2021 - ISSUE 80 www.ifaaza.org NEWAGENDA SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC POLICY Which way, SA?
Parliament must lead the way to a fully functional democracy Danger! Failed State Ahead
Take nearest turn
Also inside: IFAA report lists concrete proposals to change Parliament Kgalema Motlanthe calls on Parliament to get its house in order US hampering peace efforts in Ethiopia ISSN: 1607-2820
credits EDITORIAL BOARD NEWAGENDA SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC POLICY HON MR KGALEMA MOTLANTHE New Agenda is a publication of the Institute for African (Chairperson), former President and former Alternatives (IFAA) Deputy President of South Africa CONTACT US Email: [email protected] Website: www.ifaaza.org Facebook: www.facebook.com/newagendaonline MR ZUNAID MOOLLA Twitter: @IFAACT or @NEWAGENDAZA Director, Institute for African Alternatives Instagram: @newagenda_ifaa (IFAA) Tel: +27 21 461 2340 Address: Community House, 41 Salt River Road, Salt River Cape Town 7925
MR tony ehrenreich IFAA STAFF Director Parliamentary liaison officer Zunaid Moolla for COSATU Guest Editor Martin Nicol Project Manager Christine Leibach Production Manager mr pallo jordan Moira Levy Senior Researcher Former Cabinet Minister and member of the Hibist Kassa Research and Events National Executive Committee of the ANC Bruce Kadalie Administration, Finance and Subscriptions Shamielah Booley PROF EVANCE KALULA Assistant Researcher Rachel Nyirongo Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Project Assistant Cape Town, Phethani Madzivhandila Chair, ILO Committee of Freedom of Publisher Association Institute for African Alternatives (IFAA) Layout The Media Chilli PROF steven robins Professor in the Department of Sociology Sponsored by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung and Social Anthropology, University of with funds of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development Stellenbosch of the Federal Republic of Germany. This publication or parts of it can be used by others for free as long as they provide a proper reference to the original PROF ari sitas publication. Former head of the Sociology Department, University of Cape Town, and writer, dramatist and poet
MS BUYELWA SONJICA New Agenda is accredited with the Department of Higher Education and Training. Former Minister of Minerals and Energy ISSN: 1607-2820 Copyright: Institute for African Alternatives (IFAA) unless used with permission of any third party and referenced accordingly. The publishers are not responsible for unsolicited material. New Agenda is published quarterly by PROF VIVIENE TAYLOR IFAA. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those Former Head of Department of Social of IFAA. All advertisements/advertorials and promotions Development, UCT have been paid for and therefore do not carry any endorsement by IFAA. Contents Issue 80
22 Ethiopia’s impact on Editorial Comment security and peace in Education in SA 3 Dereliction of the horn of hope: 44 No higher education, Democratic Duty Framing six salient good jobs without By Martin Nicol issues ‘normal’ university By Iqbal Jhazbhay matric pass Checks and Balances By Seamus Needham 26 Washington’s Project Ethiopia 49 TVET Colleges: a policy – hybrid lifeline for youth at 4 ‘Fill Parliament’s seats warfare in the risk with strong, moral making (again) By Seamus Needham leaders’ By Rob Prince 51 With political will and By Kgalema Motlanthe policy change, an Commemorating 31 alternative can be a victory for ‘Trust deficit’ in found 6 Ethiopianism and Parliament hampers By Enver Motala its effectiveness Pan Africanism By Lawson Naidoo By the Embassy of Ethiopia in Pretoria 55 ‘I like the word “comic” because life is 9 Acting on the Gender-Based Violence ridiculous:’ evidence Teaching the graphic By Moira Levy and Femicide novel, an interview with Nathan 13 Broken branch 34 What has happened Trantraal structure is ANC’s since the Gender By Koni Benson Achilles heel Summit? By Keith Gottschalk Book Review Farmers’ Protests in COVID-19 India 5 Crossroads: I live 8 Where I like 16 Mitigating the impact 37 Agrarian reforms A Graphic History of COVID-19 and and farmers’ protests Review by Gertrude Fester options for economic in India: a policy revival in SA perspective The Lie of 1652: A By Busani Ngcaweni and By Debottam Saha, Kranthi Nanduri and 60 decolonised history Jacqueline Nkate Raya Das of land Review by Desiree Lewis Ethiopia Transforming Eskom 21 Towards the modern 42 Climate change Ethiopian state demands Eskom reform By Moira Levy Editorial comment
Dereliction of democratic duty
No one needs more bad news, at this time. But it keeps coming.
By Martin Nicol
Auditor-General for Parliament to act on n April, the DM168 newspaper’s recommendations to stop the theft and front page revealed “the abuse of public funds. dangerously disgusting state The research pointed to steps of South Africa’s rivers which Parliament could take to improve its Iare being polluted by failing sewage performance. But IFAA concluded that treatment works.” It’s research found the main source of the problem with that “more than half of all South our democracy is the poor quality of Africa’s sewage treatment works are our public representatives. Former not functioning as they should.” President and chairperson of the IFFA Our municipalities are run by Board Kgalema Motlanthe has called on democratically elected councils. The Parliament to get its house in order and councillors have been singularly inept fill its seats with effective, efficient and controversies. All the issues raised will at holding to account the executive ethical representatives. be hampered and conditioned by our mayors and municipal managers who We do not have a way of choosing COVID-19 responses. are responsible for sanitation and the best people as MPs, municipal Despite COVID-19, violence has re- water infrastructure. councillors or members of provincial ignited across Africa, from Mozambique The job of councillors – and our legislatures. Democracy does not to Nigeria and from Chad to Somalia. elected representatives in provincial work to the general benefit when the New Agenda includes a reflection on governments and Parliament – is to majority of elected representatives lack the present crisis in Ethiopia, which decide how funds collected from the backbones, capability and dedication to has returned to war to settle political public should best be spent and to the public good. disagreements. We also recognise the ensure that the executive authorities 125-year anniversary of the defeat of deliver services in line with budgets. Permanent Covid an Italian colonial army at the Battle The public sector spends R5-billion Even with vaccines, COVID-19 is of Adwa in 1896 by a united force of a year on expert monitors who check going to remain part of our future. Ethiopian defenders. on spending, and where problems COVID-19 issues add a new dimension to At a time in which we gasp in exist. The Auditor-General even gives bad news and long-existing challenges. amazement at the destruction of the advice on where controls are weak and Busani Ngcaweni and Jacqueline African Studies Library at UCT, we need improvement. Nkate, reflect on research on the include an interview and book review Our representatives swear oaths harmful impacts of COVID-19 on dealing with an innovative effort to tell and accept remuneration, but, by and the economy and on poverty and our history using comics and the format large, they do not play the roles they inequality. As Operation Vulindlela, the of the graphic novel. are assigned as checks and balances on government’s infrastructure plan gets Desiree Lewis, applies a lens of de- executive action. underway, they argue that bureaucratic colonial analysis to her review of Patric In early 2021, IFAA reported on its and other systemic and institutional Tariq Mellet’s book The Lie of 1652. Bad ongoing “Checks and Balances” project. inefficiencies have to be addressed if the news – now better understood. This started life in 2019 with a focus on recovery plan is to succeed. Parliament and the Auditor-General. Other articles, on education, the just Reference The aim was to help Parliament perform transition and action against gender- Kretzmann, S., Luhanga, P. & Damba, N. 2021. ‘Up better, after repeated calls from the based violence, deal with standing Sh*t’s Creek With No Paddle’. DM168.
Issue 80 - New Agenda 3 The Institute for African Alternatives has released Checks and Balances: The Auditor-General Project Report on Parliament’s failure to conduct effective oversight of government spending and call the executive to account. The result is fruitless and wasteful expenditure, theft of national funds and, in turn, ongoing and worsening poverty, inequality and corruption. The report lists concrete proposals to make the changes that South Africa urgently needs. ‘Fill Parliament’s seats with strong, moral leaders’
By Kgalema Motlanthe
Kgalema Motlanthe served as South Africa’s President from 25 September 2008 to 9 May 2009, following the resignation of Thabo Mbeki, whereafter he filled the post of Deputy President. During his many years of political service, he has been Deputy President and has also at different times been Secretary-General and Deputy President of the ANC. He is the current chairperson of the board of the Institute for African Alternatives (IFAA) and is patron of the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation.
KGALEMA MOTLANTHE, political consciousness, dialogue and constructive analysis of South African in his opening remarks at and African socioeconomic and the launch of Checks and political issues. As an independent Balances: The Auditor-General Pan-African institute, the broad policy research and advocacy that IFAA Project Report called on generates and facilitates is a clarion call Parliament to get its house to leaders from every sector of society and government to pause, think, in order and fill its seats with reconsider and then decide which path effective, efficient and ethical to take. It is in the dissemination of representatives. such progressive views and alternative solutions that change-agents can be empowered, and positive, equitable he Institute for African and inclusive change can be made. Alternatives (IFAA) has, for IFAA’s Checks and Balances: The more than three decades, been Auditor-General Project Report is one such Ta vanguard for critical thinking, contribution to the development and
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construction of a humane and better When considering the checks and managed South Africa for all. It is a balances written into our Constitution document that not only dives deep and the urgent need for just, into the crux of the challenges that transparent, efficient and accountable face the financial management of [Ben Turok] believed management of public funds, Professor South Africa, but also offers delicate Turok was deeply concerned and vocal scrutiny of the crucial relationships and that self-enrichment about the open-ended and perilous cycle volatile tension between government and a departure that played out year after year between departments and their oath of office the Auditor-General, government to the Constitution of the Republic of from the strong departments, the National Assembly South Africa. moral values so and the Standing Committee on Public These insights on the management Accounts (SCOPA); an abysmal cycle of public funds supply change-agents, eloquently captured that produced routinely bad reports academics, activists and indeed public in the preamble to with little or no accountability. representatives, with an arsenal of IFAA’s Checks and Balances: The knowledge that places them in a the Constitution Auditor-General Project Report seeks to position to continue fighting for of the Republic investigate and offer tangible solutions the people and strengthening our as to why and how this damaging cycle democracy. of South Africa is perpetuated, and what remedies It is the strength of our democracy are at the heart of can be put in place to ensure the that is being tested during these implementation of the Auditor- uncertain times as the world confronts government’s failure General’s recommendations. COVID-19, and the scramble to find to lead. In the search for concrete an equilibrium within the extreme steps to improve the financial disruptions caused by the pandemic mismanagement of public funds, and dissects and reveals the calibre of our the people of South Africa. to propel democratic culture within leaders and public representatives. To Professor Turok’s work in our constitutional democracy, let us take courage, display conviction and earn understanding and advocacy of the respond within the spirit of Professor the confidence of the people are but a few Constitution is the kind of alert Ben Turok’s ethical leadership, as he steps in the eternal quest to strengthen activism that gives effect to the supreme reminds us of our ongoing duty to apply democracy. It is a crusade that bares law of our land, and drives the agenda our minds, audit our achievements, many moral pitfalls and finds even the of strengthening constitutional scrutinise our modes of operation, and best of us on the backend of a stumble. democracy. continuously engage in dialogue with A consistent moral leader of our Like IFAA, and Professor Turok each other. time, whose lifelong dedication to himself, our collective pursuit to fight injustice, comrade Professor promote and ensure constitutional Parliament’s role Ben Turok was one among many who supremacy, is one of the most important The recommendation that sacrificed their all to attain liberation endeavours in maintaining and Parliament should put its house in and strengthen democracy. Professor reinforcing constitutional democracy. order – largely by implementing its own Turok asked each and every one of us to Protecting the supremacy of the commissioned reports to improve its re-examine whether what we are fed by Constitution is possible because, in a accountability processes and oversight the status quo is what we actually need constitutional democracy where power reach – has been strongly supported in and encouraged an ongoing criticism is properly shared by the executive, the recent months by the evidence heard of passivity and of corrupt governance. legislature and the judiciary, the courts before the Zondo Commission into state He believed that self-enrichment and a are independent and subject only to the capture. “Where was Parliament?” Judge departure from the strong moral values law and the Constitution of the Republic Zondo asked, when contemplating so eloquently captured in the preamble itself. This doctrine of the separation of the thievery and corruption paraded to the Constitution of the Republic powers allows for checks and balances to before him every day. This is exactly the of South Africa are at the heart of ensure that the separate institutions are question asked by the Auditor-General, government’s failure to lead and serve monitored and held accountable. over years!
Issue 80 - New Agenda 5 No one has the responsibility to ranks of our political parties. These are issues of activism – no tell Parliament how to do the job it is How can we act to enhance the new laws are needed for profiling and given in the Constitution to hold the quality and character of elected investigating people put forward for executive to account. Parliament makes representatives? office in the 2021 municipal elections. this decision itself and has full powers In the short term, activists can make This can lay the basis for an all-out effort to design its operations to support the sure that the biographies of people for more perfect parliamentarians and concept of the separation of powers, placed on party lists are detailed and provincial government leaders in 2024. which simultaneously provides for well-known. The best guide to the checks and balances on the exercise of performance of an unknown people New Agenda 78 and 79 carried preliminary executive power, making the executive is how they have acted in the past. research accounts from IFAA on its project on accountable to an elected legislature. Crooks can change, of course, and it is the outcome of the Auditor-General’s reports. The Checks and Balances report wonderful when they do. And honest The full report of the research team is available repeats this point and cites examples people do get corrupted by power at https://ifaaza.org/checksand-balances- of the excellent reviews of Parliament and position. But too many of our the-auditor-generalproject-report/ and, in since 1999 which – together with hints public representatives are completely addition, the interim bulletins, with accounts from the courts – tell Parliament how to unknown entities. Even their record in of interviews and documentary analysis, are up its game. Parliament is not really monitored. Have available at https://ifaaza.org/checksand- they been good representatives? How do balances-the-ag-project-researchbulletins/ Civil society – and all of us! we decide this? And what sort of person The Checks and Balances report says do we want political parties to put on that not enough good, principled people their lists? find their way into Parliament from the
‘Trust deficit’ in Parliament hampers its effectiveness
By Lawson Naidoo
Lawson Naidoo is the Executive Secretary of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC) and a founding partner of the political consultancy, the Paternoster Group.
At the launch of the Institute for African Alternatives’ Checks and Balances: The Auditor-General Project Report, it became clear that the checks and balances laid out in our Constitution go far beyond financial accountability to refer to a broader understanding of the constitutionally defined requirements of our Members of Parliament. That was made clear in the opening address by LAWSON NAIDOO.
6 New Agenda - Issue 80 Checks and Balances Project
o quote from the founding using its majority to inhibit Parliament provisions of the Constitution, from carrying out its constitutional South Africa is one sovereign responsibilities, specifically stifling democratic state founded on procedural issues, shutting down Tthe following values: universal adult debates, saying to portfolio committees … three principles suffrage and a common voters’ roll, – on transport, public enterprises – that regular elections, and a multi-party – accountability, they cannot have investigations into system of government to ensure responsibility and Prasa or Transnet or Eskom. accountability, responsibility and In a democracy, of course the openness. It is those three principles openness – are key majority rules but you cannot have – accountability, responsibility and to creating a vibrant abuse of that power to stop debates openness – that are key to creating a from happening. If in an open debate vibrant and responsive democracy. and responsive the majority imposes its position, We speak of checks and balances, the democracy. I don’t think anybody could have a title of this report [by the Institute for grievance about that (unless that African Alternatives], which is very position flies in the face of the evidence appropriate because our Constitution an understanding of the toxic political and is irrational); it is when Parliament is all about a system of checks and environment that continues to exist in is stopped from doing its job, from balances between the three arms of the Parliament, even in the sixth democratic actually discussing the issues, that there state – the legislature, the executive and Parliament that we now have. is a significant problem. the judiciary – and it is the necessary There is something to be learned This is one of the issues that tension between those three that from the way the Standing Committee has been highlighted at the Zondo ensures the vibrancy and the health of on Public Accounts [SCOPA] has Commission [into state capture]. One every democratic society. operated over the years. It stands out as of the proposals we [CASAC – the To hone in on Parliament, it is one of those committees of Parliament, Council for the Advancement of the clear that Parliament has failed us, perhaps the only one, that actually does South African Constitution] have made particularly in recent years. It has its job consistently. It does what it is is that Parliament should perhaps failed in its constitutional mandate to mandated to do. It scrutinises reports rethink the issue of the chairmanship scrutinise and oversee the actions of the from the Auditor-General in great detail of committees and perhaps allocate executive. In the words of Ben Turok, it and submits reports to the National other parties an opportunity to has allowed rampant corruption. During Assembly. The frustration of people like chair committees. It would create his years as an MP in Parliament it was Ben Turok and the late former Auditor- an environment for the multi-party an anathema to him that members of General, Kimi Makwetu, is that there is system that the Constitution speaks his own party could behave in such a then no follow up action. of, and hopefully will develop a spirit fashion and he expected that Parliament It is worthwhile to examine why of cooperation amongst members of could and should be able to do more to SCOPA has managed to function as well committees. stop that. But [Parliament] has proved as does, [with] a spirit of co-operation This is also important in terms of the to be impotent, especially in the face of across parties. Obviously one of the presiding officers of Parliament. When I state capture. things that is germane to SCOPA is that worked at Parliament as special assistant There are a number of reasons for it is the only committee in Parliament to Frene Ginwala when she was Speaker, that. Foremost to me is the breakdown in that is customarily chaired by a member there was always at least one member trust, the trust deficit, between political of the opposition. In the Westminster of the opposition who had some role parties and their representatives in tradition the main opposition party as presiding officer. In the early days of Parliament, specifically in the National normally does that. In South Africa it is the Government of National Unity, Dr Assembly. That trust deficit has widened someone from another party. Maybe it is Bandra Ranchod was Deputy Speaker. in recent years, and when you have having [a Member from the] opposition Later, we had presiding officers from that breakdown in trust the institution as chair of that committee [that enables other opposition parties to chair plenary cannot operate optimally. It is certainly it to work so well]. sessions of the National Assembly. That not in a position to exercise the very The systemic evidence of Parliament gave a sense that this was a Parliament important mandate of oversight and not doing its job in holding the of the people, and not just a majority accountability. This is a real problem, executive to account [goes back to] party-dominated assembly. That is and the solution will have to be based on the insistence by the majority party of something we have lost now. At present
Issue 80 - New Agenda 7 … it is clear that Parliament has failed us, particularly in recent years. It has failed in its constitutional mandate to scrutinise and oversee the actions the Electoral Act [to] make provision end up in Parliament. In the current for individual candidates to stand for pure Proportional Representation list of the executive. election at national and provincial system parties publish lists ahead of the levels. Perhaps this is an opportunity election but nobody scrutinises those all of the members of the presidium of for Parliament to go further than simply lists in any detail. If we recommend the presiding officers come from the do what the Court pointed out was something along the lines of what majority party. It is those kinds of things unconstitutional and instead to go for was recommended by the majority that lead to the breakdown of trust, the a wholescale review of the electoral of the Van Zyl Slabbert Task Team, trust deficit, in Parliament. system, which is something that has of a multi-member constituency of We speak about the issue of been on the agenda of South Africa for between three and seven members accountability, and it is perhaps 20 years now. per constituency and a list of 15 to 20 germane to this discussion, where we We had the Van Zyl Slabbert names on that list, you would expect focus on finance, the Auditor-General Task Team in 2002, we had the that each of those 20 people would have and SCOPA, [to remember] that the recommendations of the Independent some form of relationship with the origin of the term “accountability” is Panel on Parliament in the late 2000s people who vote [and they] would have to account for money. In the context and then more recently the High-Level some personal understanding of the of the Checks and Balances report that Review Panel, which was chaired by candidate standing in that constituency. is obviously critical, but its meaning former President [Kgalema] Motlanthe, That could influence decisions on how is clearly broader now, and is about which made its recommendations in [citizens] vote. oversight and taking responsibility for 2017. It also recommended that we The late Auditor-General demanded actions, answering for things done in a need to review the electoral system. So of all of us to make our voices louder on policy and implementation space. there has been a process that has led us this [issue], and as the broader South Perhaps we need to arm Members up to this point and hopefully people African society our responsibility is of Parliament with the legislative will grasp the opportunity to create to become a more engaged citizenry, safeguard of saying this is the minimum an electoral system that is not just not just in the electoral process but that you need to do, and if your proportionality representative but also in Parliamentary and government party tells you otherwise you have a enhances accountability. processes so that we become a proper legislative mandate to do so, and that I am certainly not suggesting that participatory democracy and not a deals with the party issue. a different electoral system would society that goes to the polls once every As the result of a Constitutional either lead to a different electoral five years and spends the intervening Court judgment in the New Nation outcome or would necessarily lead to five years complaining about the Movement case in June last year greater and enhanced accountability, government that we elected. Parliament is now in the process of but it may give us a little bit more reviewing the electoral system to amend influence over the kinds of people that
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Acting on the evidence By Moira Levy
Moira Levy is Production Manager of New Agenda: South African Journal of Social and Economic Policy, which is the flagship publication of the Institute for African Alternatives (IFAA).
