Mainstream newspaper articles on the renewed upsurge in popular protest

(For a particularly reactionary response see the article by heresy hunter Jovial Rantao below. For a view – very rare in our media – from someone who actually helped to organise some of the first wave of so-called ‘service delivery protests’ in 2005 watch S’bu Zikode on the SABC TV discussion programme Interface this Sunday at 7:30 p.m.)

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/national.aspx?ID=BD4A525762

NIA ‘probing service protests’
Chantelle Benjamin

THE National Intelligence Agency (NIA) is believed to be investigating the causes of recent service delivery protests and meeting members of the Gauteng government over protests that have been particularly violent.

The secret meeting two-and-a-half weeks ago was held amid insistence by senior members of the provincial and national governments that some of the protests were politically motivated.

A senior Gauteng local government official , who asked not to be named, said yesterday that reports from community development workers in some Gauteng areas the most affected by the strife suggested that people affiliated to certain political parties were behind some of the unrest .

NIA spokeswoman Lorna Daniels said only that meetings were often held between the agency and the government .

This week alone, protests were held on Monday in Kliptown, where thousands of people from several informal settlements marched through the central business district to demand sanitation facilities, electricity and housing.

On Wednesday, residents of Mamelodi took over the municipal building . Both protests ended in battles with the police.

Yesterday, local South African Community Party member, teacher and head of the Merafong Demarcation Forum, Jomo Mogale, attended an education department disciplinary hearing for allegedly inciting learners to boycott classes over the incorporation of Khutsong into North West.

United Democractic Movement leader Tokan-yane Mokgatla was singled out as being the alleged instigator of a protest that led to the death of councillor Ntai Mokoena in Deneysville, in the northern Free State, while the Inkatha Freedom Party has been blamed for encouraging the recent hostel protests in Johannesburg.

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http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=525338

South Africans feel abandoned
THOKOZANI MTSHALI

THE surge in public protests has much to do with the gulf between politicians and people and not so much the slow delivery of services, according to analysts.

Political analyst Steven Friedman of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa said: “What is lacking at the moment is a link between the government and the people.”

Friedman’s view contradicts claims by the Gauteng MEC for local government, Qedani Mahlangu, that the protests are the work of agent provocateurs who want to destabilise townships.

South Africa has seen an increase in violent protests in municipalities.

Earlier this month a protest in Deneysville in the Free State was marred by the murder of a local councillor.

Friedman said a close look at the protests showed that people were raising a concern that the government appears to have abandoned them.

Friedman said: “In most cases, you hear the way people phrase their grievances, they hardly talk about the provision of houses or the size of a house. It is always about the mayor or the councillor having done or not done something.

“The most common theme in the complaints show that the people feel their leaders have no time for them.

“To me it is not just about service delivery. What people are saying is that they are not being listened to and they do not have councillors who will listen to their issues.”

He added that research done a few years ago to gauge people’s feelings on service delivery, showed that people — even those living in shacks — were happier if they felt that government was listening to and working with them.

Friedman said voters wanted leaders who respected them. “What we need to be discussing as society is what kind of messages we send out.

“We should be judging our councillors and have councillors who judge themselves based on how much they know their constituencies,” said Friedman.

The ANC often argues that the overwhelming vote it gets in each election is proof it has not lost touch with the masses.

Friedman disagrees: “Part of the problem is that the ANC often uses the same strategies which succeeded under the repressive apartheid regime despite 80 percent of the population being treated as second class citizens.

“But being in government and winning 70 percent of the vote means little if you do not have the political dominance in communities or the ability to make things happen. For that you need to work with your people.”

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http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3954717

Jovial Rantao
Editorial
It’s emotional blackmail

The government must be sensitive to the demands of the poor, but it should not be coerced into giving way to their continual cries of ‘Free this, free that’

It is important that we, as South Africans, remain sensitive to the plight of the poorest of the poor and that we remain alive to their reality. However, it is also important that we should warn of a culture of dependence and entitlement that is creeping into these communities.

A huge number of these South Africans have no means of income or the ability to generate a livelihood and depend on the handouts and the state to provide for them.

The private sector and the government have each played a role and dispensed some kind of assistance, all aimed at alleviating the situation of our indigent fellow citizens.

While the private sector dishes out donations and other forms of assistance, the government, on the other hand, has introduced a multi-pronged approach to deal with poverty and those trapped in it.

One of the government’s answers has been to provide all kinds of social grants for those with no income. The government has also provided housing, temporary jobs, etc, to people.

While the interventions by the government have served the purpose for which they were designed, there is a huge risk that the interventions have created a “dole culture”, some kind of a dangerous dependency and entitlement culture which the state or South Africa, for that matter, cannot sustain.

The message that is circulating in the low income communities is that if you want anything, the government will provide. If you want a house, the government will provide. Once you have a roof over your head, the government must provide free electricity and water.

Then the government must make available a grant so that the families can live. The constant refrain is: “The government must provide.” The only thing that people have not asked for or demanded from the government is the right to have children.

An analysis of the recent so-called lack of delivery protests reveals that most of the people who have taken to the streets – some of them engaging in illegal violent acts – have got nothing to do with service delivery but everything to do with failure by the government to provide everything free.

Residents of Kliptown took to the streets this week. They burnt shops and engaged in acts that forced the law enforcement agencies to react. Their demand – free houses. There were similar protests in Mamelodi and Desneyville in the Free State.

I am sure as night follows day that there will be more similar protests in the near future.

These protests seem to me like some sort of emotional blackmail against the government and creative queue-jumping by some streetwise community members.

Here is what seems to be the formula. Erect an illegal shack or live in one. Then take to the streets, in an act designed to embarrass the government – at all levels – portraying them as failures. In the process you barricade a street or two, disrupt traffic and other economic activity and make a claim that you were promised free houses.

This act will force the government on the back foot. It will then be forced to move the protesters into RDP houses as quickly as possible, to avoid the negative publicity. And voila, the protesters will get keys to their own house – brick and mortar.

While the “service delivery” protesters’ trick would have worked, down the line you’d have frustrated ordinary South Africans, who registered their names for a free RDP house but would have to wait a little longer because the clever queue-jumpers have had to be attended to first by the government.

There is, of course, another element to this trend. And that is the role played by politicians or so-called community leaders, particularly at local government or grassroots level. These are the people who go around telling residents that they are entitled to free this and free that.

These are the “leaders” who say to communities, “Just vote and the government must meet all your needs – free of charge.” These “leaders” would portray anyone who urges people to do the right thing such as following procedures to secure a house and pay for municipal services as failures.

Quite clearly, things cannot continue the way that they are going at the moment.

It is important that the government, while remaining sensitive to the needs of those who elected them, does not allow itself to be blackmailed by these “service delivery protests”.

There is no doubt in my mind that there is a need for a change in the mindset. Firstly, the people must be assisted to ditch this culture of entitlement and pursue a partnership with those who can help them to pull themselves out of the poverty trap.

These so-called community leaders must be exposed for the charlatans they are. The government, for its part, must resist the temptation of throwing money at the problem. There must be other ways through which individuals and communities can be assisted and empowered. The government’s Vuku’zenzele project is a project that must be revived and placed at the core of anti-poverty campaigns.