South African book notes
The Cape Town-based Alternative Information & Development Centre (AIDC) has just published a report proposing a strategy for challenging the R90 billion (US$18.7 billion) foreign debt incurred during the apartheid era but which democratic South Africa is now expected to pay. R90 billion is an awful lot of money, at a time when the vast majority of South Africans in varying degrees, remain deprived of the basic necessities of life. Any unnecessary and unjustifiable diversion of resources from these necessities has to be opposed.
Also, the balance of payments, which is already near to the danger zone, cannot support the additional burden. Debt repayments, $1.5-2.6 billion every year until 2001, are more than enough to create a balance of pay-
Morality and international law provide another basis for challenging the debt. The Report reviews the Doctrine of Odious Debt, an area of jurisprudence which the US Government helped develop. One hundred years ago, following the American-Spanish War, the USA used this doctrine to repudiate Cuba's debt to its former colonial ruler, Spain. The US Government argued that the debt was "odious" and unenforceable since it been incurred without the consent of the Cuban people and by means of force of arms. The US Government further maintained that the creditors knowingly took the risk of investment when they made the odious loans.
In 1923, the Royal Bank of Canada sought to recover debt from the recently established democratic government of Costa Rica. In the Costa Rican submission, the debt was illegitimate. The new government argued that the debt had been incurred by a dictator not the people of Costa Rica; the submission being that, at the time the loans were made, the people had been engaged in a political and military struggle to bring democracy to their country. The case was heard by Chief Justice Tatt, of the US Supreme Court. who, sitting as arbitrator, fully upheld the repudiation of the debt by the government of democratic Costa Rica.
The legal authority who did most to codify the Doctrine of Odious Debt was the émigré Russian, Alexander Sack, while he was a Professor of Law in France. It was his opinion that Governments invoking the doctrine should be required to prove that the debt ill-served the public interest and that the creditors were well aware of this. The onus would be on the creditors to show (before an international tribunal that the funds were utilised for the benefit of the country. If not, the debt would be unenforceable.
Using Sack's principles, this report argues that all debts incurred during the apartheid years are illegitimate, because the regime itself was illegitimate. A wide range of international bodies, including the UN and the International Court of Justice, proclaimed the apartheid state to be illegitimate and apartheid to be a crime against humanity. sources: the IMF and World Bank, foreign private commercial banks and individual speculators around the world. The Report shows how each of these groups actively supported apartheid and worked to undermine the international campaign to tree South Africa from its racial dictatorship.
The Report's central proposition is that the democratically elected government of the new South Africa should invoke the Doctrine of Odious Debt and should then enter into negotiations with the creditors for the cancellation of the R90 billion (US$18.7 bn.) foreign debt from the apartheid years.
The Report recognises that, even if sympathetic to the claims of democratic South Africa, the banks and their governments would probably balk at the precedent it might set for countries with debt burdens much greater than South Africa's. The strategy therefore anticipates the need for international solidarity action in support of democratic South Africa and suggests that the people who formed the anti-apartheid movements around the world would be a natural initial constituency to promote such action.
The AIDC further calls for the internationalisation of both Affirmative Action and South Africa's Truth & Reconciliation programme. It invites the outside world -more especially governmental and business forces in Britain, the USA and elsewhere - to acknowledge their own long role in the creation, development and defence of what eventually came to be known as apartheid. Moreover, many shareholders, speculators and ordinary citizens in the West benefited, whether directly or indirectly, from the very features that helped make apartheid a crime against humanity The injustice that Affirmative Action is supposed to redress thus has an international dimension.
The AIDC acknowledges that the debt cancellation might well have a price-tag for a number of Western citizens, not just large, anonymous and enormously wealthy transnational banks. By cancelling the debt, the banks, governments and peoples of the West would be acknowledging their financial and moral debt to the oppressed people of South Africa. This acknowledgement would in effect be the West's submission of its responsibility to the Truth and Reconciliation Com-
The Report acknowledges that similar arguments can be made for the cancellation
South Africa * of the internal debt that the beneficiaries of apartheid passed on to democratised
South Africa. Tackling internal debt, however, requires further research and could be a logical consequence to the settlement of the foreign debt.
The Report also asks what would happen if South Africa fails in its attempts to negotiate the cancellation of its foreign debt.
In this event, the strategy calls upon the South Atrican Government to be prepared to invoke the Doctrine of Odious Debt unilaterally. The government will almost certainly need to be encouraged to take such a unilateral measure. Should South Africa's negotiators be left with little option other than unilateral implementation of the Doctrine of Odious Debt, the proposal is for a campaign by civil society to urge the government to take such a step.
