation in Duncan Village are similar in structure and function as committees found in other South African informal settlements but there are certain historical and contextual specificities that influence their operation. In Duncan Village the ANC has continued to maintain its hegemony over local politics and over the committees although protests are beginning to proliferate.242 This is related to the history of the operation of the popular committees that go back to the days of the struggle against apartheid when the DVRA momentarily exercised “dual power” in the context of apartheid rule and in the process followed policies that fundamentally changed the socio-spatial dimensions of the area. The ANC has been able to take over this legacy, including maintaining the operation of the same structures and personnel as in the old days. This has helped it to be hegemonic despite failing miserably to address the developmental needs of the area including housing, electricity, employment, etc. The popular committees, in particular the area committees, are part of this architecture of hegemony but should not be misunderstood to be mere transmission belts for the ruling party and the state. The dynamics of the situation, including insurgent attitudes and actions, the rising anger and frustration about lack of improvement in people’s lives, and the increasing combativeness in the mood of the working class, are such that the committees act both as a brake upon and an expression of this mood even if as a safety valve. This is clearly demonstrated by their deployment to pre-empt protests and their adoption of an attitude of acceptance to the practice of electricity self-connections. But they are not immune to the general mood and they share the hardships of life in the shack-lands. As such they occupy an ambiguous and dynamic place between the “invented” or “invited” space dichotomy where the former suggests a greater degree of political autonomy vis-à-vis the state and the latter

242 My other case studies such as Thembelihle, Johannesburg and Bleskop/Nkaneng, Rustenburg, indicate that ANC hegemony has been severely shaken with popular committees highly contested or even dominated by the ANC’s political rivals.

237 incorporation into the state’s political and developmental agenda (Miraftab 2004; Sinwell 2009, 2012a). The “democracy on the margins” ethos which inform the operation of people’s committees such as the area committees finds itself in a contest with the dominant liberal democratic form. Recent political developments in Duncan Village such as the rise in protest action suggest that the balance of forces between the two is constantly changing (Ndhlovu 2015:18).

238

CHAPTER 7

CASE STUDY Number 2: NKANENG

7.1 Introduction The contrast between the abject poverty found in the Nkaneng informal settlement and its location in the platinum belt where large amounts of platinum, chrome, tin and other minerals are found is disconcerting (Forrest 2014:165, Kibet 2013:69070, Mosiane 2011:41-42).243 Of special significance for this dissertation about the committees found in this impoverished community is the existence, in addition to ward, ANC and CPF committees, of iinkundla.244 The latter are a type of committee that is modelled on traditional local governance structures found in the deep rural areas of the Eastern Cape (Interview Number 1, Inkundla yaseLibode group interview).245 Iinkundla appear to be based upon and are an elaboration of the documented “homeboy” (and “homegirl”) social networks that migrant workers rely upon to mediate access to the urban centres that they migrate to (Cox, Hemson and Todes 2004:12).246 The operation of the iinkundla, a form of governance structure found in the rural areas raises interesting questions about the relationship of the traditional to the modern, and the rural to the urban, in the context of the continuation of the migrant labour system in post-apartheid South Africa.247

7.2 Physical attributes of Nkaneng Rustenburg is a city located in a platinum mining area 112 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg (See Maps 4 to 6, appendices). Informal settlements pepper the Rustenburg landscape and are often found next to specific mine shafts or adjacent to built-up working class townships. The main and dominant economic activity is mining. It is estimated that between 70 to 90% of Rustenburg’s GGP is derived from mining (Mining Prospectus 2013, Donnelly

243 Gavin Capps (2012:66) reports that: “South Africa is estimated to hold 87% of the world’s PGM [platinum group metals, that is, platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, osmium and ruthenium] reserves and, in 2009, accounted for 76% of world platinum production and 33% of palladium.” 244 Inkundla (singular) and iinkundla (plural) is isiXhosa for a chief’s court in the rural areas. 245 “Inkundla yaseLibode” means “the inkundla of the people from the Libode area.” Libode is a village in the Eastern Cape. There are iinkundla committees from other areas also. 246 Moodie with Ndatshe (1994:309) define “home boy” as someone from one’s own home district. 247 Moodie with Ndatshe (1994:15) have explored worker identities on the mines including the notion of “men of two worlds.” Cox, Hemson and Todes (2004:7) suggests that not enough is known about “how it [migrant labour system] is interwoven with other aspects of African life.” Forrest (2014:151) explores the dynamics behind the continuation of the migrant labour system in post-apartheid society including the emergence of informal settlements around the mines.

239

2008).248 Mining contributed 23.3% of North West Province’s economy and comprises 22.5% of the South African mining industry (Bokone Bophirima 2015, Donnelly 2008). But:

Despite being blessed with such a rich array of natural resources, the North West Province is one of the poorest provinces in South Africa. The provincial gross geographic product (GGP) of R3,964 per person is well below the national average of R6,498. The Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, is above 0.6 in the Province, placing it among the most unequal regions in the world (Donnelly 2008).

Unemployment stands at 40% and is much higher in other regions of the North West province (IDC 2015). Rustenburg’s year-on-year growth for the five-year period up to 2012 was 10% (IDC 2015). Most of the country’s platinum comes from Rustenburg and Brits with South Africa meeting 70% of global demand (Mining Prospectus 2013).

According to the 2011 census the Rustenburg Local Municipality had an estimated population of 549,575 occupying an area of 3,423 square kilometres (Statistics South Africa 2011b). At 3.5% the population growth rate is higher than the national average of 1.6% (StatSA 2011b). This is due to in-migration by job seekers mainly from the North West province (65%), followed by the Eastern Cape (10%) and Gauteng (10%) (Kibet 2013:77). Only 7% of migrants originate from other Southern African countries (Mozambique, Malawi, Swaziland and Lesotho) (Kibet 2013:77). The in-migration puts pressure on available resources in the town especially in housing, and 17.6% of the population is officially estimated to live in the town’s 24 informal settlements (Rustenburg Local Municipality 2011:16).249

Poverty levels are high in Rustenburg with 50% of the population recording zero monthly income, 11% earning less than R800 and 38% recording less than R3,200 (Rustenburg Local Municipality 2011:18). Only 64.7% of the eligible workforce, that is, people who are available for employment, is employed, mostly in the mining sector (Rustenburg Local Municipality 2011:18). Other sectors of the economy are dependent on mining. Agricultural activity “has been in constant decline due to pollution from mining processes” (Kibet 2013:70). The termination of the apartheid regime’s subsidised regional industrialisation programme led to great job losses that were exacerbated by the mining sector’s adoption of flexible production

248 The Gross Provincial Product (GGP) “defined as the market value of the unduplicated total of goods and services produced in a given period of time (usually a year), by the factors of production which are resident in a particular economy” http://www.stats.gov.nl.ca/publications/Historical/PDF/SectionF.pdf 249 Independent researchers paint a bleaker picture estimating that the housing backlog is 58 500 units and that the proportion of people living in shacks could be as high as 41% (Benchmarks 2011:35).

240 systems (Mosiane 2011:42, Phalatse 2000:152).250 By the end of the 1990s the number of unemployed migrants swelled; thousands of employed and unemployed lived in informal backyard and stand-alone shack settlements (Mosiane 2011:42, Forrest 2014:151, Bezuidenhout and Buhlungu 2011:252). Rising poverty levels saw “the crime rate… increasing at a frightening pace” (Kibet 2013:71). Rising unemployment levels have resulted in “an even more desperate reserve army of labour than in the early days of migrancy” creating conditions for the continuation of the super exploitation of labour (Forrest 2014:161). The intrusion of labour brokers into the centralised employment system run by the recruitment company Teba, the increasing employment of locals rather than migrants, and various labour cost-saving machinations by mining capital has resulted in “unacceptably low wages, poor conditions and low union levels [affecting] at least a third of labour hired by mines” (Forrest 2014:165). Apparently workers did not benefit much from the fact that:

the mining companies were highly profitable during the 2000-2008 commodities boom. This was fuelled by increased global demand and a soaring platinum price, which grew six-fold in the space of a decade (rising from $350 per ounce in mid-1999 up to $2,100 in mid-2008) (Bowman and Isaacs 2014:3).

The settlement called Nkaneng, also known as Bleskop, is found along the D108 road on the way from town to Marikana, and is located south east of Rustenburg on land zoned “agricultural” owned by the Royal Bafokeng Administration.251 “Nkaneng” is Sesotho for “by force,” a reference to the establishment of the settlement by way of a land invasion in 1994 (Interview Number 2N, CPF committee member and ex-ward councillor). It is also called “Bleskop” because it is situated next to the Bleskop Vertical Shaft, owned by Anglo American Platinum (Amplats).252 The settlement consists of approximately 4,000 structures with an estimated population of 11,879 (Rustenburg Local Municipality 2012:14). Next to the settlement in a south westerly direction is the Bleskop compound or hostel. The settlement is on flat ground to the west of a hill and is situated about three kilometres away from Photsaneng,

250 According to Mosiane (2011:41): Jobs dropped from 72,255 to 36,402 in mining (50%) and from 8,172 to 2 773 in the metal products and machinery sectors (66%). 251 The Royal Bafokeng Administration is a tribal council that has benefited from successful land claims that cover some platinum mines. The wealth and power emanating from this and the state recognition of “traditional authorities” makes the Bafokeng an important player in the platinum mining belt (Mbenga and Manson 2003:27, 46). 252 Many informal settlements in South Africa are called “Nkaneng.” This means literally “at the place of defiance.” The most famous Nkaneng settlement in South Africa is the one, also known as Wonderkop, situated next to the mountain where the Marikana Massacre took place on the 16th August 2012. Locals use the names “Nkaneng” and “Bleskop” interchangeably.

241 a small formal township that is partly controlled by the Royal Bafokeng Administration. It is important to note that since the 2006 local government demarcations Nkaneng and Photsaneng, an informal settlement and a built-up township, fall under Ward 33 and as such share a ward councillor, ward committee and an ANC branch committee (Interview Number 2N, CPF committee member and ex-ward councillor).

The settlement is poorly serviced with no electricity, proper sanitation, piped water and community facilities. The road infrastructure is poor but it is nevertheless designed in a grid format and each shack has its own yard. The shacks are mostly made of corrugated iron. Poverty and uncertainty about the future of the settlement discourages residents from using brick and mortar for building; there is a hope that the state will build houses for the informal settlement dwellers. Some shacks have ventilated pit toilets (VIPs) courtesy of a government project that ran out of funds before completion provoking allegations of corruption (Interview Number 2N, CPF committee member and ex-ward councillor). Water is ferried into the settlement and on certain days and times residents can be seen queuing with their vessels waiting for the water truck. The several fixed green water tanks that are elevated above the ground are mostly locked. Privately owned bakkies (small trucks) roam the settlement’s roads selling water to community members. The advantage is that residents can get the water at their gates. There is no electricity and people rely on wood, coal and paraffin for their energy. At night it is very dark because there are no street lights.

242

Image 7.1 Creche in Nkaneng owned and run by Ms Gladys Kani. (Photograph by author)

There are no community facilities such as halls, sports grounds and parks. Community gatherings and meetings are held in an open space marked by a thorn tree in the midst of the shacks. Church services are conducted in people’s shacks, and some are built slightly bigger than normal for the purpose. There are a few ramshackle general dealer stores built by brick and mortar; there are numerous spaza (informal) shops in the form of shacks that have a big “window” on a side wall that acts as a counter.

The people who live in the area represent a cross section of the working class. The majority appear to be unemployed, self-employed and/or under-employed workers. Mine jobs are preferred but the increasing use of labour brokers exposes mineworkers to precariousness (Forrest 2014:165). Unlike during the days of apartheid “the informal sector is a dominating presence in the lives” of migrant workers today (Cox, Hemson and Todes 2004:12). Many residents can be regarded as migrants in that they maintain ties with their homes and families in the rural areas.253 However, many recent migrants could not secure formal employment and find themselves “in an increasingly marginal position economically, reliant on informal activities, or on poorly paid and insecure work in the formal sector (e.g. security and domestic work” (Cox, Hemson and Todes 2004:12). Most come from the “deep rural areas” where poverty levels are high and employment prospects slim.254 As a consequence migrants find themselves engaging in a range of practices – more accurately regarded as “livelihoods” rather than “employment” – that are “crucially employed by the majority in the global south to adapt to changing social and economic conditions” (Mosiane 2011:39; Rakodi 1995).

7.3 History of the committees in Nkaneng

The failure of the mining companies to provide housing for their workforces has led to the growth of informal settlements in Rustenburg. The housing crisis in Rustenburg is emblematic of how “in South Africa, core business practices framed by the country’s colonial and apartheid history have been relatively resistant to socially motivated change” (Hamman and Kapelus 2004:90). The transition from the totalitarian single-sex compound/hostel system was

253 However, it should be noted that the definition of “migrant” covers a “huge variety” of “time-space geographies” that do not necessarily correspond with attitudes towards migrancy or people’s rural-urban imaginary (Cox, Hemson and Todes 2004:7). 254 Cox, Hemson and Todes (2004:15) provide a list of “deep rural areas” that they define in terms of poverty, geography and rural status. Some areas mentioned in the Eastern Cape are Libode, Ngqueleni, Qumbu, Mqanduli, and Lusikisiki. It is from these areas that the members of the iinkundla of Nkaneng come from.

243 spearheaded by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) contesting racism, exploitation and inhumane conditions in the mines. However, the relaxation of the control regime inside the hostels was accompanied by a failure to provide adequate shelter for miners, especially those wishing to lead family lives (Cronje, Kane-Berman and Moloi 2014:8). The NUM successfully negotiated a Living Out Allowance but this was used by workers to supplement (low) wages “while many workers resided in squalid settlements around mines” (Forrest 2014:151; Bezuidenhout and Buhlungu 2011:252). Many informal settlements in the area, such as Nkaneng, were established during or immediately after the birth of the democratic South Africa when influx controls had been irrevocably removed and the platinum mines were expanding phenomenally in response to the increased global demand (Bowman and Isaacs 2014:3).

FIGURE 7.2 Nkaneng settlement with the Bleskop hostel visible in the background. (Photograph by author)

Many workers took advantage of the freedoms bestowed by the post-apartheid Constitution and made their own way, rather than through the recruitment agencies such as Teba, to booming towns such as Rustenburg to seek employment. They had to arrange accommodation for themselves and many rented backyard shacks in established townships such as Photsaneng. Nkaneng informal settlement was formed by way of a land invasion that at first was a trickle of people who walked away from their rented accommodation in Photsaneng, crossed the mine railway line and set up the settlement on a bushy plain next to

244 the Bleskop hostel. The major push was the unbearable high rents and a desire to escape the control of landlords and enjoy some freedom and personal space:

I came here in 1994, I think May. I was there on the first day of this settlement. The committees cut enough space for your shack, they didn’t use any string. We came in numbers like pigs released out of a sty, we all came out. We escaping the oppression of the landlords in Photsaneng. We paid R70 rent, R20 if my brother and his wife visited me for one night. You had to clean a toilet you didn’t use, sweep the yard. We were oppressed (Interview Number 10N, community member, founder member of Nkaneng community).

We came here because of suffering. I came in 1996. I came here looking for a job but never found it. We came because we are free in South Africa, we can live anywhere we like. But there is discrimination here, they say this is the land of the Bafokeng. I cleared the bush to erect my shack, I got permission from the committees. Yes, they were ANC committees, the leader was Cairo (Interview Number 3N, community members’ group interview, founder members of Nkaneng community).

The move also represented liberation from Lucas Mangope, the then Bophuthatswana Bantustan president whose police often raided workers at night demanding permits to be in the area. This enforcement of influx control laws was interpreted by some as a form of tribalism in that the Bantustan or “homeland” was officially designated for SeTswana-speaking people while many miners were migrants from the Eastern Cape and other parts of South Africa and Southern Africa and SeTswana was not their home language (Interview Number 3N, community members group interview, founder members of Nkaneng community). The political moment was also marked by the emergence of Nelson Mandela from prison and the taking of power by the ANC. Indeed on the 18th October 1997 Mandela came to address the locals at the Bleskop Stadium (Mandela 1997, SAHO 2015e).

The exodus to the promised land was led by a young man named Cairo who was an ANC supporter. He appears to have been an early ANC organiser at a time when the party was still establishing itself and had no problem with people invading land and establishing settlements. The land invaders had to cut down the bushes and clear the ground in order to erect their shacks. Even though life was hard and there were no basic services provided in the new area, the people felt free and to some extent in control of their own destiny. Mandela had liberated the country and said everyone had a right to live wherever they wanted to, a refrain

245 still repeated today by Nkaneng residents when asserting their right to be in the area and justifying their claim to state services:

Cairo never wanted money, he sat down and said this is what I think. He asked you what you think as the community and mostly we agreed with him. He forced [matters] to get us this area. No one can kick me out from here. I will tell them it is Cairo who gave me this area. He called it “All Nation Village.” We are free here, we got independence in South Africa. Mandela said we can live anywhere we want (Interview Number 3N, community members, founder members of Nkaneng community).

This highlights the interaction between local and national politics including the development of a national identity. Cairo and his comrades allocated land to the people who came over to join the few shacks that had been set up. People would be allocated a piece of ground that was just enough to accommodate the size of a shack. Some people say it was free and others say they were happy to pay the R5 that was required.

Cairo’s committee can be regarded as the first one in the area. It was an ANC committee-cum-civic because at the time the only organisation was the ANC (later the UDM made inroads into the area). Subsequent committees have had a tumultuous history. Several years after the settlement was established Cairo began to experience opposition to his role as leader of the settlement. Some employed miners in the area indicated their dissatisfaction with his regime slandering him as a loafer (he was unemployed) who spent time with their women while they were at work (Interview Number 3N, community members, founder members of Nkaneng community). Cairo soon left the settlement and is reputed to have set up another one near Marikana.255 Since then there have been several committees established at different times with varying lifespans whose birth and ascendancy often involved tensions and sometimes violence. These committees are: a civic-type “street” committee, Five Madoda committee, ANC committee, community policing forum (CPF), iinkundla and the ward committee. It should be noted that at any given moment there have mostly co-existed two or more committees in the settlement, namely, a people’s committee (civic, street committee or Five Madoda), an ANC committee and (later) a CPF. However, at one point there co-existed in parallel and in competition a Five Madoda committee and a civic or street committee. This was resolved by the ejectment of Five Madoda from the settlement which I will discuss below. With the iinkundla committees we find that there are at least five structures in operation simultaneously

255 My attempts to trace Cairo were unsuccessful.

246 based on the five towns or villages that people originate from in the rural areas. I have drawn up Table 1 below, based on interview material and newspaper clippings, which provides a summary and loose periodisation of the various committees that have operated in Nkaneng including a brief description of each committee’s history and role. There is a lot of overlap in the periods of existence of the committees because they often existed simultaneously.

Table 7.1: Periodisation of history of committees in Nkaneng Name of committee Description Term of office Cairo’s committee Established the settlement; acted as the first 1994 to 1999 people’s committee or civic Five Madoda Associated with the trade union Mouthpiece. 1998 to 2004 It set up an all-powerful people’s court, appeared to rule with a heavy hand and did not allow police into the settlement. It was violently dissolved in 2000. Street committee or The “street committee” is a civic structure 2004 to 2011 civic that is related to Cairo’s original committee. Essentially a people’s committee: it allocated stands and ran a people’s court. It was eclipsed (under Cairo) by Five Madoda but later re-emerged. It is now defunct and its functions were taken over by the CPF, iinkundla, ANC and ward committees. ANC committee The ANC enjoyed support early in the life of 2002 to present the settlement. An ANC local committee engineered the ousting of Five Madoda. Today there is an official Ward 33 branch executive committee (BEC) that spans Nkaneng and neighbouring Photsaneng. Community policing Initially fighting crime and serving as a 2007 to present forum people’s committee or street committee. Its

247

notoriety led to its restructuring in 2006 with reduced powers, it now works with and is supervised by the police and by other committees in the area. Iinkundla Home town networks; initially focused on 2002 to present committees burials but later acquired dispute resolution and crime fighting powers; acted as political broker during 2012 by-election. Ward committee Statutory structure that works closely with 2006 to present elected ward councilor. Focuses on development. It was initially an ANC power lever; since the 2012 by-election has become less party partisan because of the victory of an independent candidate. Source: Compiled by the author based on field research.

Commentators have noted that organisations that “are involved in state-like performances such as security enforcement” in fact engage themselves “in a perpetual renegotiation of the boundaries between state and society” (Buur and Jansen 2004:144). This is true of all the committees that have gained ascendancy in Nkaneng. The first committee run by Cairo allocated stands, was involved in matters of “development” such as the organisation of the provision of water and other basic services, and in dispute resolution and crime prevention (Interview Number Number 3N, community members, founder members of Nkaneng community). Cairo’s committee was displaced after the emergence of the Mouthpiece Workers’ Union in 1995, a rival of the NUM, which started infiltrating and setting up structures in the informal settlements around the mines.256 The new union contested the NUM at the workplace and at the workers’ living quarters in particular in the hostels. Targeting living spaces could be related to the NUM’s dominance of the hostels which facilitated the recruitment of members (Bezuidenhout and Buhlungu 2011:239). It was the struggle for

256 Mouthpiece was a rival union that was formed in 1995 when there was dissatisfaction among workers concerning their provident fund. The company Johnnic was unbundled which entailed a name change from Rustenburg Platinum to Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) leading to demands for payouts from the provident fund. The NUM did not take this demand forward and the new union became the champion of it leading to a split in the union that was accompanied by intense competition for members that spilled over into violence (Bruce 2001:16).

248 dominance in the workplace that spilled over into workers’ living spaces. There was at the time rule by committees in the settlements because the state was largely absent.

Bruce (2001:16) alleges that the new union was led by unsavoury characters and engaged in criminal activities including fraud and violent attacks. Bruce (2001:14) also links the violence to rural disputes and vendettas that found their way and expression into the mines. Mouthpiece set up a Five Madoda (five men) committee which made inroads into Nkaneng as soon as it had a secure foothold at the hostel.257 A power struggle ensued with Five Madoda building their own office/court next to the one operated by the ANC-aligned “street committee,” the latter a continuation of Cairo’s original committee (Interview Number 6N, ANC committee member). This continued for a couple of years but later the street committee stopped operating.

The people’s court structure was called the “Tin House.” The Five Madoda lost their power after the demise of Mouthpiece and were eventually violently driven out of the settlement by ANC-aligned community forces (Interview Number 5N, ex-CPF committee member, ward committee member, ANC committee member; Interview Number 3N, group interview of three community members, founder members of Nkaneng community).

Afterwards the “street committee” was revived under the leadership of Comrade Ntothololo and he too ran a Tin House in addition to other activities. The focus then, as with the Five Madoda, was on crime prevention which involved night patrolling, imposing curfews on shebeens for the sake of order and resolving disputes at the Tin House. Later, Ntothololo died and other leaders took over who tightened their hand and were accused of abuses in their application of people’s justice including handling cases with partiality, “arresting” people, levying fines, torture, etc. (Interview Number 2N, CPF committee member and ex-ward councillor; Interview Number N6, ANC committee member). This provoked a reaction from the community which was expressed by the demand by iinkundla committees, which hitherto had focussed on burial issues, to demand extension of their powers to include dispute resolution, a move designed to protect its members from the harsh justice of the Tin Town (Interview Number 1, Inkundla yaseLibode group interview). Another community solution was

257 It should be noted that the formation of workers’ committees to convey workers’ grievances to management (without the union) is or became an established practice in the mines especially during high levels of dissatisfaction. These “nameless” committees would be given a name such as “five men” (Five Madoda) and would approach management on behalf of the workers. Luke Sinwell (2015) has conducted research into this tradition and found that it was revived in the course of the explosive strikes on the platinum belt at Impala, Lonmin and Implats mines in the year 2012. Workers’ committees and not unions organised these strikes including the one that ended tragically in the Marikana Massacre (Sinwell and Mbatha 2016, Sinwell 2015).

249 the setting up of a CPF structure. The latter fell into the hands of leaders who tried to transfer the activities of the street committee to the CPF using the newfound authority of this statutory structure. Night patrols continued, the Tin House continued, curfews continued, there were allegations of a protection racket whereby the Somali-owned shops were extorted, etc. The problem was eventually solved when the community, now led by Nkaneng’s first ward councillor, restructured the CPF excluding the rogue elements from the new structure.

The fall from grace of the CPF and its problematic leadership was accompanied by the rise of the ward committee which in the context of Nkaneng assumed the functions of a developmental structure and a people’s committee. It focused on development issues linked to local government and addressed local problems and social issues. However, the vacuum created by the absence of a “civic” or “street committee” is still felt by some residents:

After they closed down Mouth Piece, new committees were operating, then that was stopped because of infighting. They closed down the house where the cases were held. They used to solve our problems. We are suffering because the Tin House was closed down. The men of iinkundla closed it down. We are in the location [urban area or township] not in Idutywa [a rural town in Eastern Cape], we are from different areas. We need [people’s] committees (Interview Number 3N, group interview of three community members, founder members of Nkaneng community).

Meanwhile the iinkundla committees became increasingly important in the political life of the settlement moving from social functions to jurisprudence. They increasingly sought to limit the power and jurisdiction of the people’s court and had the support of many residents in this regard. The iinkundla committees proffered an alternative cultural, juridical and procedural foundation for the solving of local disputes and dealing with crime that contrasted with that of the Tin House. They argued for a traditionalist and rural home-based communal approach to disputes and to how both the victims and perpetrators of crime are dealt with. This was a mechanism and an argument to claim juridical jurisdiction over residents who came from a particular area’s inkundla. The Tin House was said to have no jurisdiction over such people and that if they did something wrong they had to be judged by the inkundla from their village or town (using the law of that village). And if a dispute involved people from different villages, then the relevant iinkundla committees had to meet to find a solution. If a culprit faced the justice of another inkundla, his or her inkundla should be present when the matter was being discussed and be allowed to represent him or her. This contrasted with the justice of the Tin

250

House community court where people were tried and punished as individuals by self-appointed judges and prosecutors.

When in 2006 Nkaneng nominated and voted for its own ward councillor, the ever- changing, ambiguous and constantly re-negotiated relationship of the popular committees with the state was again reconfigured. The new councillor had been a community worker for about a decade before her nomination (Interview Number 2N, CPF committee member and ex-ward councillor). She tells her story saying she swung into action trying to bring development to the area and stabilising the tumultuous operation of Nkaneng’s popular committee.

The green water tanks you see were installed by me. I got support from Xtrata [mining company], they installed twelve tanks. I started with the roads, talked to the government. I got a grader to scrape the roads. Some Portuguese set up a clinic in a container. We also set up three creches, one of them is still operating. I came with the toilet project, I signed for it. It was done only half-way. It was the municipality, you know, they go this way and that way, chowed the money. In 2010 I pushed to get land for the settlement because we are living under the [Bafokeng] king. The municipality promised some land near Karee, but then my term ended in 2011 (Interview Number 2N, CPF committee member and ex-ward councillor).

She left office when in 2011 the ANC nominated a different candidate to become councillor, this time a comrade who resided in Photsaneng, who unfortunately very soon died of illness. The ANC nomination process to find a candidate to replace the deceased in the 2012 by-election proved to be very controversial and has marred local politics to this day (Interview Number 7N, personal assistant to ward councilor, ex-ANC Youth League committee member). It divided the local ANC into two. The Rustenburg ANC Region, led by the current mayor, imposed its preferred candidate on the ANC branch despite the national ANC’s directive then that communities should be allowed to nominate their chosen candidates (Interview Number 6 ANC committee member). The ANC Region’s preferred candidate was none other than the disgraced leader of the CPF and people’s court. This man is a key and controversial figure in the local politics of the settlement and I will call him “Comrade Thami” for convenience. In the 2011 local government elections he had tried to be nominated as an ANC candidate. When he failed, he joined the Democratic Alliance and ran as its candidate but lost to the ANC. When the ANC ward councillor died, Comrade Thami hastened to rejoin the ANC in time for the by- elections, and managed to convince the ANC Region to make him the candidate. But the ANC

251 branch had nominated someone else and in any case he was unpopular and controversial. The fact that he owned a shebeen was also used against him.

The ANC Region’s recalcitrant nomination of Comrade Thami is related to the factionalism in the ANC that was tragically revealed when a whistle blower, Sam Phakoe, was murdered (SAPA 2013b):

We were told that when we go out [end our term of office as councillors], we’d be catered for, for example, be given a job to clean offices. Moss Phakoe was killed for anti-corruption. The mayor was stealing cars. He was shot in September 2009, it was on a Saturday. From then on there were two cores [factions]: the mayor’s and Phakoe’s. Phakoe tried to help us. We who were Phakoe’s core were kicked out. Today I can’t do anything because I belong to Phakoe’s core (Interview Number 2N, CPF committee member and ex-ward councillor).

The mayor’s faction wanted Comrade Thami to be the candidate hence their reckless political management of the nomination which led to a revolt, the nomination of an independent candidate, and the ANC losing the by-election (Terblanche 2012). The independent, an ANC Youth League chairperson in the ward, had been nominated by the local ANC structures and had decided to run as an independent in the light of the ANC Region’s position. The iinkundla committees were persuaded to support the independent candidate. The committees including the majority in the ANC BEC opposed Thami who they regarded as a proponent of the Tin House.

To conclude, this section shows the entanglement, mutual influence and competition of the popular committees in Nkaneng historically. We can also see the influence of broader processes such as the role of the ANC Region, the power struggles between unions, and the creation of state-community structures such as the CPF. It would be very hard to understand the twists and turns in the physiognomy of the committees without acquiring a semblance of detail about the going-ons in Nkaneng’s local politics. What follows is a presentation on each of the major committees with a special focus on iinkundla committees because of their special nature originating from the rural areas.

7.4 The state of the popular committees in Nkaneng today 7.4.1 People’s committees

252

Historically Nkaneng had four people’s committees, namely, Cairo’s original committee which established the settlement, the Five Madoda, revival of the “street committee” under Ntothololo and then the iinkundla. Today only the iinkundla appears to qualify as a peoples’ committee and therefore deserves special attention below.

7.4.2 Iinkundla committees

The iinkundla are currently important in Nkaneng although they are not necessarily the most active, influential or popular committees. They are not centrally involved in development matters. This role is allocated to the ward committee; their involvement in crime fighting and dispute resolution is recognised but is somewhat contested by the existence of a CPF and police hostility to the running of people’s courts; they have earned their role as a key political player in the area yet they are not politically partisan as their members are likely to belong to different political parties.

There are at least five iinkundla committees in operation in the community.258 They are the Libode, Mqanduli, Ngqueleni, Qumbu/Mount Frere and Lusikisiki/Flagstaff iinkundla. Each name refers to an area in the Eastern Cape which together are the poor labour-sourcing areas that supply workers to South Africa’s mines (Cox, Hemson and Todes 2004:15). Workers from Southern African countries also group themselves according to their country or province of origin; for example, Mozambicans in the settlement have meetings where they collect money that is used in the event of a death or other serious calamity, with the balance shared out at the end of the year (Interview Number 4N, spaza shop owner, Mozambican national). Membership to an inkundla is based on being a “homeboy/girl” (in isiXhosa: umkhaya). In addition, you must participate in the affairs of the inkundla by way of attending its meetings and paying the financial contributions required. Each inkundla is managed by collectively appointed or approved respected male elders, although women are active as secretaries in some iinkundla. The different iinkundla have separate meetings unless there is a need for a joint meeting.

Iinkundla concern themselves primarily with deaths and dispute resolution. They operate a burial scheme whereby regular or once-off money donations are used to subsidise transportation and funeral costs. They also engage themselves in dispute resolution and in

258 The word “inkundla”’ (singular) iinkundla (plural) is an isiXhosa language reference to a traditional court or discussion forum. The word literally refers to an open space (or courtyard) around which a chief, headman or even head of a family holds court with other people. Each inkundla is referred to according to the area it represents thus “inkundla yaseLibode” refers to the inkundla of the Libode village or area.

253 criminal matters where they apply a form of restorative justice.259 Serious crimes are referred to the police (Interview Number 1N, Inkundla yaseLibode group interview). When in 2012 iinkundla agreed to give electoral support to the independent candidate who won, they redefined and extended their role as a significant political player in Nkaneng. The independent councillor consults with iinkundla in his work and thus they appear to be increasingly playing a developmental and political role (Interview Number 7N, personal assistant to ward councilor, ex-ANC Youth League committee member).

I was able to attend two iinkundla meetings in the course of my research, namely, the Mnqanduli and Libode iinkundla. The meetings showed how iinkundla instils and appeals to a sense of belonging and tradition while carrying out very practical and mundane functions.

FIGURE 7.3 Inkundla yaseLibode (the inkundla of Libode) meeting. This meeting consisted of goat owners worried about and discussing the problem of stock theft in the area. (Photograph by author)

259 Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1999:51) stated that: “I contend that there is another kind of justice, restorative justice, which was characteristic of traditional African jurisprudence. Here the central concern is not retribution or punishment but, in the spirit of Ubuntu [humanism], the healing of breaches, the redressing of imbalances, the restoration of broken relationships.” Similarly, Mzwanele Mayekiso (1996:81) argues that: “The origins of people’s justice [people’s courts in Alexandra] are to be found in African forms of government. Justice was practiced in Lekgotla (Sesotho) and Inkundla (Xhosa), where chiefs presided over issues affecting their communities with the help of councillors.” He sees a continuity between resistance to colonial rule and “white justice.”

254

The Mnqanduli meeting was attended by more than 100 people and was held on a sunny Sunday morning under the protective shade of the bus shelter next to the Bleskop hostel. Chairs and a table had been arranged for the leadership and the many secretaries-cum-treasurers with their recording books to sit around in front of the meeting. The spirit of the meeting was celebratory and buoyant as if people relished being together with their fellow villagers even though the subject of the discussion was sombre. Indeed after the meeting about a quarter of the crowd consisting of the key people and office bearers including the special guests remained behind and crates of beer and cool drink were brought for refreshment. Some people used the after-meeting commotion to meet people they had not seen for a while and others to inquire about their membership dues.

The thrust of the meeting discussions of the Mnqanduli inkundla was about a young person who had died and plans were being made to send the body home. Present at this meeting was a funeral undertaker who was engaged by the meeting around coffin and transport prices. Pointed questions were asked of the undertaker, the leadership and the crowd, and answers provided – all done with a delicate, sensitive and impressive use of language including huge doses of rhetorical flourish, debating skill, humour, irony and idiomatic expression. This helped the meeting to grapple with and make decisions in a public and democratic fashion on issues such as what type and price of coffin to choose. The leaders of the Mnqanduli inkundla clearly regarded the meeting as a success and a broader triumph perhaps for their leadership and/or the collective. Unity, compassion and competence appeared to be important values. The meeting appeared to affirm collective identities.

In contrast, the Libode inkundla meeting was much smaller consisting of ten men and two women who sat in a half-circle in a shack yard on wooden benches and improvised seating. The focus of the meeting was the problem of stock theft in the settlement. Some members of the inkundla reared goats and these were being stolen by unknown people. The meeting discussed steps to be taken to curb the problem including approaching the police and requesting them to set up roadblocks and not allow the transportation of livestock unless papers were produced proving ownership. The meeting was kind enough to dedicate about 30 minutes of its time to a group interview answering my questions about the iinkundla system. The answers underlined the genesis, rationale and development of the iinkundla in the area. What the speakers emphasised was the exasperation with the crime situation in the area, the excesses of the so-called crime fighters who themselves acted criminally, and the reign of terror residents were caught up in. It was this that had prompted the search for an institution that would help

255 the community deal with the problem in an effective and sensible manner. This institution was found in the generations-old tried and tested inkundla system. The system facilitated a collective approach to the problems while providing a moral and social foundation as a guideline for the practice:

We don’t belong here, we came to work. When we saw the problems here we remembered where we come from, that we belong to different kings, we are together but we come from different areas. We were reminded when we saw people dying. We thought the best way is how we live at home. The kings cooperate with each other. So if there is a killer we call each other as members from towns to find out what is going on. If there is a case and there is no one from your area, it is as if that person is being prejudiced, you must come with people from your town (Interview Number 1N, Inkundla yaseLibode group interview, Interview Number 3N, community members’ group interview, founder members of Nkaneng community).

The inkundla system came into existence as a challenge to the “street committee,” an institution whose idea originates in the (urban) township civics. Its detractors label it as a backward- looking rustic institution that should not operate in an urban area (Interview Number 8N, ANC committee member). Their leadership is said to be illiterate and lacks understanding of developmental issues by someone who has a benign attitude towards the institution (Interview Number 2N, CPF committee member and ex-ward councillor). One interviewer responded when asked about iinkundla “Oh, you mean the traditional leaders” (Interview Number 6N ANC committee member). However, when the question of their vision for the informal settlement was posed to the Libode inkundla the response suggested a forward-looking and developmental outlook that married rural and urban developmental goals:

Where you work it is like home, it is even bigger than home because we live here for 12 months and only spend one month at home. It must be a good place to live in and not like what it is now, like it is for sheep. It must have electricity, they must build houses, there must be water to drink besides that which is brought in by the municipality (Interview Number 1N, Inkundla yaseLibode group interview).

The inkundla members also distinguished clearly between their role from that of the ward committee which they saw as a conduit for local government but not a people’s committee representing the community:

256

You need iinkundla, a committee to look after the people and the community. The ward committee is about service delivery, it is not about governing this place (Interview Number 1N, Inkundla yaseLibode group interview).

In conclusion, while the origins of the iinkundla committee system as a social institution can be more readily traced to the rural areas, it is my contention that in both form and content it differs significantly from the rural version because it fulfils different needs and is implemented in a different sociocultural and economic context. For example, none of the leading members of iinkundla were chiefs or of royal blood. They began their operation in the informal settlement as “homey” networks and social support groups in the event of emergencies and bereavements and extended their scope of work in order to have some control and protection in the social and communal life of their members in the urban working environment. Kinship and common village origins, and the importance placed on these, are the political foundations of the iinkundla committee system on the one hand, while practical and useful tasks such as organising funeral collections, solving disputes, fighting stock-theft and other crimes, provide the material basis for the recognition and authority of the iinkundla on the other hand.

A critical event involving the iinkundla supporting the independent candidate served to enhance and expand the role and stature of these committees. The electoral pact between iinkundla with some ANC BEC members and supporters, the rebellion against the ANC Region’s impositions on a local branch, and the fact that the traditional authority Royal Bafokeng Administration owns the land, suggests that the rise of the iinkundla system cannot be understood outside of a study of political culture of the area. It is also likely that the Marikana Massacre that occurred at about the time of the by-election in 2012 and the miners’ disaffection with the ANC as government coincided with the local community’s unhappiness with the ANC as political party and movement (nominating an unpopular candidate) thus providing firmer ground and cover for the iinkundla’s hitherto unprecedented action of delving into electoral politics. Consideration of all these factors and the complexity of their interaction as they impinge on the iinkundla system points to the flexibility and adaptation of traditional social institutions to changing circumstances and their ability to traverse the urban-rural spatial divide and past-present temporalities.

7.4.3 Ward committees

257

Ward committees are an innovation to enhance participatory democracy by the ANC government that was introduced during its second term in office by legislation (RSA 2000). In Nkaneng, as in other parts of the country, this had the effect of forcing these new structures to jostle for space in a context where popular structures of grassroots representation were already in existence. This was facilitated by linking ward committees to the ward councillor, who chairs it, and thus taking advantage of the fact that poor working class communities tend to look to the government for development and improvement of their area. Ward committee members occupy “portfolios” such as health care, water and sanitation, and so on, that correspond with government functions and departments. The ward committee thus operates in a manner that is analogous to a “cabinet” of the ward councillor on local government and developmental matters – it is there to help the councillor and the government to get the job done. In Nkaneng this allowed the other committees to continue carrying out their functions while surrendering the developmental space to the ward committee.

In theory the ward committee ought to be non-party partisan because development must benefit the “whole” community. But the committees tend to reflect local power dynamics. The by-election in 2012 threatened to destabilise the status quo with the ousting of the ANC and replacement by an independent ward councillor. However, it was decided to allow the old committee members to continue with the result that ANC members continue to dominate this structure. This political problem has been mitigated by the fact that the ANC was divided by the by-election with some rooting for the ANC Region’s preferred candidate while others supported the independent candidate. The ANC’s failed candidate, Comrade Thami, continues to serve on the ward committee structure but this is not regarded as a problem because he is in the minority in the committee. However, he still has support from among some ANC Branch Executive Committee members and a sizeable number of ANC members in the settlement. His seemingly boundless energy and connections with the ANC upper regional structures make it clear that he is rebuilding his base in preparation for the 2016 local government elections.

The bigger problem facing the ward councillor is that as an independent and ANC “renegade” (having stood against the party’s candidate) he expects obstructionism rather than development facilitation from the ANC-dominated municipality. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that the municipality’s contact person is Comrade Thami and thus he is able to be the first one to know about political developments and developmental projects affecting Nkaneng and attempts to take credit for such (Interview Number 8N, ANC committee member). The ANC Region has an interest in re-asserting ANC hegemony in the area and their point man is

258

Comrade Thami. For example, I was present when a government programme to distribute paraffin stoves to the residents was being implemented. Comrade Thami and his committee and supporters were at the forefront of the process. The ward committee, as the developmental structure, is thus caught up in the local political jostling and has to adjust to political developments such as the independent councillor recently joining the Economic Freedom Fighters:

We got lost by voting for the independent. The ANC Region forced us to vote for Comrade Thami. We know him, we can’t vote for him, we can’t just vote for anyone. But this new councillor takes us nowhere, he is in EFF now. How is he working with the ANC Municipality? He is doing nothing (Interview Number 2N, CPF committee member and ex-ward councillor).

7.4.4 ANC committees

The ANC has enjoyed dominance and hegemony in Nkaneng for long periods but at times this has been severely shaken. It was shaken by the rise of Five Madoda and then recently when it lost the by-election to an independent. Its plan to field Comrade Thami in the 2016 local government elections is likely to cause more problems for it. The Marikana Massacre has also not endeared the ANC as government to the miners who live in Nkaneng and opposition political parties such as the UDM, DA and the EFF have muscled into the picture out of concern and are no doubt seeking to take advantage of the situation (Magubane 2013). The iinkundla leaders are associated with AMCU, the rival union to the NUM, and while the AMCU T-shirt is seen worn by workers around the area, no one dares to wear the NUM T-shirt. The ANC has however managed to keep part of its base through the interventions of the ANC Region using the state to call iimbizo (community meetings) and implement small scale developmental projects, for example, the distribution of paraffin burners and free paraffin to residents, the grading of streets, ID and voter registration mobile units, and so on, all carried out by locals wearing ANC T-shirts and always at the helm, Comrade Thami, the tireless organiser. Given all this, the ANC committee has political traction in the area but it is fighting a battle for its political survival in Nkaneng:

There is a new ANC that pushes us old ANC back. We are now sitting down not because we crossed the floor but because you don’t know how to contribute (Interview Number 2N, CPF committee member and ex-ward councillor).

7.4.5 Community Policing Forum

259

The CPF was introduced into Nkaneng to regulate, scale down or curb the operation of people’s courts and people’s justice that was seen by the authorities, and by some members of the community, as getting out of hand. The CPF is another structure that was introduced into communities several years after the democratic government took power (Pelser, Schnetler and Louw 2002: Chapter 3). People’s justice was the norm in the early days of Nkaneng. When a CPF structure was introduced it was soon taken over by personnel led by Comrade Thami. Its excesses led to its restructuring and reconstitution without its old leader. The previous ward councillor was persuaded to lead this structure with the hope that she would keep it within the straight and narrow. So far no complaints have arisen except that it is not active (Interview Number 3N, community members’ group interview, founder members of Nkaneng community). There is an allegation that people are too scared of Comrade Thami to participate in it (Interview Number 2N, CPF committee member and ex-ward councillor).

