Vuyolwethu Toli
When
South Africa achieved her political independence in 1994, the masses had high
hopes that they were now going to elect a government of their own choice. This
government was going to rule based on the will of the people and their
aspirations. In order to heal the injustices of the past and restore confidence
to the masses, the ANC government was resolute on the path that it needed to
take moving forward, in order to free the masses from the shackles of
colonialism and slavery. One of the paramount interventions that the government
had to do was that of using the state as the vehicle for transformation and
give value and meaning to the democratic constitution. Chapter 2 in the Constitution, which is the
Bill of Rights, is quite clear on the duties of the state
with regards to issues of social security and delivering basic necessities to
its people. The failure or rather the inadequacy to fully deliver these
constitutional obligations on the part of the state, can thus be said to be one
of the reasons for the violent protests that have unfolded in South Africa
recently.
The
focus of this paper is on the service delivery protests, on the townships
surrounding the Johannesburg City. These protests have been happening in
townships such as Mothutlong, Sebokeng and Bekkersdal. The statement from the
African National Congress (ANC) in Gauteng at that time, issued by the then
Secretary of the ANC, Mr David Makhura, said that there was 'a third force' behind these service delivery protests. One would agree with the Sunday
Independent (2014) when it asserts that “according to Makhura, service delivery
protests in the country are a result of a ‘third force’, an external element on
a mission to discredit the gains of our democracy”. This quote from the Sunday
Independent sets the topic of this paper, which is ‘The Third Force: A Fanonian Critique’.
Fanon’s work is rich when it comes to
understanding the importance of realising that the ordinary masses have the
capacity to think. The myth behind this statement that there was a ‘third
force’ behind the service delivery protests, or rather a third force is always
prevalent whenever the masses are protesting, needs to be demystified as a
matter of urgency. Malaika wa Azania wrote an article in the Sunday Independent critically looking at
this statement that was issued by David Makhura. According to the Sunday Independent (2014) “those of us
who are more preoccupied with reasonable arguments have a duty to employ a more
serious analysis of this phase of protests by tracing its genesis and moving
beyond the simplistic rhetoric of ‘third force’. Through using the term ‘third
force’ the leadership of the ANC is basically relegating the intellectual
capacity of the poor to nothing. People are independently organising themselves
and expressing their dissatisfaction through mass demonstrations.
This
paper will thus be theoretically grounded in the work of one of the great
liberation philosophers - Frantz Fanon. The paper will be peppered with quotes
from Fanon’s books such as the Wretched
of the Earth and ‘A Dying Colonialism’.
Fanon’s work has also inspired thinkers of this dispensation and among them we
can count the likes of Lewis Gordon, Michael Neocosmos, Nigel Gibson and
Sekyi-Otu. I will mainly refer to the works of these contemporary theorists to
corroborate the argument that is the gist of this paper, which is that the
ordinary masses in themselves have a capacity to think. This paper will start
by historicising the politics of South Africa, so that one can come to terms
with the fact that during the struggle against apartheid people’s voices were
to a certain extent being listened to by the liberation movement. Through historicising,
the aim is also to understand the initial objectives of the ANC with regards to
the fundamental societal changes that needed to occur in order to fully declare
South Africa as free. The basic aim behind this is to demystify Makhura’s
statement of a third force and reveal that it is the people themselves who are
realising the economic injustices that continue to define South Africa and
their own lives. This paper is not aimed at assassinating the character of the
ruling party, neither is it aimed at individual-character assassination of the
party leaders. However its basic aim is to demystify the notion that the people
cannot think for themselves and that for anything to happen they have to rely
on the technocrats and government officials.
The paper will therefore look at pre-democracy
South Africa and discuss the vision that the people of South Africa had for
this country, and the ANC bestowed with the duty of leading, was thus entrusted
by the overwhelming majority that voted for it to deliver the promises. The
paper will then proceed to look at the negotiation process and the long-bearing
consequences that the decisions during negotiations, have had for the masses of
this country. With the adoption of the so called democratic constitution, this
paper will then also look at how the constitution guarantees equality but is
very vague on justice. The paper will proceed to look at the importance of
shifting the geography of reason. The crux of this course was to work out new
concepts, and that is exactly the objective of this paper. In working out new
concept it of paramount importance to acknowledge the failures and look at the
necessary mechanisms that should be made available to abate the failures and
their consequences. Thus this paper will emphasise the need for the government
to start taking the views and the ideas of the poor seriously.