The Report predicts an outraged response from business and some politicians in South Africa to any move in the direction of unilateral action. These sources, it says, will seek to terrify the South African public with dire warnings of economic collapse. Debt repudiation, according to these predictions, will result in South Africa alienating such powerful institutions as the World Bank/IMF and 'being cut off from international capital".
To ally these fears, and thereby facilitate the mobilisation of civil society, the document brings three certainties to the caution it acknowledges must be part of the approach to the option of unilateral action. These certainties are: the manifest failures of the World Bank/IMF policies elsewhere in the world and particularly in Africa; the fact that the South African economy survived the unilateral debt freeze that the apartheid government actually imposed in 1985; and the clear inability of the Government's existing macro-economic policy, with its focus on "foreign investor friendliness" to address the basic needs of the majority of the population.
The document draws attention to precedents: the Government of the new unilaterally Namibia's debt; and the Paris Club of western creditor governments cancelling a large part of debt owed by Poland and Egypt.
The Report ends on a note of urgency. Apartheid's debt is being paid back now. The strategy to challenge apartheid's foreign debt is seriously weakened by time. The AIDC's call is to act now. * Copies of the full Report are available from the Alternative Information & Development Centre (AIDC), Tel (021) 4485197 Fax (021) 478583 Email aidc@iafrica.com, PO Box 1139: Woodstock 7924
May 1997 #288
South African book notes
* South Africa Township Politics: Civic Struggles for a New South Africa by Mzwanele Mayekiso. Monthly Review Press (New York), 1996. $30 cloth; $18 paper. reviewed by Julie Klinker In April 1994, some on the left cautiously held out hope that with the victorious election of Nelson Mandela and the ANC, South Africa could become an environment for the path to socialism, based on its long history of mass democratic movements and the reform program defined in the original Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP). This document, chiselled out in the early 1990s by the ANC, COSATU and SANCO, was designed to meet the basic needs of the majority of South Atricans.
By mid-1995, however, it was clear that the new ANC-led South African government had fully embraced the virtues of a market economy. The RDP was all but dead, and the daily living and working conditions of the majority of South Africans had changed very little-and were not about to change radically any time soon.
These dashed hopes are perhaps the best reason to read Mzwanele Mayekiso's Township Politics: Civic Struggles for a New South Africa. Given the inadequate media coverage of the new South Africa, it is easy to forget about the ordinary citizens who were always the strength of the anti-apartheid struggle. The author reminds us of where South Africa's strength lies:
*[It] is with the ordinary citizens of our cities, towns, and villages that I rest my greatest hopes and expectations. Their role in South Africa and elsewhere has been inspiring, and it is in the whole rather than in the sum of the actions of a few leaders that change is accomplished." (p. 15)
A veteran insider of the civic movement, South Africa's popular community organisations, Mayekiso pins his hopes for a transformation to socialism on the continuing organisation of an independent working-class civil society. He is able to take a critical look backward at the civic movement of the 1980s and early 1990s, giving the reader a sense of the power that rested in the hands of the people during this crucial period of the anti-apartheid struggle. In so doing, he also provides a glimpse at the "people-centred power" that must be organised for the post-apartheid struggle against capitalism.
Mayekiso acknowledges the dangers in the trend towards increasingly independent institutions of civil society: playing into the hands of imperialist development agencies and foreign ministries to shrink the size and 32 International Viewpoint scope of third world governments and force community organisations to take up state responsibilities with inadequate resources. But he is able to see beyond this danger and provide a vision for the future of the civic
"What is needed to combat this powerful trend is a far more class-conscious perspective on civil society, one that highlights those strategies and instruments of the working class that are crucial to social, political, and economic progress... Our struggle against apartheid flows directly into our struggle against capitalist exploitation. South Africa's liberation movement was, after all, made up of activists convinced that we were fighting for national, gender, and class emancipation. This required us to develop and maintain critiques of apartheid, patriarchy, and capitalism. (p. 12)
Mayekiso provides an insider's look at the concrete tactics and strategies of the apartheid-era civic movement, honestly outlining the challenges and contradictions the movement faced. He argues that the township civic continues to be a relevant social movement model.
"Civics, after all, emerged not because of apartheid or the Black Local Authorities. They emerged because of the daily struggles of residents who, even in a democratic society, will continue to need civics to represent their interests on socio-economic (i.e. political) issues in a non-partisan way. (p. 13) From Transkei to Alexandra
Sharing his experience as a township activist, Mayekiso gives the reader an historical context in which to understand the civic movement, some practical lessons and -perhaps most importantly - hope for the future of such an urban social movement.
