Category Archives: Shawn Hattingh

Andries Tatane: Murdered by the Ruling Classes

by Shawn Hattingh (ZACF)

On the 13th April, people in South Africa were stunned. On the evening news the sight of six police force members brutally beating a man, Andries Tatane, to death was aired. The images of the police smashing his body with batons and repeatedly firing rubber bullets into his chest struck a cord; people were simply shocked and appalled. Literally hundreds of articles followed in the press, politicians of all stripes also hopped on the bandwagon and said they lamented his death; and most called for the police to receive appropriate training to deal with ‘crowd control’ – after all, elections are a month away.

Andries Tatane’s death was the culmination of a protest march in the Free State town of Ficksburg. The march involved over 4,000 people, who undertook the action to demand the very basics of life – decent housing, access to water and electricity, and jobs. They had repeatedly written to the mayor and local government of Ficksburg pleading for these necessities. Like a group of modern day Marie Antoinettes, the local state officials brushed off these pleas; more important matters no doubt needed to be attended to – like shopping for luxury cars; banking the latest fat pay check; handing tenders out to Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) connections and talking shit in the municipal chambers. Therefore, when the township residents had the audacity to march, and call for a response, the police were promptly unleashed with water cannons and rubber bullets. If the impoverished black residents of Ficksburg could not get the hint, in the form of silence; then the state and local politicians were going to ensure that they got the message beaten into them.

The reason why specifically Andries Tatane was murdered was because he had the cheek, in the eyes of the officials involved, to question police force members about why they were firing a water cannon at an elderly person – who clearly was not a threat to the burly brutes that make up South Africa’s arm of the law. For that act of decency, he paid dearly: with his life. The message was clear – how dare anyone question the authority of the state and its right to use force wherever and whenever it deems necessary.

A war on protestors

The sad reality though is that Andries Tatane’s murder at the hands of the state did not represent something new or even an isolated incident. For years, the South African state has been treating people that have embarked on protests with brute force and utter contempt. Activists from community based movements – such as the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), Abahlali baseMjondolo (ABM), Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC) and Landless People’s Movement (LPM) have routinely been harassed by the state, arrested and beaten. For instance, on the day of the elections in 2004, LPM members were tortured by the police in Soweto. Some activists have also been subjected to attacks by vigilante groupings; to which the state and the police have often turned a blind eye. In reality, the state views community based movements as enemies and when they protest the state often dishes out violence. The fact that the vast majority of community based protests are peaceful, usually involving little more than people blockading a road and burning old tires, does not deter them.

Andries Tatane’s awful death, for standing up for what he believed, was also by no means the first at the hands of the South African state. Numerous people involved in community protests, much like the one in Ficksburg, have been murdered by police officials. As recently as February, protests erupted in the town of Ermelo; situated in one of South Africa’s poorest provinces – Mpumulanga. The people involved were demanding the exact same basic necessities as the Ficksburg protestors. The state did not respond by listening or engaging the people, but rather sent 160 riot police, euphemistically named the Tactical Response Team (TRT), to end the protests. The country’s Police Commissioner, General Cele; personally warned the Ermelo protestors and organizers that the TRT was going to restore ‘order’. In the process, two people were shot dead by the police and 120 more were arrested. Raids were conducted throughout impoverished areas – due to the legacy of apartheid, residents in these areas are mainly or exclusively black – and, as part of this, an 80 year old woman was detained. An illegal curfew was also implemented by the police and anyone on the street was automatically shot at with rubber bullets. Indiscriminate violence by the police reportedly became the order of the day. In one incident, captured on a cellphone camera, a teenager was called out of a shop by a group of policemen. When he approached their car, he was repeatedly shot at with rubber bullets and forced to roll down the street as ‘punishment’. Other people were also reportedly whipped by the police with sjamboks – the imagery of colonial and apartheid style punishment no doubt being deliberate. People were literally driven off the streets by state organised terror. The bitter reality, however, is that Emerlo and Ficksburg were simply microcosms of how the state routinely dishes out violence towards those that it views as a threat: in 2010 alone 1,769 people died as a result of police action or in police custody. Sadly, Andries Tatane will become part of these statistics.

Sinister interrogation processes have also accompanied the outright violence that the state has directed towards protestors. In the case of the Ermelo protests, a person who the state accused of being one of the organisers, Bongani Phakathi, was interrogated for 14 hours by the crack Hawks unit. Amongst other things, he was questioned about whether there were funders behind the protest. The questions asked to Phakathi reveal the level of paranoia that the state has shown around the ever-growing community protests. In fact, the state has repeatedly claimed that there has been a sinister ‘third force’ behind the wave of protests. To supposedly uncover this ‘third force’ and to intimidate people, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has been unleashed on communities over the last few years. In the process, many people have been arrested, interrogated and some have even been charged with sedition. For example in 2006, 13 people were charged with sedition in the small town of Harrismith because they were involved in a community protest. Almost all, however, have been released for a lack of real evidence and in the end the state was forced to drop the sedition charges. Nonetheless, the South African state’s goal of intimidating people is clear. What has also become patently clear is that there is no ‘third force’; the claims about a ‘third force’ are simply being used to ‘legitimise’ the use of intelligence agencies against people. The only ‘third force’ driving the protests are the conditions that people are being forced to live under – it is sadly not an exaggeration to say the dogs that guard the property of the rich, and that are used by the police, live under better conditions than the poor in South Africa.