7.4.6 Protests and strikes in Nkaneng: The significance of the Marikana Massacre

For an economically depressed and poorly serviced area there have been little protest activity in Nkaneng compared with other informal settlements in South Africa. There appears to have been two major protests in the settlement in the past five years. One was led by disaffected youth with unclear outcomes and the other was allegedly organised by Comrade Thami in an attempt to whip up support against the newly elected independent councillor (Interview Number 6N, ANC committee member). The protest failed to achieve its objectives in that it was quickly quelled by the police and in a public meeting the instigator was publicly denounced for his actions and threatened with expulsion from the area. A significant development that appeared to have influenced the local political culture is the Marikana Massacre. The death of 34 miners working for Lonmin and on strike for better wages had reverberations in Nkaneng. Most miners left the NUM to join AMCU, for example, at nearby Bleskop hostel there seems to have been a total rout of the NUM with all the workers deserting it and the hostel committee wholly taken over by AMCU (Interview Number 9N, hostel committee member). While the massacre does not seem to have directly influenced the by-election results in 2012 (Interview Number 6N, ANC committee member), its temporality was enough to lead some journalists to link the two events in a causal relationship (Terblanche 2012). It is also probably the case that this momentous event will influence the popular consciousness and political culture in Nkaneng because platinum mining and its associated struggles are crucial for the settlement. Some informants underlined this link relating wage levels to the local economy and small business prospects (Interview Number 3N, community members’ group interview, founder

260 members of Nkaneng community; Interview Number 4N, spaza shop owner, Mozambican national). AMCU blames the ANC government for the massacre and this has implications for ANC hegemony.

7.5 Theoretical and political significance of the committees in Nkangeng The Nkaneng case study problematises binary approaches to local political culture that mechanically distinguish between the past and the present, tradition and modernity, rural and urban, migrancy and urbanisation. Not only does an institution that emanates from the past practices of Xhosa tribal society and is founded on traditionalist values operate in a rapidly urbanising mining area hundreds of kilometers from the villages of the Eastern Cape, but the inkundla committees do so in co-existence with ANC and ward committees including community policing forums, structures normally associated with the post-apartheid democratic era. The iinkundla were formed and have sustained themselves ostensibly because of the need to help migrant workers adapt and address certain problems faced in the urban area, but they have evolved into bodies that also seek to intervene in the local urban political environment and to change it so that it can be more livable for the migrants and to allow some to observe and preserve a value system associated with their rural origins. This emphasis on the preservation of the “rural in the urban” by migrant cultures has been explained by some researchers as arising out of a need to maintain ties with the rural areas because of perceived material benefits residing therein (a homestead, fields, cattle, including, for some writers, symbolic or cultural benefits) (Cox, Hemson and Todes 2004:14).

While the iinkundla’s constituency may be rural and it carries out tasks such as organising the transportation of corpses to the rural areas, the thrust of its work has everything to do with what goes on in the informal settlement – namely, local power dynamics, crime- fighting and the administration of justice, protection of livestock from theft, etc. – rather than what happens back home in the villages of the Eastern Cape. Its successful intervention in the 2012 by-elections supports the view that, in fact, migrant cultures maintain the “rural in the urban” symbolically and they may re-invent and invoke a virtualised rural imaginary in order to “press claims for their right to remain in the city” (Bank 2011:140). In other words, emphasis should be placed on “urban” concerns rather than pre-occupation with the “rural” in the “rural in the urban” dialectic. The reconstitution of the latter is “an urban rather than a rural resistance ideology, which has come to exist outside the circuits of rural social relationships and political identities” (Bank 2011:140).

261

The concept of “democracy on the margins” appears appropriate in the analysis of iinkundla. Indeed, the iinkundla are structures that were marginal to democratic processes in Nkaneng but found a way of extending their sphere of activities into dispute resolution and later into electoral power broking. Its detractors have tried to keep iinkundla at bay attempting to confine it to “rural” issues of burial and repatriation of corpses to the villages of the Eastern Cape. They have also pointed out that the ethos and outlook of these amakomiti is rural and backward-looking and hence marginal and inappropriate for the urban area and no doubt modern forms of participatory and representative democracy, namely, ward committees and local government elections. However, as we saw above, the dynamism of the iinkundla and their ability to adapt to changing circumstances and challenges has brought them closer to the “mainstream” politics of Nkaneng. It is my contention that “democracy on the margins” is legitimate and might cater for and express grassroot views and needs which might be neglected or excluded by the dominant forms of democracy. Iinkundla, with all their contradictions (such as patriarchy and anti-urban ideology) suggest that the concept “democracy on the margins” is useful in understanding these processes of adjustment, adaptation and self-assertion of the excluded through self-organisation aimed at meeting their needs.

7.6 Conclusion The original people’s committee, the civic or “street committee,” is more or less defunct in Nkaneng and its tasks and personnel have largely migrated to the other committees. The ANC committee is struggling to restore its lost hegemony, a loss that is related to the complex interaction between the operation of the ANC as government and as movement in the area. The ward committee continues to operate as a statutory body but was weakened by the debacle over the independent candidate and his victory complicates matters further. The CPF discredited itself and has not regained its former power. It is the iinkundla committees, arguably structures operating in the realm of “democracy on the margins,” that seem to have benefited from the political turmoil. Their challenge is to further redefine themselves in the eyes of the community if they are to win and be trusted with the additional powers that they appear to seek. The existence of this structure challenges binary and structural-functionalist theoretical approaches and points to a need for dynamic theorisation that grasps the uneven and combined development of political consciousness, organization and culture.

262

CHAPTER 8

CASE STUDY Number 3: THEMBELIHLE

8.1 Introduction This case study brings into focus the operation of a community organisation that has been at the forefront of the local struggle for basic services such as housing, water, electricity and education for more than a decade in Thembelihle (Clark 2014, Huchzermeyer 2009, le Roux 2013, Pingo 2013, TCC 2014). This organisation is the Thembelihle Crisis Committee (TCC); it co-exists with an ANC committee and a ward committee in this informal settlement. The TCC has attracted the attention of researchers with some of them struggling over how to characterise this committee because of its unique features and the peculiarities of the political process in this community.260 The socialist-oriented committee regularly leads the Thembelihle community in protest and is arguably a main contender for local power and influence challenging the political hegemony of the ANC government and party by pressing forward the community’s demands for development. In this chapter I will examine the dynamics behind the emergence of the TCC and the factors that shaped its politics. I will do this by tracing the evolution of the committees and organisations that operate in this settlement from past to present. I will explore the argument that it is the TCC’s grounding in the Thembelihle community’s radical participatory democratic practice that has allowed it to keep in touch with the needs and views of the community which has made possible its dominant role in local politics for about a decade.

8.2 Physical and social attributes of Thembelihle Thembelihle is an informal settlement situated cheek by jowl with Lenasia, a suburb that was designated “Indian” under apartheid’s Group Areas Act (SAHO 2015:10). Lenasia is located 30 kilometres south of Johannesburg’s central business district. Thembelihle’s shacks lie between Extensions 9, 10 and 14 of Lenasia. It is estimated that there are between 7 000 and 8 000 households cramped into 6 775 shacks, with 3 597 being primary dwellings and 3 178

260 Le Roux (2013:144) has “conceptualised [the TCC] as a SMO [social movement organisation] of a ‘special type.’ What is meant by this title is that it is more powerful (within the boundaries of its constituency), more ideologically socialist, and has more consistently, and over a long period of time, mobilised toward obtaining the goals of the community.” Pingo’s (2013:61) study focuses on “the Operation Khanyisa Movement and the blurry grey space it occupies as a social movement and electoral front.” The OKM is a sister organisation to the TCC and is an electoral front that controls one seat on the City of Johannesburg council.

263 occupied by sub-tenants (Clark 2014:11).261 The settlement is laid out in a square grid town planning pattern with many of the roads wide enough to allow easy access for pedestrians and motor vehicles. The main entrance into Thembelihle is Capella Street which is off the K43 road that runs east to west along the northern boundary of the settlement. Other points of access are at the outer boundaries of the settlement in the form of roads that separate the settlement from the surrounding Lenasia suburb and the open veld to the north east that leads to the Trade Route Mall that is about a kilometre away.

The roads are not tarred except Capella Street and another road that runs east to west through the southern part of the settlement. There is a water tap in every yard but the water pressure is low and many taps run dry during peak hours. There are no flush toilets, you have to dig your own pit toilet; the government recently installed some ventilated pit latrines but the project was not completed. Communal and recreational facilities are almost non-existent except for a dusty football ground (Mafisa 2011). In the 1990s local schools were refusing to accommodate students from Thembelihle until this was sorted out by a “Right to Education” campaign spearheaded by the TCC and supported by the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Education Rights and Transformation (Interview Number 6T, resident and TCC member).

Community meetings are held at SA Block, two brick buildings that were once a brick- making factory. The complex consists of run-down offices and a monumentally long “hall” that was built for other purposes and whose interior is dark because of its small windows and cavernous nature. In front of the buildings is a parking lot that serves as the venue for Thembelihle’s open air community meetings. Meetings are also held at the taxi rank toward the north of the settlement off Capella Street. The east-to-west street from which you turn right into a driveway leading to the gate of the SA Block complex can be regarded as Thembelihle’s main and busiest street. It is a long dustily tarred road along which there are rows of shacks on either side. About half of these shacks operate various small businesses taking advantage of the human traffic. These spaza (informal) shops sell basics such as cool drink, bread, paraffin, meat, beer, etc. A few artisan type business are in operation such as a shoemaker, tailor, hair salon, etc. A modest string of small retail shops owned by Thembelihle’s richer neighbours are found at the southern border of the settlement along the road. About five years ago a mall was

261 Clark (2014:11) bases these figures on a study by Tselapedi and Dugard (2013:58) conducted between December 2010 and January 2011. Estimates made by community leaders in May 2004 put the population at 27 000 (CALS 2006:3).

264 built a kilometre away to the east of the settlement that provides a wider range of goods, entertainment and job opportunities for the locals.

An important factor in the life of the community has been the installation of electricity in the area by the residents themselves (Interview Number 5T, resident from the early days). Most shacks now enjoy electricity which is self-connected and against the laws of the municipality. This practice had been tried many times but really took off around 2010 when reputedly everyone wanted to watch the World Cup on their television screens (le Roux 2013:125-126). The power was first sourced from the few high-mast “Apollo” lights in the area but this tampering cast the settlement into darkness. Connections are now made to the electrical transformers serving Lenasia. Complaints by Lenasia residents and the practice by City Power, the municipal electricity company, of periodically cutting and confiscating the people’s wires invariably provokes street protests.262 A winning tactic employed by Thembelihle residents is retaliating by sabotaging Lenasia’s electricity supply plunging parts of the suburb into darkness (Mbatha 2014); a trick they learned from Protea South, Soweto, informal settlement comrades. Thembelihle residents feel that they are entitled to the electricity. One argument proffered to justify self-connections is that people have died as a result of shacks burning down because of the use of unsafe energy (Interview Number 5T, resident from the early days). The authorities claim that they cannot install electricity because the township is not proclaimed and their policy is to relocate the people (Interview Number 6T, resident and TCC committee member; Clark 2014:11).

Oh yes, we have electricity, can you see how smart we are? So we all have electricity cables underneath and others dug deeper, so that no one can steal them. It is a real cable and it works well… The last time I used gas it was back in 2011, if not 2010 (Interview Number 5T, resident since the early days).

The [September 2013] protest helped us because we have electricity now. The Indians know very well that this is not “land Asia,” this is Thembelihle. They know very well that when they cut off our electricity, the mall also gets its power cut off too (Interview Number 1T, resident and ex-ANC committee member).

262 For example a protest on the 25th June 2014 was provoked by the removal of electricity wires by City Power (Sapa 2014).

265

At 59.0% the rate of unemployment in Thembelihle is higher than Statistics South Africa’s 38.8% expanded definition of unemployment (CALS 2006:8).263 Many Thembelihle workers are precariously employed earning low wages and with little job security (CALS 2006:8, Segodi 2014). There is a perception that Indian employers pay less (Interview Number 6, resident and TCC member). This could be related to the structure of neoliberal labour markets that forces workers into precarious employment (Standing 2014:33). Many workers can walk to work but there are kombi taxis to help you reach the Lenasia CBD that is seven kilometres away. Thembelihle is a poor working class residential area because many people are reliant on or aspire to employment as their main source of income (CALS 2006:8, Segodi 2014).264 There is a high likelihood that given the high unemployment rate the government social grants are an important source of income. Working appears to be an important aspect of the lives and identities of Thembelihle residents as the quote from a man who survives on collecting scrap for recycling and once owned a spaza shop suggests when he looks back on his life spent in the area:

This place taught me how to be a man, moreover I was working at that time (Interview Number 5T, resident from the early days).

“Ithemba” means “hope” in isiZulu language, “elihle” means “good” or “beautiful.” “Thembelihle” therefore means “a place of good hope.” Sometimes the spelling “Thembalihle” is used by residents preferring to join the two words in this manner; strictly speaking grammatically the name should be “Themb’elihle.” The name was given to the settlement early in its life by the very first committees operating in the area to convey the sense of hope that gripped the residents then (Interview Number 3, resident from the early days, Interview Number 5, resident since the early days). The place was “baptised” after an episode of violent conflict in the area. The name thus represents a tenacious hanging on to the dream of building a new community against all odds including internal fights and external threats. It can be argued that this determination to realise the dream became an important element of the Thembelihle collective identity (Hall 1997:44):

263 These figures are based on a random surveys that involved 393 households that was conducted by the University of Witswatersrand’s Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) in October 2004. The “expanded” definition of the unemployment rate includes “everyone who desires employment, irrespective of whether or not they actively tried to obtain a job” (SARB 2015:1). 264 According to the CALS (2006:8) study: “In terms of those community members who are neither students, nor children not yet in school, only 20% are in full-time employment; 11% are in part-time employment; 59% are unemployed; 3% are self-employed; 2% are in casual employment; and 5% are pensioners.”

266

In 1990 this place was further established [but] up until Section F [came into being] then more chaos erupted. There were disagreements and no understanding. We ended up going to the [ANC] Region. At the Region we talked and discussed things… We were told to name this place, and then Bab’ uMakopo said: “We have a beautiful hope that this place will be beautiful,” that is how this place was named Thembelihle (Interview Number 2T, resident and member of early committees).

But as you move around the area today there are empty stands where the tenants have moved away to Lehae, a new housing development about 4km away to which people are being “voluntarily” relocated by the authorities. It appears as if this hopeful identity is being eroded.265 The empty spaces and absent neighbours arguably represent the power of the state to impose its decisions on the people and its refusal to develop the settlement; it also represents the surrender of hope and the stripping of the Thembelihle collective identity as people relent and give up on keeping on living in their beloved Thembelihle in exchange for a brick “RDP” house in the new area.266 The battle is not altogether lost because an overwhelming majority continue to live in Thembelihle and, as we will see below, the government has very recently relented on its relocation policy:

I don’t want to leave a place I’m used to, to go and start all over again. Have a new neighbour that I don’t even know. Where I live I know all my neighbours and we are used to each other (Interview Number 2, resident and member of early committees).

But the hope of in situ development is being eaten away as if by termites each time a family pulls down its shack and moves to Lehae.267 It is as if the territorial stigmatisation or “blemish of place” that the community had managed to largely conquer through its resistance to forced removal is being resuscitated and the process of “dissolution of place” has begun.268 Hence the old guard’s lament:

265 Stuart Hall (1997:44) writes that: “[we have] to think questions of identity, either social or individual, not in the wake of their disappearance but in the wake of their erosion, of their fading, of their not having the kind of purchase and comprehensive explanatory power they had before...” 266 The Lehae housing development is a government project to provide free housing to working class people. The houses are popularly called “RDP houses” because of their association with the Reconstruction and Development Project. 267 “In situ” housing development means building houses where people live and not moving them elsewhere. This is the opposite of “greenfield development” which “destroys social networks and affects the economic network…The in-situ approach, on the other hand, results in minimum relocation, minimizes disruption of socio-economic networks by reducing the number of household that are relocated to another site, and enables as many families as possible to remain on the existing site (Masiteng 2013:5). 268 Wacquant (2006:73) describes the advanced marginality of inner city slums as involving a process of stigmatisation and vilification which involves the residents themselves eventually internalising the negative

267

You see our community used to be very strong but now we are very weak because as many as we are, we no longer have hope for our place like before (Interview Number 4T, resident since the early days).

I wish this community can be developed, we love this place (Interview Number 5T, resident since the early days).

The story of Thembelihle might have a happy ending after all. A two-week long protest by the residents demanding development took place on 23 February 2015. It was led by the TCC. More than 60 people were arrested.269 The protest attracted media attention and the government did not come off well when it later raided the settlement under its Operation Fiela, a crime-prevention crackdown that was condemned as containing elements of xenophobia by critics and, with respective to Thembelihle, political repression (Daily Maverick 2015). As if in response to the pressure emanating from the bad publicity, on the 28th April 2015, the government issued a media statement that read in part:

Thembelihle will now receive dedicated government support, provision of services including housing and related infrastructure such as water and electricity following the approval and formal registration of Thembelihle as a housing project under the Department of Human Settlements (RSA 2015).

By all accounts this represents a victory for the community because for more than a decade, as we will see in the account below, the government’s policy has been to relocate the community hence its refusal to provide basic services. It could be that the dream of the old guard will be realised after all and the struggle of the community led by the TCC has at last borne fruit.

8.3 History of the committees in Thembelihle The history of the committees in Thembelihle can be divided, for heuristic purposes, into two, namely, the committees that were active during the establishment of the settlement and early consolidation of community life, and a later period when the committees had to respond to the threat of forced removal of the settlement, a decision taken in 2002 by the municipality. Thembelihle was born in about 1989 when the settlement established several years earlier by a small group of workers employed at the SA Block brick-making factory who occupied the open

identities projected on them by others. This can culminate in a dissolution of place: “the loss of a humanized, culturally familiar and socially filtered locale with which marginalized populations identify, and in which they feel at ‘home’ and in relative security” (quoted in Bank 2011:215). 269 I was among the first group of 33 people arrested on 26 February 2015. We were charged with public violence. Later charges were withdrawn against me for lack of evidence. See Daily Maverick (2015).

268 veld nearby suddenly grew in size thus earning the new settlement the name “Esigangeni” (“in the bush”) (Clark 2014:11, Huchzermeyer 2006:8)270 There appears to have been little threat of forced removal.271 The threat of forced removal came with the new democratic government contradicting the hope that Mandela’s 1994 visit to the area kindled among the residents (City Press 2011).272 Until the latest about turn by the government in April 2015, the authorities were wedded to the policy of relocation for the last two decades (COJ 2010, Segodi 2014). The character of the committees reflect these challenges.

Under apartheid rule various committees existed, they vied for dominance but nevertheless forged a fractious unity around the establishment and consolidation of the settlement; disputes were around how exactly this should be done and who should be in charge. Under the ANC government the relocation threat becomes a focal point and the contestation among committees was about whether and how best to resist the relocation. During the early period competition among the committees turned violent. When this was brought under control peaceful methods of contestation prevailed. With the dawn of democracy the electoral process and access to state power became important even as other mechanisms of competing for local power and influence remained important. Winning arguments at the community general meeting, called the “mass meeting,” is a very important platform in the local politics of the settlement (Interview Number 6T, resident and TCC committee member). Organising and leading protest action is another mechanism and a reflection of power and influence.

Before 1990 political parties such as the ANC, PAC and AZAPO were banned by the apartheid state (Clark and Worger 2004:57). It was political parties that were willing to collaborate with the apartheid state that were allowed to operate, namely, the Inkatha Freedom Party and the Sofasonke Party (Murray 1994:101; Lodge and Nasson 1991:53,271). The ANC was nowhere when the settlement was established but its unbanning in 1990 and its victory at the first democratic elections in 1994 gave it a halo as the party that defeated apartheid and brought freedom. This helped it win support support in Thembelihle and in the process it gained dominance and pushed aside committees and organisations that had helped to establish and

270 Clark bases this on an interview with Dan Bovu, the first ward councillor of the area. 271 Clark (2014:11) suggests that the apartheid state provided people with building material quoting from a report written by the law firm Webber Wentzel Bowens that has provided pro bono legal assistance to the Thembelihle community. This is corroborated by one informant: “We fought for Thembalihle’s existence, and we wouldn’t have been here, we fought. TPA [the Transvaal Provincial Administration] also got involved and helped us. They told them they should let us stay here because we are poor” (Interview No. 3, resident since the early days). The informant also claimed that their new neighbours, “the Indians,” were opposed to the settlement. 272 Many informants spontaneously and proudly mentioned the visit by Mandela.

269 govern the early life of the settlement. In 2002, several years after gaining local dominance and state power the ANC government adopted the policy of relocating Thembelihle (CALS 2006:3, Clark 2014:14, Segodi 2014, Dugard and Tselapedi 2013). This thrust the ANC both as government and as movement on a collision course with the community and led to the emergence and rise of the TCC as an oppositional committee that soon challenged ANC dominance in the area. The TCC challenge arguably contributed to the drop of electoral support for the ANC between the last two local government elections.273

For a fuller understanding of the political history of Thembelihle one needs to also address the background stories, the less documented facts and events, and the forgotten committees and personalities that provide the rich context within which the political contenders in the foreground find their meaning and battle it out. The next several paragraphs present some of this less known history focusing on the past committees that operated in Thembelihle.

8.3.1 Early committees: Establishment and consolidation of Thembelihle The number of shacks in Thembelihle exploded from the small cluster of retrenched workers’ shelters around the factory buildings bestowed to them by their employer.274 By 1989 large groups of people were coming to Thembelihle some coming from areas around Johannesburg and others migrating directly from the rural areas, as happened in other areas (Sapire 1992:118).275 Many people came in a semi-organised fashion from nearby Mshenguville, a Soweto informal settlement closed down by the authorities and the people relocated to Orange Farm more than 30 kilometres away (Mashabela 1990):

During those years, I can say in less than 7 to 8 months, people were piling up because I came here in June 1990… Yes, they came in numbers because they heard that a new place had just opened up. I also heard there is a place in Lenasia and I was not happy where I was staying then I decided to move (Interview Number 5T, resident since the early days).

273 Local election results in 2011 saw the ANC support drop from its impressive 2006 victory gathering 76.13% of the vote to 53.72% in Ward 8 (which comprises Thembelihle, Lenasia and Lawley, another informal settlement) (Pingo 2013:96). The DA increased its share of the vote from 8.93% to 32.47% between the 2006 and 2011 election. The Operation Khanyisa Movement (OKM), the electoral front that TCC is a part of, also increased its miniscule share of the vote from 0.99% to 6.39%. 274 This is corroborated by the version of people living in Precast, a small informal settlement a kilometer away from Thembelihle (Groenewald 2014). 275 Sapire (1992:118) notes that: “A study in 1989 found that over half of all free-standing shack dwellers had been born within the PWV [Pretoria-Witswatersrand-Vereeniging: South Africa’s industrial hearthland] and that only 16 per cent had arrived in the region after 1987.”

270

Committees to supervise the influx and settlement of people were set up. One of the first ones was run by a leader of the Sofasonke Party called Nongeleza and the focus was on the allocation of stands and dispute resolution. Later, committees were set up for the different sections and these were apparently founded on broadly democratic principles:

The committee was elected at the community grounds. The committee members were called and then we were elected. I can say the committee met every day in the afternoons. The cases were mostly about people fighting and disagreements within the committee. I can say it was an everyday thing (Interview Number 2T, resident and member of early committees).

But it seems it was a rough and ready direct form of democracy as this informant recalls:

They would elect a person when we were having a mass meeting. We would ask each other questions as a community and if you came up with a great idea of how to help the community then they would elect you right away… Yes, just like that. They wouldn’t ask how many people want this person to be a committee member, no, no, that was a waste of time (Interview Number 4T, resident since the early days).

Conflict soon erupted in the settlement as different groups and committees vied for power and influence. It was a fight between leaders and between different sections of the settlement, namely, sections D, F and N:

What I remember the most is our struggling. The struggle to get water, until we officially had taps. It was a struggle. Before that, there were fights between Section F and Section N (Interview Number 5T, resident since the early days).

If I remember well, this was in 1989. This is when the different sections were cut out. Section D was cut, this was in December. Then in 1990, Section N was cut. When Section N was cut that is when the chaos erupted. A man got injured, his name was Elliot. He stayed there at Section D. It was very chaotic. Some people got arrested and when that happened the cutting of the Sections had to stop (Interview Number 2T, resident and member of early committees).

The work of cutting out stands was done at some point by a man called Elliot and another man who spoke TshiVenda (Interview Number 4T, resident since the early days). Elliot developed the grid structure that is still found today. However, a dispute arose around his town planning scheme. He had left some land for communal, business and recreational use. But some local

271 leaders began to allocate people into these empty spaces apparently motivated by self- enrichment charging people for the irregular allocations (Interview Number 2T, resident and member of earlier committees):

The committee that I was part of is the one that ruined this place. It was planned that this place starts from here and it ends there up to the grounds, but because we didn’t listen to each other it ended up badly… someone from the committee started making money from cutting and selling stands [in the reserved place]. Then the fights broke out (Interview Number 2T, resident and member of earlier committees).

Some informants pointed to an ethnic dimension to the conflict:

The Xhosas arrived and they were demanding. Hey! They wanted chairs [positions] in the committee (Interview Number 3T, resident since the early days).

Peace was restored apparently by replacing force with democracy:

After that [the fights between different sections] a committee was elected, by law we were electing street committees; I was one of them, there was Mbanga, there was Mcithi and we were all from Section N. From Section D there was Bab’ Khumalo and Sam (Interview Number 3T, resident since the early days).

This rough patch in the history of the area was followed by a period of cooperation as residents and their committees focused on improving living conditions in the area (Interview Number 4, resident since the early days). During this period the ANC enjoyed some authority in the area and used it effectively:

The ANC was now active in the area and when the fight got out of hand the committees went to the ANC Region who ruled that for the sake of peace allocations be allowed in all the open spaces (Interview Number 2T, resident and member of earlier committees).

By 1993 the community had successfully put pressue on the authorities to install communal water taps in the area. This means a battery of taps were installed in one place and people had to fetch the water from this central water depot. The community felt inconvenienced by this. People organised to buy pipes which were laid out and connected to the main pipe. Taps were thus installed in every yard. The various committees in the area led this process. The common interest of bringing the water closer to the people united the committees to a large extent.

272

Then we came together as Section F and Section N, the fights had stopped and we also got our pipe. It was a struggle, a real struggle but at the end we got the water (Interview Number 5T, resident since the early days).

Some Xhosa man said, “Johannes [interviewee] we should sit down and talk. This is not helping us.” Indeed we called everyone, the Tswanas, but mostly it was the Sothos and Xhosas, and we got together. We said we have to build Thembalihle so that we can be in the papers and be well known everywhere. We should be the beautiful hope we always intended to be (Interview Number 3T, resident from the early days).

But the political jostling did not stop. There was instability as no group was consistently dominant and there was a tendency for mass meetings to be taken over and usurped according to who was in attendance and could sway decisions to suit a given agenda (Segodi 2014). Meanwhile the ANC and the “comrades” were becoming dominant. Dan Bovu was the key local ANC leader and with the support of “the ANC Region and the Indians,” as my informants put it, his committee became influential in the area. Although many people later detested him because as ward councillor he supported the relocation of Thembelihle, even those informants who disliked him conceded that during his heyday he was resourceful, enterprising, innovative and a hands-on leader (Interview Number 3, resident from the early days).

Dan – as he is popularly known in the settlement – was branch chairperson and hence leader of the ANC comrades. The ANC apparently soon took over the key tasks of running the settlement from the earlier community committees or dominated in these structures. Apparently the ANC’s attempt to establish SANCO structures in Thembelihle were unsuccessful (Interview Number 1T, resident from the early days and ex-ANC committee member).276 One of the tasks SANCO would have been in charge of was crime fighting. Like many settlements experiencing rapid expansion, Thembelihle saw crime levels rise:

People were complaining about crime. At SA Block there was a place where you could go and complain about anything then they will help you resolve it. There was a Crime Prevention Unit, there were people called “comrades.” When you go complain to them they would go to that person and beat them up first… Even when you have not finished explaining what you have done or not done (Interview Number 5T, resident since the early days).

276 SANCO is the South African National Civic Organisations and is part of the ANC-SACP-COSATU Alliance. See Nthambeleni (2008), (2006) and Gumede (2005:273-278).

273

There was a man that used to work at SA block, named Tshawe. He was making things strict but he would really embarrass you. He would make you walk the streets naked. If you had raped, they would undress you and hit you on your penis [in public]… it was disgraceful (Interview Number 5T, resident since the early days).

Dan’s ANC was deeply involved in community issues. In 1995 Dan became the ward councillor under the ANC ticket no doubt further increasing his and the ANC’s power and influence in the settlement. The overwhelming victory of the ANC in the first national elections held in 1994 saw it repeat the feat in the local elections a year later; it is likely that this further eroded the power of other political parties such as the PAC and IFP in Thembelihle. However, the local committees and political actors continued to fight for their space. The local community organisation Masibambane, for example, appeared to have competed with the ANC for influence (Interviews Number 1T, resident and ex-member of the ANC committee; Interview Number 3T, resident from the early days). Another earlier committee was Masakhane (Pingo 2013:15).277 Despite ANC dominance there was a tradition that the voice of the people, of the community – “umphakathi” – was sacrosanct and that it was expressed in the community “mass meeting."278 This must have kept the door open for other political actors to vie for influence.

Table 8.1: Periodisation of history of committees in Thembelihle Name of committee Description Term of office Sofasonke Party Run by leaders of the party that dominated 1989 to 1991 committee Mshenguville, a shack settlement in Soweto, whose relocation saw many people move to Thembelihle. Co-existed with other community committees. Focused on allocating stands and dispute resolution Community Established by residents to organize settling 1989 to 1991 committees in at Thembelihle, broadly democratic and accounting to assemblies that met almost everyday in different parts of the settlement

277 Pingo (2013:15) quotes Dan Bovu (the first ward councilor in Thembelihle) stating that he had been a member of the Operation Masakhane for the Homeless committee. 278 “Umphakathi” is a Zulu term for “community” in the broadest sense of the word. The political deployment of this concept is often in a context where “the will of the people” is asserted and presented as supreme and not open to question by anyone including by formal political leaders and organisations.

274

Popular community After the conflict between the numerous 1991 to 1999 committee committees reached crisis proportions, the community elected a single committee to unify the whole settlement (umphakathi) ANC committee The ANC gradually gained influence but its Unbanned 1990 leaders worked in the popular community committee in addition to forming an ANC branch. It tried and failed to establish a SANCO structure which would be allied to itself Masibambane, Other committees existed in Thembelihle and 1990 to present. But Masakhane, PAC, competed for power and influence with the some have declined IFP committees. dominant committee. Some committees Later DA represented political parties. ANC GOVERNMENT RELOCATION 1998 PLAN DIVIDES COMMUNITY Thembelihle Crisis Formed to lead the struggle against relocation Formed in 2001, the Committee (TCC) plans by the ANC government leading committee today Landless Peoples A national social movement that established 2003 to 2008 Movement structures in Thembelihle but has since declined Ward committee Statutory body advising ward councilor. 2006 to present Dominated by the ANC with the TCC having one seat on it since 2012. Source: Compiled by the author based on field research.

8.3.2 Later committees: The struggle against relocation Mandela is reputed to have admonished the Indians to learn to live with black people. He praised the well-laid out stands in Thembelihle and called for the new government to build houses for the people during his visit in 1994 (Interview Number 4T, resident; interview Number 5T, resident since the early days; interview Number 1T resident and ex-ANC committee member; City Press 2011). The residents’ hopes were shattered when the Johannesburg Municipality announced that the area was dolomitic and could not sustain

275 residential housing.279 The people of Thembelihle had to be moved elsewhere. This policy provoked strong opposition and pitted Bovu, in his new role as ward councillor, against the people (Interview Number 1T, resident and ex-member of the ANC committee). Dolomite has been a controversial issue in many informal settlements in South Africa and it was only after nearly two decades in power that the ANC government changed its position saying dolomitic conditions do not necessarily preclude the building of residential stock where adequate funding is provided to improve the water drainage system (De Wet 2011, South African Government News Agency 2014). The Thembelihle community hotly contested the suggestion that it was unsafe to build houses in the area. One informant told me how she stopped being active in an ANC committee and joined those opposed to the relocation:

I was young, I was young, but what they were telling me, I couldn’t see it [the dolomite and the need to relocate]. It’s as if they were telling me to hold a wall that’s falling and that I must not get sleepy because it will fall on me if I do. But then if you do sleep, you find that wall still standing. So it’s something that is not there. Crisis [TCC] opened our eyes (Interview Number 1T, resident and ex-member of the ANC committee).

Why did Bovu adopt a position that was so unpopular in Thembelihle? It seems he was caught between the policy of the ANC as government and the wishes of his constitutency and decided to listen to the ANC. The discrepancy of the mandates from the ANC as government and as movement (Dan’s constitutency) led to politically costly contradictions for the ANC.

The unpopularity of Dan Bovu and the ANC in Thembelihle reached a crescendo when on 21 June 2002 the hated “Red Ants,” contract workers of Wozani Security who wear red overalls and helmets and come in large numbers to effect forced removals and evictions, marched into Thembelihle (Clark 2014:14, TCC 2012a:2). In the build-up towards this momentous event a new leader and committee had emerged in Thembelihle known as “i-Crisis” (the Crisis). The Thembelihle Crisis Committee (TCC) was formed in 2001 with the mandate to organise the struggle against the impending forced removals (Dugard and Tselapedi 2013:62, TCC 2012a:1). The dominance of the ANC and the decline of other political parties and local organisations, combined with the ANC’s sudden loss of popularity as a result of the relocation, created political space for a new organisation. The TCC attracted active elements from existing political parties, including the ANC, and from the various local community organisations and

279 Dolomite is a geological condition that can lead to sinkholes. This porous rock is found in various parts of South Africa (Kaufman 2007).

276 structures, who felt that strong organisation and mobilisation was needed to resist the removals and that this could not be optimally provided by their old political homes (Segodi 2014). Their objective was clear and straightforward: No to forced removals, no to relocation. They demanded in situ development (Interview Number 6T, resident and TCC committee member). At the head of this new organisation was the wily and forceful leader Mzwandile Mdingi. At the height of his power, as one informant commented: “Mzwandile was king in Thembelihle” (Interview Number 4T, resident from the early days).

Mdingi had a “strong man” style of leadership and a charisma that invokes images of some great past leaders of squatter movements such as Sofasonke Mpanza of Orlando East, Soweto.280 A man of action, Mdingi’s basic plan was that everyone in Thembelihle, especially the men, would be woken up early in the morning and marshalled to fight and drive away the Red Ants (Interview Number 4T, resident from the early days). Regular meetings were held to mobilise the people behind the campaign. The TCC also organised legal assistance in aid of their cause. But on D-Day it was Mdingi’s plan that won the day:

Ahhh no, Mdingi had a strong gang, his own gang. There was no gathering, you would hear a loud bang on your roof and someone shouting, “Get out!” You would hear a man saying: “I’m still getting dressed.” The response would be: “You are only getting dressed now?” You got dressed on the way there and you wouldn’t even have a weapon to protect yourself with but you will get it when you get there (Interview Number 4T, resident since the early days).

Although some people’s shacks were destroyed and 647 families agreed to relocate to Vlakfontein eight kilometres away, Mdingi’s lieutenants were able to successfully mobilise people on the crucial day, 22 June 2002, and to confront the enemy. After some pitched battles involving police rubber bullets and stone-throwing, the authorities had to stop the forced removal (COJ 2003:6). The residents’ victory was decisive. The new spirit of triumphant defiance put wind in the sails of the TCC catapulting it forward as a leading organisation in the settlement. This momentum was used to banish Dan Bovu from the settlement. His offices at SA Block community centre were ransacked and his assistants chased away by thousands of residents in a scene that conjures up the phrase “festival of the oppressed.”281 The community

280 Stadler (1979:105) quotes council officials in the 1940s complaining that “the squatters are now openly hailing Mpanza as King.” 281 This happened about a week after the great battle and I witnessed the eviction of Dan Bovu from Thembelihle.

277 saw no reason for Bovu to have offices in an area that he wanted obliterated. This action amounted to a political coup against the ANC as the TCC, in the name of the people, ensconced itself at the head of the mobilised community.

Local political contestation in Thembelihle became further complicated when Mdingi split the TCC and aligned himself to the Landless Peoples Movement (LPM).282 This was in the context of the TCC having earlier joined the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) as an affiliate.283 The LPM had taken a position to mobilise informal settlements around the land question but its intervention in Thembelihle was questionable in the light of the TCC already doing a good job mobilising the people (TCC 2012a:2). Nevertheless the leadership of the TCC states that it found it necessary to cooperate with Mdingi and the LPM for the sake of unity in the struggle against a common enemy (TCC 2012a:2). However, over time the LPM lost its power and Mdingi left the settlement leaving the TCC to carry on the fight.

Mzwandile [Mdingi] really tried but he was uneducated. Mzwandile only understood what is being said, but when it came to words on paper, he would want you to read it for him. And if you read it for him, you also have to translate. But now Siphiwe and the others used to translate untruthfully because they wanted to be in control also, they wanted to end Mzwandile’s time in power. That is how Mzwandile’s reign ended and Bhayzer took control (Interview Number 4T, resident since the early days).

For several years after the failed forced removals the TCC continued to enjoy a degree of dominance in the area but the ANC was busy clawing its way back into the hegemonic spot with Bovu able to slowly recapture lost political ground in the settlement (Segodi 2014). Despite his unpopularity, as ward councillor his position was secure because in South Africa there is no legal mechanism for a community to recall a councillor from office against the wishes of the political party. He finished his term of office and in 2006 was promoted into the City of Johannesburg’s mayoral committee and put in charge of housing. A new ANC ward councillor, Janice Ndarala, took over.

Meanwhile the TCC, together with other social movement type organisations affiliated to the APF, had formed the Operation Khanyisa Movement (OKM), an electoral front based

282 According to a TCC report: “The earlier TCC Exco was however unstable in that the chairperson [Mdingi] would pick and choose who sits on what position as he pleased (undemocratic), and this was problematic in an organisation as it was meant to belong to all members” (TCC 2012a:1). 283 The APF and LPM were social movement type organizations that acted as umbrella bodies for local community struggles around the provision of services, and land and housing respectively. For background to the APF see Buhlungu (2006) and for the LPM see Greenberg (2006).

278 on a socialist platform to run in the 2006 elections. It contested in Thembelihle and though losing to the ANC for the ward councillor position, won about 4 000 votes that yielded one proportional representation seat on the City of Johannesburg council.284 The OKM managed to retain this seat in 2011 with an increase in the number of votes won in Thembelihle (Pingo 2013:98). Thus the TCC challenge to the ANC is both electoral and on the ground; the ANC is challenged in its two capacities as ruling party in government and as a movement. Researchers studying the OKM have pointed out the smallness of the electoral challenge and the almost negligible impact one seat in a big city council like Johannesburg has; they however emphasise the significance of this for local political dynamics in Thembelihle (le Roux 2013:125-126, Pingo 2013:99-100). In addition, the TCC decided to run candidates in the ward committee elections in 2012 and managed to win the housing portfolio seat.285 These initiatives suggest the dynamic and multi-pronged nature of the methods used by the TCC in its struggle for the development of Thembelihle.

To conclude this section, the history of committees in Thembelihle can be divided into two periods, the early days of establishment and consolidation of the settlement, followed by the struggle against relocation. The early period was characterised by several committees vying for dominance, a process that was at times characterised by violence along ethnic and political lines. The struggle for power and influence centred on control of the allocation of stands, provision of services and crime prevention. This early phase saw the ANC eventually emerge as the dominant committee in a local process that was influenced by national political developments, in particular the demise of apartheid and the ushering in of the democratic order. The second period of the committees was characterised by the division of the committees between those who sought to resist the relocation of Thembelihle and the ANC who supported this. The TCC emerged as a dominant force in the settlement because of its successful leadership of the resistance against relocation. The TCC carved out political space and power for itself, a space that it has largely been able to preserve till today. The following section looks at the state of play of the committees in Thembelihle today.

8.4 The state of the popular committees in Thembelihle 8.4.1 ANC committees

284 Local elections in South Africa consist of a constituency-based and proportional representation system whereby you elect a ward councillor for your area and additional seats are allocated to political parties based on the proportion of the votes won. 285 See le Roux (2013) for a comprehensive account of how the TCC is faring in this experiment.

279

The ANC branch at Ward 8 consists of comrades from Thembelihle, Lenasia, Lehae and Lawley. The ANC in Thembelihle sometimes meets separately to address local issues. The ward councillor is an ex officio member of the BEC. She has come under fire for denouncing the electricity self-connections despite having joined the march for electricity organised by the TCC before she became a councilor (Pingo 2013:121, Mbatha 2014). As a new councillor she was at the receiving end of a march making similar demands. A researcher observes that the TCC activists viewed the memorandum of demands “as establishing a participatory mandate for the councillor’s tenure. It is unclear how the councillor viewed the ‘mandate’ and in particular the extent to which this conflicted with the mandate of her party, the ANC” (Clark 2014: 21). This corroborates my observations about the dilemmas arising out of the two guises of the ANC as government and as movement.

The Thembelihle ANC ward councillor has been unfavourably compared by community members to Bovu in terms of performance, energy and knowledge. But she might have less room to maneuver given the close alignment of ANC policy as government and as movement.286 Researchers have observed the “limited power of ward councilors” to influence government processes and policy (Bénit-Gbaffou 2008b:28).287 Actual power lies with mayoral executive committees in which Bovu is a member. He has more power than Ndarala:

If you ask her about Thembalihle, she will tell you that Dan said this. As people are going [to Lehae], it is now that I have realised that she is not a councillor but Dan’s employee…The councillor we have now is dead. We don’t have a councillor, I don’t want to lie to you. We say bad things about Dan but there are too many things he did and we liked them (Interview Number 4T, resident since the early days).

As housing member of the mayoral committee (MMC) Bovu is in charge of the exodus of Thembelihleans to Lehae including which communities and which list of people will be allocated houses. The TCC has contested this power wanting access to the lists in order to monitor and influence the process. Controversies and dissatisfaction with the process is that it is slow and that there is nepotism and corruption, including around what happens to the site left vacant when a family moves (Interview Number 1, resident and ex-member of ANC

286 Point 12 of the Organisation Renewal resolution passed at the ANC 52nd National Congress, held in Polokwane in December 2007, states: “That at the instance of the 1994 democratic victory, the ANC became both a national liberation movement and a ruling party at the same time. In this regard, mass mobilisation and organisational work had to be combined with a skillful use of state power to pursue the goals of the national democratic revolution” (ANC 2007). 287 “Council decision-making is extremely centralised in the hands of the mayor and his ten members’ executive mayoral committee; at least as is the case in Johannesburg and Cape Town” (Bénit-Gbaffou 2008b:28).

280 committee). Local leaders of the ANC are accused of selling stands to new residents despite the agreement that the stands should not be re-occupied. It seems undeniable that the close identification of the ANC with the council and councillors is closely related to the legitimacy crisis that it faces in Thembelihle. Some residents have very little trust in its intentions, plans and processes:

I’m not saying I hate ANC, I don’t hate it but I want to tell the truth, ANC has crooks. ANC is very good but it is infiltrated with crooks. You are trying to live your life but they keep on sucking you left and right (Interview Number 3T, resident since the early days).

We take people as our superiors but they don’t do anything for you, they are doing it for their own wellbeing. You will be poor forever and they are eating in their houses (Interview Number 3T, resident since the early days).