Mayekiso begins his insider account by giving the reader a brief, but useful, look at his own background, admitting that it is impossible for him to be purely objective in his discussion of the civic movement as many other commentators claim to be.
The author shares the formative experiences that led him from being a rural student leader in his Transkei homeland to an urban community activist in the township of Alexandra: his upbringing in a poor, migrant worker family; his academic failings and early underground student organising; his introduction to the labour movement under the tutelage of his brother, NUMSA leader Moses Mayekiso; his civic involvement during the most tumultuous period of apartheid; his three-year imprisonment.
The author explores his own personal growth and discovery of "what it means to be a proletarian" and outlines his understanding of the relationship between labour and community struggles. In so doing, Mayekiso provides the reader with insight into the ideologies of the civic movement in a way that an outsider is unable to do.
Mayekiso then gives the reader an anecdotal and analytical account of the concrete experiences, tactics and lessons of the civic movement. He outlines the development of an "independent working-class civil society."
This terminology was a point of much debate in the transitional period leading up to the April 1994 election and continues to be debated in the post-apartheid period. But Mayekiso's understanding of independent working-class civil society comes directly out of what was understood to be the purpose of the progressive Alexandra civic move-
Graduallly, he writes, the notion that we in Alexandra had been developing since the mid-1980s-of mass-democratic, independent, non-party-political instruments belonging to poor and working-class people, carrying out advocacy campaigns, playing a watchdog role, and helping to pro-actively guide township development (all hinted at in the phrase working-class civil society) -soon became dominant across the civic movement." (p. 142)
Despite many conflicts, tensions and ideological differences within the civic movement (by 1990, represented by the umbrella organisation SANCO), Mayekiso concludes that the movement retained a commitment "to the next stage of national struggle," and the possibility of moving "beyond simply national liberation and into socialism." (p. 152)
With some detail, Mayekiso takes us through the organising activities of the Alexandra Action Committee (AAC), reformulated as the Alexandra Civic Organisation (ACO) by 1990. He describes and analyses its opposition stance against competing cIvic associations manipulated by apartheid's puppet leaders, its canvassing of opinions and discussions of issues, the formations of yard committees and street meetings, workshops and boycotts, the development of political activism and consciousness that was class-oriented and non-racial:
"The goal was to have workers understand their role within the community, leading the political struggles against apartheid and capitalism, but working hand-inglove with other community formations on housing, education, transport, health and the like. (p. 56) Creating a culture of non-payment?
Brutal repression followed, including the author's own imprisonment from June 1986 to April 1989 on charges of treason, sedition and subversion. This was part of the apartheid regime's efforts to rid the anti-apartheid and civic movements of their best leaders. The AAC responded to the repression and violence, taking on a more aggressive role in
community development to counter the apartheid government's "Winning Hearts and
Minds" strategies and leading the masses in the period of "ungovernability" and the advent of "organs of peoples power"
The call from the United Democratic
Front (at the time, a surrogate for the banned
ANC) to "make South Africa ungovernable"
corresponded well with township attitudes.
"It accurately reflected the mood, and the activities, already underway in the townships.
Successful politicians make calls that derive from the realities on the ground, not trom some utopian idea of how to conduct politics." (p. 67)
That the AAC/ACO understood this and reflected it at its height of activism in the '80s and '90s, that it translated this understanding into the construction of "organs of peoples power" and that it maintains this belief in a very difficult post-apartheid transition period - all these are perhaps the most hopeful and instructional element in the book.
Mayekiso responds to several commentators who have criticised the civic movement. One such criticism is that civics created an atmosphere of ungovernability and a "culture of non-payment." Mayekiso
"Here it is critical to understand that community organisations used rent boycotts and consumer boycotts not only for political purposes, but also to oftset declining income levels in townships during a time of rising rent and service charges. The strategy, in other words, is both one of ungovernability, and a cry for economic justice... It is no wonder, therefore, that in cases such as Soweto, where there was no noticeable change in living conditions during the early 1990s, the rent and service boycott continued long after several Soweto Civic attempts to call it off. Struggle strengthened not only the survival strategies of ordinary residents, but also our vision of a future society free of apartheid and socio-economic despair. This principle is deeply ingrained, not as a culture of non-pavment.' as it may appear on the surface, but through the grassroots constituents of a social movement demanding decent living conditions as a human right.