It is also clear that police force members, who are the foot soldiers of the state, are taking their cue from leading state officials and politicians – whether tied to the Democratic Alliance (DA) or the African National Congress (ANC). The likes of General Cele has encouraged the police to “shoot to kill” if they feel threatened. The ANC, DA and Congress of the People (COPE) have more than once branded people embarking on protests as criminals that need to be dealt with. Even sections within the country’s trade union leadership, and some ‘leftists’ associated with them, have at times called community protestors and activists thugs. Despite uttering regrets about Andries Tatane’s murder, politicians have also continued to say that protestors need to be subjected to effective ‘crowd control’. Likewise, police officials stated that anyone who “taunts” the police, despite the death of Tatane, must still be dealt with. The fact that those in the state believe that they have a right to ‘control’ people and ‘deal with them’ speaks volumes about their oppressive worldview. In response to a wave of protests in 2009, the Cabinet also released a wrath of statements including one saying:

“The action that we will be taking is that those who organise these marches, those who openly perpetuate and promote violent action, the state will start acting against those individuals”

The Cabinet’s and the state’s message was clear: it was saying to the poor: protest and the state will come for you, isolate you and crush you. Such thuggish statements have become common on the lips of South African state officials. It is in this context that Andries Tatane was killed.

The way the current state views and deals with community protestors also has remarkable similarity, and continuity, with the practices of the apartheid state – despite the state being in the hands of a supposed black nationalist liberation movement – the ANC. Besides apartheid-style brutality, the post-apartheid state still makes use of apartheid laws to deal with protests. Under these laws, anyone wanting to protest has to apply 7 days in advance. Linked to this, the state can refuse permission on a number of grounds. If permission is not granted then any protest involving more than 15 people is deemed illegal. The state is then ‘free’, according to its own laws, to arrest or take action – a euphemism for firing rubber bullets – against the people involved. Freedom of expression is hollow under such circumstances. With such practices it is also no wonder that the South African state is attempting to pass laws that would allow it to classify vast amounts of information that would stop any public scrutiny of its practices, abuses and short-comings. The state is not an entity of the people; it is an entity of oppression.
The wider war

Of course, the suppression of protestors, such as Andries Tatane, is merely the outward sign of a larger and more intense war that the elite in South Africa have been waging on the majority of people. In fact, the elite, through capitalism, have been exploiting people through wage slavery; stripping people of their jobs to increase profits; turning houses into a commodity; stripping peoples’ access to water to make profits; denying people without money access to food; and cutting people’s electricity when they are too poor to pay. For years people have, therefore, been robbed by the rich and state officials. As such, the elite – made up of white capitalists but now joined by a small black elite centred mainly around the state and ANC – have forced the vast majority of people in South Africa to live in misery. Indeed, the elite in South Africa has created and entrenched a society that is defined by continued exploitation of the poor and workers; that is defined by continued racial oppression of the majority of workers and the poor, and that is defined by extreme sexism. The rich and state officials (the ruling classes) have grown rich and fat out of this situation – living off the blood, sweat and cheap labour of the, predominantly black, workers and the poor. It is for this reason that the rich and politicians have come to enjoy one of the highest living standards in the world. They enjoy lavish houses, serving staff, massive pay checks – lifestyles that even the royalty of old could only dream of. Thus, it should not be surprising that South Africa is statically the most unequal society in the world – it was and is designed by the ruling classes to be so: their wealth and power is based on it!
The state is war

It is this extreme inequality and deprivation – and accompanying experience of exploitation, oppression and humiliation – that drives people, including Andries Tatane, to protest. While we should rightfully be appalled by the death of Andries Tatane, and other people embarking on protests, at the hands of the state; we should, however, not be surprised. The state is the ultimate protector of the unjust and unequal society we have. If the status quo is even remotely threatened or questioned, the purpose of the state is to neutralise the threat and/or silence or co-opt it.

In fact, anarchists have long pointed out that states, of whatever variety, are inherently oppressive and violent. States are centralising and hierarchical institutions, which exist to enforce a situation whereby a minority rules over a majority. The hierarchical structure of all states also inevitably concentrates power in the hands of the directing elite. States and the existence of an elite are, therefore, synonymous. States are the concentrated power of the ruling class – made up of both capitalists and high ranking state officials – and are a central pillar of ruling class power. Thus, the state serves dominant minorities and by definition it has to be centralised, since a minority can only rule when power is concentrated in their hands and when decisions made by them flow down a chain of command. It is specifically this that allows minorities who seek to rule people (high ranking state officials) and exploit people (capitalists) to achieve their aims.

The fact that the state is an oppressive and hierarchical system, which operates to protect and entrench the privileged positions of the ruling class, has also resulted in the continuation of the racial oppression of the vast majority of the working class (workers and the poor) in South Africa. The anarchist Mikhail Bakunin foresaw the possibility of such a situation arising in cases where national liberation was based upon the strategy of capturing state power – as has happened in South Africa. Indeed, Bakunin said that the “statist path” was “entirely ruinous for the great masses of the people” because it did not abolish class power but simply changed the make-up of the ruling class. Due to the centralised nature of states, only a few can rule – a majority of people can never be involved in decision making under a state system as it is hierarchical. As such, he stated that if the national liberation struggle was carried out with “ambitious intent to set up a powerful state”, or if “it is carried out without the people and must therefore depend for success on a privileged class” it would become a “retrogressive, disastrous, counter-revolutionary movement”. Over and above this he stressed that national liberation and the end to all forms of oppression, including that of race, had to be achieved “as much in the economic as in the political interests of the masses”. Through their position in the ruling class (based on their control of the state), the black elite have escaped the effects of racial oppression and have become oppressors themselves (their power over the state at times has even been used by them, for their own interests, against other sections of the ruling class like racist white capitalists), but racial oppression for the majority of the working class continues. The privileged position of the black ruling elite – like their white capitalist counterparts – is based on the continued oppression of black workers, who have been and are deliberately relegated by the state and capitalism in South Africa to the role of extremely cheap labour. Thus, although the working class in South Africa includes white people, the main source of wealth for the white and black ruling elite depends on the exploitation of the black working class as a source of super cheap labour. It is this combination of racial oppression and exploitation on which the wealth of the elite rests. Thus, when the state and capitalism remained intact in South Africa, after apartheid, the continued exploitation of the working class and racial oppression of the majority of impoverished people were assured. It is this situation that has created the conditions that have led to the protests in townships in places like Ficksburg and Ermelo, and it is this situation that has assured that they will continue.

