Democracy, Cities and Space
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Democracy, Cities and Space South African conceptions of local government Ivor Chipkin DEMOCR~CY, CITIES AND SPACE A dissertation submitted in the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, in the fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Political Studies. I declare that this dissertation is entirely my own work, and has not been submitted for any degree or examination at another university. Ivor Chipkin Johannesburg, 1997 l\egree awarded with distinotion on IO D?.dmbe:r: I998 DEMOCRACY, CITIES AND SPACE 2 Acknowledgments I have been looking forward to writing my thanks. There are many people I have reason to be immeasurably grateful to. I want to thank my remarkable, remarkable family and Katrin for the courage, love, hope and health they gave me. to my beautiful friends. to the nurses of the Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit and the High Care ward at the Milpark hospital, and to Dr. Snyckers to my supervisor Peter Hudson for inspiring me to the end to Steven Friedman and the staff of the Centre for Policy Studies to Professor Tom Lodgf; and the Political Studies Department _DEMOCRACY, CITIES AND SPACE 3 I would like to record my thanks to the Human Sciences Research Council for the grant that helped make this research possible DEMOCRACY, CITIES AND S,'-'PA:..;.C:::.;E=--__ . _ 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abbreviations ~ 6 Introduction 8 SECTION 1:One-city-one-tax-base 12 Local Government Negotiations 14 The Notion of Community 17 The Re-making afCommunily 19 The Theory of National Derr."cratic Revolution 21 The Notion of 'City' 22 ~~ct U Substitutions of the (Local) Subject 32 The State and Civil Society 36 Section 2: Theoretical legacies 39 Essentialism and National Democratic Revolution 42 Section 3: URBAN FORMs ON THE 'EAST RAND' . 52 A New Geographic Expression ~ 53 A Developmental City 63 A Metropolitan Structure for Boksburg, Alberton and Genniston 66 The Balanced City _ 70 A Shared Planning Vocabulary 75 The 'Complete' City 76 SECTION4: The Role of LOCAL GOVERNMENT 79 The Meaning of the Political 81 Relative Autonomy 87 SECTION5: KATORUS 94 Taxonomies of Violence 94 Gestural Observations; 97 Trade-Unionism rei Trade-Unionism and the 1976 Student Revolt 105 The Threat of Hostel Conversions ] ~9 The Unbanning of the ANC 113 Phola Park's Parks conflict with Khalanyoni Hostel 113 'Taxi-War' 116 DEMOCRACY, CITIES AND SPACE 5 The ~Yiolencetranscends its local origins ~ 118 SECr lON 6: Local Government in the aftermath J24 The Development Facilitation Act 125 Gecmisron 129 J~lberton and Boksburg 132 Contlngenc'l 138 Policing 139 Phenduka Section 142 Conclusion 146 References 159 Introduction 159 Section 1 159 Section 2 160 Section 3 161 Section 4 163 Section 5 164 Section 6 165 Conclusion 166 South AfricaN Bibliography. J67 Theoretical Texts J 7J Interviews J73 Annexure 178 DEMOCRACY, CITIES AND SPACE 6 ABBREVIATIONS ACO - Alexandra Civic Organisation ANC - African National Congress IlZAPO - Azanian People's Organisation BC - Black Consciousness BCM - Black Consciousness Movement BLA - Black Local Authority CAST - ~i'Jic Association for Southern Transvaal CDF - Community Development Forum CODESA - Convention for a Democratic South AfriC",,8 CaSAS -:-Congress of South African Students C'OSATU - Congress of South African Trade Unions CWNC - Central Witwatersrand Negotiating Chamber ESC - Eastern Services Council EGSC - Eastern Gauteng Services Council ERRSC - East Rand Regional Services Council FOSATU - Federation of South African Trade Unions IFP - lnkatha Freedom Party IMLGA - Interim Measures for Local Government Act r~TORUS - Katlehong, Tokoza and Vosloorus KCC - KATORUS Central Command LDF - Local Development Forum LDO - Land Development Objectiv€'.:. LGNF - Local Govemment Negotiating Forum LGTA - Local Government Transition Act DEMOCRACY, CITIES AND SPACE 7 NAHORA - National Hostel Residents Association NGO - Non-Governmental Organisation OD - Organisational Development RDP - Reconstruction and Development Campaign RSC - Regional Services Council SACP - South African Communist Party SACTU - South African Congress of Trade Unions SANCO - South African National Civic Organisatjo~l SeA - Soweto Civic Association SDU - Self-Defence Unit SPP - Special Presidential Project SPU - Self-Protection Unit TUAC - Trade Union Advisory Council THRA - Tokoza Hostels Residents Association TLC - Transitional Local Council UDF - United Democratic Front UMAWUSA - United Metal and Allied Workers Union of South Africa WCRC - Wattville Concerned Residents Committee _DEMOCRACY, CITIES AND SPACE 8 INTRODUCTION In 1988 the Soweto People's Delegation and the councils of Soweto, Diepmeadow and Dobsonville began to negotiate