8.4.2 The ward committee The shortcomings of the ward committee system in allowing ordinary citizens more say in local government matters is well documented (Ballard, Bonnin et al. 2006, 2007; Barichievy, Piper and Parker 2005; Bénit-Gbaffou 2008:5; Himlin 2005; Piper and Deacon 2008:44; Smith 2008:54). In Thembelihle, the ward committee is politicized and viewed with the ANC majority and the TCC’s single seat, occupied by Comrade Bhayzer, fighting for the ascendancy of their organisations (Interview Number 1T, resident and ex-ANC committee member) Le Roux (2013:199-200) observes that the many problems identified by the literature in the operation of ward committees occur in Thembelihle but are mitigated by the participation of the TCC in the ward committee structure, a development made possible by the democratization of the electoral process of the “second generation” committees (through involving the IEC in the elections). She notes the positive role of Comrade Bhayzer, the TCC ward committee representative, and this gives her hope that the structure itself might be redeemable.288 Her positive assessment of Bhayzer seems corroborated by the following comments by an informant:

The ward committee has ten people on it. Bhayzer is the one that is working there and the others are not. I can tell them in their faces, they know me. Bhayzer calls meetings, he

288 Le Roux (2013:200) notes that: “By WCs [ward committees] becoming contested spaces into which residents can insert themselves, the development of this relationship between the invited and invented could potentially play an important role, in communicating the opinions and needs of local residents to municipal decision- makers. Maybe, as strong SMOs [social movement organisations] begin to insert themselves into these invited spaces, WCs will eventually become representative structures.”

281

will gather a few cents, take his car and organise a [loud] speaker and go around to inform us about what is going on (Interview Number 1T, resident and ex-ANC committee member). 8.4.3 The Thembelihle Crisis Committee In Thembelihle there is an open and public contestation of ideas and policies which is centred on the “mass meeting.” This predates the existence of the TCC and it could be argued provided the conditions for the TCC to emerge in the form that it did. Before the formation of the TCC there already existed a tradition of democratic general meetings of the whole community where you could have your say and the decisions of the meeting were respected. Sometimes decisions were implemented immediately by the meeting itself.289

Image 8.1 TCC youth leader (centre, with arms outstretched) leading the song in a demonstration in support of the platinum miners’ strike at the Chamber of Mines building, Johannesburg. (Photograph by author)

The influences on Thembelihle’s democratic practice must have partly originated from people coming from Soweto where there was a strong and democratic civic movement in the 1980s (Rosenthal 2010:250). Many of those who came from Mshenguville had moved there from Soweto proper, and others had moved directly from Soweto’s backyards to Thembelihle. The paternalistic politics of the Sofasonke Party and the authoritarianism of Mbanga’s committee of “Xhosas” soon disappeared from the political scene, although traces of this

289 I have personally witnessed instances where in Thembelihle a decision will be taken and then the community meeting is adjourned to carry out the decision en masse. This is what happened when Dan Bovu was banished. Sometimes this can appear as “mob rule,” for example, if punishment is meted against an individual. An informant lamented how his spaza shop was burnt down in 1995 because of being, from his point of view, wrongly accused of a robbery (Interview No. 5T, resident from the early days).

282 politics can probably still be found (Segodi 2014). The Soweto influence became pronounced when in 2001 the TCC sent a delegation to the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC) asking for assistance and solidarity in its struggle (TCC 2012a:1). The TCC was warmly received and soon, like the SECC, joined the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF).290 To understand the TCC we need to locate it within a broader sociopolitical context including its interaction with and influence by other organisations and movements.291

The TCC’s association with the APF and left socialist groups influenced its leadership to adopt a socialist politics that has largely guided its perspective and approach over the years (Interview Number 6T, resident and member of the TCC committee; Le Roux 2013:144).292 The support enjoyed by the TCC as demonstrated in well-attended community meetings and protest actions suggest that it is hard to sustain an argument that it is imposing its socialist orientation on residents as some researchers have argued in debates about the character of South Africa’s social movements.293

8.4.4 Other committees operating in Thembelihle Three political parties operate and struggle for influence in Thembelihle, namely, the ANC, DA and NFP. To this list can be added the OKM. Masibambane, a civic-type structure, lost its power early in the new democratic era. SANCO did not last long. The TCC works closely with the OKM and is part of new political formations such as the Democratic Left Front and the United Front (Segodi 2014). It is the ANC and the TCC that are engaged with the daily issues and the everyday political life of the settlement. As Clark (2014:21) puts it: “both the ANC and TCC claim […] to represent the community.”

Nevertheless, in Thembelihle there have always been committees and individuals that operated at various levels in the settlement, namely, in the sections, blocks, streets and yards. Some of these committees or individual committee members would associate or be identified with a political party or civic-type organisation or they would simply claim to represent the community under their own cognizances:

290 See Buhlungu (2006) on the character of the APF. Also Runciman (2012). See Egan and Wafer (2006) and White (2007) on the SECC. 291 The TCC has cultivated relationships with non-governmental organisations such as PLANACT, SERI and CALS. It also works with the legal firm Webber Wentzel Bowens, and with research units at the University of Johannesburg (Centre for Education Rights and Transformation and the South African Research Chair for Social Change). 292 See the TCC constitution (2013). 293 See the debate between Runciman (2012) and Sinwell (2012) on these distinctions between rhetoric and practice, leaders and followers; also Ballard et al. (2006:400-404).

283

Yes, I proposed that idea. I went street to street asking them to meet me at a certain time. I did that because we always blame the council for not delivering on their promises. [But] how will the council work for us if it does not have people that can sit down and discuss with it on how to work with the community? It will not be able to work for us. So the people here just pulled out. They probably thought I wanted to start my own party (Interview Number 2T, resident and member of early committees).

The tradition of street committees is invoked by the informant:

Ehh… When Vlakfontein was started, many committees went to Vlakfontein. The way I see it, I don’t think there is a committee here. They are just organisational meetings, that’s all. The parties are the ones that are doing the meetings, otherwise there are no committees anymore. But we still have street committees. Stanley elected them. Just like me, I was elected with some other women. We are street committees but we no longer go and sit to discuss matters of the community; we don’t do that anymore, truly speaking (Interview Number 2T, resident and member of early committees).

This grassroots democratic practice, although apparently dying out in some respects, suggests that many committees and structures that were once important have been lost to posterity and their existence gets forgotten. For example, during an interview two informants were trying to remind each other of a committee called “Amadoda ayiLeveni” (Eleven Men) that was linked to the United Democratic Movement, a political party in South Africa. My informants had fun deriding and laughing at the idea of this organisation that seemed to have existed for not more than three weeks before it disappeared (Interview Number 7T, group interview, residents of Thembelihle). This is an area where a political culture characterised by self-organisation prevailed.

8.4.5 Relationship of the committees with each other The relationship of committees with each other can be viewed in terms of cooperation versus competition. On certain points and on certain issues the committees would cooperate or compete with each other in a continuum that ranges from formal alliances and/or tutelage to violent confrontation. There are issues around which the committees cooperate despite their rivalry. In some instances this is necessitated by common interests where it is clear that cooperation would benefit the community and the competing committees. The cooperation and competition between the committees finds a bedrock and a corrective in the interests of the community. The fact that the will and interest of the community is regarded as paramount, this

284 acts as a discipline and arbiter forcing organisations to adopt positions that are justifiable in the open court of the people. Researchers have attended and noted the democratic nature of the community meetings that are called by the TCC (Le Roux 2013:141-142). The ANC also calls meetings in the name of the community but these attract fewer people and according to outside observers tend to have restrictions that might stifle the voice of the people (Le Roux 2013:141- 142). The ANC-TCC relationship is mainly one of competition but there are instances where the two co-operate both in the past and present (Mbatha 2014). The ward committee relates to the ANC and TCC as a proxy organization that is supposedly non-partisan but in practice embodies the continuation of the contestation between the two Thembelihle political elephants. A resident thinks OKM, the TCC’s electoral front, is dominant among the committees:

At the moment we have too many committees, too many organisations. I wouldn’t count ANC that much because they are the ruling party, I’m talking about the opposing parties. The DA supporters are increasing here but then again their numbers are decreasing. The party with the biggest supporters is OKM. Everything we do now, we are relying on OKM (Interview Number 4T, resident since the early days).

8.4.6 Relationship of the committees to the community Committees have to be in step with the wishes of the community otherwise their popularity, power and influence declines. This was the downfall of Bovu and the ANC when they adopted the position in support of relocation. However, despite being literally driven out of Thembelihle, Bovu’s support base did not evaporate. He came back to give reports as the ward councillor and to take mandates, a process that the TCC probably had no choice but to allow because of the community’s interest in getting reports from the state. It is likely that from the point of view of the rank and file the TCC is watched and critically evaluated as it is the case with the ANC and other parties. An informant displayed skepticism in the light of Bhayzer, the TCC leader, becoming a ward committee member:

[These days] he is always travelling, he goes to Marikana and things like that. Don’t bother to call him when he has just received his salary from the ANC; he is no longer able to run, he is this big [fat]… Yes [the strongest committee is Bhayzer’s] but you can see that corruption is there but it is not bad because they are not doing it straight in [front of] our eyes (Interview Number 4T, resident since the early days).

Each committee orients itself to the masses, keeps in touch with popular sentiment, and develops its political programmes and positions accordingly. The TCC has managed to

285 maintain its position of leadership and influence in the community in this way. This is not always easy. Issues addressed can be complicated. The TCC also has to contend with the competing interventions of its political rivals. A case in point is the move to Lehae where the TCC was caught between its position of no relocation and the reality that houses were being built less than five kilometers away from the settlement. Agreeing to move to Vlakfontein had been denounced as a “betrayal” by the TCC (Interview Number 6T, resident and TCC committee member). In the end the TCC adjusted its position to saying that people are free to live where they want and those who want to leave should do so while those who want to stay in Thembelihle should also be allowed to do so (Segodi 2014, TCC 2012b). With respect to the latter group the TCC reiterated its original demand for the in situ development of Thembelihle and the provision of basic services; it also demands transparency and fairness in the allocation of houses (Interview Number 6T, resident and member of the TCC).

Now the change that is there is that people are moving. I have been complaining and I’m even tired of complaining that people are moving to Lehae but I am still here (Interview Number 5T, resident since the early days).

The TCC’s two-pronged approach has not saved it from a bigger problem. The Thembelihle collective identity was forged out of the struggle to establish and improve living conditions in the settlement, and later, the struggle against relocation. Thembelihle, “the place of hope,” has not yet had its hopes realised. An informant remembers the great hope they had for the place and says that none of all the committees had been able get the area developed (Interview Number 3, resident since the early days). The move to Lehae, although it is in fact a trickle, symbolizes a loss of strength and resolve which are important components of Thembelihle’s collective identity among the old guard. As a result some feel defeated:

They are moving people to silence us. No one remembers why we were protesting, we were protesting for houses to be built here and that they should provide us with electricity. That is the main reason of the protest but now people are excited because they are moving away (Interview Number 5T, resident since the early days).

But this place is not going backwards or forward, it is on a halt (Interview Number 3T, resident since the early days).

However, the recent announcement by the government that Thembelihle will be developed will no doubt remove the pessimism and restore the good hope of the old guard (RSA 2015). At the least it will shift the terrain of struggle significantly.

286

8.5 Theoretical and political significance of the committees in Thembelihle There has developed a local politics, policy and practice that can be described as democratic and participatory in Thembelihle (See TCC 2013). The dominant organisation in the settlement is the TCC and its political rival is the ANC. The TCC has kept in touch with community needs and issues, and has been leading and influential in local politics despite having little power over and access to state resources (CALS 2008, Clark 2014, Le Roux 2013, Pingo 2013). This has happened in the context of a community-based and community-oriented democratic practice. The question is, what factors and processes allowed this form of democracy to emerge?

It was arguably the need to overcome the internecine violent conflicts between the committees and the cooperation necessary to address service issues such as the laying out of pipes and installation of taps in every yard that necessitated a broader unity in Thembelihle. All the committees, civic and political organisations appear to have cooperated around these issues although contestation and disagreement were part of the process. The jostling for position between the committees was viewed with a jaundiced eye by some informants suggesting that community members preferred unity rather than division (Interview Number 4, resident from the early days). The general meeting of umphakathi was well positioned to act as arbiter between the committees and to foster unity in action. This arguably requires crafting a form of democracy that would enjoy the support of the community and facilitate the struggle to meet the needs of the people. Thembelihle arguably developed a “democracy on the margins” as defined in this dissertation.

The struggle against relocation created divisions in the community but strengthened participatory democracy in certain respects. It is an incontestable fact that the ANC government’s relocation policy for the settlement was an imposition (Huchzermeyer 2009:66- 67, Webber Wentzel Bowens 2006:6). The people opposed the decision and the undemocratic nature in which it was taken. During the height of the struggle against the relocation daily meetings were held at Park Station taxi rank which was renamed “the people’s parliament” (Interview Number 6T, resident and member of the TCC committee). The people had “invented” their own space to make decisions in the course of their resistance to the government’s imposition of an unpopular decision. It is in these meetings that strategy was discussed, support in solidarity received, tasks allocated, problems solved, etc. All committees participated in the people’s parliament with no committee given special privileges and the masses present. In other words, it was a form of direct democracy. A democracy that came into

287 being in contestation with the formal liberal form of the democratic government – a “democracy on the margins.” The TCC emerged head and shoulders above all the other committees and its methods proved to be the most effective in the struggle against forced removal. The emergence of the people’s parliament resonates with the literature on alternative organisational forms where it is noted that it is during periods of heightened struggle that workers form such alternatives.294

Social movement theory is stretched to the limit by the characteristics of organisations such as the TCC and their political practice because of the narrowness of its concepts (Barker 2008, Tarrow 1994, Williams 2008). Thembelihle’s political practice as it relates to the socialist vision raises important questions about political strategy and the ideology of social movements. It also raises the question of the emergence of alternative forms of organisation from the popular committees operating in the shack settlements. It suggests that “democracy on the margins” can contain within itself a vision to change society as a whole while its daily practice appears limited to the local and marginal. In the final chapter of the dissertation I will explore elements that are necessary to turn this vision from the local to the global, from the particular to the universal.

8.6 Conclusion The Thembelihle case study demonstrates how communities can help shape forms of local politics and political cultures that create democratic spaces wherein residents can exercise some control over their destiny and resist the impositions of the powerful. It is in such democratic spaces that a social movement type community organisation emerged and attained a degree of dominance that is not widespread in South African informal settlements. The modus operandi of the TCC made this possible in the context of the particular way in which the matrix of committees and organisations have historically evolved in this settlement and the dynamics and political effects of this evolution. The Thembelihle political culture of direct democracy allowed the TCC to rise and shine; more generally, a “democracy on the margins” was developed over time with its various dimensions and components progressively added and fine tuned until it became what it is today. The political method of the TCC involved the use of an array of tactics including campaigns, protests, courts, votes and solidarity with external forces. Leading a community requires political technique, skill and a certain degree of ingenuity given

294 Barker (2008) gives the example inter alia of soviets during the Russian Revolution. However, the turmoil of revolution is at a very different scale from a local struggle against eviction but parallels can arguably be discerned. See Cohen (2011:48) who refers to instances of “pitched battle.”

288 the monumental problems faced and the interventions of various forces, including the ANC as movement and as government that at times seeks to undermine such leadership. The TCC case dispels many shibboleths about the politics of South African informal settlements and the social movements found therein including problematising some concepts used to describe and understand these movements (Ballard et al. 2006). Most importantly, the case study gives a glimpse of what is possible with a grassroots politics that seeks to effect immediate and systemic change in its challenge to the power of the powerful.

289

CHAPTER 9 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE OVERVIEW RESEARCH VISITS TO SETTLEMENTS AND THE THREE CASE STUDIES 9.1 Introduction The people’s committee is the most prevalent category of committee in the shack settlements and for this reason my comparative analysis will foreground it.295 The aim of this chapter is to compare the different categories of committees found in the settlements to each other. Firstly, I compare the different types of people’s committee found in the three case studies; namely, the area committees in Duncan Village, the iinkundla committees in Nkaneng, and the Thembelihle Crisis Committee (TCC) in Thembelihle. Secondly, I compare the case studies with all the other committees found therein and in the overview research visits to 46 settlements exploring how the close-up case observations match up with the panoramic angle of the survey- like visits.

My comparisons are guided by the need to establish why amakomiti continue to thrive in the shack settlements including finding out why the most prolific category of committee is the people’s committee. The comparison is also informed by the theoretical distinction between the role of the committees as organs of struggle and of self-management or self-government. I identify key comparable variables and dimensions of the committees assessing them separately and in combination in order to establish their role and importance in contributing to the nature, character and modus operandi of the committees. The broad dimensions that are considered are, namely: structure and function, historical context, socioeconomic imperatives, political dynamics and cultural factors. The discussion does not necessarily correspond in the order of these dimensions given the multifarious and overlapping variables but is rather structured for presentation, illustrative and analytical purposes.

9.2 Categories of committees The people’s committees arguably fit the classical Marxist conception of working class self- organisation closer than any other category of committee. They were the only extant committees in the three case studies that were formed independently of the state. In the history

295 The people’s committee is defined as a category of committee that is formed independently of the state and claims to represent the interests of the community as a whole. It was found in 76% of the 46 informal settlements visited. In comparison, the ward committee was found in 45%, the ANC committee in 17%, CPF 11%, CDF 9%.

290 of the settlements other committees and structures that qualify to be called people’s committees once existed but have disappeared, namely, the Duncan Village Residents’ Committee (DVRA) in Duncan Village, the Five Madoda in Nkaneng, the Masibambane organisation in Thembelihle, and others. My focus will be on the committees that are currently operative. Let me start off by presenting a summary of all the functional committees in the three cases studies. Table 9.1 lists all the committees currently operational in the three settlements:

TABLE 9.1: Categories of committees found in the three case studies: Duncan Village Nkaneng Thembelihle Ward Ward Ward ANC ANC ANC Area Iinkundla TCC CPF CPF CDF Source: Compiled by the author based on field research.

From the table we can see that ANC and ward committees are found in all the settlements, the CPF exists in Duncan Village and Nkaneng but not in Thembelihle, and the CDF is found in Duncan Village only. At first glance it appears as if the only common categories in all three settlements are ward and ANC committees. However, it should be noted that the area, iinkundla and TCC committees are variants of what I have defined as people’s committees, that is, committees formed autonomously by residents to take care of the affairs of the settlement. All three categories of committee can be regarded as people’s committees if this definition is accepted prima facie and loosely applied. However, when applying this definition, there are some complexities and qualifications that should be noted and which I now turn to briefly.

Firstly, the area committee, found in Duncan Village, was part of a matrix of “people’s power” structures that operated in the area in the mid-1980s. Most of these structures have disappeared including their “mother body” the DVRA, leaving forlorn the area committees that have been incorporated into a new set of post-apartheid committees. Secondly, strictly speaking the iinkundla committees in Nkaneng cannot be said to represent the informal settlement residents “as a whole” because each committee’s constituency is made up of migrants who hail from a particular village or town in the Eastern Cape. Thirdly, the TCC can arguably be regarded as an “atypical” people’s committee in that it appears to be a hybrid structure that contains elements of a social movement, a civic and a socialist political organisation (le Roux

291

2013:142). Notwithstanding these qualifications, my argument below will be that these committees should be regarded as people’s committees.

My visits to the 46 settlements revealed the existence of seven categories of committees, namely people’s committees, ward, ANC, CPF, CDF, headman and ad hoc protest committees, with the people’s committees being the most prevalent committee.

There were no headman committees in the three case studies because they are located in the urban areas.296 In Thembelihle the committee that leads protest is not ad hoc but has been around for more than a decade. I will explore in greater detail below how protest is organised in the 46 settlements where it has occurred.

The CPF existed in Duncan Village and in Nkaneng but only five of the 46 settlements had a functional CPF. And where they existed, as in Duncan Village, they were part of an elaborate matrix of committees organised under the leadership of the ANC such as in Tamboville in Pietermaritzburg and Zenzele in Randfontein. Similarly few settlements had CDFs with these tending to exist where the ANC was hegemonic and well-organised, such as in Bambayi-Inanda, Durban; or, as in Makause in Germiston and Itireleng-Laudium in Pretoria, formed by the community as part of efforts to put pressure on and challenge the ANC government and ANC-aligned local structures.

ANC committees existed in a minority of settlements (17%). It should be noted that some settlements are quite small and tend to be neglected by political parties except, as the inhabitants will tell you, during election time. Shack dwellers feel instrumentalised by ANC officials whose concern with and involvement in state affairs is seen as making them prioritise constituencies that have more power and influence (Residents, KwaS’gebenga [Khayelitsha], Mthatha, group interview 60, 27/2/2013). The ANC pays attention to and is active in the three case study communities but in Thembelihle and Nkaneng it rode roughshod over the wishes of the communities there, namely, enforcing the relocation policy and imposing an unwanted candidate respectively. In both cases the ANC burnt its fingers and has had to rethink its approach as the powerless turned out to have more power than it had at first imagined. In Nhlalakahle, Pietermaritzburg, the ANC lost the ward to the DA partly because the informal settlement dwellers lost faith in it and voted for other parties or stayed away from the polls. In Baipei-Huhudi, Zeerust, the land invaders successfully sponsored a candidate to contest ANC

296 The Nkaneng community is apparently excluded from the traditional authority structure of the Bafokeng, the royal house that owns the land on which the settlement lies.

292 branch executive committee elections in order to influence the party. This suggests that the battle for the soul of the ANC takes many forms and some informal settlements have not lost hope in this regard.297

Ward committees exist in about half of the 46 settlements. The informal settlements tend to have one or more representatives in a ward committee that covers a jurisdiction (ward) broader than the settlement. It was only in Zenzele, Randfontein, that the ward demarcation coincided exactly with the settlement borders thus allowing maximum representation by the shack community. This has empowered the Zenzele community leadership in many respects although the main grievance, housing, has so far not been addressed. It should be pointed out that the ward committee is viewed as a useful structure by the local leadership because it is a conduit for sharing with and accessing information from the state, a forum that the local ward councillor is statutorily bound to attend, and moreover the representatives’ activities receive modest subsidisation by the state. But the price paid by the Zenzele community is that unlike in other informal settlements, their leaders have successfully banned electricity self- connections in the area. The Nhlalakahle people’s committee, consisting of ANC supporters, decided after some soul-searching to participate in the ward committee despite the ward councillor being DA (People’s committee and ANC member, Nhlalakahle, Pietermaritzburg, interview 26, 27/1/2013). But the ward committee is an advisory structure that lacks the power to decisively shape policy to the benefit of the shack dwellers. As a result, and related to the fact that it is a state structure, it was viewed in most informal settlements as not adequately representing the community. When people talked about committees in the informal settlement they could be referring to the ward committee but mostly this is a reference to the people’s committee.

The people’s committee existed in the majority of settlements visited (76%). The different names and forms this committee takes in the three case studies reflects the general picture in the 46 settlements whereby each community had a story to tell about why and how the local people’s committee operated and looked the way it did. In some cases the people’s committee and its present personnel could be traced back to activities surrounding the establishment of the settlement and in others it was about the continuation of a tradition of

297 Gumede (2007:ix, 310) suggests that despite “tight control of the ANC by centralising decisions, making sure that sympathetic leaders are elected and policing public critics of the movement,” the ANC remains highly contested at various levels of the organisation with various political, economic and social interests vying to influence and control it.

293 having someone or group of people who attend to the affairs of the community when there was such a need. With respect to the latter, the tradition and thinking found an echo in the practices associated with the period of “people’s power” when communities took matters into their own hands and ran their affairs especially in the townships. A committee will be called ikomiti and when you inquire further, in their explanation the informants will refer to is as a civic, street committee, iso lomzi (the eye of the community), lekgotla (assembly), and so on, terms that have historical origins.

It can be argued that the civic tradition does not simply emanate from the townships but that there is also a specific informal settlement political culture that was developed parallel to “people’s power,” some of which has been associated with the tumultuous and violent politics that was characteristic of some settlements (Sapire 1992:112). Or it can even be traced back to the days of the squatter movement of the 1940s (Stadler 1979:93). This culture of organisation, as in the case of the iinkundla committee, may even traverse the urban-rural geographic dichotomy (Bruchhausen 2014:2).298

However, I did not come across cases of committees such as iinkundla among the 46 settlements although rural idiom and sensibilities often influenced people’s understanding of their committees. On the other hand the headman of Mandela Park in Mahikeng struck me as very democratic and open-minded and ran his committee like a civic (Headman, Mandela Park, Mahikeng, interview 9, 10/12/2012). In this respect we have to note Mamdani’s (1996:22-23, 119) two observations, namely, that there exists a democratic tradition in traditional chieftaincies which colonists often quashed, and that a combination of the traditional and modern institutions exists in Africa as opposed to the modernisation thesis.299

In some settlements the CDF structure operates like a people’s committee, for example, the Makause Community Development Forum (MACODEFO) leads struggles for development and against relocation. This suggests that the definition of a people’s committee as a structure autonomously formed and acting on behalf of the community does not predetermine or constrain the actual form and label that the structure assumes. People’s committees take different forms and names. For example, there are area committees in Duncan

298 Bruchhausen (2014:2) argues about the (general) need “to demonstrate some of the ways in which rural histories can enhance our understanding of both rural and urban resistance in contemporary South Africa.” 299 In a vein similar to Mamdani’s, Bruchhausen (2014:6) argues about the need for historians to go beyond “demonstrating the ways in which the rural was profoundly affected by ‘modernisation’ and its influences emanating from the urban over and above the discussion of how the rural was, and continues to be, influential in shaping the urban.”

294

Village, iinkundla in Nkaneng, TCC in Thembelihle, MACODEFO in Makause, the civic in Zenzele, street committee in Ngcambedlana Farm, etc.

Image 9.1 Leaders of the Itireleng Community Development Forum, Laudium- Pretoria, in front of their office. (Photograph by author)

Image 9.4 Member of the Spooktown people’s committee, Bekkersdal, Randfontein. (Photograph by author)

295

9.3 History of the communities and committees

It is possible to periodise the history of organisation in many settlements with reference to the date of 27 April 1994 when apartheid was officialy replaced by a democratic government. The two decades leading up to that date, especially the 1970s saw the apartheid government ferociously attack squatting and was characterised by forced removals and evictions. The period leading up to 1990 saw the apartheid government starting to lose control and nerve including starting to relax influx controls and its war on squatting. This period especially the early 1990s saw a mushrooming of shacks settlements around the country’s towns and cities as a result of overcrowding in the townships, the influx of rural migrants, weakening of state controls and the advent of “people’s power.” After independence land invasions and shack settlement formation has continued although checked somewhat by government intervention in the form of housing development projects, plans and policies.

The area committees of Duncan Village originate from the era of “ungovernability,” that is, the mid-1980s period when the anti-apartheid struggle and township militancy reached a peak that saw the apartheid state momentarily lose control over certain aspects of township administration (Clark and Worger 2004:91, Mayekiso 1996:67-69, Seekings 2000a:125, van Kessel 2000:35). The area committees were part of a matrix of committees that operated throughout the townships but whose operation was largely disrupted during the transition to the democratic order. Many of these grassroots structures either collapsed or were politically weakened (Seekings 2000c:205, Saul 2014:90).300 Some structures radically changed their modus operandi and in some cases, such as with the Duncan Village area committees, found themselves being absorbed into a new post-apartheid matrix of committees. The area committee as a component of the old civic structure has survived the disorganisation wrought by the transition from the old to the new order and, despite the changes in its modus operandi, can arguably still be regarded as a people’s committee. The Duncan Village area committees call meetings of ordinary residents where popular views and problems are canvassed and identified. This continues notwithstanding the observation by critics that the main role of participatory structures in South Africa of relaying the views of citizens is not effective (Bénit- Gbaffou 2008:5, Miraftab 2003:227, Oldfield 2008: 491, Sinwell 2009:322).

300 Seekings (2000c:205) observes that: “The marginalisation of civic organisations is evident in almost every aspect of their activities,” that is, in the early days of the post-apartheid democratic order. Saul (2014:90) suggests that there was a deliberate agenda “of defining the mobilized masss out of the future political equation [and that this] actually signaled a very real defeat for popular struggle.”

296

In contrast to the area committees, the iinkundla and TCC committees, both formed around 2002, are creatures of the new democratic order. The iinkundla were formed when structures that are comparable to the civic structures of the anti-apartheid struggle were perceived as failing in their duty to secure the lives of residents. The story of the Nkaneng civic or street committee is told in Chapter 7 of this dissertation but the gist is that this structure failed in its mandate of crime-prevention and dispute resolution, instead it was seen as making life unbearable for residents. The iinkundla system stepped into the breach basing its political- juridical claims on a rural-traditional ideology that was linked to a constituency defined in terms of its geographic origins in the rural towns and villages. Nevertheless, we should not lose sight of the fact that it was born of the need to protect the Nkaneng community from what was seen as the excesses of the erstwhile street committee. In this sense it can be argued that it was acting on behalf of the community as a whole, or a significant proportion of the community, and thus qualifies to be regarded as a people’s committee.

The TCC was born of a struggle against relocation whereby it won ascendancy over other committees because of its effective leadership in this battle. It challenged and somewhat eclipsed the ANC’s dominance in the area. Since then it has continued to lead the Thembelihle community’s struggle for development and against relocation. It can therefore be argued that it qualifies to be called a people’s committee despite its hybrid form as suggested by its multifarious guises and methods that are associated with social movements, civics and political parties.

If the three committees are regarded as people’s committees, then we can proceed to inquire into what is distinctive about their agenda and modus operandi in comparison with other committees. One major distinction is that the ward, CPF and CDF committees are initiated, formed or sponsored by the state. The people’s committees are the only committees formed independently of the state and the question is, what is the significance of their autonomous origins? What is distinctive about their role and function in relation to the other committees? What are the immediate and long-term goals of the people’s committees? The next discussion tries to answer some of these questions also in relation to the people’s committees found in the other settlements.

Most of the 46 informal settlements were established by way of a land invasion (43%) in the period between 1990 and 1994. Others were established in the 1985 to 1989 period (14%). My research suggests that the establishment of informal settlements has continued right

297 up till today at a lower but not insignificant rate. Duncan Village expanded its shack settlements phenomenally during the earlier period of heightened struggle and did so explicitly in the name of people’s power. Thembelihle was established during this period but experienced rapid growth in the 1990-1991 period, as did Nkaneng, in line with trends noted by researchers (Crankshaw and Hart 1990: 66, Sapire 1992:114). The timing of the invasions suggests that land occupations and the establishment of settlements are political acts that reflect both (structural) economic and political conditions and the initiative (agency) of the invaders. The unbanning of the ANC, PAC, SACP and other organisations changed the political dynamic and most probably spurred on the land invasion movement. In Nkaneng and Thembelihle the original committees that established the settlements have disappeared and been replaced by new people’s committees and other categories of committees. Only Duncan Village’s area committees have survived the dismantling of the structures of the old civic structure.

The 46 informal settlements, in general, had a mixture of old and new committees with the original people’s committees being dominant in areas where they have survived unless they have been incorporated into the ANC’s local committee apparatus. In some cases the old civic structures have been renamed SANCO but the weakness of this organisation meant that often only the name remains without any functional organisational links that go beyond the locality (Gumede 2005:273, Zuern 2006:184). The establishment or introduction of new committees takes the form of ward committees, CPF, CDF and headman committees. Ward committees, where they exist, are regarded as important in so far as they have a direct link to the municipality. But there are instances, such as in Top Village, Mahikeng, and H39 in Newcastle, where the ward committee is wreaked by divisions and internal fights. In the case of Mahikeng this had the consequence of the formation of an ad hoc protest committee by the township residents who then organised protests in the area. The ward committee member interviewed told me that although she supported the protest and had been very frustrated with the ward councillor who paid no heed to the ward committee, none of the ward committee members could be seen to be participating in the protest as they were bound by the code (Ward committee member, Imperial Reserve Township, Mahikeng, interview 63, 10/12/2012). There was a fight between the committees and a previous ward councillor in Zenzele, Randburg, which ended with a new candidate being nominated in the following local elections (People’s, ward and ANC committee members, Zenzele, Randfontein, (group) interview 17, 22/1/2013).

In Dinokana Village, Zeerust, the youth informant, a member of the ward committee, said he had been at the forefront of some of the protests that had taken place in this

298 mostly rural area (Ward committee member, Dinokana Village, Zeerust, interview 3, 5/12/2012). In Rooigrond the original people’s committee, simply called the komiti (Sotho), had been at the forefront in the struggle for land, houses and against forced removals in the area. In Siyahlala-Huhudi, Vryburg, the people’s committee, though trusted by the community, was overtaken by events as the youth and young adults occupied government houses without its authority. In general, especially if we consider the nuanced data from the three case studies, which committee leads protest is contingent on a number of factors including the history of the committees in the area, the issue or problem being addressed, and the political outlook and practice of the existing committee members.

It should be noted that most of the informal settlements (54%) have had at least one protest in the past five years or so. The protests tend to be sporadic and issue-based although a specific grievance is often only the tip of an iceberg of a whole lot of dissatisfactions and underlying issues. Protest tended to disrupt existing political relations and committee configurations introducing a lasting political dynamic, catapulting into the public sphere new leaderships and on a few occasions leading to the formation of new organisations.

9.4 Political economy and location

The political economy of shack settlements especially in relation to their location focuses attention on the configuration of capitalist urban space. Informal settlement dwellers are often workers or work-seekers who seek to live in areas close to employment opportunities. However, not only do city planners not prioritise the needs of working people, but in South Africa apartheid geography has relegated black workers to areas far from the central business districts. In the new South Africa little has changed as the market has replaced racism in the marginalisation of working class residential areas. Land values and property prices are some of the main mechanisms that exclude workers.

Many informal settlements are located in areas that are not ideal for living because of the limited options in the choice of land originally occupied. They tend to be located in pieces of unused land because of its bad location or its poor quality. Thembelihle and other informal settlements in South Africa are located on ground that is dolomitic. Other settlements were found to be too close to a river and below the floodline, others were on very steep ground where it would be hard to build formal houses, for example, Nhlalakahle in Pietermaritzburg. Some informal settlements are located very near to or even within the perimeters of an existing working class township. The degree of proximity and integration depends on historical factors,

299 for example, in Duncan Village the process of setting up shacks was organised by a township civic as part of the struggle against apartheid spatial planning.301

In some North Western informal settlements, such as Siyahlala-Huhudi, Vryburg, and Baipei-Ikageleng, Zeerust, I found co-operation between residents of the newly-established settlements and the adjacent built-up townships largely because many of the land invaders were relatives of the township folk and established the new settlements due to intolerable overcrowding. In these cases the new communities were allowed to use the formal township’s services such as water and sanitation. In other townships the shack dwellers are sometimes made to pay for the use of such services, for example, in the Duma Nokwe A and B settlements in Mdantsane, East London, and Vrygrond in Graaff-Reinert. Sometimes there is a distant relationship between the host community and the shack dwellers, for example, in Thembelihle and Nhlalakahle in Pietermaritzburg, the settlements are located next to “Indian areas” as defined by the old apartheid Group Areas Act. In both these settlements the electricity self- connections have created tensions between the formal and informal residents. This is not necessarily a racial issue as the Protea South shack dwellers have had clashes over self- connections with Soweto residents where their informal settlement is located. However, the relationship is complex and multi-faceted, for example, many shack dwellers do business with the host (be it “Indian”) community and there is often political interaction especially if both fall under the same ward.

The 46 informal settlements are all economically depressed areas in the sense that community members tend to be unemployed, under-employed or if employed poorly-paid. Also, the infrastructure in these areas is not developed – inadequate supplies of water, sanitation, electricity, roads and community facilities being a norm. All three case studies face these problems. The need for self-organisation to address these needs is a common experience and perhaps is the reason why almost all the settlements have committees of one type or another in operation.

The state is proving unable to adequately address the plight of South Africa’s shack dwellers. The housing backlog has continued to increase while about a quarter of South Africans are inadequately housed (Misselhorn 2009). Informal settlements such as Nkaneng,

301 Sapire (1992:114) notes that: “By the early 1990s, these more spontaneous invasions were followed by planned land invasions, spearheaded by township based civic organizations in townships such as Wattville on the East Rand.”

300

Thembelihle, Zenzele (Randfontein), and many others continue to exist 22 years after the democratic order was ushered. My research suggests that at the heart of the problem is commodification of the provision of housing whereby the state’s only solution has been the construction of RDP (state-subsidised) houses but at a rate that fails to meet the rising needs. It is instructive that in the period from 1994 to 2010 the number of informal settlements has increased from about 300 to 2 700 (Tissington 2011:32, 36). This suggests that not enough money is being diverted to provide decent housing for the masses. It is also related to the capitalist framework within which development is carried out in South Africa.

A contradiction identified in the study is that between the use of human rights language which emphasises constitutionality whereby housing is demanded as a right and the reality that many informal settlements exist and provide shelter, adequate as it is, to millions because of insurgent “unconstitutional” action in the form of land invasion (Levenson 2012). Thus, in the case of Thembelihle the local state obtained court orders empowering it forcibly relocate the community’s resistance ensured that this settlement continues to exist and recently compelled the government to relent and to start electrifying the place. This was not a victory of the constitution or the law but of mass action and the pressure of the need for pressure, that is, it was the political economy of housing as experienced by shack dwellers that won the day.

The concept of “democracy on the margins” has a political economy dimension because it is the relegation of poor working class people to marginal areas near rivers, on dolomitic, far from economic opportunities, and so on, that compels them to organise themselves and create local structures of struggle and self-government. We thus find an overlap between geographic and economic marginalisation whereby shack settlements are characterised by unemployment, low incomes and lack of facilities. When organising themselves shack dwellers were found to reach out and negotiate with the authorities at some point in their struggle. My research suggests that it is the lack of responsiveness by the state that sparks off protests. Other research suggests that shack dwellers are at the forefront of community protest action in South Africa (Maruping, Mncube and Runciman 2014:30). Several cases including that of Thembelihle suggest that it is disruptive struggle that often forces the state’s hand for it to accede to shack dwellers’ demands. This then can lead to the conclusion that an important feature of “democracy on the margins” is challenging the power that be through action. Struggle, and not budgets nor the law, is a crucial aspect of the political economy of the struggle to improve conditions in the informal settlements.

301

A trend noted by researchers is that people renting informal housing in the period 2002 to 2014 have increased from 19% to 36% (StatsSA 2016). This points to the fact that more people are compelled to rent inadequate quarters due to the shortage of decent (rental) housing and its affordability. This statistic suggests that the official approach of seeing informal settlements as problems and eyesores to be “eradicated” (Sisulu 2005) is not based on the reality of the political economy of housing in the country where informal housing is an important if improvised and inadequate mechanism for accessing shelter for many people. It also misses the point that shacks, like brick-and-mortar structures, are an important source of income for many people in the form of rent. This is important in a country with high rates of unemployment, poverty and inequality like South Africa. Shack settlements and other forms of inadequate housing, such as “emqashweni,” are a window to the difficult economic conditions facing the working class and the poor in this country.

9.5 Immediate and ultimate goals

The immediate and everyday role of the area committees in Duncan Village appears to be to provide a forum for residents to come together and share their concerns, and to relay these to the state through the matrix of structures set up for this function, namely, the ward councillor, ward committee, ANC branch committee, etc. The area committee members interviewed told me that their main goal was to see development in Duncan Village, in particular, houses for the shack dwellers. During the days of apartheid the struggle to meet immediate needs, called “bread and butter” issues by activists then, was to be explosively linked to the struggle to get rid of the apartheid state and to replace it with a democratic government (Mayekiso 1996:68, Murray 1994:169, SAHO 2015b, Seekings 2000a:121-122). This latter goal has fallen away with the advent of the democratic order. The leadership of the area committees appeared to be largely ideologically and organisationally married to the ANC party and government, seeking and hoping to achieve the community’s developmental goals under ANC rule. Given this frame of mind, besides the wish to speed up the pace of development, there was no talk about changing the nature of society or government in any fundamental way.

The immediate activities of the iinkundla, that is, their “bread and butter”issues, centred upon dispute resolution, burials and stock theft. These appeared to be issues and problems confronting residents on a day-to-day basis and which the iinkundla tried to address especially in the absence of an effective people’s committee or civic in the area. On the other hand the end goals of the iinkundla members interviewed can be summarised in the notion of

302 development. They wanted a decent life in Rustenburg where they lived and worked for a large part of the year. They also wanted development in the rural villages which were their homes and which they visited intermittently. It can be argued that these migrant miners reached a level of proletarianisation that facilitated a commitment and desire to see the living spaces at their places of work improved even as their commitment to investing in and improving their rural homesteads continued (Moodie with Ndatshe 1994:5, 33, 43). The expansion into electoral politics whereby the iinkundla supported an independent candidate in the local elections was a result of a specific intersection of factors and processes that perhaps suggest the existence of a political dynamic that is pushing the iinkundla constituency to confront broader political issues including the question of the hegemony of the ANC.

As workers, for residents of Nkaneng employed in the nearby platinum mine, they have experienced and been part of important changes. The majority of miners broke from their old union, the NUM, which is a close ally of the ANC, and joined AMCU which is now the new majority union. It grew by leaps and bounds as an immediate result of the Marikana Massacre (Alexander et al. 2012:154, Sinwell 2015). However, despite vocal criticism of the ANC government, the AMCU leadership claims to be “apolitical” and as such has so far not presented the workers with an alternative political and economic project beyond trade unionism. But there is no doubt that this monumental change in union membership will influence political developments in Nkaneng.

The political situation is fluid in Nkaneng and with the new iinkundla-supported ward councilor joining the EFF for example, the immediate and long-term goals of the activities of the iinkundla committees might change towards greater opposition to the ANC government. The ward councilor believes that the ANC government will not put its money to develop Nkaneng because it will seek to undermine the new councilor and thus portray him as a failure in the eyes of the electorate (Interview Number 7, personal assistant to ward councilor, ex- ANC Youth League committee member). This represents a particular understanding of the link between democracy and development. How this perspective is taken forward in practice might provide the key to future political developments in this informal settlement.

The TCC is fighting for development. While the Duncan Village area committees seek and believe that they can win development with the ANC in power, the TCC leadership has come to a different conclusion. Its proclivity for calling protest action suggests that it does not believe the ANC will improve the shack dwellers’ conditions unless it is forced to

303 do so. Its embrace of the socialist vision suggests that it perceives the need for a fundamental change in social relations if all or some of its major demands are to be met. Its constitution states that one of the TCC’s objectives is: “To advance our struggles against capitalist deprivation guided by the vision of socialism” (TCC 2013: Clause 3.ix).

The TCC’s mode of engagement with immediate issues exhibits an underlying and broader long-term project of transformation. This is suggested by both the rhetoric and the methods used. The recent capitulation of the ANC government whereby it accepts and commits itself to developing Thembelihle in situ is a victory for the TCC and the community. It is hard to imagine that this organisation will, because of this major concession, suddenly discard the politics and methods that delivered the victory. It could be that what the government has done is merely to redefine the terrain of the battle for development and socialist transformation in Thembelihle.

9.6 Size and composition of the committees

The size of the committees range from small to medium in size in the three cases, approximately between five to ten people. In Thembelihle, for example, the TCC’s constitution stipulates that the executive committee should consist of 10 members.302 However, the TCC’s 2012 annual general meeting noted that some executive members did not attend regularly with some falling off for various reasons, for example, one member found employment and could not attend the Saturday meetings, another moved to another area outside Johannesburg (TCC 2012b). The Duncan Village area committees consists of eight members who are elected annually or bi-annually but in practice some members are less active leaving the work to a handful of individuals and one or two who are the key leaders. A chairperson and secretary is elected by the area committees. Iinkundla committees vary according to the particular committee concerned but the two committees I observed in meeting sessions, Inkundla yaseLibode and Inkundla yaseMnqanduli, appeared to have large committees of more than ten people with one or two key or leading members identified and in the case of the latter about six secretaries-cum-treasurers. Generally, the committee sizes vary according to intention and circumstances.

302 The TCC (2013) constitution states: “The Executive shall compose of: a Chairperson, Deputy Chair, Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Treasurer, Coordinator, Spokesperson and three Additional Members [sic]” (Section 8.3.i).