Indeed, the oppression and exploitation of the majority of people will, and does, happen even under a parliamentary system. This is because even in a parliamentary system a handful of people get to make decisions, instruct others what to do, and enforce these instructions through the state. When people don’t obey these top-down instructions or disagree with them, the power of the state is then used to coerce and/ or punish them. Thus, the state as a centralised mechanism of ruling class power also claims a monopoly of legitimate force within ‘its’ territory; and will use that force when it deems necessary – including against protestors raising issues like a lack of jobs, a lack of housing and a lack of basic services. It is this violent, oppressive and domineering nature of all states that have led anarchists, rightfully, to see them as the antithesis of freedom. The brutal reality is that protestors in South Africa, like Andries Tatane – demanding a decent life and greater democracy – have ended up victims of the mechanism of centralised minority rule: the state. In terms of trying to silence protestors – whether by baton, water cannon, rubber bullets or live ammunition – the South African state has also been carrying out one of the main tasks it was designed for: organised violence.

Conclusion

The fact is that capitalism and the state systems are one of the key reasons why South Africa is the most unequal society in the world. The state entrenches and enforces this status quo: a status quo based on the exploitation and oppression of the vast majority of people; made up of the workers and the poor. Andries Tatane too was a victim of this system. Indeed, for as long as capitalism and the state exist; inequality will exist and people will be forced to live in misery. When they raise issues and protest; the state will try to silence them either by co-option or violence or a combination of both. The fact also is that for as long as the state and capitalism continue to exist there will be thousands upon thousands of Andries Tatanes, Ernesto Nhamuaves, Steve Bikos and Hector Pietersons. The state and capitalism, to paraphrase Bakunin, are in combination a vast slaughterhouse and cemetery – sometimes killing workers and the poor suddenly and openly; sometimes killing them silently and slowly.

For as long as the state and capitalism are in place people will also be driven to protest against the oppression, exploitation and inequalities that are generated by, and that are part and parcel of, these systems. If people want a just, fair, equal, genuinely democratic, non-racist, non-sexist and decent society then capitalism and the state systems need to be ended. Certainly, people should demand and organise to win immediate gains like jobs, better wages, housing and services from the state and capitalists; but ultimately for as long as these systems of class rule exist; domination, inequality, and oppression will exist. Thus if genuine material equality is to be achieved, people are going to need to organise to take direct control of the economy, and run it democratically, for the benefit of all and to meet the needs of all. Only under such circumstances will the poverty, which has been driving people like Andries Tatane to protest, be ended. Only under such a system will racial oppression too be ended. Likewise, if people want a genuine democracy and a say over their lives, and not to have their concerns dismissed, then people are going to have to get rid of the state and replace it with a form of people’s power based on structures of self-governance like federated community/worker assemblies and federated councils at regional, national and international levels. There have been historical experiments, although on a limited scale, with such structures of direct democracy including in South Africa during the anti-apartheid struggle. We need to learn from these. In fact, if we want to ensure that there will be no Andries Tantanes in the future we need to revive the best practices of Peoples’ Power and build towards achieving a free and egalitarian world: a world based on the principles that have become known, through a 150 year struggle for justice, as anarchist-communism.

Electricty in South Africa

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http://www.zcommunications.org/subsidies-for-the-rich-cut-offs-for-the-poor-by-shawn-hattingh

by Shawn Hatting, Z-Net

Subsidies for the Rich, Cut-offs for the Poor

The sight of people, mostly women or children, walking kilometres over dusty roads to haul wood back to their homes for cooking, heat and light is not uncommon in South Africa’s rural areas. Likewise, every winter, fires rampage through the thousands of shanty towns that dot the urban landscape because people are forced to use dangerous sources of energy like coal and paraffin. Sadly the lack of electricity, due to unaffordability, has caused the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people. Occasionally, when these shack fires are devastating enough, the country’s politicians roll out their BMWs, Mercedes Benzs and sinister black clad bodyguards and visit these areas to lament the suffering and to promise change. Each one in turn vows that if the victims vote for their party a new era of prosperity will dawn, but in the end nothing ever changes. Indeed, the web of lies that the politicians of every hue spin has no end.

The reason why nothing changes is because no matter what party these politicians are from, they are part and parcel of the leadership of a system – in the form of the state and capitalism – that is designed to wage war on the working class, to increase the wealth of the rich and to protect their interests. Time after time these politicians along with the rich have unleashed repeated attacks on the working class. The latest of these attacks recently took place when the government and the state-owned electricity provider, Eskom, announced that the price of electricity for households would be increasing by over 100% in the next three years. In fact, in 2010 alone electricity prices are set to soar by 24% for the working class . The consequences of these astronomical increases are going to be devastating, but also glaringly familiar: electricity cuts offs will increase; evictions related to Eskom’s cost recovery will soar; millions more people will have to use dangerous energy sources like paraffin; and the number of shack fires and associated deaths will escalate. The state, politicians, the rich and Eskom, however, don’t really care about this despite what they claim when disasters like shack fires occur. All they actually care about is squeezing more and more money out of workers and the poor.

