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COSATU Media Monitor
Wednesday 4 November 2009
Contents
1 COSATU
1.1 Vavi calls for urgent economic reform
1.2 Exploitation rules in SA, says Vavi
1.3 Vavi’s salary doubled
2 South Africa
2.1 'Enough of attacks!' Mantashe tells ANC and allies
2.2 ‘Union is jealous’ - Mantashe rejects call by Numsa
2.3 No superminister, supercabinet planned, Manuel tells committee
2.4 Wage gap a time bomb
2.5 Capitalists dilute freedom charter
2.6 Speaker apologises for 'racist' threat
2.7 Eskom's tariff tensions
2.8 Time to recognise that red scare is a red herring
2.9 Why Jansen’s ‘vision’ keeps vulnerable in their place
1 COSATU
<http://www.mg.co.za/> 1.1 Vavi calls for urgent economic reform
Mail & Guardian, 4 November 2009
Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi on Tuesday urged the government to transform the economy, saying the market-driven polices of the past were to blame for poor delivery and, in part, the recession.
The answer was fostering a mass socialist movement, true to Marxist principles and built around the South African Communist Party (SACP), he told unionists in Limpopo.
"The underlying cause of the crisis that is now ravaging working class communities is the mistaken policies between 1996 and 2004, of cutting tariffs and privatising basic services and the conservative fiscal and monetary policies pursued in those years, centred on the misguided belief in inflation targeting and the urge to appease the narrow interests of financial markets," he said.
"There are still some who continue to hold on to this wrong belief," he told the national congress of the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu).
"Relying on market forces has not only entrenched the inequalities of the past but further widened them, making us the most unequal society on the planet."
Vavi said service delivery protests were therefore a symptom of structural problems in the economy and proved that working class communities were losing patience.
It was time to implement the policy decisions taken at the African National Congress's watershed conference in Polokwane to restructure the economy to create industrial growth and decent jobs, he added.
"It is now almost seven months since we elected the new government to pursue this new growth path. It is early days still, but I must say we are beginning to be nervous about the slow pace at which we are moving in this new direction."
He said progress in this direction was held up by "a defence of the status quo and turf battles that do not take us forward".
Cosatu and the SACP have been putting pressure on President Jacob Zuma to entrust economic policy to Ebrahim Patel, the new Economic Development Minister and former trade unionist, and clip the wings of former finance minister Trevor Manuel, now Planning Minister in the Presidency. – Sapa
<http://www.thetimes.co.za/Business/BusinessTimes/Article1.aspx?id=892320> 1.2 Exploitation rules in SA, says Vavi
Kea' Modimoeng, Times, 4 November 2009
South Africa is the most exploitative country in the world, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said.
Speaking at the SA Municipal Workers' Union national congress in Bela Bela, Limpopo, Vavi said the struggle of the working class was far from over.
He said a "few BEE tycoons and black middle class [members] have joined in to enjoy the race to accumulate wealth by any means possible".
"South Africa now is the country with the highest inequality in the world. What this means in Marxist terms is that, of the countries that have data on these matters, we are the most exploitative in the world," he said.
Vavi expressed dissatisfaction with the pace at which the new government was implementing the resolutions of the ANC conference in Polokwane in 2007.
"It is now almost seven months since we elected the new government to pursue this new growth path. It is early days still, but I must say we are beginning to be nervous about the slow pace at which we are moving in this new direction."
He said the coming alliance summit "must lay to rest these narrow factional and counter-productive turf battles" by clarifying the role of all those in the government's economic cluster.
In July, Samwu members took to the streets nationally demanding better wages in a strike that was criticised for the trashing of streets.
But Vavi commended members for the strike and said the 13% increase achieved served as a "benchmark for all other negotiators".
http://www.timeslive.co.za/news/article178694.ece <http://www.timeslive.co.za/news/article178694.ece>
1.3 Vavi’s salary doubled
Carien du Plessis, Star, 4 November 2009
Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has admitted that his salary had doubled this year, while the wages of Cosatu's "lower" staff had gone up by only 15 percent.