304

The formal systems of quantifying the general membership in all three committees vary in their accuracy. The iinkundla keep membership lists based on payment of burial dues. The combined iinkundla committees collectively no doubt represents a substantial proportion of residents in Nkaneng. The TCC recently embarked on developing a membership system whereby community members join the organisation and pay dues. This has not been very successful but the intention remains and it underlines the idea that not all people who live in Thembelihle are TCC members or active in it (Segodi 2014). The TCC distinguishes between its own general meetings meant for its members and the community mass meeting which is larger and is for all residents in Thembelihle. The area committee assumes that all residents in the area concerned fall under its jurisdiction in the spirit of the old township civics. An area committee can cover about 200 shacks, however I was not able to quantify the variation in the size of shacks per area. This requires further research. Collectively the area committees will represent a substantial proportion of Duncan Village residents given the big number of shacks in this township.

The committees meet according to their rhythm and will from time to time call their constituency to general meetings. The TCC for example meets weekly and community-wide meeting approximately monthly or according to need; it is the same with the area committees; iinkundla meet less frequently as committees and their bigger meetings happening according to need, namely, if someone dies or there is a dispute to be resolved. The general meetings vary in attendance according to the respective committee structures’ constituency size, the issue to be discussed and other factors that might influence attendance such as the effort put into publicising it.

The committees represent residents in their living spaces (residential areas) rather than as employed workers. Older people dominate although youth are encouraged to participate in committees. TCC seems to have a greater participation by youth with the 2016 annual general having consciously elected a leader from the youth ranks as chairperson (Zwane 2016). Employed and unemployed residents can become part of the committee. Sometimes people are elected because they are unemployed and have more time to do the work. A person might get elected in this way and then start having problems with attending because he or she has in the meantime found employment. However, the committees tend to have a mix of employed and unemployed. There appears to be gender balance in the composition of the committees although in many instances males dominated in numbers. This is especially so in the iinkundla probably because of the rural traditional ethos and the pervasive image of the migrant as the

305 male miner. In Duncan Village there appeared to be majority female participation.303 Only those who live in the shack area concerned can be members of committees. However, in Duncan Village the area committees may include brick and cement houses in their jurisdiction. In my experience I have come across shack dwellers’ organisations that seek to exclude those who live in brick and cement houses but Duncan Village and Thembelihle appeared to reach out and embrace such people. Nkaneng belongs to the same ward as Photsaneng, a built-up township, and the two areas work together in the ward committee and ANC branch.

9.7 Duties and functions

Shack committees are generally formed to address practical needs on the ground. Thus the area and TCC committees focus on their constituents’ needs and problems while the iinkundla is more limited in this respect although its role is expanding. The area committees operate in a context where they are part of the bigger committee configuration in Duncan Village. This facilitates and limits its operation. It has a structured channel to the municipality but does not communicate directly with government structures because it has to observe certain protocols when it does so.304 The TCC uses its militancy to force state officials to consult with it but will itself consult other local organisations for democratic reasons and as a strategy to strengthen its hand when engaging with officialdom. Iinkundla meet with officials where necessary, for example, one inkundla met with police in its quest to curb stock theft in the area. The new councillor also consults with them on certain issues.

The general pressure on all the committees is to address residents’ problems many of which arise out of the poor living conditions in the shacks.305 As such their role is similar to that of the civics of yesteryear which focused on so-called bread-and-butter issues. The only difference is that in addressing these problems the area committee leaders put their faith in the ANC government while the TCC, like the civics of old, believes that a struggle is necessary to achieve this. The iinkundla are arguably structures that are in an ideological and organisational transition – they are busy expanding their sphere of operation and developing their politics

303 This was particularly noticeable in the structures where the ward councilor was a woman. 304 There is a rule, for example, that a ward councilor cannot go directly to a local area meeting unless this has been arranged with the ward committee and/or ANC branch committee (Interview No. 8, ward committee and area committee member). 305 Unlike soviets that addressed workplace and living space issues, the people’s committees are focused on problems related to the residential area. However, residents will still approach local leaders with labour issues. The TCC sometimes addresses these issues, for example, it has organized support for a strike by cleaning workers in the local shopping mall. Area committees get involved in nominating people to take local job openings offered by the municipalilty or the public works programme.

306 towards what appears to be a radical direction. A distinctive role that the TCC has assumed is that of organising and leading protest action. This is not the case with the area and iinkundla committees with both not having organised a protest. The old township civics were very much at the forefront of protest action and the TCC has arguably taken over this mantle.

The variety of roles played by amakomiti is huge and different committees do different things at different times. This raises the question of the conceptual accuracy of using terms such as amakomiti and even “people’s committee” to refer to structures involved in such a great variety of activities. It is possible that a more nuanced terminology might be necessary to pinpoint and distinguish between the different roles committees play.

As organs of struggle there is a continuum ranging from “silent” struggle to open protest. Most amakomiti engage in low-key struggle by other means, such as attending meetings and putting demands to higher structures of the ANC or to the ward councilor in ward committee meetings. This applies whether there is an adversarial relationship with the authorities or not. However, some committees also engage in open contestation and challenge including taking to the street in protest. As organs of self-government this role is circumscribed by the degree of independence from the state and its local agents and the level organisation of the committee concerned including the authority and legitimacy it enjoys with its constituency. Strong committees such as the TCC are able to manage some aspects of life in the settlement and are often able to force the state to consult them before intervening directly in settlement affairs.

9.8 The committees and democratic practice

There is an ethos of democracy in the manner in which the committees operate. Meetings are called, report-backs given and mandates taken. The decisions taken are generally binding on the committee members. There was evidence of a form of deliberative democracy with an Afro- centric flavour in Nkaneng in a meeting that I attended where rural idiom was liberally used while a handful of secretaries were busy taking minutes in what was actually a business negotiation over a sensitive issue (the costs of repatriating a corpse home) and which was handled with impressive aplomb. There is a skill and style in democracy. The verbal flamboyance and performative symmetry of the inkundla meeting might have been facilitated by a common language, origins and traditions. Although there were moments when the chairperson of the meeting formally tested the house’s agreement at certain points, these moments were few as the audience’s response to the orators signalled the opinion of the house

307 as the discussion unfolded. This will perhaps be more difficult in Thembelihle where people might speak different languages and have different backgrounds. Heterogeneity is likely to require formal ways of resolving issues as the field of commonality that is facilitative of consensus-building and decision-making by acclamation is lessened.

A closer consideration of democratic processes in the three cases reveals another crucial element of democracy, namely, the important link between mass action and decision-making. The area committee makes its decisions or demands and submits these to other local committees who then relay the matter to the state. The residents wait for a response with apparently little (immediate) power to influence the outcome of the matter. The militant approach of the TCC, on the other hand, affords residents the power of following up their message with protest action aimed at forcing the state’s hand to accede to their demands. From this point of view mass action adds to and is an important component of participatory democracy.306 Embarking on protest action is itself arguably empowering. In a mass meeting called by the TCC, sometimes referred to as a “people’s parliament” when there is a struggle underway, the residents will decide that the following day action will be taken, and indeed come the morrow the residents will come out in protest. What the residents say goes. There is no waiting for some other structure to act as arbiter. This is empowering and evokes the spirit of people’s power of the 1980s.

9.9 Levels of organisation and complexity

Most informal settlements have more than one category of committee in operation (54%) with 35% having two committees in operation (20% having a people’s committee and a ward committee) and 10% having three or more committees (See Table 5.5). The people’s committee is the simplest form of organisation whereby the community comes together and chooses a leadership to represent it. It exists in 76% of the settlements and exists alone in 35%. Where it exists alone the level and complexity of organisation is usually low. These are usually small communities with a long history together and whose leaders lead because of their trusted track record. Examples of small settlements are Duma Nokwe A and B in Mdantsane, eSiteshini in Newcastle, Ngcembedlana Phansi and Phezulu in Umtata, etc. The low level of organisation or complexity does not necessarily mean less democracy or community control over the

306 Bénit-Gbaffou (2008:5-6) argues that: “People’s voices are taken into account only when they resort to exceptional means of expression, outside more regular, institutionalised and routine participatory structures.” She gives as examples of “‘non-institutional’ participatory practices…protests, marches and ‘toyi-toyiing’; or for instance exiting the political sphere through judiciary law suits” (Bénit-Gbaffou (2008:5).

308 leadership, it just means there is less elaboration of procedures, structures, formalities and meetings.

The three case studies consisted of large communities characterised by heterogeneity and the need for formal systems of representation. At first glance and based on the overview study results it seems as if the bigger the settlement, the more elaborate and complex the organisation of committees. Thus in Bhambayi-Inanda in Durban, a very large settlement, the matrix of committees is very elaborate. However, the TCC has managed to keep it simple by way of allowing other organisations and committees to exist and operate autonomously in the area while elevating the community meeting to the role of a people’s parliament whose word is final. The TCC, like the other organisations and individuals in the settlement, has to fight to win its policy positions in the community meeting. The fact that this approach seems to work suggests that the complex elaboration of committees might not be crucial in increasing participation and building democracy from below. This appears to be the case in Duncan Village, Bhambayi and Zenzele where the outcome of the operation of the matrix of committees appears to keep things in place and maintain ANC and state hegemony. The elaboration of committees can be viewed positively as efficient because things get done such as the implementation of development projects, the collection of mandates, etc. But from another point of view the ordinary resident appears to have to jump through many hoops before getting the community as a whole to take a collective stand on an issue or motion that he or she wants considered. Structurally, the matrix of committees streamlines and pulls everything together but at another level it arguably fragments or refracts the agency and collective voice of the community.

Relations between the committees range from healthy to strained as is the case with the three case studies where Duncan Village is characterised by co-operation, Nkaneng is in a flux and Thembelihle’s TCC has an adversarial relationship to the ANC although it works with the ward committee and sometimes with the ANC local structures. In some informal settlements such as Zenzele there is co-operation between the elaborate matrix of committees and a modus vivendi with the more or less unquestioned and unchallenged dominance of the ANC. In Itireleng there is open warfare between the CDF which acts as a people’s committee and the ANC committee, ward councillor and SANCO structures. In this case the opposition created a structure, the CDF, which it uses to challenge ANC hegemony, demand a say over political and developmental issues, lead community protests, etc. The leaders of the CDF are former ANC members who are accused of being bitter because they did not win positions in the branch

309 executive committee. However, there is no doubt that if they had remained within the web of ANC-dominated committees they would hardly have had any space to militantly challenge the government to speed up service delivery and development.

In Nkaneng, the then developing matrix of committees that consisted of the ANC branch, the ward committee, the civic and the CPF was disrupted when some community members formed the iinkundla committees because of their dissatisfaction with the authority represented by and imposed on them firstly by the civic people’s court and then later by the CPF. It can be argued that the excesses of these structures were their downfall. But this has not stopped the ANC’s rearguard action of regaining its hegemony using the same leader associated with the excesses. In this context this suggests that the ANC’s primary aim is hegemony and participatory democracy is a secondary objective.

9.10 Relationship with other committees

The relationship of the people’s committees to other committees in the three cases can be assessed along the two axis of relational clarity and fraternity. While there was a degree of ambiguity and some grey areas with respect to certain aspects of the relationship between the area committees to other committees in Duncan Village, in general the relationship can be described as clear and well-defined although grey areas no doubt existed. Through stated policy and experience the area committee leaders knew how to relate to the ward councilor, the ward committee, the ANC branch executive committee and the local state. Meetings and referrals to “higher structures” helped resolve disputes over power, competence and jurisdiction that sometimes arise between the committees. In Thembelihle the relationship of the TCC to the ANC committee and ward committee is characterised by a degree of fluidity and contingency but on the whole it is clear and definite. The TCC recognises other committees that exist in Thembelihle and sometimes meets with them including the ANC local committee; for example, there was an instance where a common approach was adopted in the struggle for the electrification of the area. Also, the TCC has one of its leaders participating in the ward committee.

In Nkaneng there is a greater degree of ambiguity in the relationship of iinkundla to the other committees. The iinkundla committees have recently changed their political role in the settlement (supporting the independent councilor to win the ward). The political status of the ANC in the area is highly contested while the miners have recently turned their backs on the NUM and are now embracing AMCU, a union that is hostile to the ANC. Internal strife and

310 uncertainty also characterises the ward committee which is split along the lines of the ANC committee. Undoubtedly this is a situation where the old relationships are fading but the new ones have not yet adopted a fixed or clear physiognomy. It is likely that the ANC, in its endeavor to re-establish hegemony over the area, will attempt to win the iinkundla back into its camp despite the reversals it has experienced in this regard. The rivalry and hostility between key political actors in the settlement have not as yet settled into a pattern and anything is possible. This open-endedness must also be attributed to Thembelihle despite the remarks made above. The government’s recent announcement that it will develop Thembelihle in situ, representing a 180-degree change in policy, should be viewed as an attempt by the ANC to cut its losses and regain hegemony in the area. How this new policy development will impact the configuration of local committees in the area is an open question.

9.11 Gender

Women were disliked by apartheid planners because they preferred cheap male black labour coming into the mines and farms rather than wanting black people to set up families. The arrival of women represented the latter and there was undisguised hostility to women amounting to official misogyny (Bank 2011, Bozzoli 1991, Ramphele 1993). But this did not stop them coming to the towns and their frosty reception by the authorities put them at the forefront of squatter movements as has been well-documented with respect to the Sofasonke Mpanza camp in Orlando East, Soweto (French 1983, Stadler 1979). Women could not access housing and squatting was a solution to their problem. Apartheid patriarchy combined with racism deemed a single woman undesirable to the extent that when a husband died a woman would be forced to choose a new man through lots using hats in order to secure her house. The involvement and leadership of women in the squatter movement has been noted in many other areas including the beer wars in Cato Manor in 1959 which were part of a struggle against the demolition of uMkhumbane, a Sophiatown-like settlement in Durban (Lodge 1983:147).

311

Image 9.2 Women arrested for contravening pass laws in Duncan Village, about 1965. (Photograph: Buffalo City Municipality 2008)

The agency and leadership of women in the squatter movements of the 1970s and 80s was highlighted in the struggle for Crossroads whereby the Crossroads Women’s Committee was formed fighting against apartheid evictions that received international publicity and solidarity (Cole 1987). These powerful women led the struggle behind the vision of winning “‘a place for people without a place,’ meeting basic human needs for social reproduction” (Benson 2015:372). In the new South Africa there emerged the Women’s Power Group in Crossroads which, in the spirit of South Africa’s community protests, fought for services and quality houses staging a four-month long sit-in at the council offices from 21 January 1998. Its fate, according to Benson (2015:369), underlines “how this 1998 women-only, collective, public, political grassroots protest was, for the most part, not seen by local residents as part of an ongoing history of women mobilising in Crossroads.” The process by which the sit-in was defeated and denounced by the authorities shows how women’s struggles were largely demobilised and depoliticised during the transition to democracy in South Africa and that, though “women have asserted agency in the politics of informal settlements…for the most part, these experiences have been incorporated into or written out of official histories (Benson 2015:385).

312

Image 9.3 Members of the people’s committee in Spooktown, Bekkersdal-Randfontein. (Photograph by author)

In my research the role of women was underlined with their participation in the popular committees and other public processes in the shack settlements noteworthy. In Nkaneng, for example, the first democratically-elected ward councilor was a woman and since her term of office ended, she continues being active in the settlement. In Duncan Village many ward councilors and members of popular committees are women. Similarly in Thembelihle the Operation Khanyisa Movement councilor is a woman and women participate well in community structures. The iinkundla system can be regarded as having elements of patriarchy emanating from the traditionalist ethos underpinning this structure including the male-dominated nature of mining. The example of the Crossroads women’s struggle suggests that the gains of a forward-moving movement of emancipation have been sacrificed partly as a consequence of “residents pitted against their local [political] representatives harshly defending a system of limited emancipation” (Benson 2015:384). The reversals that women empowerment experiences are arguably a function of this bigger demobilization and loss of political direction of the broader struggle. I will explore these questions further in the next chapter.

9.12 ANC hegemony, political culture and “democracy on the margins”

313

The relationship with the state in the informal settlements is characterised largely by disappointment and a feeling of abandonment. The complaint in many settlements is that they never see the ward councillor or that he or she is not doing much for the area. Even in areas such as Duncan Village where local leaders are loyal to the ANC, and the ward councillors are visible and accessible, residents are impatient with the slow pace of development – of service delivery. The concept of ANC hegemony is important because in this situation the primary objective of local political and state processes becomes the need to maintain ANC hegemony as it is feared that without this the people will support other political parties and engage in protests (Interview Number 2, ward councillor and ex-DVRA committee member; Gumede 2005:288).307 A strategy used by the ANC in Duncan Village is to project itself as a central component of local political culture. An attempt is made to make the ANC presence all- pervasive and all-embracing. Only the ANC has the power to change the people’s lives for the better, it is explicitly said and implied in practice (Interview Number 6, ANC ward councillor, Duncan Village). Only the ANC is worthy of political support, this is apparent in the hostile attitude to other political parties. In Duncan Village the ANC is apparently able, through its control of state levers, to demonstrate and make good its claims.

In Duncan Village the allocation of jobs in local economic development projects, the arrangement of social grants for those in need, the allocation of an RDP house, and the provision of a weekly soup kitchen, are some of the ways in which state functions are directly linked to ANC hegemony.308 This is effected through these processes being carried out with the involvement and approval of the matrix of committees staffed by ANC loyalists. Even in areas such as Thembelihle where the ANC is not that dominant there are complaints that only ANC people get allocated a house in the new Lehae housing project; this has led to the TCC demanding a say in the drawing up of the list of housing beneficiaries despite its opposition to relocation. In Nkaneng the complaint is that the ANC municipality is working through the ANC branch chairperson rather than the elected ward councillor as part of its comeback campaign.

307 Gumede (2005:288) notes: “[Former ANC and state president] Mbeki views the militant social movements with deep suspicion. In his eyes, they could sabotage his vision of a centrist national consensus, so with both the ANC and the government firmly under his control, the next major battle is likely to be against the new civics.” 308 Gumede (2005:284-285) observes that: “When Mbeki became president [of South Africa] in 1999, he redefined government’s relationship with civil society. Stakeholders…would be drawn into local development initiatives, and community projects would be tackled by mass-based social movements in partnership with government. ANC strategists advocated the retention of street committees, which had originated in the 1980s to act as community-level ‘stakeholder forums.’“

314

Despite these criticisms the ANC is arguably part of a political culture that is more or less democratic – what can be called, without sounding flippant, “participatory democracy of a special type.”309 It has not abandoned its formal commitment to democracy and the need for democratic participation of the people in their governance. This is the principle and logic behind the setting up of ward committees and all the other paraphernalia of committees in areas where these have been greatly elaborated. In any case the ANC’s claim to power lies not only in the authority it derives from its historical role in the struggle for freedom but also, and in an immediate and direct way, in its winning of elections. Its political identity formed over more than 100 years of political activity, with all the attendant ups and downs, is that of a party of the people, a party of democracy. The language even if not the reality of democracy is part of the political culture that it embodies and it is upon this terrain that local political battles are fought and won.

The matrix of ANC-dominated committees in Duncan Village largely operate democratically even if it can be argued that it is a highly-managed form of democracy. The attempt to impose a candidate in Nkaneng provoked a very strong response from the community leading to the ANC losing to an independent candidate. The latter was democratically elected and duly installed into office. Thembelihle demands a bigger say in the making of decisions affecting the area and its stance is strengthened by the democratic manner in which decisions are taken by this community itself. Most of the committees in the 46 informal settlements assume leadership positions on the grounds that they represent the interests of the community. The evidence suggests that many of these committees were either elected or their leadership acknowledged by the people they claim to represent. 310 In other words, despite various shortcomings and possible criticisms, democracy characterises the political culture within which the shack dwellers’ committees operate. In many instances, their

309 Gumede (2005:284) contends: “The exiles, the dominant faction of the ANC from which Mbeki takes his cues, adhere firmly to democratic centralism, with a subservient relationship between civil society groups and trade unions on the one hand, and the government on the other…” Further: “As far back as 1990, Mandela rejected calls to retain the UDF’s grassroots structures as an independent movement alongside the ANC… the proposal was viewed as an illegitimate challenge to the ANC’s position” Gumede (2005:284). 310 This is in contrast to the earlier situation (in the 1980s) noted by Sapire (1992:115) where informal settlement self-organisation was characterised by “the poor performance and unreliability of squatter committees… the ephemerality of many squatter committees… the endemic feuding between leaders... [and wherein] the support-bases of several committee members were an elaborate network of patron-client relationships. Most committees were self-appointed and lacked democratic checks upon their members. This allowed for considerable abuses of power.”

315 operation constitutes and shapes this participatory democratic culture. This is a theme I will return to in the next chapter.

Does there exist, therefore, a form of democracy that is peculiar to the shack dwellers’ organisations? In Chapter 5, I presented the concept of “democracy on the margins” as possibly the best way to capture the diverse political activity in the shack settlements that finds a commonality in the formation and operation of local committees. The three case studies suggest that one can indeed talk of such a phenomenon although it takes many forms and can at times appear to serve contradictory interests. The committees formed differed either in form, name or in practice. The people’s committees in the three case studies differed not only in name, but they appeared to pursue different goals and used different methods. Everyone wanted development but the area committees looked to the ANC government to bring this and thought that co-operating with and supporting it would deliver the goods. The TCC also looked to the ANC government but believed that only pressure and militant action would compel it to do this. Its leadership also believed that ultimately a socialist state would be necessary to meet everyone’s needs. No one talked about socialism in the area committees. In the 46 informal settlements we find diverse approaches in vision, programme and method. Behind this diversity lies different histories, experiences and politics. Nevertheless it can be argued that what is common is the belief that self-organisation is an important aspect in identifying and solving problems; that this self-organisation should involve or represent everyone in the community in a democratic fashion; and that its goal should be the improvement of the socioeconomic conditions of life of the people.

9.13 Elections and the amakomiti

Amakomiti vote for and support the ANC, my research indicates. The majority do so and in the case of the few exceptions such as in Thembelihle and Nkaneng there are specific reasons and circumstances that led the leaders of people’s committees therein to turn their backs on the ANC. The political dynamics in this respect are provided in detail in the case studies of these two settlements. The establishment of many informal settlements happened during the period of transition from apartheid to democracy whereby the ANC successfully took advantage of the movement or served to inspire it claiming leadership of the victorious struggle against apartheid. Subsequently informal settlement dwellers looked to the ANC for housing delivery and the ANC has not been reticent with its promises to effect this and its housing delivery record has been impressive in the quantity if not the quality of houses built and despite the

316 inadequacy given the huge backlogs. Of late the ANC government has embarked on at least providing electricity and other services to informal settlements besides housing delivery. This has kept the hopes of the people alive. However, as the Thembelihle and Nkaneng case studies suggest, impatience and frustration may be starting to erode the ANC’s electoral support base. Amakomiti leaders, as the organic intellectuals of the settlements, will be decisive in this process. Where leaders such as in Thembelihle turn their backs on the ANC, its share of the vote will decline. The decline in ANC electoral support durin the 2016 local elections suggests that the process has already started. My research also suggests this with some amakomiti expressing frustration with the ANC albeit still reluctantly and habitually voting for it.

9.14 Relationship with the state

The three people’s committees’ relationships with the state range from co-operative to adversarial. In Duncan Village the area committees are part of a matrix of local committees that work with and have a multitude of political, economic, social and developmental links with the state. There is movement of personnel and resources between the various civil and state structures. In Nkaneng the civil society-state links are currently in a state of flux since the by-election that led to the election of an independent councilor. The iinkundla committees are finding a new role for themselves including defining the political character of their relationship with the state. The new councilor consults with them from time to time and they continue looking to the state in solving some of their problems such as that of stock theft. Thembelihle’s TCC has an adversarial relationship with the state. The state’s policy of relocation is responsible for this in that it introduced an element of opposition and defiance in the political identities of TCC activists and many community members. The state’s capitulation to Thembelihle’s demands for in situ development might lead to a re-definition of the TCC’s relationship to the state. At the time of writing these lines (August 2015) the government was busy sending geologists to the area ostensibly with a view to assessing the feasibility of housing development in the light of the dolomitic condition of the ground. The beginning of work on the electrification project has apparently started with contractors moving in and setting up base in Thembelihle and discussing employment of local labour processes with local organisations including the TCC (Segodi 2015).

The open-endedness of the relationship of the people’s committees to the state has been noted in Nkaneng, that is, it is not pre-determinted what form the relationship can take going forward. Duncan Village is less open-ended but it is possible that the perceived slowness of the

317 state’s development programme will not only continue to quantitatively increase tensions but may ultimately lead to a qualitative re-configuration of the relationship of the state to the area committees, the latter being structures closest to the people on the ground. A radical change in this relationship would likely first pass through a phase of flux, ambiguity and open-endedness. In other words, for all three case studies there is a degree of dynamism and open-endedness in the relationship of the people’s committees to the state.

9.15 Protests

Only the Thembelihle people’s committee has distinguished itself as an organiser and leader of protest action. The TCC has carried this mantle since its formation and it has become an essential element of its political identity, method and vision. The Duncan Village area committee, on the other hand, has become part of the ANC government and party’s organisational arsenal that prevents, contains and suppresses community protest. However, some area committee members suggested that they are not in principle opposed to protest as long as this was not destructive (Interview Number 5, area committee member, Duncan Village). So far the iinkundla committees have played no role in the organisation of protest and it is unclear what direction their position on protest will take as they become more involved in local politics. Their cooperation with the ward councilor who is now an EFF member might be decisive in this respect because this political party readily and militantly takes to the street as part of its political repertoire. Will the iinkundla embrace protest action as a political method or will they shy away from it? Will the area committees of Duncan Village continue with their containment of protest or will the views of their constituency increasingly make this position unviable? The TCC’s militancy might be tampered by the great concession made by the ANC government in agreeing to the in situ development of Thembelihle. Will the TCC increasingly opt for cooperation with rather than opposition to the state where the latter projects itself as a partner in developing the area? No theory can answer these questions a priori. However, a look at developments in other informal settlements might provide a clue. In the next section I relate the case studies to the findings from the overview research visits to 46 informal settlements.

9.16 Xenophobia in the settlements The outbreak of xenophobia in South Africa has sometimes been associated with the informal settlements because of violent incidents such as the burning alive of Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave, a Mozambican immigrant, in Ramaphosa informal settlement in 2008. However, xenophobic attacks have also occurred in South Africa’s townships such as the January 2015

318 outbreak in Soweto in which shops owned by Somalians were attacked and looted (SAHO 2015g). The South African Human Rights Commission defines xenophobia as “the deep dislike of non-nationals by nationals of a recipient state” (SAHO 2015g). In South Africa it emerges in the form of violent attacks on people who originate from Zimbabwe, Somali, Malawi and Pakistani, among others, including attacks on their properties. Xenophobia is arguably a form of racism in that in South Africa white people are not attacked and the “foreigners” are sometimes identified by how dark their skin is. In this respect the country’s apartheid past is a factor. It is also important to point out that the association of xenophobia with informal settlements is sometimes made credible by pointing out the competition over scarce resources that occurs among the poor. However, this approach ignores the xenophobia of the elite and of those in power such as the xenophobic utterances of the Zulu king on 21 March 2015 that sparked off attacks in Durban and the criticism that the South African government has often shied away from calling xenophobia by its name preferring to label it as common criminality (Nicolson 2015b). Nor should we ignore the preference of capitalist employers for cheap vulnerable African labour which often takes the form of undocumented immigrants.

Xenophobia does take place in informal settlements such as in Nkaneng when during the 2012 Amplats strike some workers burnt down “foreign-owned” spaza (informal) shops in the settlement (Interview Number 4N, spaza shop owner, Mozambican national). Thembelihle also experienced xenophobia during the January 2015 attacks on spaza shops. However, the TCC has been progressive in the manner in which it approaches the question belying the association of shack dwellers with xenophobia. The terrible violent attacks of 2008 saw the TCC galvanised and mobilising against the xenophobia resulting in very few incidents occurring in the area (Mbatha 2014). In January 2015 the TCC held meetings to stop the attacks including searching for, finding and returning goods to Ethiopian and Somalian traders that were taken during the looting. I attended a meeting of the TCC with the traders where it transpired that 15 freezers had been found and returned to their rightful owners in this manner. TCC leaders are opposed to xenophobia because of their vision of socialist working class unity and internationalism (Segodi 2014). Abahlali baseMjondolo (2015) have also organised and led several protest marches against xenophobia in Durban including one I attended which was held jointly with a Congolese migrants’ organisation. The TCC and AbM are social movement organisations that organise their constituency on a progressive platform which suggests the

319 importance of politics and of agency in the struggle against the scourge of xenophobia.311 Building a working class movement of struggle, I will argue in the next chapter, is probably the best and most effective antidote to this disease.

9.17 Conclusion The comparison of data on the different categories of committees found in all the committees has yielded some answers to some of the questions I set out to answer in this research. A key question was why the shack committees continue to thrive in almost all the settlements where I conducted my research. This question is underlined by the fact that most township civics have more or less disappeared or have been severely weakened in their operation, structures that it can be argued are comparable to amakomiti. A related question is the role of amakomiti in the life of the settlements. This question distinguishes between their role as organs of struggle and of self-government. The history of the establishment of informal settlements suggests that they are set up by the agency of the residents themselves without state support or sanction. From this point of view it can be argued that self-organisation is the midwife of the settlements. Without this most settlements would not exist. Most housing developments are initiated by the state or private developers and residents are brought in when all the plans have been made. James Scott (1998:4-5) has suggested that “high modernist” state developments are characterised by top- down rather than bottom-up processes. His arguments can be understood as a critique of the alienation that accompanies people who are not fully involved in the planning of projects that affect them. This can be extended to a critique of liberal-bourgeois democracy where there is little participation in the day to day running of state affairs. It is not so with the establishment of informal settlements especially those established through mass or group land invasions – as opposed to quiet, individual “silent encroachments” (Bayat 1997). As the Thembelihle and Duncan Village cases indicate: the invasion of land and setting up of a settlement involves a regular process of community discussion, consultation and decision-making as the leaders go about cutting up stands, allocating people, address logistical problems, etc. In Thembelihle an informant recalled the community was meeting on a daily basis. These meetings soon became part of the way things are done in a settlement because there is always issues and problems to be addressed in the community. It also emerged that during periods of intensified struggle, for

311 In a study we found that there were less xenophobic attacks in areas organised by progressive social movements and where these occurred prompt action was taken to stop the attacks (See Ngwane and Vilakazi 2010).

320 example, in Thembelihle when the community was threatened with evictions, meetings increase their frequency and attendance soars. Indeed, leaders know that well attended meetings are those that address issues close to people’s heart at any given moment. Regular community meetings and collective decision-making soon becomes part of the culture in some informal settlements including having amakomiti who are responsible for calling such meetings. This political culture is apparent when meetings are sometimes called by an ordinary member of a community in the absence of a committee taking the initiative. I also found that when structures atrophy and there is decline in organisation residents complain and sometimes people will take the initiative and attempt to organise the residents. In other words, even if there is no visible organisation the memory of collective decision-making and tackling of problems remains among some community members. It is common that when some community members start complaining about a problem and the absence of collective action to address it, some people will go to a past member of amakomiti and entreat her to “call a community meeting.” Some settlements are established by people from the same area who might even belong to an organisation who decide to invade a piece of land. Others are established by people from the same area but who might not have had much contact with each other. In both instances people from different areas can join the invasion and wish to make the new settlement their home. This means building a community from scratch as it were. The initial meetings sometimes serve this purpose of allowing people to get to know each other, their views, their skills, their language, their morals, etc. One of the complaints about life in the shack settlements is that bad elements will come and live among the people. There is a sense that there is more safety if people know each other. This is why in a settlement sometimes it feels as if someone’s business is everyone’s business. Often during a newly-established settlement there will be a problem of petty disputes, fighting and crime. Some of this may arise from different outlooks, customs and ways of doing things requiring a social mechanism to smooth things out and establish social harmony or set guidelines and boundaries for social behaviour. This aspect is apparent in the pastoral type of leadership that emerges in settlements where the leaders are responsive to the multifaceted needs of the community. Leaders will often attempt to establish a moral code including finding means not only to enforce such but also to inspire to do so. There are different leadership styles in organisations and it is the same with the settlements. In Thembelihle the first leader of the TCC was popular, charismatic and effective. However, a new leadership took over on the grounds that he was authoritarian and manipulative. It is true that from the new leadership there emerged not one but several leaders

321 suggesting that the new style was more collective. It is the case in some settlements that, especially during the days of political violence, the leaders were or became “warlords” suggesting that different circumstances may throw up different leaders and leadership styles. Some leaders symbolise the unity of the community or remind the people of where they come from or the determination they have or had struggling to establish the place or they remind the people of a collective dream that they have such as getting their area developed. Leaders are key in maintaining amakomiti and poor leadership sometimes leads to their decline or even people turning against them. Some respondents, for example, would lament the absence of a past leader who they felt handled community affairs well or fairly and kept the community united and strong. A place and its culture will have an influence on identity. People often define themselves by where they come from and how things are done there. Political culture can therefore be ingrained in people’s individual and collective identities which serves to reproduce certain practices and ways of doing things. Some activities of amakomiti including community action influence how people perceive themselves. Justine Lucas (2000:169) has argued that support for a political party, in this instance the ANC in Alexandra, became part of the culture of the place and people defined themselves in those terms (political identity). This emerged from the case studies. For example, the leaders of iinkundla in Nkaneng defined themselves as people from the rural areas who preferred justice to be exercised in the way in which it is done in the village where they come from. This rural identity overlapped with an ethnic identity because it was Xhosa chiefs and their courts that iinkundla attempted to emulate in the urban area. It has been argued that ethnicity may give rise to forms of social identity that are deployed to achieve certain goals in an urban setting (ethnic identity).312 Language is an important factor as meetings must be conducted in a language that everyone understands. In Nkaneng the people abandoned the cross-cultural and multi-lingual “civic” or street committee form of organisation and embraced the ethnically and linguistically homogenous iinkundla system. Duncan Village residents mostly speak Xhosa. Thembelihle has a multilingual constituency and all languages are spoken in meetings although, as in the rest of Johannesburg, the dominant languages are Zulu and Xhosa. Thembelihle suggests that ethnic and linguistic identities can be addressed in different ways and are not necessarily an obstacle to community-based collectivism.

312 Sapire and Beall (1995:12) note that ethnicity is “not a primordial anachronism” but should be seen “as a situational and historically contingent form of identity” and that this happens “but as a consequence of the very processes of modernization.” See Dubow (1994).

322

The fact that informal settlement dwellers find themselves at the edges of cities and towns and are often not granted resident status marginalises them from societal processes. When informal settlements request electricity from ESKOM, for example, they will be told that the settlement is not “proclaimed.” The data indicates that this marginalisation, whether felt or actual, is accompanied by the perception or reality that shack dwellers not only do not have access to basic things that they need, such as water, electricity and housing, but they are also bereft of avenues to put forward their demands and win them. Individuals from informal settlements will face problems such as not being able to provide a fixed address when they want credit or even to open a bank account. Certainly if you get arrested the police will use this to keep you longer in jail because they cannot verify your address. Amakomiti help to address this situation. For example, the TCC has over many years helped secure schooling places for Thembelihle children in a context where local schools resist enrolling children from the informal settlement. This exercise of getting children happens every year and is evidence that amakomiti fill a gap left by the absence of political or social avenue for informal settlement dwellers. There are parallels to this problem and role in other informal settlements. Amakomiti also negotiate with authorities where necessary and possible. They can also be a conduit for government communication, services and projects. In Duncan Village, for example, recruitment for public works programme jobs is done through the area committees. In Thembelihle government projects including having toilets built for individual households, and similar projects, take place in consultation with the TCC. Amakomiti in almost all the informal settlements are expected by residents to go out and find information and meet people and officials that can help improve life in the settlement. This role is important because it bestows not only legitimacy but a semblance of power to local leaders although it can be abused and become a form of gatekeeping by amakomiti. The point I am making here is that there is an objective need for and a role for the committees and this is part of the explanation of why they continue to thrive. The role of amakomiti can operate as organs of struggle or of self-government. In practice it can be argued that they operate somewhere between Barker’s (2008) revolutionary perspective of alternative political forms and the reformist formulations of mainstream social movement theory. In other words, they are not always leading struggle and the powers they have of self-management can be quite limited. For example, Duncan Village’s area committees are arguably a shadow of themselves if compared to their glory days during the reign of the DVRA and people’s power in the 1980s. The ANC government has not only moved to curtail their powers, it has also introduced competing and arguably better resourced ward committees

323 whose operation sometimes seems to crowd the area committees out. Most informal settlements which operated people’s courts and community organised crime-prevention programmes were expressly barred from doing this and made to form Community Policing Forums which researchers have suggested entail the community answering to the police rather than the other way round (Pelser, Schnetler and Louw 2002). The Community Development Forum of Itireleng-Laudium informal settlement was purportedly formed as a rebellion against the paternalism of the ANC and its perceived imposition of development goals and projects upon the community without consultation. So was the Makause Community Development Forum which suggests a dialectic relationship between struggle and self-management: communities must fight for their right to manage or have a say over their affairs. The localised hegemony enjoyed by the TCC has arguably given it more space to facilitate the community having a greater say about what happens in Thembelihle. I will conclude by saying that the evidence suggests that the attenuation or decline in the role of amakomiti as organs of struggle and of self-government is widespread and worrying for those who believe in democracy from below and giving power to the grassroots. The widespread hegemony of the ANC and a political culture that looks to the state to deliver services while the people wait patiently has undermined the power and vibrancy of amakomiti even though they are very far from dying. The leaders of amakomiti complain a lot about their situation whereby they cannot facilitate the satisfaction of the needs of their communities. As despondency sets in negativity rises. Everyone wants development for their area. Some lose hope of ever getting houses and only demand electricity just to ease the hardship of living without services. Some amakomiti throw in the towel and surrender their autonomy and independence joining ward committees and finding other ways of advancing themselves personally. Long-term goals are sacrificed for short-term ones. In Duncan Village the vision of people’s power is fading. However, the protest action in 54% of the settlements visited suggests that there is still a fighting spirit albeit arguably one of desperation. The changing mood in the country marked by the Marikana Massacre can be discerned in some settlements, in land invasions, and in rising protest action. Amakomiti such as the TCC have kept alive for themselves and their communities the vision of socialism. I will take up these themes in the next chapter exploring the political way forward and vision of the shack dwellers’ struggle.

324

CHAPTER 10

CONCLUSION

10.1 Introduction The self-organisation of people who live in shack settlements requires study and development in the quest to improve living conditions therein and to build a better world. My aim in this chapter is to pull together the ideas and data considered so far and to make some general points in conclusion. I also seek to relate the study’s findings to the research questions that I posed in the introduction of this dissertation and the hypotheses listed there. In this chapter I begin with an overview of what I have done so far in this dissertation gathering historical, theoretical and empirical data in order to elucidate the nature and character of amakomiti, the grassroots structures of the shack dwellers in South Africa. The overview emphasises my triangulation of the different sources of data and the richness and complexity of the insights arising therefrom. I end this section with a summary of the findings of my overall investigation including key questions that arise from my research.

My discussion then turns to a critical evaluation of the history of the struggle of the working class in South Africa focusing on the role of shack settlement dwellers in it. My historical presentation seeks to demonstrate that shack dwellers have been an essential component of this struggle both during the apartheid era and in post-apartheid South Africa. I then look at how theoretical and empirical insights deriving from the South African experience of self-organisation might shed new light on and contribute to the development of the (international) Marxist theory of self-organisation. I perceive my contribution to be the insight that grassroots structures become effective organs of struggle and of self-management as a result of facilitative agency and structural factors. I re-assert the efficacy of a revolutionary Marxist perspective and politics in this respect. I conclude the chapter by looking at implications and questions for political practice and further research mindful of the fact that no study can answer all the questions and that some questions can only be answered in the course of practical struggle.

10.2 Relating the findings to the research questions: General summary My point of departure in this study is the centrality of working class self-organisation in the Marxist theory of the struggle for self-emancipation. My investigation started by noticing the existence of a form of grassroots organisation, amakomiti, found in almost all the informal

325 settlements that I visited in South Africa. My question was whether these structures could be understood using the Marxist theory of working class self-organisation. This required two lines of inquiry which I pursued, firstly: a theoretical and historical investigation into experiences of self-organisation in various countries in which I focused on including Russia (soviets), Italy (factory councils) and South Africa (township civics). Secondly, an empirical investigation into amakomiti looking at their form, variety, history, role, relationship to struggle, etc. In this respect I reported on my research visits to 46 informal settlements in four provinces in South Africa where I found at least seven different types of amakomiti in operation in varying combinations in 45 of them. I further conducted four case studies in the form of an in-depth study of the political, economic and social life in four informal settlements focusing on the operation of amakomiti therein. I have given full accounts of three of these case studies, namely, Duncan Village, Nkaneng and Thembelihle, with the findings thereof presented in three chapters of this dissertation.

My empirical work has relied primarily on interviews but in the presentation of my findings has considered numerous secondary sources including theoretical works to further illuminate the subject matter. Observations of meetings of some amakomiti including use of participant observation data obtained in Thembelihle, an informal settlement that I have been acquainted with prior to conducting this study; interviews with municipal officials, observation of the operation of ward committee offices, inspection and perusal of documents including from respondents’ personal archives, informal interaction with community members, and so on, are some of the ways I used to gather as much information as possible for my study. The result has been a rich and textured account of the operation of amakomiti in the form of an overview account of my visits to 46 settlements and presentation of data from the three case studies. The special significance of my empirical presentation is that it is couched within and informed by an in-depth inquiry into historical and theoretical experiences of working class self-organisation in South Africa and other parts of the world. This not only enhanced and focused my vision when investigating amakomiti, but it also generated material that, as I will argue below, contributes new insights for the development of the Marxist theory of self- organisation. More broadly, the co-existence of amakomiti with other local committee structures such as ward, ANC and CDFs is indicative of the nature and character of community and political participation in post-apartheid South Africa and in the informal settlements.

My theoretical exegeses in the study have been wide-ranging. It was necessary to provide a basis for approaching amakomiti as a form of working class self-organisation

326 including the argument that Marxist analysis and politics is best suited to understand and facilitate the struggle of the informal settlements for a better life. This required a critical consideration of the Marxist theory and practice of self-organisation including an assessment of the debates within this school of thought and between it and other perspectives. This is why Chapter 2, on theory, is so long. I also had to ground the theory in the history of struggle and of thought. In this respect I addressed the challenge of post-colonial theory in particular that strand within it, Subaltern Studies, which denies the applicability of Marxist categories in countries of the global South. To broaden my geographical scope I spent a whole section discussing the development of the squatter movement in Iran during the 1979 Revolution there. I dedicated Chapter 3 to considering the history of struggle in South Africa, first locating the discussion within a broader African context, and then tracing the struggles of squatters within it and in the process noting significant aspects that might help develop a theory of the role of shack dwellers in the working class struggle. I found it necessary to have a long discussion on the works of Frantz Fanon who has been claimed by post-colonial theory because of his practical and theoretical activities which involved fighting colonialism. His importance lies in the revived intellectual interest in the themes he covered and the emergence of a practical movement of struggle demanding de-colonisation in South Africa and elsewhere. He and Julius Nyerere were key figures in the Pan Africanist movement of the 1960s and I considered their theoretical and political practice critically and sympathetically in Chapter 2.