Eskom helps the rich by waging a war on the poor

In truth, Eskom has become one of the major sites through which the state and rich wage a war on the poor. Under apartheid Eskom was established to provide cheap electricity at no profit to the richest white capitalists in the country in the form of mining houses. In the late 1980s the state-owned Eskom eventually stopped running on a non-profit basis and it was commercialised. This meant that it started to sell electricity as a product in order to make money. The focus of this profit making, however, was not corporations; it was rather the working class. As such, since the 1980s the price that the working class has to pay for electricity has risen sharply. The consequences of this have been devastating as since 1994 Eskom has cut off the electricity of as many as 10 million people because they could not pay. To add insult to injury, it was also the state-owned corporation, Servcon, which evicted many of these people from their homes for non-payment. Linked to this process of commercialisation, the state and Eskom’s bosses also attacked the company’s workers. To reduce costs they fired 40 000 of Eskom’s 85 000 workers during the 1990s. Today there are just over 30 000 workers left at Eskom. The aim of all of these mass retrenchments has been to intensify the exploitation of the remaining workers. Indeed, it has been workers and the poor that have been forced to bear the brunt of Eskom’s commercialisation: the new round of price increases are simply part of this longstanding process.

Despite its drive to maximise the profit it derives from supplying electricity to the working class, Eskom continues to charge the biggest corporations in the country the lowest rates for electricity probably anywhere in the world. The extent of this was revealed when it was made public, by groups like Earthlife Africa, that Eskom has secret special pricing agreements with 138 corporations in southern Africa. Under these agreements, which were endorsed by the post-apartheid state, these corporations have been receiving electricity below the average cost of production. It has also been pointed out that this means that these corporations are receiving electricity between 9 and 35 cents per Kilowatt /Hour; while households pay around 80 cents per Kiliowatt\Hour. This translates into a situation in which some of these companies are receiving electricity at a price that is 500% less than what the average working class customer is being forced to pay. To make matters worse, many of these corporations will also be exempt from the price increases that have recently been announced. This means that the poor are being made, by Eskom and the state, to subsidise the rich.

The company which the state and Eskom have perhaps provided the biggest support to has been BHP Billiton. BHP Billiton started its life out as an Afrikaner empowerment company, Gencor, which was established during the apartheid era. In the mid-1990s the first finance minister of the post-apartheid government, Derek Keys, gave Gencor permission to move billions of rands offshore to buy a resource company called Billiton and become one of the largest corporations in the world. As part of this, Gencor then legally transferred the ownership of its most profitable sections to its newly acquired subsidiary Billiton and took its name. Soon afterwards Keys left the state to become head of Billiton. He then received permission from the state to move its headquarters to London and Melbourne, which meant the company could repatriate all of the profits it made in South Africa out of the country. The assistance that the state has given to BHP Billiton did not end there. Since 1997 the South African state has ensured that Eskom provided three of BHP Billiton’s smelters in southern Africa with arguably the cheapest electricity on Earth, which often has worked out to be well below the cost of production. Such deals with corporations have been directly linked to Eskom recording a loss of R 9.5 billion in 2009. In fact, it has been calculated that in 2009 alone BHP Billiton made R 1.3 billion out of its deals with Eskom. To put the scale of this into context, R 1.3 billion could have provided over 280 000 poor households with 200 free Kilowatts/Hour of electricity per month for a year. It was the public pressure that such deals created, which led Eskom to recently announce that it would be renegotiating its deals with BHP Billiton. At the same time, however, it was announced that these renegotiated deals would also be secret, which means that there is a very real prospect that little will actually change.

The 138 companies that Eskom and the South African state provide extremely cheap electricity to also account for over 40% of the electricity generated in the country. This along with the mothballing of power stations that accompanied Eskom’s commercialisation has led to a colossal energy crisis. Yet, it has been the working class that has been forced to bear the burden of the crisis in terms of blackouts and increasing costs. In addition to this, the South African state has also recently secured a World Bank loan for Eskom to expand its capacity, for which the public will ultimately have to pay. It is planned that this loan will be used in building two coal fired power stations whose main beneficiaries will be major corporations. These two new coal fired power stations will be adding to the already vast amounts of pollution that corporations, including Eskom, generate in South Africa. Indeed, since its inception Eskom has been externalising the real costs of its pollution onto communities through the market.

One of the main beneficiaries of the World Bank loan and the construction of the new power stations is the corporate giant Hitachi . The South African leg of Hitachi happens to be partly owned by the ANC’s investment company, Chancellor House. It is perhaps no coincidence, therefore, that the deal between Eskom and Hitachi was brokered by ANC heavyweight Valli Moosa who is also the Chair of Eskom. As a direct result of the contract, the ANC has been accused of possibly standing to make over R 50 million from the deal through Chancellor House. The prospect of this raised the anger of many people. Under pressure from the public, Chancellor House and Hitachi eventually announced that this money would not be going to the ANC, as it was a conflict of interest, but rather private individuals linked to Chancellor House. Who these ‘private’ individuals are, however, Hitachi and Chancellor House are not willing to say. This once again highlights how corruption is intrinsically part of the capitalist economy and how the interests of capitalists, states, politicians and political parties are intimately intertwined.

