Global Call-In and Solidarity Actions for Evicted KwaMashu Community
For Immediate Release
7 January 2012
GLOBAL SOLIDARITY ACTIONS FOR KWAMASHU COMMUNITY DISPLACED BY COP17
Activists from Around the World Call Councillor Lucky Mdlalose of KwaMashu
Thursday 15 December 2011
Development without the poor
In an earlier edition of Padkos (No. 17) we argued that the real possibility and practice of democracy originates in the ‘dark corners’ of the state-we’re-in where ordinary poor people wage extraordinary struggle. One of the ways in which the spaces made and lived by the poor is rendered ‘dark’ is a developmental mythology that valorises the agency and dynamism of the middle class – and positions the poor as superfluous. In this edition we share a recent piece from Richard Ballard (Built Environment and Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal) exploring the function and effects of this approach – an approach Ballard characterises as “development without the poor”.
It is the first in a forthcoming series of three review pieces where Richard says he will “review recent literature on three contradictory, although mutually constitutive, understandings of development. I refer to these as development without the poor, development for the poor and development by the poor”. In the Abstract for the article, he points out that: “Some contemporary narratives of development give privileged status to middle classes in the global South. …[But] celebratory narratives elide the complex circumstances that make and unmake middle classes. Furthermore, middle class gains do not automatically translate into development for others. Indeed, efforts to centre the middle class threaten to displace, and justify the displacement of, economically marginalised groups seen as surplus to development”.
As this year draws to a close, we have also to digest the experience of the climate change circus that was COP17. The failure of the official COP17 to make headway in resolving the crises is no surprise, and nor is the effective exclusion of the people/the poor. In many ways this was, after all, a meeting of the elites whose praxis and interests are the basis of the crises in the first place. But there were too many instances of contempt, conscription and coercion of ‘the poor’ by civil society elites (whether NGOs, academics, or activists) who dominated the “alternative spaces’ of COP17 to suggest that civil society modes offer the basis for humanising, liberatory resolution of the crises either. Far too much civil society praxis remains basically as elitist, as racist, as authoritarian, and as exclusionary as those they criticise in governments and capital. Real solutions to real crises will not be won by modes of working that are conducted in practice, either ‘without’ or ‘for’ the people/the poor.
Thanks: We are grateful to Richard and the editors of the journal, Progress and Human Geography, for permission to share this as-yet unpublished paper. Read and enjoy the attached: Richard Ballard, November 2011 “Geographies of Development: without the poor”, Forthcoming in Progress and Human Geography).
Heads up for some good holiday reading: lots of good stuff in the newest edition of the online journal, Interface (http://interfacejournal.net/current/). There’s an article by Michael Neocosmos (“Transition, human rights and violence: rethinking a liberal political relationship in the African neo-colony”) where he extends key arguments we summarised in Padkos No. 17; and there”s an important piece from Kenneth Good (“The capacities of the people versus a predominant, militarist, ethno-nationalist elite: democratisation in South Africa c. 1973 – 97”) detailing the battles fought – and largely lost – between the extraordinary radical democracy of ‘peoples power’ in the best of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and a violently authoritarian politics that came to characterise a dominant tendency of the African National Congress (ANC) in exile and through the transition to ‘democracy’ in South Africa.
http://www.newint.org/blog/2011/12/12/durban-cop-17-climate-change-talks/
Durban became a procrastinators’ paradise
Nnimmo Bassey
As the climate talks crept to an end early Sunday morning, it was clear that leaders had once again displayed their expertise in procrastination.
As things stand, leaders now have up to 2015 to agree a new deal that would not come into effect until 2020. Durban could be dubbed the procrastinators’ paradise.
The world’s polluters have blocked real action and have once again chosen to bail out investors and banks by expanding the now-crashing carbon markets – which like all financial market activities these days, appear to mainly enrich a select few.
The originally scheduled end of the talks was Friday 9 December. As night called the negotiators seemed nowhere near a conclusion.
Frustration raged inside and outside the international conference centre where the talks were going on. Hundreds of climate activists staged a standoff in the corridors close to one of the plenary rooms, demanding ‘Don’t kill Africa!’. They occupied COP17 for over three hours. In the end, security agents expelled some activists including Bobby Peek of Friends of the Earth South Africa, Desmond D’Sa of South Durban Community Environmental Alliance and Kumi Naidoo of Greenpeace. On the outside, people defied the rain to gather at the Occupy COP17 space – also dubbed the Speakers Corner. This had become the self-organising space for voices of the people to be raised and messages to be freely sent without having to deal with the security maze at the talks. Friday night was the vigil for the Conference of Parties (COP). Very fitting because the official talks had turned more or less into funeral rites.