'This remains true today. Like the Soweto Civic, the Alexandra Civic and nearly all other civics have had problems in the new environment, but we are regaining our influence over day-to-day affairs. The reason for our persistence, in contrast to many international urban movements which fade after a short period, is that the apartheid state failed to crush our political and economic program: the struggle to transform society through consciousness-raising. economic empowerment, participation, and control of community planning, strengthening of civil society, and democratisation of government. (p. 98)
That the civic movement of the '80s and early 90s was successful in creating this grassroots consciousness and mass-based activism may be debatable (and Mayekiso allows ample space for such arguments), but the insider Mayekiso makes a good case for its viability.
The author also lays out honestly and clearly the challenges faced by the post- apartheid civic movement. The most obvious of these are: 1) how to move "from protest to development" in an environment increasingly hostile to people-centred development, 2) how to maintain a non-partisan role faced with increasing pressure to play party politics, ie. align with the ANC, and 3) how to keep the masses mobilised.
Acknowledging the ANC commitment to a mixed economy as early as 1990 along with other pressures (domestic business, Inkatha, the National Party, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, etc.) that would likely move the new government away from its progressive traditions, ACO and SANCO began preparing for these challenges well before April 1994:
"Examples from Africa and elsewhere told us that simply because nationalist organisations like the ANC are apparently progressive today does not mean they will remain so. The fact that there are, within the ANC, numerous class forces is a reason in itself for strengthening independent organs of working-class civil society. Class struggle will continue long into the post-apartheid era. As early as 1990, the ANC was committed to a so-called mixed economy, a code phrase for business as usual. Indeed, if that meant supporting private property rights, then there would necessarily be conflict with the working class." (p. 148)
By 1990, ACO was actively working against bureaucratic, top-down development plans, otten administered by the puppet Alex Council. In place of minimally decent housing, for example, there were efforts to privatise housing, displacing thousands of shack-dwellers and creating a class of landlords. That meant programs to provide new "site-and-service" plots (at best, a shack and free-standing toilet). Educating people about privatisation and housing in political terms and forming the Shack-dwellers Coordinating Committee to fight off relocation led to some successes for the ACO. Mayekiso again relates with detail the strategies and tools employed in the struggle for community-controlled development, shedding light on lessons learned even in the un-
In 1995, as Mayekiso is finishing Township Politics, he writes that he is "heartened" that "the RDP recognised institutions of civil society as crucial implementing agents for development" and that official policy seemed to make a commitment to providing capacity-building assistance from the state. But by 1996, the ANC is distancing itself from this commitment to peoplecentred development, ever more enthusiastically espousing the virtues of the market economy. ACO and SANCO will need to recall the lessons learned from earlier struggles of the civic movement if a path to socialism is, indeed. to be found.
Mayekiso concludes by offering a broader proposal:
"The most important lesson of the pages I have written so far does not concern development and democracy in Alexandra,
South Africa * politics, or even the
I believe that what we have learned over the last decade or so in the civic the future of global progressive politics, which I firmly believe rests upon democratic organising and mass mobiworking-class civil society. (p. 281) * Source: Against the Current (USA) South Africa's Radical Tradition: A Documentary History Vol. I, 1907-1950. Edited by Allison Drew. Buchu Books, Mayibuya Books, UCT Press, Cape Town. reviewed by Charlie Van Gelderen Apartheid did not arrive suddenly in 1948, with the election of an (Afrikaner) Nationalist Party government, but was the culmination of an historic process that began when the Dutch East India Company first set foot in the Cape 400 years ago.
This book is particularly valuable because it depicts very clearly the part played by the early industrial and political organisations of the (white) working class in setting the scene for the racism that dominated South African society till almost the end of the 20th century. The birth and growth of the socialist and labour movement is the theme of this thoroughly researched book.
Socialism and trade unionism came to South Africa with the arrival of skilled workers, mainly from Britain, who came to work in the diamond and gold mines at the end of the 19th century, and the mainly Jewish immigrants fleeing from Tsarist oppression in Eastern Europe.
The British workers brought with them their trade unionism; the immigrants their socialism. Between them they laid the foundations of the labour and socialist movement in South Africa. The carefully researched documents in this book faithfully chronicle the evolution of those movements.
While the workers from Britain were often fiercely engaged in militant struggle against their employers, they never looked on the mass of unskilled Black labourers drawn into the mining and industrial complex as fellow workers. On the contrary, they regarded them as a threat to their own relatively privileged positions. In a letter to Ramsey MacDonald, then secretary of the British
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