The current energy crisis and the World Bank loan have also raised the prospect of further rounds of privatisation of sections of Eskom. It was recently announced that sections of Eskom’s generation capacity are set to be privatised. The companies that are advising Eskom on the privatisation schemes are none other than the corrupt corporate giants Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan – who themselves only exist due to massive bailouts from the US state. No doubt these two companies are raking in massive fees from their advisory role. As part of the privatisation process it is also anticipated that thousands of workers could be retrenched, while others will be essentially sold off to which ever companies take over sections of Eskom’s generation capacity. Considering the history of privatisation in South Africa and across the world, it is highly likely that this new round of privatisation will also lead to higher prices and more cut-offs in the future.

Of course, Eskom has already had a long history of being involved in numerous public private partnerships along with outsourcing certain of its functions. On the whole outsourcing has been used as a form of corporate welfarism that has been aimed at boosting the profit margins of the large companies that take over these functions. Many of the companies that have received outsourcing contracts have had links to leading figures in the ANC, and the practice of outsourcing by parastatals has often had the goal of benefiting a tiny number of black capitalists through Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) . For instance, in the case of Eskom a R300 million contract to manage certain of the company‘s facilities was handed to a corporation – Drake & Scull – when Valli Moosa was Eskom Chair. It should come as no surprise that Valli Moosa is also part owner of Drake & Scull. In fact, he bought a share in the company literally months before awarding it the Eskom contract. While Moosa and Drake & Scull have made vast amounts of money out of the deal, the workers involved had to stomach the consequences. They were told to either move to Drake & Scull, with the loss of many of the benefits that they had, or to accept being retrenched. This situation, however, is not unusual, around the world outsourcing and privatisation of service has been shown to undermine the working conditions of employees, while at the same time increasing the costs of services to the public.

The state bureaucrats that have been linked to Eskom have been rewarded handsomely for providing cheap electricity to corporations and handing outsourcing contracts to the rich. For example, former Eskom CEO Jacob Moraga received a salary of almost R 5 million in 2009 alone . When he recently left Eskom he also demanded and sued for an additional R 85 million as a severance package. Likewise, during the apartheid era the former Eskom CFO, Mick Davis, was rewarded so handsomely that he used this, along with the connections he had created, as a foundation to eventually establish one of the largest resource corporations in the world, Xstrata . As such, state linked officials have become as well paid as there capitalist counterparts for helping the rich and attacking the poor. Indeed, a revolving door exists between the state and large corporations in South Africa.

Eskom is part of the state’s project of corporate welfarism

The major assistance that the state provides to corporations, through Eskom, is not an isolated incident. The government through its numerous state-owned corporations has literally provided billions of rands in subsidies to corporations. Even during the period of neo-liberalism, huge amounts of money have been spent by the state on projects like Coega and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project for the benefit of corporations. In the case of Coega, it was designed amongst other things to offer giant corporations an opportunity to establish further smelters at very low costs; while the Lesotho Highlands Water Project had the goal of diverting water from a neighbouring county to corporations in Gauteng at exceptionally low prices. Massive construction companies, like Murray and Roberts, also made a fortune out of the government contracts that accompanied these projects. Likewise, the state-owned Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has provided corporations with billions in terms of loans, financial assistance and bailouts. In 2010 alone it spent R 11 billion promoting the interests of corporations and capitalism in the country.

Under bureaucrats like Alec Erwin the state has also been involved in ensuring that giant corporations like ArcelorMittal were supplied with exceptionally cheap raw materials to encourage them to invest in South Africa and to boost their profits. The state ensured that when ArcelorMittal bought the privatised steel producer Iscor it would receive iron ore at cost plus 3%. The state then, in turn, allowed ArcelorMittal to sell its steel at import parity prices . This has meant that with the help of the state, ArcelorMittal’s South African operations have become one of its most profitable anywhere in the world.

Within the last few years, the state has also spent massive amounts of money on the Gautrain. Again the beneficiaries of the project were construction companies and the rich. So while the Metrorail system – used by the workers and the poor – is on the verge of collapse due the state cutting funds; wealthy businesspeople will be able to shuttle back and forth to Sandton at 160 km\h aboard plush trains courtesy of the state. In addition, the public private partnerships and outsourcing that accompanied the Gautrain Project were also wracked by kick-backs, crooked tenders and profits for the rich who had political connections.

Another instance of the South African state embarking on corporate welfare has been the money that it has spent on the World Cup. The main beneficiaries of the state’s spending spree on stadiums, and other infrastructure, has been construction companies, FIFA and corporate sponsors. It has, in fact, been calculated that the money spent by the state on stadiums could have built over 450 000 houses for the homeless. To make matters worse, in some places like Mpumulanga, two schools were demolished to make way for the stadium; while hundreds of thousands of poor people have been evicted from city centres as part of the gentrification process. To add insult to injury many of the stadiums have been privatised. In Cape Town, the running of the stadium has been handed over to a private company, Stad de France / SAIL. As part of this, the City of Cape Town guaranteed Stad de France / SAIL a profit even if the stadium is never full again after the World Cup.

Despite what neo-liberal ideologues may claim, therefore, the state in South Africa has been propping up corporations and assisting the rich. The state and Eskom’s subsidisation of the largest 138 companies, via providing electricity at below the average production cost, is simply part of this pattern. The recent price increases for the working class are also part of this subsidisation for the rich. Indeed, throughout the history of capitalism the state has played a central role in protecting the interests of the rich.