Citizens of KwaMashu displaced from their land for a Durban makeover took time here to tell the stories of their travail. They came under the auspices of a group called Abahlali BaseMjondolo, the shack dwellers movement. Kids from the community staged a drama depicting how they were initially evicted when South Africa hosted the FIFA world cup, how they picked up pieces of their lives after the soccer fiesta and how they were again evicted to make the COP sit pretty. They demanded to know why they had no rights as South Africans to shelter, dignity and decent treatment.
Back inside, the talks went on the whole of the next day and eventually closed early Sunday morning. Policy analysts see the talks as an unmitigated disaster.
‘Ordinary people have once again been let down by our governments,’ says Sarah-Jayne Clifton, Climate Justice Coordinator at Friends of the Earth International. ‘Led by the US, developed nations have reneged on their promises, weakened the rules on climate action and strengthened those that allow their corporations to profit from the climate crisis.’
Clifton explains that the Kyoto Protocol, the only legally binding framework for emissions reductions, survived in name only. ‘The ambition for those emissions cuts remains terrifyingly low,’ she added. ‘The Green Climate Fund has no money and the plans to expand destructive carbon trading are going ahead.
‘Meanwhile, millions across the developing world already face devastating climate impacts, and the world catapults headlong towards climate catastrophe. The noise of corporate polluters has drowned out the voices of ordinary people in the ears of our leaders.’ For Mohamed Adow of Christian Aid, the outcome of the talks is profoundly distressing. ‘This is the worst I have ever seen from such a process. At a time when scientists are queuing up to warn about terrifying consequences if emissions keep rising, what we have here in Durban is a betrayal of people across the world.’
‘The Durban outcome is a compromise which saves the climate talks but endangers people living in poverty,’ Adow concludes. At the closing press conference, the UN was keen to put a positive spin on the result.
United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres described the talks as ‘a landmark’, saying that the decisions made there ‘have really marked a completely new trajectory for the climate regime.’ ‘It has guaranteed a second commitment period,’ she went on, ‘but it has also laid the path for a broader regime applicable to all in a legal way, and provided mechanisms for developing countries to address their needs of mitigation and adaptation.’
Not everyone interprets the outcome in those terms. ‘It is false to say that a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol has been adopted in Durban,’ says Pablo Solón, former lead negotiator for Bolivia. ‘The actual decision has merely been postponed to the next COP, with no commitments for emission reductions from rich countries. This means that the Kyoto Protocol will be on life support until it is replaced by a new agreement that will be even weaker.’
Meanwhile, as more COPs roll by, millions of people will be swept away by climate impacts while corporations and their shoe-shine-boy politicians smile on their way to the bank or swing in cosy hammocks, as though they inhabited a different planet.
And yet, despite the failure of the talks, I leave Durban this Monday morning with much optimism. I saw the power of the coming together of ordinary people, sharing of stories and building of new linkages. Perhaps a People’s COP may be the way forward. I remember the seeds of such a conference sown in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2010.
http://www.indypendent.org/2011/12/09/the-climate-change-revolution-will-not-be-funded/
The Climate Change Revolution Will Not Be Funded
Jared Sacks
This past week, world leaders, technocrats, and NGOs descended upon Durban for the 17th Conference of Parties (dubbed Conference of Polluters by its critics). After 17 years of meetings to address climate change, the lack of action from world leaders clearly shows that the biggest polluting nations not only lack the political will to address the issue, but also seem to be actively carrying out the anti-environmental agenda of the largest corporations on this planet.
The sizeable NGOs who have made their name fighting climate change are surely correct when they link the Obama and Harper governments, and indeed the entire COP process, to the likes of Royal Dutch Shell, Eskom and Koch Industries. Some great slogans have come out of this opposition to the conference. Earthlife Africa’s catchphrase on their t-shirts tells us to “never trust a COP” playing off of the duplicity and corruption of both the police and the COP process.
Yet the opposition front of civil society that came together to form C17 and organized this past Saturday’s Global Day of Action, tells only part of the story. The issue that is glossed over relates to the definitions of who is ‘civil society’ and therefore who was really speaking at the myriad events organized by C17 NGOs, such as the International Climate Jobs Conference, the People’s Space at UKZN, Greenpeace’s Solar Tent, and even the 10,000 strong Global Day of Action.