Vavi told The Star yesterday that his salary had risen to R500 000 a year in January, or R42 000 a month, after earning half of that "all my life".
Vavi became general secretary 10 years ago.
Cosatu gets its funding from membership fees
Cosatu administrators and researchers earned about R7 000 a month, while security guards got just under R4 000, a Cosatu source said.
Their increases were above inflation and just a little above the increases that unions in the civil service negotiated for their members this year.
Vavi said the salary adjustments, which included those of policy experts, were done to retain staff and to make their remuneration more competitive, although it still ranked well below salaries in NGOs and Cosatu's affiliates.
He also joked that he could have earned much more if he had moved to another position.
"If I had agreed to be a minister, I would be earning R1.2 million now," he said, a tacit reference to his refusal to be on the ANC's parliamentary list during the elections.
He added that the federation had to retain quality staff.
"My salary doubled because we were losing all the policy capacity in the federation. The economists and accountants were all gone, because if you keep the salary at R250 000, it means the economists can't make those sacrifices for years and years. They lose out," Vavi said.
Cosatu's central executive committee set up a commission last year and decided that salary adjustments were necessary across the board.
Several staff members in "economic" positions, who were advising on policy, got a 100 percent increase, he said.
Vavi said all the salary increases were being funded by the federation itself.
"We are completely self-sufficient and we don't get a cent from anywhere. That is why we can speak loudly and independently," he said.
Cosatu gets its funding from membership fees, donations and investments.
However, in its financial report in September, the federation berated some of its affiliates for failing to contribute to Cosatu's finances.
It also cited high levels of debt and defaulting tenants at its building in Braamfontein, Joburg, as affecting its operations.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3102&art_id=vn200911... <http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3102&art_id=vn200911...>
2 South Africa
<http://www.thetimes.co.za/Business/BusinessTimes/Article1.aspx?id=892320> 2.1 'Enough of attacks!' Mantashe tells ANC and allies
Nkululeko Ncana, Times 4 November 2009
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has read the riot act to party members and alliance partners about recent public attacks on the party's leaders and other public figures.
Mantashe also slammed ANC, Cosatu and SA Communist Party members who made "loose references" to the Freedom Charter to cause "confusion" about the ruling party's policy on nationalisation.
Mantashe was speaking after a meeting of the ANC's national working committee, which has been angered by a number of inflammatory statements made by some in the party's ranks.
These include Monday's attack on treasurer-general Mathews Phosa by the Young Communist League, which accused him of shielding the "capitalist and imperialist" few at the expense of the poor.
Mantashe said: "We are speaking on a matter of principle here: it doesn't matter whom you talk to, when you begin to be personal and attack a person, or vilify them, you are not inviting that person for a discussion or debate, you are killing it."
Statements by military veterans that former education minister Kader Asmal must "die" also raised the ANC's ire.
Mantashe said it was time the party put an end to such attacks. The issue would be raised in its meetings with the SACP and trade union federation Cosatu next week.
"We will raise these issues - not only the attack on Phosa, but the ease with which attacking individuals and personalities [is happening]."
Mantashe said public attacks on each other by alliance leaders were a "destructive way of dealing with each other" and would weaken the party.
The Young Communist League was unhappy with Phosa's assurances, given in the UK last week, that it was not ANC policy to nationalise the mines. Mantashe said that if the treasurer-general were attacked "we think that is an attack on the ANC".
He also slammed the National Union of Metalworkers' call for the "nationalisation" of Cabinet minister Tokyo Sexwale's wealth.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/news/article178704.ece
<http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=852816> 2.2 ‘Union is jealous’ - Mantashe rejects call by Numsa
Zukile Majova, Sowetan, 04 November 2009
CALLS by the National Union of Metalworkers of SA for the nationalisation of the wealth of mining magnates Patrice Motsepe and Tokyo Sexwale are driven by jealousy, says the ANC.
Both Motsepe and Sexwale are among the 20 Africans included in a recently released list of South Africa’s 100 richest people.