Following up the launch of indeed was Parliament? Political and that steps be taken to ensure that future IFAA’s Checks and Balances: civic voices are echoing this question parliamentary representatives are up to The Auditor-General Project as well. Not only when it comes to the task of serving the people. state capture, but where is it now, given IFAA canvassed opinions and Report, MOIRA LEVY the constitutional stipulation that proposals following the launch of requested a range of citizens to the legislature must provide effective its report about Parliament and the comment on IFAA’s proposals oversight and accountability? Auditor-General. We found that the The Speaker to Parliament, Ms problems extended well beyond a failure in the report, and to contribute Thandi Modise, in a subsequent session to act against incidents of fruitless and their own ideas on how to of the Zondo Commission held at wasteful government expenditure. MPs, the end of April 2021 conceded that commentators and ordinary citizens make our Parliament more Parliament had indeed failed to provide were asked how South Africa could effective in carrying out its oversight. She apologised to “the people find a way to ensure that in future our oversight duties. The responses of South Africa,” reportedly saying: “It democracy is able to withstand the kind is regrettable that the impression is of assaults it has experienced in the were practical and innovative Parliament only woke up when things past decade and longer. The responses and included many concrete were really bad.” placed the blame firmly at the doors of Modise told the Zondo hearings that the country’s legislatures, particularly at suggestions that could be Parliament can interrogate any matter national level. implemented to make our at any time — and determine its own The message that emerged is that parliamentarians better at ways of doing so. It can call on anyone South Africa must take steps to make and request any document. This is sure that the constitutional principles of both checking and balancing. stipulated in the ordinary parliamentary transparency and accountability defend The same principles should rules that have been in place from the and protect the country’s democratic get-go of the democratic Parliament. achievements. extend to members of our MPs have always had the powers and Many are looking to the Zondo provincial legislatures and the right “to pointedly put the executive Commission as a way out of the current municipal councils as well. on the spot”, not only in committees, mire of corruption in which South but also in the House. But she said that Africa is currently trapped. Will the the 2009 Oversight and Accountability Commission’s findings include hoped- Introduction (OVAC) model (which was designed by for recommendations to reform the “Where was Parliament?” Deputy the 4th Parliament of 2009 to 2014) had electoral system? Chief Justice Zondo asked bluntly at a yet to be fully implemented. Whatever the final outcome of hearing of the inquiry into state capture. This came after the Zondo the Commission, Professor Richard The question could not have been Commission had heard expert witnesses Calland of the University of Cape more timely for the Institute of African make serious allegations of the failure of Town’s law department spelled out Alternatives which released Checks Parliament to fulfil its mandate. In that the main question: “How are we going and Balances: The Auditor-General Project context, a collective hope was expressed to work to help make sure that the Report just a few weeks before Deputy that the inquiry into state capture will recommendations of Zondo and the Chief Justice Zondo’s question. Where include among its recommendations changes required in the conventions
Issue 80 - New Agenda 9 Where was Parliament? asked Chief Justice Zondo. Where is [Parliament], given the constitutional stipulation that the legislature must provide effective and practice [of Parliament] are as MPs. The Concourt found that the implemented?” existing Electoral Law was incompatible oversight and He was not the only person to make with the Constitution, opening the way accountability? the point that all the mechanisms for electoral reform. needed for our representatives to The Minister of Home Affairs, Dr effectively exercise their constitutional Aaron Motsoaledi, acted fairly swiftly elected MPs could increase duty to call the executive to account in response. Earlier this year the media complexities and make things worse! are in place, yet MPs consistently fail to reported him declaring, “in complying Nevertheless, it was suggested make use of them. with the Constitutional Court judgment that the PR system alone was not “The legal provisions are there. to accommodate independent the problem; at the very least what They are abundantly clear; there is no candidates … Parliament must actually was needed was citizens’ active question or ambiguity about them. take a giant leap and come up with engagement in the process of compiling In legal and constitutional terms a new electoral system”. A Cabinet parliamentary political party lists. Voters Parliament’s role, and its authority and committee has been established and a must also be able to scrutinise potential its duty, are clear. What is not clear is draft law is in the pipeline. candidates in advance of the poll. how to overcome the political inhibiting Once again, the spotlight falls on the Many of those surveyed confirmed factors that have got in the way of existing Proportional Representation one of the main findings of the IFAA [using] them,” said Calland. (PR) voting system that prevents voters Checks and Balance report. That Commentators emphasised how the from directly electing the Members of was the need for parliamentarians Constitution provides for an effective Parliament who will represent them. to be fully trained and inducted, “separation of powers” between the Whatever its strengths, it has generally and for them to have access to the three arms of state – the legislature, the been conceded that PR undermines resources and skills required to executive and the judiciary – and the accountability of MPs; it is difficult to exercise their constitutionally defined need to revive a healthy tension between call to account your representatives responsibilities. them which keeps each in check. when you do not know who they are This message was clear – Parliament and, more importantly, if they owe must in future ensure that all its Electoral reform plus their deployment primarily to the party representatives understand and are skilled MPs… that put them in Parliament and only able to live up to the oath they take Inevitably some of the views turned indirectly to the voters – who chose the when they are sworn into office. That to the ongoing debate on the long- party, not them. boils down to one central point: standing issue of electoral reform. The details of government’s Parliament needs committed, ethical Government is now compelled to response to the required and appropriately skilled Members to fill act on this issue following last year’s constitutional and legislative changes its 400 seats. Constitutional Court judgment to are not yet available. Combining permit independent candidates to stand parties’ PR lists with independently
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Government is now compelled to act on [electoral reform] following last year’s Constitutional Court judgment to permit independent candidates to stand as MPs. Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG), depth at meetings as the presentation Rashaad Alli, who pointed out that, documents are required to be sent a week …and more effective “one of the biggest problems is the in advance so [that] committee members committees high turnover of MPs at each election. and research teams can peruse them. The “need to support, educate, According to our research, at the start This means that the committee is able to mentor and generally capacitate of the sixth Parliament, 42% of MPs ask as many questions as it wants to and MPs” was put in a broader context by were newcomers who did not have prior receive detailed responses.” Professor Ivan Turok, son of the late legislature experience. Most of them For a committee to be effective, he Professor Ben Turok who founded did not know about the committee said, it must have an efficient follow-up the Institute for African Alternatives system, budget cycle or how to read an and resolution system where committee (IFAA). The younger Turok, who is Amendment Bill. It is a steep learning support staff are able to follow up Deputy Executive Director at the Human curve, and it takes time to develop the on the responses they get from the Sciences Research Council (HRSC) said, specialised knowledge of their portfolio submissions and deliberations the “As a senior HSRC executive I regularly and build up institutional memory.” committees hear. make presentations to parliamentary He said “the real, substantive work “The next time the committee meets committees, but these engagements are [of Parliament] – law-making, oversight with that entity, there must be follow- rarely effective. Committee members and budget approval – happens in through on the key challenges facing need to be encouraged and enabled to committees. Given their prominent that entity. It needs a strong team of focus on the essential problems and role, it is important to look into who MPs backed by committee and party get to grips with the underlying issues. sits on these structures and how researchers and secretariat to follow- Committees that simply skate over the committee membership [is decided] through. It cannot be that each meeting surface of 101 different things cannot to reduce turnover and build expertise. with a particular entity starts afresh address the core problems and their The effectiveness of these bodies like Groundhog Day and the committee root causes. Committee meetings are depends on the long-term quality of the members react as if they are hearing the often poorly managed, with no clear knowledge of its members.” challenges for the first time. agenda, no particular line of inquiry and As a long-standing and objective “By its nature, Parliament is no follow-up actions. This is inefficient observer of Parliament, Alli is well a political body. As a result, it is and results in a lack of impact, with placed to identify the institution’s impacted by the dominance of the MPs apparently very often just going strengths and weaknesses, and what government, internal party dynamics through the motions of having hearings gaps need to be filled to improve its and the electoral system. Parliamentary and listening rather passively to all performance. The format of committee effectiveness depends on the attitude kinds of inputs from external interests meetings needs to be looked at, he said. and commitment of Members of and lobby groups.” “Chairpersons should insist that Parliament. Even if you have a well- Committee performance was also only the achievements and especially resourced Parliament, it will provide raised by the Executive Director of the the challenges are orally presented in poor outcomes if the lawmakers do not
Issue 80 - New Agenda 11 fulfil their duties in accordance with of Rights, are particularly relevant. Pienaar added that the state provides their oath of office.” He includes among these: dignity, public funding to private bodies such equality, social justice and human as political parties, “in return for which Public representatives rights, responsiveness, transparency and some reciprocity/accountability (beyond matter accountability, and a “democratic and open merely accounting for the funds used) Alison Tilley is Coordinator of the society in which government is based on can be reasonably expected.” Judges Matter campaign which drives the will of the people and every citizen is He cited as a cause for concern public scrutiny of the appointment of equally protected by law” (emphasis added). Minister of Natural Resources Gwede judges. At the time of writing this article Pienaar said such norms and Mantashe’s recent evidence to the Tilley was observing the process of filling standards are applicable to private Zondo Commission in which he two vacancies at the Constitutional organisations, such as political parties, expressed support for the prioritisation Court. She raised questions on the and quoted the Bill of Rights, which of party over state. He made this educational requirements of those who states: clear by rejecting the authority of a serve the public. Some suggest that parliamentary vote of no confidence to Members of Parliament must at the A provision of the Bill of remove the country’s president where very least attain a stipulated level of Rights binds a natural or a that person is also a party’s president. education. She noted that this may be juristic person if, and to the “Such norms and standards would seen as exclusionary as historical factors extent that, it is applicable, hopefully dispel misconceptions and in South Africa’s past have denied many taking into account the nature halt perpetuation of the undemocratic a decent education, largely on racial of the right and the nature of dogma that a party’s interests are of grounds. any duty imposed by the right greater importance than those of the But Members need to be at least (emphasis added). state and more important than the fully literate and numerate, “otherwise rights of people living in South Africa.” how can they read a budget and a balance sheet,” she said, supporting the proposal in the Checks and Balances report to capacitate MPs to follow up on the dodgy practices by the executive exposed in the AG’s audits. Mr Gary Pienaar, a Senior Research Manager with the HSRC’s Developmental, Capable and Ethical State research division, suggested what he called an “indirect” approach; targeting political parties to improve the quality of oversight by their MPs. The intention would be to change internal parties’ rules and organisational culture to ensure their alignment with the Constitution, “thereby changing the conduct of MPs”. “Certain ‘norms and standards’ should be established for incorporation into political parties’ constitutions. These norms and standards would require that party constitutions and conduct by members are consistent with the country’s Constitution.” He said constitutional values and principles found in the Preamble and s.1 Founding Provisions of the Constitution, which are elaborated on in the Bill
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Broken branch structure is ANC’s Achilles heel By Keith Gottschalk
Keith Gottschalk is a lecturer at the University of the Western Cape. He is an ANC member, but writes this article in his personal capacity as a political scientist.
On 31 March 2021, the come to the fore in recent weeks. Ace inside knowledge, I will infer a ballpark Supreme Court of Appeal Magashule, ANC Secretary-General, figure: they probably have over 100,000 has reminded the public that it is party members. declared the 2018 Free State branches which elect and remove ANC If we assume that the DA is the provincial conference of leaders (Quintal, 2020). second biggest party with about 100,000 The trouble is that the ANC’s branch members, all the rest smaller, it appears the ANC unlawful and structure, designed initially as a means that fewer than two million South unconstitutional (De Vos, of grassroots democracy at work (ANC, Africans belong to any political party. 2021). This covers the election 2017b), is in a mess (ANC, 2010).2 This But usually most of those members is best exemplified by the collapse of do not attend their party branch of the provincial leadership branches in the North West province meetings. Where a party directs its at this conference. The (Tandwa, 2020). branches to hold monthly meetings, Another problem is that most South typically only between 15 and 25 out interference of the courts in the Africans, since the dawn of democracy in of 100 members will attend an average internal processes of political 1994, have shown diminishing interest meeting. parties is unusual. This article in politics and voting (Southall, 2019). Enthusiasm for politics also I calculate by comparing the number routinely oscillates – at a peak in the 1 by KEITH GOTTSCHALK of citizens with the estimated number run-up months to an election; then provides a unique insight of party members that, at most, 1% or dying back once the election is over. 2% of citizens sign up as members of The ANC, which has governed South into basic problems of ANC a political party. That is based on the Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994 organisation at branch level. StatsSA count of around 58 million (Lawson, 2019), is representative of other people (StatsSA, 2019). parties in witnessing these hard facts The ANC is the biggest party, with of political life. Gwede Mantashe, when emocracies are precarious 600,000 members (Stone & Mashego, secretary-general of the party, sounded endeavours, as events around 2021). The Inkatha Freedom Party’s concern – the branches are supposed the world are showing. In historical claims of over a million to be the powerhouse of the party, but most, political parties hold members3 are obviously false, because all too often fizzle out between election Dsway over whether the system delivers it gets fewer votes than that.4 (It is years (ANC, 2010). the will of the people, or doesn’t. So theoretically possible for a party to get ANC branches probably peaked with how political parties are organised plays fewer votes than its membership, but it enthusiasm and numbers between its a big role in the health, or ill health, of is unlikely.) unbanning along with other liberation democratic states. The Democratic Alliance (DA),5 movements in 19906 and the first In South Africa, the issue of how the official opposition, keeps its universal franchise elections of 1994.7 the governing ANC is held accountable membership numbers as tightly held The party’s membership of 600,000 is by its members (ANC, 2017a: 83) has as a Kremlin secret. In the absence of now down from over a million in 2010.
Issue 80 - New Agenda 13 Democracies are precarious endeavours … how political parties are organised plays a big role in the health, or ill health, of democratic states.
While there may not be a tight correlation between party members and voters, member numbers are usually the elective conference if the branch is (Booysen, 2017), each member had to broadly proportional to the number of likely to vote against the gate-keepers’ produce their identity document, which probable voters. preferred candidate. was digitally imaged, date-stamped Where a branch is deemed “no and had geo-location added (personal ‘Ghost members’ and longer in good standing”, a few observation). gate-keeping members will seek to join a nearby This was done to prove that all who Superimposed on these universal branch. But most will be demoralised signed the attendance register were facts of political life are the ugly and drop out. physically present at the same time on machinations of power contestation. Another problem stems from the the same premises. The device had an These often take the opposite forms of ANC constitution requiring a quorum of automatic shut-down at 21h00. ghost members and gate-keeping. half of the members in good standing to Three years later, the ANC migrated “Ghost members” (Matlala, 2017) attend a branch annual general meeting its membership lists from the usual typically come about through the (AGM) or to elect a voting delegate paper system to an online system machinations of wealthy aspirant (ANC, 2017b). One middle class branch where each member directly signs politicians who can cheerfully pay 100 had to call its AGM seven times before it on with Luthuli House, the head people to join, as the minimum for could get 50 members under one roof at office in Johannesburg (SABC, 2020). an ANC branch in good standing, as the same time to vote. Less scrupulous The intention is that this will short- well as pay each of their R20 annual branches will take the attendance circuit any gatekeepers at a regional or membership fees. Such a ghost branch register from door to door until they provincial level. Currently, the system will then nominate a voting delegate to accumulate 50 signatures, and then hold has teething troubles. an elective conference to vote for their their election. The ANC is long overdue for a patron politician to some higher office. revision of its constitution to provide a After the election, the branch will fizzle Tackling membership mechanism for quorums used by many out for the next five years. malpractices statutory and other entities. Where “Gate-keeping” (Mokobo, 2017) refers The ANC has taken steps attendance is below a quorum, the to hostile politicians at a regional or unprecedented by any other South meeting is adjourned for seven days, provincial level removing members in African party to counteract these with no changes to the agenda. When good standing from membership lists, malpractices (Mathope, 2017). At reconvened, that meeting is deemed to until a branch falls below the threshold the branch meetings to elect Cyril be quorate, regardless of actual numbers of 100 members. The aim is to deny a Ramaphosa or Nkosazana Dlamini- in attendance. This would prevent branch the right to send a delegate to Zuma as leader of the party in 2017 demoralised members from coming in
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Mokobo, N. 2017. ‘Mashatile denies allegations of future performance, both need to touch gatekeeping.’ SABC. 13 November. Available at base with their supporters before the https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/mashatile- 2021 local government elections. denies-allegations-of-branches-gate-keeping/ Quintal, G. 2020. ‘Ace Magashule says he will not be removed as ANC secretary-general: With an ANC Ace Magashule, ANC REFERENCES decision for members to automatically step down ANC, 2017a. ‘The African National Congress wishes if facing criminal charges not yet rubber-stamped, Secretary-General to send a clear message to all South Africans Magashule says only the “branches of the ANC” that we are resolved to be a more responsive and can remove him.’ BL Premium. 13 November. more accountable leadership and movement.’ Available at https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/ has reminded the Report of the 54th National Conference. p. 83 Available national/2020-11-13-ace-magashule-says-he-will- at http://joeslovo.anc.org.za/sites/default/ not-be-removed-as-anc-secretary-general/ public that it is party files/docs/ANC%2054th_National_Conference_ SABC. 2020. ‘ANC launches new online membership Report%20and%20Resolutions.pdf system.’ 28 February. Available at https://www. branches which elect ANC. 2017b. ANC Constitution as amended and adopted sabcnews.com/sabcnews/anc-launches-new- at the 54th National Conference, Nasrec, Johannesburg online-membership-system/ and remove ANC 2017. Rule 23 Branches, Zonal and Sub-Regional Southall, R. 2019. ‘South Africa’s 2019 poll showed Structures. Available at https://www.anc1912.org. dangerous signs of “insiders” and “outsiders”.’ leaders. The trouble za/constitution-anc The Conversation. 4 August. Available at https:// ANC. 2010. Report on the state of the organisation by theconversation.com/south-africas-2019-poll- is that the ANC’s ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe. September. showed-dangerous-signs-of-insiders-and- Available at https://cdn.24.co.za/files/Cms/ outsiders-121758 branch structure … General/d/887/9d7dcecac64248138eb93809310 StatsSA. 2019. ‘SA population reaches 58,8 9d975.pdf million’. Available at
Issue 80 - New Agenda 15 Mitigating the impact of COVID-19 and options for economic revival in SA
By Busani Ngcaweni and Jacqueline Nkate
Busani Ngcaweni is a visiting Adjunct Professor at the Wits School of Governance and Principal of the National School of Government, a state training institution in Gauteng tasked to build public sector capacity. Jacqueline Nkate is Deputy Director: Knowledge Management at the National School of Government.
Drawing on recent working than a decade. This is due to cyclical Eskom’s debt increased from R255 papers from the National and structural impediments, as well billion in 2014 to over R440 billion by as the global dynamics precipitated 2019 (Department of Public Enterprises, Planning Commission, by the 2008 financial crisis. Evidence 2019). Contingent liabilities are a burden the authors argue that suggests that both causative factors on the fiscus, with Eskom accounting rebuilding state capacity account for most of our socio-economic for 77% of that (Coleman, 2020). For its challenges. Declining competitiveness part, the Organisation for Economic should be prioritised as part is one of the structural weaknesses, Cooperation and Development (OECD), of South Africa’s economic with the Global Competitiveness Report a club of rich nations, argues that of 2019 ranking us 60th in the world this impacts business and investor recovery plan. Boosting (World Economic Forum, 2019). The confidence (OECD, 2020). At the infrastructure and promoting same report cites weak security, low same time, the country battles high manufacturing present viable levels of government adaptability to unemployment rates that have peaked change and the lack of transparency of above 30% (National Treasury, 2020). opportunities for reviving the public procurement as further drivers We highlight these budgetary economy, but bureaucratic of declining competitiveness. Cyclical pressures by way of foreshadowing shocks include policy uncertainty, the the view that government, instead of and other systemic and impact of a devastating drought and focusing on investing in productive institutional inefficiencies the poor performance of public utilities activities that aid firms and enterprises to will have to be addressed. The such as Transnet and Eskom. grow, is funding badly performing SOEs. Most of the current challenges All the while, unemployment, authors put forward their are path dependent (i.e. they reflect poverty and inequality continue to recommendations to tackle recurrent historical factors), with rise (alongside corruption, which is most analysts arguing that most so severe it belongs with the “three constraints on growth. administrations stick to familiar challenges”) and the recession deepens. decisions and programmes even though In late 2020, the South African Reserve Introduction these have proven ineffective over time. Bank (SARB) reported that “real gross South Africa has been experiencing An example is the ongoing bailouts domestic product [GDP] is contracting low economic growth rates for more of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). at an annualised rate of 2.0%, following
16 New Agenda - Issue 80 COVID-19
contractions of 0.8% and 1.4% in the Skinner, 2020). organising health-sector capacity to be preceding two ‘quarters’” (SARB, 2020: 4). Rogan and Skinner (2020) pointed ready for what would later become a out that the Department of Social storm. Scholars like Hausmann (2020) Before exploring policy measures, Development reported that before the have ventured that in the short-term, let us examine the impact of COVID-19 pandemic 24% of the population was the disruption of the markets and on South Africans by drawing on recent food insecure. During the lockdown, supply chains notwithstanding, the working papers available to the National this increased to about 50% with only lockdown bought the country vital Planning Commission (NPC). 12% of eligible households receiving time to prepare. The second phase food parcels by June (Rogan and (announced on 21 April 2020) involved COVID-19 and the rise in Skinner, 2020). a R500 billion stimulus package (10% of poverty and inequality As part of government support GDP), that was later formalised through The outbreak of COVID-19 in South measures, the Child Support Grant was the June Supplementary Budget by the Africa came on the back of the failing increased by R300 per child in May and Finance Minister. economy. It has had a devastating by R500 per caregiver for five months The stabilisation package contained effect on the economy and worsened (Rogan and Skinner, 2020). Since social interventions ranging from credit the existing inequalities (Ranchhod grants are ordinarily supplemented by guarantee schemes, debt relief for and Daniels, 2020). Van der Berg et al earnings from formal employment or struggling enterprises, the extension of (2020) argue that economic decline self-employment, it is not surprising social security (as summarised above), resulting from COVID-19 and the that child hunger increased under the and financial support to targeted sectors national lockdown will have a far greater lockdown (Van der Berg et al, 2020). such as tourism and manufacturing. impact on the economy than the 2007/08 Recognising this reality, government On the same occasion, the President global recession. The lockdown has implemented a Temporary Employee/ indicated that the third phase would meant more job losses and income Employer Relief Scheme (TERS) that take the form of implementing an deprivation and it has reduced working has funnelled significant UIF funds to economic strategy that drives economic hours across sectors (Jain et al, 2020; workers who lost earnings during the recovery (The Presidency, 2020a). Rogan and Skinner, 2020). There were pandemic. By mid-June 2020, TERS had approximately 2.9 million net job disbursed approximately R23 billion to Infrastructure as a lever losses and a 40% decrease in active approximately 4.7 million beneficiaries of growth employment between February and (Rogan and Skinner, 2020). This fell far There are infrastructure interventions April 2020 (Casale and Posel, 2020; Jain short in proportion to the extent of the that should be prioritised in the short- et al, 2020). It is possible that many of unemployment challenge, because it to medium-term at local and regional these jobs will never come back.1 only covered people who had been in level. Infrastructure interventions The labour market effect of COVID-19 employment. absorb labour, open corridors of growth, has been more severe amongst black Whilst the results of NPC working build capacity and have greater long- workers, women, low-earners, informal papers, which were generated during term returns, even at times serving as workers, manual workers and people the first months of lockdown, cannot be a counter-cyclical measure – as was without tertiary education (Jain et al, generalised, they give high-level trends the case with the 2010 FIFA World Cup 2020). More than 35% of those who have of growing inequality. Official statistics building programme (although about lost their jobs are from the poorest 20% are expected to record similar trends. a million jobs were lost in the real of households (Jain et al, 2020). There What then are government options economy between 2008 and 2010). was a higher prevalence of child hunger going forward? In a sense, we are arguing that the among blacks in households that lost government should increase gross fixed their main sources of income between Towards an Economic capital formation and progressively February and April 2020 (Van der Berg et Recovery Plan reduce consumption expenditure as al, 2020; Köhler and Bhorat, 2020). When announcing the national a share of GDP. For example, in the Informal workers are not registerable shutdown on 26 March 2020, President 2020/21 budget only R681 billion went for unemployment insurance, which Cyril Ramaphosa outlined a three-phase to economic development which increases their vulnerability. Amongst approach to the management of the includes infrastructure, as opposed domestic workers (estimated at 1.2 COVID-19 economic fallout. to R778 billion and R970 billion that million), only 20% have reported being The first involved measures went to debt servicing costs and social registered with the Unemployment aimed at flattening the infection development respectively (National Insurance Fund (UIF) (Rogan and curve (containing infection rates) and Treasury, 2020).
Issue 80 - New Agenda 17 … government should increase gross fixed capital formation and progressively reduce consumption expenditure as a share of the GDP.