A
Fanonian critique of the service delivery protests, would require one to go to
the root causes of today’s dissatisfaction amongst the masses. To theoretically
ground this analysis along the axiom of Fanon’s philosophical work is
absolutely imperative, as it will enable one to have a broader view of the
reasons for the violent service delivery protests, and also why they have
persisted for so long. Perhaps a brief historical account of the struggle
against the brutal apartheid system is necessary, so as to understand Fanon’s
analysis of a post-colonial society. Fanon through his work did visualise where
we are today. For Fanon, what gave impetus and inspiration to the African
struggles against colonialism was not the intelligence or rather the
intellectual prowess of the party leaders, but it was the colonised masses who
have been denied access to the basic necessities of life in the land of their
birth.
The
myopic view that the mass demonstrations in the townships of South Africa in
general, and those that are geographically located within the Gauteng province
in particular- are a result of a ‘third force’, begs for further scrutiny. It
is of paramount importance to revisit the 1955 Freedom Charter of the ANC,
whereby people from various race backgrounds assembled in Kliptown to
collectively agree on a kind of South Africa that they aspired to live in. At
that time the apartheid system was already institutionalised and it necessitated
that the fight against apartheid be heightened. The people who were assembled
there under the banner of the ANC took resolutions on fundamental social change
that the democratically elected government must introduce. A part of the
Freedom Charter captures the issue of service delivery and that the state will
have to ensure that ‘all people shall have the right to live where they choose,
be decently housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security’
(Freedom Charter, 1955). The Freedom Charter also stressed the importance of
ensuring that the foundations of apartheid are shaken at the time of
transition. According to the Freedom
Charter (1955) “the national wealth of the country, the heritage of South
Africans, shall be restored to the people…the mineral wealth beneath the soil,
the Banks and monopoly industry, shall be transferred to the ownership of the
people as a whole”. Deducing from this quote, it is quite clear that the people
were firm and resolute on the kind of transformation that was necessary, and
the liberation movement after capturing the state machinery would use the state
as the vehicle for transformation.
As
the years went by, when the apartheid government did not want to relinquish
power, the ANC kept reviewing its modus
operandi and its raison d’etre.
In the party’s Morogoro Conference that was held in Tanzania in 1969, there was
unanimity with regards to the core policy of the liberation movement which was
that the country’s wealth has to be restored to the masses in order to achieve
full human dignity. One would agree with the Strategy and Tactics of the ANC (1969) when it postulates that “We
do not understand the complexities which will face a people's government during
the transformation period nor the enormity of the problems of meeting economic
needs of the mass of the oppressed people… But one thing is certain - in our
land this cannot be effectively tackled unless the basic wealth and the basic
resources are at the disposal of the people as a whole and are not manipulated
by sections or individuals be they White or Black”. This statement was made
after a thorough analysis of the South African socio-economic context and the
assessment was that the masses of South Africa have been denied of their due to
the country’s wealth; and through the poor quality of education their skills
have been supressed and that, poverty and starvation have been their life
experience (ANC Strategy and Tactics, 1969). These resolutions echoed the
sentiments of Fanon (1963:34) when he argued that “for a colonised people the
most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the
land; the land which bring them bread and, above all, dignity”.
The
ANC had a clear mandate as mandated by the masses, to liberate them from the
abyss of poverty and subjugation. However this liberation was not to come from
on high, as an elitist project. The masses were to be part of each and every
process and aspect that pertained to their own liberation. The United
Democratic Front which emerged as a resistance machinery against apartheid in
the 1980s, was also given impetus by the people themselves. One would agree
with Swilling (1990:1) when he asserts that ‘the driving force of black
resistance that has effectively immobilised the coercive and reformist actions
of the state has emanated from below as communities responded to their abysmal
urban living conditions”. The masses who were organised under the UDF were very
clear about what needed to be done in order to abolish racial oppression and class
exploitation. Together with the trade union movement, the ordinary people of
South Africa continued to frustrate the apartheid system and they were often
met with police brutality by the apartheid vigilante groups.