The struggle for free electricity and beyond

It is clear that the type of corporate welfarism that is practiced in South Africa has had a devastating impact on workers and the poor. The fact that South Africa is the most unequal society in the world attests to that. The recent electricity price hikes, which are part of the corporate welfare practised by the South African state, are going to intensify the suffering that many workers and the poor are being subjected to. For this reason it is quite likely that the spate of community protests that have occurred in South Africa are going to continue and perhaps even intensify.

In the process of these struggles, however, workers and the poor should not look to the state as some kind of neutral entity or even ally. The fact that the state protects the interests of the rich and ruling few against workers and the poor means that it can never be this. Without pressure from below by the working class the state would also never even consider stopping the electricity price hikes or rolling out free electricity to the poor. Voting for politicians or having faith in parliaments is also not going to bring the things that people need. Politicians of every kind are part and parcel of the elite and play the role of protectors of the capitalist system. Likewise trusting in experts and officials, along with putting faith in social dialogue with government and the rich – who are the enemy – is also not going to roll back the recent price hikes or bring the poor electricity. All the experts and officials have done has been to raise prices for the poor, while giving the rich and corporations cheap electricity.

Rather, the most effective way for workers and the poor to win gains like free electricity is through direct action. It was community struggles such as Operation Khanyisa – which involved activists undertaking direct actions like reconnecting people’s electricity who had been cut off – that eventually forced the state to implement a lifeline of electricity however small. What was important about struggles like Operation Khanyisa was that they were also directed by the workers and the poor themselves. Indeed, if electricity prices are to be rolled back for the poor, then actions like this are perhaps going to have to be undertaken across the country. Only direct action, including militant strikes, by the working class itself will pressurise the state to reverse price hikes. As part of this struggle, the working class could also use direct action to try and ensure that the rich and corporations pay more for electricity so that the poor get it for free. Of course, such struggles for immediate gains can also be used to build the confidence, organisation and power of the working class, which would be vital for the larger struggle of social transformation .

The reality that the privatisation and commercialisation of Eskom has led to increased prices for the poor means that as part of any struggle this process needs to be resisted. Privatisation in South Africa has caused massive job losses, skyrocketing prices and cut-offs, which have had a devastating impact on the working class. The fact that the rich get cheap electricity whereas the poor get cut-off also happens because a small group of people – private employers and the state – control the means of production and have most of the wealth; while the rest of the population own hardly anything and are forced to work for the rich for a pittance to survive. As such privatisation and capitalism need to be fought against as part of the struggle for immediate gains. In doing so, however, it should perhaps also be reflected upon that state ownership is not the solution and will not bring freedom to workers and the poor. As such, government ownership does not equate to socialism. State ownership is quite compatible with capitalism and some of the most anti-worker and anti-poor companies in history have been state-owned.

This means that struggles for immediate gains, like electricity, should perhaps also be informed by the goal of ultimately replacing the state and capitalism with a new system that serves and is run by the worker class themselves. Perhaps, therefore, the type of world we should be fighting for is a world where there are no bosses; where hierarchies of any form don’t exist; where workers manage themselves; where the economy is democratically planned through community and worker assemblies and councils, where society is democratically run from the bottom up using a system of assemblies and recallable delegates; where all wealth is socialised; where the environment is not raped; and where the goal is to meet peoples’ needs and not make profits. In other words a world based on anarchist-communist principles where everyone is truly free.

To get such a world, however, would need a strong movement which would also have to be radically democratic and self-managed. A movement that is not democratic, or in which bureaucrats and intellectuals are in control, or in which leaders make the decisions and instruct followers what to do, is not going to be able to create such a world. The only thing it can do is put a new elite at the head of society. As such, struggles and movements for a better world need to be pre-figurative; if we want a truly democratic, participatory and self-managed society in the future; then our methods and movements should also be radically democratic, participatory and self-managed. Indeed, it has long been pointed out that the emancipation of workers and the poor must be accomplished by, and in the hands of, the workers and the poor themselves; anything less cannot be true freedom.

The Elite and Community Protests in South Africa

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The Elite and Community Protests in South Africa

By Shawn Hattingh; August 05, 2009

Over the last few weeks in South Africa, community protests and land occupations have once again erupted. People are simply infuriated at continuously being ignored and treated as subhuman by the state and the elite, and for this reason they have been taking to the streets. While barricades have literally been spreading from township to township, politicians of every sway – from the DA to the ANC – have been condemning these protests. Along with thinly veiled threats, politicians have also branded the people involved as criminals. Not to be outdone, a number of business and conservative church leaders have formed a 25 person council to work with the government to end the protests through embarking on a ‘moral regeneration’ campaign. The fact that the elite have branded the protestors as evil and in need of moral regeneration should come as no surprise. This is because the elite have a deep-seated contempt for the vast majority of people. In fact, they have been waging an ideological, economic and physical war on the majority of people for years through neo-liberalism. Indeed, the only reason why the elite are now so upset by the community protests and land occupations is because they have realised that they are now beginning to reap the whirlwind of this war.

Scorn and the war on the poor

It is not surprising that people in South Africa are so angry. They have been the target of the elites’ war for years. In fact, the elite in South Africa have truly relished the war that they have waged on the poor. Freed from the status of apartheid pariahs, they have arrogantly attacked workers and the poor with a new found swagger. As part of this, the elite have systematically driven workers’ wages down. Behind the veil of their well manicured suits, most of the corporate elite still also view workers through extremely racist and patriarchal lenses. From their point of view, most workers are insignificant ‘others’. The onslaught on workers has also seen millions of people being retrenched. Bosses want fewer and fewer workers so that they can make more and more money. Thus, workers are also coldly viewed as costly inputs that need to be reduced. The consequences: 40% of South Africans are unemployed. To make matters worse, under the current system, it is likely that most of these unemployed people will never be formally employed again in their lifetimes.