The government has acknowledged Recover and rebuild policy and macroeconomic policy. this, and President Ramaphosa thus manufacturing capacity and Sub-sectors like the automotive, food pledged: “We are deliberating stimulus drive exports and pharmaceuticals sectors stand a packages that boost government’s Assuming that the domestic, good chance of revival, especially if infrastructure spending in projects continental and international they leverage commitments from the that reactivate the economy; creating markets will stabilise and peak post- South Africa Investment Conferences financing instruments that provide COVID-19, government should consider of 2018 and 2020, and take into account liquidity, bridge financing or debt supporting the manufacturing sector in that they sell their goods in the restructuring instruments as well as a targeted manner. Globally, high-tech foreign markets. There is as yet no guarantee products and funds. manufacturing has stronger growth indication that the following companies “The Sustainable Infrastructure potential than low-tech manufacturing. will withdraw their investment Development Symposium South Africa While high-tech manufacturing is commitments in manufacturing: (SIDSSA) process has prioritised the less labour-intensive than low-tech Toyota (R2.4 billion), Mercedes Benz network industries, namely: energy, manufacturing, it still has a greater (R2.4 billion) and Aspen Pharmacare water, transport and information employment growth potential, even with (R3.4 billion) (Department of Trade and and communications technology rising income per capita. The challenge Industry, 2018; Department of Trade, infrastructure for investment. These for South Africa is growing high-tech Industry and Competition, 2019), with sectors have proven to have a superior manufacturing while creating large-scale a further commitment of a R15.8 billion multiplier effect, introduce greater employment. With low growth rates and investment from Ford. efficiencies in the economy, lead to a crisis of unemployment which has been Looking at the past, industry other spatial justice, and have capacity made worse by COVID-19, South Africa than agriculture and services has tended to absorb supply-side skills (The needs to support activities in sectors that to produce high emissions (per unit Presidency, 2020b: 2).” have strong growth-pulling properties as of value added). The composition of This commitment, made at the well as activities that are strongly labour- manufacturing matters. Consider for inaugural SIDSSA, was followed by absorbing (including low-skilled labour).2 example that high-tech manufacturing the gazetting of a number of strategic Where there is already some support, is generally cleaner than low-tech integrated projects (SIPs) in terms of the such needs to be scaled up and better manufacturing and the nature of Infrastructure Development Act, that resourced to have a meaningful impact in manufacturing technologies and include dams, roads, green energy, rail, rebuilding South Africa’s manufacturing processes also affects the extent of small harbours and human settlements capacity. In addition, government emissions. This means there is scope (Department of Public Works and support to manufacturing growth needs for reducing the emissions associated Infrastructure, 2020). to be much better integrated with other with any given level of manufacturing policy measures, such as competition production.
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contributions that outline our of efficiency and accountability and commitment to combating climate increasing consequence management. change with clearly defined targets. A development-oriented or people- As pressure mounts to transition centered public service that delivers … we propose a skills along a low-carbon, climate change goods and services on time, on budget resilient developmental pathway, the and according to set specifications will revolution that cleaner fuels/green energy sector will shift the conversation from a “bloated” involves changing be critical. There is an opportunity to public service into an effective public exploit forward linkages by promoting service. the model of SETAs manufactured products that use green As the primary research cited in this to focus more on technologies. Aviation is going green, paper demonstrates, poverty is on the so is the automotive industry – thus rise as a result of COVID-19. The papers, programmes offered presenting opportunities to produce and countless other studies, have by the TVET colleges. fuel cells and batteries for electric cars. demonstrated that social assistance in Manufactured products dependent the form of grants and access to basic on domestic consumption (for services does mitigate the impact of example, steel, cement, beverages poverty. Therefore, there is a strong and garments) are also likely to case for consolidating social security by see more losses in the short term extending the R350 grant for a longer as consumer confidence declines. period and for sustaining commitments However, if the recently approved to provide housing, school nutrition, National Infrastructure Plan is fully free basic services and free education for implemented and the commitments the youth from vulnerable households. made at SIDSSA honoured, we might Introducing conditionalities to see a modest revival of cement the infrastructure outlined above. and steel manufacturing, although The infrastructure build programme competitiveness remains of concern. should be sustained with resources being targeted at expanding ports Conclusion (and making port tariffs efficient) to As shown above, the consistently support exports; building broadband underperforming South African for fast internet; expanding key national The low-carbon energy transition economy has resulted in the rise in and provincial roads as corridors of presents opportunities for the unemployment, poverty and inequality trade; and maintaining bulk water manufacturing sector, particularly in – the COVID-19 pandemic merely and sanitation infrastructure. This is the hydrogen economy (fuel cells) and exposed our weaknesses, including increasingly coming under pressure as in the manufacture of green energy our vulnerability to corruption. The a result of under-investment and rapid products/components like solar panels, economic logic is basic: growth helps to urban migration, for example. But there wind turbines and battery storage. For raise revenue which must be reinvested have be conditions attached to this this to work, clear forward and backward to incentivise production and to fund support, such as the requirement that linkages are required between industrial social protection. No economy can beneficiaries promote innovation, local policy, urban development and land borrow itself out of a recession. Recent procurement and skills development. use policies such that as the housing/ loans from the International Monetary As we have argued above, energy accommodation/property industry Fund, the BRICS Bank, the African security is key to the success of a stabilises, local producers can supply Development Bank and other liquidity decisive reform agenda. Two things are green energy products. Guaranteeing interventions by the central bank are required here. One: find creative ways backward linkages can unlock incentives not a substitute for decisive reforms. to address Eskom’s debt which is over such as those enjoyed by Special Without getting into too much R450 billion and therefore a threat to Economic Zones whilst taking advance detail, some of the decisive state sovereign credit ratings. This could of local content requirements. reforms required are: include having the Reserve Bank buy South Africa is a signatory to the Increasing the productivity of the some of this debt thus allowing Eskom Paris Agreement to combat climate public service. This entails holding the to reprioritise resources into a strong change, and has nationally determined public service to professional standards maintenance programme, including
Issue 80 - New Agenda 19 www.dpru.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/image_ entering the renewable energy space as frequency spectrum and investment tool/images/36/Publications/Working_Papers/ reliance on fossil fuels declines. Two: in smallholder agriculture. The latter DPRU%20WP%20202008.pdf government should negotiate the price requires clear linkages to value chains National Treasury. 2020. Supplementary Budget Review of buying energy from independent supporting local consumption (school 2020. National Treasury. Pretoria. Nwosu, C. & Oyenubi, A. 2020. Income-related health power producers (IPPs) in order to ‘share feeding schemes, local markets and inequalities associated with COVID-19 in South Africa. the cake’ by allowing more players retailers). Agricultural exports need Pretoria, available at https://cramsurvey.org/ into the market. The anti-IPP lobby is to take advantage of the country’s wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Nwosu-Estimating- income-related-health-inequalitiesassociated- using costs to undermine an otherwise friendly trade relations in the region, in with-COVID-19.pdf important programme for the country’s the global north and now increasingly Organisation for Economic Cooperation and energy security. This deployment of with countries in the global south that Development. 2020. OECD Economic Surveys South Africa: 2020. policy instruments will be a game have the “appetite” for South Africa’s Ranchhod, V. & Daniels, R. 2020. Labour market dynamics changer for the just transition the agricultural products. in South Africa in the time of Covid-19: Evidence country must embark on. from Wave 1 of the NIDS-CRAM Survey. Pretoria, available at https://cramsurvey.org/wp-content/ Finally, we propose a skills REFERENCES uploads/2020/07/Ranchhod-Labour-market- revolution that involves changing Casale, D. & Posel, D. 2020. Gender and the Early Effects of dynamics-in-the-time-of-COVID-19.pdf the model of Sector Education and the COVID-19 Crisis in the Paid and Unpaid Economies Rogan, M. & Skinner, C. 2020. The COVID-19 crisis in South Africa. Pretoria, available at https:// and the South African informal economy ‘Locked Training Authorities (SETA) to focus cramsurvey.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/ out’ of livelihoods and employment. Pretoria, more on programmes offered by the Casale-Gender-the-early-effects-of-the-COVID-19- available at https://cramsurvey.org/wp-content/ crisis-in-the-paid-unpaid-economies-in-South- uploads/2020/07/Rogan-Covid-crisis-and-the- Technical, Vocational and Training Africa.pdf South-African-informal-economy.pdf Colleges (TVET colleges). The success Coleman, C. 2020. ‘From a “Two-Speed Society” to South African Reserve Bank. 2020. Quarterly Bulletin of the interventions above will depend One that works for All Doing “Whatever it Takes”: June 2020. Accessed 5 July 2020, available at https:// A Ten-point Action Plan to Grow an Inclusive www.resbank.co.za/Lists/News%20and%20Pu at the rate and quality of technical South African Economy and Escape a Socio- blicationsAttachments/10091/02Quarterly%20 and vocational skills the country can Economic Crisis.’ Vice-Chancellor’s Open Lecture. Economic%20Review.pdf. 15 July 2020. University of Cape Town. Cape Town. produce within a short space of time. The Presidency. 2020a. ‘President Cyril Ramaphosa Curr, H. 2020. The world economy. Economist Special By leveraging resources from SETAs Address to the Nation: 21 April 2020.’ Pretoria, Report available at https://www.economist.com/ accessed 6 July, available at http://www. and partnerships with industry, TVET special-report/2020-10-10 thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/ colleges can access skills trainers from Department of Public Enterprises. 2019. Roadmap president-cyril-ramaphosa-address-nation-0 for Eskom in a Reformed Electricity Supply Industry. industry to deliver high-impact and The Presidency. 2020b. ‘Sustainable Infrastructure Pretoria. Development Symposium South Africa: 23 June responsive training interventions. Every Department of Public Works and Infrastructure. 2020. Pretoria, available at https://sidssa.org.za/ construction site can become a training 2020. ‘Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating media-27july2020/ site. Every production line (especially Commission Council: Strategic Integrated Van der Berg, S., Zuze, L., & Bridgman, G. 2020. Projects.’ Government Gazette No. 43547. 24 July. Coronavirus, Lockdown and Children: Some impacts of the in the industries that benefit from Infrastructure Development Act (23/2014), as current crisis in child welfare using data from NIDS-CRAM subsidies) can become a training site. amended: Strategic Integrated Projects 43547. Wave 1. Pretoria, available at https://cramsurvey. Department of Trade and Industry. 2018. Close Out org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Van-der-Berg- Again, this is a policy lever that should Report on the South Africa Investment Conference 2019. Coronavirus-Lockdown-and-Children-1.pdf be used to drive the economic recovery Pretoria. World Economic Forum. 2019. The Global programme we discussed in this paper. Department of Trade, Industry and Competition. Competitiveness Report 2019. Geneva. As the adage goes, public policy is the art 2019. Close Out Report on the South Africa Investment Conference 2019. Pretoria. of making choices. But these choices have Editor’s note: Several of the studies available to Ekurhuleni News. 2020. ‘Consol Glass Cancels R1.5bn the NPC, cited above, are from the National Income to be rational (evidence-based), realistic Manufacturing Plant Due to the Alcohol Ban.’ Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile and responsive. Even as we argue above Accessed 3 July 2020, available at https://www. Survey (NIDS-CRAM), based on a broadly nationally tametimes.co.za/ekurhuleni-news-consol-glass- representative panel survey of South African that infrastructure and manufacturing cancels-r1-5bn-manufacturing-plant-due-to-the- individuals. The most recent reports are available at present viable opportunities for reviving alcohol-ban/ https://cramsurvey.org/ the economy, such ambitions will not be Hausmann, R. 2020. COVID-19 Macro-economic ENDNOTES Consequences for Developing Countries. Centre for realised unless bureaucratic and other Development and Enterprise webinar, 2 April, 1. The pandemic is leaving economies much more Johannesburg. digitised – as people work from home – and less systemic and institutional inefficiencies equal – as transport, cleaning and service jobs are addressed. Hence it is vital that the Jain, R., Budlender, J., Zizzamia, R., & Bassier, I. 2020. for offices and CBDs are cut. It is uncertain when The labour market and poverty impacts of COVID-19 rebuilding of state capacity should be (and whether) a lot of these jobs will come back in South Africa. Pretoria, available at https:// (Curr, 2020). prioritised as part of the recovery plan, cramsurvey.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/ Jain-The-labour-market-and-poverty-impacts.pdf 2. The focus on prioritising sectors, as captured per the first proposition above. By in successive versions of the Industrial Policy Köhler, T. & Bhorat, H. 2020. ‘COVID-19, social equal measure, investments in human Action Plan (IPAP), has been a step in the right protection, and the labour market in South direction. capital development need to be scaled Africa: Are social grants being targeted at the up, alongside speedy allocation of radio most vulnerable?’ Pretoria, available at http://
20 New Agenda - Issue 80 Ethiopia Towards the modern Ethiopian state
1993: Eritrea formally separated from Ethiopia as an independent state after a referendum. But there were ongoing Adwa violent border disputes with Ethiopia.
1991-2019: Ethiopia was ruled by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of ethnic based political parties dominated by TPLF, imposed an ethnic federalist system in Ethiopia. Parties in Ethiopia were GERD banned from organising on a national basis, but instead only an ethnic basis.
2012: Meles Zenawi, charismatic (and authoritarian) Prime Minister suddenly died.
2012-2018: Hailemariam Desalegn became Prime Minister, and Chairman of the EPRDF (Abiy Ahmed was a member of the EPRDF executive and a Minister of Science and Technology during this time). 1914: Ethiopia was the only country in Africa that was not colonised by the European powers. This followed the Battle of 2018: Desalegn resigned after widespread protest. Abiy Ahmed Adwa in 1896, where Ethiopian forces routed an invading army was elected Chairman of the EPRDF, and became Prime sponsored by Italy. Minister of Ethiopia.
1936: The Italian fascists, having invaded Ethiopia from their 2019: The EPRDF ruling coalition approved the formation of neighbouring colony of Eritrea with an army of 600,000, forced the Prosperity Party in a merger with five other parties. The Emperor Haile Selassie to flee into exile. TPLF refused to join this merger. Abiy retained his post as Prime Minister. 1941: Ethiopia was liberated by Ethiopian patriots alongside the British and other allied forces and Haile Selassie returned 2019: Abiy was awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for ending as Emperor. He abolished the practice of slavery in 1942. the 20-year territorial stalemate between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and for releasing political prisoners and adopting liberal 1962: Ethiopia formally annexed Eritrea (which led to a 30-year- governance within Ethiopia. long independence struggle). 2020 May: Abiy controversially postponed scheduled national 1963: Haile Selassie presided over the formation of the elections, due to Covid-19. Elders and mediators engaged Organisation of African Unity, the precursor of the African with the TPLF committee leadership to avoid escalating Union, and served as its first chairperson. tensions with the central government. TPLF rejected all these interventions, and proceeded to hold elections. 1974: The monarchy was overthrown in the 1974 revolution and Haile Selassie was later killed. 2020 November: Long-standing tensions and disagreements with political leaders in Tigray province (on the border with 1991: The Derg was overthrown when the Tigray People’s Eritrea) escalated into war, after TPLF soldiers attacked federal Liberation Front (TPLF) and other armed groups, with US troops. Civilians caught up in the violence. support, marched into Addis Ababa, toppling the Derg, and introducing ethnocentricism.
Issue 80 - New Agenda 21 Ethiopia’s impact on security and peace in the horn of hope Framing six salient issues
By Iqbal Jhazbhay
Iqbal Jhazbhay is Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Department of Religious Studies and Arabic at the University of South Africa. Before that, from 2012 to 2016, he was South Africa’s ambassador to the state of Eritrea 1.
Professor Iqbal Jhazbhay puts, in the Horn of Africa by asserting: “If trade organisation of the Common forward six key issues for the tensions in Ethiopia would result Market for Eastern and Southern in a widespread civil conflict that goes Africa (COMESA), comprising 21 consideration on Ethiopia’s beyond Tigray, Syria will look like child’s African member states that came impact on security and peace play by comparison’’ (Gramer, 2021). together with the aim of promoting in the Horn of Africa in its What then are the possible options for regional integration through trade and policymakers to de-escalate the tensions development. COMESA, along with the attempt to build development in the area in the search for security, East African Community (EAC) and in the region. Here he considers governance and development?2 the Southern African Development each in turn. Community (SADC), have evolved free 1. Ethiopia’s role in the trade arrangements. There are green Introduction Horn of Africa shoots of free trade movement of This concise article intends to frame, Ethiopia, Africa’s second most goods emerging, for example between as critically as possible, six key issues populous country, is a pivotal state Ethiopia, Eritrea and South Africa. on Ethiopia’s impact on security and in the Horn of Africa. Over the past Critical within the matrix of peace in the Horn of Africa. A sobering few years, Ethiopia’s economy, Ethiopia’s democratic development is and compelling global analysis and infrastructure, export free-trade zone its current political transition and its effort is needed in the context of further markets and its national airline have nascent trajectory for the upcoming June promoting peace and security within the shown healthy signs of robust emerging 2021 national elections. Sudan is one of larger African Union goal of ‘silencing growth. Ethiopia’s populace, its markets, Ethiopia’s major neighbours and the the guns’. The urgency of together will in future contribute to the newly largest African investor in the Ethiopian focusing on COVD-19 solutions provides structured African Continental Free economy. Sudan is undergoing a civilian- further impetus for meaningful regional Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). military transitional arrangement and global response to the development One of the key distinctions of and preparing the country for future challenges in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia remains the fact that it has the democratic elections. largest freshwater reserves in Africa. A The Kenyan president has described dozen major rivers flow from Ethiopia’s 2. Ethiopian-Eritrean the current situation in the Horn of highland plateau. This gives Ethiopia 2018 Joint Declaration of Africa as “quite unstable’’ (Kenyatta, a strategic leverage over its Nile River Peace and Friendship 2021). Newly appointed US Special Envoy riparian neighbours, notably Egypt. Increasingly and steadily, more to the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, On the inter-regional front, it attention has been given to the seminal I believe overplayed the political crisis remains a member of the regional free Ethiopian-Eritrean Joint Declaration of
22 New Agenda - Issue 80 Ethiopia
Increasingly and steadily, more attention has been given to the seminal Ethiopian-Eritrean Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship of 2018.