The important aspect that needs to be deduced
from this historical account of the struggle against apartheid, is that,
people’s voices at the time were not entirely suppressed within the mass
democratic movement, even though it can be argued otherwise, that the distance
between the leaders and the masses was already prevalent. Gibson gives an
account that will further take this paper to the crux of the matter, when he
postulates that ‘the betrayal came earlier than is often thought, revealing
itself when the new movements of the 1980s were rammed back into the old
binaries of leaders and masses, and when what Fanon called the ‘sclerosis of
thought’ meant that a new beginning would not be allowed to emerge’ (Gibson,
2011:65). This quote by Gibson is paramount for the following section, which will
extensively look at how the negotiation process was itself a failure and part
of that failure could be attributed to what is my contention in this paper,
which is the exhausted mode of thought that assumes that ordinary people cannot
think and that the party leadership should do the thinking on their behalf.
Thus it is this
that the rear-guard of the national struggle, that very party of people who
have never ceased to be on the side in the fight, find themselves somersaulted
into the van of negotiations and compromise-precisely because that party has
taken very good care never to break contact with colonialism- Frantz Fanon
I
do not intend to come up with a lengthy discussion of the negotiations between
ANC and the National Party government. However the basic objective of this part
of the discussion is to tease out the elitist kind of a thinking that was
prevalent within the ANC elite at the time of negotiations. During the tough
times of apartheid, it was the people who were playing the important role in
consultation with the leadership. The majority of the decisions were taken with
the people on the ground and one would have expected that, this culture of
consultation between the leadership and the people was going to be maintained.
In his text titled A Dying Colonialism,
Fanon (1965:2) argues that “liberation does not come as a gift from anybody, it
is seized by the masses with their own hands…and by seizing it they themselves
are transformed; confidence in their own strength soars, and they turn their
energy and their experience to the tasks of building, governing and deciding
their own lives for themselves”.
The
masses in the South African struggle played the decisive part in frustrating
the apartheid state, to the extent that even the international community was
flabbergasted by the nonsensical tendencies of the gruesome apartheid regime.
Fanon emphasised the importance of the people being their own liberators, and
that is clear on his account of the Algerian Revolution. A Fanonian analysis of
the negotiation process in South Africa is thus quite clear that the masses or
rather the struggle itself was betrayed. Certain conditions ought to have been
met for the struggle to not have been betrayed. One of the chief conditions is
that the party leaders maintain a culture of widespread consultation with their
constituency. One would agree with Hamber (1998:3) when he asserts that “The negotiators also
began to distance themselves, as a negotiation process demands, from their
constituencies. Constant report-back to the wider political party, consensus on
every issue, and confrontation of the more radical fringes would have
frustrated and slowed the already haphazard progress”. This quote is
self-explanatory in the sense that it depicts a vivid picture of the dichotomy
that emerged between the masses and the leadership of the liberation movement.
The march-of-line
coming from the masses was that out of those negotiation processes, the masses
must come out victorious. The masses of South Africa at the time of transition
wanted their voices to be heard. They were longing for political independence
that will be matched with economic emancipation. The South African masses who
have been subjected to economic deprivation and slavery wanted white monopoly
capital to be dismantled. These negotiations were thus a glimmer of hope to the
masses that something positive was going to come out of the talks.
Paradoxically and contrary to the initial objectives of the struggle against
apartheid, and the expectations of the masses, the elite group of negotiators
within the ANC, agreed to this principle; seek ye first the political
independence, and all other things shall follow later. In a nutshell, the ANC
government did achieve the political breakthrough and managed to start a
process of dismantling the legislative and judicial structures of apartheid.
However it did not succeed on radically changing the apartheid economic
structure, which meant that white monopoly capital was going to be kept intact.