ANC general secretary Gwede Mantashe said the call was driven by “a strange phenomenon among Africans of being jealous when fellow Africans succeed”.
“It’s talking to the resentment we have among ourselves as black people. If anybody progresses we feel very jealous and we resent their success,” Mantashe said yesterday.
The Rich List, published by Sunday Times last Sunday, showed Motsepe as the richest African in the country with R14,2billion.
Following publication of the list, Numsa spokesperson Castro Ngobese said the trade union was opposed to the replacement of white capitalists with African ones.
“We believe that our national democratic revolution, as encapsulated in the Freedom Charter, was never meant to reproduce or replace a white capitalist class with a black one or coopt connected politicians to join the exploiters.
“As Numsa we are calling for the nationalisation and eventually the socialisation of the massive and privately owned wealth in the hands of the Motsepes, Sexwales, Macozomas, Nhlekos, Mittals and Oppenheimers of this world,” he said.
Mantashe also condemned the attacks on ANC treasurer Mathews Phosa by the Gauteng Young Communist League, saying “vilifications are the surest way of derailing and killing any debate”.
The attack came after Phosa had assured British businesspeople that the ANC would not nationalise the mines .
“There is no decision of the ANC to nationalise mines,” Mantashe said.
He said the Mineral and Sectoral Development Act had already “reverted the ownership of mineral deposits to the state, therefore giving effect to the content of a clause in the Freedom Charter which called for the mineral wealth to be transferred to the majority”.
Mantashe also called on members of the ANC, Cosatu and SACP to refrain from attacking each other in public .
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1084725
<http://www.businessday.co.za/News/Home.aspx> 2.3 No superminister, supercabinet planned, Manuel tells committee
Wyndham Hartley, Business Day, 4 November 2009
CAPE TOWN — Planning Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel yesterday promised that the National Planning Commission (NPC) would not supercede institutions such as the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) as a forum for social dialogue.
Addressing Parliament’s ad hoc committee on his planning green paper, Manuel did warn that the model favoured by organised labour — the “representative model” — would fail in the long term because it was negotiations-based and would lose its coherence. Labour has been opposed to the panel of experts model for the NPC suggested by Manuel and has accused him of trying to become a superminister.
Manuel said it was true the panel of experts ran the risk of failing because it lacked political legitimacy.
But he rejected suggestions that the NPC could become a “supercabinet” as a silliness that had merely featured in the media.
He also said, following up on a meeting with trade union federation Fedusa last week, that there was no danger that the NPC would take over the functioning of Nedlac, which is a key institution where organised labour discusses matters of interest with business, government and other social partners.
Manuel warned that national plans fail for one of two reasons.
“The plan is sharp, coherent, evidence-based and makes tough trade-offs but not everyone buys into the plan and so implementation fails, or the plan is broad and consensual but lacks the courage to make tough trade-offs and so is largely useless in driving a long-term agenda.
“We will have to avoid both of these potential risks,” he said.
Manuel pointed out that any national plan devised by the NPC would have to be approved by the Cabinet. “We do not have a supercabinet, all cabinet ministers are equal and have clearly defined roles and responsibilities, with cross-cutting roles managed through co-operation and collegiality.”
He said many of the submissions to the committee had raised questions about the relationship between policy-making and planning. He responded that the green paper made it clear that the Cabinet was the centre of policy-making. “However, one of the objectives of the long-term vision is to align policies around a coherent vision.”
He concluded that it was unrealistic to draw a firm line for all cases on what policy was and what planning. “We have to cross the river and feel the stones with our feet and we need Parliament to give us the courage to get into the water.”
The government was open to ideas and would have to feel its way in order not to make mistakes.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=85914 <http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=85914>
<http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=852816> 2.4 Wage gap a time bomb
Editorial, Sowetan, 4 November 2009
Sowetan says:
THE vast wealth gap illustrated by the list of the 100 wealthiest South Africans – coming as it does in the wake of our officially being the most unequal society – is a ticking time bomb.