Peace and Friendship of 2018 (Shabait, machinery in the 1998-2000 war with Somalia) have experienced a great deal 2018). Since the 2000 Algiers Peace Eritrea. He described the ravages of of war trauma. Agreement between both countries, war (Abiy, 2019). Therefore, when he It is important for the peace and “the no-war, no-peace situation” came to power, he gave all the required security of the Horn of Africa to ask stonewalled the full development of signals to Eritrea that he would like to what type of mechanisms the Ethiopian both countries. In this context, both the go beyond this decimated stalemate. government and some of its friends, current president of Eritrea, President Mercifully, the Eritrean president was including its neighbour Eritrea, along Isaias Afwerki, as well as the current equally exhausted with this ten-year with the previous AU and current AU Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, conundrum (1998-2018). chair, will adopt to support Ethiopia invested intensely to put together this Within this context of the in this important phase of its post-war much-needed joint peace declaration. emergence of the difficult and tough development. More efforts are underway at regional home-grown Peace and Friendship The Ethiopian human rights and international levels to implement Declaration, progressive friendly commission and its taskforce has this peace declaration. international partners need to be responded to some of the key problems South Africa hosted the BRICS 2018 persuaded to support a joint regional of trauma experienced in many of the Political Parties Plus Dialogue summit. and international security architecture Tigrayan towns such as Aksum and Most members of the ANC’s BRICS to nourish this seminal Ethiopian- Adwa. The Ethiopian Human Rights preparatory committee were of the view Eritrean peace treaty. Commission in conjunction with the that the Ethiopian ruling party, the UN Human Rights Commission have then Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary 3. The crisis in the Tigray started an investigation into allegations Democratic Party (EPRDF), as well federal state of Ethiopia of rape and sexual crimes in Tigray as Eritrea’s ruling party, the People’s Scholars and analysts have written (Istratii, 2021). Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), extensively on the 2020 Ethiopian should address the plenary of the BRICS government’s military intervention in 4. Eritrea’s shuttle Political Parties Plus Dialogue summit, the northern Tigray state of Ethiopia. diplomacy in the Horn of hosted in Pretoria. This was a clear Political studies and literature confirm Africa manifestation by the host of this BRICS that there are no winners in any military Eritrea, as a peace partner of summit, the ANC, to explore a way to mission (Mengiste, 2019). Much work Ethiopia, has been engaged in extensive give a firm global push to this important will be needed in the coming post- shuttle peace diplomacy in the Horn of Ethiopian-Eritrean peace treaty (ANC war reconstruction and infrastructure Africa. Eritrea has cordial relations with Today, 2018). development phases as well as the the Egyptian head of state, President Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy has post-war healing process, given that all Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The Eritrean mentioned that he was part of the countries in the Horn of Africa (Egypt, leadership has a healthy relationship Ethiopian National Defence Force war Sudan, South Sudan, Somaliland and with the current Sudanese prime
Issue 80 - New Agenda 23 … the international community … often takes positions on states like Ethiopia, Sudan or Eritrea which calls into question the integrity of their positions. minister, Abdallah Hamdok, and the 5. Ethiopia’s role in representation. current head of the military council in Somalia & Somaliland One of the earlier achievements of Sudan, Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah The fifth critical geo-political matter the Ethiopian-Eritrean Joint Declaration al-Burhan. In addition, the Sudanese I explore briefly is to examine the of Peace and Friendship of 2018 was leadership appreciates the healthy implications of Ethiopia’s role in the the development of border roads from relations with Prime Minister Abiy Somali territories, including Mogadishu, northern Ethiopia passing though Ahmed so the Eritrean role is to try to and towards Somalia’s north, the town the north-eastern Afar region to the de-escalate tensions between Egypt of Hargeisa, now known as Somaliland Eritrean Red Sea port of Assab. Ethiopia and Ethiopia and between Sudan and (Lujiza, 2003). Somaliland is due to hold is looking at its own options in terms Ethiopia on some of the complex border democratic parliamentary and local of peace and security, and its own port agricultural matters. elections on 30 May 2021 (African Union trading arrangements as one of the There is evidence of a number of Commission, 2005). Mogadishu has a world’s largest landlocked countries. trips made by the Eritrean foreign constitutional crisis now and it will be Ethiopia’s north-eastern neighbour, minister plus the presidential advisor, interesting to see given that Ethiopia Djibouti, has a majority Somali Yemane Gebreab, to Egypt as well as and many of the other neighbouring population. Ethiopia maintains cordial Sudan and Addis Ababa (Shabait, 2019). countries have tried to play a role in relations with Djibouti. Often Djibouti This demonstrates the increasing post- stabilising Somalia (African Union, flouts AU continental consensus war diplomatic role Eritrea is trying to 2021). Ethiopia has a diplomatic consul- positions. As a member of the Arab play. The 2021 media interview with general in stable Hargeisa and an League as well as the Organisation of President Isaias provides insights ambassador in unstable Mogadishu. Islamic Countries, it often takes political into managing the former minority Ethiopia is acutely aware that positions reflecting its own parochial Ethiopian ruling party’s Tigray People’s it cannot rely solely on the port of national interests. Djibouti as a rent- Liberation Front (TPLF) (Shabait, 2021). Djibouti, so it is diversifying the seeking survival state hosts several The Eritrean leadership has experienced possibilities of using other ports. foreign military bases for France, USA, war. They have seen how it has set back Currently, the road between the port of China and Japan. the development agenda for Eritrea and Berbera in Somaliland leading to Addis the entire region. I believe Eritrea really Ababa is being developed. It is now at a 6. National interests wants to avoid any future setbacks to very advanced stage of expansion. The of the international the peace and development agenda of United Arab Emirates’s BP World has partners Eritrea and the region. invested $450 million for the Berbera A notable strategic point of port expansion project and the UAE particular interest is the approach of the has opened a diplomatic consulate Horn of Africa states on how to engage in Hargeisa with ambassadorial more robustly with international
24 New Agenda - Issue 80 Ethiopia
Istratii, R. 2021. War and domestic violence: A rapid partners and their interests in the Horn and to make it a reasonably stable scoping of the international literature to understand of Africa. middle-income country. Much of the the relationship and to inform current responses in development we know was primarily the Tigray humanitarian crisis. SOAS, University of I have observed the following during London. Accessed on 29 April, 2021 at https:// my four-and-a-half-year tenure that I in cities. We know in the rural areas the projectdldl.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ spent in the state of Eritrea and beyond. deficit of development is huge. We can Working-paper-2_Project-dldl-1.pdf I do not believe that the international see now movement in that direction to Kenyatta, U. 2021. ‘Secretary Antony J. Blinken Before Virtual Meeting with Kenyan President Uhuru community quite understands the develop the rural outlying areas. Kenyatta,’ Washington: Department of State. historic and current political nuances I believe if we focus on these six Accessed on 29 April, 2021, at https://www.state. gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-before-virtual- in the Horn of Africa as accurately as I areas as outlined, it will give us a better meeting-with-kenyan-president-uhuru-kenyatta/ would like to see them understand it. sense of what should be the possible Lujiza, T. 2003. April 29. ‘Somaliland’s Claim to So often they take positions on states future policy recommendations to Sovereign Status,’ Office of the Chief State Law Advisor (International Law), Pretoria: like Ethiopia, Sudan or Eritrea which develop more security and peace not Department of Foreign Affairs. pp. 1-6. calls into question the integrity of only in the Horn of Africa. Mengiste, M. 2019. The Shadow King. WW Norton their positions. I shall give you a few The prime issue of our engagement Muresan, A. 2019. ‘Reviewing South Africa’s 2018 examples. with our international partners within BRICS Presidency: Taking lessons forward.’ Proceedings report of a symposium hosted by We all know there was the Algiers this larger regional context remains the Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD) associated peace agreement on the matter of an existential challenge (FitzGerald & with UNISA, and South African BRICS Think Tank (SABTT) 20 February 2019. Accessed on 27 the border of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Segal, 2021). April at http://www.nkibrics.ru/system/asset_ The then Ethiopian ruling party led publications/data/5cff/ee94/6272/6956/6a09/0000/ original/Reviewing_South_Africas_2018_BRICS_ by Tigray’s TPLF at that time did not REFERENCES Presidency_Taking_Lessons_20_Feb_Formatted. want to implement the Algiers peace Ahmed, Abiy. 2019. 10 December. ‘Forging A Durable pdf?1560276627 Peace in the Horn of Africa.’ Lecture given by Patrick, M. & Jhazbhay, I. 2006. Security, Governance agreement. It is rather unfortunate Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2019, Abiy Ahmed Ali, and Development: The Braided Strands of Future that the international community did Oslo, 10 December 2019. Accessed on April 28, 2021 Prosperity in Africa. London, RUSI: Whitehall at https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2019/ not do what it was supposed to do as reports. Accessed on 29 April 2021 at https:// abiy/109716-lecture-english/ a guarantor and much of this aspect of rusi.org/publication/whitehall-reports/african- African Union. 2021. Communique of the 993rd security-commodities-and-development history and the way they dealt with the meeting of the PSC held on 22 April 2021, on Shabait 2018. 9 July. Joint Declaration of Peace and the political and security situation in Somalia. Algiers peace agreement has now been Friendship between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Accessed on Accessed on April 27, 2021 on http://peaceau.org/ 27 April, 2021 at https://shabait.com/2018/07/09/ made known in public in the memoirs en/article/communique-of-the-993rd-meeting- joint-declaration-of-peace-and-friendship- of-the-psc-held-on-22-april-2021-on-the-political- of the former US ambassador to the UN, between-eritrea-and-ethiopia/ and-security-situation-in-somalia John Bolton (Bolton, 2008). Shabait 2019. 14 Oct. ‘Mr. Yemane Gebreab delivers African Union Commission. 2005. Resumé. AU Fact- message of President Isaias to Sudanese leader.’ Ambassador Bolton was given Finding Mission to Somaliland (30 April to 4 May Accessed on 29 April, 2021 at https://shabait. 2005). Addis Ababa. pp. 1-4. Accessed on 24 March, deliberate instructions not to com/2019/10/14/mr-yemane-gebreab-delivers- 2021 at https://docplayer.net/200104453-Resume- message-of-president-isaias-to-sudanese-leader/ implement the Algiers peace agreement au-fact-finding-mission-to-somaliland-30-april- and we all know that the delay in to-4-may-2005.html Shabait 2021. 26 Feb. Interview with President Isaias Afwerki on Regional and Domestic issues, 17 ANC. 2018. 21 June. Statement of the African National implementing the Algiers peace February 2021 (excerpts). Accessed on 29 April, Congress on Eritrea-Ethiopia implementing the 2021 at https://shabait.com/2021/02/26/interview- agreement on the issue of the border 2000 Algiers Border Agreement. Accessed on of-president-isaias-afwerki-17-february-2021- between Ethiopia and Eritrea delayed 30 April, 2021 at https://twitter.com/MYANC/ excerpt/ the peace and security project in the status/1009842059669360640?s=20 ANC Today, 2018. December 8. BRICS Political Horn of Africa by 10 years. You are ENDNOTES Parties Plus Dialogue. Accessed on 27 looking at 1998 to the year 2018 and so April, 2021 at https://twitter.com/iqbalau_/ 1 This article is based on a presentation to a panel status/1071298580772732929?s=20 discussion entitled ‘Ethiopia at the Crossroad: the whole post-war, post-reconstruction Implications for Peace and Security in Africa’, Bolton, J. 2008. Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending or reconstruction project of Ethiopia which was hosted by the Africa Institute of South America at the United Nations. New York: Simon and Africa (AISA) in the Human Sciences Research and Eritrea was delayed. So what you Schuster. Council, Pretoria. 26 February 2021. see happening is that Ethiopia was FitzGerald, A. & Segal, H. 2021. April 19. A New Proxy 2 I explored in detail earlier the inter-connected Battlespace? Accessed on 27April, 2021 at https:// fortunate that Prime Minister Meles link between security, governance and rusi.org/commentary/ethiopia-new-proxy- development with the late former Deputy navigating within the then ruling battlespace Chair of the African Union Commission. (See party’s EPRDF and working within Gramer, R. 2021. ‘Africa Envoy: Ethiopia Crisis Mazimhaka & Jhazbhay, 2006). the then TPLF at least succeeded in Could Make Syria Look Like Child’s Play. Foreign Policy. Accessed on 28 April, 2021, on https:// convincing his comrades in the ruling foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/26/u-s-africa-envoy- party to set a firm footing for the ethiopia-crisis-tigray-jeffrey-feltman-biden- infrastructure project for Ethiopia diplomacy-horn-of-africa/
Issue 80 - New Agenda 25 Washington’s Ethiopia policy – hybrid warfare in the making (again)
By Rob Prince
Rob Prince taught undergraduate courses full-time for 22 years at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, Colorado USA, retiring in 2015. He has a Masters’ in Social Science from the University of Colorado, Denver.
For some time now, since the A memory stirs… to share power with the Tigray Peoples’ Addis campaign to neutralize It is 10 years ago and I am Liberation Front through a maximum participating in a forum at the pressure campaign similar to the one the Tigray military opposition, University of Denver’s Korbel School the United States has forced on Iran. A the US has been weaponizing of International Studies where I second goal is to weaken Ethiopia from the human rights and refugee taught. It is just prior to the US-NATO emerging as a vital regional force in the orchestrated invasion of Libya and the Horn of Africa, one that offers hope not issues in Ethiopia in a overthrow of the Khadaffi government. only for Ethiopia’s growing population manner that is both cynical An atmosphere approaching hysteria of 108 million people but also for the prevails among the other panellists as surrounding countries Sudan, South and dangerous, following to well as the audience. The argument put Sudan, Eritrea and Uganda. the destabilization patterns forth at the time unproven then and Is the US Ethiopia policy shaping up Washington has employed never verified afterwards was that to along the same lines as that exercised in save the lives of imprisoned Islamicists Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria? elsewhere… a first step in Benghazi the United States and NATO All this comes at a critical juncture leading to more aggressive had to bomb Libya. in Ethiopian history, a crossroads The Libyan case was a classic that could lead to a socio-economic actions? Hybrid warfare is on example of war-making based on renaissance or back to the maelstrom of the ‘menu’: disinformation, humanitarian intervention, a veil hiding poverty and ethnic conflict. sanctions, vilification of the geopolitical motivations of regime change. Now 10 years on, with slight The clock is ticking… the leadership, ultimatums, differences, a similar build-up towards At a time when the prospects for a distorted reporting on human war and regime change in Ethiopia is major socio-economic breakthrough gaining steam. It is directed by some in Ethiopia have never been greater, rights abuses, political key players of Joe Biden’s foreign policy Washington’s destabilisation efforts manipulation, no fly zones, team, Susan Rice, Anthony Blinken and against Ethiopia have intensified in an military intervention of one Jake Sullivan. effort to throw a monkey wrench into The details between the Libyan and the country’s development potential. kind or another – ‘die gantse Ethiopian situations vary but the goal Also, a growing COVID-19 threat as well arbet!’ (the whole works!) is the same: to force the government of as ethnic factionalism and other outside Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed interference threatens this promising
26 New Agenda - Issue 80 Ethiopia
moment as well. political issues are more intractable, Israeli prime ministers, the Egypt and the United States are especially for Egypt which refuses to president of the United among those countries who consider give up what amounts to an outdated States took it upon himself an Ethiopian economic “take off” as a colonial control of the Nile based to casually issue a bellicose zero-sum game in which Ethiopia gains on treaties signed during the British threat to Ethiopia on behalf at Washington’s and Cairo’s expense. For colonial period and in which Ethiopia of Egypt and its president, Egypt “the Ethiopian threat” is a slight, had no role. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a man but still unacceptable loss of regional Put bluntly, Ethiopia has the ethical Trump has referred to as “my influence that will result from Ethiopian upper hand. Its case for building favourite dictator”. socio-economic dynamism. The United the dam, and how the dam will spur States, on the other hand, appears development throughout the Horn Seemingly miffed mostly motivated by the possibility of Africa, is strong and logical. It has by the failure of his of curtailing the growing Chinese the ethical high ground but not the administration’s clumsy economic influence in Africa. Ethiopia ‘math’ ie the balance of power is not effort to broker a deal is a key player in China’s Belt and Road in its favour given the backing Egypt on the use of Nile waters Initiative into Africa (Maru, 2019). enjoys from the United States and the now that Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian European Union as well as a number of Renaissance Dam has Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a major Arab countries. become a reality, Trump development project on the Blue Nile posited that Egypt “will end tributary, some 50 miles inside the This is the dilemma. up blowing up the dam. country near its northern border with Make no mistake, Egypt has the . . . they’ll blow up that Sudan. From Ethiopia, the Blue Nile, United States, and to a certain degree dam. And they have to do which provides over 90% of Egypt’s some countries of the Arab Peninsula something. . . . They should water supply, runs through Sudan and with sizeable interests in Ethiopia, have stopped it long before Egypt, emptying into the Mediterranean on its side. Washington is no neutral it was started.” Sea near Alexandria. When completed, arbitrator. It has made clear that it the GERD will be able to harness enough sides 100% with Cairo against the plans 2. Prior to President Trump’s electrical energy for all of Ethiopia as and interests of Addis Ababa. Just unconscionable “Egypt- well as enough to sell to surrounding how lopsided is Washington’s support should-bomb-the-dam” threat, countries. for Egypt became obvious when the Washington was already putting The water diversion that Egypt fears Washington-inspired talks between pressure on Ethiopia to concede is not a goal. In spite of reassurances Egypt and Ethiopia broke down over the to Egypt’s demands for full from Ethiopia that this is the case, Egypt future of the GERD. control over the Nile waters. wants to maintain the regional status For many years, Washington quo. Developing a more balanced power Three examples of Washington’s has pressurised the World Bank sharing mechanism in which all the increased belligerence towards Ethiopia: not to grant loans to Ethiopia, countries of the Nile River Basin, both moneys needed to help build up and down stream, would have a say 1. In his usual crude manner the GERD. In 2020, the Trump seems particularly threatening to Cairo Donald Trump, who had hoped Administration had first which has threatened to bomb the dam to use peace-making between appropriated $453,000,000 in aid should the Ethiopians complete it and Egypt and Ethiopia as a ticket to Ethiopia. Already in August, begin its operations. for a Nobel Peace Prize, openly 2020, the US cut that amount Egypt’s relationship with its attacked Ethiopia. Oddly enough, by $130 million in response to upstream Nile River partners has long Trump did so at a Washington Ethiopia’s refusal to sign the been of a “core-peripheral” nature. DC signing of the normalisation so-called Washington GERD Egypt worries about losing its privileged of relations between Israel and agreement. status as the regional hegemonic Sudan. As reported in the online power dominating the Nile River flows. edition of the Council on Foreign Adding fuel to the anti- In such a massive project, funded in Relations (Gavin, 2020): Ethiopian fire, more pressure large measure by the Ethiopian people was exerted on Ethiopia, themselves, of course there are< technical During the conversation when, on September 2, 2020, issues that need to be resolved. But the with the Sudanese and Trump personally intervened
Issue 80 - New Agenda 27 Egypt and the United States are among those countries who consider an Ethiopian economic ‘take off’ as a zero- sum game in which Ethiopia gains at Washington’s and Cairo’s expense.
vindictively by ordering and inaccurate. Biden’s tone characterized by the TPLF’s dictatorship, direct aid cuts to Ethiopia towards Ethiopia might not be ruthless repression, the setting of because of “lack of progress” as blatantly vulgar as Donald other Ethiopian ethnic communities in Ethiopia’s talks with Egypt Trump’s openly racist rhetoric against one another, massive corruption and Sudan over the GERD. with the latter’s description of and a breath-taking level of personal The New York Times observed, “shit hole countries” and his graft with more than $30 billion of “It was an unusual example comments that Egypt should the country’s wealth being squirreled of Mr Trump’s direct bomb the GERD but the content is away in Tigray emigre communities the intervention on an issue in essentially the same: intimidation, world over, including the United States Africa, a continent he hasn’t disinformation, ultimatums, (Steinman, 2017). A goodly percentage of visited as president and sanctions, etc. Ethiopian emigres to the United States rarely mentions publicly.” It came to escape the Tigray-dominated turned out that the actual US The United States, Europe and their government repression. cuts to Ethiopian aid were media have been waging a relentless If Washington usually ignored much deeper; “the actual cut hybrid war of words, economic the sorry Tigray record on human was more than double of pressure and disinformation against rights, it is because the TPLF has what was reported in August Ethiopia, “weaponizing’ human and long been useful to US geostrategic for a whopping $264 million refugee rights. The fact is US Secretary aims in the Horn of Africa. Providing cut (42%) in antiterrorism of State, Anthony Blinken, has Washington with its necessary plausible and development assistance designated Ethiopia as an object of deniability, the cover it needs to veil for Ethiopia.” `active engagement’ and special focus. its interventionalist foreign policy, It may sound innocuous enough but twice during that period, the Tigray 3. Washington’s animosity towards is nothing less than a threat that if government, acting as Washington’s the Ethiopian government Ethiopia doesn’t bend to Washington’s cat’s paw, engaged in military operations is bipartisan, involving both will, the pressure on Addis Ababa will be in the region. Democratic and Republic intensified. (Mariam, 2021) administrations. Blaming the From 1991 until 2018, Ethiopia was • In 1998 it invaded Eritrea deteriorating US-Ethiopian governed by a clique of the Tigray ethnic occupying 25% of the country. connection on the Trump minority known as the Tigray Peoples’ The TPLF was used as a tool of Administration is too simple Liberation Front (TPLF). Those years were Washington to subdue Eritrea
28 New Agenda - Issue 80 Ethiopia
because its resistance to its evidence that ethnic cleansing had young Amhara men were slaughtered Washington-based structural taken place in Western Tigray Province. by crazed Tigrayan militia and special programmes and refusal to Instead, Coons relayed Biden’s message forces” (The Queen of Sheba, 2021). participate in AFRICOM.1 to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed with a With this uprising, the TFLP had • Then in 2006, again, pushed by two-part ultimatum: hoped to trigger a national uprising Washington, Ethiopia invaded of other ethnic groups in Ethiopia. Somalia. The only African state Ethiopia must postpone It did not happen. Within two days that opposed the invasion of the completion of the Great the Ethiopian National Defence Force Somalia by Ethiopia at the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (ENDP) conducted devastating counter time was Eritrea. At the time and that the Ethiopian attacks which quickly neutralised the ICU-Islamic Council were government should the TFLP’s military potential. The undermining the power of local reconcile and enter into TFLP’s effort to overthrow the Addis warlords and bringing them negotiations with the Tigray Ababa government completely failed. under some kind of control Popular Liberation Front, Understanding that their efforts to in an effort to stabilise the which had just attempted to return to power militarily had fizzled, country. overthrow the government. the Tigray leadership shifted gears hoping to win diplomatically what they While not abandoning its relations It makes one wonder if Coons’ visit had lost on the battlefield. By November with Washington, Ethiopia looked for was nothing other than an exercise in 8, 2020 a mere five days after having other sources of foreign aid and found political diktat, a threat rather than a launched their offensive the Tigray them in the growing relationship with sincere fact-finding mission. Ethiopia “cried uncle” and with the support of China. The China-Ethiopia relationship categorically rejected both US demands. the Biden Administration, called for has grown since and partially as a result, Almost immediately thereafter, the negotiations in an effort to preserve a Ethiopia has experienced a dramatic US Senate and House began drafting modicum of power. growth spurt, which has only intensified resolutions to increase the pressure on The US response to the Ethiopian since the TPLF ceded power to a new Ethiopia. government’s crushing of the Tigray coalition led by Abiy Ahmed, the A little background to the Chris Rebellion was both curious and country’s Prime Minister. Coons visit: immediate. Rather than congratulating On the night of November 3, 2020 Ahmed Abiy’s government for The Chris Coons visit: The (The Queen of Sheba, 2021) a military preventing a threat to Ethiopian solidification of an anti- force of the TPLF attacked an Ethiopian sovereignty that could have plunged the Ethiopian Washington Federal Army base of the Northern country into a “Yugoslavia-like” crisis, stance Command in Tigray Province, Ethiopia. Washington weighed in heavily on the There are indications that both The Ethiopian soldiers and their officers side of the Tigray partitionists, with the the US and EU prefer a weak, famine- were asleep at the time. This attack was media chiming in. stricken, ethnically fragmented, “tamed” not the only one. On the same day the Five months on, it continues to do state in Ethiopia to what Ethiopia is TFLP also attacked 200 other sites and so unabated. becoming: an emerging regional power bases throughout Ethiopia, massacring Unverified reports of government that has the potential to change the thousands and doing so in a way that war crimes and ethnic cleansing in the geopolitical map of the region. Nothing can only be considered barbaric: slitting Tigray region began appearing in the exemplifies this tendency, as well as the throats, slashing guts, and cutting off US media based on a secret report the continuity of US Ethiopia policy, more breasts of women soldiers. US government offered to the New York clearly than US Senator Chris Coons’ In what was a killing spree the Times. “Ethiopia’s War Leads to Ethnic Ethiopia trip of March, 2021. TFLP militia surrounded Ethiopian Cleansing in Tigray Region.” and which Although it was billed as a fact- government soldiers en masse, chasing the Times cited (Walsh, 2021). When finding mission to evaluate the them with heavy trucks, mowing them asked to see the evidence, neither the contradictory narratives emerging of down with well-placed machine guns as Times nor the State Department would the Ethiopian government’s crushing they ran for their lives. Then they turned release the report to the Ethiopian of a Tigray rebellion, it was nothing of on civilians in Mai-Kadra, going house government or the public. Ethiopian the kind. Just prior to Coons’ Ethiopian to house, systematically hunting down government denials received scant visit, US Secretary of State Anthony and killing people. “In that tragic day attention. Blinken alleged without providing of infamy, over 1,000 civilians mostly
Issue 80 - New Agenda 29 File” in fact there are many REFERENCES indications that she still plays a Gavin, M. 2020. ‘Trump’s Dangerous Rhetoric Toward Ethiopia Is Indicative of a Larger Problem’ decisive role. (Mariam, 2021) Council on Foreign Relations. 28 October. Available at: https://www.cfr.org/blog/trumps- 2. The United States got off to a dangerous-rhetoric-toward-ethiopia-indicative- Egypt has the United larger-problem bad start in its relations with Mariam, A.G. 2021. The First Pillar of the Biden States, and to a Ethiopia. It needs a different Administration’s Policy in Ethiopia: Regime approach, one that is not based Change and Restoration of the TPLF to certain degree some Power by “Dialogue”, “Negotiation” or “Any upon that long habit of diktat, Means Necessary” (Part II). Al Mariam’s countries of the regime change and sanctions. Commentaries. 21 January Available at: < http:// Such a policy will only drive almariam.com/2021/01/31/the-first-pillar-of-u- Arab Peninsula with s-foreign-policy-in-ethiopia-under-the-biden- Ethiopia as it has Iran to “look administration-regime-change-and-restoration- sizeable interests in east” as its relationship with the of-the-tplf-to-power-by-dialogue-negotiation-or/> West become more empty and Maru, M. T. 2019. ‘Why Africa Loves China.’ Al Jazeera. Ethiopia, on its side. January 6. Available at https://www.aljazeera. shallow. com/opinions/2019/1/6/why-africa-loves-china Washington is no Steinman, D. 2017. ‘Ethiopia’s Cruel Con Game.’ Forbes. 3. Rather than taking a partisan March 3. Available at https://www.forbes.com/ neutral arbitrator. sites/realspin/2017/03/03/ethiopias-cruel-con- position in Egypt’s favour game/?sh=2422716729d0 against the Ethiopian project of Queen of Sheba. 2021. ‘The Perilous Race between Given this disturbing record and completing the GERD, the United Rescuing and Crashing a “Son of a B####”.’ Borkena>. March 27. Available at: < https://borkena. the general direction of US-Ethiopian States should help facilitate an com/2021/03/27/the-perilous-race-between- relations, what can be done? A few African regional framework to rescuing-and-crashing-a-son-of-a-bitch/> general ideas: manage the waters of the Nile Walsh, D. 2021. ‘Ethiopia’s War Leads to Ethnic Cleansing in Tigray Region, US Report Says.’ New River, one that is inclusive and York Times. February 26 1. Susan Rice should be denied any democratic, given the importance responsibility for US-Ethiopian of the dam’s completion both to ENDNOTES relations. Her partisan history Ethiopian development and that 1 AFRICOM is responsible for all US Department of Defence operations, exercises and security and connection to the TPLF is of the Horn of Africa. cooperation on the African continent. too intimate for her or her well know coterie to play any kind Of course, nudging Washington to of constructive role. Although change direction will be no easy task. officially, she is not in charge of But when has the struggle for human the State Department’s “Ethiopia rights been easily won?