‘Democratisation which ultimately
has its roots in the struggles of people from all walks of life for greater
control over their daily lives hence in the self-constitution of a demos- is
now transformed into a technical process removed from popular control and
placed into the hands of experts such as human rights lawyers, social
entrepreneurs, government professionals, who together staff an industry whose
tentacles hold up to the liberal global hydra of the new imperial democratising
mission on the continent’- Michael Neocosmos
The obese discussion
above, about the historical account of the struggle for liberation and
compromises that were made at the negotiation table, rooted in the philosophy
of Fanon, its objective was to historicise the people’s struggle in order to be
at a position to analyse whether it has been fulfilled or betrayed. After the
negotiation process, there was an agreement to establish a government of
national unity and also to usher in a democratic constitution, whose aim was to
ensure that a new society will be constructed. Chris Hani, who was representing
the South African Communist Party, made an opening statement in the CODESA
talks on the 20th of December, in 1991. According to the CODESA
talks (1991) Hani asserted that “such a new constitution must also provide the
framework within which this society can be transformed from a paradise for a
small minority and misery for others, to one where all can enjoy peace and
social justice”. The democratic constitution was clear on stressing the
importance of a right to equality and human dignity. However it also endorsed a
private property clause which ensured that the land issue was not going to be
effectively tackled. I vehemently agree with Bakunin (1871:2) when he states
that “I am a convinced advocate of economic and social equality because I know
that without it liberty, justice, human dignity, morality and the well-being of
individuals, as well as the prosperity of nations, will never amount to more
than a pack of lies”. The rights guaranteed on the Constitution mandates the
state to provide the basic necessities such as water, electricity and proper
sanitation. The so called ‘progressive’ South African constitution preaches
equality which is not matched with justice, and therefore it is not progressive
at all if one looks at it through the lenses of the masses.
The recent service
delivery protests bear testimony to the argument that the economic detour that
was taken at the CODESA talks, has had long-bearing consequences on the lives
of the masses. This detour came in the form of the leadership surrendering the
economic aspect of oppression, which meant that white-monopoly capital was
going to carry with the business as usual. The economic programme that the ANC
government had in 1994, an economic programme which advocated for a heavy state
intervention on the economy in order to accelerate the process of eradicating
poverty and misery on the lives of the people was the ANC’s Reconstruction and
Development Programme. However as Professor van Niekerk (2014:7) argues that
“the RDP agenda was also compromised by the form of accommodation made with
organised business to preserve a market-based economy underpinned largely by
laissez-faire economic principles”. The cost-recovery system necessitates that
the users pay for their usage of services like electricity. Many people after
1996 were being cut off from access to electricity. In 2011, Abahlali
baseMjondolo issued a press statement on the Human Rights Day. The Khanya Journal for Activists (2011)
captured their statement when they argued that “instead of providing people who
cannot afford to pay municipal rates with sufficient water, they cut off
people’s water, and, instead of building houses for the poor, they demolish
people’s houses and evict people to the edge of the city”. To this day, this is
what continues to define the daily lives and experiences of the ordinary
people, in the townships that are surroundings the city of Johannesburg and
other areas of South Africa.
Che Guevara (1960:3)
did issue out a warning about regressive governments when he argued that
“anytime that governmental measures cause a halt along the road to economic
emancipation or a turning back, even if its one step, everything is lost and
inevitably begins to return to the more or less covert systems of colonisation,
according to the country’s characteristics and social context”. There is a
plethora of examples, whereby the South African democratic government has
continued to undermine the ordinary people. Partha Chatterjee’s Politics of the Governed, is a rich text
that looks at how the state treats the people whom it considers the citizens
and those who are considered as populations. One would agree with Chatterjee
(2004:34) when he postulates that “unlike the concept of the citizen which
carries the ethical connotation of participation in the sovereignty of the
state, the concept of population makes available to government functionaries a
set of rationally manipulable instruments for reaching large sections of the
inhabitants of a country as the targets of the policies- economic policy,
administrative policy, law and even political mobilisation”. In the South
African context, the manner in which the government treats the poor, is as if
they are only populations and not citizens. Citizens are those who are wealthy
enough and who do not rely on government for the provision of basic
necessities. Citizens are those who are not targets of welfare programs such as
social grants and food parcels. It is also those who can afford to get the best
lawyers to represent them, and can afford access to the promises delivered in
the constitution without difficulties. The majority of the population, are the
poor people who are today, still ravaged by perpetual poverty.
The manner in which
the state treats the people, whom Chatterjee refers to as populations, has been
a very disrespectful one. The same
Manichaen thinking that sought to establish ontological differences at the
times of colonialism, is thus perpetuated again by the government when it comes
to the manner in which it deals with its people. The state as mandated by the
constitution of the republic, has an obligation to ensure that people do
receive quality services. As I was looking for further articles so as to
corroborate my argument on this subject matter, I came across an article in the
Khanya Journal for Activists which
was published in 2005. Thabiso Twala wrote a poem there which is titled ‘is this freedom’? The poem goes like
this:
‘Ten years later, I
suffer from diseases
Ten years later, I
have no land of my own.