On the Climate Bus Part 1
On the 1st of December, we embarked on a grueling 27 hour trip from Cape Town to Durban. The C17 Climate Bus Caravan was populated mostly by poor activists and lower level NGO workers. The conditions in our two buses coming from Cape Town were less than ideal, especially the hourly pit-stops that resulted from the lack of a toilet on-board. The organizing was also less than ideal; we got lost on the way and did not know where we were staying once we arrived in Durban.
But these were hardcore activists, many who live in shacks or council homes and some who have been shot at and jailed for their activism. Conditions were not the issue. The overriding complaint I heard over and over from fellow travelers was the unfairness of the situation: why were the actual NGO directors who paid for the trip not on the bus with us?
Slumming it at the Refugee Camp
Upon arrival in Durban, we eventually found our accommodation for the next three days: C17’s Climate Change Refugee Camp. As activists, we were willing to make a political statement by living in huge communal tents with sub-par ablution facilities, dirty blankets and conditions mirroring a refugee camp.
As Mzonke Poni from Abahlali baseMjondolo told me: “The camp was a true reflection of a people’s space. The actual People’s Space at UKZN was more of an intellectual space…I enjoyed the experience at the camp.” Indeed, communal spaces where the poor are dumped are often much more open and accessible spaces than the rigidly organized initiatives built to include the poor.
Once again, the underlying grievance behind the majority of participants was that the executives of the C17 social justice NGOs who organized the camp to make a political statement, were sleeping comfortably in beach-front hotels.
Leading silent sheep
What became clear throughout the trip was that we (the thousands of activists brought in from all over the country) were a crowd whose primary purpose was to provide legitimacy to the C17 NGO’s claims that their agendas had popular support. This was why free t-shirts were handed out advertising NGOs and their environmental justice campaigns.
Furthermore, activists’ trips sponsored by C17 NGOs were told to wear Earthlife Africa or Million Climate Jobs shirts instead of those of their own organizations. Activists whose trip was sponsored by the Democratic Left Front (DLF) were encouraged to wear only DLF t-shirts. What this meant is, as Mzonke Poni put it, “the role of community-based organizations (CBOs) have been undermined…the crowd was rented to top up the numbers.”
Indeed, there was effectively no space for CBOs and movements to talk about what climate change actually means to their lived experience. Their anti-climate change agenda was defined on their behalf. Even at the massive march on the 3rd of December, only a couple of high-powered speakers such as COSATU’s Zwelinzima Vavi were given a space to speak.
As Charles Adams from Mitchell’s Plain explained: “They [NGOs] should have involved the community people and given them a space to speak, not just the organisers.”
This was evident not only at the NGO controlled march, but also at all other C17 events. It seems that at times even the Occupy COP17 General Assembly was itself occupied by NGOs, and its agenda set from the top-down by these organizations’ directors.
In one instance, community activists eventually fought back. According to participants, the DLF leadership had placed members in accommodation “not fit for a human being” and given “expired food” while they themselves stayed in much better lodging. Members revolted against the DLF leadership by disrupting a public lecture and shamed them into ensuring that their conditions were improved. Still, members remained angry and unsatisfied at the reproduction of inequality by the DLF leadership.
Sold Out
The end result was not only that C17 NGO autocrats used the bodies of community activists while silencing their voices, they also undermined the entire anti-climate change agenda. A discussion with Melissa Jaxa from the artistic collective Soundz of the South was instructive: “I think we should be consulted as the masses. As we call ourselves socialists, we should make decisions together about who should speak at our events. They [C17] didn’t take us seriously. We are against COP17 but we ended up working with them”.
In fact, anyone present at the Global Day of Action would have clearly seen the ANC supporters donning official eThekwini COP17 uniforms, shouting pro-Zuma slogans, and abusing and assaulting other protesters. How could the C17 organizers have allowed them to participate in the same space as a march meant to call Zuma and other world leaders to account? How did the municipality get away with using public funds to rent an ANC crowd of their own?
In other words, we activists felt that we were sold out by the very NGOs that claim to represent our interests. As INCITE’s The Revolution Will Not Be Funded shows, NGOs have no structural accountability to their so-called beneficiaries. They are externally funded organizations that, like the World Bank, are accountable to outside forces through the power of the purse.
We who feel that another (more just) world is necessary should then look toward the unfunded revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt or the Occupy Movement for reference. We need to support community self-organizing and accept community driven agendas and philosophies. This does not need millions in funding. But it does need painstaking perseverance and commitment to radical democratic politics. In other words, a commitment to building authentic peoples spaces.
On the Climate Bus Part 2
On the road back to Cape Town, the one bus broke down twice while the other’s tire burst. In Colesburg the bus drivers purposely left dozens of activists stranded until those of us still onboard forced the buses to turn back to get them. After spending another 30 hours on the return bus, we finally arrived at the Alternative Information Development Centre (AIDC) in Cape Town at 23h30. However, half of us were stuck once again; someone forgot to organize taxis home.