In Chapter 9 I compared the empirical findings from the overview or survey of the 46 informal settlements and the three cases studies identifying key themes. This allowed me to test the generalisability of the case study findings to other settlements. This still leaves the question of whether my study can be said to be representative of informal settlements in South Africa as a whole, a question I address below in the section on possible topics for further research. Based on the data gathering here I can summarise the findings of this study as follows:

 In 45 out of 46 shack settlements visited there were committees in operation. I found seven categories of committees, namely, people’s committees, ward, ANC, CPF, CDF, headman and ad hoc protest committees. The most prevalent committee is the people’s committee which is found in three-quarters of the settlements; it is followed by the ward committee found in about half the settlements (45%).  The operation of the amakomiti is shaped by the history, politics and personnel in each settlement. The political culture of a settlement and the nature and extent of ANC hegemony were important variables in the committee dynamics and the quality of the

327

“democracy on the margins” created. Influence over and control of the shack committees is contested terrain and a central aspect of the battle for political hegemony over shack constituencies. From this brief summary it is possible to make the following general points in answer to the research questions I posed in Chapter 1. Firstly, self-organisation in the informal settlements primarily takes the form of various types of committees including the seven listed above. Secondly, these committees primarily exist in order to address and improve living conditions. They express the agency of shack dwellers grappling with the difficult conditions that they live in. Thirdly, their role lies between being organs of struggle and of self-government or self- management. Their role changes over time and according to the needs of the community they serve. Fourthly, the effectiveness of amakomiti in fulfilling their mandate depends on internal and external factors, that is, on the qualities of the committees, their members and constituency, and on broader political circumstances and conditions including the state policies, the level of struggle, etc. Fifthly, the continued existence of amakomiti in many settlements reflects an objective need for such structures (given the poor conditions and precarious livelihoods obtaining therein) and the development and rootedness of a culture of collective action and decision-making. Sixthly, two main concepts emerged as important in understanding dynamics around the operation of the popular committees, namely, “ANC hegemony” and “political culture.” These emerged in the course of data analysis and interpretation. Seventhly, the concept of “democracy on the margins,” my invention, served as a useful heuristic device in my study allowing me to critically approach and integrate historical, theoretical and empirical aspects of the operation of amakomiti within a broader political economy context. This point will become clear in the discussion below of the place of informal settlement dwellers in the history of the South African working class struggle. This discussion continues with providing answers to the research questions.

10.3 Revisiting the history of the South African squatter movement

My purpose in this section is to revisit the history of the struggle in South Africa locating the place of informal settlement dwellers in it. This will be a re-evaluation of our urban history from the vantage of the squatter movement which has, I will argue, played an important role in the struggle for social justice and economic equality which often is not fully appreciated by researchers. Besides the well-known and lamented demolitions of historical slums and squatter camps Sophiatown, District Six and eMkhumbane (Cato Manor), including the later struggles in former transit camps such as Crossroads, there are many smaller and less known

328 slum areas which suffered the same fate and have only been tangentially dealt with by historians. We should note that some important realities and perspectives that we ought to know about and appreciate were blotted out when the Nationalists took over in 1948 and declared war on squatters and on so-called “black spots,” in a spate of evictions and forced removals. Class analysis, for example, was understandably shortchanged as the apartheid regimes used a blunt racist instrument smashing anything and everything black thus logically privileging race over class in historical analysis. Questions such as the class identity of squatter camp dwellers, their political practice, economic circumstances and their relationship to other classes or class fractions became secondary to the need for unity of the oppressed in the face of a ferocious and frenzied apartheid monster. The development of political organisation and consciousness in the squatter camps was severely disrupted as these places ceased to exist. The apartheid experience has tended to obscure the specific class dimensions of the relationship of petty bourgeois political elements to the mostly working class led squatter movement of the 1940s in Johannesburg. When the unifying blanket of nationalism is lifted from off the oppressed we find important divergences in political orientation, strategy and style that can be attributed to class differences among them. The squatters did not readily get the support of organisations such as the ANC, ANC Youth League and the SACP because of the class-based political outlook of the leaders of these organisations. Nor was the potential power of the squatters as an ally in the national liberation movement fully appreciated. Full advantage of the situation was not taken.

The findings of my historical research suggest that the 1940s squatter movement exhibited aspects of working class self-management and self-rule that find an echo in the Marxist classical treatment of the subject. Some of these aspects are to be found in today’s amakomiti. A tradition that emerged in the squatters’ movement, and which amakomiti appear to perpetuate, was of leaders and their followers taking control of their lives, taking matters into their own hands, and organising themselves to satisfy their needs. Camp leaderships were apparently in touch with the needs of the camp residents and came up with plans to meet these (Stadler 1979:106).313 Regular meetings were held and at the head of each camp were committees such as the Sofasonke Party, the Pimville Sub-Tenants Association, the Alexandra Tenants Association, etc. (Hirson 1989:155). The camp management arguably embodied “a

313 Stadler (1979:105) observes that: “Although the evidence is fragmentary, what bits can be pieced together of the movements reveal powerful reciprocal relationships of authority and trust between squatter leaders and their followers.”

329 state within a state,” that is, a form of working class self-rule – at least its seeds. In my research it became clear that every informal settlement in post-apartheid society had a history of formation including spawning its own James Sofasonke Mpanza, for example, Comrade Jeff of Jeffsville in Pretoria, Comrade Cairo of Nkaneng, Mr Boyana of KwaBoyana in Vryheid, etc. Although keen to negotiate with the state in order to secure basic services, many of the informal settlements went through a period of being run like “liberated zones” whereby police and state officials had no jurisdiction. It is the self-organisation of the working class in their living spaces with the aim of meeting its own needs. It is an aspect that Marxist theorisation arguably ought to pay more attention to and glean the empirical features of this model of working class self-rule, just as Marx did with respect to the Paris Commune.

The phenomenon of self-organisation by informal settlements happens in other parts of the world. Castells (1977:55-57) has argued that the barrios and favelas are sometimes better organised than built-up areas. Other researchers have noted this self-organisation in other countries (Bayat 1997:52, 62; Hardoy and Satterthwaite, 1989:17). It behoves Marxist theoreticians and organisers to find ways of strengthening these organisations and to bring them into the broader working class movement as appears to have happened in South Africa at the height of the struggle against apartheid in the 1980s. These alternative forms of organisation enable the masses to participate in processes of decision-making that correspond to their aspirations (Callinicos 1977:16); they strengthen the workers movement because they embody the embryo of workers control in day-to-day practice while simultaneously laying the basis for a future socialist democracy.

Bayat (1997:60) argues that the insurrection of February 1979 that marked the climax of the Islamic Revolution provided favourable conditions for the development and success of the Iranian squatter movement. The same argument can be made for South Africa with respect to the land invasions and settlement formation that occurred in the 1980s to 1990s. Most informal settlements I visited were formed during this period (See Table 5.2). What, in social movement theory terminology, is it in the political opportunity structure that facilitated this process? Following Bayat, I propose that it was the worker’s movement that spearheaded the upsurge in struggle which created space for the squatters allowing them to successfully take over land in the period covering the late 1980s to the early 1990s. At the same time the shack dwellers were fighters who constituted an important section of the working class army and, like in the 1940s, their antics and bravery was a source of inspiration: “The Africans in the squatter camps

330 became international front-page news, with their courageous resistance against the state’s deportation schemes” (van Kessel 2000:230).

The commonality of struggle and mutual solidarity between informal settlement dwellers and those living in built-up areas was considered noting the debate between those who emphasise the commonality and those who focus on the differences. My interpretation of the evidence from this study is that where working class politics is at the forefront it is more likely that the fact that the squatters are part of the broader movement will be apparent. This happened, for example, in Etwatwa, Benoni, when employed workers came out in support of the shack dwellers resistance to the demolition of shacks by the apartheid municipality (Friedman 2011:110). Where petty bourgeois politics is the forefront, such as when “Trevor Manuel later defended the neglect of Khayelitsha by comparing the victims of these forced removals with scabs who take the place of workers on strike,” (van Kessel 2002:271) or when the UDF supported the apartheid warlord Ngxobongwan in Crossroads (see Cole 1987), then an apparent contradiction emerged between the squatter movement and the broader movement. Leadership, organization and class outlook are important factors in this regard.

Shack dwellers are workers. Like in the 1940s the land invasions and settlement formations of the 1980s were driven by working class interests and needs with workers taking action to secure a place to live in the cities and towns of South Africa (Hirson 1989:149). As Stadler (1979:123) puts it:

The persistence of squatting, despite the efforts of the state to eliminate it, sometimes by ruthless measures such as bull-dozing squatter shacks, is testimony to the determination of people drafted into the industrial work-force to achieve de facto ownership of land in the vicinity of industrial development.

Stadler’s (1979:123) conclusion with respect to the 1940s is that there were connections between the squatters’ struggle and other struggles of the working class as a whole: “industrial action, transport boycotts, and food riots, as well as in the development of support for wider political movements.” The same can be said for the 1980s.

In the 1980s the interpenetration of workplace and living space struggles became apparent in the course of the anti-apartheid struggle. Trade union leaders such as Moss Mayekiso and other worker leaders and ordinary workers strove to unite township and factory struggles (Bell 1989). At work a form of worker control was being developed whose building blocks were the shop steward committees and later the joint shop steward councils (Friedman

331

2011:46,110). Eddie Webster’s (1985:279) research into the iron foundries in the 1980s revealed the creation of “the embryo of a working class politics in South Africa” that involved:

the growth of an organized challenge on the shop floor which has widened the negotiable issues, pushing forward the invisible frontier of control in the workplace. These demands extend beyond the workplace to include issues concerned with the reproduction of the workforce such as housing and pensions.

Webster (1985:279) refers to the “November 1984 when over half a million workers stayed away from work in protest over issues in the schools, townships and factories.”

Worker control can be understood in many ways but in the context that Webster is writing in it was about how workers sought to have more say over the production process and the related terms and conditions of work. Workers were pushing the “frontier of control” by contesting the power of the bosses, the managerial prerogative, to dictate how things were run at the workplace. The logical conclusion and triumph of this struggle from the point of view of the workers was that they themselves should take over and run the factories, that is, the socialist organisation of production. Moreover, as Buhlungu (2009:99) observes: “Union democracy was not merely an end in itself but also a means to a greater end, namely, political democracy and working-class leadership in society.”

The tradition of participatory democracy that was the hallmark of trade union practice spread out and infused the many structures of the growing movement in the workplaces and living spaces, in the civics and youth organisations, in church and women’s groups, in the townships and the squatter camps. What was happening, according to Grossman (1996:6) was the development of “a subversive progressive tradition, very powerful and at moments dominant within the unions and the movement of struggle more broadly.” This was the development of a “working class politics” (Webster 1985:279) and of a “workers’ movement” (Grossman 1996:6) and it threatened the capitalist ruling class.

Neville Alexander (2002:41:43) has identified a set of factors that led to the successful negotiated settlement in South Africa. One of them was the willingness of the ANC leadership to cooperate in what Huntington (1991:112-115), the theorist of democratic transitions, has termed a “transplacement” type of transition whereby both the ANC and the apartheid government were crucial in initiating and sustaining it (Alexander 2002:48). At the heart of this transition was the abandonment or significant toning down of the radical demands of the workers’ movement for change such as the call for “‘nationalization’ of mines, monopoly

332 companies, banks, etc.” contained in the Freedom Charter, a document the ANC lauded for decades as its vision and policy framework (Alexander 2002:49). The dispensation the ANC leadership co-midwifed, “first and foremost, serves the interests of the capitalist class” (Alexander 2002:49). This entailed “bloodless battles” inside the ANC with respect to policy positions and “there can be little doubt that…the radical forces suffered an almost irreversible defeat” (Alexander 2002:57). It is within this context that the civics, shop steward councils and other organs of workers’ and people’s power, including the UDF itself, were curtailed and compelled to support and be part of institutional state relations designed to curtail “the ANC’s ability to redistribute opportunity, infrastructural resources, access to productive activity and institutional power in favour of the popular classes” (Marais 1998:96).314

At the workplace, the demand for worker control was distorted and turned into calls for co-determination whereby the unions would cooperate with management in developing medium to long-term productivity and profitability targets and ways to meet them (Buhlungu 2009:101-1032).315 Increasingly, trade union leaders and labour analysts began to see the radical tradition of “militant absentionism” or “ungovernability” as counterproductive and the call for “reconstruction” (of a non-racial capitalism) drowned out the calls for the “destruction” of the capitalist system (von Holdt 2000).

At workers’ living spaces the township civics suffered the same fate. Ideas of “people’s power” came under attack, both frontally and obliquely. The “painstaking participatory democracy, built through direct mass action, almost always illegal, in struggle against often vicious repression” (Grossman 1996:2) was undermined and eroded as “leaders” were elevated above the movement. The ANC leadership used its authority to control and contain mass struggle and militancy in the townships (Cronin 1992); its presence and influence shut down the UDF and other organisations that had become more or less living embodiments of the radical mass participatory form of democracy (Saul 2014:89, Seekings 2000a:280);316 it

314 See Alexander (2002:57). 315 Buhlungu (2009:101) notes that “[Geoff] Schreiner appealed to unionists to accept that ‘as issues become more complex substantial decision making will end up in the hands of individuals rather than structures of any kind.’” However, this shift was contested by some, for example, Rob Rees (1992). 316 Seekings (2000a:276) notes that in its National Executive Committee meeting held in March 1991 the motion for dissolution was motivated on the grounds that “the ANC needed the experience of UDF activists; the UDF’s continued existence would confuse ‘the masses.’” With the unbanning of the ANC, UDF leaders removed their attention from the UDF: “The collapse of UDF structures accelerated as more UDF leaders and officials were pulled into the expanding ANC” (Seekings 2000a:277). Saul (2014:89) strongly challenges Seekings’s overall evaluation of the dissolution of the UDF as “a bit glib, mere sleight of hand” taking particular issue with Seekings’s statement that “the UDF had no choice but to disband in the aftermath of the ANC’s unbanning.” For Saul (2014:90) the UDF’s dissolution represented “defining the mobilized mass out of the future political equation [signaling] a very real defeat for popular struggle.”

333 sponsored debates about the need for the civics to play a “reconstruction” role instead of a “watchdog” role over the new post-apartheid government (just in case it “sold out”) (Mayekiso 1992a, 1992b; Nzimande and Sikhosana 1992a, 1992b ), etc. The idea of “people’s power” was arguably sacrificed on the altar of class collaboration between the ANC as leader of the national liberation movement and big capital represented by the De Klerk regime (Alexander 2002:56).

As a result civic structures were severely weakened and have remained so in the post- apartheid order (Seekings 2000a:281).317 Organisation in the shack settlements has not escaped this general weakening of civics. But, as my research arguably shows, if we compare the fate of the shop steward councils, the civics and the shack settlements as grassroots structures of self-management, self-rule and mass participation, then the shack settlements have not done that badly. Some writers have argued that the negotiation settlement ignored the interests of informal settlement dwellers (van Kessel 2000) probably requiring them to continue with the struggle and thus less responsive to the mood of demobilisation prevailing then and benefiting from the reduction in state repression. Political conditions and the compromise made between the national liberation movement and capital has created conditions whereby the ideas of worker self-organisation, self-management and self-rule, in the civics and the unions, have been denuded of their revolutionary content. They survive somewhat in diluted form in the people’s committees, ward committees, school governing bodies, health committee, CDFs, CDF, etc. It is, however, the shack settlements and their amakomiti that – despite the absence of a workers’ movement and albeit largely shorn of revolutionary content – that exhibit characteristics that classical Marxism would faintly recognise as forms of workers’ “self- management.”

10.4 Implications of amakomiti for Marxist theory and practice What are the implications of the study of amakomiti for Marxist theory and practice of working class self-organisation? Marxist theory arguably needs to stand its ground and resist theoretical trends that emphasise difference rather than commonality between different components of the working class. Post-colonial theory must be challenged in this regard, a point I argued in Chapter 2 of the dissertation (See Chibber 2013a). This study of shack dwellers, their

317 As the UDF dissolved, civics were collapsing on the ground as noted by the UDF leadership in their last but one meeting. A resolution was passed to from a national civic organization (Seekings 2000a:281) with “few former UDF leaders [participating] in the leadership of the new regional civic organisations, and their absence was even more conspicuous in the leadership of the South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) formed the following year” (Seekings 2000a:283). They were arguably jumping ship leaving civil society structures for political office.

334 amakomiti and the history of the squatter movements appears to support this point of view. Marxist analysis needs to take on board changes in the composition and character of the working class including recognising that precariously or irregularly employed workers are part of the working class even though their work and life experiences are likely to present organisational challenges and differences in political orientation and practice. Workers living in built-up areas and those inhabiting slums are workers; what is required is the development of innovative strategies designed to knit together their views, interests and struggles. This is not possible if we begin with an a priori theoretical attitude that they are different including the suggestion that they do not belong to the same class (and are rather the lumpenproletariat, underclass or the precariat).

A perusal of the Marxist also appears to support this view of the commonality of interests and the inclusion of shack dwellers in the definition of the working class. The apparent differences between Lenin’s and Luxemburg’s conceptualisation of this class and its political character are arguably reconcilable if we consider that during periods of political upsurge Lenin adopted an “expanded definition” of the working class which came closest to Luxemburg’s position. During upsurges in struggle Lenin viewed the broadest layers of the popular classes as the key movers of history; a position that arguably accommodates the self-organisation of the shack dwellers. Luxemburg supported all forms of organisation created by the working class in the course of struggle. These observations suggest that shack dwellers’ committees would (need to) be incorporated into the workers’ councils or soviets in the event of a revolutionary upsurge and possibly have a role in the institutions of self-rule of the workers’ state.

An objection might arise that soviets and factory councils are organisations based in the factories while shack committees operate in workers’ living spaces. This can be addressed in two ways. Firstly, Marxist theory of self-organisation has to take on board class organisation in living spaces as well as at the workplace. Soviets were “purely class-founded, proletarian organization[s]” (Trotsky 1905:122) exactly because they were formed by employed workers. However, workers need organisation also in their living spaces and it might have been an oversight of the Bolshevik leaders or the particular circumstances in Russia that led to representation not being formally extended beyond the workplace or to theorise properly such extension. There are numerous examples in history of living place structures that have been important in organising working class action; for example, the neighbourhood councils of the Portuguese and Iranian revolutions, and the South African township civics. The problem of

335 non-working class elements joining and possibly dominating these structures needs to be addressed not only in the living spaces but also at the workplace. Secondly, workers should be regarded as holistic beings. They are workers at work and at home, at their workplace and their living space. There is no Chinese wall between the exploitation and hardships of the workplace and those of the living space because there is an underlying and living connection between the two in the functioning of the capitalist system itself. As Harvey (1985a:48) puts it:

[C]apital dominates labor not only in the place of work but in the living space by defining the standard of living of labor and the quality of life in part through the creation of built environments that conform to the requirements of accumulation and commodity production.

Harvey hastens to add that this does not mean that labour cannot fight back and indeed does fight mainly because:

The built environment requires collective management and control, and it is therefore almost certain to be a primary field of struggle between capital and labor over what is good for accumulation and what is good for people (Harvey 1985a:47).

In this fight labour or working class communities can sometimes win against capital on particular issues but “the limits of tolerance of capital are clearly defined.” Therefore: “For labor to struggle within these limits is one thing; to seek to go beyond them is where the real struggle begins” (Harvey 1985a:48).

Just as Russian soviets and Italian factory councils were formed during upsurges in struggle, in South Africa amakomiti thrived during moments of political upsurge during which they organized land invasions and established shack settlements. Why do amakomiti continue to exist beyond the political upheaval that gives birth to them? The evidence from the findings suggests that amakomiti continue to exist because of the hardships of daily life in shack settlement which requires standing together and organising. Amakomiti appear more responsive to the needs of their constituencies; they change their form and character in order to address these needs. Informal settlement dwellers do not have many other avenues to put forward their demands and cater for their interests, there is thus always an objective need for amakomiti to exist.

In the debate about the need for “new organisational forms” arising out of a critique of “traditional” working class organisations such as political parties and trade unions, we can pose

336 the question of where amakomiti fall: Do they belong to the old or the new forms? This is a question that is relevant if one accepts the primary argument that old forms are no longer relevant or efficacious because of changing conditions and the changing nature and composition of the working class. This argument can also be based on a critique of the current practice of trade unions and political parties that notes that these organs are out of touch with workers and therefore have stopped serving worker interests. In other words, the element of self-organisation and control by ordinary members is now missing from these institutions. Decisions are no longer made “from below” but are imposed “from above” leading to a failure to serve the rank-and-file. These are valid points that should be of concern to all those who support working class struggles. However, it is true that workers continue being exploited by the capitalists and as such they continue to share a common interest in resisting their exploitation. Since workers cannot do without trade unions because this would give too much power to the boss and leave workers bereft of any protection, the answer cannot be that workers must stop joining unions. Rather, the inadequate protection currently provided by the unions must be replaced by real protection whose power can push the boss back and win workers gains. Strengthening the element of self-organisation, reinstating control from below through increasing worker participation in the operation of their unions and political parties would arguably go a long way towards achieving this. The self-organisation that is already taking place in workers’ living spaces such as that found in the shack settlements in the form of amakomiti, can arguably serve to underline and reinforce the struggle to change the trade unions and political parties from bureaucratic top-down institutions into bodies that are organised and controlled by the rank-and-file. Just as the trade unions became the custodians of a progressive democratic tradition that spread into and informed the broader working class movement during the struggle against apartheid in the 1980s (Grossman 1996:2), the amakomiti can help inspire, infuse and revitalise democratic practice from the living space into the workplace.

Sakhela Buhlungu (2009:107) has argued that during the 1980s there was a dynamic cross-pollination between democratic principles and practices occurring at the workplace and in workers’ living spaces in the townships. He observed that:

the democratic tradition of unionism owes its origins to a very wide range of influences and sources, among which were cultural, traditional, political, and intellectual influences…[it] was a complex composite of the lived experiences of egalitarianism

337

and grassroots participation shared by black workers and the intellectual contributions of activists from different social and political backgrounds.

He identifies several influences and sources of participatory democracy such as from the churches, schools, sports clubs, unions, civics, youth organisations, women’s groups, etc. In practice, organised labour became the backbone of the workers’ movement and one of the main custodians of this progressive democratic tradition. Buhlungu (2009:102) argues that there has been a “decline” in the democratic tradition of the unions and “the erosion of worker control.” The workers’ movement needs examples and instances of self-organisation. If we look hard enough we can find these in the most unlikely places, sometimes in places where we never thought to look. The workers’ movement can learn from amakomiti.

The decline in the relevance and attractiveness of Marxism as a political ideology and guide to action needs to be arrested. Marxism needs to inform the shack dwellers’ movement. Bayat (1997:159) has argued that slum dwellers are “non-ideological,” with the implication that a political ideology such as Marxism might not be relevant to the struggles and concerns that pre-occupy shack dwellers and their committees. In South Africa, this argument has found support among important organisations and commentators in the shack dwellers’ movement. Sometimes it takes the form that shack dwellers have developed a unique politics that is distinct from, is an improvement upon, and eschews concern with ideological issues and approaches that concern “the Left” (Pithouse 2008:79, 90; Zikode 2006, 2014; AEC 2009).318 This is an important argument that has implications for issues such as whether shack dwellers can be part

318 Since Abahlali baseMjondolo, the shackdwellers’ movement in South Africa, are indeed “the left in the slum” (Pithouse 2005) some intricacy is necessary in identifying how they distinguish themselves from other left currents. They emphasise their organisational and political autonomy including, and importantly, their right to speak for themselves (“voice”) captured in the slogan “nothing about us without us” (Zikode 2006); they espouse a “politics of dignity,” “a living politics,” and “a politics of the poor – a homemade politics that everyone can understand and find a home in” (Zikode quoted in Pithouse 2008:82). These slogans attest to their emphasis on self-activity of the masses, autonomy and independence viv-á-vis the bourgeois state and a Left that seeks to bring from without and impose its ideas on the movement. Like their sister organisation, the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC), they have an aversion to electoral politics and they have distrust for representative democracy. They are developing “a new kind of liberative politics outside of the political parties” because “no politician or political party can or will fight the struggle for you” (AEC 2009:5). Sometimes this takes the form of a downplaying of “ideology” in favour of a focus on the problems and issues vexing shack dwellers, for example: “Poor people do not eat ideology, nor do they live in houses that are made of ideology. So for this decision, we have decided to suspend ideology for a clear goal: weaken the ANC, guarantee the security and protection of the shack dwellers” (Zikode 2014). They open their meetings with a prayer and hymn and close it by singing “I am a socialist” (Pithouse 2008:79). Fanon, Marx, Biko and Badiou, among others, are employed by the movement’s theoreticians to frame their public profile and inform political praxis (See Gibson 2003).

338 of the workers’ movement, whether they would or should support a working class party, and whether their movements should adopt socialism as their vision.

In the findings from this research the concept of political culture emerged as important. For example, my findings suggest that the reason the TCC has been able to thrive as a leading organisation in Thembelihle has a lot to do with the political culture of open debate, participatory democracy and respect for the collective voice of the rank and file that characterises political practice in this settlement. Every important decision, including questions of ideological orientation and general strategy, is taken to the general meeting. This is arguably a political method based on the understanding that ordinary working class people, be they shack dwellers or union members, have knowledge and intellectual life, and that questions of ideology, theories, principles, strategies and tactics belong to the rank and file and not just the leaders or the organic intellectuals of the movement. In other words, no idea is too big or too abstract to be taken to the general meeting. No special people are given a mandate to think on behalf of and decide without the mass of residents of Thembelihle.

“Nothing about us without us” is the powerful slogan of Abahlali baseMjondolo (Zikode 2006). But in the shack dwellers’ movement in South Africa there has at times been expressed the idea that some issues are not immediately relevant to the immediate struggle for houses, water and electricity, that is, there is a separation introduced between political- ideological questions and “bread and butter issues.” It is true that there is little reason nor time for shack dwellers’ forums to discuss ideas that have no bearing on building stronger organisation for self-activity and mobilisation around the everyday problems facing shack dwellers. But issues of struggle, political power, the state, ideology, strategy, and so on, are relevant and, although this can be difficult or time-consuming, must be brought to the general meeting for discussion rather than a priori defining them to be “above the heads” of the rank and file and confining their discussion to groups of specialists inside or outside the movement. What must be avoided is the policing of ideas whereby gatekeepers decide which ideas can or cannot be discussed in the movement. Defining shack dwellers as inherently “non-ideological” can facilitate this.

Luxemburg (1970a), among many others, believed that it is the mass of workers – the millions and millions – that must struggle for and create the better society of the future. No leader or group of leaders can do this for them. This means that ordinary workers, including the mass of shack dwellers, must be engaged in the debate about which are the best radical

339 political alternatives that must be fought for in order to build a new, just world. They are the ones that must constitute the power necessary to turn these into reality, nothing that will affect their future must be discussed without them. They themselves, and not a special corps of intellectuals, must realise that their problems emanate from the way that society is structured and that any lasting solutions will require radical transformation. Without them, there can be no revolution.

A vexed question in the politics of transformation is that of the role of political parties. My research suggests that local shack dwellers’ committees will work with, support and join political parties and other civil society organisations in order to augment their influence and organise support for their struggles. Sometimes, as in the case of Duncan Village and in many other settlements, they look towards and work with the ruling party, the ANC. In other cases, such as in Thembelihle, they throw in their lot with anti-capitalist and pro-socialist movements and organisations some of which are working towards overthrowing the state and replacing it with a workers’ state.319 Organised labour and township civics in South Africa are mostly aligned with the ANC. It is only recently that NUMSA, the metalworkers’ union, opted to withdraw its support and called for the formation of a working class party (NUMSA 2013b). Despite the fact an ideologised “apolitical” or “non-partisan” stance is adopted by some movements and unions ostensibly as an attempt to protect and project their independence, in practice working class formations tend to align themselves with particular political parties and to orient towards state power in South Africa. This is a position that is closer to the Marxist approach than the autonomist and anarchist positions that are opposed to representative democracy and the state in principle.

Gluckstein (1983, 1985, 2011) grapples with the question of why soviets succeeded in taking power in Russia and failed to do so in Western Europe during the period of the First World War and in subsequent 20th century struggles and revolutionary situations. Each country, region and city had its own specific challenges and a much longer discussion is necessary to do justice to this question. Here I will confine myself to those aspects that relate directly to the questions raised in this dissertation, and even so, sketchily and at great risk of distorting Gluckstein’s analysis. He focuses on the structural and strategic reasons behind the failure of the soviet movement in the West. The lie of the land, of the factories and of political organisation, was not favourable in many respects, for example, in Italy the factory council

319 For example, the TCC is an affiliate of the Democratic Left Front, a radical socialist formation. It also cooperates with the Workers and Socialist Party of South Africa, a Trotskyist revolutionary organisation.

340 movement was confined to the largest factories in Turin where conditions were ideal for its development. This was not the case in the other Italian cities and provinces thus making it difficult to spread the movement beyond this city (Gluckstein 1983:11). A political party was necessary to facilitate the carrying out this task and such a party did not exist in Italy at the time.

The question of the party and a proletarian political line is related to questions of strategy whereby the workers’ councils in England, for example, did not link the factory issues they addressed with the question of taking power. Similarly, in Germany some political positions espoused by reformist parties and misguided worker leaders amounted to “political suicide” for the workers’ movement (Gluckstein 1983:15).320 The essence of the unsuccessful strategy in all three cases was the failure to prepare the soviets or councils for taking power, and to consciously develop them as embryonic forms of the future proletarian state. This was not just a question of political intention or programme, as the case of the Spartacists in Germany fatally proved, but of having the wherewithal to make this a possibility, namely, political preparation, leadership and amassing the ground forces to effect this.321 Gramsci’s realisation of the need for a party, or to take urgent steps in this regard, came too late; his earlier overemphasis of worker control divorced from party organisation became part of the problem whereby the factory councils failed to generalise their movement beyond Turin (Gluckstein 1983:12, 1985:200, Callinicos 1977:19-20).322

There is a need, in South Africa, for an organisation that focuses on power, that is, a political party of the working class (NUMSA 2013b). Experiences of soviets, workers councils, factory councils and other working class structures considered here, especially in contexts

320 “I had no idea” Richard Müller is reported to have said, “that this congress was going to turn into a political suicide club” (Hoffrogge 2014:95). See Rose (2015:7). He was referring to a resolution whereby decisions were taken that usurped the power of the German soviets and gave it to reformist political parties. 321 The Spartacists did not have an organisation strong enough to influence events and was relegated into a propaganda outfit that could not practically implement its political perspectives and were thus increasingly perceived as ultra-left or adventurist by worker leaders (Rose 2015:14). Later, a decision to launch a revolution without adequate support from the workers led to the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht and the drowning of the revolution in the blood of workers. 322 Gramsci (1978:268) lamented with hindsight: “We were not ready to give the Turin factory councils an autonomous directive centre, which could have exercised an immense influence throughout the country, for fear of a split in the unions and of being expelled prematurely from the Socialist Party.”Indeed: “Only when the tanks moved in to crush Turin’s striking engineers in April 1920 did it become clear to Gramsci and his supporters that ‘power in the factory is just one element in relation to state power,’” according to Gluckstein (1983:12) paraphrasing Gramsci (1977:95). Callinicos (1977:19-20) notes: “Neither workers’ control nor soviet power can survive in isolation from the other… the experience of the Portuguese revolution shows that workers’ control in individual factories will be extinguished unless it is matched by the establishment of a workers’ government on a national scale.”

341 where the revolutions were crushed, suggest this. These structures mostly start off addressing immediate issues and then are drawn into struggles for power that often involve a phase of “dual power” or something approaching it. But someone and something must focus upon and prepare for the end goal and ponder over the best path to reach it. Given the failures and mistakes of revolutionary efforts in the 20th century, I would suggest that the role of the party in the 21st century should be to ensure that these debates and discussions are taking place in the movement as a whole and in a participatory democratic way. History suggests that this happens in any case during revolutionary upsurges. The important point is that the momentum and focus should not be lost in the chaos of revolutionary upheaval. In South Africa, there were parties during the 1980s uprising but the dominant one, the ANC, proved to be reformist. The SACP subordinated its working class programme to the ANC by way of the two-stage theory (SACP 1962, Friedman 2015:6-7). This is a lesson that the reviving workers’ movement must take to heart and ensure that history is not repeated.

Shack dwellers and their committees are everywhere in South Africa and there is no indication that they will disappear. A substantial proportion of the protests taking place in the country involve this constituency (Maruping, Mncube and Runciman 2014). But like all the other community protests (Alexander, Runciman and Ngwane 2015:10), the protest action is fragmented with little support and solidarity across the settlements.323 This, however, does not mean that protesting has no impact. The Thembelihle Crisis Committee, for example, after years of sustained protest has compelled the government to abandon its relocation policy with respect to the Thembelihle settlement and commit to its in situ development (RSA 2015). In many settlements the ANC still enjoys hegemony although this is gradually being eroded. The vicious attack on Abahlali baseMjondolo in Durban’s Foreman Road settlement whereby the members of this organisation including its president, S’bu Zikode, were violently attacked and deposed from the area suggests a two-pronged approach by the state to opposition in the settlements (Abahlali baseMjondolo 2009, Neocosmos 2009). Depending on the circumstances, they will use hegemonising tactics that involve influencing and taking over the local committees; but where this does not work, they are prepared to resort to naked repression (Pithouse 2010). This suggests that in areas where whole communities are “neglected” by the

323 Alexander, Runciman and Ngwane (2015:10) observe that despite the high incidence of community protests, “there are limits. There is no suggestion that material deprivation is linked to the ANC’s neo-liberal policies, or to capitalism more broadly. There is absolutely no awareness of similar conflicts in other countries, no sense of connections to the battles of workers, and only limited recognition of benefits to organising alongside people in neighbouring communities.”

342 state in terms of improving living conditions, the ANC will in general not bother itself with them unless they resort to protest action or somehow appear to pose a threat to its hegemony. This observation is suggested by my research whereby many settlements complained about being neglected and informants told me how the local ANC leadership moves very quickly as soon as it gets wind of a plan to organise shack dwellers’ dissatisfaction into protest action (Residents, KwaS’gebenga [Khayelitsha], Mthatha, group interview 60, 27/2/2013). What this suggests is that self-organisation linked to the struggle for improved services directed at the state remains “an objective need” and an important weapon in the settlements. It is when it is viewed as challenging ANC hegemony that it is more likely to get a speedy response, positive or negative, from the state.

The Marikana Massacre that happened on 16 August 2912 has been a “turning point” changing political dynamics significantly in South Africa (Alexander 2013:605). The workers’ committees that organised and led the strike wave on the platinum belt were an affirmation of the importance of working class self-organisation (Sinwell 2016, Sinwell and Mbatha 2016).324 Its aftermath has, among other things, exacerbated the legitimacy crisis of the ANC and shaken to the core the ANC-SACP-COSATU Alliance and created great division in the labour movement. A consequence has been the union NUMSA pulling out of the Alliance in 2013, withdrawing its electoral support for the ANC and, for its troubles, getting expelled from COSATU despite being the biggest affiliate with over 350 000 members; it has taken action to make common cause with struggling working class communities and formed a United Front and has convened conferences exploring the formation of a workers’ party (Ashman and Pons- Vignon 2015). Metalworkers are important in a reviving workers’ movement, for example, metalworkers and their unions were always in the lead in the Russian soviets (Nin 1932:5).325 However, after twenty years in political limbo with respect to working with communities, the union has a lot of work to do. There will undoubtedly be a need to bridge the political-cultural divide that has developed between different sections and components of the workers’ movement. Both organised labour, in this instance led by NUMSA, and working class communities and their movements and organisations, will need to reach out to each other and learn to work and struggle together. The interaction will without doubt raise in quite specific

324 Sinwell and Mbatha (2016) observe: “2012 reflected the emergence of independent working class power whereby committees, alongside rank and file workers, underwent an unprotected strike.” 325 Nin (1932:5) enumerating the differect categories of workers and unions that formed the Russian soviets in 1917 states that: “In the forefront, as always, were the metal workers, who constituted the vanguard of the revolutionary movement.”

343 ways theoretical and political questions such as that of “vanguardism” because employed and organised workers might be in a stronger position to lead and provide the resources for the movement than the unemployed and underemployed. The relationship between nationalist and socialist goals will have to be debated anew and reformulated hopefully in the light of theoretical insights garnered from the study of experiences as reflected in the life work of Fanon, Nyerere, Mbeki, Wolpe and other revolutionaries in Africa and other parts of the world. The amakomiti of the informal settlements could be targeted, developed and prepared as embryonic structures to be used as springboards in the formation of councils, civics and soviets that will be needed in the next revolutionary upsurge in South Africa. They need to be encouraged to reach to the hundreds of thousands of other inadequately housed people such as those who live in emqashweni rented accommodation (see Image 10.2 below).326 This is important in the light of recent figures that suggest that the rental of informal housing has doubled in the period 2002 to 2014 (StatsSA 2016).

Image 10.1 Thousands of people live in this type of privately-owned rental accommodation in KwaZulu-Natal and other provinces (“emqashweni”). (Photograph by author)

As the working class faces the challenges of capitalist crisis in the 21st century, it arguably needs a party and a movement that will take it all the way to the dismantling of the

326 See my explanation of emqashweni in Chapter 2 section 2.9.

344 social structures that organise and generate exploitation and oppression. Such a party, as the history that I have extensively considered in this dissertation seems to suggest, must be a mass, socialist, revolutionary party, that is, it must take the form of a movement of millions and millions of ordinary workers and supporters. The revival of the workers’ movement, its coalescence into a formidable force in the course of struggle, its revolutionary slogans, its mass organisations that will lead the struggle against capitalism and turn themselves into organs of workers power, will require a political and organising centre that will take responsibility for this work of coordination, education and leadership. Without such a party the building of a workers’ socialist state in Russia would not have happened (Carr 1950:36-37). The South African working class needs its own party (NUMSA 2013b). Dwindling electoral enthusisam and support for the ANC, as reflected in the 2016 local government elections, suggests that political space exists for such a party from an electoral point of view. From the point of view of working class politics, such a party will have failed in its task of uniting and strengthening the working class movement if it does not reach out to shack dwelling communities and organise them and their amakomiti into dependable sections of the workers’ movement.

Lastly, as the capitalist crisis wreaks havoc with living standards all over the world, we see an explosion in the number of people who are inadequately housed. This is the main observation made by Mike Davis (2006) in his book The Planet of Slums. But, as I argued in Chapter 2, he takes a wrong turn when he views slum dwellers as a kind of lumpenproleriat and dismisses their political agency. Lenin (1940:34), whose skills of organising were honed in the process of leading a successful revolution, argued that the revolution had to be waged by the human material that history provides rather than what revolutionary purists require. He called for a proletarian revolution in Russia well aware of the limitations of the Russian working class arising partly out of its location and development in a “‘backward” country. We are presented with the same problem in the 21st century whereby the uneven development of capitalism has left many countries and many working classes unevenly developed (Ashman 2012:65), with some not as developed as Marx had envisaged to be necessary for a socialist transformation. There was a lot of improvisation in the course of the Russian revolution; for example, the soviets found a way of accommodating soldiers and sailors into their structures. It can be argued that the workers’ movement in South Africa, and in many parts of the world where there are slums, will have to find ways of integrating the shack dwellers into its organs of struggle and workers’ power. In practice, capitalism is doing what Marx and Engels (1993) predicted in the Communist Manifesto: dividing the world into two great opposing classes, the

345 increasingly rich tiny minority capitalist class and the vast swathes of humanity whose conditions of work and life make them have nothing to lose and everything to gain by involving themselves in struggles against capitalist policies.

10.2 The workers’ committee that led the Lonmin strike before the Marikana Massacre in Rustenburg, August 2012 (Photograph: Greg Marinovich)

10.5 A new research agenda Burawoy (2005:5) has argued for a “public sociology,” that is, social science that seeks to intervene in public dialogue with a view to contributing to human emancipation. The idea is that scientific research should not end up in dusty journal shelves but rather should be part of a society’s stock of knowledge on hand to help create a better and just world. In South Africa the “Spirit of Marikana” (Ngwane 2015), appears to be reviving old spirits such as that of Frantz Fanon, with black students making insistent calls for the “decolonization” of universities (#RhodesMustFall 2015). Does my research reach the standards set by this new zeitgeist? I cannot be the judge but my wish is that this research can somehow be of use to the reviving workers’ movement. The focus on what ordinary working class people are doing organising themselves in “neglected” and “marginal” spaces such as the informal settlements can arguably be regarded as an exercise in excavating knowledge systems that exist in the “global South” that have hitherto not been recognised nor acknowledged let alone informed the public discourse (Comaroff and Comaroff 2012:113-114). I propose that what is needed is to develop a Marxist research agenda that will take forward some of the issues raised here and help answer

346 some of the questions posed that one researcher cannot succeed in doing alone. Injobo ithungelwa ebandla.327

Academic researchers who study informal settlements tend to identify the problems facing the working class, explore them sympathetically, and then seek to resolve them by looking to the capitalist state.328 Demands must be made on the state and there are organisations such as the Informal Settlements Network whose strategy is based on persuasion and lobbying rather than what they regard as confrontation and compulsion (SDI 2015, Khan and Pieterse 2004:3). Nonetheless, I submit that the current conjuncture, which is characterised by a global economic crisis and the related compulsion on the world’s governments to serve big capital, requires research that focuses on building the power of the subaltern forces. It is necessary to increase the capacity of those who fight for and stand most to gain from the progressive policies advocated by social reformers. Organisation is the sine qua non of political action. There is a great need for political action in a world where the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer (Piketty 2014). The proposed research agenda should help us explore the strongest foundations for unity and solidarity, the points of connection and joint action that will contribute towards the rebuilding of the workers’ movement locally and internationally.

My research has raised many questions including those related to the history and character of grassroots organisation especially in the informal settlements. I conducted research in 46 informal settlements in four provinces. South Africa has thousands of such settlements in its nine provinces. More research clearly needs to be done to test to what extent my findings are generalisable in the areas and provinces not covered by this study. It would also be interesting to conduct research in areas characterised by different demographics. For example, apartheid has left a legacy of segregated areas including informal settlements occupied mainly by the so-called Coloured people.329 It would be interesting to find out to what extent and what form local organisation takes there. Further research is also needed into the nature and character of local community participation in post-apartheid politics and governance in the light of this study’s revealing the operation and co-existence of amakomiti

327 Zulu saying which means issues are best explored in the public domain. 328 Huchzermeyer (2009:60) motivates her informative critique of the shoddy treatment of shack dwellers by the government thus: “This is not intended as a criticism of the officials involved, who are merely trying to make sense of contradictory instructions from above. Instead, the aim is to illustrate the urgent need for sensitisation and re-skilling in the urban development sector, be it municipal and provincial managers and their officials or those of the implementing agencies who are increasingly tasked with carrying out housing development.” 329 Marianne Brindley’s (1976) study of Western Coloured Township, though old, suggests some distinct features of what she regarded as an apartheid “urban slum.”

347 with other types of committees such as ward committees. From the point of view of democratic theory, further study of the institutions and mechanisms available to local communities for democratic participation might shed light on the wider issues of democratic practice in society.

There is a need to enrich our knowledge of South Africa’s urban and rural history by having more studies in different areas especially focusing on settlements in smaller towns and in the rural areas. This should also include research into other forms of informal housing such as emqashweni.330 I am personally interested in conducting research into the informal settlements in Marikana, in particular, those located next to the fateful mountain where the massacre happened. The aim of such research would be to explore the relationship of the workers committees to amakomiti during the strike. This would probably yield some insight into the two primary locations of working class self-organisation, at the workplace and the living space, with a view to understanding their interaction in the context of heightened struggle. Such research would also allow for the further development of the concept of “democracy on the margins” exploring critical issues such as the violence that characterised the alternation of different committees in the Nkaneng case study and its link to the violence of union rivalry that was taking place at the time. The effects and implications of the structural violence suffered by workers and their families such as poor housing, low wages, precarious employment, and so on, as these relate to democratic organisation in workplaces and living spaces require critical study.