Ten years later, I
still use pit toilets,
Ten years later, I
still cannot find a job.
Ten years later, I am
still paid peanuts,
Ten years, I am still
evicted from my house.
Ten years later, I am
still victimised by the police,
Ten years later, I
still cannot afford water and electricity’.
This poem must be
further supplemented by the argument by Abahlali baseMjondolo in 2011 on the
Human Rights Day, when they stated that “as ordinary citizens of this country,
we find it frustrating and disappointing to see that there is a huge gap
between the constitution of this country and its citizens in reality, the South
African government does not adhere to its constitutional obligation to provide
citizens with basic services such as water, electricity, toilets and housing”.
The manner in which the state continues to treat its masses, treating them as
victims, who need the state intervention for political and economic direction
must be problematised. However when the people start to act, the state because
of its discourse which perpetuates that the state must always do the thinking
for them, it then recognise their actions as those of misbehaving hooligans or
ill-disciplined children who need parental guidance.
The late former
President, Nelson Mandela, when he was addressing the United Nations General
Assembly in 1996, stated that “the very right to be human, is denied every day
to hundreds and millions of people, as a result of poverty, and the
unavailability of basic necessities, such as food, jobs, water and shelter,
education, healthcare and a healthy environment”. These are the basic
necessities for humans to survive and yet the South African government at the
time agreed to a neo-liberal economic project that they were fully conscious of
its devastating effects. The political victory, that of being able to shape the
constitution was indeed a necessary condition for the government to implement
radical transformation programmes. However, the preoccupation with neoliberal
growth path that was aimed at being a quick solution to resolve an unemployment
crisis, was a short-term gain for a long-term pain.
Fanon emphasises the
point that the national liberation movements, after seizing power from the
colonisers, they must shake the firm foundations of colonial oppression.
Colonialism thrived on an economic base that was dominated by the white
minority, which in South Africa, legislated laws that were aimed at
safeguarding its interests. One would agree with Fanon (1963:27) when he argues
that “it is true that we could equally well stress the rise of a new nation,
the setting up of a new state, its diplomatic relations, and its economic and
political trends”. As I have already adumbrated in the discussion relating to
the demands which were made by the people as captured in the Freedom Charter,
it is thus quite clear that the people’s frustrations stem from the fact that
we have in South Africa, a neo-liberal structure of an economy. The context of
these protests is the structural inequality that has continued to prevail
unabated. When Cuba obtained her independence, Che Guevara did articulate on
the importance of economic emancipation as something which should be treated as
a basic dictum. One would agree with Che Guevara (1960:2) when he articulates
that “the pillars of political sovereignty, which were put in place on January
1, 1959, will be totally consolidated only when we achieve absolute economic
independence…and we can say we are on the right track if every day we take
measures to assure economic independence”. This was the motto behind the South
African struggle against apartheid, that to be entirely free from the chains of
colonialism, the masses were to share in the country’s wealth.
The 1996 class
project ensured that people were now going to receive poor quality of services.
Whilst the services have been poor and the pace of building house continues to
be slow, these failures have not acted as deterring factors to the government
to stop with its patrimonial tendencies. One would agree with Marx (1871:1) in
the Paris Commune when he postulates that “at the same pace at which the
progress of modern industry developed, widened, intensified the class
antagonism between capital and labour, the state power assumed more and more
the character of the national power of capital over labour, of a public force
organised for social enslavement, of an engine of class despotism”. There are
many examples that speak to the issue of corruption that is so embedded in the
ANC government. This corruption happens at the expense of the poor, because
certain services that are fundamental for human survival are not being
delivered. According to an article released in the South African Local Government Journal Article (2014:16) “the
pervasive corruption in local government has adversely affected its ability to
deliver services…according to Plaut, satisfaction in water services dropped by
more than 10% from 76.3% in 2005 to 63.6% in 2010”. After the Audit by the
Auditor-General, only few municipalities manage to come out clean. Many funds
are being misused not only at the local government level but also at the
national government level. Recently the Public Protector exposed a shenanigan,
in which the Department of Public Works paid an exorbitant amount to upgrade
the house of the President. Corruption has continued unabated in the South
African government, and yet every time the ANC goes for elections it always
commits itself to fight corruption.