30 New Agenda - Issue 80 Ethiopia
Commemorating a victory for Ethiopianism and Pan Africanism
By the Embassy of Ethiopia in Pretoria
March 2021 marked the 125th anniversary of the Battle of Adwa – the greatest defeat suffered by a European power in Africa in the 19th century (Hallett, 1974: 125). Understandably, though regrettably, this crushing defeat of a colonial force by an African army is not widely known or acknowledged outside the continent. The Ethiopian Embassy in South Africa commemorated the Battle of Artwork showing Emperor Menelik alongside Empress Taytu who Adwa with a series of lectures. IFAA respectfully marched to the frontline with her pistol, behind her is a woman also thanks the Ethiopian Embassy for permission marching on foot. to reprint one such presentation below. Background note. In 1896 a huge Western army was humiliated of an indigenous modern state in Africa. in a decisive victory by African troops. The army of 19,000 Italian-led Empress Taytu in particular was distinguished in her own right as a troops were defeated by an African force in what was the most shocking fierce and decisive leader and key military strategist in the Adwa battle setback on the continent of a 19th century colonial power (Wrong, against the Italians. One of her brilliant interventions was to avoid 2005:55). Italian invaders lost thousands of troops and were humiliated direct military combat, at Mekele, by simply shutting off the Italians’ by “native” troops who inflicted a decisive victory against a European water supplies. Without a single shot fired, the thirsty Italians were power during the scramble of Africa (Plaut, 2016). forced out, quickly ending the siege. Lords, serfs and slaves from all over the Empire marched to confront Most importantly, Empress Taytu rejected a ploy by Italy to force the Italian invaders who were recognised as the common enemy. The Ethiopia to become a protectorate of Italy. When an Italian diplomat soldiers had to march for almost a thousand kilometres! Women joined in Ethiopia warned that this might cause Italy to lose its “dignity”, the battle in direct combat, and organised food, water and care for the the Empress replied: “We too must retain our dignity … you want other injured and wounded. The logistics and care work of war was shouldered countries to see Ethiopia as your protégé, but that would never be.” by women. For the Adwa victory to be decisively won, the diverse and divided Introduction people had to overcome the contradictions that confronted them to In the aftermath of the Berlin Conference in 1884/85 and defend their own collective liberation and to affirm the self-worth, at the height of the “scramble for Africa”, Ethiopia remained autonomy and self-reliance of black Africans across the world. This the only sovereign state in Africa. Italy, as a latecomer to victory was won through the diplomatic skill of Emperor Menelik and the scramble, had to attempt its luck with Ethiopia, which Empress Taytu and laid an important foundation for the establishment triggered a major military clash between an Ethiopian army
Issue 80 - New Agenda 31 and the invading Italian forces on 2 Embassy in Pretoria, celebrated the March 1896. victory of Adwa to intensify and The legendary battle was concluded renew our commitment towards a with a resounding victory of the Ethiopian more united Ethiopia and Africa. The forces defending its sovereignty and ‘We too must retain 125th celebration of the Adwa victory effectively thwarting Italy’s attempt to under the banner, “Adwa: An Emblem build its Empire in Africa. The victory our dignity … you of Unity in Diversity”, continued for was won with the heroic leadership of want other countries the entire month of March. Against Emperor Menelik II and the strategic this backdrop, the Embassy organised military thinking of Empress Taytu to see Ethiopia as a virtual dialogue under the theme: Betul which impeccably built a united your protégé, but “The Victory of Adwa: Implications for and formidable alliance across ethnic, Ethiopian Unity and Sovereignty and religious, cultural, language, gender and that would never be.’ Pan-Africanism”. geographical divides. The victory — the first crushing The victory of Adwa, defeat of a European power by Ethiopianism and Pan- African forces — earned Ethiopians Africanism an outstanding reputation and was The victory of Adwa has left a lasting quickly recognised as a victory for all impression not only on Africans in the black people around the world. In fact, continent but also on Afro-Cubans, especially for Africans in the continent, Haitians, Afro-Brazilians, Jamaicans, one way of paying tribute to Ethiopia’s the Rastafarian community and other contribution to Pan-Africanism Africans in the Diaspora. In 1897, Dr and African independence has been Benito Sylvain – a Haitian journalist adopting Ethiopia’s tricolour national and diplomat – visited Ethiopia to flag into their own flags and emblems. It was a national epic, the congratulate Emperor Menelik II on Now, 125 years later, this emblematic founding event in the his victory. Dr Sylvain later became one victory still holds an important place modern life of the nation. of the founders and organisers of the in the hearts and minds of Africans The stately northward first Pan-African congress in London in and black people all over the world as march of Menelik and Taytu 1900. The ultimate pride that the black an illustration not only of the wonders not only consolidated community took from the Adwa victory Africans have accomplished in the past, their rule but called upon is manifest in Marcus Garvey’s “Back to but also what they can do in their future. the Ethiopian people — Africa” movement and the subsequent One of the primary strategies of the Tigrayans, Shoans, Oromo, development of Pan-Africanism as an Italian colonisers during the invasion Welayta, and others — to set idea and a movement. was to exploit the rich diversity of the aside their differences and, In the decades that followed, the Ethiopian people, although that proved in recognising a common black community drew lessons and rather futile. Ethiopians have always enemy, recognise a common inspiration from this historic victory believed that the victory of Adwa would nationhood. Nations, if they in their struggle against colonialism, have been unthinkable had we been a are to endure, are defined racism and apartheid. They armed divided nation along religious, racial or not by religion, ethnicity, themselves with self-belief and political lines. International scholars or race but by the scale at self-reliance to engage in resistance too have noted that the exceptional which freedom can reliably movements. It is precisely for this unity Ethiopians demonstrated was be defended. Only on the reason that Adwa is considered a the core driver of this pre-eminent scale of Ethiopia itself could turning point in modern African history. African victory that reversed the history resistance have succeeded. Reiterating the significance of of colonialism in the continent. In his the struggle of the people of South book The Battle of Adwa: African Victory It is within this context, therefore, Africa, the late President of South in the Age of Empire, historian Raymond that the Ethiopian community, Africa and the legendary anti-apartheid Jonas had this to say: under the auspices of the Ethiopian revolutionary, Nelson Mandela, had this
32 New Agenda - Issue 80 Ethiopia
to say in his 1992 address to the Free continent, has always stood ideological gap between the newly Ethiopian church of Southern Africa: as a symbol of our political independent countries in the course of aspirations as a people. forging a continental organisation. The Fundamental tenets of the Ethiopia, in our minds, has Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was Ethiopian Movement were stood for African freedom, established in 25 May 1963 and Addis self-worth, self-reliance African independence, Ababa provided a permanent home for and freedom. These tenets African dignity and African this Pan African organisation of the drew the advocates of self-respect. Even when we people of Africa. Ethiopianism, like a magnet, were not free, the struggle Ethiopia’s long history of to the growing political of Ethiopia to maintain her civilization, uninterrupted statehood, movement. That political independence and integrity and ancient history of international movement was to culminate was regarded by us as our diplomacy, along with its contributions in the formation of the ANC struggle. We always felt that to the emancipation of the people of in 1912. It is in this sense so long as Ethiopia remained Africa, have placed the country in a that we in the ANC trace the free, there was hope that we pivotal position to project Pan-Africanist seeds of the formation of our too would be free. leadership for the decades to come. organisation to the Ethiopian Movement of the 1890s. Besides the emotional and historical REFERENCES significance of the victory of Adwa to the Hallett, R. 1975. Africa since 1875. London: Heinemann Equally important is the speech emancipation of black people around Educational Books. Jonas, R. 2011. The Battle of Adwa: African victory in the delivered by the late Ghanaian the world, Ethiopia has also strategically age of empire. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, at a leveraged its political independence Harvard University Press. Available at https:// state dinner in honour of Emperor Haile and territorial sovereignty to extend www.battleofadwa.org/ Mandela, N. 1992. Address to the Free Ethiopian Selassie in Accra on 1st December 1960, its support to Africans in their bitter Church of Southern Africa, 14 December. where he said: struggles for independence. In the Available at http://www.mandela.gov.za/ Ethiopia, because of her aftermath of the liberation of quite mandela_speeches/1992/921214_church.htm several African countries, Ethiopia Poe, D. 2003. Kwame Nkrumah’s contribution to Pan- existence as an ancient Africanism: An Afrocentric analysis. New York: and free state in Africa and – through the able leadership of Routledge, pp 64-5. the oldest continuously Emperor Haile Selassie – once again Wrong, M. 2005. I didn’t do it for you: how the world independent country in our played a crucial role in bridging the betrayed a small African nation. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
Issue 80 - New Agenda 33 What has happened since the Gender Summit?
As South Africa is waiting for implementation of the national action plan on the ground, Dr Hibist Kassa outlines the background.
The momentum built up following continue to face further obstacles, unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, the 2018 march to the Union including secondary victimisation from with health workers (predominantly Buildings demanding action the police and judiciary. The scale of women) as frontline defenders. the crisis has required coherent state However, the “other” pandemic, of against Gender-Based Violence and response in the form of a national GBVF has not seen similar urgency. Femicide (GBVF), and the Gender strategic plan. For years, women’s Oxfam South Africa has shown how Summit that followed, appears to organisations and activists have called women health workers face risks of have petered out. We now have in for such a policy intervention in South violence while providing services in Africa. health facilities and during travel to place a National Strategic Plan In 2018, #TotalShutDown mobilised work (Mthathi, 2020). In particular, on Gender-Based Violence women across the country and led a community health workers face and Femicide … but where is the march to Sandton, the hard heart of multiple threats – from violence and corporate South Africa. The movement infection while visiting the homes of legislative framework that was demanded that corporations fund patients. promised more than a year ago to programmes to intervene in GBVF. There is now a NSPGBVF in South support it? Gender activists say This occurred in the midst of a Africa. This finally promises a specific COVID-19 and other factors may pogrom targeting migrants, drawing policy framework on GBVF agreed upon have slowed the process, but it is the attention to a violent society in decay. in April 2020. However, it has still not #TotalShutDown activists, undeterred been supported by a budget, and on ministry that has put on the brake. by police harassment, waited until late the ground frontline service providers at night to speak directly to President who run shelters are running out of It has repeatedly been warned Cyril Ramaphosa in Pretoria. The money to keep their doors open for that the COVID-19 pandemic, jobs activists placed their safety at risk to survivors who manage to escape their bloodbath, economic recession and submit their memorandum directly to abusers. Chronically over-stretched and militarised response to the lockdowns the President at the Union Buildings under-funded, they are struggling in a has amplified the scourge of Gender- (Rise-Up Against Gender-Based Violence, period when their services are needed Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF). In 2018). The demands included a call for a even more urgently. Even though a R1.6 May 2020, Lifeline reported that during Gender Summit and a review to answer billion fund was allocated specifically lockdown, GBVF cases had increased by why there has been such a policy failure to the fight against GBVF (RSA, 2020a:3), 500%. Women and children continue to to tame the scourge of violence. Out of the organisations providing these be slaughtered. this process, a National Strategic Plan crucial services have not been paid This ongoing atrocity comes from on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide anything. a violent society that demands urgent (NSPGBVF) was developed (RSA, 2020). Civil society organisations state intervention. Those on the Among its policy instruments is the are clear that it is only when the frontlines providing urgent services and setting up of a Council. National Strategic Plan is backed by a shelters for women in crisis have been Two years after the release of the legislative mechanism that there can non-governmental organisations who Gender Summit Declaration (RSA, be transparency and accountability are overstretched and underfunded. 2019), the state has led coordinated in implementation. Instead, the Survivors of abuse seeking justice interventions to address the Department of Women, Youth and
34 New Agenda - Issue 80 Gender-Based Violence and Femicide
Persons with Disabilities is pressing issued on 22 October 2020, in response PMG. 2020. Report on a meeting of the Parliamentary forward with the creation of a Board of to perpetual government deafness. A Portfolio Committee on Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities with the Department Trustees, which appears to maintain an linked statement by the Call to Action of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities opaque process that is not backed by a platform echoed the same concerns (DWYPD) on establishment of GBV & Femicide Council, with Minister and Deputy Minister. legislative instrument (PMG, 2020 and (Call to Action Collective, 2020). The 6 October. Available at https://pmg.org.za/ Call to Action Collective, 2020). Call to Action process had been guided committee-meeting/31156/ > Drawing on the above, civil by a rigorous 12-week programme in Ramaphosa, C. 2019. Address by President Cyril Ramaphosa at the Joint Sitting of Parliament on society has been engaging with the which there was a careful assessment the crisis of violence in South Africa, National Department of Women, Youth and of all the dimensions of the NSPGBVF. Assembly, Cape Town, 18 September. Available at
Issue 80 - New Agenda 35 36 New Agenda - Issue 80 Farmers’ Protests in India
Agrarian reforms and farmers’ protests in India: a policy perspective
By Debottam Saha, Kranthi Nanduri and Raya Das
All three authors are doctoral students from India. Debottam Saha is currently studying at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Kranthi Nanduri is at the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta and Raya Das is based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. All three contributed equally to this article.
The government of India New Delhi, in November 2020 and formulate more comprehensive passed three bills in September and have been camping there agricultural reforms in consultation with the major stakeholders 2020 saying it aimed to ever since. (Himanshu, 2019). After several rounds deregulate and promote of negotiations with SKM in January Introduction 2021, the Indian government agreed to the “free market” and the Farmers’ protests are not a recent temporarily suspend the laws for 12 to penetration of private capital phenomenon in India. However, the 18 months. However, farmers continue into the agrarian sector. The number of protests by farmers in India to demand the permanent repeal of all has seen a massive spike since the three laws and remain at the protest new agrarian market reforms Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata sites while talks between the farmers claim to facilitate “freedom of Party (BJP) government came to power and the government are at a standstill. in 2014 (Singh, 2020). The resistance The central government passed the choice” by allowing farmers to and unrest that built up among farmers three laws in Parliament hastily in the sell their produce to corporates over the years peaked with the passing face of ongoing resistance. Different and private traders and of three agrarian laws. These neoliberal state governments challenged the policies have intensified the agrarian constitutional validity of these laws in access better prices. However, crisis and the current protests are an the supreme court. The government farmers perceive these laws as expression of the fears and rage of has remained silent despite the death farmers. More than 41 Indian farmer of many farmers during the protests a threat to the government’s unions formed a coalition called due in part to the harsh cold winter as assured procurement and Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) or Joint well as a number of suicides. It seems support prices. Indian farmers Farmers’ Front to demand the complete to have adopted a strategy to “wear repeal of all three laws. down the farmers” until they leave the protested in unprecedented Many economists, policymakers and protest sites. Although the mainstream numbers, gathering at the activists in the country also opposed commercial media channels have not the current laws and proposed the need paid much attention to the farmers’ borders of the national capital, for the government to withdraw them protests, several social media platforms
Issue 80 - New Agenda 37 [N]eoliberal policies have intensified the agrarian crisis and the current protests are an expression of the fears and rage of farmers. have played a significant role in spreading protest updates. As a result, the government has been constantly monitoring the media and journalists and activists supporting the movement After India’s independence from classic example. are constantly under the threat of arrest the British in 1947, the initial five-year However, after a decade or so, the and detention. planning commission focused on pitfalls of the Green Revolution became This article evaluates the current land reforms and the construction of evident. The simplistic assumption that laws in the context of agricultural irrigation infrastructure. The welfare/ technology provided the solution to the policymaking in India. Further, it developmental state aimed to reduce “backwardness” and social hierarchies provides insights into the nature of land inequality through land reforms, created other agricultural problems. protest through the lens of caste, class although it was only partially successful Brown points out that the imbalance in and gender. in some parts of the country. Although technological benefits intensified the India began to witness growth in existing hierarchies between big and Agricultural policy agricultural production, it could not small farmers (2018). Small landholders discourse in India: meet the increasing demands for food had to sell their land and join the class looking back to move in the country. As a result, India adopted of agricultural labourers. Although the forward production-oriented agricultural policy initial days of the Green Revolution Like other elites of post-colonial through what it called Green Revolution led to an increase in agricultural countries of the Global South, technologies in the mid-1960s to achieve employment and strengthened the Indian elites have followed the self-sufficiency in the production of bargaining power of agricultural western model of development food grains. The conventional package labourers, the productivity gains did and modernisation. They believed of the subsidy-led Green Revolution, not continue to translate into higher modern development will pave consisting of High-Yielding Variety daily wages. The homogeneous nature their way out of underdevelopment, (HYV) seeds, synthetic fertilizers and of the model did not consider existing which was the result of colonial pesticides, transformed the traditional regional differences in productivity exploitation, traditional hierarchies agricultural system. The main objective and the localised structural inequality. and divisions in Indian society such as was to increase the productivity of Further, mechanisation in agriculture caste, class, gender and religion. The specific crops through water and displaced agricultural labour without technoscientific modernity backed by chemical-intensive farming practices. creating adequate growth in non-farm developmentalism was thought to be A state-sponsored subsidy system was employment opportunities. an all-encompassing solution to all established to encourage the Green Since the 1990s, the World Trade “backwardness” in the agrarian sector Revolution methods of farming. Wheat Organisation and Structural Adjustment (Cooper,1997; Raina, 2011; Visvanathan, cultivation in Punjab, a northern state of Programmes have paved the way for 1997; Gupta, 1998; Brown, 2018.) India, during the early 1960s and ’70s is a liberalisation in agriculture. India has
38 New Agenda - Issue 80 Farmers’ Protests in India
focused on reducing the fiscal deficit Farmers are producers as well as and withdrawing the share of public consumers! After the independence expenditure (De Roy, 2017). Declining of India, the government passed the input subsidies, increasing investment Essential Commodities Act, 1955. The of corporate capital and market price The government Essential Commodities (Amendment) volatility are the major features of the Act removes food crops from the privatisation of Indian agriculture. The has remained silent essential commodities list. The sector, which is based on three pillars despite the death purpose of the act was to regulate – subsidies, support and supervision the production, supply and storage – was weakened by the changing of many farmers of essential commodities (including policies. The so-called idea of agrarian during the protests food crops, oilseeds, jute, seed, etc) reform was nothing but the neoliberal and control black marketing. The logic of creating an open international due in part to the amendment intends to incentivise market, largely controlled by big harsh cold winter as private players to invest in food corporates across the globe. The idea of processing and storage facilities. a developmental/welfare state did not well as a number of Protestors deem this harmful as the wither away but it adopted the package suicides. hoarding of produce by private players of neoliberal agrarian policies. Against can encourage artificial price increases. this backdrop, the recent agriculture The Farmers Agreement on Price market reforms push the neoliberal path sales by farmers. The Green Revolution Assurance and Farm Services Act of development further. model in the country was accompanied promotes pre-fixing prices through by public procurement policies to contract farming and intends to Farm laws 2020: what promote profits in the selling of grain. eliminate the middlemen or “arthiyas” do the laws propose However, the latest All India level survey from the value chain. Such a proposition and why are farmers shows that despite regional variance, ignores the critical role played by opposing them? marginal and small farmers1 received arthiyas in ensuring informal credit for Three laws – The Farmers’ Produce better prices through the MSP system a large section of resource-poor farmers Trade and Commerce Act; Farmers compared to the price offered by private in the face of inadequate institutional (Withdrawal of Protection) Agreement traders for both paddy and wheat crops rural credit supply. Replacing arthiyas by on Price Assurance and Farm Services (Das, 2020). Thus, the primary fear big corporates might reduce the impact Act (promoting contract farming); gripping the protesting farmers is the of market volatility, but the terms and The Essential Commodities systematic dismantling of the Mandis and conditions of these contracts are (Amendment) Act, 2020 – created making the MSP redundant in terms often not viable for marginal and small controversies and debate about the of the new acts under the pretext of farmers (Satish, 2012). impact of these legislative changes assuring competitive prices. For example, Punjab, one of the on the farmers in the country. The The central government has leading states in the ongoing protest, neoliberal path proposes removing repeatedly stated that the new farm experienced contract farming-led trade barriers and increasing the laws do not directly affect the MSP diversification of agriculture post- “freedom of choice” for farmers to sell system. However, in 2006 the BJP-led liberalisation through corporations their products beyond the government- state government in Bihar implemented like PepsiCo and Voltas. Farmers faced regulated markets, known as Mandis, the model act by scrapping the APMCs uncertainty in farming income due to established by the Agricultural Produce (Manoj, 2020). This drastically reduced unequal negotiation terms in agreements Markets Committees (APMCs). the role of the public sector in procuring with these big companies (Jain, 2020). The The protesting farmers consider the crops at a fixed rate. This forced role of contract farming in supporting it an attempt to weaken the Indian farmers into distress sales due to small farmers is debated in academia government’s Minimum Support Price the lack of private traders. The recent and by policymakers. After 2007, contract (MSP) system. By selling their produce budgets also addressed the need to farming became an essential tool to at the Mandis, peasants were protected raise the MSP to increase farmers’ increase the flow of capital among the under the MSP system from increasing incomes. However, the government small peasants in the Global South as an costs of cultivation. The MSP system could not increase the number of APMC alternative to Large Scale Land Acquisition was designed to act as a safety net markets recommended by the National (LSLA) (Borras & Farnco, 2012; Little & against market volatility and distress Commission of Farmers. Watts, 1994; Oya, 2012).
