http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=285&fArticleId=3122520

SA democracy appears deaf to voice of the poor
February 21, 2006

By Raj Patel

The largest movement of poor people has been given few political platforms, bringing into question the freedom of the 2006 elections, writes Raj Patel

As the elections loom, we’re faced with a litany of certainties. We’re certain of a great deal of airtime being given to campaigning. We’re certain that the coverage will have a reality-TV level of insult trading and back-biting.

We are certain, come March 1, that we’ll be unable to escape the carnival of voting. We’re certain that the ANC will win the elections, albeit with a reduced majority.

Elections aren’t, however, only about the voting. It’s a mistaken belief that this consolidation happens after the votes have been counted.

An electoral campaign, like a military one, is about territory, about who gets to be part of the war, and who is trodden down on the battlefield.

Elections are a chance for those in power to consolidate it.

Invariably, the processes that allow one party to be declared a winner over another begin before the votes are even marked. This is the real power of “X”.

The best way to see this is to look outside the ballot box, looking not at the jostle of the ruling alliance, the DA, or Nadeco, but at a group who exist outside the world of party politics – the Abahlali baseMjondolo – Durban’s shackdwellers’ movement.

The largest independent movement of poor people in South Africa, the Abahlali baseMjondolo aren’t a violent group. They are non-violent advocates of equality, justice and desegregation.

Urgency

That they have been left to rot in shack settlements 12 years into democracy gives their demands an edge of urgency. But, by the way, their voices have been muffled by the local government, with the notable exception of the Ecopeace party. You’d think that the Abahlali baseMjondolo were peddlers of hate speech, subversion or conspiracy.

Consider this list of gagging and censorship:

When the Abahlali baseMjondolo wanted to protest against the way their housing requests had been treated in November last year, they were illegally banned by eThekwini City Manager Mike Sutcliffe – a decision for which he has yet to answer.

The police enforced Sutcliffe’s ban, which led, in the words of the Freedom of Expression Institute, to “a police riot against the protesters”. Many were hurt in the exercise of their right to free speech.

We might be inclined to think this was a mistake, an administrative error. It couldn’t happen again. And yet, on January 14 the ANC bullied its way into the Kennedy Road settlement against the wishes of its residents, assisted by a battalion of police.

“An overzealous use of police”, we might think. Unjustified and an error never to be repeated.

Last week the SABC’s Asikhulume talk show was recorded in Durban. The ANC, IFP, Nadeco and the Abahlali were invited to a debate. While the representatives of the first three groups were admitted without fuss, S’bu Zikode and the 60 shackdwellers he’d been invited to bring with him were locked outside the Cato Crest Community Hall by the SAPS.

When he tried to present the letter he’d been given, Zikode was beaten in full view of residents and independent witnesses. In the end, Zikode was allowed in halfway through the show, although few of his fellow residents were allowed to join him. The SABC claimed that there was insufficient space, although observers counted 30 spare seats.

When Zikode finally spoke, he managed to squeeze in three minutes of introduction before a torrential downpour halted the broadcast – perhaps the only part of the evening for which the government can shirk responsibility.

This bias follows hard on the heels of a riot outside the last filming of Asikhulume in Cape Town, where the Pan African Congress and the United Democratic Movement were excluded from the show.

Banned

And, finally, Sutcliffe last week banned yet another request to march. The reason? An incorrect form had been submitted. This is a little aggravating for Lungisani Jama to hear. He had completed and presented the appropriate form at the mayor’s offices two weeks ago, but they wouldn’t accept it, telling him to fill out a different (and incorrect) one.

This behaviour from city officials, the SAPS and the SABC has a rather concerted flavour to it. It’s hard not to see something systematic about the repression of Durban’s poorest residents.

Were this 1991, we’d know what words to use to describe this kind of repression. The tactics are the same now as they were then.

American critic and activist Abbie Hoffman observed: “You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.”

A democracy needs an independent media and police force not beholden to its politicians.

The actions of Sutcliffe, the mayor, the SABC and the SAPS have an awful orchestration to them, pointing to only one conclusion – South African democracy gives its dissidents little comfort. And without these freedoms, without genuine democracy, we can add two further certainties to our opening list.

Without freedom to dissent, the 2006 municipal elections can be considered neither free nor fair.