‘We are not
only struggling for service delivery. We are struggling for justice and
dignity, equality between men and women and a democracy that includes and
allows poor people to plan their own communities and their own future’.
Ayanda Kota
It is against these
kinds of doings that the people are angry at. Shawn Hattingh, wrote an article
in the South African Civil Society Information Service, in which he critically
looked at the issue of corruption. One would indeed agree with SACSIS (2014)
when Hattingh postulates that “Under neoliberalism, however, the practice of
officials using the state to secure private wealth has become even worse.
Privatisation and tendering via public-private partnerships offers state
officials, their family members and people that are politically connected the
opportunity to become extremely rich. Since South Africa embraced neoliberal
policies, outright corruption associated with privatisation and tendering
across the world has also grown – and like all countries ours has not been
immune”. Fanon did visualise these kinds of manifestations in his Wretched of the Earth, when he argued
that “the party, which during the battle had drawn to itself the whole nation,
is falling into pieces…The intellectuals who on the eve of independence rallied
to the party, now make it clear by their attitude that they gave their support
with no other end in view that to secure their slices of the cake of
independence…in other words the party is becoming a means of private
advancement”.
The assumption by the
likes of David Makhura and other senior ANC leaders when people mobilise to
resist poor service delivery, is that the people are oblivious about the sins
of incumbency within the ruling party. To characterise the service delivery
protests as a manifestation of a third-force element that seeks to denigrate
the gains of democracy, is to deligitimise the grievances and agency of
ordinary working class people and the poor. A recent social research by the University
of Johannesburg, which the Mail and
Guardian article covered some of its key findings, looked at the main
reasons behind these service delivery protests. According to the Mail and Guardian (2014) “the reasons
for community protests were varied…according to UJ’s research, the top
grievances were about service delivery in general, housing, water and
sanitation, political representation and electricity…corruption, municipal
administration, roads, unemployment, demarcation of land, health and crime also
featured”. The ANC officials come to the media and say that it is a result of a
third-force that these service delivery protests are occurring. Neocosmos
(2003:4-5) cites Ranciere when he argues that “politics begins when those who
cannot do something show that in fact they can, when those who have hitherto
been excluded affirm their inclusion, then it is not difficult to visualise
‘depoliticisation as the reversal of this process”. People demonstrate on the
streets to tell the government that enough is enough. Enough with their
exclusion from the space of key decision making. And enough with being
relegated to a status of people who do not have the capacity to think.
As I mentioned in the introduction
that the work of Frantz Fanon has also inspired contemporary scholars whose
work is grounded on the liberation philosophy which basically postulates that
people can think, it is thus important that I bring in the work of Sekyi-Otu
and Lewis Gordon. I vehemently agree with Gibson (2011:14) when he argues that
“ideas are not exclusive property of the intelligentsia, the party, the expert
or any elite group…any Fanonian practice must be rooted in strict adherence to
the axiom that everyone can think”. By the virtue of them being objects for
policy making and other programs, the view of the state is that poor people
cannot act on themselves. Just like Fanon once said that ‘when I entered the
room, reason left the room, and when I was gone reason then came back’. The
distorted view of the government about the poor and their incapacity to think,
requires a further politico-philosophico analysis. Lewis Gordon, one of the
scholars who has engaged Fanon’s philosophy, advocates for the existential
stance in trying to understand the nature of human kind. The crux of
existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the most
important consideration for individuals is the fact that they are individuals
independently acting and responsible, rather than what labels, stereotypes or
any other preconceived categories the individuals fit (Oxford Concise
Dictionary, 2010:75). It is thus what Fanon might refer to as a ‘lazy thinking’
that of arguing that there is political factionalism behind the mass
demonstrations about poor quality of service delivery, inequality and
ballooning figures of unemployment. Lewis Gordon when referring to the work of
Sartre, he argues that “bad faith is the effort to hide from oneself, from
one’s freedom and responsibility, is constantly a threat, a way of being that
is ultimately not being” (Gordon, 1995). The ordinary masses of South Africa
when exercising good faith are given preconceived categories by the state, such
as ‘they are under the sway of blind forces’.