an end to the rent boycott and the crisis in the provision of services. Discussions between civic bodies and local government officials - which eventually resulted in the Soweto accord - were increasingly infonned by the slogan 'one city, one tax base'. In the wake of the accord, other parties to similarly established negotiations commonly based their approach on the 'one city' slogan. As a result, local government negotiations and the institutional arrangements that followed were increasingly infonned by this notion. The 'one city' slogan and the course of local government negotiations were premised on at least two moments of contingency. From the 1980s onwards the city was, for the first time, posited as a legitimate political destination in itself. Whereas urban struggles had in the past bean linked to the capture of state or regional power, during the 1980s a plethora of 'civic' organisations arose that were self-consciously local in character and had as their object the appropriation of the city, This amounted to an inclusion in the South African political lexicon of a new political objective; one that was excluded by the couplet 'people-nation' entailed in then preeminent language of National Democratic Revolution (NDR). These semantic dlsplacernents were symptomatic of the ,growing influence of western European Marxism in South Africa. They also si,gnaled the reduced political significance of NDR from the late 1980's and 1990's in Alliance circles. The collapse of Eastem European regimes and the political demise of s'" o:~. I reduced the influence of strategic and political fonnulations explicitly informec ~s Marxism-Leninism As it became less common to refer to the 'people', 'socialism' and 'national democracy' - to invoke the vocabulary of NDR, that is .. so these tenns were supplemented with other expressions. From the late 1980's, that is, it became popular to juxtapose the tenns city and community. These notions had incongruent theoretical legacies that, when they were coupled, produced certain ambiguities in South African conceptions of urban govemment. DEMOCRACY, CITIES AND SPACE 9 Section 1 will explore the genealogy of both words. The notion of community', had undergone an interesting mutation. It was first popularised by B!ack Consciousness authors of the 1970's and later appropriated by civic organisations in the mid-1980's. In this regard it was invested with new meanings. We shell see also in Section 1 that a concept of the city was strongly informed by the work of Manuel Castells, and in particular by his text The City and the Grassroots. In this regard certain activist-intellectuals, primarily based at the Johannesburg non-govemmental organisation (NGO), Planact, began exploring the pollfical and social consequences of the apartheid geography. These findings informed Planact's influential relationship with many civic organisations. We shall see in Section 2 that the notion of community drew its meaning from the theory of National Democratic Revolution which was in tum premised on a classical reading of historical materialism. In contrast the notion of cilY, partly inherited from the work of the Castells, was influenced by the European lVIarxism of the 1960's and after. It shall be argued, moreover, that a condition for thinking the city theoretically was Louis Althusser's concept of relative autonomy. The tensions that the couplet city-community produced were not readily apparent. Their heterogeneous philosophies were obscured by the opacity of their theoretical Origins. The substitution of 'community' for 'people' and 'city' for 'nation' did not seem to subvert the relationship between the historical subject and its objective that the theory of NDR established between 'people' and 'natlon'. If in the original grammar the people's will was believed interested in national democracy and then socialism, the 'One City' slogan replaced 'people' for 'community' and articulated their interest to urban integration. In this regard, the 'One City' slogan and the theory of National Democratic Revolution seemed to share a common philosophical premise. They £1 ppeared both to posit a necessary relation between subject and political destoation that rested on two related elements: experience and objective interests. In tHs regard the common experience of racial capitalism and the apartheid city produced for the people/community objective interests in national democracy and urban political integration respectively. DEMOCRACY. Cm.::::.E::::.S..!._A~N:.:::D:....::S~P...!.A.:.::C::.!:E=-- 10 City and community seemed perfectly reconciled in the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the communist party had originally argued that the RDP was a programme of 'socialist social investment' (SACP: 1994, p.3.). In their eyes the adoption