Issue 80 - New Agenda 39 The major paradoxes of these farm Agricultural Census 2015-16, Dalits, the would also adversely affect all classes laws are, firstly, they do not address lowest caste in India, operate less than of farmers. Public procurement and agricultural issues such as stagnant 9% of the agricultural land, and Adivasis, price assurance are essential to marginal productivity, use of synthetic fertilizers, the various indigenous peoples of India, and small farmers who lack better promotion of alternative farming operate about 11% of the land, while the opportunities in the non-farm sector to methods, etc. Rather, the intention is remaining 80% of the land is operated by supplement their household income. to expand privatisation in mid-stream upper caste and “Other Backward Class” These protests have also been and up-stream value chains of the (OBC) farmers in India (Varma, 2018). remarkable in terms of the participation agriculture output market. Secondly, The majority of the rural agriculture of women. From 2018-19 in rural India, the farmers already have the freedom workforce comprises Dalits, particularly 71.1% of female workers were engaged to choose sellers. The first law packages Dalit women. Therefore, it is not in the agricultural sector, compared this as a reform but MSP addresses surprising that the current farmers’ to only 53.2% of male workers in this distress sales, and not the providing protests are predominantly led by the sector (NSSO, 2019). Despite this, women of choice for the farmers. Thirdly, even upper caste and rich Hindu, Sikh and farmers are not recognised. This is though these laws claim to bring market dominant land-owning Jat farmers from mainly because women farmers own reforms, the central issue of regional Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar only 13% of the land (Pachauri, 2019) and imbalances in access to regulated Pradesh, who were among the early they often undertake farm operations markets is not addressed. beneficiaries of the Green Revolution. at the lower end of value addition. The The Jats, who constitute the vote bank women marching in large numbers to Enraging farmers: caste, of the ruling BJP government, challenge the protest sites on tractors traditionally class and gender the political equations in these northern associated with men reasserted their The farmers’ protests exposed states. Despite the historic caste identity as farmers. The youth who deep divides in rural India and the oppression and violence inflicted by participated in large numbers (Chaba, complexities involved in forging a the upper caste landlords and farmers 2020) raised their concerns over the united front across caste, class, gender on Dalits, Dalit labour unions joined significance of agriculture as a source of and religion. Rural landlessness and the protests because agricultural wages livelihood against the backdrop of higher inequality in land ownership has been constitute a major income source for unemployment levels, which worsened increasing in rural India. As per the Dalits in India. The new agrarian reforms due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
40 New Agenda - Issue 80 Farmers’ Protests in India
The women marching in large numbers to the protest sites on tractors traditionally associated with men reasserted their rural crisis, these so-called reforms are Jain, S. 2020. ‘Tried, Tested and Failed: Why Farmers identity as farmers. are against Contract Farming.’ Available at unlikely to change the scenario. https://www.newsclick.in/why-farmers-are- REFERENCES against-contract-farming Basole, A., & Basu, D. 2011. ‘Relations of Production Little, P. D., & Watts, M. 1994. Living under Contract: and Modes of Surplus Extraction in India: Part Contract Farming and Agrarian Transformation in Sub- Last words! I – Agriculture.’ Economic and Political Weekly, xlvi Saharan Africa. University of Wisconsin Press. The current neoliberal agrarian (14), pps 41–58. Manoj, C. 2020. ‘Bihar scrapped APMC Act, mandi reforms are a disappointment. They Bhalla, S. 2018. ‘From “Relative Surplus Population” system 14 years ago.’ Available at https://www. situate profit-making of corporates as and “Dual Labour Markets” to “Informal” downtoearth.org.in/news/agriculture/bihar- and “Formal: Employment and Enterprises: scrapped-apmc-act-mandi-system-14-years-ago- the lynchpin of India’s future agrarian Insights About Causation and Consequences. here-s-what-it-did-to-farmers-74534 development by overlooking the Agrarian South.’ Journal of Political Economy, NSSO. 2019. Annual Report: Periodic Labour Force Survey 6(3), 295–305. Available at https://doi. inherent connection between ecology 2017–18. Ministry of Statistics and Programme org/10.1177/2277976017745460 Implementation. National Statistical Office, and economy. Even with the ongoing Borras, J. S. M., & Farnco, J. C. 2012. ‘Global Land Ministry of Statistics and Programme protests, the Indian state fails to see the Grabbing and Trajectories of Agrarian Change: A Implementation, Government of India. Preliminary Analysis.’ Journal of Agrarian Change. agrarian crisis as part of the existing Oya, C. 2012. ‘Contract farming in Sub-Saharan Africa: 12(1), pps 34–59. A Survey of Approaches, Debates and Issues’. rural crisis. From 1971 to 2012, the share Brown, T. 2018. Farmers, Subalterns, and Activists: Social Journal of Agrarian Change, 12(1). of the rural non-farm sector in total Politics of Sustainable Agriculture in India. (1st ed.). Pachauri, S. 2019. ‘The invisibility of gender in Cambridge University Press. rural employment increased from 14% to Indian agriculture.’ Available at https://www. Chaba, A. A. 2020. ‘Farmers’ protests witness downtoearth.org.in/blog/agriculture/the- 36%, while its share in total rural output gender, age shift, all courtesy.’ Available at invisibility-of-gender-in-indian-agriculture-63290 increased from 28% to 61% during this https://indianexpress.com/article/india/ Raina, R. S. 2011. ‘Institutional stranglehold: period (Chand, Srivastava & Singh, 2017). farmers-protests-witness-gender-age-shift-all- Agricultural Science and the State in India.’ In D. courtesy-7091241/ Narayana & R. Mahadevan (Eds.), Shaping India: The sluggish growth in rural Chand, R., Srivastava, S. K., & Singh, J. 2017. ‘Changing Economic Change in Historical Perspective. Routledge: non-farm employment is led by the Structure of Rural Economy of India: Implications India. services and construction sector. for Employment and Growth.’ National Satish, P. 2012. ‘Innovations in Agriculture Credit Institution for Transforming India NITI Aayog. Market - Rationalization of Policy Response.’ Manufacturing employment has been Cooper, F. 1997. International Development and the Indian Journal of Agriculture Economics, 67(1). stagnant (Chand et al., 2017). As a result, Social Sciences: Essays on the History and Politics Singh, R. 2020. ‘When Modi govt came to power, the majority of the rural workforce is of Knowledge. (R. Packard, Ed.). University of farmer protests increased 700% – the 3 bills are its California Press. result’. Available at https://theprint.in/opinion/ stuck in agriculture earning meagre Das, R. 2020. ‘Minimum support price in India: what modi-govt-saw-farmer-protests-increase-700-the- incomes. The urbanisation-led growth determines farmers’ access?’ Agricultural Economics 3-bills-are-its-result/509392/ strategies neglected the potential of Research Review, 33(1), 61. Available at https://doi. Varma, S. 2018. ‘Caste stranglehold in Agriculture.’ org/10.5958/0974-0279.2020.00007.5 Available at https://www.newsclick.in/caste- rural industrialisation and absorbed the De Roy, S. 2017. ‘Economic reforms and agricultural stranglehold-agriculture workforce shifting out of agriculture growth in India.’ Economic and Political Weekly, Visvanathan, S. 1997. A Carnival for Science: Essays on (Bhalla, 2018). Therefore, the lack of 52(9), pps 67–72. Science, Technology, and Development. New York: growth of labour intensive and high Gupta, A. 1998. Post-colonial Developments: Agriculture in Oxford University Press, USA. the Making of Modern India. Duke University Press: productivity rural non-farm activities, Durham. particularly rural manufacturing, has Himanshu. 2019. ‘India’s farm crisis: Decades old ENDNOTES intensified the agrarian crisis in the and with deep roots. Ideas for India.’ Available at 1. As per the Official Statistical sources in India, https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/agriculture/ marginal farmers own up to 1 hectare of land and country. Until and unless policymakers indias-farm-crisis-decades-old-and-with-deep- small farmers own between 1 to 2 hectares of locate agrarian crisis within the broader roots.html land.
Issue 80 - New Agenda 41 Climate change demands Eskom reform
By Moira Levy
Production Manager of New Agenda, Moira Levy is an experienced journalist who founded the independent digital newsletter, Notes from the House: What you don’t hear from Parliament. She was Manager of Content and Information at Parliament’s Communication Services and prior to that Media Manager at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa.
South Africa needs a “New once world-class public utility into a corporate structure that, like any private Eskom”, and the company, ultimately sets profits above Eskom Research Reference public need. Group says now is the time to The authors argue that Eskom’s current crisis of corruption and introduce an innovative mismanagement can be traced back alternative and transform to its move from a public utility to a state-owned corporate entity driven by South Africa’s excessively high the profit motive. This report stands rate of carbon emissions in most firmly “against the proposed ‘unbundling’ of [Eskom] and against the electricity generation. incursions of the independent power producers (IPPs)”. n international team of The key aspect of present researchers released a new government policy involves proposal to transform South “unbundling” Eskom into three Africa’s excessively high components (generation, transmission Arate of carbon emission in electricity and distribution) and inviting investors generation. They turn on its head the – public and private – to invest and earn conventional wisdom that Eskom profits from the business of providing can become an efficient and cleaner they comprise the Eskom Research South Africa with electrical energy. electricity provider if the private sector is Reference Group. To the Eskom Research Reference allowed to help run it. Eskom Transformation: Achieving a Just Group this can only mean another step This unconventional research, Energy Transition for South Africa, turns towards privatisation, which means funded by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the tide of history by arguing against rationalisation, scaling down, job losses. emerged from the combined efforts building Eskom into a commercially Government policy is that the state of the Alternative Information & self-sustaining entity. Instead it calls will continue to regulate electricity Development Centre (AIDC) based in for a return to the very successful fully prices and issues – and it will continue Cape Town, Trade Unions for Energy public institution it once was. This to own some of the infrastructure. Democracy (TUED) from New York and was before South Africa’s apartheid But the plan is to allow great scope the Transnational Institute (TNI) who government introduced legislation for privatisation. This market-friendly are based in the Netherlands. Together in 1987 to transform the state-owned, model still allows government to shape
42 New Agenda - Issue 80 Transforming Eskom
policy on electricity provision and happen fast enough, or with enough which has already been raised in the access – for poor and rural communities, ambition, unless it is done through the public sphere in Parliament last year and for industry – by regulations and public sector.” by Cosatu: subsidies. But it will end the electricity The answer does not simply lie in a Government pension funds and monopoly model at the heart of South significant expansion of the renewable unemployment insurance funds Africa’s minerals-energy complex (MEC). energy industry (which is based on are plentiful. So much so, that even The report argues that it is the solar power and wind energy). That, when people draw their pensions and onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors argue, has the opposite unemployment benefits there will which has in every way seriously long-term effect because the provision always be more where that came from. disrupted and undermined global of renewable energy has seen incursions Every employee and their employer pay economies and development, that has from IPPs. The technology and research into the Unemployment Insurance Fund created the opportunity to change to a needed to pursue renewable energy (UIF) and civil servants have to belong radically different course. is state subsidised and involves to the Government Employees Pension The corporatisation of Eskom must guaranteed payments from Eskom to Fund (GEPF). Why draw money from halt immediately, the argument goes, keep the private companies that drive the struggling fiscus when you could and the delays caused by the pandemic, the renewable energy sector in profit. fund development from an endless which have pushed the process of What cannot be ignored though is that, government source? unbundling back by several months, while prices have been steadily dropping The Eskom Research Reference should be used as an opportunity for a over the years, alternative energy Group is talking about using public radical rethink. sources remain an expensive option and funding for a public service and not a “The report recommends the investors are sure to lose interest if they profit-driven purpose. demarketisation of Eskom and the cannot make large returns. The researchers say: “it is only a dismantling of the IPP [Independent The writers call this the “three fall strong public sector driving renewable Power Producers] system… a ‘New effect” in which investors lose interest energy that can ensure a coherent, Eskom’ [will have to navigate] the in investing in renewable energy when national, and planned transition taking difficult and uncharted territory that they find they don’t get the returns into account the technical challenges of leads us away from coal towards a they require. The renewable energy shifting systematically to 100 percent more sustainable and equitable energy sector will increasingly rely on a strong renewables, that can ensure fair system. public sector to support it, and “it is mechanisms for the transition, and “Now, more than ever, is the time only a transition to renewable energy that will protect both workers and for us to interrogate existing systems that is driven by the public sector that can communities most affected by the of service delivery, identify social then drive the process of decarbonising transition. and economic priorities and work to the entire economy,” and doing so in a “Most importantly, it is only a transform vital public entities like way that can protect workers’ jobs and transition to renewable energy that is Eskom.” those communities most affected by the driven by the public sector that can then Failing to embark on such a drastic transition. drive the process of decarbonising the move, they warn, will result in South The new economic and development entire economy, including transport, Africa being very unlikely to achieve path must begin to meet some of the manufacturing, and construction.” the drop in carbon emissions envisaged basic needs of the millions of hungry, The “New Eskom” they are proposing in the National Development Plan poor, unemployed South Africans who do is a socially owned renewable energy and which is also required to meet not have access to basic services such as utility that will, they say, “Secure a urgent global targets. South Africa is a electricity, water and sanitation. democratic and just transition”. particularly high emitter of CO2, due to The challenge is finding the funds to its almost complete reliance on coal for bring about with this transition. REFERENCES energy-generation. Not at all, say the researchers. Their Eskom Research Reference Group 2020. Eskom Transformed: Achieving a Just Energy Transition for South The study is based on the need to recommendations involve, for instance, Africa. Published by the Alternative Information “transition away from coal to renewable simply refusing to pay back a huge loan & Development Centre (AIDC) Transnational energy in order to cut South Africa’s that Eskom took from the World Bank Institute (TNI), and Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) Cape Town, New York and greenhouse gas emissions. Our in 2010. Amsterdam. July 2020. 148 pages. Available at: argument is that this transition will not In addition they have another idea,
Issue 80 - New Agenda 43 No higher education or good jobs without ‘normal’ university matric pass
By Seamus Needham
Seamus Needham is Senior Lecturer at the University of the Western Cape’s Institute for Post-School Studies (IPSS) where he is responsible for coordinating funded and commissioned research projects. He completed his PhD on articulation between TVET colleges, higher education and the world of work.
In 2013, all post-school author considers the policy considering ways in which students are training courses – from implications of these findings. able (or not) to navigate paths to further learning and the world of work. The colleges to universities, in article draws on the author’s previous both private and public Introduction and ongoing research on what he refers The White Paper for Post-School to as “articulation pathways” – means sectors – were combined Education and Training (DHET, 2013) led by which young people can move from under the tattered umbrella to the consolidation of all institutions where they are to a decent job or a of the Department of Higher in South Africa’s public post-school university-level degree. education and training sector under The most common route to public Education and Training. the Department of Higher Education higher education is by undergoing SEAMUS NEEDHAM looks and Training (DHET). South Africa’s 12 years of formal schooling and public post-school education and subsequently competing to enter at the evidence on how this training sector consists of universities, South Africa’s 23 universities. Van new system has helped young universities of technology (the old der Berg (2017) notes the high rates people to either find jobs or ‘technikons’), Technical Vocational of return from university education. Education and Training (TVET) Colleges, Graduates earn up to four times more places in universities, and Community Education and Training than matriculants. Unemployment comes to a sobering and Colleges (CETCs), Sectoral Education of university graduates remains low. and Training Authorities (SETAs) and The majority of successful university disappointing conclusion. the National Skills Fund. Post-school graduates are students who have Students without a ‘normal’ education and training is defined in received an education from wealthy matric certificate have little or the 2013 White Paper as a sector for any schools (Quintile 5 schools such as learners not in formal secondary school Groote Schuur or Westerford in the top no chance of entry into higher education, no matter when they left 20% of areas by household income). education and are very unlikely formal schooling. This article looks at There is a significant drop-out rate the efficacy of South Africa’s post-school from public senior secondary schools, to ever find a decent job. The education and training sector through with most of these students leaving
44 New Agenda - Issue 80 Education in SA
The options for students who have dropped out of the schooling system with less than Grade 9 are even more limited … Students who leave school early can spend years trying to achieve Qualifications Authority (SAQA) some CETCs and a National Adult Baseline Study on Articulation (2017) Senior Certificate for Adults (NASCA), the equivalent of shows evidence of students with N6 which has four subjects at Grade 12 level a National Senior qualifications entering universities of that require a 50% pass rate. The NASCA technology, this is similarly limited. A is not currently recognised for entrance Certificate. key challenge faced by TVET graduates to university, however. Students who is that many have already achieved a leave school early can spend years trying school between grades 10-12. They join Grade 12 school qualification and NCV to achieve the equivalent of a National many others looking for the elusive qualifications that are equivalent to a Senior Certificate. “articulation pathway” that will take National Senior Certificate. The NATED them to a better life. N4 to N6 qualifications are estimated Almost half of students For students who do not have grades to be at NQF Level 5 (the first year who get into TVET from their National Senior Certificate of higher education) but NATED N6 Colleges fail or drop out that qualify them to enter universities, graduates are only able to gain access Students at TVET Colleges and TVET Colleges offer opportunities for to entry-level university qualifications CETCs are overwhelmingly black further studies. TVET Colleges offer despite having more than the equivalent African and come from disadvantaged three mainstream programmes, namely of a National Senior Certificate. Even backgrounds. The National Student the National Certificate (NATED) N1-N6 completed occupational programmes, Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) funds the programmes, the National Certificate such as learnerships, and other skills majority of students from TVET Colleges Vocational (NCV) programmes from programmes, do not qualify students but does not fund CETC programmes. If National Qualifications Framework for entrance to university. There is students fail subjects during the TVET (NQF) Level 2 (Grade 10) to NQF Level therefore minimal articulation (transfer) College study, they are required to pay 4 (Grade 12) as well as a range of by students from TVET Colleges to for these subjects from personal funds, occupational and skills programmes. public universities. which is often an unsustainable option. However, to get in students need to have The options for students who have Throughput rates for TVET Colleges, passed at least Grade 9. dropped out of the schooling system while improving, remain low with just Entrance requirements for the NCV with less than Grade 9 are even more over half of students able to complete are a 50% pass in Maths and English limited. CETCs offer a range of Adult TVET College programmes within the and 70% for admissible core subjects. Basic Education and Training (ABET) prescribed time limits. While legislation is in place for NCV programmes Levels 1-4 that culminate A key focus for CETCs and TVET graduates to access universities, there in an NQF Level 1 qualification (Grade Colleges is to contribute to economic is minimal evidence of them doing so 9). Students are however able to rewrite development in South Africa though (SAQA, 2017). While a South African their National Senior Certificate through producing graduates for the labour
Issue 80 - New Agenda 45 market and/or sustainable self- involving 23 TVET Colleges to develop the whole community, to employment. South African data theoretical and practical programmes education being seen as on access to employment is limited in conjunction with industry, the a private good that serves but there have been a few studies impact of this intervention is still to be the interest of the educated that provide indications of career demonstrated. individual, the employer and destinations (Cosser, 2003; SSACI, In analysing reasons for the lack of the economy. 2016; Papier and Rogan, 2019; DHET articulation by TVET College graduates 2021, forthcoming). Most research has into higher education and the economy, Drawing on Ball and Youdell’s focused on labour market destinations the following should be noted. Firstly, (2007) arguments of endogenous and for TVET College graduates. post-school education and training exogenous privatisation of education, The results of these studies providers cannot take responsibility it is argued that South Africa’s neo- show disappointing labour market for the state of the economy and create liberal economic approach has not employment outcomes. Barely employment opportunities. Between enabled public or private education more than half of graduates were 1994 and 2012, the average economic and training systems to produce TVET employed or in paid, work-based growth rate was 3.2% (Bhorat, Cassim graduates who help to overcome learning programmes 18 months after & Tseng, 2016). Since 2012, the annual critical skills shortages and contribute graduation. The most recent study growth rate fell from 2.2% to 1.3% in 2015. to national economic growth. These (forthcoming) has shown the graduate Sheppard (2017) notes that this level of parallel policies have instead resulted in employment rate falling to under 50%. economic growth falls far short of the a separation of provision for initial and NATED N6 graduates in Engineering and National Development Plan estimates continuing vocational education and Business showed higher employment of more than 5% per annum to 2030 training, and have led to only minimal rates than graduates with lower-level (National Planning Commission, 2011), synergies between public and private qualifications. Very few TVET College and far below the 8 to 10% per annum providers that could otherwise be used graduates were self-employed. Bhorat needed for a period of two decades to strengthen the country’s education et al. (2016) concluded that TVET to address the “triple challenge” of and training policies. Recent policy College graduates were only as likely unemployment, inequality and poverty developments (DHET, 2013) have further as secondary school leavers to gain in South Africa (Sheppard, 2017: 27). limited the possibilities for public employment. These authors further Ball and Youdell (2007) point to and private providers to collaborate assert that the high unemployment the emergence of privatisation in and share expertise in what should rates in South Africa can be attributed, education systems from the late 1980s be a coordinated TVET education and firstly, to an oversupplied labour and the early 1990s. They note that training intervention. market with low levels of education and privatisation interventions focused on A second issue is that universities training skills in an economy that seeks the introduction of “small state-free are broadly perceived by students as skilled occupations and, secondly, to market” approaches to public services their first choice of study, whereas other the poor quality of prior education and championed by political figures such post-school education and training training. as Ronald Reagan in the United States options are more negatively perceived A key challenge for South Africa’s and Margaret Thatcher in the United as second choice (and second chance) education and training system is Kingdom (Ball & Youdell, 2007: 14). institutions. Given the rates of economic to address youth unemployment The introduction of privatisation return for higher education studies, and to ensure that South Africa has principles and approaches to state these perceptions are largely correct. skilled workers. The current system public systems is commonly referred Vocational education and training of provision within TVET Colleges to as “neoliberalism”. The concept of carries additional negative perceptions is highly centralised with similar public services being viewed as a small that stem from South Africa’s colonial programmes offered at all 50 TVET state alongside a free-market economy and apartheid past (Needham, 2020) as Colleges regardless of whether they are is now a dominant approach to public they reflect ways in which the majority located near industry or in rural areas. education globally. Ball and Youdell of South Africans were excluded from TVET Colleges have not been delegated (2007: 16) note: education and training based on the authority or funding to run customised systematised racism. Attitudes to programmes that can respond to local Privatisation tendencies vocational education and training or provincial needs. Whereas DHET is are at the centre of the shift have been largely negative within very aware of these issues and has put from education being seen South Africa and the Southern African in place a Centres of Excellence project as a public good that serves Development Community (SADC).
46 New Agenda - Issue 80 Education in SA
Barely more than half of [TVET] graduates were employed or in paid, work-based learning programmes 18 months after graduation.