Ato Sekyi-Otu, is one of
the contemporary scholars who have indulged in the liberation philosophy of
Frantz Fanon. In his text, titled Fanon’s Dialectical experience, he stresses
the importance of new ways that have to emerge out of the struggle. Sekyi-Otu
was of the firm view that as the people’s experiences changes, the ideas do
also change. One of the strengths of Sekyi-Otu’s text is the manner in which it
discusses what Mbembe referred to as the mutual zombification and brutalisation
of the postcolonial regimes. The text complicates this understanding, and not
only discusses the violence and brutality in relation to the regime themselves,
it also locates violence of the liberation history in how the effects of that
experience manifest itself in the contemporary times and actually informs their
behaviour and sometimes paranoia. This is especially seen with liberation
movements who have waged war with the colonial project for a significant number
of years, when they get into power and they lose the legitimacy of their rule,
they resort to the liberation discourse and invoke the ‘imagined other’ as the
enemy that is undermining the democratic gains. The ways of thinking arise as
the material conditions during the struggle dictates. In the Algerian
revolution, the masses were always coming with new ways of challenging the
status quo. In South Africa the masses are demonstrating violently because they
are unhappy with the lackluster performance of the government, and the
government assumes that there is a third force.
The fundamental aspect
of this course, was that ‘we must work out new concepts’. The masses across
South Africa are faced with a government whose reply to their demonstrations,
is armed attacks on defenseless masses. Angry residents in the township South
of Johannesburg, during February this year took to the streets because of the
poor quality of services they were getting. According to the Sowetan Online (2014) “residents argued
that there are 10 water taps in the community that are supposed to serve 15000
residents… there is also no electricity and decent toilets”. When these
protesters are demonstrating on the streets they are often met with police
brutality. According to the Mail and Guardian Online (2014) reporting on the
findings of the research that was conducted by the University of Johannesburg;
“the number of protests since the beginning of this year is not exceptional,
but the number of killings of protesters is significant, said Prof Alexander,
the research chair in social change at UJ. The people are fed up with the
disastrous performance of the state, and its inability to radically change the status quo. What these quotes from the
two newspaper articles allude to, is the fact that, exactly 20 years into the
democratic dispensation, South Africa remains a racially defined country where
the economy is centralised in the hands of an elite white minority together
with the black comprador class, which owns the means of production.
The continued
underdevelopment of townships and poor infrastructure in black dominated areas
is in contrast to the affluence in which the white minority and an elite black
capitalist class exist. Our people are still subjected to perpetual
bastardization and indignification, and when they show signs of being fully
conscious of their situation, they are labelled as empty people, who are under
the sway of a third-force. As Malaika wa Azania notes in her article in the Sunday Independent (2014) that “what we
are witnessing in this country is not a third a force at work; it is the
ramifications of a revolution betrayed by an economic growth path that has kept
the majority in economic bondage and a government that has turned its back on
principle”.
The
stark differences between the quality of lives of whites and blacks during
apartheid days were clear. The townships had poor quality of services and were
always under the surveillance of vigilante forces of the apartheid government.
This omnipresence of the repressive state apparatus was also one of the things that
the masses wanted to abolish so that there could be peace in their communities.
Fanon in the Wretched of the Earth (1963:30) argues that “the settler’s town is
a strongly built town, all made of stone and steel…it is a brightly-lit town;
the streets are covered with asphalt, and the garbage-cans swallow all the
leavings, unseen, unknown and hardly thought about”. The apartheid legislation,
with its seven pillars also further entrenched segregation and demarcation of
areas as Williams (2000:167) outlines some of the laws that were unveiled by
the then Minister of Native Affairs, Mr Hendrik F. Verwoerd among other laws
these were the following “every town or city, especially industrial cities,
must have a single corresponding black township; black townships should be
separated from white areas by an area of industrial sites where industries
exist or are being planned”. It is against this bastardization and
indignification that the people of South Africa and also the ANC decided to
assemble in order to bring down the pernicious ideology of apartheid to its
knees. The apartheid colonial city is prevalent in this democratic
dispensation. Indeed no one can dispute the fact that much work has been done
to try and bring services to the people. However, the manner in which these
services have been brought and their quality, still resembles the manner in
which apartheid dealt with the masses.