No society can afford celebrating the wealthy so nonchalantly when the vast majority of its people live in desperate poverty. It would be asking for too much from the poor to remain unmoved by the revelation that there is indeed so much wealth in their country but that they have no way of accessing any of it. It is the stuff of revolutions.
Having said that, we should be careful not to throw the baby out with the dirty bathwater.
It is here that our paths and that of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa diverge.
Numsa has called for the “nationalisation and eventually the socialisation of the massive and privately owned wealth in the hands of the Motsepes, Sexwales, Macozomas, Mittals and Oppenheimers of this world”.
While there might be merit in the argument that present patterns of wealth accumulation and ownership have only served to increase the wealth gap, we should be careful not to stigmatise being wealthy.
South Africa’s problem is not so much that there are a few too rich, it is that there are too many that are poor.
Instead of focusing on how we can bring the wealthy down, we should agitate and demand from our elected public representatives policies and timelines that take them out of the generational curse of poverty while a few keep getting rich.
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1084682
<http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=852816> 2.5 Capitalists dilute freedom charter
Phindile Kunene, Sowetan, 4 November 2009
MATHEWS Phosa’s recent assurances to British capital in London have rattled many cages, most notably of those that consider themselves proponents of social justice and economic equality.
This has been the case both within the alliance as comprises the ANC, SACP and Cosatu as well as the broad society.
If truth be told, we have been receiving mixed and confused ideological signals from the ANC leadership for a while now.
Immediately after elections, Phosa gave assurances to capitalists in London that the government’s conservative fiscal and monetary policy would be maintained and all efforts dedicated to cultivating an attractive business environment. These utterances flew straight in the face of progressive resolutions emanating from Polokwane.
When convenient and desperate for the support of the South African working class, many are comfortable in asserting that the ANC is the only and true custodian of the Freedom Charter and all other organisations are merely being opportunistic in their pronouncements on the document.
To a certain extent this remains a valid statement, particularly with regards to the Congress of the People, whose policies on the economy, decent work, nationalisation and many issues are a clear departure from the Charter.
However, once the loyalties of the poor are secured, many leaders, such as Phosa, appeal to the profit- driven interests of their capitalist counterparts in imperial countries, assuring them that nationalisation and many other tenets of the Freedom Charter are not the official policy of the ANC nor are such plans on the horizon.
For years capitalists such as Phosa have been at pains – almost successfully – to dampen the radicalism contained in some clauses of the Freedom Charter.
This is done by limiting the debate on nationalisation of key sectors of the economy such as mining and banking to state ownership when in fact the Charter calls for ownership by the people as a whole.
The people referred to in the Freedom Charter are not the handful of black capitalists as represented by the likes of Phosa and Patrice Motsepe, but rather the working class and the poor.
This means that the aim is to go beyond mere state ownership or the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act of 2002 which actually facilitates a parasitic collaboration between the state and a handful of black capitalists at the expense of the poor.
Ambiguity on the issue of nationalisation should come as no surprise though. It is by no means the only ideological tongue- twister that has characterised debates in the ANC and the Alliance.
Opposition, whether salient or silent to the abolition of labour brokers and other forms of atypical employment, constitutes yet another aberration to the Charter which unambiguously calls for the abolition of contract labour and other forms of super- exploitative employment.
This is not an innocent misreading of the Freedom Charter. The Charter has assumed different meanings to different people within the ANC, classes to be precise. The fact that some of our leaders have their hands deep in the capitalist pie, wielding the state and the ANC for their own business interests and tenders, should be seen as a backdrop to claims such as those uttered by Phosa. Their response to matters such as nationalisation and labour brokering is in actuality dictated by their presence in sectors such as mining, banking, security and retail, which stand to be most affected by the nationalisation and the prohibition of labour brokering.
These capitalists both within and outside the ANC are then quick to point out the sub-clause in the Freedom Charter that says that “All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions”.