Foster’s argument (1965) that “[A]spirations are determined largely by the individual’s perception of TVET College sector in South Africa for the purposes of acquiring the opportunities within the exchange is that TVET provision is situated higher professional designation. sector of the economy, destinations by at the nexus of three national sub- The project therefore indicated the actual structure of opportunities in qualification frameworks that have that future interventions aimed at that sector” (emphasis in the original operated largely in isolation from each articulating academic and occupational 1965a, 151) appear to remain true today. other. TVET provision spans schooling, qualifications in South Africa will Despite the provision of significant occupational and higher education need to take account of the curriculum state funding for students to enter qualification levels, but articulation with development, learner support and TVET Colleges as well as national other education and training sectors has lecturer capacity-building required for policy targets set to produce artisans remained elusive. From a curriculum integration of horizontal and vertical (National Development Plan, 2012), the perspective that drew on Bernstein’s knowledge constructs, and how these overwhelming preference of students (1999) notions of horizontal and manifest in institutional pedagogies in South Africa is to access universities vertical discourses, attempts to create a and practices. rather than TVET Colleges. DHET has professional qualifications pathway in recently commissioned research to financial planning qualifications that Policy implications ascertain reasons why students are not spans TVET Colleges and universities There are several policy implications applying for NSFAS funding to study have met with limited success. The arising from this research on TVET College programmes (DHET, 2019). project starkly revealed the difficulties articulation. The first is that TVET Attitudinal responses to articulation of combining, in a single articulation Colleges have very little autonomy to be have revealed that the TVET College route, a unitised qualifications approach responsive to local and provincial needs, sector is not perceived as the primary (as employed in the workplace- despite this intention being announced choice of study by young people and directed occupational programme) in the DHET 2013 White Paper. TVET. that the TVET College sector is subjected with the traditional disciplinary-based Colleges remain centralised under to funding and quality assurance qualifications approach of universities. DHET with common governance and regimes that do not assist effective Research found, for example, that one curriculum offerings. Current initiatives articulation within South Africa’s occupational programme embarked such as the TVET Colleges Centres of post-school education and training upon at a TVET College which focused Excellence offer a strong opportunity sector. TVET graduates cannot easily on the immediate short-term skill for TVET Colleges to partner with local go on to university studies and their needs of the insurance industry did companies to develop specialised job prospects are poor – even if they not lay the foundation needed by artisan opportunities and autonomy graduate from TVET Colleges. candidates who might wish to progress for capable TVET Colleges should be A key systemic issue affecting the to higher qualifications at university explored. There are many pockets of
Issue 80 - New Agenda 47 Intelligence Partnership (LMIP) What are the excellence within the TVET College professional development in the characteristics and determinants of the skills sector that can be similarly investigated. workplace, should be explored. challenge in South Africa? A second policy implication Cosser, M. 2003. ‘Graduate tracer study,’ in Cosser, is that TVET provision remains M., McGrath, S., Badroodien, A & Maja, B. (eds). Conclusion Technical college responsiveness: Learner destinations largely focused at secondary school This article has discussed some key and labour market environments in South Africa. Cape education levels, with the exception findings on articulation within South Town: HSRC Press. of the NATED courses. Given the Africa’s post-school education and Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). 2013. ‘White Paper for Post-School overwhelming preference for students training sector. Articulation between Education and Training, Building an Expanded, to enter university as a first choice, CETCs, TVET Colleges and universities Effective and Integrated Post-School System,’ Pretoria: DHET. the TVET College sector remains as a is weak and students spend many years Foster, P.J. 1965. ‘The vocational school fallacy in second choice option due to the lack of post-school study in their attempts development planning.’ Education and Economic of opportunities to obtain higher to access universities. The primary Development, 32: 142-166. education qualifications. Countries focus of TVET Colleges is to provide Moses, E., Van der Berg, S. & Rich, K. 2017. ‘A Society Divided – How unequal education quality such as the UK and Australia, as well education and training for employment limits social mobility in South Africa. Synthesis as Francophone African countries, but only half of the graduates are able report for the Programme to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development (PSPPD),’ University of have enabled their vocational to access formal employment. While Stellenbosch, available at http://resep.sun. systems to offer higher education education and training provision ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2372-Resep_ qualifications and in some cases full supply has a limited impact on the PSPPD_A-society-divided_WEB.pdf Needham, S. & Papier, J. 2018. ‘Professional undergraduate degrees. This could state of the economy, TVET Colleges qualifications for the insurance industry: enable the development of cohesive also face structural constraints on their Dilemmas for articulation and progression.’ professional pathways from artisanship ability to provide programmes that are Journal of Vocational, Adult and Continuing Education and Training (JOVACET), Volume 1, Issue 1, 52-71, to recognised professions. responsive to local and provincial needs. available at http://epubs.ac.za/index.php/ A third policy implication is that Articulation within South Africa’s post- JOVACET if the purpose of TVET Colleges is school education and training sector is Needham, S. 2019. ‘TVET policy in South Africa: Caught between neo-liberalism and to generate employment, most of complex and needs to take into account privatisation?’ Journal of Vocational Education and the current TVET provision focuses a range of approaches that can assist Training (JOVACET), Volume 2, No 2. DOI, available at https://doi.org/10.14426/jovacet.v2i2.73 on the formal economy and there is the development of a robust public Needham, S. 2020. ‘An exploration of articulation minimal focus on entrepreneurship and private vocational sector capable of from TVET Colleges to universities and the world and the informal economy. Vocational contributing to South Africa’s economic of work,’ PhD Dissertation, University of KwaZulu education and training in Brazil has development. Key policy implications Natal. Papier, J., Powell, L., McBride, T. & Needham, S. 2019. led to a significant boost of informal focus on TVET College autonomy to ‘Tracing the pathways of NATED programme economic activity development through be more responsive to local industrial graduates through TVET colleges and beyond,’ in Rogan, M. (ed.), Post-School Education and the Labour assisting graduates with training and needs, increase the range of provision Market in South Africa. Cape Town: HSRC Press accredited workshops to establish that includes higher education 165-184. small businesses. Some TVET Colleges programmes, particularly professionally SAQA. 2017. ‘Articulation Between Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in South Africa have had extensive accredited programmes, provide Colleges and Higher Education Institutions experience of working within the education and training that includes the (HEIs): National Articulation Baseline Study informal economy and this expertise needs of both the formal and informal Report,’ available at https://www.saqa.org. za/sites/default/files/2019-11/National%20 needs to be re-addressed from a policy economy as well as encourage synergies Articulation%20Baseline%20Study%20Report.pdf perspective. between private and public institutions. SSACI (Swiss-South African Cooperation Initiative), A final policy implication is that JET (Joint Education Trust), & NBI (National Business Initiative). 2016. Tracer Study of the NSFAS funding and skills levy funding REFERENCES Transition of Students from TVET Colleges to the is only available to public TVET Colleges. Ball, S.J. and Youdell, D. 2007. Hidden Privatisation Labour Market, unpublished copy obtained from in Public Education, Education International author, available at https://www.scribd.com/ In South Korea, funding is allocated 5th World Congress, Institute of Education, document/270823999/Tracer-Study to students, rather than institutions, University of London. Sheppard, C. 2017. ‘Ministerial Committee on the who are then free to enter public or Bernstein, B. 1999. ‘Vertical and horizontal discourse: Review of the Funding Frameworks of TVET An essay’. British Journal of Sociology, 20(2): 157-173. Colleges and CET Colleges. Information Report private institutions. While this may be and Appendices for presentation to Minister BE Bhorat, H., Cassim, A. & Tseng, D. 2016. ‘Higher Nzimande, Minister of Higher Education and impractical given South Africa’s current education, employment and economic growth: Training.’ fiscus position, synergies between Exploring the interactions.’ Development Southern public and private TVET providers, Africa, Volume 33, Issue 3, Labour Market particularly in the area of continuous
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TVET Colleges: a lifeline for youth at risk
By Seamus Needham
Seamus Needham’s main experience of their transition to It made me more article focuses on the TVET Colleges. responsible, made me challenges of the post- Youth at risk were asked what open-minded, and gave the key differences were between [me] a much clearer vision school education and their skills training programmes at and idea [of] what I want to training system in general TVET Colleges and their previous become and why. The college experience of school. Many students gave me hope of becoming terms, to highlight the said they felt overwhelmed with the something in life. history of policy weaknesses volume of work at the school and Experiences within the training and the urgency of general most responded that the TVET skills programmes at TVET Colleges training programmes were more were generally reported as positive. reform. Here he looks at focused, which allowed them to Learner comments included: “At a specific case, where the spend more time on each of the four school we had a fear of maths” while mandatory subjects. Key differences at their TVET College “the lecturers potential of TVET colleges in teaching styles are shown by the are prepared to explain something shines through.1 following excerpts from interviews until we understand – even if we ask with youth at risk: a hundred times!”
ropping out of school is a In college they try to make Learners who did achieve really bad idea – for most us understand. employment through the YFP people. The figures show showed their appreciation and said that those who drop out The college will teach you that: Dexperience a much harder struggle to more about what you will get onto a successful life path. Some become one day. This programme has of those most at risk of dropping opened so many doors to out are those who keep failing and It was different because in the workplace and I am still repeating grades – until they are school there [are] too many working at [a well-known years older than their classmates. subjects and here in college retailer] since last year and Since 2013 a provincial they push you to do your I got a chance from the education department has funded work in time and … don’t College to work in such a approximately 2,000 young people shout at you. great working environment. who repeated a grade once or more times in their high school phase to Another learner noted that the I feel if I didn’t do this course transition into public TVET Colleges. staff at the TVET College she attended I wouldn’t have gotten the This is referred to as the Youth “treated us like eggs, holding us job. I’m currently … working Focus Project (YFP). This vignette carefully”. Learners showed increased in the sales department. I focuses on some of these learners’ confidence and a sense of maturity: feel wholesale and retail has
Issue 80 - New Agenda 49 helped me a lot because I use however, the intervention allowed TVET College staff with reaching out the knowledge I’ve gained the learners’ own voices to emerge, to their parents and family, which in the Wholesale and Retail and they articulated outcomes of they did not experience in the large [programme] and apply it their exposure to the education and classes they had at schools. at work. It made me more training intervention which went Although the key policy aim aware that the wholesale beyond an employment focus. of TVET Colleges is to create and retail is a very great Despite facing failure at school employability options for students, department to go into. and with limited career options, these TVET Colleges have the potential young people regained their self- to become a critical second chance Over 57% of the entire cohort esteem and confidence, and found institution and to create inclusive of youth graduates interviewed new hope for their future careers and teaching and learning opportunities indicated that they would like learning pathways in spite of struggling for vulnerable cohorts. to study further in future. Of the to find employment immediately 43 graduates currently studying, after the intervention. A key reason REFERENCE most indicated that their primary for the majority of learners entering Branson, N. 2018. ‘An analysis of out of school youth who have not completed matric: reason for doing so was to obtain this programme had been to obtain a what can available data tell us?’ Cape Town: a higher qualification. Students qualification, which most achieved. SALDRU, UCT. SALDRU Working Paper No. generally furthered their studies in In the interviews with students 232, available at http://www.opensaldru.uct. ac.za/bitstream/handle/11090/947/2018_232_ the occupational areas that they had and in the student survey, TVET Saldruwp.pdf?sequence=1 been introduced to by the YFP. College staff were acknowledged The YFP can be analysed in and their personal dedication to ENDNOTE different ways. From a human capital students was cited. In particular, perspective, it could be argued that staff members were thanked for 1 The interviews cited above were done for an evaluation in 2016. The YFP project the youth at risk intervention was their specific teaching styles which continued, supported by funding from expensive, demonstrated poor enabled students’ opportunities industry and SETAs, until 2020, when it was economic returns on investment to feel valued as young adults and stopped due to budgetary constraints. and therefore had limited impact. to take responsibility for their own From a capability perspective, learning. Students also credited
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With political will and policy change, an alternative can be found
By Enver Motala
Professor Enver Motala is currently a research associate with the Centre for Integrated Post-School Education and Training at the Nelson Mandela University and is also with the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation at the University of
Johannesburg. of 2015-2016. This is hardly surprising The opposing approach, which is because, as we had predicted then, supportive of free higher education, I The author distinguishes these issues will not go away unless argue, is historically contextual, seeks between two views on the there is the courage and the will to a radical alternative to what prevails resolve them properly by making the in public policy and is fundamentally possibility of free higher appropriate political and policy choices. transformative. These differences were education; those who are I was asked to speak to this issue already in evidence around the 2015- against or sceptical about at the invitation of IFAA (Institute for 2016 #FMF struggles but have been African Alternatives) in March of this accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic funding free higher education year and this commentary is based on and the policy responses to it. I deal for all and those who think what I said at the time. I argued that with each of these approaches in turn. there were essentially two approaches it is eminently possible to to the question of universal free quality What I regard as a-historical, do so. At an IFAA forum on higher education for all (free higher pragmatist and conservative is a-historical the university fees crisis he education henceforth), even given some in several senses. variations within them. Firstly, despite claims to the contrary called the former ‘a-historical, There are those who are either in policy-speak, this approach takes pragmatist and conservative’. against or sceptical about funding little account of South African history free higher education for all and those because it ignores that the claims for The following version of his who think it is eminently possible to access to higher education are very presentation is to be published do so. There is a considerable body of much a part of the right to reclamation in the forthcoming issue of scholarship to support the argument I arising from that destructive history. make, though for obvious reasons I do Despite all the proclamations about Education as Change. not reference these here. the ‘legacy of apartheid’, the deep To begin with, I would characterise historical impact of flagrantly racist he struggles around #FMF the perspective which opposes the and exploitative practices and the (Fees Must Fall) have come ideas and practice of free higher extraordinary burden of oppressive to haunt us anew as the education as a reactionary position system of social reproduction on unrequited ghosts of public marked by its a-historicism, women and rural communities are Tpolicy failure pursuant to the events pragmatism and conservatism. ignored. Apartheid capitalism’s edifice
Issue 80 - New Agenda 51 was built in the first place on conquest, hugely interventionist role some states and elsewhere, an issue we do not the forcible eviction of millions from have played in establishing the minimum deal with here save to say that this too their ancestral lands and a forced labour conditions for developing social was a consequence of the imposition regime which stripped the indigenous democracies based on welfarist policies as of imperial policies on developing people of Southern Africa of every key to their development. These policies countries like South Africa. meaningful right while at the same time were essential to the development of A-historical accounts of free higher converting them, especially women and especially European social democracies education also fail to recognise that families, into vassals whose role was in the post-war period, resulting in both even outside the European social simply to reproduce the labour force, high levels of economic growth together democracies, countries like Japan, propelled against its will into capitalist with policies to support the general and subsequently many of the East labour. The negation of the right to welfare of the population, even though Asian states, adopted similar welfarist quality higher education – indeed all these policies were applied differentially policies for their development. More quality education – was intrinsic to because of the class, racialised, gendered recently China is notable for exactly that such a regime and makes the right to and other structural characteristics of and in a country like South Korea the education at all levels fundamental these societies. participation rate in higher education to historical redress and the dignity As we know too, these welfare for the relevant age cohort exceeds 90% of a scorned people. Unless this is policies are now severely attenuated incomparably higher than South Africa. recognised in practice, the provision by the impact of neoliberal policies as It is similarly a-historical because of education will remain qualitatively the global pandemic has shown. It goes the austerity policies to which the South and socially indistinguishable from the without saying too that these policies African government is committed, and ‘fundamentalist’ dogma promoted by were hardly gifted to the populations which have been characterised as ‘the the architects of racist education. of those countries but were in fact the Treasury view’ of fiscal and monetary Secondly, during the #FMF struggles direct result of the struggles waged policy are derived from the same global of 2015-2016 some commentators especially by highly organised workers sources that have dealt differentially opposed the claims of free higher in those countries, pursuant to the with Europe and America while education, arguing that what had sacrifices they had made against Hitler’s deliberately vitiating the development happened in the post-colonial history fascist plans. It is these public policies of Africa, Latin America, Asia and other of African (and other) countries which, even though they did not wrest parts of the world. These global policy represented failed attempts by power from the European bourgeoisie, regimes favour policies which advance post-colonial governments for the were able to extract social benefits the interests of developed economies massification and expansion of higher in areas like health, education, better and enforce regimes of subservience education. This view could simply wages and living conditions for workers and dependency on the global South, be dismissed as historical amnesia if and their families. Even within their enthusiastically implemented by local it were not so patently subservient limits these policies constituted huge comprador elites. Such regimes have to the agenda of particular global gains against the established social been particularly virulent over the interests. Its a-historicism lies in structures of European society. last 70 years through a multiplicity the deliberate obfuscation of the They included the adoption of of coercive measures, whether these impact of the structural adjustment policies which made access to higher relate to debt, trade or direct military policies of what Williamson termed education (and other welfare benefits) interventions, to support the ideological the ‘Washington consensus,’ imposed possible for working class families. The agenda and hegemony of corporate on the development of African states. power of these gains extended not only capitalism. Do we need to be reminded There is evidence aplenty of the to schooling (whatever its limitations) about the host of wars presently taking deleterious effects of these policies and but also to higher education and to place in the Middle East or the unabated the programmes which they enforced community and worker education American interventions elsewhere ever on African education systems and programmes which resulted in the since the end of World War Two? on public services more generally. flourishing of working class cultural It is pragmatist. Dependency, structural weaknesses and institutions. In effect the widest I argued that the opposition to free a litany of other negative effects have provision of educational and learning higher education is also pragmatist followed the imperialist dirigisme of opportunities were a sine qua non for because it accepts uncritically the these policies. the establishment of democratic social assumptions of the neoliberal austerity Thirdly, this perspective is also systems. Regrettably these benefits approach to public policy, having a-historical because it does not refer to the did not extend to European colonies accepted the refrain that ‘there is no
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The negation of the right to quality higher education indeed all quality education … makes the right to education at all levels fundamental to historical redress ideas,’ which have ‘no practical use’, premises can be traced to the economic and, even more stridently, is laced with orthodoxy of the leading schools of and the dignity of a derisive criticisms about its ‘ideological anti-progressive economic ideas, using scorned people. positions’. The source of these criticisms the pandemic as a convenient excuse lies in the risible claims to ‘objectivity’ for its orthodoxy while extending as if pragmatic ideas are unaffected by the power of global corporate elites, alternative’. any ideological proclivities. regardless of its human and planetary The refusal to contemplate an The criticisms against free education consequences. In effect such orthodoxy alternative is in fact an acceptance of the for all represent not only a failure of supports socially regressive government raft of prevailing policies which bear the the political and social imagination but policies purveyed both by the corporate stamp of what Klein has called ‘disaster also an abandonment of the intellect. media industry and by what is capitalism’ in describing corporate It is unremittingly subservient to the dominant in academic teaching. The profit-making and the political and social given framework of social relations latter is uncritically promoted by faculty crises aided by the power of right-wing which it regards as unassailable. The in the great majority of higher education governments. Pragmatists ignore the ostensibly ‘pragmatic’ approaches serve institutions worldwide – even though impact of the prevailing global policy only the predilections of conservative this preponderance is now under regimes that privilege unfettered market approaches, glossing over but in reality serious examination in many places. mechanisms and private gain, opening deepening existing relations of power Even more alarming is the failure of the door to ‘user-pays’ approaches to the and inequality and the status quo. The some leaders in academia who appear provision of services to the citizenry, and alternatives proposed are about setting to be resistant to the idea of robust the wholesale opening of opportunities a conceptual framework around which intellectual and scholarly, public and for profit-making. One can literally hear practical possibilities can be built. They community based, engagements for the elation emanating from private are not about the ‘seizure of power’ examining the underlying causes boardrooms at the prospect of making but about the mobilisation of public of the conflict around free higher money from education-related loans and democratic accountability as a education. Instead, they have resorted proposed by self-styled educationists minimum condition for transformation. either to short-term administrative who are openly purveying private They provide a framework for thinking measures which not only compromise interests. more rigorously, philosophically the qualitative integrity of their I understand only too well, having and politically about universal free institutions in a host of ways but also been assailed by such charges, that education as a constitutive condition for promote ideas that rely on provocative those who support the claims to free democracy and the public good. regimes of law and order to deal with higher education are simply naïve the predictable consequences of policy for refusing to accept the pragmatic It is conservative because… failure. And all of this, while making ‘solutions’ within the established I argue that the orientation of the declaratory statements about the need framework of policies. This alleged opponents of free higher education is for ‘transformation’ associated with a naivete is associated with ‘left-wing conservative because its underlying humanist axiology.
Issue 80 - New Agenda 53 What is the alternative? the goals of a humanist democracy the best intentions of constitutions. As an alternative to the above and ecologically enduring culture; who Unequal power is the ultimate arbiter perspective, I argue that it is possible indeed are the main constituencies of defying the possibility of meaningful to view the crisis regarding free higher such a democracy, what is the quality freedom and justice against the blight education from a vantage point which of their citizenship if they are not to be of unaccountability and privilege. If that is contextually historical, seeks a regarded as no more than the subjects is not removed, we have nothing to look radical alternative and is directed at of a state with no substantive and forward to but a tryst with barbarism. achieving goals that are fundamentally defensible rights, hopes, and aspirations The likelihood of achieving transformative. as planetary beings. the ends of a progressive or radical This approach requires a Perhaps the most immediate vision are extremely remote if one commitment, in the first place, to goal of such a re-examination has continues to privilege extant forms an alternative vision – not only for to do with policies and practices for of socio-political agency. Nothing higher education but for society dealing with the structural inequalities will change if one leaves decision- more generally. The conservative that are globally rampant. In South making about global issues to small policies of government affect not just Africa, unenviably one of the most cliques of unconscionable corporate higher education but also its parallels unequal countries on earth, this would executives with the power to use their expressed in the wider contradictions immediately refer to the ownership corrupting leverage to influence the affecting social policy. A broader vision and control of wealth and incomes of policies of government. In the present for social policy is required which which land is the immediate symbol, arrangement of power and social must be framed, moreover, within a though it encompasses nearly every relations there is, in my view, not an socio-ecological framework since the arena of wealth, capital and human iota of real possibility of meaningful problems bequeathed to society are capability. It is here that the essentials change despite all the promises about self-evidently of a global and planetary of redistributive justice must be ‘transformation,’ promises which, nature. Their resolution cannot be conceptualised and practiced. repeated ad nauseam, now exude the contemplated without recognising the In this regard, we are fortunate to unmistakable stench of hypocrisy. destructive effects of the dominant have an existing body of scholarly, For change to occur, it behoves ideologies, not only on higher education and socially conscious, heterodox all those who ascribe to progressive but on society and the ecological and radical political economists and ideas to promote much higher levels environment more generally. We simply social theorists not imbued with the of public mobilisation and support must reject the paralysis induced by asphyxiating premises of orthodoxy. for social movements together with the purveyors of the idea that there For some time now these thinkers have student organisations, which are can be no alternative to the Thatcherite been promoting an alternative socio- often tidally ephemeral, to bring market ideologies of neoliberalism and historical vision that lies within our greater public will and choice into the austerity. grasp, but which have predictably been contestations around unaccountable A critique of this ideology is ignored, even while they are supported privilege. In this regard, institutions historically necessary to promote the by social movements and organisations. of learning, and the academics and minimum conditions for the promotion Unless the issue of inequality is leaders in them, have an inescapable of genuine democratic policy in which dealt with in fundamental ways, beyond duty which cannot be ‘contracted out’ socio-economic, ecological, cultural the vacuous perspectives of liberal to any other source. It speaks to their and political claims are intrinsic constitutionalists who rarely, if ever, calling and social commitment, their to the restoration of the dignity of point to unfettered power, accumulation intellectual responsibility and public human beings within an ecologically and greed as the generative sources of duty and should reflect the essence of stable environment. Such minimum inequality, little meaningful change will their being. Alternatives exist in history conditions lay the framework for an be achieved. Constitutions too are an and these must find their place in the alternative point of departure about expression of the social organisation of public imagination and its discussions, fiscal, monetary or any other policy power and remain, as so much literature arguments, reflections and ultimately affecting human affairs. It requires us on the subject has shown, no more than in practices that realise the aspiration to persistently re-examine the question ‘paper instruments.’ They are often used to democratic and humanist ideals and about what exactly is the nature of to obfuscate the fact that the power planetary justice. the society that we want to live in and yielded to greed and private capital promote, and how we might achieve accumulation insidiously undermines
54 New Agenda - Issue 80 Education in SA
‘I like the word “comic” because life is ridiculous’ Teaching the graphic novel, an interview with Nathan Trantraal
By Koni Benson
Koni Benson is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of the Western Cape working in the areas of gender history, urban history, public history and oral history. Her research is on collective interventions in histories of contested development and the mobilisation, demobilisation and remobilisation of struggle history in southern Africa’s past and present.