Because we could not find the C17 representatives who were in charge of organizing transport, we could not fix the situation.
Even something as simple as a bus trip becomes a struggle when we as participants have no say.
http://www.mahala.co.za/culture/solar-powered-cappucino/
Solar Powered Cappucino
by Benjamin Fogel
COP 17 drags on. Everybody would rather be somewhere else. When last Saturday’s protest march of around 10,000 people reached Durban’s ICC, the venue of the UN environmental conference, suits rushed out with iphones and blackberries. They seemed desperate to escape the boredom inside for a little local singing and dancing. Some delegates even pushed past mounted police to join the protest. The media was out en masse too. There were bored German, Russian and US TV crews alongside indie media like Democracy Now, with Amy Goodman in the flesh.
What struck me most is the overwhelming NGO presence. Liberal NGOs like WWF and Greenpeace alongside the admirable 350.org, recently responsible for blocking the keystone pipeline between Canada and the United States, as well as several local social movements, Abahlali baseMjondolo and local COSATU branches. Before the big march last weekend, COSATU promised 65 bus loads of people but only several hundred from the National Union of Mine Workers and the Union of Municipal workers actually showed up.
I will got out on a limb and declare the protest a complete failure. It was a feel-good ritual designed to placate the democratic conscience of the media. Maybe even a sideshow to cheer what’s left of the delegates souls. As much as it was an incredible feeling being part of a such a large scale protest, it did nothing to interrupt the seamless transition to planetary destruction. Fully paid up elites don’t notice memorandums and marches. If they did there would be genuine commitment to solving the environmental crisis. It would be treated like the planetary emergency it is. Which it isn’t.
The march was even listed as part of the COP17 official schedule available to all who visit the minimalist Eco-friendly corporate expo abutting the ICC building. It’s set up so corporations can ‘greenwash’ their images in the Durban sunshine. You can sit outside at rustic wooden tables and drink solar powered cappucino. Local businesses are trying to get in on the action. Florida Road is the ideal setting for the solar powered cappucino scam. You can find it all over Durban’s premiere dining strip. Along with Christmas lights and regular coffee. Delegates might prefer getting drunk on exorbitant craft beer within the walled off Durban “Green Zone” while toasting the future success of “Green Capitalism”. For the less distracted, it’s hard to ignore the tilt and glide of cctv surveillance systems monitoring every movement or the riot police outside.
Back at the conference, South Africa’s Foreign Minister, Maita Nkoana-Mashabane, gave a truly forgettable speech. The only surprising thing about it was that she didn’t receive any audible booing. There was even lukewarm applause from the NGO types. Alex Lenferna, on the shadow team of the official SA negotiation team, later told me they were shooting for “complete neutrality” on all the important issues. Just what’s needed right now as the planet heats up inexorably. Even a COSATU leader privately acknowledged there was a lack of working class or even civil society presence on the official negotiating team. Although both COSATU leaders I spoke to were loathe to criticize the government’s negligible response to climate change.
Then the person Business Day described as “the affable Costa Rican” – the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, gave us a master class in empty rhetoric. She stood atop a media truck and told us a folksy yarn that began with schoolchildren and ended with her urging us all “to do more and then do more again”. Lukewarm applause except for some enthusiastic Greenpeace folk at the front. Applauding the very people fucking over the planet with dumb wasteful shows like COP17 designed to put off real action on climate change, environmental destruction and pollution with predetermined impasses. You can hear air conditioning units hum outside the compound, sparing insiders the Durban humidity.
So vague feel-good rhetoric prevails at COP 17. A passive acceptance of the status quo. Sitting there I wanted us to chase them back to their fortified compound, charge the gates Bolshevik style, and, at the very least, occupy the minimalist Corporate Expo center. Last Saturday, the protest reached North Beach where a woman seized the loud hailer and told us to “occupy” the space, an officially sanctioned grass bank about a kilometer from the conference. The UN even laid on some DJs to spin tunes. It was utterly sickening.
Clearly protests have been institutionalized and defanged at big events like this. They are empty rituals for the world’s media to paint a scenario of democratic inclusion and vibrancy while our collective future hangs in the balance. Getting permission to Occupy something, to a soundtrack, isn’t what the Global revolt of 2011 is about. Institutionalized dissent on this scale is disheartening. It diminishes radical potential. That alone plays into the hands of an increasingly authoritarian ANC who want COP17 to be another safe little showcase for their willingness to comply with global elites.