Democracy Under Threat: What Attacks on Grassroots Activists Mean for our Politics

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.

Opening Remarks

1.The workshop was convened to raise awareness of the Kennedy Road attacks and their implications for democracy. We hope that it will play a role in injecting into the mainstream debate on democracy an awareness of the way in which attacks on grassroots organising by the poor threaten our democracy.

2.To understand the implications of the Kennedy Road events, we need to say something about the nature of democracy. Its key feature is that it is based on the principle that each adult human being has a right to an equal say in the decisions taken by the political community of which they are a part. This obviously implies that no-one has a greater claim to the right to decide than anyone else. A professor with several degrees behind her name has no greater right to decide than a person who was unfortunate enough not to complete school because decisions on what is right and good are matters of opinion, not products of formal education. Access to learning or wealth does not entitle anyone to a greater say than anyone else. And so, ideally, a democracy ought to be a society in which each of us has an equal say in the decisions which affect us. No society has ever achieved this goal, but it is the standard to which any democracy ought to aspire.

3.This view of democracy may sound obvious to some but it differs from that found in much academic writing and in much of the South African debate. Both often tend to see democracy as a system in which elites are allowed to compete with each other to make decisions and in which grassroots citizens are limited to voting for the elite of their choice. But the view suggested here insists that, if democracy does not give everyone the right to decide, it is not a full democracy. While each individual has a right to participate in decisions, in practice we only really enjoy a say when we combine with others to pursue common interests or values. Democracy is thus impossible unless everyone has the right to organise to influence decisions.

4.The implications for the events at Kennedy Road should hopefully be clearer by now: if people living in shacks are subject to violence which prevents them organising to influence decisions, then citizens are being denied a basic democratic right and democracy is under threat. Democrats ought to see organisation by previously voiceless people as an important advance for democracy, a sign that the system is deepening and broadening. And so democrats ought to see attacks on the right of shack dwellers to organise as a dangerous abridgement of democracy.

5.Concern should be heightened by the fact that the Kennedy Road attacks are not an isolated incident. Over the past five years, there have been repeated allegations that grassroots activists and social movements have been subject to violence and harassment. This appears to have been prompted by the fact that these movements are organised independently of, and are often highly critical of, local power holders, usually local African National Congress leaders. This obviously suggests that a basic democratic right – to criticise governments and holders of political office – is under threat at the grassroots of our society. The attacks remind us, therefore, that, while a section of the society – the better-off and the better-connected – enjoy the freedom to express themselves freely, many do not. This raises the worrying prospect that democracy is flourishing for the middle classes and the affluent, but is being denied to the grassroots poor by local power-holders.

6.A further cause for concern is that the violence against members of Abahlali base Mjondolo(AbM) seems to herald an escalation of the campaign against grassroots organisations. Previously, political office-holders have not explicitly endorsed action against grassroots citizens’ organisations. These attacks were, however, implicitly supported by the KwaZulu Natal MEC for community safety and by senior officials in the provincial government. And so, while previously it may have been possible to see the denial of basic rights as the work of local power holders threatened by democracy but acting independently of and perhaps without the knowledge of political parties and office-holders, the expulsion of social movement activists from an area in which they were organised seems now to be sanctioned by senior office-holders.

7.Despite the severity of the threat to democracy posed by the Kennedy Road attacks and the action against activists of which it is a part, the national debate remains largely oblivious. While our print and electronic media daily discuss the implications for democracy of the activities of political, economic and social elites, attacks on grassroots citizens attempting to exercise their right to a say in decisions are routinely ignored. An illustrative example occurred when participants in the national debate became deeply alarmed at reports that the editor of a Sunday newspaper was to be charged in relation to a report that the newspaper had published: one commentator said that he had been reduced to tears by this development. However, while the editor was never charged, at the same time, AbM activists and supporters were reportedly beaten in the streets of Durban because they wished to present a petition to the mayor of Ethekwini. Commentators entirely ignored this event and none were moved to tears by the prospect of citizens facing violence as they exercised a core democratic right. This silence is an indictment both of our national debates and of our elites. It also confirms the point made earlier – that democracy in our country seems to be understood as a system for elites rather than grassroots citizens.

8.If we are concerned about a democracy which is available to all, we need, therefore, to seek wherever we can to point out to the mainstream of our society that a democracy in which the rights of shack-dwellers to speak collectively are denied – and in which commentators and public figures who proclaim themselves to be democrats fail to realise the clear and present danger to democracy which this poses – is at best a very limited and restricted democracy which may erode because it does not enjoy the support of grassroots citizens on which democracy depends. There is a very real sense in which the attacks on shack-dwellers rights to organise are testing not only the depth and breadth but also the survival prospects of our democracy We hope therefore that this workshop will begin a process in which the rights of grassroots activists to organise freely will be understood as a democratic requirement as important as the rights of those who now participate in the national debate.

The Way Forward

9.The meeting agreed that the workshop ought to begin rather than end a process of highlighting the threat to democracy posed by attacks on grassroots organisations. As an initial step, it was proposed that a statement be issued on behalf of participants endorsing AbM’s call for an independent inquiry into the events at Kennedy Road. This has been done.

10.It was proposed that an organisation or project be launched to monitor and highlight punitive and repressive action against grassroots organisations. It was suggested that it should not restrict itself to investigating and reporting on attacks on organisations but should also be concerned with authorities who violated the human rights of the poor more generally – action against street traders which violated both the law and people’s rights were mentioned as an example. If this initiative is to do its work properly, it will need significant resources and it was suggested that a proposal aimed at soliciting donor support for this idea be drafted.

11.The Centre announced that it had a small discretionary budget which could be used for further events devoted to highlighting the practice of democracy at the grassroots of society and threats to it. Participants in the workshop were invited to approach the Centre with idea for more activities and initiatives.

12.The Centre also reported that a meeting would be held under its auspices at the end of November to discuss ways of encouraging the exercise of active citizenship by the poor. The meeting had emerged out of a seminar called to discuss responses to the government’s anti-poverty strategy at which it was argued that the most effective way of ensuring policies which served the needs of the poor was the active use by poor people of their citizenship rights to express their needs and to ensure that government programmes served them. It had been agreed to convene a discussion to explore ways in which the exercise of active citizenship by poor people could be encouraged. Participants were invited to attend this meeting.

13.Finally, the Centre’s Director noted that it was now an institutional partner in the Global Conversations on Democracy project initiated by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi. The purpose was to open discussion on ways of understanding democracy which differed from current dominant views in the North. The role of grassroots social movements in strengthening democracy is a key concern of this project and participants interested in this issue were invited to suggest ways in which the discussions now occurring on a global scale could also begin in South Africa.

Steven Friedman
Director
Centre for the Study of Democracy
Rhodes University/University of Johannesburg