This Clause is used to justify and legitimise the capitalist profitability at the expense of the poor. It is evoked almost as a stand- alone clause that supersedes all the others before it, including the part that reads “the national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people”.
While some of the self-proclaimed crusaders of the Charter are mere opportunists who dangle the document like a carrot in the eyes of the desperate and exploited South African working class, others such as Phosa are in fact diluting the Charter to safeguard their narrow capitalist interests.
Because the ANC adopted the Freedom Charter in 1956 as its official policy guide and there has never been any other gathering that has revoked this decision, the ANC must stamp its authority on the Charter lest it be accused of selectively and opportunistically utilising it for the historic and material currency it still possesses among the South African working class.
The writer is Gauteng provincial deputy secretary of the Young Communist League
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1084681
2.6 Speaker apologises for 'racist' threat
Aziz Hartley, Cape Times, 3 November 2009
Provincial speaker Shahid Esau has apologised for his "racist" threat to replace the "too many black women" staffers at the legislature with "boere" (white men).
This came after Cosatu on Monday joined the fray and threatened to report him to the SA Human Rights Commission and the Public Protector if he did not apologise before Tuesday.
Members of Cosatu-affiliated unions and other legislature staff signed a petition to express disgust at Esau's remarks during an earlier staff meeting.
It read: "We are deeply offended, insulted and outraged by the racist and condescending remarks by the Speaker when he said that: 'There are too many black women in this institution, especially in committee section, and I will go as far as Northern Cape and Limpopo to get boere to come and work here'."
'We are deeply offended, insulted and outraged'
Esau, a sheikh and leading member of the Democratic Alliance and the Muslim Judicial Council, also came under fire from the Independent Democrats, ANC and Congress of the People, demanding he apologise.
His office responded by saying that his use of the word boere was a synonym for Afrikaner and he did not mean to offend. The word was used during a discussion on employment equity in the first staff meeting and he has since had a follow-up meeting with staff to clear the air, a statement from Esau's office said.
"In the (second) staff meeting the Speaker apologised if he unintentionally offended anyone. Given South Africa's difficulty history, employment equity matters can easily cause offence and should be handled with the utmost sensitivity. If the Speaker has inadvertently offended anyone, he would like to offer his sincere apologies for this," his office said.
Cosatu provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich said the National Education Health and Allied Workers' Union, which organised the legislature staff, was about to prepare for industrial action if Esau had failed to apologise.
Ehrenreich said: "The workers affected are Cosatu members and we will do all we can to defend their integrity as workers. Now that he has apologised, the DA must formulate a policy that can guide them (DA) to respect women in this province. We will insist on such a policy." He said Cosatu had wanted Esau suspended and to have the matter investigated.
'... we will do all we can to defend their integrity as workers'
Esau was appointed Speaker by the DA.
Leader of the DA and Premier Helen Zille's spokesperson, Robert Macdonald, said: "This is not for the premier to respond to. It is something for the legislature to deal with. It would be like the president being asked to investigate the Speaker of Parliament. The executive is separate from the legislature."
He said he could not respond to whether the DA could act against Esau and suggested that since Zille was not feeling well, DA spokesperson James Selfe or party provincial leader Theuns Botha be approached for comment.
Selfe said he had just returned from a trip abroad and in order to give an informed comment, would first have to acquaint himself with the issue.
Botha could not be reached.
ANC and opposition leader in the legislature Lynne Brown, who had earlier described Esau's behaviour as "shocking", said on Monday: "If he has apologised, then we must accept his apology. I hope that this has been a lesson for the Speaker. He must understand that transformation is not just about numbers."
ID provincial secretary Rodney Lentit said the matter should be a good lesson for Esau. "The ID welcomes the apology. It is the honourable thing to do. This is the way we know him and salute him for doing this. In the province race is a very sensitive matter and this should be a lesson to not only the Speaker, but other politicians."
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=6&art_id=vn200911030... <http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=6&art_id=vn200911030...>
2.7 Eskom's tariff tensions
iAfrica.com, 2 November 2009
One unintended consequence of the massive electricity hike for which state power utility Eskom has applied, is the effect it is having on already wounded relations between the African National Congress (ANC) and its left-wing allies.