In
working out the new concepts, it is of paramount importance that we shift the
geography of reason. As things stand at the moment, the masses whenever they
try to demonstrate on the streets complaining about the poor performance of the
state, the perception is always that there is a third force that is
orchestrating the move behind the scenes. Mr Richard Pithouse, wrote a powerful
article on the South African Civil Society Information Service which looked at
the ‘Vote No Campaign’. It is again the kind of reception that this campaign
has received from the powerful figures within the ruling party, which exposes
the lazy thinking that only a particular group has a monopoly over rational
thinking. In the SACSIS (2014) Mr Pithouse argues that “in recent days Ronnie
Kasrils has been referred to as ‘a rebel, a Judas, a scoundrel’, as ‘Satan, and
as a ‘disruptive, reckless and counter-revolutionary’ figure spitting on ‘the
long struggles and the sacrifices of our people’. This kind of thinking is the
one that begs for scrutiny, because every time people try to organise in order
to challenge the status quo within the ruling party, they are always called
counter-revolutionaries. Fanon (1963:136) looked at the issue of political
suppression within the party, when he asserted that “the party instead of
welcoming the expression of popular discontentment, instead of taking care for
its fundamental purpose the free flow of ideas from the people up to the
government, forms a screen, and forbids such ideas…the party leaders behave
like common sergeant majors, frequently reminding the people of the need for
silence in the ranks”.
It
is vital that the government starts to take heed of the voice of the masses.
The hysterical thinking that people must always be dependent on government for
decisions that will have an impact on their lives, must be put into a dustbin
of history. I vehemently agree with Gibson (2011:74) when he argues that “the
government’s failure to alleviate poverty is not simply because of a lack of
resources or the pressures of multinational capital, but is also due to the
specific political-economic choices defined and made during the transition
period by nationalist political elites that turned their backs on mass
democratic participation”. The bosberaad that took place in the CODESA talks, whereby
the voice of the masses was ostracised, continues to be the modus operandi of the ANC government. Another
problem with the elite pact that came out of the compromises was the fact that
the masses were now subtly told that their role was over.
As Gibson has alluded that mass participation
is key for any kind of political-economic project, there are lessons that the
South African government can learn from the former President of Brazil, Lula da
Silva. Jay Naidoo, writes about the Brazilian ‘Lula Moment’ in the collection
of essays by the Chris Hani Institute (2014:1), and he cites Lula when he
argues that “I was not the president. The foundations of the ‘Brazilian Miracle’
is not mine. It is that of the people”. What was key about the Lula moment in
Brazil, is that the masses participated in the formulation of the programme and
this was showed by the policies that managed to take millions out of the trap
of poverty. To achieve social equality and dignity, the first step that is
necessary is consultation with the masses and to hear what they want. This is a
kind of vision that Fanon had for the liberation movements and the masses. It
is absolutely imperative that a shift in the geography of reason takes place,
in the sense that the people must be recognised as people who can plan their
own communities, who should be allowed to choose their own councillors, and so
on. Not for an elite leadership to come from on high, to impose things that
they do not want. These service delivery protests actually reveal the fact that
people’s voices are not being listened to. What happens every time they protest
is that they are met with police brutality.
This
paper sought to provide a Fanonian critique to the statement that was issued by
the then Secretary of the ANC, who is currently the Premier of Gauteng, Mr
David Makhura, that there was third force behind the service delivery protests
in the townships of Johannesburg. After providing a thorough background of the
resistance against apartheid, and the demands which were made by the people at
that time, which were that the apartheid government must be dismantled with its
economic system, it thus becomes a basic logic that the people are not
oblivious about the genesis of their dire circumstances. Also through
discussing the betrayal to the struggle that took place during the CODESA
talks, it became clear that the notion of a third force was a myth because the
genesis of these service delivery protests is that the revolution was sold out.
The Fanonian critique sought to demystify such a lazy thinking of using a third
force as a scapegoat, and this critique brought forward an argument that the
people through these service delivery protests are responding to the elite
pact, which has compromised their right to human dignity. Through referring to
the works of political thinkers such as Sekyi Otu and Gordon, the paper thus
reached a conclusion that there has to be a shift in the geography of reason.
Through shifting the geography of reason, this will enable the government to
take the masses seriously and come to terms with the fact that the people have
the capacity to think, and that thinking is not an ‘exclusive property’ of the
technocrats and the policy experts. The example of the ‘Lula Moment’ was used
to show that something positive does come out, when the government takes the
demands of the people seriously and put the people first.
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