CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF DEMOCRACY
WORKSHOP
NOVEMBER 4

DEMOCRACY UNDER THREAT:WHAT ATTACKS ON GRASSROOTS ACTIVISTS MEAN FOR OUR POLITICS

OPENING REMARKS AND WAY FORWARD

Subsequent to this workshop, which attracted significant media attention, we received requests for summaries of the proceedings. Presenters were not required to produce written papers; they gave generously of their time and we did not think it appropriate to ask them to produce written summaries after the event. As a contribution to further discussion on the issue we are, however, circulating this brief summary of the opening remarks and comments ion the way forward by the Centre’s Director, Steven Friedman.

http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/Content.aspx?id=86545

Citizen groups need to grow deeper roots among the poor
Eusebius McKaiser and Steven Friedman
Published: 2009/11/10 06:22:50 AM

CITIZENS’ organisations in SA may have more influence than they believe — but only if they think more strategically and try harder to represent people at the grassroots. This is the key finding of a study of civil society organisations undertaken by the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Rhodes University and the University of Johannesburg and funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-10-27-voa63.cfm

South African Poor Protest Conditions
By Delia Robertson
Johannesburg
27 October 2009

For at least three years, as the country's winter months begin to bite, poor South Africans have taken to the streets in increasingly violent protest, frustrated at what they see as government failures to address their needs. This year, those protests have continued well into warm weather.

They are usually called service-delivery protests and the unstated implication that people are protesting because the South African government has failed to deliver services such as electricity, water, sanitation, health services, homes and even land.

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=77115

People are demanding public service, not service delivery
Steven Friedman
Published: 2009/07/29 07:03:31 AM

TOWNSHIP citizens are protesting not because they want “service delivery” but because they want to escape it.

The current round of grassroots protests — which have been happening for three-and-a- half years but are now receiving some rare attention from our public debate — may have done us an immense service by prompting voices to warn against the claim that the protesters are demanding “service delivery”.

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A761632

Whether it lasts is in hands of citizens
Steven Friedman

A FELLOW columnist said in a conversation last week, “You know it can’t last.” Whether he is right depends on what “it” is. An irony of our current politics is that, while doom and gloom have engulfed many in business and the professions, democracy is, in important ways, doing better than it has for a long while.

Parliament continues to hold the government to account more than ever before, most recently by threatening a vote of no confidence in the SABC board. The African National Congress (ANC) now differs with the government on electricity price rises and Zimbabwe, to name but two issues. Public consultation on national problems is about to be revived with an energy summit later this month. And by far the most impressive sign of democratic health is citizens’ action, which prevented a Chinese ship carrying arms for Zimbabwe’s regime from docking here. Just as AIDS activists badly wounded one key blot on government policy over the past few years, workers who refused to handle the ship’s cargo and church leaders who blocked the government’s decision to allow the ship to dock severely damaged another: failure to support democracy in Zimbabwe.

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A744397

09 April 2008
Actions to secure future of freedom
Steven Friedman

AS MANY of us hope anxiously that the will of the Zimbabwean people will finally be heard, some South Africans wonder whether our neighbour’s current travail is our future.

Fears that we too might have to contend with a governing elite that digs itself into power are sometimes based on a crude prejudice that insists that black-run countries cannot be democratic, despite much evidence to the contrary. But not all are — people on the left have been known to talk about the “Zanufication” of the African National Congress (ANC), particularly under its old leadership.

http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/stevenfriedman/2007/10/17/the-people-our-national-debate-does-not-see-or-hear/
&
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/dailymailer.aspx?ID=BD4A588878

The people our national debate does not see or hear

Steven Friedman

Do our public commentators know nothing about the lives of grassroots South Africans? Or do we simply not care?

One of the more important plusses of our democracy is that we still have a loud and vigorous national debate. Despite worrying signs that politicians might want to reign in the media, we are often able to know what dirt there is (or is alleged to be) on our political leaders. And commentators are free to say what they like — even if it is what our leaders don't like.