While tensions between the ANC government and its left-wing allies have lately been worsening due to differences over economic policy and other issues, the application by Eskom for the tariff hike to be spread over three years is exacerbating those tensions.
Last week, we reported that far from being the "smoothed" hike Eskom claims, the 45 percent per year hike in reality implies a massive increase of 204.9 percent over the three years. It will, calculated with the previous two hikes of 27 percent and 31.3 percent, represent a total increase of 408.4 percent over a period of five years.
Now the National Union of Mineworkers (Num), the largest labour union affiliated to the ANC's ally, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), has strongly criticised Cabinet's endorsement of the Eskom tariff increase application. Num also operates in an economic sector that has been the hardest hit by Eskom’s inability to deliver and manage South Africa’s electricity supply effectively.
Negative impact on workers
Num expressed its concern that the government had endorsed the Eskom application "even before an economic impact assessment (was) completed, let alone the completion of regulatory processes".
Num general-secretary Frans Baleni was reported in the media as saying his union was very worried "that these huge increases are going to have a negative impact on workers as overhead costs are pushed beyond 30 percent in most mines".
Baleni is alluding to possible widespread layoffs in the mines as costs will rise to badly skewered levels in a sector already under immense pressure after commodity prices and demand fell in tandem with the global economic crisis. Although considerable retrenchments did occur, the mining sector was able to minimise this with its own initiatives complemented by government programmes.
But the Eskom tariff application has already begun taking its toll in the sector and in respect of jobs. The announcement by Eskom of its tariff application was followed by an announcement by mining company, Rio Tinto, that it was scrapping its plans to build an aluminium smelter at Coega — the Eastern Cape industrial development zone that includes the new port of Ngqura.
Unable to afford huge power hikes
More such losses of investment remain a possibility, resulting in further lost job-creation opportunities.
Num is calling on the government to consult over a wider front with interested parties and to consider other alternatives to its massive increase move. Other trade union leaders concur with Num and Baleni that the tariff increases pose a real risk to business and industry, that companies will be unable to afford the huge power cost hikes, and that workers will consequently be retrenched. That, they say, is apart from the increased burden that workers and their families will have to bear as a result of the increased cost of living caused by tariff hikes.
As we pointed out last week, apart from the negative effects for investment, the tariff hikes will also suck in billions of disposable income off consumers. This will pose a further serious threat to the economic recovery of other sectors of the economy.
It should be kept in mind that individual households will be hit with a double whammy increase, as they will also be paying 14 percent VAT on much higher amounts for the electricity they consume.
Cosatu lashed out at Eskom
Two weeks ago, before it became clear that the government would be endorsing Eskom's tariff application, Cosatu lashed out at the power utility, saying it was "extremely angry at Eskom's outrageous and insensitive request for a whopping 45 percent a year electricity tariff hike over the next three years".
Cosatu said it would mean that by the end of the three years, "consumers would have been hit by a 200 percent hike in electricity tariff hikes".
Cosatu added that it rejected this outright, particularly given the continued absence of clear and effective measures to protect the poor. The federation said that should this trend of steep electricity hikes continue, many of the poor will not be able to afford electricity at all, and would turn to more dangerous sources of heat and light, such as paraffin and gas.
Therefore Cosatu will campaign for the amount of free basic electricity for the poorest users to be increased by the same percentage the electricity tariff would have increased by over the next three years.
Unable to survive increases
The union added that as well as the direct blow to residential consumers, the proposed increase "flies in the face of government's efforts to create decent work through small and medium businesses, many of which will be unable to survive such increases year after year".
However, following the government's endorsement of the hike application, Cosatu's anger is now also turning towards the government, with the Num statement being the most direct attack in the public domain so far.
This issue could become much bigger in weeks to come. And with Num being the largest union and its sector of operation being possibly one of the first to be hit by the consequences of the hike if approved, most of the pressure on the ANC and the government is likely to come from this quarter.