There is a need for innovative and interdisciplinary approaches that can best serve a Marxist research agenda. Here I am thinking of participatory action research techniques that involve grassroots activists conducting research in their own communities and in other communities informed by a research agenda aimed at rebuilding the working class movement (Freire 1972, Rahman 1993). The informal settlements should provide an important focus for this work. During the 1980s there were many organisations working with working class communities such as LACOM/SACHED (1989) that conducted research into community profiles and local histories with the aim of building a knowledge base for organising unity in struggle. Researchers should find ways of involving the employed and the unemployed, organised labour and communities, young and old, in popular participatory research that arms local organisers to identify key attributes of their constituencies that are crucial in their work

330 See Image 10.1

348 of organising and mobilisation. There is a need for new books and manuals in community and labour organising: a new “Organising People for Power: A Manual for Organisers.”331 Research should be increasingly and more directly connected to working class self-organisation and mobilisation. The work should add to the existing research that includes in-depth studies of communities, the political economy of countries and regions, etc. However, for left scholar- activists there is little time for social research for its sake or to meet the class project of other classes besides that of the revolutionary subject – the working class. Life is too short. The global economic, political and social crisis is no longer looming, it is already enveloping us. The workers are paying the price.

10.6 Conclusion Amakomiti are the grassroots structures set up by the inhabitants of informal settlements. They are important to study and understand because self-activity and self-organisation is the strongest foundation for working class collective political action. My dissertation is not a glorification of the amakomiti nor of the organisations and movements of shack dwellers. Life in the shack settlements is not ideal nor conducive in bringing out the best in human beings. There exists various forms of oppression and exploitation, brutality and callousness. Capitalist individualism, nationalist xenophobia, sexist domestic violence, and many other evils that characterise society concentrate in these living spaces.332 There will be many problems with the amakomiti. It is a struggle against heavy odds. But look at how the workers at Marikana heroically and against all odds continued with their strike after 34 of their comrades lay dead (Alexander et al. 2012:21,153). Look how in those spaces for “warehousing the twenty-first century’s surplus humanity” (Davis 2004: 13), there is still laughter, beauty and compassion. With workers there is always a way forward.

There is indeed a form of “democracy on the margins” in the form of a prevalence of popular committees in the shack settlements despite all the problems and in a context where many working class structures such as township civics have more or less collapsed or been robbed of their class independence and fighting spirit. It is a democracy of people pushed aside and neglected who are fighting to have their needs addressed and their views taken on board. It is noteworthy that different committees adopt different politics and tactics leading to different

331 This book (Maglaya 1975) developed in the Philipines informed a lot of grassroots organisers in the theory and techniques of organising in South Africa during the height of the struggle against apartheid in the 1980s. 332 As Grossman notes of the movement in the 1980s: “Aggressive competitiveness, individualism, instrumentalism, were dominant parts of capitalist morality, contextually affirmed, and corroding collectivism and solidarity inside the workers’ movement. These were features of the life imposed on workers every day.”

349 possibilities and outcomes for the communities that they organise and lead. This suggests that nothing is pre-determined, that there are limitations and possibilities in every situation (Hart 2002:45).333 The search for and the testing out of the best politics and strongest action in the struggle to eradicate all forms of exploitation and oppression continues.334 I hope that my attempt at extending our understanding of amakomiti contributes something to that process. The sun will rise for the workers.335

333 The aim of analysing local political dynamics, according to Gill Hart (2002: 45), is “to clarify the slippages, openings, and possibilities for emancipatory social change in this era of neoliberal capitalism, as well as the limits and constraints operating at different levels.” 334 In his study of working class militancy in the workplace in the 21st century Global South (case studies: India, China and South Africa) Immanuel Ness (2016:190) concludes: “Each case demonstrates that organizational representation is subordinate to the workers’ movements themselves. To build on these struggles workers will need a disciplined and strong class-based organization…each of the struggles demonstrates that the time when workers can be taken for granted or ignored is over. Workers’ movements are emerging, and will expand to contest the legitimacy of capital, the state, and existing unions.” 335 A slogan from the 1980s labour movement that, in my recollection, referred to hope for a future where the working class can be free of all forms of oppression and exploitation.

350

BIBLIOGRAPHY

11.1 THESES / DISSERTATIONS AND PUBLISHED WORKS

Abel, R. (1979) ‘Western Courts in Non-Western Settings: Patterns of Court Use in Colonial and Neo-Colonial Africa’. In Burman, S and B. Harrell-Bond (eds.) The Imposition of Law, London: Academic Press.

Adler, G. and J. Steinberg (Eds.) (2000) From Comrades to Citizens: The South African Civics Movement and the Transition to Democracy. London: MacMillan Press.

Adler, G. and E. Webster (2000) Trade Unions and Democratization in South Africa, 1985- 1997. London: McMillan Press.

Alexander, N. (2002) An Ordinary Country: Issues in the Transition from Apartheid to Democracy in South Africa. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.

Alexander, P. (2013) ‘Marikana, Turning Point in South African History.’ Review of African Political Economy, Volume 40, Number 138, December, pp. 605–619.

Alexander, P. (2012) ‘Protests and Police Statistics: Some Commentary.’ Unpublished paper, South African Research Chair in Social Change, University of Johannesburg.

Alexander, P. (2010) ‘Rebellion of the poor: South Africa’s service delivery protests – a preliminary analysis.’ Review of African Political Economy, Volume 37, Number 123, pp. 25–40.

Alexander, P. (2006) ‘Harold and History.’ Keynote address delivered at the Harold Wolpe Memorial Trust’s Tenth Anniversary Colloquium: Engaging silences and unresolved issues in the political economy of South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa, September 21-23.

Alexander, P. (2000) Workers, War and the Origins of Apartheid: Labour and Politics in South Africa, 1939-48. Cape Town: David Philip.

Alexander, P., Runciman, C. and B. Maruping (2015) ‘South African Police Service Data on Crowd Incidents: A Preliminary Analysis.’ Social Change Research Unit, University of Johannesburg.

351

Alexander, P., Runciman, C. and T. Ngwane (2015) ‘South Africa’s Rebellion of the Poor.’ Paper presented at the 3rd International Conference on Strikes and Social Conflicts, Barcelona, June 16-19.

Alexander, P., Runciman, C. and T. Ngwane (2014) ‘Community Protests 2004-2013: Some Research Findings.’ Media presentation, Research Chair for Social Change, University of Johannesburg.

Alexander, P., Ceruti, C., Motseke, K., Phadi, M. and K. Wale (2013) Class in Soweto. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.

Alexander, P. and P. Pfaffe (2013) ‘Social Relationships to the Means and Ends of Protest in South Africa's Ongoing Rebellion of the Poor: The Balfour Insurrections.’ Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest.

Alexander, P., Sinwell, L., Lekgowa T., Mmope, B., and B. Xezwi (2012) Marikana: A View from the Mountain and a Case to Answer. London: Bookmarks.

Allen, V.L. (1992) The History of Black Mineworkers in South Africa. West Yorkshire: The Moor Press.

Althusser, L. and E. Balibar (1970) Reading Capital. (Translated by Ben Brewster), Paris: François Maspero / NLB.

Amin, S. (2011) ‘The Democratic Fraud and the Universalist Alternative.’ Monthly Review, Volume 63, Number 5, October http://monthlyreview.org/2011/10/01/the-democratic-fraud- and-the-universalist-alternative/ (accessed 3 May 2013)

Amin, S. (1976) Unequal Development. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Andersen, K. (2011) ‘The Protester.’ Time, December 14.

Angel, S. with Parent, J., Civco, D.L. and A. M. Blei (2011) ‘Making Room for a Planet of Cities.’ Cambridge: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Ashman, S. (2015) ‘The Social Crisis of Labour and the Crisis of Labour Politics in South Africa.’ Revue Tiers Monde, Number 224, October-December.

Ashman, S. (2012) ‘Combined and Uneven Development.’ In Fine, B. and A. Saad-Filho (Eds.), The Elgar Companion to Marxist Economics, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

352

Ashman, S, Fine, B, and S.A. Newman (2011) ‘The Crisis in South Africa: Neoliberalism, Financialization and Uneven and Combined Development.’ In Socialist Register: The Question of Strategy, London: The Merlin Press http://hdl.handle.net/1765/38428 (accessed 3 May 2013)

Ashman, S. and N. Pons-Vignon (2015) ‘NUMSA, the Working Class and Socialist Politics in South Africa.’ In Socialist Register, Transforming Classes, Merlin Press.

Asker, J., Farre-Mensa, J. and A. Ljungqvist (2015) ‘Corporate Investment and Stock Market Listing: A Puzzle?’ Review of Financial Studies, Volume 28, Number 2, February, pp. 342– 390 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1603484 (accessed 7 August 2015)

Aston, T.H. and C.H.E. Philpin (1985) The Brenner Debate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ballard, R., Bonnin, D., Robinson J., and T. Xaba (2007) ‘Development and new forms of democracy in Durban.’ Urban Forum, Volume 18, Number 4.

Ballard, R., Bonnin, D., Robinson, J. and T. Xaba (2006) ‘Development and New Forms of Democracy in Durban.’ Presented at ‘The place of participation in a democratising South Africa: Decentralisation, local councillors and civil society in post-apartheid cities,’ colloquium organised by the HSRC, IFAS and CUBES, Wits, Johannesburg, 20-21 November.

Ballard, R., Habib, A. and I. Valodia (2006) Voices of Protest: Social Movements in Post- Apartheid South Africa. Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Banaji, J. (2012) ‘Mode of Production.’ In Fine, B. and A. Saad-Filho (Eds.), The Elgar Companion to Marxist Economics, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Banaji, J. (2010) Theory as History: Essays on Modes of Production and Exploitation. Leiden: Brill.

Banaji, J. (1977) ‘Modes of Production in a Materialist Conception of History.’ Capital and Class, 3, pp. 1– 41.

Banaji, J. (1970) ‘The Crisis of British Anthropology.’ New Left Review, Volume 1, Number 64, pp. 71– 85.

353

Bank, L. (2011) Home Spaces, Street Styles: Contesting Power and Identity in a South African City. London: Pluto.

Barchiesi, F. (2011) Precarious Liberation: Workers, the State, and Contested Social Citizenship in Postapartheid South Africa. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Barchiesi, F. (1996) ‘Debunking the developmentalist state form.’ Debate: Voices from the South African Left, Number 1.

Barganier III, G. P. (2011) ‘Fanon’s Children: The Black Panther Party and the Rise of the Crips and Bloods in Los Angeles.’ PhD thesis in Education, University of California, Berkeley.

Barichievy, K., Piper. L. and B. Parker (2005) “Assessing ‘participatory governance’ in local government: A case-study of two South African cities.” Politeia, Volume 24, Number 3, pp. 370–393.

Barker, C. (2015) ‘Beyond the Waves: Marxism, Social Movements and Revolution.’ Paper presented at the Alternatives Futures and Popular Protest conference, Manchester, United Kingdom, 30th March to 1st April.

Barker, C. (2008) ‘Some thoughts on Marxism and social movements.’ Unpublished paper. https://sites.google.com/site/colinbarkersite/ (accessed 12 July 2013)

Barker, C., Cox, L., Krinsky, J. and A.G. Nilsen (2013) Marxism and Social Movements. Leiden: Brill.

Bayat, A. (2013) The Urban Subalterns and the Non-Movements of the Arab Uprisings: An Interview with Asef Bayat by Nada Ghandour-Demiri. March 26 http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/10815/the-urban-subalterns-and-the-non-movements- of-the- (accessed on 3 August 2013)

Bayat, A. (2010) Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East. CA, Redwood City: Stanford University Press.

Bayat, A. (1997) Street Politics: Poor People’s Movements in Iran. Cairo: Columbia University Press.

354

Beall, J. (2005) ‘Exit, Voice and Tradition: Loyalty to Chieftainship and Democracy in Metropolitan Durban, South Africa.’ London School of Economics: Crisis States Research Centre, January.

Beinart, W. (1982) The Political Economy of Pondoland 1860 to 1930. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

Bell, T. (1989) Comade Moss — A Political Journey. (Political biography of Moses Mayekiso), Labour and Community Resources Project, Learn and Teach Publications, Johannesburg.

Benchmarks (2011) ‘Communities in the Platinum Minefields: Policy Gap 6. A Review of Platinum Mining in the Bojanala District of the North West Province: A Participatory Action Research Approach.’ Johannesburg: The Benchmarks Foundation http://www.benchmarks.org.za/research/rustenburg_review_policy_gap_final_aug_2012.pdf (accessed 3 August 2013)

Bender, F.L. (1975) The Betrayal of Marx. New York: Harper Torchbooks.

Bendix, S. (1989) Industrial Relations in South Africa. Cape Town: Juta and Company.

Bénit-Gbaffou, C. (2008a) ‘Are Practices of Local Participation Sidelining the Institutional Participatory Channels? Reflections from Johannesburg.’ Transformation, 66/67, pp. 1–33.

Bénit-Gbaffou, C. (2008b) ‘Local Councillors: Scapegoats for a Dysfunctional Participatory Democratic System?’ Critical Dialogue:Public Participation in Review, Volume 4, Number1, pp.26–33 http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/12155/Benit%20Gbaffou%2cClaire.%20 Local%20Councillors%20Scapegoats%20art5.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y (accessed 3 May 2014)

Benson, K. (2015) ‘A “Political War of Words and Bullets”: Defining and Defying Sides of Struggle for Housing in Crossroads, South Africa.’ Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 41, Number 2, pp. 367–387.

Benson, K. (2009) ‘Crossroads Continues: Histories of Women Mobilizing Against Forced Removals and for Housing in Cape Town, South Africa, 1975–2005.’ PhD thesis, University of Minnesota.

355

Berman, M. (1999) Adventures in Marxism. London: Verso.

Bevington, D. and C, Dixon (2005) ‘Movement-Relevant Theory: Rethinking Social Movement Scholarship and Activism’, Social Movement Studies, 4, 3, 185–208.

Bezuidenhout, A. and S. Buhlungu (2011) ‘From Compounded to Fragmented Labour: Mineworkers and the Demise of Compounds in South Africa.’ Antipode, Volume 43, Number 2, pp. 237–263.

Birchall, I.H. (1973) ‘Frantz Fanon. Review of Frantz Fanon: A critical Study by Irene L. Gendzier.’ From International Socialism (1st series), Issue Number 60, July https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/birchall/1973/07/fanon.html (accessed 4 May 2014)

Blackledge, P. (2006) Reflections on the Marxist Theory of History. Manchester University Press.

Bond, P. (2003) Against Global Apartheid: South Africa Meets the World Bank, IMF and International Finance. Cape Town: UCT.

Bond, P. (2002) Unsustainable South Africa: Environment, Development and Social Protest. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.

Bond, P. (2000a). Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa. London: Pluto Press.

Bond, P. (2000b) Cities of Gold: Essays on South Africa’s New Urban Crisis. Trenton: Africa World Press.

Bonner, P. (1990) ‘The Politics of Black Squatter Movements on the Rand, 1944-1952.’ Radical History Review, Volume 46, Number 7, pp. 89–115.

Bonner, P. (1980) ‘Classes, the Mode of Production and the State in Pre-Colonial Swaziland.’ In Marks, S. and A. Atmore, Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa, London: Longman.

Bonner, P. and L. Segal (1998) Soweto: A History. Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman.

356

Booysen, S. (Ed.) (forthcoming/2016) FeesMustFall! From Revolt to Review of Governance (provisional title). Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

Booysen, S. (2011) The African National Congress and the Regeneration of Political Power. South Africa: Wits University Press.

Booysen, S. (2007) ‘With the Ballot and the Brick: The Politics of Attaining Service Delivery.’ Progress in Development Studies, Volume 7, Number1, pp. 21–32.

Bouillon, C. (2012) ‘Room for Development: Housing Markets in Latin America and the Caribbean.’ Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank.

Bourdieu, P. and L. Wacquant (1992) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Boutet, M. and E. le Méner (2015) ‘Debating with Jack Katz on Methodology.’ Méthod(e)s: African Review of Social Sciences Methodology, Volume 1, Number 1-2, pp. 125–129.

Bowman, A. and G. Isaacs (2014) ‘Demanding the Impossible? Platinum Mining Profits and Wage Demands in Context.’ Occasional Policy Paper Number 11, SWOP, University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg.

Bozzoli, B. (1991) Women of Phokeng; Consciousness, Life Strategy, and Migrancy in South Africa, 1900–1983. London: James Currey.

Bozzoli, B. (Ed.) (1987) Class, Community, and Conflict: South African Perspectives. History Workshop 3, Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

Bozzoli, B. and P. Delius (1991) ‘Radical History and South African History.’ In Brown, J. (Ed.), History from South Africa: Alternative Visions and Practices, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Brindley, M. (1976) Western Coloured Township. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

Bruce, D. (2001) ‘The Operation of the Criminal Justice System in Dealing with the Violence at Amplats.’ Research report written for the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, Johannesburg: CSVR.

Bruchhausen, S. (2014) ‘Understanding Marikana Through The Mpondo Revolts.’ Journal of Asian and African Studies, online, May 13, pp. 1–15 http://abahlali.org/wp-

357 content/uploads/2014/06/Journal-of-Asian-and-African-Studies-2014-Bruchhausen- 0021909614531892.pdf (accessed 3 May 2015)

Budd, A. (2007) ‘Gramsci’s Marxism and international relations.’ International Socialism, Issue Number 114 http://isj.org.uk/gramscis-marxism-and-international-relations/ (accessed 3 July 2014)

Buhlungu, S. (2006) ‘Upstarts of Bearers of Tradition? The Anti-Privatisation Forum of Gauteng.’ In Ballard, R., Habib, A. and I. Valodia (Eds.), Voices of Protest: Social Movements in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Buhlungu, S. (2009) ‘The Rise and Decline of the Democratic Organizational Culture in the South African Labor Movement, 1973 to 2000.’ Labor Studies Journal, Volume 34, Number 1, pp. 91–111.

Bulhan, H.A. (1985) Frantz Fanon and the Psychology of Oppression. New York: Plenum Press.

Bundy, C. (2012) Govan Mbeki: A Jacana Pocket Biography. Johannesburg: Jacana.

Bundy, C. (2000) ‘Survival and Resistance: Township Organization and Non-violent Direct Action in Twentieth Century South Africa.’ In Adler, G. and J. Steinberg (Eds.), From Comrades to Citizens: The South African Civics Movement and the Transition to Democracy, London: MacMillan.

Bundy, C. (1987) ‘Land and Liberation: Popular Rural Protest and the National Liberation Movements in South Africa, 1920-1960.’ In Trapido, S. and S. Marks (Eds.), The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth-Century South Africa, New York: Routledge.

Bunting, B. (1975) Moses Kotane: South African Revolutionary. London: Inkululeko Publications.

Burawoy, M. (2009) The Extended Case Method. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Burawoy, M. (2005) ‘For Public Sociology.’ American Sociological Review, 70, pp. 4–28.

Burawoy (2004) ‘Public Sociologies: Contradictions, Dilemmas and Possibilities.’ Social Forces, Volume 82, Number 4, pp. 35–64.

358

Burawoy, M. (2003a) ‘For a Sociological Marxism: The Complementary Convergence of Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi.’ Politics and Society, Volume 31, Number 2, pp. 193– 261.

Burawoy, M. (2003b) ‘Public Sociology: South African dilemmas in a global context.’ Address to the South African Sociological Association, June 20th, Society in Transition, Volume 35, Number 1, pp. 11–26.

Burawoy, M. (2003c) [1998] ‘L’étude de Cas Élargie: Une approche Réflexive, historique et Comparée de L’enquête de Terrain: L’enquête de Terrain.’ In CafaÏ, D. (ed.), L’enquéte de Terrain, Paris: La Découverte, pp. 425–464.

Burawoy, M. (1998) The Extended Case Method. Sociological Theory, Volume 16, Number 1, pp. 4–33.

Burton, A. (2005) African Underclass: Urbanisation, Crime and Colonial Order in Dar es Salaam. Oxford: James Currey.

Bush, R. and A. Habib (2012) Marginality and Exclusion in Egypt. London: Zed Books.

Buur L. & S. Jensen (2004) ‘Introduction: Vigilantism and the Policing of Everyday Life in South Africa.’ African Studies, 63:2, 139-152.

Byrne, D. (2006) Social Exclusion. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

CAHFA (Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa) (2015) ‘Understanding the challenges in South Africa’s Gap.’ Note, Johannesburg, June 18.

Callebert, R. (2012) ‘Rethinking the Underclass: Future Directions in Southern African Labor History.’ International Labor and Working-Class History 82, pp. 136–142.

Callinicos, A. (2010) ‘The Limits of Passive Revolution.’ Capital and Class, Volume 34, Number 3, 491–507.

Callinicos, A. (2007) Soviet Power. International Socialism, Number 103, pp. 7–13

Callinicos, A. (1991) The Revenge of History: Marxism and the East European Revolutions. Pennsylavania: State University Press.

Callinicos, A. (1989) Against Postmodernism: A Marxist Critique. Cambridge: Polity Press.

359

Callinicos, L. (2004) Oliver Tambo: Beyond the Engeli Mountains. Cape Town: David Philip Publishers.

CALS (Centre for Applied Legal Studies) (2006) ‘Access to Education for Learners in Thembelihle.’ University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg.

Capps, G. (2012) ‘Victim of its Own Success? The Platinum Mining Industry and the Apartheid Mineral Property System in South Africa's Political Transition.’ Review of African Political Economy, Volume 39, Number 131, pp. 63–84,

Card, D. and A.B. Krueger (1994) ‘Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey.’ The American Economic Review, Volume 84, Number 4, September, pp. 772–793.

Carr, E.H. (1950) The Bolshevik Revolution: 1917-1923. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Castells, M. (1977) The Urban Question: A Marxist Approach. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Ceruti, C. (2013) ‘A Proletarian Township: Work, Home and Class.’ In Alexander, P., Ceruti, C. and K. Motseke, Class in Soweto. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.

Ceruti, C. (2012) ‘Unfolding Contradictions in the “Zuma Movement”: The Alliance in the Public Sector Strikes of 2007 and 2010.’ In Dawson, M. and L. Sinwell (Eds.), Contesting Transformation: Popular Resistance in 21st Century South Africa, London: Pluto Press.

Ceruti, C. (2010) ‘One class or two? ‘The labour reserve and “surplus population” in Marx and contemporary Soweto.’ South African Review of Sociology, Volume 41, Number 2, pp. 77–103.

Ceruti, C. and Zeilig, L. (2007) ‘Slums, resistance and the African working class.’ International Socialism Journal, 117, pp 69–86 http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=398 (accessed 3 June 2014)

Chakrabarty, D. (2000) Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Chakrabarty, D. (1992) ‘Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for "Indian" Pasts?’ Representations, Number 37, Special Issue: Imperial Fantasies and Postcolonial

360

Histories, Winter, pp. 1– 26 http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~sj6/dipesh%20postcoloniality%20artifice.pdf (accessed 4 July 2014)

Chambers, R. (1997) Whose Reality Counts: Putting the First Last. London: ITDG.

Chambers, R. (1983) Rural Development: Putting the Last First. London: Longman.

Chatterjee, P. (2004). The Politics of the Governed. New Delhi: Permanent Black.

Chatterjee, P. (1986) Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse. London: Zed Books.

Chibber, V. (2014) ‘Making Sense of Postcolonial theory: A Response to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.’ Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Volume 27, Number 3, pp. 617–624.

Chibber, V. (2013a) Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital. New York: Verso.

Chibber, V. (2013b) ‘How does the Subaltern Speak: Interview with Vivek Chibber.’ Jacobin, Issue Number 10 https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/04/how-does-the-subaltern- speak/ (accessed 4 May 2014)

Chibber, V. (2006) ‘On the Declione of Class Analysis in South Asian Studies.’ Critical Asian Studies, Volume 38, Number 4, pp. 357–387.

Childs, P. and P. Williams (1997) An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theory. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.

Cho, H.Y. (2008) ‘Democratization in Asia: Oligarchic Democracy and Democratic Oligarchy.’ In Cho, H.Y., Surendra, L. and E. Park (Eds.), States of Democracy: Oligarchic Democracies and Asian Democratization, Mumbai: Earthworm Books.

Cho, H.Y., Surendra, L. and E. Park (eds.) (2008) States of Democracy: Oligarchic Democracies and Asian Democratization, Mumbai: Earthworm Books.

Choonara, J. (2007) ‘The United Front.’ International Socialism, Number 117, December 18.

Cicourel, A. (1964) Method and Measurement in Sociology. New York: Free Press.

Clark, M. (2014) ‘An Anatomy of Dissent and Repression: The Criminal Justice System and the 2011 Thembelihle Protest.’ Johannesburg: Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI).

361

Clark, N.L. and W.H. Worger (2004) South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid. Harlow: Pearson Longman.

Clawson, D., Zussman, R., Misra, J., Gerstel, N., Stokes, R., Anderson, L. and M. Burawoy (2007) Public Sociology: Fifteen Eminent Sociologists Debate Politics and the Profession in the Twenty-first Century. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Cliff, T. Marxist (2003) Theory after Trotsky: Selected Writings, Volume 3. London: Bookmarks.

Cliff, T. (1959) Rosa Luxemburg. London: Bookmarks.

Cliff, T. (1948) ‘The Nature of Stalinist Russia.’ Internal document, London: British Revolutionary Communist Party. Also available in Cliff, T. (2003) https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1948/stalruss/index.htm

Cohen, S. (2011) ‘The Red Mole: Workers’ Councils as a Means of Revolutionary Transformation.’ In Ness, I. and D. Azzellini (Eds.), Ours to Master and to Own: Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present. Chicago: Haymarket Books.

COHRE (Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions) (2008) ‘Business as Usual? Housing Rights and “Slum Eradication” in Durban, South Africa.’ Geneva, Switzerland.

Cole, J. (1987) Crossroads: The Politics of Reform and Repression, 1976–1986. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

Comaroff, J. and J.L. Comaroff (2012) ‘Theory from the South: Or, how Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa.’ Anthropological Forum, Volume 22, Number 22, pp. 113–131.

Comte, A. (1866) A General View of Positivism [Discours sur l'Esprit positif 1844]. Translated by Bridges, J.H., London: Trübner and Co. https://ia801408.us.archive.org/18/items/ageneralviewpos00comtgoog/ageneralviewpos00co mtgoog.pdf (accessed 2 May 2013)

Connell, R. (2007) Southern Theory: Social Science And The Global Dynamics Of Knowledge. Sydney: Allen & Unwin Australia.

Cornwall, A. (2004) ‘Spaces for Transformation? Reflections on issues of power and difference in participation in development.’ In: Hickey, S. and G. Mohan (Eds.), Participation

362 from Tyranny to Transformation: Exploring New Approaches to Participation in Development. London and New York: Zed Books, pp.75–91.

Cornwall, A. (2002) Making Spaces, Changing Places: Situating Participation in Development. Sussex: Institute of Development Studies.

Cornwall, A. (2000) Beneficiary, Consumer, Citizen: Perspectives on Participation for Poverty Reduction. Gothenburg: Sida Studies

Cornwall, A., and R. Jewkes (1995) ‘What is participatory research?’ Social Science & Medicine, vo. 41, Number 12, pp. 1667–1676.

Coser, L.A. (1977) Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social Context. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Cox, K.R., Hemson, D. and A. Todes (2004) ‘Urbanisation in South Africa and the Changing Character of Migrant Labour.’ South African Geographical Journal, Volume 86, Number 1, pp. 7–16.

Cox, L. and A.G. Nilsen (2014) We Make Our Own History: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism. London: Pluto Press.

Crankshaw, O. and T. Hart (1990) ‘The Roots of Homelessness: Causes of Squatting in the Vlakfontein Squatter Settlement South of Johannesburg.’ South African Geographical Journal, Volume 72, Number 2, pp. 65–70.

Cronin, J. (1992) ‘The Boat, the Tap and the Leipzig Way.’ African Communist, 130, Third Quarter.

Cronje, F. Kane-Berman, J. and L. Moloi (2014) ‘Digging for Development: The mining industry in South Africa and its role in socio-economic development.’ Report commissioned by the Embassy of Sweden, Johnnesburg: Institute of Race Relations.

Crotty, J. (1990) ‘Owner-Manager Conflict and Financial Theories of Investment Instability: A Critical Assessment of Keynes, Tobin and Minsky.’ Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 519–542.

Davis, M. (2006) Planet of Slums. London: Verso.

Davis, M. (2004) ‘Planet of Slums.’ New Left Review, 26, March-April.

363

Dawson, H. (2014) ‘Youth Politics: Waiting and Envy in a South African Informal Settlement.’ Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 40, Number 4, pp. 861–882.

De Lagasnerie, G. (2011) ‘On the Cunning of Academic Reason: About Michael Burawoy’s Concept of Public Sociology.’ http://geoffroydelagasnerie.com/2011/11/29/on-the-cunning- of-academic-reason-against-michael-burawoys-public-sociology/ (accessed 3 July 2013)

Della Porta, D. and M. Diana (2006) Social Movements: An Introduction (Second Edition). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Desai, A. (2006) ‘Vans, Autos, Kombis and the Drivers of Social Movements.’ Paper presented at the Harold Wolpe Memorial lecture series held at the International Convention Centre, Durban: Centre for Civil Society – University of KwaZulu-Natal, July 28.

Desai, A. and G. Vahed (2016) The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-bearer of Empire. New Delhi: Navayana Publishing Pvt Ltd.

Desmond, C. (1971) The Discarded People: An Account of African Resettlement in South Africa. Middlesex: Penguin.

Deutscher, I. (1954) The Prophet Armed, Trotsky: 1879-1921. London: Oxford University Press.

Dilthey, W. (1883) Introduction to the Human Sciences. Marx-Engels Internet Archive https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/dilthey.htm (accessed 3 May 2013)

Drew, A. (2011) The Peasants’ Revolt: A Critical Examination. In Ntsebeza, L. and T. Kepe, Rural Resistance in South Africa, Leiden: Brill.

Dube, A., T., Lester, T.W. and M. Reich (2010) ‘Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders: Estimates Using Contiguous Counties.’ The Review of Economics and Statistics, Volume 92, Number 4, November, pp. 945–964.

Dubow, S. (1994) ‘Ethnic Euphemisms and Racial Echoes.’ In Dubow, S., Sharp, J. and E.N. Wilmsen (Eds.) Journal of Southern African Studies. Special Issue on Ethnicity and Identity in Southern Africa, Volume 20, Number 3.

364

Dugard, J and T. Tselapedi (2013) ‘Reclaiming Power: A Case Study of the Thembelihle Crisis Committee’. Active Citizenship Matters: Perspectives from Civil Society on Local Governance in South Africa. South Africa: Good Governance Learning Network (ggln).

Durkheim, E. (2013) The Rules of Sociological Method: And Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method. New York: Free Press.

Dwyer, P. and L. Zeilig (2012) African Struggles Today: Social Movements since Independence. Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Egan, A. and A. Wafer (2006) ‘Dynamics of a “Mini-Mass Movement”: Origins, Identity and Ideological Pluralism in the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee.’ In Ballard, R., Habib, A. and I. Valodia (Eds.), Voices of Protest: Social Movements in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Ellis, G. (1983) ‘Africans in the Western Cape 1900 to 1982: A Chronology’, in Horner, D. (Ed.), Labour Preference, Influx Control and Squatters, Cape Town, South African Labour and Development Research Unit, SALDRU Working Paper Number 50, July.

Ellis, S. and T. Sechaba (1992) Comrades Against Apartheid: The ANC and the South African Communist Party in Exile. London: James Currey.

Engels, F. (1956) The Peasant War in Germany. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House.

Engels, F. (1880) Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Marx-Engels Internet Archive https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Engels_Socialism_Utopian_and_Sci entific.pdf (accessed 3 May 2013)

Engels, F. (1872) The Housing Question. www.marxists.org (accessed 23 July 2013)

Engels, F. (1845) The Condition of the Working-Class in England. www.marxists.org (accessed 23 July 2013)

Fanon, F. (1986) Black Skin, White Masks. London: Pluto Press http://abahlali.org/files/__Black_Skin__White_Masks__Pluto_Classics_.pdf (accessed 3 June 2014)

Fanon, F. (1989) Studies in a Dying Colonialism. London: Earthscan.

365

Fanon, F. (1970) Towards the African Revolution. London: Pelican Books.

Fanon, F. (1963) The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press.

Fine, B. (2006) ‘Political Economy of Development.’ Paper presented at the Harold Wolpe Trust tenth anniversary colloquium: Engaging silences and unresolved issues in the political economy of South Africa, held at Monkey Valley, Noordhoek, September.

First, R. (1970) The Barrell of a Gun: Political Power in Africa and the Coup d’État. London: Penguin.

Forrest, K. (2014) ‘Rustenburg's Fractured Recruitment Regime: Who Benefits?’ African Studies, Volume 73, Number 2, pp. 149–168.

Forrest, R. and A. Murie (1988) Selling the Welfare State: The Privatisation of Public Housing. London: Routledge.

Foster J. B. and F. Magdoff (2009) The Great Financial Crisis. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Frank, A.G. (1966) ‘The Development of Underdevelopment.’ Monthly Review, Volume 18, Number 4, pp. 23–28.

Freeman, J. (1983) (Ed.) Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies. New York: Longman.

Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder.

French, K. (1983) ‘James Mpanza and the Development of the Sofasonke Party in the Development of Local Politics in Soweto.’ Master of Arts dissertation, University of the Witswatersrand.

Freund, B. (2007) ‘South Africa: The End of Apartheid and the Emergence of the “BEE Elite.”’ Review of African Political Economy, Volume 34, Number 114, pp. 661–678.

Freund, B. (1998) The Making of Contemporary Africa. Bouldner: Lynne Rienner.

Friedman, S. (2015) Race, Class and Power: Harold Wolpe and the Radical Critique of Apartheid. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.

366

Fryer, D. and B. Hepburn (2010) ‘It’s Jobs, Stupid! Social Exclusion, Education, and the Informal Sector in Grahamstown, Fort Beaufort and Duncan Village.’ Working Paper Series 5, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University, Grahamstown https://www.ru.ac.za/media/rhodesuniversity/content/iser/documents/Fryer%20Hepburn%20 Final(Print)_.pdf (accessed 2 July 2013)

Fukuyama, F. (1992) The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press

Fung, A. (2006) ‘Varieties of Participation in Complex Governance.’ Public Administration Review, 66(1), 66-75.

Fung, A. and E. O. Wright (eds.) (2003) Deepening Democracy. London: Verso.

Gans, H. (2002) ‘More of Us Should Become Public Sociologists.’ Footnotes (July/August) Volume 30, Number 10.

Gans, H.J. (1990) ‘Deconstructing the Underclass: The Term’s Dangers as a Planning Concept’. Journal of the American Planning Association, Volume 56, Number 3, pp. 271–77.

Garner, R. (1997) ‘Fifty Years of Social Movement Theory: An Interpretation.’ In Garner, R. and J. Tenuto (Eds.) Social Movement Theory and Research: An Annotated Bibliographic Guide. London: The Scarecrow Press.

Gates Jr., H.L. (1999) ‘Critical Fanonism.’ In Gibson, N, (Ed.), Rethinking Fanon: The Continuing Dialogue, Amherst: Humanity Books.

Geertz, C. (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.

Gendzier, I.L. (2007) ‘Midnight Reflections on Some of the Work of Frantz Fanon.’ Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, Special double-issue, Summer, pp. 25–32 http://www.okcir.com/Articles%20V%20Special/IreneGendzier.pdf (accesssed 3 June 2014)

Gendzier, I.L. (1974) Frantz Fanon: A Critical Study. London: Wildwood House.

Gentle, L. (2014a) ‘South Africa and the Changing Politics of Labour Part 1: The Demise of COSATU.’ The Bullet, Number 1028, August 27th http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/1027.php (accessed 5 February 2016)

367

Gentle, L. (2014b) ‘South Africa and the Changing Politics of Labour Part 2: NUMSA and the Emergence of a New Movement.’ The Bullet, Number 1028, August 29th http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/1028.php (accessed 5 February 2016)

Gentle, L. (2012) ‘Marikana Miners: The Massacre of our Illusions.' Red Pepper, August.

Giddings, S.W. (2007) Housing Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington D.C.: International Housing Coalition http://www.intlhc.org/docs/giddings-mcc.pdf (accessed 2 May 2013)

Gibson, N. (2013) ‘One Year after Marikana: No Justice for the Poor in South Africa.’ In: Truth Out. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/19064-one-year-after-marikana-no-justice- for-the-poor-in-south-africa (accessed 12 January 2014)

Gibson, N. (2011). Fanonian practices in South Africa. Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press.

Gibson, N.C. (2007) 'Zabalaza, Unfinished Struggles against Apartheid: The Shackdwellers' Movement in Durban. ' Socialism and Democracy, Volume 21, Number 3, pp. 60–96.

Gibson, N. (2003) Frantz Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Giddens, A. (1981) A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism. London: MacMillan.

Gill, S. (2002) Power and Resistance in the New World Order. London: Palgrave, Macmillan.

Glaser, D. (1988) ‘Democracy, Socialism, and the Future.’ Work in Progress, 56/57, November/December.

Glaser, D. (1990) ‘Putting Democracy Back into Democratic Socialism.’ Work in Progress, 65, April.

Glaser, D. (1994) ‘Paradoxes of the Council State.’ Studies in Marxism, 1.

Gluckstein, D. (2011) The Paris Commune: A Revolution in Democracy. Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Gluckstein, D. (1985) The Western Soviets: Workers' Councils versus Parliament 1915-1920. London: Bookmarks.

368

Gluckstein, D. (1983) ‘The Workers’ Council Movement in Western Europe.’ International Socialism, 2: 18, Winter.

Goldstein, F. (2008) Colossus with Feet of Clay: Low-Wage Capitalism. New York: World View Forum.

Gouldner, A. (1973) ‘Sociologist as Partisan.’ For Sociology: Renewal and Critique in Sociology Today, 27-68. London: Allen Lane.

Gouldner, A. (1970) The Coming Crisis of Sociology. New York: Basic Books

Gramsci, A. (1971/1999) Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Edited by Quinton Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, Chennai: Orient Longman http://courses.justice.eku.edu/pls330_louis/docs/gramsci-prison-notebooks-vol1.pdf (accessed 4 May 2015)

Gramsci, A. (1978) Selections from Political Writings 1921-1926. New York: International Publishers.

Gramsci, A. (1971) The Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Gramsci, A. (1920) ‘Soviets in Italy: The Factory Council.’ libcom.org, June 5 https://libcom.org/library/soviets-italy (accessed 3 May 2015)

Greenberg, S. (2006) ‘The Landless People’s Movement and the Failure of Post-Apartheid Land Reform.’ In Ballard, R., Habib, A. and I. Valodia (Eds.) Voices of Protest: Social Movements in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Groenewald, L. (2011) ‘Progress towards Millennium Development Goals? Strategies for Housing and Informal Settlement in Gauteng, South Africa.’ Development Southern Africa, Volume 28, Volume 5, December, pp. 641–651.

Grossman, J. (1985) ‘Class Relations and the Policies of the Communist Party of South Africa 1921-1950.’ PhD Thesis, Department of Sociology, Coventry: University of Warwick.

Grossman, J. (1996) ‘“For Our Children Tomorrow”: Workers in Struggle in South Africa 1973-1995. Research paper Number 1, Institute for Critical Research (ICR), Amsterdam.

Guha, R. (2013) Gandhi Before India. London: Penguin Random House.

369

Guha, R. (1998) Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Guha, R. (1983) ‘The Prose of Counterinsurgency.’ Subaltern studies II, Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Guha, R. and G. C. Spivak (1988) (Eds.) Selected Subaltern Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Guillaume, P. and M. Houssay-Holzschuch (2002) ‘Territorial Strategies of South African informal dwellers.’ Urban Forum 8(3):86–100.

Gumede, W.M. (2007) Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC. Cape Town: Zebra Press.

Gutmann, A. and D. Thompson (2004) Why Deliberative Democracy? New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Habermas, J. (1971) Knowledge and Human Interests. London: Heinemann.

Habermas, J. (1987) The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Massachusetts: Cambridge.

Habib, A. (2004) ‘The Politics of Economic Policy-making: Substantive Uncertainty, Political Leverage, and Human Development. Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa, 56, pp. 90–10.

Haddour, A. (2015) ‘Fanon, the French Liberal Left and the Colonial Consensus.’ Nottingham French Studies, Volume 54, Number 1, pp. 72–91.

Hall, S. (1997) ‘Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities.’ In King, A.D. (Ed.) Culture, Globalisation and the World System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Hall, P.A. and D. Soskice (eds.) (2001) Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations

Hamman, R. and P. Kapelus (2004) ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in Mining in Southern Africa: Fair Accountability or Just Greenwash?’ Development, Volume 47, Number 3, pp. 85–92.

Harber, A. (2011) Diepsloot. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers.

370

Harding, N. (1983a) Lenin’s Political Thought (Volume 1). London: Macmillan

Harding, N. (1983b) Lenin’s Political Thought (Volume 2). London: Macmillan

Hardoy, J.E. and D. Satterthwaite (1989) Squatter Citizen: Life in the Urban Third World. London: Earthscan Publications.

Harman, C. (2003a) ‘Party and Class.’ In Cliff, T., Hallas, D., Harman, C. and L. Trotsky, Party and Class, Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Harman, C. (2003b) ‘How the Revolution was Lost.’ In Arnove, A., Binns, P., Cliff, T., Harman, C. and A. Shawki (Eds.), Russia: From Workers’ State To State Capitalism, Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Harriss, J., Stokke, K. and O. Törnquist (Eds.) (2004) Politicising Democracy: The New Local Politics of Democratisation. New York: Palgrave McMillan.

Hart, G. (2015) ‘“Political Society” and its Discontents: Towards a Comparative Framing of India and South Africa.’ Economic & Political Weekly, June 1.

Hart, G. (2014) Rethinking the South African Crisis: Nationalism, Populism, Hegemony. Athens: The University of Georgia Press.

Hart, G. (2013) ‘Gramsci, Geography, and the Languages of Populism.’ In Ekers, M., Hart, G., Kipfer, S. and A. Loftus (Eds.), Gramsci: Space, Nature, Politics, Chichester: Wiley- Blackwell.

Hart, G. (2009) ‘D/developments after the Meltdown.’ Antipode, Volume 41 Number S1, pp. 117–141.

Hart, G. (2007) ‘Changing Concepts of Articulation: Political Stakes in South Africa Today.’ Review of African Political Economy, Volume 34, Number 111, pp. 85–101.

Hart, G. (2002) Disabling Globalisation: Places of Power in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.

Harvey, D. (2010) The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism. New York: Oxford University Press.

Harvey, D. (2008) ‘The Right to the City.’ New Left Review, 53, September-October.

371

Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press.

Harvey, D. (2000) Spaces of Hope. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Harvey, D. (1985a) Consciousness and the Urban Experience: Studies in the History and Theory of Capitalist Urbanization. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University.

Harvey, D. (1985b) The Urbanization of Capital: Studies in the History and Theory of Capitalist Urbanization. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.

Harvey, E. (2007) ‘The commodification of water in Soweto and its implications for social justice.’ PhD thesis, Johannesburg: University of the Witswatersrand.

Hayek, F. (1976) Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hellmann, E. (1948) Rooiyard: A Sociological Survey of an Urban Native Slum Yard. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.

Henna, M.B. (2011) ‘Hunter-gatherer Genomic Diversity Suggests a Southern African Origin for Modern Humans.’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Volume 108, Number 13, 5154–5162.

Hickey, S. and G. Mohan (eds.) (2004) Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation, Exploring New Approaches to Participation in Development. London and New York: Zed Books.

Himlin, R. (2005) ‘Johannesburg Ward Committee Assessment: Full Report of Findings.’ Report for the Johannesburg Metropolitan Council, Johannesburg: Planact.

Hindson, D.C. (Ed.) (1983) Working Papers in Southern African Studies. Volume 3, Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

Hindson, D.C. (1987) Pass Controls and the Urban Proletariat. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

Hirson, B. (2015) A Short history of the Non-European Unity – An insider's view: Where is the Non-European Unity Movement? South African History Online website http://www.sahistory.org.za/organisations/non-european-unity-movement-neum (accessed 3 July 2015)

372

Hirson, B. (1989) Yours for the Union: Class and Community Struggle in South Africa. London: Zed Books.