Since 2006 Koni Benson has organised resistance to forced co-produced life histories removals. You can read the of people engaged in review on page 58. Here political struggles against she interviews one of the displacement and to demand illustrators, Nathan Trantraal. land and public services. She is an unusual university Koni: When we first met in 2010, you were working on historian as she is committed incredible comic books on scrap to creative approaches that paper at home, and now, a decade and four books and three link history, art and activism, newspaper columns later, you and works with student, are teaching Kaapse Afrikaans activist and cultural collectives and the graphic novel in the School of Languages at the in southern Africa on people’s University currently known history projects. She has as Rhodes. I am curious about your journey into this role and Nathan: I personally prefer comic recently published a comic what it has been like. How did books. Graphic novel sounds too book, drawn from her PhD you get involved in teaching grandiose to me, like a taxi guard who thesis, called Crossroads: I graphic novels (and is that calls himself a sliding door operator. even the right word or term)? Live Where I Like, on women’s
Issue 80 - New Agenda 55 I’m always apprehensive about one student, as it is the pilot, and I labelling things. I mean, why are comic think we are both constantly wondering book people talking like marketing how long we will get away with this. people anyway? You label things so While comic books are one of the most Comic books matter that the shop owner knows which shelf punishing mediums to work in in terms to place it on. Those labels are almost of workload and the patience required, about as much as any always an over simplification of the it is also one of the most colourful and other art does. Which is thing it is supposed to describe. If it’s exciting mediums. I know it must be in panels and it tells some form of a fun. If it wasn’t, I can’t imagine why to say it matters a lot. story it’s a comic book to me. I like the anyone would bother to put themselves word “comic” because life is ridiculous. through the stress of finishing a book. How did you get involved in And even if the word comic has this It makes novel writing seem easy. My drawing comic books? connotation that ties [it] to comedy, to co-workers are probably perplexed me that’s appropriate. Because the best most of the time when I try to explain My older brother André wanted to comedies aren’t funny all the time. Take what we’re doing. But it’s been a very make comics. He started reading The TV shows like The Sopranos and The supportive environment regardless. Adventures of Tintin that he got from the Thick of It. Those are probably the two library and became almost obsessed funniest comedy shows I’ve ever seen, Do you think it is possible to study with them. I liked to draw, but for me it and they never fail to depress me. comic books without drawing on was more about hanging out with him. a range of academic disciplines? He was the one who felt that I was gifted From creating comics, to teaching In other words, do you think that in some way, and because of how I am, I comics - how did you get involved disciplines even make sense when just kind of thought, ‘Cool, let’s do this in teaching comic books? it comes to writing and studying then.’ We were both very young when comics? we made that decision, he was 17 I think, I got into teaching the course, the and I was 14. I know he had just finished same way as I do everything else, I It does. My approach to thinking high school and I had just started. It sort of tripped and stumbled into it. about the comic book is to view it really consumed our lives from then. Originally, I was only supposed to teach exactly the same as teaching any other a Kaaps course, but then I said a little language. Except here we are engaging I wonder if the choice to call them too much one day to our section head, with a pictorial language. So, there is a graphic novels or comic books and now I’m sitting teaching both a lot to think about around the linguistics is different for fiction and non Kaaps and a comics course, in between of images, and a lot of research has been fiction? For me, graphic history pulling out my hair. done on the subject as well, but a lot of seems like the best current option principles are still vague or undefined. So, when speaking about works of Haha, of course! Were you part of it is looking at that, and trying to history which are non-fiction. It’s surprised at the reception? How contribute to the way we think about the still not quite right, because that has the course and the study “science” of comic book creation, in the term also gives the impression of comic books been received in same way we would think about writing that it is graphic, history, and not the world of literary studies/ a novel in English or say Afrikaans. history in a graphic or comic book academia? form. Same for comic history. It What is your approach to doesn’t sound right when it’s not I’ve been surprised by the teaching? How did you design a history of something comical enthusiasm and curiosity around the the course, what needed to be at hand… Are the connotations course. Although I think now that considered? different for novels/fiction done maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. in a comic/graphic form? Because The Rhodes MA in Creative Writing’s When I designed the course, I the comics you have written, such graphic novel course is really a first of naturally looked at what has already as “Stormkaap: Drome Kom Altyd its kind in South Africa, and I think been done. The University of Dundee Anders Om Uit” and “Coloureds” academics are naturally intrigued offers an amazing comics course for are funny and contain humour by novelty, curious to see what new instance, and I looked at how we could but are also about very serious, avenues of research the study of comics incorporate some of what they’re not-funny contexts and life might yield. This year [2020] I have only already doing. In terms of teaching, I experiences.
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think the first thing that I had to define it’s literature we get to pick it apart and Why does the graphic novel or what exactly I wanted to teach. I knew see how it works. stories in comic book form matter? it wasn’t drawing itself. But instead to look at how things function within What are some of the tools or texts Comic books matter about as much the discipline. Why do Japanese artists that enable you to do that? as any other art does. Which is to say favour speed over craft? Why do the it matters a lot. Creative writing to me French prefer to work in such a slow, Definitely books like is one of the simplest forms of people detailed way? Why was the photo comic Understanding Comics: The Invisible expressing themselves in ways that so popular in South Africa in the 80s? Art by Scott McCloud has to feature. can resonate, even beyond the author’s And why was the Italians’ approach to You can’t really talk about comics intentions. Comic books saved my photo comics so drastically different unless you’ve read it, or you could, life growing up. They gave me refuge from that of South African comics? but it would be foolish to do so. Fred away from a very grey world. That’s my Lente’s Comic Book History of Comics personal answer. The academic answer What are some of the key texts is also another invaluable resource. might be something to the effect of: It’s you have used to explore these a growing form of art that is gradually questions? Do you assign your own work? If being recognised more and more in all yes, which works? If no, why not? the major spheres of the publishing The course is divided along comics industry. Random House recently cultures. We look at manga culture I do. I didn’t know if you’re allowed started a graphic novel imprint. Comic (Japan) from Osamu Tezuka’s adaptation to do that. But how do you talk about books are being nominated for major of Crime and Punishment to The Ghost in The South African comics without getting literary awards like the Man Booker Shell (Masamune Shirow), bande dessinée into the Trantraal Brothers? Impossible, [Prize] and comic artists like Chris [also referred to as Franco-Belgium really. I use Coloureds, Crossroads and Ware are carrying big exhibitions on comics], Blue is the Warmest Colour (Julie Stormkaap. I would use more of our own their own. It’s an art form that’s deeply Maroh), the works of [French cartoonist, stuff, but that’s all I have copies of. connected to the modern moment. It’s Jean Miraud, who uses the pseudonym] visual. It’s evolving and changing, and it Moebius and of course South African You need an archivist! Jokes gets people to read who are intimidated comics like Souvenir (Jason Geland and aside, you are right, the Trantraal by literature with a capital L. Daniel Hugo), Kaptein Duiwel, Ruiter in Brothers are seminal to South Swart, Dungeon Quest (Joe Daly). So, we African comics. Tell me more Amen to that. Thank you Nathan. look at how these different methods about where you see the context I look forward to hearing how developed and this gets us to the point of South Africa coming in for you the course, and your own art, where we can look at the history behind in working on and teaching about undoubtedly continue to evolve. it all. Art is never created in a vacuum. comics? It’s always a reaction to a moment in Nathan Trantraal is a poet, cartoonist, time. We also look at underground Comics have a long history in South translator, playwright, screenwriter, short comics, Fun House (Alison Bechdel), Africa. Although the market is quite story author and columnist. He was awarded Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi), Woman World small, there are some of the hardest the ATKV Woordveertjie for poetry in 2014; (Aminder Dhaliwal), Kindred (Damian working artists working in the medium the Ingrid Jonker Prize for poetry in 2015; Duffy adapted from Octavia E. Butler’s that I’ve seen anywhere. And there is the Jan Rabie/Marjorie Wallace prize for a novel) and popular American comics. an upside to the fact that the market is comic in 2018; the SALA award for Poetry in And there is just a big component so small; it just means that we have not 2019; and has been nominated for a Sikuvele that focuses on reading these books defined yet what a South African comic Prize for Journalism (Body of Work). His and enjoying them, and trying to book should be. Once a mainstream work has been exhibited in Cape Town, understand why you enjoyed them. is established then people will create Munich and Amsterdam and his comics have work that fits into that stream. If we been published in various South African Why novels and not histories? can create a mainstream that is based newspapers. He is currently a lecturer at on good stories and not cookie cutter Rhodes University at the School of Languages, This is a creative writing course, so formulas then we could have something where he specialises in Kaapse Afrikaans and luckily we do not have to make that brilliant. South Africans certainly have the graphic novel. distinction. If it’s written its literature. If the stories.
Issue 80 - New Agenda 57 Crossroads: I live Where I like A Graphic History
Koni Benson Illustrated by André Trantraal, Nathan Trantraal and Ashley E. Marais Foreword by Robin D.G. Kelley Publisher: PM Press, US. 2021 Review by Gertrude Fester
Dr Gertrude Fester, a former MP and Gender Commissioner, is Honorary Professor at the San and Khoi Research Unit and Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town. She was a long-standing member of the United Women’s Organisation (UWO) and United Women’s Congress (UWCO) and worked with women in the informal settlements of KTC, Nyanga Bush and Crossroads.
a glimpse of the president.” He lives in tool, and a work of “graphic non-fiction”. his private house next door on the R30 The foreword, by Robin Kelley, describes million plot.1 reading this book as a highlight and The above exemplifies the as one of two close encounters of real contradiction of this “world class people’s history in his life. Koni stresses city” which has won many accolades that Crossroads was the only informal __ a foremost city in a country which settlement that was not successfully is number one in terms of the gini- demolished.2 The introduction by Koni coefficient (which measures inequality). outlines the aims and the dynamic and This contradiction is what author admirable process whereby this book Koni Benson, her talented illustrators, was created. André Trantraal, Nathan Trantraal This example of graphic non- and Ashley E. Marais and the diverse fiction, based on Benson’s PhD, is one teams with which she has worked for of the very few doctoral theses that is the past 15 years clearly expose after not just lining the library shelves of analysing and examining the housing academic institutions. As a historian struggles in Cape Town of poor people committed to creative methodologies in a city which is also characterised as a of popularising history and struggles, A lifestyle agency in 2018 advertised playground for the rich. she successfully combined her interests: a house in Cape Town’s mega-fancy I need to laud this courageous and people’s history projects, popular suburb of Fresnaye for a monthly rent innovative task by Koni and her three education and feminist collaborative of R175,000 belonging to President artist collaborators as an excellent work research praxis in her work at various Cyril Ramaphosa. “You may even catch of art, a textbook, a popular education levels, archival research. She worked
58 New Agenda - Issue 80 Book Reviews
with diverse students, activists and Movement to the Delft Integrated exposing the complexities of the South cultural collectives in Southern Africa Network. Questions deal with how African struggles and the invisibility to create this valuable contribution the city had been constructed/de- and of marginalised women such as the to popular education and community reconstructed, exploring histories of women of Crossroads. This final chapter awareness-raising. mobilisation/demobilisation which were again illustrates the patriarchal vying for This book is not only phenomenal utilised effectively in understanding power and support, not by warlords but in its innovative format as “graphic strategies for struggle and for exploring by political parties, the ANC and PAC. non-fiction” or a “cartoon on women’s various mechanisms: how struggles and The artwork is vivid and dynamic, struggles” but also in the way in which movements are potentially undermined effectively capturing emotions, content has been compiled and written. by reactionaries albeit at the same time expressions and atmosphere. Use was A series of consultations took place with as being lauded in general. made of images, photographs and community activists and structures. Chapter 1 provides some historical general media. The complementing Through several workshops participants background, quoting Jan van Riebeeck of the images by the text is well done delved into and analysed the racist and and material from his journal. It and relevant. In some cases, when sexist history of Cape Town and how illustrates the agency and power of historical background is required, the it expressed the manoeuverings and black people. I do think, though, that text is dominant. I could only access manifestations of how capitalism works. the date the Nationalist Party came to the electronic PDF version, which may It is a production, and continuous power should have been mentioned be why I found the use of the font and re-creation, of the current housing as well as an explanation of what the capital letters not always clear. crisis, which started decades ago and passes meant to people’s lives. There As much as this book is about continues today. is also a mention of Khoi once without highlighting the agency and power of It must have been an enormous any reference to who and what they women, it also illustrates the ongoing challenge to transform the material were. Furthermore, the coloured labour struggles of women in this “new South of the PhD of Koni Benson into preference policy should have been Africa”. The use of people’s actual names accessible and easy-to-read dialogue explained earlier, hence giving a context and words give an added poignancy and and explanatory notes. It has given me to the forced removals. This made me authenticity to the text. The book ends insight into the difficulties of balancing question who was the intended target with the words of Nosisi Mbeka: image and text, and how to make text audience for this book. complement the image and vice versa. Chapters 2 and 3 illustrate the Us people in Boys Town, Also challenging is how and when to creativity, organisational skills, and we are still in the apartheid deal with problematic concepts. the strategic action of the women in time. I can’t say I’m in ten During the research for her work building networks with progressive years of freedom. I’m in ten Koni collaborated closely with the organisations and individuals outside years of struggle. International Labour Research and the township. Information Group (ILRIG), with Throughout the book the strength, Crossroads is published in the housing activists, and with community unity and peace the women were trying USA and is available from https:// organisers mobilising around housing to build for the good of the community pmpress.org. E books cost R80- issues which included xenophobia, is juxtaposed by the power of the 100. Hard copies can be ordered sexism and racism, water cut offs, patriarchy, patronage, greed and divide from the Book Lounge or any current evictions and homelessness. and rule strategy of the apartheid book stores, and cost about R500, The consultations were not just one- authorities, the undermining of women depending on exchange rates and off, but rather included a longitudinal and the violence and burning of houses. shipping costs. More than 100 study: workshops and courses of a The euphoria surrounding the copies will be distributed to public 2011/2012 People’s History course; a events in macro South Africa from libraries, local organisations and 2012/2013 Community Activist course; 1990 to 1994, around the negotiations schools across Cape Town. and discussions from the 2006-2011 and the eventual elections in 1994, monthly women-only public forums contrast starkly with the micro image Endnotes with activists from housing, food, water, of the lived reality of the people of 1. See www.times live.co.za accessed 26 March 2021. domestic workers, sex workers, migrant Old Crossroads. The emergence of 2. KTC was also never successfully demolished. Women demanded land and housing and got labour and refugee organisations. The the Women’s Power Group once what is today Tambo Village. For example, they list of organisations is formidable, again illustrates the resilience of the designed and named the streets after their ranging from the Progressive Youth women. This chapter is paramount in comrades, Jenny Schreiner and Ivy Gcina.
Issue 80 - New Agenda 59 The Lie of 1652: A decolonised history of land Patric Tariq Mellet Published by Tafelberg, Cape Town. 2020 Review by Desiree Lewis
Desiree Lewis is a professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at the University of the Western Cape. She teaches and writes in the areas of cultural studies, critical race and postcolonial theory, feminism and, more recently, food as material culture.
It is rare to read such a meticulously Africans in the late 19th Century. A fixate on storytelling with reference researched historical study that uses pivotal voice in this debate was J. D. to the arrival of settlers, or to the 19th the term “soul”, that so frequently Omer-Cooper’s Africanist argument that century, Mellet compiles a history foregrounds the writer’s biography and southern Africa, prior to the arrival of that is highly relevant to our current ancestry, and that so insistently refers Europeans, was characterised by massive understanding of social agency, to the centrality of corrective history in social upheaval and the dramatic development, justice and progress. healing. Patric Mellet’s insistence on the evolution of African polities. Because the author takes on so affective functions of historiography Mellet’s sustained critique of many entrenched myths, it is hard to reflects his conviction that struggles what he calls the “1652 paradigm” do justice to the scope of his decolonial around land in southern Africa are not echoes the politics of Omer-Cooper’s intervention. In fact, some readers may simply about resource ownership or intervention into colonial history. find the book over-ambitious: it covers a control and juridical rights. They also It also takes up recent 21st Century lot of ground (spanning the period from have profound existential, ontological decolonial calls. It exposes the 1000 BCE to the 21st Century) and also and identity-constituting implications. hegemony of colonial epistemology, homes in on meticulous detail, such as Mellet develops a holistic and and the extent to which neocolonial biographical discussions of Krotoa or interdisciplinary approach. Drawing fabrications are perpetuated even in Autshumao. But what is path-breaking eclectically on linguistics, archaeology, recent histories that are presented as about this book is its disclosure of climatology and genetics, the author revisionist or authentically “African”. new ways of beginning, plotting and resolutely sifts through different Arguing that African-centred processes peopling historical storytelling that archives in dislodging the dominant – independent of the driving force of consistently centre Africans, and that narratives, tropes and icons that colonialism – can be traced far back do not define Africans as adjuncts in continue to limit understandings of to centuries BCE, Mellet compellingly other’s biographical narratives. South Africa’s past and present. While shows how migration, labour, social In line with his resolutely the book focuses on overturning the organisation, cultural activity, linguistic interdisciplinary perspective, Mellet myth of Jan van Riebeeck’s “discovery” change, trade and technological draws on linguistics, archaeology and of a stagnant and sparsely populated innovation were all vibrant processes genetics in describing the peopling Cape in 1652, it expansively debunks long before the seemingly defining of South Africa. Emphatic about “a colonial archives as sources for South moments foregrounded in so much real postcolonial shift” rather than African history. historiography. “putting a spin on history for political As a student in the 1980s I was The book’s dislodging of colonial expedience and material claims” fascinated by historians’ contestations beginnings and climaxes is probably (p. 60), Mellet emphasises that the about how to explain the mass the most powerful intervention in his San, conventionally stereotyped in migration and social upheaval among decolonial approach. By refusing to terms of phenotype, location and
60 New Agenda - Issue 80 Book Reviews
mode of production, have always believed to have always had very distinct question”, broader struggles for justice been remarkably heterogeneous and cultural and linguistic traditions. The and dignity are threaded throughout dispersed. Related insights are given common understanding that pre- the book. into the Khoe, with the book stressing colonial South Africa had exactly so Mellet emphasises that the early contact between the Khoe and many distinct ethnic groups breaks distinctive way in which colonial myths Europeans in the 15th Century and a down totally under Mellet’s scrutiny of about occupation and ownership long tradition of Khoe resistance to centuries of linguistic blurring, physical have been deployed must be central colonial domination. In contrast to movement and social reconfiguration. to struggles for restorative justice in the environmentally exploitative, His explanation of slavery at the Cape South Africa. The doctrine of the terra masculinist, classist and racist systems also explodes the myth of timeless nullius discovery of “empty land” was that colonialism was to bequeath, the traditions and static societies. In what designed to serve colonial capital Khoe society that Mellet describes is he calls the “streams of our ancestral accumulation but was promulgated as marked by gender role flexibility, non- and cultural past” (p. 222), Mellet plots “international law”. This meant that exploitative relationships to nature, the trajectories and origins of migrants European settlers, like settler societies and tolerance and flexibility in the face of colour to the Cape. Including mainly in Australia and North America, were of difference. slaves, but also encompassing convicts, defined as founding peoples, whose It is striking how Mellet exposes labourers and merchants, he identifies discovery of land seen to be unowned the intransigence of colonial formulae their far-ranging origins in Africa, and unpopulated gave them the right in histories of the peopling of South East Asia, China, and establishes that to absolute control. Mellet argues that Africa. For example, by using accessible these migrants of colour outnumbered the implementation of oppressively evidence in maritime history, he European migrants up to the middle of racist and economically exploitative questions the wisdom of authoritative the 1800s. norms by which to live, alongside an historians such as Elphick: contrary In his explanation of the evolution economically exploitative economic to Elphick’s claim that van Riebeeck’s of the category “coloured”, Mellet draws and political system, has bequeathed us arrival was one of the very few contacts the conclusion that slavery both at with impoverished models and hopes between Europeans and Africans at the the Cape and in South Africa was far for creating futures. Cape, the author draws on maritime more extensive and had a much more This is passionately dealt with in records to show that numerous ships profound role in shaping ancestry than a conclusion titled “From restorative had stopped over at that time, and is often assumed. Moreover, the fixed memory to restorative justice”. The that frequent Khoe engagements “heritage” that some South Africans brutal and multifaceted centuries- with Europeans must have preceded lay claim to is far more complex and long legacy of land theft from his arrival. The omission of the clear intricate than they assume when it Africans should be acknowledged for evidence provided by maritime history comes to matter such as, for example, the violation that it is, and neither is one example of the way in which cuisine. Overall, the book provides the violent tactics of land seizure, historiography has settled into blind fascinating glimpses into the centrality nor the proprietorial, market-based spots – irrespective of the abundant of South Africa’s Pan-African and and imperialistic language used to evidence of other histories to be told. African-Asian experiences, and rationalise economic rights to land A similar unsettling of questions the definitiveness of the should be emulated. historiography’s clichéd stories is European-African encounter in shaping Throughout the book, we are Mellet’s account of migrations and ancestry and identity. reminded that the will and spirit to community formations that blur the Mellet uses land struggles as a struggle towards broadly emancipatory divides among areas now known as lens to view the connected subjects of futures must be driven by critical Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, economic rights and autonomy, social knowledge, marginalised memories South Africa and Botswana. In this and political justice, and memory, and a determined capacity to imagine sense, the book presents an empirically consciousness and belonging. Chapter decolonial worlds. This makes the book grounded corrective to current 3 spans the period between the first extremely compelling and prescient. ethnocentric and nationalist identity acts of resistance to land expropriation At a time when radical hope is urgently politics. The othering of “non-South by the Dutch in the 1650s to the 1800s, needed to support social struggles, African Africans” is not only shown when Britain massively expanded Mellet’s study will contribute to a vital, to be reactionary, but also proved colonial efforts to monopolise resources though still neglected, archive of new to be absurd. Equally absurd is the both in the Cape and beyond. Although knowledge-making for confronting reification of ethnic groups often still this chapter deals directly with the “land pasts, presents and futures.
Issue 80 - New Agenda 61 Witness
When they come to ask me who this human is the ones whose roots lie fibrous and convoluted beneath the surface these humans whose histories fall untidy onto pages these humans whose history falls off pages out of memory into ectoplasm I will tell them your name,and your name and yours I will say your name so loud the earth will split her tidy lips and the sky will fracture her seams I will scream you up into each crevice so blush of you falls on all that is breathing, on all that is holy I will say she was here and he was here and she was here Not January, not February, van De Caab or van bengal I will take my sinewy tongue and spell your true names on the rapture of my skin I will write you a proud voice in the hearts of babes, on the walls of caves I will name your presence speak the music of your births, your deaths, your desires I will play it out across the arteries of time and make you a monument beyond any stone or wood when they come to ask me who these people are I will say these are my people These your people These are all people in One people this is my blood narrative to you.
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2019 - ISSUE 75 www.ifaaza.org SECOND QUARTER 2019 - ISSUE 73 www.ifaaza.org 2019 - ISSUE 74 www.ifaaza.org 2020 - ISSUE 78 www.ifaaza.org NEWAGENDA NEWAGENDA NEWAGENDA NEWAGENDA SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC POLICY SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC POLICY SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC POLICY SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC POLICY Negotiating Reserve Bank must be... InequAlIty Comrades to Convicts: student Who will join John Block? ...defensive power says Kuben Naidoo, Deputy Governor, SARB Abundance for the few, John Block, ANC Provincial Chair, MEC, Northern Cape, the only ANC leader ... proactive currently jailed for says Duma Gqubule, fraud, corruption, leading economist money laundering
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