Article courtesy of Leadership Magazine <http://adserver.adtech.de/?adlink|3.0|567|1842845|1|16|AdId=2548090;BnId=1;link=http://www.leadershiponline.co.za/> .
http://business.iafrica.com/footer/2016680.htm <http://business.iafrica.com/footer/2016680.htm>
<http://www.businessday.co.za/News/Home.aspx>
2.8 Time to recognise that red scare is a red herring
Steven Friedman, Business Day, 4 November 2009
WE CAN continue the mania for finding “shifts to the left” in just about everything the government does. Or we can begin debating how to address our challenges. But we cannot do both.
Last week’s medium-term budget policy statement provided new evidence of how odd the quest for “shifts to the left” has become. Having spent days warning that markets were waiting with bated breath for the lurch leftward, the media stunned the nation by announcing afterwards that the lurch had not occurred after all. The possibility that it did not happen because it was always a figment of the imagination was not entertained.
Almost two years after Polokwane, there are still no signs that the change in leadership altered the African National Congress (ANC) economic policy framework. The Congress of South African Trade Unions seems to have noticed this — its recent conference hardly seemed happy about policy. And yet, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the leftward shift remains a part of mainstream mythology. Why?
First, because key political figures gain from creating the illusion of a policy shift. The leaders of the ANC’s alliance partners persuaded their constituencies to back President Jacob Zuma by insisting that his victory would produce policy shifts, so it is in their interests to insist that policy has shifted even when it has not.
At the same time, jockeying for posts and power has become highly visible as the ANC moves from a movement in which open contest for posts was frowned upon to one in which it is routine. Politicians seeking power prefer to dress their competition up in ideological garb despite the fact that the differences between the ANC rivals is not great and the contest is more about who belongs to what network and who wants which job — after all, it sounds more respectable to fight for or against socialism than to scramble for posts.
Thus Joel Netshitenzhe’s departure from the Presidency was portrayed as a defeat for the right, rather than the predictable elbowing out of a Thabo Mbeki associate. And yet only days later, Netshitenzhe, according to this newspaper, attended a commemoration ceremony for the South African Communist Party journal, African Communist. This illustrated better than an academic paper the degree to which the differences between “right” and “left” in the governing party are far less obvious than we are led to believe.
Second, the “rise of the left” confirms the worst fears of many in business and the professions, who believe that a majority-ruled government must go off the rails sooner or later. The foreboding that western-educated politicians in suits must be replaced by hotheads who want to take away the assets of the well-heeled runs deep and so claims of a leftward shift enjoy a ready audience, even if it can be shown that all the policy measures attributed to the “radicals” were actually formulated by the “moderates”.
Those in business who have not noticed that dogmatic market fundamentalism landed the world economy in deep trouble — and who also believe that any intervention in the economy by a majority government must be disastrous — find it useful to raise the bogey of a “shift to the left” to try to silence discussion on the measures we and other market economies have to take to get out of the current hole; and so adjustments that were considered normal when they were taken by conservative western governments are painted here as portents of revolution.
The mania about leftward shifts relies not on evidence but on a community of interest between figures on the ANC left keen to exaggerate their influence and those on the other side of the spectrum, who fear the rise of the “barbarians”. This may explain why the frenzy has been marked by no discussion of what a shift to the left is and how we would know one if we saw it.
None of this might matter if it was not diverting us from the real issues we need to confront. First, it prevents a serious evaluation of what the government and the society can and should do to stimulate growth and tackle poverty and inequality: proposals are examined to see whether they show leftward bias, not for their merits or flaws.
Second, it distracts us from the most urgent demand of the times, making the government more effective. Here, as in all other market economies, the government will have to play a key role in reducing the effects of recession and helping us to a new growth path: more effective government is our chief economic priority, but the fuss over the “leftward shift” obscures this.