Hoffrogge, R. (2014) Working-Class Politics in the German Revolution: Richard Müller, the Revolutionary Shop Stewards and the Origins of the Council Movement. Leiden: Brill.

Holston, J. (2008) Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Horne, A. (1978). A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962. New York Review of Books.

Horrell, M. (1973) ‘The African Homelands of South Africa.’ Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations.

Huchzermeyer, M. (2011) Cities with Slums: From Informal Settlement Eradication to a Right to the City in Africa. Claremont: Juta Academic.

Huchzermeyer, M. (2009) ‘The Struggle for In Situ Upgrading of Informal Settlements: A Reflection on Cases in Gauteng.’ Development Southern Africa, Volume 26, Number 1, pp. 59–73.

Huchzermeyer, M. (2006) 'The Struggle for Insitu Upgrading in Informal Settlements: Case Studies from Gauteng.' Southern African Housing Foundation Conference and Exhibition, Cape Town: Development Southern Africa, pp. 59–73.

Huchzermeyer, M. (2004) Unlawful Occupation. Informal Settlements and Urban Policy in South Africa and Brazil. USA: Africa World Press Inc.

Huchzermeyer, M. and A. Karam (2006) Informal Settlements: A Perpetual Challenge? Cape Town: UCT Press.

Huddleston, T. (1956) Naught for your Comfort. New York: The Country Life Press.

Hudis, P. (2001) ‘The Dialectic and “The Party”: Lukacs’ History and Class Consciousness Reconsidered.’ Journal of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization, June 6 http://www.internationalmarxisthumanist.org/articles/the-dialectic-and-the-party-lukacs- history-and-class-consciousness-reconsidered (accessed 3 May 2013)

Huntington, S. (1991) The Third Wave: Democratization in the Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahama Press.

373

Isin, E. (2000) Introduction: Democracy, Citizenship and the City. In Isin, E. (Ed.), Democracy, Citizenship and the Global City, New York: Routledge

Jackson, K.T. (1985) Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.

Jacoby, R. (1987) The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe. New York: Noonday Press.

Jacquin, C. (1999)’ The Trade Union Left and the Birth of a New South Africa.’ Notebooks for Study and Research No 26, International Institute for Research and Education, Amsterdam.

James, C.L.R. (1949) ‘Stalinism and Negro History.’ Fourth International, Volume10, Number10, November, pp. 309–314 https://www.marxists.org/archive/james- clr/works/1949/11/stalinism-negro.htm (accessed 3 March 2014)

Jessop, B. (1997) ‘A Neo-Gramscian Approach to the Regulation of Urban Regimes: Accumulation Strategies, Hegemonic Projects, and Governance.’ In Lauria M. (Ed.), Reconstructing Urban Regime Theory: Regulating Urban Politics in a Global Economy, Thousand Oaks: Sage

Johnson, D. (2013) ‘Fanon’s Travels in Postcolonial Theory and Post-Apartheid Politics.’ College Literature: A Journal of Critical Literary Studies, Volume 40, Number 1, Spring, pp. 52–80.

Johnson, J.M. (2002) ‘In-depth Interviewing.’ In J.F. Gubrium, J.F., Holstein, J.A. (eds) Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, pp.103-120.

Joll, J. (1977) Gramsci. Glasgow: Fontana/Collins.

Kapinga, W.B.L. (1986) ‘State Control of theWorking Class through Labour Legislation.’ In: I.G. Shivji, I.G. (Ed.) The State and the Working People in Tanzania, Dakar: CODESRIA, pp. 87–106.

Katz, J. (2004) ‘On the Rhetoric and Politics of Ethnographic Methodology.’ The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Volume 595, Number 1, pp. 280– 308.

374

Katz, M.B. (1995) Improving Poor People: The Welfare State, The “Underclass,” and Urban Schools as History. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Katz, M.B. (1989) The Undeserving Poor: From the War on Poverty to the War on Welfar. New York: Pantheon.

Keep, J.L.H. (1963) The Rise of Social-Democracy in Russia. London: Oxford University Press.

Kerr, J. (2014) ‘Western Epistemic Dominance and Colonial Structures: Considerations for Thought and Practice in Programs of Teacher Education.’ Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & , Volume 3, Number 2, 2014, pp. 83–104 file:///C:/Users/sarchi4/Downloads/21148-53049-1-PB.pdf (accessed 3 November 2014)

Khan, S., Lootvoet, B. and B. Mantzaris (2006) ‘The Clash between Traditional and Modern Systems of Governance in the Durban Metropolis - A Tale of Two Administrative Civilizations.’ Alternation, Volume 13, Number 2, pp. 174–197.

Khan, S., Lootvoet, B. and S. Vawda (2006) ‘Transcending Traditional Forms of Governance: Prospects for Co-operative Governance and Service Delivery in Durban’s Tribal Authority Areas.’ Transformation, 62, pp. 84–117.

Khan, F. and E. Pieterse (2004) ‘The Homeless People’s Alliance: Purposive Creation and Ambiguated Realities.’ Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Kibet, M. (2013) ‘Migration into Rustenburg Local Municipality between 1996 and 2001.’ Journal of Social Development in Africa, Volume 28 Number 1, pp. 65–85.

Klein, N. (2014) This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. Canada: Alfred A. Knopf https://ia802307.us.archive.org/34/items/pdfy-Skb- ch_k7psDm90Q/Naomi%20Klein%20-%20This%20Changes%20Everything.pdf (accessed 2 June 2015)

Kolakowski, L. (1978) Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origins, Growth and Dissolution. New York: Oxford University Press.

Kondlo, K.M. (1993) ‘Miserable Hovels and Shanties on Waterlogged Wasteland: Political- Economy of Peri-Urban Squatting around Greater Cape Town, Circa 1945-1960." M.A. Thesis, Department of History, University of Cape Town.

375

Kropotkin, P. (1955) Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. Boston: Extending Horizons Books.

Krugman, P. (1995) The Self Organizing Economy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Kuhn, T. (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

LACOM/SACHED (Labour and Community Resources Project) (1989) Debates in South African Labour History. Durban: SACHED Printing Department.

Lakatos, I. (1978) The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press

Landstreicher, W. (2009) ‘Autonomous Self-Organization and Anarchist Intervention: A Tension in Practice.’ www.theanarchistlibrary.org (accessed 6 December 2014)

Lawrence, B. (2011) ‘Housing Associations: Privatisation Via Not-For-Profits.’ Corporate Watch Magazine, Number 50, Autumn/Winter https://corporatewatch.org/magazine/50/autumnwinter-2011/housing-associations- privatisation-not-profits (accessed 3 May 2013)

Lazarsfeld P.F. and M. Rosenburg (Eds.) (1955) The Language of Social Research. Glencoe: The Free Press.

Le Blanc, P. (1990) Lenin and the Revolutionary Party. New Jersey: Humanities Press International.

Le Blanc, P. (Ed.) (1999) Rosa Luxemburg: Reflections and Writings. New York: Humanity Books.

Lebowitz, M. (2003) Beyond Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of the Working Class. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lefebvre, H. (1973) Espace et Politique. Paris: Anthropos.

Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell.

Legassick, M. (2012) ‘The Marikana Massacre: A Turning Point?’ The Bullet: Socialist Project. E-Bulletin, 689, August 31 http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/689.php (accessed 3 May 2013)

376

Legassick, M. (2010) The Struggle for the Eastern Cape, 1800-1854: Subjugation and the Roots of South African Democracy. Johannesburg: KMM.

Legassick, M. (2007) Towards Socialist Democracy. Scottsville: KwaZulu-Natal Press.

Legassick, M. (1974) ‘South Africa: Capital Acccumulation and Violence.’ Economy and Society, Volume 3, Number 3, August, pp. 253–291.

Lehulere, O. (2005) ‘The new social movements, COSATU and the “New UDF”’. Khanya, Number 11, December

Lekgowa, T., Mmope, B. and P. Alexander (2012) “Geography of a Massacre.” London, Socialist Worker, August 21.

Lenin, V.I. (2000) The Development of Capitalism in Russia. Marxist Internet Archive. Accessed 5 December 2014 www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/devel/ (accessed 3 June 2014)

Lenin, V.I. (1976) The State and Revolution. Peking: Foreign Language Press. http://www.marx.be/sites/default/files/documents/EN/texts/sr_and_sq.PDF (accessed 3 May 2015)

Lenin, V.I. (1974) ‘The Constituent Assembly Elections and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Collected Works, Volume 30, Moscow.

Lenin, V.I. (1974) ‘The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution.’ Collected Works, Volume 24, Moscow.

Lenin, V.I. (1972) ‘The Heritage We Renounce.’ Collected Works, Volume 2, Moscow: Progress Publishers, pp. 491–534. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1897/dec/31c.htm (accessed 3 June 2014)

Lenin, V.I. (1965) ‘Our Tasks and the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies: A Letter to the Editor.’ Collected Works, Volume 10, Moscow: Progress Publishers, pp. 17–28. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/nov/04b.htm (accessed 4 May 2014)

Lenin, V.I. (1964a) ‘Letters on Tactics.’ Collected Works, Volume 24, Moscow: Progress Press, pp. 42–54. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/x01.htm (accessed 4 May 2014)

377

Lenin, V.I. (1964b) ‘Congress of Peasants’ Deputies.’ Collected Works, Volume 24, Moscow: Progress Publishers, pp. 67–170 https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/16.htm (accessed 3 April 2014)

Lenin, V.I. (1964c) ‘Speech Delivered at a Meeting of Soldiers of the Izmailovsky Regiment April 10 (23), 1917.’ Collected Works, Volume 24, Moscow: Progress Publishers, pp. 107– 109 https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/10.htm (accessed 6 July 2015)

Lenin, V.I. (1961) ‘Speech on the Party Programme. Second Congress of the R.D.S.L.P. in 1903.’ Collected Works, Volume 6, Moscow: Progress Publishers https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/cw/pdf/lenin-cw-vol-06.pdf (accessed 4 May 2013)

Lenin, V.I. (1963) ‘The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of it in Mr. Struve’s Book’, in Collected Works, Volume 1, Moscow: Progress Publishers.

Lenin, V.I. (1960) Collected Works, 45 volumes. Moscow: Progress Press.

Lenin, V.I. (1940) ‘Left-wing Communism’: An Infantile Disorder. New York: International Publishers file:///C:/Users/sarchi4/Downloads/Lenin-Left_Wing_Communism_An_Infantile_Disorder- V_I_Lenin-1940-96pgs-BOL-COM_SOC.sml.pdf (accessed 3 May 2013)

Lenin, V.I. (1917) ‘The Petrograd City Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. (Bolsheviks) April 14– 22 (April 27–May 5), 1917. Concluding Remarks In The Debate Concerning The Report On The Present Situation.’ Collected Works, Volume 24, Lenin Internet Archive https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/petcconf/14b.htm (accessed 3 June 2014)

Lenin, V.I. (1906) ‘The Victory of the Cadets and the Tasks of the Workers’ Party. Digression: A Popular Talk With Cadet Publicists and Learned Professors.’ Collected Works, Volume 10, Moscow: Progress Press. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/victory/digress.htm#v10pp65-242 (accessed 3 May 2015)

Lenin, V. (1902) What Is To Be Done? Burning Questions of our Movement. Marxist-Lenin Archive https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/download/what-itd.pdf (accessed 3 March 2015)

378

Lenin, V.I. (1899) The Development of Capitalism in Russia: The Process of the Formation of a Home Market for Large-Scale Industry. Marx-Engels Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/devel/ (accessed 3 May 2015)

Lenin, V.I. (1894) ‘What the “Friends of The People” are And How They Fight The Social Democrats.’ Lenin Internet Archive https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1894/friends/ (accessed 3 May 2015)

Lerumo, A. (1971) "Fifty Fighting Years", The Communist Party of South Africa 1921-1971, Inkululeko Publications, London.

Levi, M. and D. Olson (2000) ‘The Battles in Seattle.’ Politics and Society, Volume 28, Number 3, pp. 309–29.

Levenson, Z. B. (2012) ‘Review essay on Marie Huchzermeyer’s Cities with “Slums”: From Informal Settlement Eradication to a Right to the City in Africa.’ Transformation, Number 78, pp. 13 –143.

Lewis, J. and D. Woolfrey, D (1990) ‘Industrial Relations Legislation and Machinery in Bophuthatswana.’ Industrial Law Journal, Volume 11, Number 2, pp. 241–65.

Le Roux, A. (2013) ‘Contesting Space: A Ward Committee Committee and a Social Movement Organisation in Thembelihle, Johannesburg.’ Master of Arts Dissertation, Department of Sociology, Johannesburg: University of Johannesburg.

Liebman, M. (1975) Leninism under Lenin. London: Merlin Press.

Lipset, S. M. (1959) ‘Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy.’ The American Political Science Review 53 (1): 69–105.

Lodge, T. (1983) Black Politics in South Africa Since 1945. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

Lodge, T. and S. Mottiar (2014) ‘South Africa “Unrest”:” Local or Global; Protest or Rebellion – A Focus on Durban.’ Paper presented in the Colloquium on Contentious Politics, Capitalism and Social Movement Theory, Research Chair for Social Change, University of Johannesburg, May 22.

Lodge, T. and B. Nasson (1991) All, Here, And Now: Black Politics in South Africa in the 1980s. Cape Town: David Philip.

379

Longmore, L. (1959) The Dispossessed: A Study of the Sex-Life of African Women in Urban Areas on the Witwatersrand. London: Tavistock.

Lopez, M.A. (2013) ‘The Squatters’ Movement in Europe: A Durable Struggle for Social Autonomy in Urban Politics.’ Antipode, Volume 45, Number 4, pp. 866–887.

L'Ordine Nuovo (unsigned report) (1921) ‘The Turin Factory Councils Movement (A report despatched in July 1920 to the Executive Committee of the Communist International).’ Volume 1, Number 7, March 14.

Lucas, J. (2000) ‘Civic organization in Alexandra in the early 1990s: An ethnographic approach.’ In Adler, G. and J. Steinberg (Eds.), From Comrades to Citizens: The South African Civics Movement and the Transition to Democracy. London: MacMillan Press.

Luckett, T. and F. Pontarelli (2016) ‘#OutsourcingMustFall: Unity in Action in South African Universities.’ The Brooklyn Rail, New York, March 4 http://www.brooklynrail.org/2016/03/field-notes/outsourcing-must-fall (accessed 4 April 2016)

Lukács, G. (2005) Lenin: A Study on the Unity of his Thought. Calcutta: Seagull Books. https://www.marxists.org/archive/Lukács/works/1924/lenin/ch01.htm (accessed 6 July 2015)

Lukács, G. (2000) Tailism and Class Consciousness. London: Verso.

Lukács, G. (1972) History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics. (Translated by Rodney Livingstone), Cambridge: MIT Press.

Lukács, G. (1968) Political Writings 1919-1929. London: New Left Books.

Lukács, G. (1920) ‘Class Consciousness.’ Chapter in Lukács, G., History and Class Consciousness. Marxists-Lukács Archive https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/ch08.ht (accessed 3 May 2015)

Lukács, G. (1923) ‘Towards a Methodology of the Problem of Organisation.’ Chapter in G. Lukács, History and Class Consciousness. Marxists-Lukács Archive https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/ch08.ht (accessed 3 May 2015)

Luxemburg, R. (2004) The Rosa Luxemburg Reader (edited by Hudson, P. and K.B. Anderson). New York: Monthly Review Press.

380

Luxemburg, R. (1970a) The Mass Strike. New York: Pathfinder Press.

Luxemburg, R. (1970b) Rosa Luxemburg Speaks (edited by M.A. Waters). New York: Pathfinder.

Luxemburg, R. (1940) The Russian Revolution. New York: Workers Age Publishers https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch08.htm (accessed 3 June 2014)

Macey, D. (2000) Frantz Fanon: A Life. New York: Picador.

Macnicol, J. (1987) ‘In Pursuit of the Underclass’. Journal of Social Policy, Volume 16, Number 3, pp. 291–318.

MacShane, D., Plaut, M. and D. Ward (1984) Power! Black Workers, their Unions and the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa. Boston: South End Press.

Mafeje, A. (1981) ‘On the Articulation of Modes of Production: Review Article.’ Journal of Southern African Studies, Special Issue on Anthropology and History, Volume 8, Number 1, October, pp. 123–138.

Maglaya, F. (1975) Organising People for Power: A Manual for Organisers. Tokyo: Asian Committee for People’s Organisation.

Mair, P. (2013) Ruling the Void: The Hollowing-Out of Western Democracy. London: Verso.

Makgetla, N and S. Levin (2016) ‘A Perfect Storm: Migrancy and Mining in the North West Province.’ Johannesburg: Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies, Working paper, January.

Maloka, E. (2013) The South African Communist Party: Exile and After Apartheid. Johannesburg: Jacana.

Mamdani, M. (1996) Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Mamdani, M. (1995) ‘A Critique of the State and Civil Society Paradigm in Africanist Studies.’ In Mamdani, M. and E. Wamba-dia-Wamba (Ed.), African Studies in Social Movements and Democracy. Oxford: Codesria.

Mandel, E. (1995) Trotsky as Alternative. London: Verso.

381

Mandel, E. and G. Novack (2002) Can the Working Class Make A Socialist Revolution? Chippendale: Resistance Books.

Mandela, N. (1994) Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. London: Little, Brown and Company file:///C:/Users/sarchi4/Downloads/the-autobiography- of-nelson-mandela.pdf (accessed 3 July 2015)

Marais, H. (1998) South Africa: Limits to Change: The Political Economy of Transformation. London: Zed Books.

Marcus, G. (1995) ‘Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography.’ Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, pp. 95–117.

Maree, J. (1982) ‘SAAWU in the East London area 1979-81.’ South African Labour Bulletin, 4/5, February.

Martin, G. (2004) ‘New Social Movements and Democracy.’ In Todd, M.J and G. Taylor, Democracy and Participation: Popular Protest and New Social Movements. London: Merlin Press.

Marx, A.W. (1992) Lessons of the Struggle: South African Internal Opposition, 1960-1990. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.

Marx, C. (2003) ‘Supporting Informal Settlements.’ In Khan, F., and P. Thring (Eds.), Housing Policy and Practice in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Sandown: Heinemann Publishers.

Marx, K. (1981) Capital Volume 3. London: Penguin Books https://libcom.org/files/Marx%20- %20Capital,%20Volume%203%20(Penguin%20Classics).pdf (accessed 3 May 2014)

Marx, K. (1977) The Civil War in France. Peking: Foreign Languages Press.

Marx, K. (1976) Capital Volume 1. London: Penguin.

Marx, K. (1978) The Poverty of Philosophy. Peking: Foreign Language Press.

Marx, K. (1973) Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft). Translated by Martin Nicolaus, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books

382 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Grundrisse.pdf (accessed 3 May 2015)

Marx, K. (1968) Theories of Surplus-Value, Part II. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

Marx, K. (1959) Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 3. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Marx, K. (1954) The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

Marx, K. (1881) Letter to Vera Zasulich, First Draft. Marxists Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/zasulich/draft-1.htm (accessed 5 December 2014)

Marx, K. (1877) ‘Letter from Marx to Editor of the Otecestvenniye Zapisky.’ Marxists Internet Archive https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/11/russia.htm (accessed 3 July 2014)

Marx, K. (1866) ‘Instructions for the Delegates of the Provisional General Council. The Different Questions.’ Minutes of the General Council of the First International, 1864-66, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House.

Marx, K. (1859) ‘Preface to A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy.’ Marxists Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol- economy/preface.htm (accessed 3 May 2015)

Marx, K. (1858) ‘[Letter] Marx To Engels In Manchester.’ Marx-Engels Correspondence 1858, Marx & Engels Internet Archive: Letters

http://marx.libcom.org/works/1858/letters/58_10_08.htm (accessed 3 May 2014)

Marx, K. (1844a) ‘Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right’. Deutsch-Französische Jahrbucher, February. Marxists Internet Archive. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm (accessed 12 July 2013)

Marx, K. (1844b) Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Marxists Internet Archive https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Economic-Philosophic- Manuscripts-1844.pdf (accessed 3 July 2014)

383

Marx, K. and F. Engels (1993) The Communist Manifesto. Project Gutenberg E-text. file:///C:/Users/sarchi4/Downloads/The%20Communist%20Manifesto.pdf (accessed 3 May 2015)

Marx, K. and F. Engels (1970) The German Ideology. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

Mashabela, H. (1990) Mekhukhu: Urban African Cities of the Future. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations.

Mashele, P. and M. Qobo (2014) The Fall of the ANC: What Next? Johannesburg: Picador Africa.

Mashinini, A. (1986) ‘Dual Power and the Creation of People’s Committees.’ Sechaba, April.

Masiteng, S. (2013) ‘In-Situ Upgrading of Informal Settlements: A Case study of Barcelona 1 – Lamontville, Durban.’ MA dissertation, School of Built Environment and Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.

Mayekiso, M. (1996) Township Politics: Civic Struggles for a New South Africa. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Mayekiso, M. (1992a) ‘Hands off the civics and civil society!’ Work in Progress, February.

Mayekiso, M. (1992b) ‘Working-class civil society: Why we need it, and how we get it.’ African Communist, Number 129, Second quarter.

Mayer, P. (1971) Townsmen or Tribesmen: Conservatism and the Process of Urbanization in a South African City. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Maylam, P. (1983) ‘The “Black Belt”: Black Squatters in Durban 1935-1950.” Canadian Journal of African Studies Special Issue: South Africa, pp. 419–420.

Mbeki, G. (1964) South Africa: The Peasants’ Revolt. Harmondworth: Penguin.

Mbenga, B. and A. Manson (2003) ‘The Richest Tribe in Africa: Platinum-mining and the Bafokeng in South Africa’s North West Province, 1965–1999.' Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 29, Number 1. pp. 25–47.

McCauley, M. (1983) Stalin and Stalinism. New York: Routledge.

384

McKinley, D.T. (1997) The ANC and the Liberation Struggle: A Critical Political Biography. London: Pluto Press.

McLellan, D. (1973) Karl Marx: His Life and Thought. London: McMillan-Papermac.

Mdlalose, B. (2014) ‘The Rise and Fall of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a South African Social Movement.’ Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies, Volume 41, Number3, pp. 345-353.

Meier (2000) ‘On the Margins: The Emergence and Growth of Squatter Settlements in Cape Town, 1939-1960.’ PhD thesis, University of Florida.

Meredith, M. (2005) The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence. London: The Free Press

Mészáros, I. (1995) Beyond Capital: Towards a Theory of Transition. London: Merlin Press.

Mészáros, I. (1989) The Power of Ideology. New York: New York University Press.

Miliband, R. (1969) The State in Capitalist Society. New York: Basic Books.

Mill, J.S (1977) ‘Consideration on Representative Government.’ In Collective Writings, Volume XIX, Robson, J.M. (ed.), London: Routledge and Keagan Paul.

Mill, J.S. (1865) Auguste Comte and Positivism. Free e-books https://books.google.co.za/books?id=HvQGAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed 25 April 2015)

Miller, D. (1996) ‘The ambiguities of popular participation in development: A South African case study.’ Paper presented at the ACDESS Workshop, ‘South African within Africa: Emerging policy frameworks’, Berea, Johannesburg

Mills, C.W. (1959) The Sociological Imagination. Oxford University Press.

Mining Prospectus (2013) ‘Pending Decision to Close Several Mine Shafts: Amplats Mine Closures to Create Devastating Consequences for SMEs.’ February 4. http://www.miningprospectus.co.za/articles/pending-decision-to-close-several-mine-shafts- 4386.html (accessed 3 May 2015)

385

Miraftab, F. (2004) ‘Invited and Invented Spaces of Participation: Neoliberal Citizenship and Feminists’ Expanded Notion of Politics.’ Wagadu, Volume 1, pp. 1–7.

Miraftab, F. (2003) ‘The Perils of Participatory Discourse: Housing Policy in Postapartheid South Africa.’ Journal of Planning and Education Research, Volume 22, Number 3, pp. 226– 239.

Miraftab, F. and S. Willis (2005) ‘Insurgency and Spaces of Active Citizenship: The Story of Western Cape Anti-eviction Campaign in South Africa.’ Journal of Planning Education and Research, 25, pp. 200–217.

Misselhorn, M (2009) ‘A New Response to Informal Settlements.’ Transformer, Volume 15, Number 6, pp. 16–19.

Misselhorn, M. (2008) ‘Position paper on informal settlement upgrading. Part of a strategy for the second economy.’ Office of the South African Presidency, Cape Town: Urban LandMark.

Mnaba, V.M. (2006) ‘The Role of the Church towards the Pondo Revolt in South Africa from 1960-1963.’ Master of Arts thesis, University of South Africa, Pretoria.

Molyneux, J. (1995) ‘Is Marxism Deterministic?’ International Socialism, 2:68, Autumn https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/molyneux/1995/xx/determin.htm (accessed 3 May 2013)

John Molyneux, J. (1983) What is the real Marxist tradition? London: Bookmarks http://www.marxisme.dk/arkiv/molyneux/realmarx/ (accessed 4 May 2013)

Moodie, D. with V. Ndatshe (1994) Going for Gold: Men, Mines and Migration. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

Moore, B. (1966) Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. London: Penguin Books.

Moore, S.F. (1986) Social Facts and Fabrications: Customary Law on Kilimanjaro 1880- 1980. Cambridge: University Press.

Moroke, T.P. (2009) ‘An Analysis of the Housing Need in South Africa with Special References to the North West Province.’ Master of Science (Planning) dissertation,

386

Potchefstroom: North-West University http://dspace.nwu.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10394/4911/moroke_tp.pdf;jsessionid=5DAB68B4 36F02CFF6FB56F4C41B619FD?sequence=1 (accessed 3 May 2013)

Morris, L. (1994) Dangerous Class: The Underclass and Social Citizenship. London: Routledge.

Morris, P. (1981) A History of Black Housing in South Africa. Johannesburg: South Africa Foundation.

Moser, C., and D. Satterthwaite (2008) ‘Towards Pro-poor Adaptation to Climate Change in the Urban Centres of Low-and Middle-income Countries.’ Paper presented at World Bank’s Social Development Department Workshop on the “Social Dimensions of Climate Change” held on 5 and 6 March 2008 at the World Bank, Washington, Global Urban Research Centre, International Institute for Environment and Development.

Mosha, A.C. (1995) ‘The Global Context of Housing Poverty.’ In Aldrich, B.C. and R.S.

Mosiane, B. (2011) ‘Livelihoods and the Transformative Potential of Cities: Challenges of Inclusive Development in Rustenburg, North West Province, South Africa.’ Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, Volume 32, Number 1, pp. 38–52.

Mosoetsa, S. (2011) Eating from One Pot: The Dynamics of Survival in Poor South African Households. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.

Moss, V. (2008) Housing Finance Systems in South Africa. Nairobi: United Nations Human Settlements Programme.

Mottiar, S. and P. Bond (2012) ‘The Politics of Discontent and Social Protest in Durban.’ Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies, Volume 39 Number 3, pp. 309–330.

Municipal IQ (2012) ‘2012: A Record High in Service Delivery Protests (Already).’ Press Release, August 6 www.municipaliq.co.za/publications/.../201208061008296873.docx (accessed 3 May 2014)

Murray, M.J. (1994) The Revolution Deferred. London: Verso.

Mwakikagile, G. (2010) Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era. Dar es Salaam: New Africa Press.

387

Nabudere, D.W. (2006) ‘The Developmental State, Democracy and the Global Society in Africa.’ Paper for DBSA/HSRC/Wits NEPAD Conference: Investment Choices for Education In Africa, Johannesburg, September 19-21.

Ndhlovu, P. (2015) ‘Understanding the Local State, Service Delivery and Protests in Post- Apartheid South Africa: The case of Duncan Village and Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, East London.’ Master of Arts in Industrial Sociology, Sociology Department, University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg.

Ndletyana, M. (1998) ‘Changing Role of Civic Organisations from the Apartheid to the Post- apartheid Era: A Case Study of the ACO.’ Master of Arts dissertation, Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand.

Neocosmos, M. (2009) “South Africa: Attacks on Shackdwellers - A Failure of Citizenship?” Pambazuka, Issue 461, 10 December http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/60925 (accessed 3 July 2015)

Ness, I. (2016) Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class. London: Pluto Press.

Ness, I. and D. Azzellini (2011) Ours to Master and to Own: Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present. Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Ngcaba, C.M. (2014) May I Have This Dance. Cape Town: Face2Face.

Ngwane, T. (2016) ‘South Africa: The State of the Movement.’ The Brooklyn Rail, New York, March 4 http://www.brooklynrail.org/2016/03/field-notes/south-africa-state-of-the- movement (accessed 5 April 2016)

Ngwane, T. (2015) ‘Against All Odds: The “Spirit of Marikana” and the Resurgence of the Working-Class Movement in South Africa.” Paper presented at the Twentieth International Conference on Alternative Futures and Popular Protest, Manchester Metropolitan University, 30th March-1st April.

Ngwane, T. (forthcoming) ‘Amakomiti’ as ‘Democracy on the Margins’: Popular Committees in South Africa’s Shanty Towns.’ (forthcoming in the Journal of Southern African Studies).

388

Ngwane, T. (2012) ‘Labour Strikes and Community Protests: Is There a Basis for Unity in Post-Apartheid South Africa?’ In Dawson, M. and L. Sinwell, Contesting Transformation: Popular Resistance in 21st Century South Africa, London: Pluto Press.

Ngwane, T. and N. Vilakazi (2010) ‘Social Movement Responses to the Xenophobia: A Case Study of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, the Anti-Privatisation Forum and the Campaign Against Xenophobia’. In Everett, D., South African Civil Society and Xenophobia: Case Studies and Synthesis Reports, The Atlantic Philantrophies, Strategy and Tactics, Johannesburg.

Ngwane, T. (2005) ‘Response to Comrade Oupa’s Paper on COSATU, the “New UDF” and the Social Movements.’ DEBATE listserve, September 20.

Nieftagodien, N. (2015) ‘Vaal Squatters in the 1940s: Occupiers, Speculators and Eye of the City.’ Paper presented at the Uhuru Seminar in March, Johannesburg: History Workshop.

Nin, A. (1932) ‘The Soviets: Their Origin, Development and Functions.’ Libcom.org. https://libcom.org/library/soviets-their-origin-development-functions-andreu-nin (accessed 3 May 2015)

Nkrumah, K. (1967) ‘African Socialism Revisited.’ Paper read at the Africa Seminar, Problems of Peace and Socialism, held in Cairo, published by Peace and Socialism Publishers, Prague.

Nkrumah, K. (1965) Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons.

Nolutshungu, S. (1982) Changing South Africa: Political Considerations. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Nthambeleni, N.B. (2008) ‘The South African National Civic Organisation: A Two-Tiered Social Movement.’ Doctor of Philosophy thesis, Johannesburg: University of Johannesburg.

Nyar, A. and C. Wray (2012) ‘Understanding Protest Action: Some Data Collection Challenges for South Africa.’ Transformation, Number 80, pp. 22–43.

Nyerere, J. (1967) The Arusha Declaration. Dar es Salaam: Tanganyika African National Union.

389

Nzimande, B. and M. Sikhosana (1992a) ‘Civil society and democracy.’ African Communist, Number 128, First quarter.

Nzimande, B. and M. Sikhosana (1992b) ‘Civil society does not equal democracy.’ Work in Progress, September.

Nzimande, B. and M. Sikhosana (1991) ‘Civics are part of the National Democratic Revolution.’ Mayibuye, June.

Oldfield, S. (2008) ‘Participatory Mechanisms and Community Politics: Building Consensus and Conflict.’ In: Mirjam, V.D., Swilling, M., Pieterse, E. and S. Parnell (Eds.), Consolidating Developmental Local Government: Lessons from the South African Experience, Cape Town: UCT Press, pp.487–500.

Owen, R. (1816) A New View of Society: First Essay. Marxists Internet Archive https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/owen/ch01.htm (accessed 3 May 2014)

Parthajee, C. (2004) The Politics of the Governed. New York: Columbia University Press.

Patel, S. and D. Mitlin (2004) ‘Grassroots-driven Development: The Alliance of SPARC, the National Slum Dwellers Federation and Mahila Milan.’ In Mitlin, D. and D. Satterthwaite (Ed.), Empowering Squatter Citizen: Local Government, Civil Society and Urban Poverty Reduction, London: Earthscan.

Pedler, A. (1927) ‘Going to the People. The Russian Narodniki in 1874-5.’ The Slavonic Review, Volume 6, Number 16, pp. 130–141.

Pelser, E., Schnetler, J. and A. Louw (2002) ‘Not Everybody’s Business: Community Policing in the SAPS’ Priority Areas.’ ISS Monograph,71, Pretoria: Institute of Security Studies. https://www.issafrica.org/pubs/Monographs/No71/Content.HTML (accessed 4 July 2014)

Phalatse, S. (2000) ‘From Industrialization to De-industrialization in the Former Homelands: The Case of Mogwase, North-West.’ Urban Forum, 11, pp. 149–61.

Pieterse, E. (2008) City Futures: Confronting the Crisis of Urban Development. Cape Town: UCT Press.

390

Piketty, T. (2014) Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Pillay, D. (2011) ‘The Tripartite Alliance and its Discontents: Contesting the ‘National Democratic Revolution’ in the Zuma Era’. In Daniel J. et al. New South African Review 2, New Paths, Old Compromises, Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

Pillay, D. (1990) ‘The Communist Party and the trade unions.’ South African Labour Bulletin, Volume 15, Number 3, pp. 19–27.

Pingo, N. (2013) ‘Institutionalisation of a Social Movement: The Case of Thembelihle, the Thembelihle Crisis Committee and the Operation Khanyisa Movement and the Use of the Brick, the Ballot and the Voice.’ Master of Science dissertation, Development Planning, Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand.

Piper, L. and R. Deacon (2008) ‘Party Politics, Elite Accountability and Public Participation: Ward Committee Politics in the Msunduzi Municipality.’ Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa, Number 66/67.

Pithouse, R. (2014) ‘The Shack Settlement as a Site of Politics: Reflections from South Africa.’ Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Volume 3, Number 2, pp. 179–201.

Pithouse, R. (2013) ‘Conjunctural Remarks on the Political Significance of “The Local.”’ Sage, Volume115, Number 1, pp. 95–111.

Pithouse, R. (2010) ‘Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Popular Struggle for the Right to the City in Durban, South Africa.’ http://base.d-p-h.info/en/fiches/dph/fiche-dph-8418.html (accessed 3 May 2013)

Pithouse, R. (2008) ‘A Politics of the Poor: Shack Dwellers’ Struggles in Durban.’ Journal of Asian and African Studies, vol 43, Number 1, pp. 63–94.

Pithouse, R., (2007) ‘The University of Abahlali baseMjondolo’. Voices of resistance from occupied London, 2 (October), 17–20. Website version http://abahlali.org/node/2814/ (accessed 3 July 2013)

Pithouse, P. (2006) ‘“Our Struggles is Thought, On the Ground, Running”: The University of Abahlali baseMjondolo.’ Centre for Civil Society Research Report Number 40, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.

391

Pithouse, R. (2005) ‘The Left in the Slum: The Rise of a Shack Dwellers’ Movement in Durban, South Africa.’ History and African Studies Seminar, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 23 November.

Pithouse, R. (2004) ‘Solidarity, Co-option and Assimilation: The Necessity, Promises and Pitfalls of Global Linkages for South African Movements.’ Development Update, Volume 5, Number 3, pp. 169–199.

Platzky, L. and C. Walker (1985) The Surplus People: Forced Removals in South Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan.

Piven, F.F. and R. Cloward (1977) Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Pantheon books.

Pons-Vignon, N. and A. Segatti (2013) ‘The Art of Neoliberalism’: Accumulation, Institutional Change and Social Order since the End of Apartheid.’ Review of African Political Economy, Volume 40, Number 138, pp. 507–518.

Popper, K. (1959) The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson.

Posel, D. (1987) ‘Influx Control and the Construction of Apartheid, 1948–1961.’ PhD thesis, Oxford Universiity.

Posner, R. (2009) A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depression. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Proudhon, P. (1989) General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century. London: Pluto Press.

Purcell, M. (2002) ‘Excavating Lefebvre: The Right to the City and its Urban Politics of the inhabitant.’ GeoJournal, Volume 58, Number 2, pp. 99–108.

Rabaka, R. (2011) ‘Revolutionary Fanonism: On Frantz Fanon’s Modification of Marxism and Decolonization of Democratic Socialism.’ Socialism and Democracy, Volume25, Number1, March, pp.126–145.

Rahman, A. (1993) People’s Self-Development: Perspectives on Participatory Action Research, a Journey through Experience. London: Zed Books

Rakodi, C. (1995) ‘Poverty Lines or Household Srategies? A Review of Conceptual Issues in the Study of Urban Poverty.’ Habitat International, Volume 19, Number 4, pp. 407–26.

392

Ramaraju, S. (2012) ‘Psychological Perspectives on Interpersonal Communication.’ Journal of Arts, Science & Commerce, Volume 3, Number 4, pp. 6 –73 http://www.researchersworld.com/vol3/issue4/vol3_issue4_2/Paper_09.pdf (accessed 3 June 2014)

Ramphele, M. (1993) A Bed Called Home: Life in the Migrant Labour Hostels. Cape Town, David Philip.

Reed, J. (1919) Ten Days that Shook the World. PDF e-books http://www.pdfbooks.co.za/library/JOHN_REED- TEN_DAYS_THAT_SHOOK_THE_WORLD.pdf (accessed 3 May 2013)

Rees, R. (1992) ‘More Workers’ Control Needed.’ South African Labour Bulletin, Volume 16, Number 7, pp. 56–57.

Research Chair for Social Change (2014) ‘Rebellion of the Poor Protest Monitoring Data Base.’ University of Johannesburg: Research Chair for Social Change.

Roelofs, H.M. (1998) ‘Democratic Dialectics.’ The Review of Politics, Volume 60, pp. 5–29.

Rose, J. (2015) ‘Luxemburg, Müller and the Berlin Workers’ and Soldiers’ councils.’ International Socialism, Issue Number 147.

Rosengarten, F. (n.d.) ‘An Introduction to Gramsci's Life and Thought.’ Sociology Department, Queens College of the City of New York https://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/intro.htm (accessed 3 May 2013)

Rosenthal, K. (2010) ‘New social movements as civil society: The case of past and present Soweto.’ In Beinart, W. and M.C. Dawson (Eds.), Popular Politics and Resistance Movements in South Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

Ross, K. (2015) Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune. London: Verso.

Roy, A. (2011) ‘Slumdog Cities: Rethinking Subaltern Urbanism.’ International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 35, Number 2, pp. 223–238.

393

Runciman, C. (2012) ‘Mobilisation and Insurgent Citizenship of the Anti-Privatisation Forum, South Africa: An Ethnographic Study.’ Doctor of Philosophy thesis, Glasgow: University of Glasgow.

Runciman, C. (2011) ‘Questioning Resistance in Post-Apartheid South Africa: A Response to Luke Sinwell.’ Review of African Political Economy, Volume 38, Number 130, pp. 607–614.

Runciman, C., Ngwane, T. and P. Alexander (2012) ‘A Protest Analysis of South Africa’s Rebellion of the Poor: Some Initial Results.’ Paper presented at the SASA conference, University of Cape Town, July 1–4.

Rustow, D.A. (1970) ‘Transitions to Democracy: Towards a Dynamic Model.’ Comparative Politics, Volume 2, Number 3, pp. 337–367.

SACP (South African Communist Party (1962) The Road to South African Freedom. Johannesburg: SACP http://marxists.org/history/international/comintern/section/sacp/1962/road-freedom.htm (accessed 3 May 2015)

Sahle, E.N. (2010) World Orders, Development and Transformation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Said, E. (1995) Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. London: Penguin Books.

Sapire, H. (1992) ‘Politics and Protest in Shack Settlements of the Pretoria-Witwatersrand- Vereeniging Region, South Africa, 1980-1990.’ Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 18, Issue 3, September, pages 670–697.

Sapire, H.J. (1988) ‘African Urbanisation and Struggles against Municipal Control in Brakpan, 1920-1958.’ Ph.D. dissertation, Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand.

Sapire, H. and J. Beall (1995) ‘Introduction: Urban Change and Urban Studies in Southern Africa.’ Journal of Southern African Studies: Special Issue: Urban Studies and Urban Change in Southern Africa, Volume 21, Number 1, March, pp. 1–17.

Saul, J. (2014) ‘The Transition: The Players Assemble, 1970-1990.’ In Saul, J. and P. Bond, South Africa: The Present as History, From Mrs Ples to Mandela & Marikana, Johannesburg: Jacana.

394

Saul, J. (2011) Liberation Lite: The Roots of Recolonization in Southern Africa. Trenton: Africa World Press.

Saul, J. and P. Bond (2014) South Africa: The Present as History, From Mrs Ples to Mandela & Marikana. Johannesburg: Jacana.

Saul, J. and S. Gelb (1981) The Crisis in South Africa: Class Defense, Class revolution. New York and London, Monthly Review Press.

Schecter, D. (1991) Gramsci and the Theory of Industrial Democracy. Aldershot, England: Averbury.

Schutz, W.C. (1958) The Interpersonal Underworld. Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behaviour Books.

Scott, J.C. (1998) Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Seekings, J. (2013) ‘In Defence of the “Underclass”: Social and Economic Disadvantage in South Africa.’ Paper presented at the Harvard African Studies Workshop, Harvard University, on the 7th October.

Seekings, J. (2003) ‘Do South Africa’s Unemployed Constitute an Underclass?’ Working paper 32, Centre for Social Science Research, University of Cape Town, March.

Seekings, J. (2000a) The UDF – A History of the United Democratic Front in South Africa 1983-1991. Cape Town: David Philip.

Seekings, J. (2000b) ‘The Development of Strategic Thought in South Africa’s Civic Movements, 1977 – 1990.’ In Adler, G. and J. Steinberg (Eds.), From Comrades to Citizens: The South African Civics Movement and the Transition to Democracy, London: MacMillan.

Seekings, J. (2000c) ‘After Apartheid: Civic Organizations in the “New” South Africa.’ In Adler, G. and J. Steinberg (Eds.), From Comrades to Citizens: The South African Civics Movement and the Transition to Democracy, London: MacMillan.

Seekings, J. & N. Nattrass (2005) Class, Race and Inequality in South Africa. New Haven: Yale University Press.

395

Sefalafala, T. and L. van der Walt (2015) ‘Building a Mass Anarchist Movement: The Example of Spain’s CNT.’ Zabalaza: Journal of Southern African Revolutionary Anarchism, Number 14 https://lucienvanderwalt.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/sefalafala-van-der-walt- building-mass-anarchist-movement.pdf (accessed 3 August 2015)

Segal, L. (1991) ‘The Human Face of Violence: Hostel dwellers speak.’ The Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 18, Number 1.

Schachtman, M. (1938) “Lenin and Luxemburg.” New International, Volume 4 Number 5, May, pp. 141–144 https://www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1938/05/len-lux.htm (accessed 2 May 2015)

Shanin, T. (1971) ‘Peasantry as a Political Factor.’ in Shanin, T. (Ed.), Peasants and Peasant Societies, New York: Penguin Books.

Shihade, M., Flesher, C.F. and L. Cox (2012) ‘The Season of Revolution: The Arab Spring and European mobilizations.’ Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements, Editorial, Volume 4, Number 1, May, pp. 1–16.

Shivambu, F. (2014) The Coming Revolution: Juluis Malema and the Fight for Economic Freedom. Johannesburg: Jacana.

Shivji, I.G. (2012) ‘Nationalism and Pan-Africanism: Decisive Moments in Nyerere's Intellectual and Political Thought.’ Review of African Political Economy, Volume 39, Number 131, pp. 103–116.

Shivji, I.G. (1995) ‘The Rule of Law and Ujamaa in the Ideological Formation of Tanzania’. Social & Legal Studies, Volume 4, Number 2), pp. 147–174.

Shivji, I.G. (1976) Class Struggles in Tanzania. London: Heinemann.

Shivji, I.G. (1973) ‘The Silent Class Struggle.’ In L. Cliffe and J. Saul (Eds.) Socialism in Tanzania: An Interdisciplinary Reader, vol 2. pp. 304–30, Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House.