The elite have not been content with just waging a war on workers and forcing people into unemployment, but have literally attacked all township residents by snatching up the few commons that exist. As part of this, vast sections of the public service sector has been privatised and handed over to the local and global elite to profiteer from. This has seen the elite selling basic services, such as water and healthcare, in order to make a fortune. Even when public services are not fully privatised, they have been commercialised by the state. This means that the state runs the remaining ‘publicly’ owned services to maximise profits. The poor and unemployed who can’t afford what corporations or the state now charge for these services are viewed as bad apples and simply cut-off. In fact, over 10 million people have had their water or electricity cut in South Africa since 1996.

Even when services are actually provided to townships, these are of an appalling standard. This is due to the reality that the elite view township residents as being little better than animals. Indeed, ANC officials have even admitted that they view providing services to the poor as a burden. It is partially for this reason that the ANC government dramatically reduced funding for public services in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Consequently, most townships are still defined by raw sewerage running down the streets and uncollected rubbish blowing in the wind. Certainly, the maintenance of infrastructure or providing refuse removal in the townships is not viewed as a priority by the elite. In these conditions, diseases such [as] tuberculosis have become rife and cholera outbreaks have occurred at regular intervals.

A similar story of ruthless exploitation and disdain is also evident in how the elite have come to view housing provision. Since the early 1980s there has been a growing commercialisation of township housing. Banks have been given free reign in the township housing market and they have made a fortune out of it. When people have defaulted on their loans, these banks have evicted them without mercy. Similarly, corporations have also been contracted to build the associated housing projects. In order to maximise profits, these companies have literally taken short-cuts. Most of the houses that have been built consist of only one or two rooms. Added to this, the walls in these houses often crack because they lack proper foundations. When people have used the state’s formal channels to lodge complaints about this, they have usually been dismissed with contempt.

As part of the economic war on the poor, South Africa’s inner cities have also undergone a process of gentrification. This has seen hundreds of thousands of people being evicted from buildings and shacks in or near city centres, and then dumped kilometres away in the veld. Indeed, the people involved are often evicted violently by private security forces known as the ‘red ants’. On being dumped, the evicted people are usually only given a few sheets of steel to build a shack. This is what, in the lexicon of the South African law system, passes itself off as adequate alternative accommodation. In most instances the land that people have been evicted from is sold off to developers. These developers then build trendy loft apartments or town houses for the latest wave of yuppies wanting to experience inner-city life.

The countryside too has not been exempt from the war. Over 80% of the land in South Africa is still owned by the white elite – meaning that little has changed since the supposed end of apartheid. Many white farmers have also unleashed a savage onslaught on farm workers. In fact, since 1994 over 1 million farm workers have been fired and evicted from the farms that they used to work on. In addition, racist attacks by farmers on farm workers have also continued. In the most extreme cases workers have even been dragged to death behind farmers’ cars.

It is due to the elite’s ideological and economic war on the poor that South Africa is now the most unequal society in the world. The white population still holds the vast majority of wealth. As part of this, the traditional swish white suburbs still receive outstanding public services, while the traditionally under-resourced dilapidated black townships receive an appalling standard of service. Likewise, CEOs reward themselves handsomely at the expense of workers. This has seen the average wage gap between CEOs and workers in South Africa grow to the region of 700:1. When the poor complain about such issues, they are told by the local political elite to be patient, and in practice ignored. Under such circumstances, most people are still forced to live in abject poverty, they have their few rights trampled everyday, and they are subjected to subtle and overt forms of racial abuse on an almost daily basis. It is, therefore, little wonder that people are furious and embarking on protests

The states’ war on protests

The recent protests, however, are not a new development. From the earliest days of neo-liberalism in South Africa people have resisted. Indeed, from as far back as the mid-1990s community protests against poor housing, unemployment, and water and electricity cut-offs have occurred. Similarly, landless people have claimed land through direct action, and people have also resisted evictions. The response of the state has also been consistent over this period. The state elite have simply dismissed the protestors’ demands and/or dealt with the protestors harshly. The state elite have even regularly unleashed the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) to quell these protests or to seek out mysterious ‘third forces’. Likewise, whenever a community protest has occurred the police have responded immediately. Their favourite weapons for putting down protests have been tear gas, rubber bullets and even live ammunition. Underpinning this state repression has been the fact that the government has also continued to make use of apartheid era laws when dealing with demonstrations. Under these laws, any type of protest involving more than 15 people has to go through a lengthy application process otherwise it is deemed illegal. It has been this piece of law that the state has used in suppressing community protests and land occupations. In fact, thousands of people have been arrested under this law in the post-apartheid period. With the recent protests, we have once again witnessed the state elite using such mechanisms in an attempt to crush the communities involved. In fact, the state and the elite are fighting a physical war on the poor.

The events that occurred during the recent protests in the Gauteng township of Thembisa highlight these repressive tactics that are used by the state. The people of Thembisa organised themselves last year to demand decent housing, water, electricity and work. In November, the community took these demands to the local councillor. As happens in most South African townships, the local councillor arrogantly dismissed their demands. In July this year, the community then mobilised and organised a peaceful march to the mayor’s office where they put the same demands forward and also called for the local councillor to be removed from office. Weeks later, they had still not received any response from the mayor. Clearly, the mayor had simply ignored them. On the 18th of July, the community then got wind that the local councillor was at a nearby school spending public money on a party to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s birthday. The community decided to go to the event and demand the councillor’s resignation and effective service delivery. The police, however, stopped the protestors confronting the councillor and a clash between them and the community ensued. With this, the police opened fire with live ammunition and two of the protestors were killed. The police then followed this up by unleashing an operation in the township to find the ‘ringleaders’. Two people were eventually arrested and charged with public violence. Clearly, the two people arrested were being used as examples in order to intimidate the community.