Third, it diverts us from the real danger to appropriate budgeting and policy-making — ambitious politicians trying to build power bases by distributing goodies. The dangers of patronage are far more pressing than whether policy is left or not. And yet the preoccupation with the left prevents us from asking whether public resources and purposes are being diverted to sectional power-holders.
The red scare is a red herring. We need to kick our addiction to this dangerous fantasy so that we can soberly address our realities.
* Friedman is director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, an initiative of Rhodes University and the University of Johannesburg.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=85922 <http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=85922>
<http://www.businessday.co.za/News/Home.aspx> 2.9 Why Jansen’s ‘vision’ keeps vulnerable in their place
Sipho Seepe, Business Day, Johannesburg, 4 November 2009
IT SEEMS it was only yesterday that South Africans reacted with horror and revulsion as they watched the video made by four white students of the University of Free State (UFS) , in which black women were made to eat food laced with urine. For these women the humiliation was shattering, especially since they regarded the students as their children.
For race-conscious people, the video confirmed the enduring existence of racism. Gender activists pointed out the video depicted the dehumanisation that women face daily. For some of us, any one of those women could be our mothers. The incident reminded us of a litany of acts of humiliation, accumulated over the years, which have become part of our existence and collective memory.
A sense of relief descended when the university authorities acted decisively and expelled the students. In doing so, they sent an unequivocal message that such acts and students have no place at a university.
Justice seemed to have been served until Jonathan Jansen’s dramatic entry. In one stroke he cut through the tissue-thin national unity by pardoning the students. It was a case of advancing the interests of white racist students at the expense of the vulnerable black workers.
Cabinet, the African National Congress (ANC), the Sunday Times and Mail & Guardian editorials, and the minister of higher education all spoke in one voice reminding us of the original sin. Zapiro joined the chorus, depicting Jansen pissing on the black workers and proclaiming that he was doing it in the interests of reconciliation.
While we are still reeling from this, another group of UFS students, perhaps encouraged by Jansen’s act, decided to urinate on a black student’s washed linen. It would seem black people are convenient toilets. Jansen’s vision would come to naught until he addresses this pissing tradition on his campus.
When the Sunday Times confronted Jansen about the latest pissing incident, he reportedly indicated that he did not “think this is an incident”. And he added, “I’m tired of this.” To whom is this not an incident? Not if you’re on the receiving end. Such comments only serve to remind a black student of his place and the futility of trying to seek official protection. Is it any wonder the student does not want to be named, as he fears for his safety?
But Jansen is consistent. Responding to Chris Barron (Sunday Times) on whether he should have taken the victims’ feelings into account, he ignored the question and proceeded to ask his own. Somehow victims of racism didn’t seem to fit nicely into the vice- chancellor’s bigger picture and vision. No vision is too important to treat the most vulnerable and weak in this fashion.
Most worrying is that Jansen’s dismissive response comes shortly after the victims indicated that they felt like Jansen had treated them like mere toilets and nobodies. Jansen’s supporters have deliberately sidestepped this issue. Instead, they have reduced it to one of standing up to the ANC, the Cabinet, and the minister of higher education.
In doing so, they have missed the fact that many well-meaning South Africans think Jansen has erred in pardoning the students. Jansen’s reference to a number of e-mails supporting him is also disappointing. Of all people, he should know that numbers do not prove that one is right. This is like saying: “I’ve got my mob that can match yours.”
Jansen’s public signature is to shock. Unfortunately, this time the strategy boomeranged. I hope he will be humble enough to reflect on this and learn to listen to others. Like the Sunday Times editorialised, I too “expected Jansen to know better that any true reconciliation should be preceded by an expression of remorse on the part of the perpetrator. That ethos is the blueprint of our much-vaunted Truth and Reconciliation Commission.”
I believe Jansen’s act was well intentioned. But if your solution achieves the opposite of what you say you want to achieve, it is time to reconsider. I hope he does not confuse stubbornness with being firm. And admitting that you have made a mistake is not a mark of weakness, but quite the opposite. And yes, only the offended person can forgive.
* Seepe is a higher education and strategy consultant.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=85921 <http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=85921>
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