Silk, A. (1981) A Shanty Town in South Africa: The Story of Modderdam. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

396

Simutanyi, N. (2006) ‘The State and Economic Development in Africa: Challenges for Post- Apartheid South Africa. Paper presented at the Harold Wolpe Memorial Trust Eastern Cape Lecture Series, East London, October 16 http://www.wolpetrust.org.za/dialogue2006/EC102006simutanyi_paper.pdf (accessed 3 May 2013)

Sinwell, L. (2015) ‘AMCU By Day, Workers’ Committee by Night: Insurgent Trade Unionism at Anglo Platinum (Amplats) Mine, 2012-2014.’ Review of African Political Economy, Volume 42, Number 146, pp. 591–605.

Sinwell, L. (2012a) ‘“Transformative Left-wing Parties” and Grassroots Organizations: Unpacking the Politics of “top-down” and “bottom-up” development.’ Geoforum, 43: 190- 198.

Sinwell, L. (2012b) ‘Sharpening the Weapons of the Weak: A Response to Carin Runciman.’ Review of African Political Economy, Volume 39, Number 134, pp. 672–681.

Sinwell, L. (2010) ‘Defensive Social Movements Battles Need to Engage with Politics.’ South African Labour Bulletin, Volume 34, Number 1, March/April.

Sinwell, L. (2009) ‘Participation as Popular Agency: The Limitations and Possibilities for Transforming Development in the Alexandra Renewal Project.’ PhD thesis, Johannesburg: University of the Witswatersrand, July.

Sinwell, L. with S. Mbatha (2016) “The Spirit of Marikana”: The Rise of Insurgent Trade Unionism in South Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

Sinwell, L., Kirshner, J., Khumalo, K., Manda, O., Pfaffe, P., Phokela, C., and C. Runciman (2009). Service delivery protests: Findings from quick response research on four ‘hot- spots’—Piet Retief, Balfour, Thokoza, Diepsloot. Johannesburg: Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg.

Sisulu, L. (2005) ‘Speech by LN Sisulu, Minister of Housing, at the Occasion of the Tabling of the Budget Vote for the Department of Housing for the 2005/06 Financial Year, National Assembly, Cape Town, May 17.’ Pretoria: Ministry of Housing http://www.info.gov.za/speeches/2005/05051715451004.htm (accessed 5 May 2014)

Sitas, A. (1997) ‘The Waning of Sociology in South Africa.’ Society in Transition 28:12–19.

397

Sithole, P. (2002) ‘Defining the Meeting Zone: Institutional and Community Imperatives Regarding the Informal Sector in Durban.’ In Bouillon, A., Freund, B., Hindson, D. and B. Lootvoet (eds.) Governance, Urban Dynamics and Economic Development: A Comparative Analysis of the Metropolitan Areas of Durban, Abidjan and Marseilles, Durban: Plumbline.

Skocpol, T. (1979) States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China. Cambridge: University Press.

Slovo, J. (1996) Slovo: The Unfinished Autobiography. Randburg: Ravan.

Smith, A. (1778). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations 2 (2nd edition). London: Methuen and Company http://lf-oll.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/237/0206- 01_Bk.pdf (accessed 3 May 2013)

Smith, W.E. Nyerere of Tanzania: The First Decade 1961-1971. Harare: African Publishing Group.

Smith, T. (2008) ‘The role of ward committees in enhancing participatory local governance and development in South Africa: Evidence from six ward committee case studies.’ University of the Western Cape, Cape Town: Community Law Centre.

Soja, E. (2000) Postmetropolis. Blackwell: MA, Malden.

Southall, R. (2013) Liberation Movements in Power: Party and State in Southern Africa. Woodbridge: James Currey.

Spalding, N. (1996) ‘The Tanzanian Peasant and Ujamaa: A Study in Contradictions.’ Third World Quarterly, Volume 17, Number 1, pp. 89–108 http://ftxt.eurekamag.com/002/002978591.pdf (accessed 3 May 2015)

Spivak, G.C. (1988) ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ In Nelson, C. and L. Grossberg (Eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Basingstoke: MacMillan Education, pp. 271–313.

Stadler, A.W. (1979) ‘Birds in the Cornfield: Squatter Movements in Johannesburg, 1944- 1947.’ Journal of Southern African Studies, Special Issue on Urban Social History, October, Volume 6, Number 1, pp. 9–123.

Standing, G. (2011) The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: Bloomsbury.

398

Stanwix, B. and C. Van Der Westhuizen (2012) ‘Predicted Poverty Impacts of Expanding the Community Work Programme in South Africa: An Analysis of Income Poverty and Inequality.’ Development Policy Research Unit, University of Cape Town, commissioned by the Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies.

Stapleton, T.J. (1994) Maqoma - Xhosa Resistance to Colonial Advance. Cape Town: Jonathan Ball

Stiglitz, J. (2010) Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Suranovic, S. (2010) ‘Greed, Capitalism and the Financial Crisis.’ Institute for International Economic Policy Working Paper Series, Elliot School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, New York.

Sutherland, C., Braathen, E., Dupont, V. and D. Jordhus-Lier (2015) ‘Policies Towards Substandard Settlements.’ In V. Dupont (Eds.), The Politics of Slums in the Global South: Urban Informality in Brazil, India, South Africa and Peru. London: Routledge.

Sylla, N.S. (2014) Liberalism and its Discontents: Social Movements in West Africa. Dakar: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers (2011) No land! No house! No vote! Voices from Symphony Way. Cape Town: Pambazuka Press.

Tabata, I. (1974) The Awakening of a People. Nottingham: Russell Press.

Tarrow, S. (1994) Power in Movement: Collective Action, Social Movements and Politics, Cambridge University Press.

Terreblanche, S. (2012) Lost in Transformation: South Africa’s Search for a New Future since 1986. Johannesburg: KMM Review Publishing Company.

Thomas, P.D. (2009) The Gramcian Moment: Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism. Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Thompson, E.P. (1980) The Making of the English Working Class. London: Penguin Books.

399

Thorn, J. and S. Oldfield (2011) ‘A Politics of Land Occupation: State Practice and Everyday Mobilization in Zille Raine Heights, Cape Town.’ Journal of Asian and African Studies, Volume 46, Number 5, pp. 518–530.

Tilly, C. (1993-4), 'Social Movements as Historically Specific Clusters of Political Performances.' Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 38, pp.1 –30.

Tissington, K. (2011) ‘A Resource Guide to Housing in South Africa 1994-2010: Legislation, Policy, Programmes and Practice.’ Johannesburg: Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa.

Todd, M.J and G. Taylor (2004) Democracy and Participation: Popular Protest and New Social Movements. London: Merlin Press.

Toussaint, E. (2003) Your Money or Your Life: The Tyranny of Global Finance. London: Pluto Press.

Trotsky, L. (2008) History of the Russian Revolution. In one volume. Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Trotsky, L. (2005) The Permanent Revolution and Results and Prospects. Delhi: Aakar Books.

Trotsky, L. (2004) ‘The Russian Populists - Advancing Through Heroism and Agony.’ In: The Roots of Bolshevism, Workers’ Liberty http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2004/05/22/trotsky-russian-populists-advancing- through-heroism-and-agony Accessed 4 December 2014.

Trotsky, L. (1975) The Challenge of the Left Opposition 1923-1925. New York: Pathfinder.

Trotsky, L. (1972) The New Course. London: New Park Publications.

Trotsky, L. (1971) 1905. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Trotsky, L. (1938) The Transitional Programme (The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International). Marxists Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/transprogram.pdf Accessed 3 March 2015.

400

Trotsky, L. (1937) The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and Where is it Going? Marxists Internet Archive https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/pdf/revbetray.pdf (accessed 3 July 2014)

Trotsky, L. (1933) History of the Russian Revolution. Three volumes. London: Victor Gollancz.

Trotsky, L. (1904) Our Political Tasks. Marxist internet archive. https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1904/tasks/

Trudell, M. (2007) ‘Gramsci: the Turin years.’ International Socialism, Issue Number 114, April 9 http://isj.org.uk/gramsci-the-turin-years/ (accessed 3 May 2014)

Tselapedi, T. and J. Dugard (2013) ‘Reclaiming Power: A Case Study of the Thembelihle Crisis Committee.’ In GGLN (Good Governance Learning Network), Active Citizenship Matters, Cape Town.

Tshikotshi, V. (2009) ‘The Challenges of Eradicating Informal Settlements in South Africa by 2014. The Case of Seraleng Sustainable Human Settlement, Rustenburg Local Municipality, North West Province.’ Master of Science in Housing thesis, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Tutu, D. (1999) No Future Without Forgiveness. London: Rider.

Usmani, A. (2013) ‘Marxism and Subaltern Studies: Review.’ Against The Current, July/August.

Vally, N. (2009) ‘National trends around protest action: mapping protest action in South Africa’. Johannesburg: Centre for Sociological Research and Development Studies seminar, University of Johannesburg.

Van Binsbergen, W. and P. Geschiere (Ed.) (1985) Old Modes of Production and Capitalist Encroachment: Anthropological Explorations in Africa. New York: Routledge.

Van der Walt, L. and M. Schmidt (2009) Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism (Counter-Power Volume 1). Oakland: AK Press.

Van Kessel, I. (2000) ‘Beyond our Wildest Dreams’: The United Democratic Front and the Transformation of South Africa. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

401

Van Niekerk, S. (1998) ‘Privatization: A working alternative.’ SA Labour Bulletin, Volume 22, Number 5, pp. 24–27.

Vickers, J. and V. Wright (Eds.) (1989) The Politics of Privatisation in Europe. London: Frank Cass and Company Limited.

Von Holdt, K. (2000) ‘From the Politics of Resistance to the Politics of Reconstruction; The Union and “Ungovernability” in the Workplace. In Adler, G. and E. Webster, Trade Unions and Democratization in South Africa, 1985-1997, London: McMillan Press.

Von Holdt, K., Langa, M., Molapo, S., Mogapi, N. Ngubeni, K. Dlamini, J. and A. Kirsten (2011) ‘The Smoke that Calls: Insurgent Citizenship, Collective Violence, and the Struggle for a Place in the New South Africa.’ Johannesburg: Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation and Society Work and Development Institute. Available at www.swopinstitute.org.za.

Von Kessel, I. (2000) ‘Beyond Our Wildest Dreams’: The United Democratic Front and the Transformation of South Africa. Chalottsville: University Press of Virginia.

Wacquant, L. (2008) Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Wallis, V. (2011) ‘Workers’ Control and Revolution.’ In Ness, I. and D. Azzellini (Eds.) Ours to Master and to Own: Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present, Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Weber, M. (1949) The Methodology of the Social Sciences. (Translated and Edited by Shils, E.A, and H.A. Finch) Glencoe: Free Press. https://archive.org/stream/maxweberonmethod00webe/maxweberonmethod00webe_djvu.txt (accessed 3 July 2013 )

Webster, E. (2004) ‘Sociology in South Africa: Its Past, Present and Future.’ Society in Transition, Volume 35, Number 10, pp. 27–41.

Webster, E. (1985) Cast in a Racial Mould: Labour Process and Trade Unionism in the Foundries. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

Weeks, J. (2012) ‘Dependency Theory.’ In In Fine, B. and A. Saad-Filho (Eds.), The Elgar Companion to Marxist Economics, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

402

Welshman, J. (2006) Underclass: A history of the Excluded, 1880–2000. London: Hambledon Continuum.

White, C.S. (2008) ‘The Rule of Brigadier Oupa Gqozo in Ciskei: 4 March 1990 to 22 Marh 1994.’ Master of Arts thesis, Rhodes University, Grahamstown.

White, F. (2007) ‘Social Movements in South Africa: The Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee.’ In Polet, F. (Ed.) The State of Resistance: Popular Struggles in the Global South, London: Zed Books.

Williams, M. (2008) The Roots of Participatory Democracy: Democratic Communists in South Africa and Kerala, India. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wiredu, K. (1991) “On Defining African Philosophy.” In Tsenay Serequeberhan (Ed.), African Philosophy: The Essential Readings, New York: Paragon House.

Wolf, E.R. (1987) Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century. Norman, UK: University of Oklahoma.

Wolf, E. (1982) Europe and the People Without History. San Diego: University of California Press.

Wolfreys, J. (2000) ‘In defence of Marxism: A review of Georg Lukács, A Defence of 'History and Class Consciousness.' International Socialism, Issue 86, Spring http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj86/wolfreys.htm (accessed 3 May 2003)

Wolpe, H. (1988) Race, Class and the Apartheid State. London: UNESCO/James Currey.

Wolpe, H. (1972) ‘Capitalism and Cheap Labour in South Africa: From Segregation to Apartheid.’ Economy and Society, Volume 1, Number 4, pp. 425–456.

Woodcock, G. (1975) Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Wright, E.O. (2010) Envisioning Real Utopias. London: Verso.

Yin, R. (1984) Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.

Zavala, M. (2013) ‘What do we Mean by Decolonizing Research Strategies? Lessons from Decolonizing, Indigenous Research Projects in New Zealand and Latin America.’

403

Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society, Volume 2, Number 1, pp. 55–71 file:///C:/Users/sarchi4/Downloads/19113-45989-1-PB%20(2).pdf (accessed 3 May 2014)

Zeilig, L. (2016) Frantz Fanon: Militant Philosopher of Third World Liberation. London: I.B. Tauris.

Zeilig, L. and C. Ceruti (2007) ‘Slums, Resistance and the African Working Class.’ International Socialism, Issue Number 117 http://isj.org.uk/slums-resistance-and-the-african- working-class/ (accessed 3 May 2014)

Zeilig, L., Seddon, D. and P. Dwyer (2007) ‘An epoch of uprisings: Social movements in post-colonial Africa’. Paper presented at the Fourth Historical Materialism Annual Conference, at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, November 9–11.

Zikode, S. (2006) ‘We are the Third Force’. http://abahlali.org/node/17 (accessed 3 August 2013)

Zuern, E. (2006) ‘Elusive boundaries: SANCO, the ANC and the post-apartheid South African state.’ In Ballard, R., Habib, A. and I. Valodia Voices of Protest: Social Movements in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal.

404

11.2 ARCHIVES, OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS, NEWSPAPER ARTICLES, ETC.

Abahlali baseMjondolo (2015) ‘Abablali baseMjondolo Statement on the Ongoing Xenophobic Attacks.’ Abahlali official website, April 14 http://abahlali.org/node/14685/ (accessed 5 October 2015)

Abahlali baseMjondolo (2009) ‘The ANC’s Coup in Kennedy Road.’ Press Statement. Politicsweb, October 7 http://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/the-ancs-coup-in- kennedy-road Accessed 3 May 2015 (accessed 4 September 2014)

Alexander, P. (2015) Personal communication with historical sociologist professor and supervisor, February 4.

Alexander, P. (2012) 'A Massive Rebellion of the Poor.' Mail and Guardian, April 13 http://mg.co.za/article/2012-04-13-a-massive-rebellion-of-the-poor (accessed 3 May 2013)

ANC (African National Congress) (2007) 52nd National Conference Resolutions. http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=2536 (accessed 3 June 2014)

ANC (African National Congress) (1994) Reconstruction and Development Programme, a Policy Framework. Johannesburg: UmanyaNumber

Bank, L. (2015) ‘Duncan Village hyper-ghetto.’ Despatch Live, July 2 http://www.dispatchlive.co.za/opinion/duncan-village-hyper-ghetto-2/ (accessed 3 August 2015)

Bokone Bophirima Province (North West) (2015) ‘Bokone Bophirima Province.’ Official website. http://www.nwpg.gov.za/nwglane.htm (accessed 3 May 2015)

Buffalo City (Metropolitan) Municipality (2015) ‘List of Ward Councillors.’ Official website. http://www.buffalocitymetro.gov.za/Municipality/List-of-all-Ward-Councillors (accessed 3 May 2015)

Buffalo City (Metropolitan) Municipality (2012) ‘Informal Settlement Programme: National Upgrading Support Programme (NUSP). Presentation to the Isandla Institute, October 18.

Buffalo City (Metropolitan) Municipality (2008) ‘Duncan Village Redevelopment Initiative Local Spatial Development Framework: Final Report Approved November 2009.’ East London: The Directorate of Planning & Economic Development, February.

405

Burgen, S. (2015) ‘Thomas Piketty: Rise of Anti-austerity Parties Good News for Europe.’ The Guardian, January 12 http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/12/thomas- piketty-austerity-europe-greece-spain (accessed 3 March 2015)

Callinicos, A. (2007) “Swelling Cities Of The Global South.” Socialist Worker, July 3.

COJ (City of Johannesburg) (2010) ‘Mpanza Gets Title Deed.’ Official website, June 2 http://joburg.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5254&catid=123&Ite mid=204 (accessed 3 July 2015)

City Press (2011) ‘Ten Years of Struggle.’ September 10 http://www.citypress.co.za/columnists/thembelihle-ten-years-of-struggle-20110910/ (accessed 3 May 2014)

COJ (City of Johanesburg) (2015) ‘The Making of Soweto.’ http://joburg.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=297&Itemid=51 (accessed 7 July 2015)

COJ (City of Johannesburg) (2003) The City of Johannesurg vs Occupiers of the Thembelihle Informal Settlement. Case Number 03/10106, Founding Affidavit. Johannnesburg High Court.

COJ (City of Johannesburg) (2010) ‘Peace Settling in Thembelihle’. http://www.joburg.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4892&catid=19 7&Itemid=344#ixzz2WNaU5JYf (accessed 3 June 2014)

CoGTA (Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs) (2009) ‘Government Notice: National Framework: Criteria for Determining Out of Pocket Expenses for Ward Committee Members.’ Pretoria: Government Printers.

CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) (n.d.) ‘Ventilated Improved Pit (VIP) toilet: A dry sanitation option.’ Johannesburg. http://www.csir.co.za/Built_environment/santechcentre/docs/VIP_info_sheet.pdf (accessed 3 June 2014)

Daily Maverick (2013) ‘The Tripartite Alliance is an Anachronism’. Staff Reporter, July 11 http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-07-11-the-tripartite-alliance-is-an-anachronism/ (accessed 3 August 2013)

406

De Wet, P. (2011) ‘The curious case of the apartheid dolomite.’ http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2011-09-16-the-curious-case-of-the-apartheid- dolomite/#.Ub3TxuenDtk (accessed 3 March 2014)

Donnelly, L. (2008) ‘Caught in Platinum’s Gleam.’ Mail and Guardian, June 29 http://mg.co.za/article/2008-06-29-caught-in-platinums-gleam (accessed 3 May 2015)

DVRA (Duncan Village Residents Association) (n.d.) ‘Model Houses at Toilet City.’ Community News: Newsletter of the Duncan Village Community, photographed from Comrade Anele’s private archive.

DVRA (Duncan Village Residents Association) SANCO Local (1993) ‘Siguquk’ inj’ ebomvu.’ Pamphlet calling for a march on 17 June, demanding houses and other basic services, photographed from Comrade Anele’s private archive.

DVRA (Duncan Village Residents Association) (1993) ‘Minutes of the Bebelele Branch Meeting.’ June 3 – November 8 (incomplete), read from informant’s private archive.

DVRA (Duncan Village Residents Association) (1995) ‘Minutes of the Newsletter Management Committee.’ Duncan Village Development Plan, held on April 4, photographed from informant’s private archive.

Evans, S. (2014) ‘Lonmin's Broken Promises: The Housing Deal that wasn't.’ Mail and Guardian online, October 2. http://mg.co.za/article/2014-10-02-lonmins-broken-promises- the-housing-deal-that-wasnt (accessed 2 July 2015)

Flores, R. (2014) ‘What Drives Gentrification?’ Socialist Worker, January 15 http://socialistworker.org/2014/01/15/what-drives-gentrification (accessed 5 January 2015)

Friedman, S. (2006) ‘Voices of the people, not party bosses, needed at local level.’ Business Day, January 30.

Gowa, M. (2013) ‘Man killed as BCM residents fight izinyoko’. Despatch Online, March 21 http://www.dispatch.co.za/news/man-killed-as-bcm-residents-fight-izinyoko/ (accessed 3 August 2013)

Groenwald, L. (2014) Personal communication with the urban studies sociologist conducting research in the informal settlements around Thembelihle. September 3.

407

Housing Development Agency (2013) ‘South Africa: Informal Settlements status.’ Research Report, The Housing Development Agency, Johannesburg: Killarney.

IDC (Industrial Development Corporation) (2015) ‘North West Province.’ Website http://www.idc.co.za/home/north-west/north-west-regional-director.html (accessed 3 May 2015)

Kaufman, J.E. (2007) ‘Sinkholes.’ U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Fact Sheet 2007–3060, July. http://www.dnr.mo.gov/geology/geosrv/envgeo/sinkholes.htm (accessed 4 June 2014)

Kay, C. and Y. Ibukun (2014) ‘Nigeria Housing Shortage Rising With Slum Demolition: Mortgages.’ Bloomberg Business, February 10 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-09/nigeria-housing-shortage-rising-with- slum-demolition-mortgages (accessed 2 May 2014)

Knysna Municipality (2012) ‘Constitution for ward councillors of the Knysna Municipality.’ Knysna: Kynsna Municipality. http://www.knysna.gov.za/wp- content/uploads/2012/12/Ward-Constituition.pdf (accessed 3 June 2014)

Lazonick, W. (2015) ‘To Boost Investment, End S.E.C. Rule That Spurs Stock Buybacks.’ The New York Times, March 6 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/09/14/pocketing-profits-or-reinvesting- them/to-boost-investment-end-sec-rule-that-spurs-stock-buybacks (accessed 22 March 2015)

Magubane, K. (2013) ‘Political Parties Talk Tough on Marikana, ANC Ahead of Elections.’ Business Day Live, September 13 http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/politics/2013/09/13/political-parties-talk-tough-on- marikana-anc-ahead-of-elections (accessed 2 August 2014)

Macleod, R. (2013) ‘Shack Dwellers Ready to Die for “Marikana” Land.’ In: eNews Channel Africa http://www.enca.com/south-africa/shack-dwellers-ready-die-marikana-land-cape-town (accessed 10 July 2013)

Mafisa, I. (2011) ‘Hell is better than living in Thembelihle, say residents’. The New Age http://www.thenewage.co.za/28482-22-53- Hell_is_better_than_living_in_Thembelihle,_say_residents (accessed 4 June 2015)

408

Malikane, C. (2012) ‘Wage subsidy has no empirical basis for SA.’ Sunday Independent, June 17 http://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/wage-subsidy-has-no-empirical-basis-for- sa-1.1320680 (accessed 3 August 2013)

Mandela, N. (1997) ‘Address by President Nelson Mandela at Bleskop Stadium, Rustenburg.’ Mandela Speeches, South African Information Website http://www.mandela.gov.za/mandela_speeches/1997/971018_rustenburg.htm (accessed 3 May 2014)

Maruping, B., Mncube, Z. and C. Runciman (2014) ‘Rebellion of the Poor Quantitative Data Analysis Report.’ Unpublished internal report of the Research Chair for Social Change Protest Monitoring Project, University of Johannesburg.

Mbatha, S. (2014) Personal communication with Siphiwe Mbatha, organiser of TCC and former personal assistant to the OKM councillor, August 15.

Mbi, A. (2011) ‘Braelyn Extension: A Community in Crisis.’ Amandla, Issue Number 21, October http://www.wolpetrust.org.za/dialogue2011/amandla.pdf (accessed 3 July 2013)

News24 (2013) ‘Dolomite not an Excuse for Housing.’ February 28. http://www.news24.com/Green/News/Dolomite-not-an-excuse-for-housing-20130228 (accessed 3 May 2014)

News24 (2012) ‘Eastern Cape refugees in the Western Cape’. March 22 http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Eastern-Cape-refugees-in-the-Western-Cape-20120322 (accessed 3 August 2013)

Nicolson, G. (2015a) ‘South Africa: Where 12 million Live in Extreme Poverty.’ Daily Maverick, February 3 http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-02-03-south-africa- where-12-million-live-in-extreme-poverty/#.VjvSGbcrLIU (accessed 2 May 2015)

Nicolson, G. (2015b) ‘SAHRC: Let's Talk about Xenophobia.’ Daily Maverick, April 9 http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-04-09-sahrc-lets-talk-about- xenophobia/#.VkRm8LcrLIU (accessed 3 July 2015)

NUMSA (National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa) (2013a) ‘Resolutions of the 2013 Special National Congress.’ www.numsa.org.za (accessed 3 June 2014)

409

NUMSA (National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa) (2013b) ‘NUMSA Special National Congress Declaration.’ NUMSA website. http://www.numsa.org.za/wp- content/uploads/2013/12/SNC-Declaration-final-copy.pdf (accessed 3 July 2015)

Nyerere, J. (1962) ‘Speech in press briefing.’ Press Release, Tanganyika Information Service, January 23.

Public Protector RSA (2016) State of Capture. Report Number 6 of 2016/17. Pretoria: Government Printers.

Rhodes Must Fall (2015) ‘Right of Response – Careful, Rebecca Hodes, Your Colour is Showing.’ Daily Maverick, August 25. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-08-25- right-of-response-rhodesmustfall-careful-rebecca-hodes-your-colour-is-showing/#.Vj- 2OrcrLIU (accessed 3 September 2015)

RSA (Republic of South Africa) (2015) ‘Gauteng Cooperative Governance registers Thembelihle as housing project.’ South African Government Media Statements, April 28 http://www.gov.za/speeches/media-statement-special-freedom-day-people-thembelihle- government-registers-thembelihle (accessed 30 April 2015)

RSA (Republic of South Africa) (2005) Notice 965: Guidelines for the Establishment and Operation of Municipal Ward Committees. Pretoria: Government Printers.

RSA (Republic of South Africa) (2003) Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Amendment Act Number 31. Pretoria: Government Printers.

RSA (Republic of South Africa) (2000). Municipal Systems Act Number 32. Pretoria: Government Printers.

RSA (Republic of South Africa) (1996) Growth, Employment and Redistribution Programme. Department of Finance, Pretoria: Government Printers.

Ruiters, G. (2015) Comments made during Trevor Ngwane’s presentation titled ‘“Amakomiti” – The political economy of shantytown organising.’ In the Second panel on Problems and prospects for anti-capitalist resistance, World Conference of Political Economists, Chris Hani Institute, COSATU House, Johannesburg, June 19-21.

410

Rustenburg Local Municipality (2012) Plan for the Upgrading of Informal Settlements Over the Period 2012/13 – 2014/15: Aligned to Outcome 8 and the Land Audit Findings. Rustenburg: Gudhluza Development Solutions, October.

Rustenburg Local Municipality (2011) Housing Sector Plan for the Rustenburg Local Municipality (Draft). Rustenburg: UWP Consultants, November.

Rustenburg Local Municipality (2008) Procedure Manual for the Management and Control of Informal Settlements. Rustenburg: UWP Consulting.

Saba, A. and C. du Plessis (2013) ‘Key Marikana Witness Shot Dead.’ City_Press, May 12 2013 http://www.citypress.co.za/news/key-marikana-witness-shot-dead/ (accessed 3 August 2013)

SAHO (South African History Online) (2015a) ‘Indian Community in Lenasia.’ In Community Histories of Johannesburg. http://www.sahistory.org.za/indian-community- lenasia?page=10 (accessed 3 March 2015)

SAHO (South African History Online) (2015b) ‘Civic Organisations.’ In Liberation Organisations. http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/liberation-organisations (accessed 3 March 2015)

SAHO (South African History Online) (2015c) ‘The Khoikhoi.’ http://www.sahistory.org.za/people-south-africa/khoikhoi (accessed 3 March 2015)

SAHO (South African History Online) (2015d) ‘The First 1820 Settlers Arrive in South Africa.’ http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/first-1820-british-settlers-arrive-south-africa (accessed 3 March 2015)

SAHO (South African History Online) (2015e) ‘The Freedom Struggle in Rustenburg.’ http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/freedom-struggle-0 (accessed 3 March 2015)

SAHO (South African History Online) (2015f) ‘Sophiatown Timeline 1899-1955.’ http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/sophiatown-timeline-1899-1955 (accessed 3 March 2015)

SAHO (South African History Online) (2015g) ‘Xenophobic violence in democratic South Africa.’ http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/xenophobic-violence-democratic-south-africa (acceesed 3 March 2015)

411

SAPA (South African Press Association) (2014) ‘DA Signs Pace with KZN Landless People’. May 2. http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/da-signs-pact-with-kzn-landless-people- 1.1682799#.VIDoezGUcuc (accessed 3 August 2014)

SAPA (South African Press Association) (2013a) ‘Sexwale: Housing backlog at 2.1m”. News27, 6 July http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Sexwale-Housing-backlog-at- 21m-20130607 (accessed 3 August 2013)

SAPA (South African Press Association) (2013b) ‘Ex-mayor Loses Murder Appeal.’ News24, July 30.

SAPA (South African Press Association) (2012) ‘Mineworker Shot Dead in Nkaneng.’ Business Report, October 5 http://www.iol.co.za/business/companies/mineworker-shot- dead-in-nkaneng-1.1397092 (accessed 3 August 2013)

SARB (South African Reserve Bank) (2015) Glossary of terms. http://www2.resbank.co.za/internet/Glossary.nsf/0/9028ea9be02366d342256b43002f51f5?Op enDocument (accessed 6 June 2015)

SDI South African Alliance (Slum Dwellers International) (2015) ‘Informal Settlement Network.’ Official website brochure http://sasdialliance.org.za/about/isn/ (accessed 3 February 2015)

Segodi, S. (2014 and 2015) Personal communication with Siphiwe Segodi, ex-chairperson of TCC, current spokesperson and labour rights activist in Thembelihle, 8 May 2014, 6 August 2015.

Shatz, A. (2001) ‘“Frantz Fanon”: The Doctor Prescribed Violence.’ The New York Times, September 2 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/books/review/02SHATZTW.html?pagewanted=all (accessed 3 May 2015)

South African Government News Agency (2014) ‘Mixed Housing Plan for Dolomite Areas.’ September 8 http://sanews.gov.za/south-africa/mixed-housing-plan-dolomite-areas (accessed 3 October 2014)

StatsSA (Statistics South Africa) (2016) GHS Series Volume VII: Housing from a Human Settlement Perspective. Media Release, April 20 www.statssa.gov.za

412

StatsSA (Statistics South Africa) (2014) Mid-year Population Estimates. Pretoria: StatsSA.

StatsSA (Statistics South Africa) (2011a) Community Survey. Pretoria: StatsSA.

StatsSA (Statistics South Africa) (2011b) ‘Rustenburg (Key Statistics).’ Pretoria: StatsSA http://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=993&id=rustenburg-municipality Accessed 5 May 2015

StatsSA (Statistics South Africa) (2011c) Census 2011: Provinces at a glance. Pretoria: StatsSA http://www.statssa.gov.za/census/census_2011/census_products/Provinces%20at%20a%20gl ance%2016%20Nov%202012%20corrected.pdf (accessed 3 July 2013)

StatsSA (Statistics South Africa) (2011d) Census 2011: Statistical Release. Pretoria: StatsSA. http://www.statssa.gov.za/census/census_2011/census_products/Census_2011_Statistical%20 release.pdf (accessed 3 July 2013)

Suttner, R. (2014) ‘Loss of Trust and Legitimacy Lead to Ungovernability’. Daily Maverick, February 12. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-02-12-analysis-loss-of-trust-and- legitimacy-lead-to-ungovernability/#.VID10TGUc (accessed 5 December 2014)

TCC (Thembelihle Crisis Committee) (2013) Constitution of the Thembelihle Crisis Committee. Informant’s private archive.

TCC (Thembelihle Crisis Committee) (2012a) ‘Chairperson’s Report Prepared for the Annual General Meeting 14 July.’ Informant’s private archive.

TCC (Thembelihle Crisis Committee) (2012b) ‘Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on 14 July.’ Informant’s private archive.

Terblanche, S. (2012) ‘Municipal By-elections: Support Unchanged Except for Marikana.’ Leadership, November 20th http://www.leadershiponline.co.za/articles/municipal-by- elections-2012-3387.html (accessed 3 August 2013)

UPM (Unemployed Peoples’ Movement) (2012) ‘Submission of the Unemployed Peoples’ Movement to the Public Hearing on the Right to Sanitation and Basic Services (To the South African Human Rights Commission.’ Grahamstown, March 14 https://www.facebook.com/SouthAfricanNgoCoalitionWc/posts/360610130646455 (accessed 3 May 2013)

413

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) (2015) ‘Duncan Village: Provision of Sustainable Electrical Reticulation South Africa.’ MOST Clearing House: Best Practices http://www.unesco.org/most/africa12.htm (accessed 3 May 2014)

Webber Wentzel Bowens (2006) ‘Public Interest and Gender Law Department and Social Corporate Responsibility Annual Report.’ Johannesburg.

Zwane, S. (2016) Personal communication with Simphiwe Zwane, ex-councillor of the Operation Khanyisa Movement and current TCC committee member. September 20.

414

11. 3 INTERVIEWS

LIST OF CASE STUDY INTERVIEWS

Legend: D=Duncan Village, N=Nkaneng, T=Thembelihle

DUNCAN VILLAGE INTERVIEWS Interview Number 1D, community member and ex-DVRA committee member (male) 3 October 2013 Interview Number 2D, ward councillor and ex-DVRA committee member (male) 4 October 2013 Interview Number 3D, ANC Branch Executive and ANC Women’s League committee member 5 October 2013 Interview Number 4D, area committee member and ANC BEC member 5 October 2013 Interview Number 5D, area committee member, Duncan Village 6 October 2013 Interview Number 5D, community policing forum and ANC BEC member (female) 2 October 2013 Interview Number 6D, ANC ward councillor, Duncan Village (female) 25 February and 1 October 2013 Interview Number 8D, ward committee and area committee member (female) 2 October 2013 Interview Number 9D, ward committee member and ANC Youth League member 1 October 2013 Interview Number 10D group interview with seven residents (5 males and 2 females) 25 February 2013 Interview Number 11D, area committee member (male) 3 October 2013 Interview Number 12D, area committee member (female) 3 October 2013 Interview Number 13D, community member (female) 3 October 2013 NKANENG INTERVIEWS Interview Number 1N, Inkundla yaseLibode group interview (10 males and 2 females) 15 July 2013 Interview Number 2N, CPF committee member and ex-ward councillor (female) 7 July 2013 Interview Number 3N, community members group interview, founder members of Nkaneng community (2 females) 2 July 2013 Interview Number 4N, spaza shop owner, Mozambican national (male) 4 July 2013

415

Interview Number 5N, ex-CPF committee member, ward committee member, ANC committee member (male) 14 December and 2 July 2013 Interview Number 6N ANC committee member (male) 23 June 2013 Interview Number 7N, personal assistant to ward councilor, ex-ANC Youth League committee member (male) 25 June 2013 Interview Number 8N, ANC committee member (female) 16 July Interview Number 9N community member (female) 18 July Interview Number 10N community member (male) 4 July 2013 Interview Number 11N Inkundla yaseNgqeleni member (male) 18 July 2013 Interview Number 11N Inkundla yaseMqanduli member (male) 10 November 2013 Interview Number12N hostel committee member and AMCU shop steward (male) 17 July 2013 Interview Number 13N hostel manager/official (male) 17 July 2013 Interview Number 14N municipality housing official (male) 14 December 2012 Interview Number 15N ANC proportional representation councillor (female) 28 June July 2013 THEMBELIHLE INTERVIEWS Interview Number 1T, resident from the early days and ex-ANC committee member (female) 19 December 2013 Interview Number 2T, resident and member of early committees (male) 18 December 2013 Interview Number 3T, resident from the early days (male) 18 December 2013 Interview Number 4T, resident from the early days (female) 21 December 2013 Interview Number 5T, resident from the early days (male) 22 December 2013 Interview Number 6T, resident and TCC committee member (male) 18 December 2013 Interview Number 7T, group interview, residents of Thembelihle (2 females and 1 male) 5 January 2014 Interview Number 8T, TCC committee member (female) 5 January 2014 Interview Number 9T, community member, youth (female) 6 January 2014 Interview Number 10T, community member, youth (male) 6 January 2014

OBSERVATIONS Mqanduli and Xhoko inkundla meeting (Nkaneng) 10 November 2013

416

Electricity self-connection operation (Duncan Village) 30 September 2013 Electricity self-connection operation (Makause, Germistion) 24 January 2013 Community meeting discussing projects and employment opportunities (Duncan Village) 20 6 October 2013 Community meeting (Malinda Forest, East London) 24 February 2015 Ward councillor’s office daily operation and interaction with residents seeking help (Duncan Village) 1 October 2013 Ward councillor and public works programme office daily operation (morning shift) (Duncan Village) 7 October 2013 Councillor and ward committee office daily operations (Zwelitsha Rent Office) 22 February 2013 Guided tour by protest leader of vandalised municipal property due to protest (KwaNobuhle Township, Uitenhage) 19 February 2013 Visit to burnt down municipal property (Charlestown, KwaZulu-Natal) 7 February 2013

LIST OF OVERVIEW EXCURSION INTERVIEWS

(N.B. Names, contact details, audio recordings and photographs of most of the interviewees are available and kept at a safe place for confidentiality and ethical reasons)

Nu Description of interviewee Male or Date of Name of settlement Town or city mb female interview er 1 Headman committee member Male 4 Dec 2012 Top Village Mahikeng 2 Resident Female 4 Dec 2012 Top Village Mahikeng 3 Ward committee member Male 5 Dec 2012 Dinokana village Zeerust 4 People’s committee member Male 5 Dec 2012 Baipei - Ikageleng Zeerust township 5 Youth Female 5 Dec 2012 Ikageleng – Dinokana Zeerust village 6 People’s committee Female 6 Dec 2012 Siyahlala – occupied Vryburg member houses in Huhudi Ext. 25 7 People’s committee member Female 6 Dec 2012 Monomoto – Huhudi Vryburg Extension 26 8 People’s committee member Male 6 Dec 2012 Phola Park - Huhudi Vryburg 9 Headman committee member Male 10 Dec 2012 Mandela Park Mahikeng 10 People’s committee member Male 10 Dec 2012 Rooigrond Mahikeng 11 People’s committee member Male 11 Dec 2012 Rooikoppies - Rustenburg Marikana 12 Resident Male 11 Dec 2012 Yizo Yizo - Boitekong Rustenburg 13 People’s committee members 4 males 12 Dec 2012 Freedom Park Rustenburg (group) 2 females

417

14 Housing official Male 13 Dec 2012 Rustenburg Local Rustenburg Municipality 15 Ward committee member Male 14 Dec 2012 Nkaneng (Bleskop) - Rustenburg Marikana 16 Residents (group) 5 females 22 Jan 2013 Princess Roodepoort 17 People’s, ward and ANC 4 females 22 Jan 2013 Zenzele Randfontein committee members (group) 1 male 18 CPF member Female 22 Jan 2013 Zenzele Randfontein 19 People’s committee member Female 22 Jan 2013 Spooktown - Randfontein Bekkersdal 20 CDF member Male 23 Jan 2013 Makause Germiston 21 People’s committee member Male 23 Jan 2013 Tsakane Extension 10 Brakpan 22 People’s committee member Male 24 Jan 2013 Jeffsville - Pretoria Atteridgeville 23 ANC BEC member Male 24 Jan 2013 Itireleng - Laudium Pretoria 24 CDF members (group) 1 male 24 Jan 2013 Itireleng - Laudium Pretoria 1 female 25 CPF member Male 27 Jan 2013 Tamboville - Pietermaritzbu Glenwood rg 26 People’s committee member Male 27 Jan 2013 Nhlalakahle - Pietermaritzbu Northdale rg 27 Security worker – Female 28 Jan 2013 Bhambayi - Inanda Durban development project 28 CDF members 2 males 28 Jan 2013 Bhambabyi - Inanda Durban (Group) 29 People’s committee member Female 29 Jan 2013 Barcelona 1 - Durban Lamontville 30 Youth Female 1 Feb 2013 SASKO Ulundi

31 Ward committee member Female 3 Feb 2013 H39 - Madadeni Newcastle 32 Resident Female 3 Feb 2013 H39 - Madadeni Newcastle 33 CPF member Male 4 Feb 2013 Siyahlala (Dunusa) Newcastle 34 Resident Male 4 Feb 2013 Siyahlala (Dunusa) Newcastle 35 Residents, mostly youth 6 female 4 Feb 2013 eSiteshini - Ngagane Newcastle (group) 9 males 36 Resident Male 4 Feb 2013 eSiteshini – Ngagane Newcastle youth 37 Ex-people’s committee Male 4 Feb 2013 eSiteshini - Newcastle Newcastle member 38 People’s committee member Female 5 Feb 2013 eDlamini –Sibongile Dundee township 39 Resident Male 5 Feb 2013 KwaBoyana Vryheid 40 Public relations officer Female 6 Feb 2013 Amajuba Municipality Newcastle 41 Councillor (PR opposition Male 14 Feb 2013 Emfuleni Municipality Vanderbijlpark party) 42 Residents 3 females 14 Feb 2013 Sebokeng Zone 20 Vaal Phase 2 43 People’s committee member Male 17 Feb 2013 Vrygrond Graaff-Reinert 44 Resident (group) 2 females 18 Feb 2013 Chris Hani Somerset East 45 Resident Female 18 Feb 2013 Chris Hani Somerset East 46 Resident Female 18 Feb 2013 Zinyoka Somerset East 47 People’s committee member Female 18 Feb 2013 Mahlabathini - Port Elizabeth Motherwell

418

48 Residents (group) 14 19 Feb 2013 Ntswahlane – Uitenhage females KwaNobuhle township 1 male 49 People’s committee members 2 males 19 Feb 2013 Gunguluza - Uitenhage (group) 1 female kwaNobuhle township 50 Residents (group) 3 males 20 Feb 2013 Ramaphosa - New Port Elizabeth Brighton 51 Youth (group) 3 males 20 February G-West - Walmer Port Elizabeth 52 CPF member Male 24 Feb 2013 Malinda Forest East London 53 Ward committee member Female 24 Feb 2013 Cambridge East London 54 Ward councillor Female 25 Feb 2013 Duncan Village East London 55 Residents (group) 2 females 25 Feb 2013 Duncan Village East London 56 Residents (Group) 4 females 25 Feb 2013 Duma Nokwe B – East London 2 males Mdantsane 57 People’s committee member Female 25 Feb 2013 Duma Nokwe A - East London Mdantsane 58 ANC BEC member Male 26 Feb 2013 Orange Grove - West East London Bank 59 Resident Male 26 Feb 2013 Siyanda Butterworth 60 Residents (group) 3 males 27 Feb 2013 KwaS’gebenga Mthatha 2 females (Khayelitsha) – Ngcambedlana Farm 61 People’s committee members 2 females 27 Feb 2013 Thambula Phansi - Mthatha (group) Ngcambedlana Farm 62 Residents (group) 2 females 28 Feb 2013 Sibantubonke 63 Ward committee member female 10 Dec 2012 Imperial Reserve Mahikeng Township

419

MAPS

Map 1: Duncan Village location in relation to East London Central Business District. [Source: Buffalo City Municipality 2008]

420

Map 2: Duncan Village location in relation to Mdantsane township. [Source: Buffalo City Municipality: 2008]

Map 3: The different sections of Duncan Village. [Source: Buffalo City Municipality: 2008]

421

Map 4: Rustenburg showing its location in the North West Province [Source: Google Maps]

Map 5: Rustenburg City to the north and Nkaneng to the south and Marikana (site of the massacre) further east. [Source: Rustenburg Local Municipality, adapted by author]

422

Map 6: Nkaneng and Photsaneng separated by railway lines. The road D108 runs along the northern border of Nkaneng. The Bleskop Hostel which is shown as a rectangle to the south of Nkaneng. [Source: Rustenburg Local Municipality, adapted by author]

Map 7: Locating Thembelihle [Source Pingo 2013]

423

Map 8: Thembelihle and its relocation sites. [Source: Pingo 2013]

424