The actions of the police during the recent protests, such as those that occurred in Thembisa, have been sanctioned at the highest levels of the state. Various Ministers and politicians have called on the police to crush the protests without mercy. Indeed, the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, called for even more arrests and said the ‘instigators’ of community protests must be dealt with harshly. Added to this, the NIA has once again been unleashed and a special task team has been established to investigate the causes of the protests. Clearly, a new round of arrests and repression is in the offing.

The protests and the left

Many of the people involved with the authoritarian left, like the elite, have also taken a very dim view of community protests. In the past, the South African Communist Party (SACP) has repeatedly condemned community protests. For example, the SACP’s General-Secretary has often labelled the actions of community based organisations – such as the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), Abahlali baseMjondolo (ABM), and the Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC) – as “irresponsible” and “infantile”. Similarly, in the past, the COSATU leadership have also actively prevented and deterred workers from linking up with community struggles and protests. A similar story has unfolded during the current protests. Notably, the largest union in COSATU, the NUM, condemned the destruction of private and public property that accompanied the current protests. They also said that instead of protesting, people should use the proper channels to have their grievances heard, such as phoning the government’s call centre – the ‘Presidential Hotline’. Clearly, the union bureaucrats don’t seem to realise that the official channels don’t listen and don’t care. In addition, the ‘Presidential Hotline’ that the NUM are encouraging people to call is not even up and running yet. Clearly the union bureaucracy has lost touch with reality. Over and above this, the real reason why elements amongst the SACP and COSATU condemn community protests is because they see them as a threat. This is due to the fact that they are not in control of them, and can’t impose their will on them.

In the past other elements of the authoritarian left, however, have tried to tap into the sentiments that have driven community protests. Under this, these elements have tried to create their own organisations, which have taken up some of the issues raised by protests such as unemployment. In fact, they do this instead of offering genuine support to community movements. This authoritarian left has then controlled the organisations they created tightly. The end result, naturally, was that these became highly authoritarian and undemocratic organisations. The result has been that most of these organisations collapsed, and many of the activists involved – who were treated as mere foot soldiers – have become as disillusioned with the left, as they are disillusioned with the elite.

Over the last decade, however, some of the protests that have occurred have led to a number of genuine community organisations forming. As such, past protests have been sights of self-organisation and self-education. For this reason alone past protests have been highly important. A similar story of self-organisation – outside the influence of any union, NGO or political party – is once again taking place in the current protests. Indeed, it is likely that one or two new organisations could emerge from the current protests. It is this self-organisation that carries great potential. Added to this, a process of self-education is also evident in the current protests. Many people involved in the current wave of protests have also explicitly stated that they have come to realise that direct action, like blockading roads, is the best way to get a response from the authorities. The people involved have also started to articulate their desire for a more participatory society, where their views and grievances are not squashed by the elite. Hopefully, this desire will also begin to extend towards creating self-managed, non-hierarchical and participatory organisations that are pre-figurative of a better society. It is in this context that anarchists and libertarian socialists, who are involved or linked to the protests, can also make a huge contribution. Unlike the authoritarian left – who wish to capture and dominate organisations emerging from protests – this contribution could revolve around sharing our visions and ideas around a free, non-hierarchical, and self-managed society: a society which is the antithesis of the oppressive one we are currently forced to live in. Indeed, libertarian socialists could also play a role in sharing ideas about how we could possibly get to such a society, and how the means and the ends should be compatible. In fact, the ideas associated with libertarian socialism and anarchism can make a massive contribution to the new struggles that are emerging in South Africa, as these ideas were themselves born in struggle.

Conclusion

The actions of the elite, defined by their attack on the poor, have created the environment in which the current wave of protests has occurred. Indeed, it has been the attack by the corporate and state elite on the poor that has led to peoples’ anger. In fact, the elite have literally driven people deeper and deeper into poverty, and then condescendingly blamed the people for their poverty. It is also the elites’ failure to even acknowledge peoples’ demands, and to continuously treat people with utter disdain, that has driven the current protests. Nonetheless, despite the elites’ violent repression, these protests will continue. Hopefully, these protests will strengthen existing community organisations and perhaps even lead to newer ones being formed. Certainly, anarchists and libertarian socialists involved or linked to the current protests could play an important role in this. Already, certain ideas associated with libertarian socialism have come to play key roles in the current protests, such as direct action. In this context, other ideas of libertarian socialism, such as community and worker self-management, could also come to play a vital function, as clearly the people involved in the protests want a more participatory society. It is this desire for a more participatory society that could also lead to organisations becoming pre-figurative. In this context, the vision of libertarian socialism could make a huge contribution towards challenging the current system, which is defined by neo-liberalism, state repression, extreme racism, extreme exploitation, patriarchy, and all manner of other hierarchies. Hopefully, the community protests that we have been witnessing are also the start of a road to a better world that is created by workers and the poor themselves. Such a world would hopefully be a world where there are no bosses; where hierarchies don’t exist; where workers and communities manage themselves, and where the economy is collectively planned through assemblies for the benefit of everyone.