Social movements

Social movements: 'ultra-left' or 'global citizens'?

Drew Forrest
04 February 2003 10:49

Depending on one's viewpoint, they are the embryo of a 'global citizens'
movement' in South Africa, or President Thabo Mbeki's ultra-left nightmare.
They include the 'loony' organisations Minister of Water Affairs and
Forestry Ronnie Kasrils has accused the labour movement of befriending.

They are an extremely loose constellation of left-leaning, community-based
social movements that vary enormously in focus, size and influence. Most are
minuscule. What unites them is a shared desire to help the poor and
downtrodden, and, in varying degrees, a common antagonism to hierarchies and
bureaucracies, the profit motive, the unfettered market and corporate power.

They are, at the very least, independent of the government and the ruling
African National Congress. Some, like the Treatment Action Campaign, are not
necessarily anti-ANC, but have clashed with the government. A hard core see
themselves as ideological opponents of the post-1994 South African state,
which they regard as anti-poor and subservient to domestic and international
business interests.

Most would be opposed to corporate globalisation and emotionally partisan to
the countries of the South. Some view themselves as part of what the ANC
calls 'the Seattle Movement' and have links with grassroots activists in
Third World countries like Brazil.

Under the umbrella of the Social Movements Indaba, the latter made their
presence felt during the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

The movements focus on townships, squatter camps and rural settlements,
generally organising around discrete issues of concern to the poor--HIV/
Aids, evictions, power and water cut-offs, land and jobs/privatisation. This
often brings them into conflict with the authorities, particularly local
councils.

Loose-knit and fluid, many have overlapping leadership structures, with the
same names cropping up in different contexts. The leading lights include
Marxist unionists or ex-unionists associated with the 'workerist' rather
than 'nationalist' union factions in the 1980s, and radical anti-apartheid
activists disenchanted with the ANC and its partner, the South African
Communist Party.

An almost universal feature is a tactical attitude to the law--the movements
will use it if it is to their advantage; flout it if they consider it
unjust. Forms of defiance range from calls for the repudiation of apartheid
debt and peaceful civil disobedience, through to violent protest and the
invasion of land.

In this respect, they can be seen as the offspring of the anti-apartheid
resistance of the 1980s. The taste for 'direct action' further links them
with the Seattle anti-globalisation campaigners.

Given the small size of most social movements in South Africa, Mbeki's
attempt to demonise them seems odd. In part, it may flow from resentment at
the moral sanctimony of much left opposition, exacerbated by the fact that
many of its shrillest ideologues are non-Africans.

The ANC justly complains that the demand for instant economic justice, given
the apartheid legacy, is droompolitiek. It has a point when it says some of
the activism is opportunistic and self-defeating. Blocking the relocation of
chronic bond defaulters, for example, merely fuels 'redlining' by banks.

But 'vanguardist' pretensions are also a factor: the ANC seems outraged by a
competing claim to its poor black constituency. It has reacted in two ways:
by calling for 'ultra-leftists' to be isolated and defeated; and by
suggesting that the new movements should be brought under its 'leadership'.
Hence the moves to breathe life into its moribund ally, the South African
National Civic Organisation (Sanco).

One can see the movements in another way--at worst they are a minor
nuisance, at best an attempt to give ordinary people a voice and some
control over their daily lives.

With the ANC now the political establishment, Sanco an empty shell, and NGOs
weakened by the state grip on funding, politics for most South Africans
increasingly boils down to making their cross every five years.

Treatment Action Campaign Launched in December 1998, the Treatment Action
Campaign (TAC) has been one of South Africa's most effective and active
civil society groups. Founded by, among others, current chairperson Zackie
Achmat and national secretary Mark Heywood, its aims include ensuring access
to proper, affordable treatment for Aids sufferers, preventing and
eliminating new HIV infections and fostering HIV/ Aids treatment literacy.

The TAC has used a shrewd mix of civil disobedience, marches and court
actions to force the hands of the government and international drug
companies. Its branches nationwide use volunteers in campaigns.

Members are from diverse political backgrounds--Achmat is a loyal ANC
member--and the movement is not aligned to any political party, basing
itself on a culture of universal human rights. It has close links with more
than 170 local and international organisations, including the Congress of
South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and Medicins sans Frontiers.

In its first major act of civil disobedience, in 2000, it imported a generic
of Flucanazole in defiance of patent laws. It has agitated against patent
laws and the high cost of medicines.

In 2001 it ran a campaign for a countrywide programme to prevent
mother-to-child transmission of HIV, winning a key high court challenge to
the government. The ruling that the state ban on nevirapine outside pilot
sites was 'unjustifiable' was upheld by the Constitutional Court. The TAC
also stridently opposes attempts to deny the link between HIV and Aids,
accusing Mbeki of closet denialism.

The TAC is planning court action to force the government and business to
sign the framework agreement for national Aids treatment and prevention plan
tabled in the National Economic and Development Labour Council last year,
and will march on Parliament when it formally opens on February 14 to rally
support for the accord. The march will end at the United States consulate,
where a protest will be staged against 'inadequate' US funding for the
United Nations Global Fund for Aids.

If the government fails to sign the national agreement by end-February, the
TAC will engage in further civil disobedience.--Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon

Anti-Privatisation Forum

The Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) was formed in early 2000 by radical
left-wing trade unionists and former members of the SACP and ANC. Key
figures are chairperson John Appolis, ex-ANC; secretary Trevor Ngwane,
expelled from the ANC in 1999 for his radical anti-privatisation views; Rob
Rees, an official of Cosatu's most radical affiliate, the South African
Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu); and treasurer Florencia Delvere, ex-SACP.

Its launch was largely prompted by the Johannesburg Council's Igoli 2002
plan, seen as a move to privatise municipal services and the target of a
(failed) Samwu campaign, and Wits University's 2001 retrenchment plan,
opposed by the National Education and Health Allied Workers' Union.

'Basic rights cannot be commodified,' said APF spokesperson Dale McKinley,
expelled from the SACP in 2000 for 'undermining the leadership'. 'Our agenda
is to mobilise the majority of the working class against privatisation.'

The APF acts as an umbrella for 16 smaller organisations, including the
Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, which Ngwane leads, the Katlehong
Concerned Residents' Forum and the Working Class Coordinating Committee. It
has links with the Education Rights Project and the Centre for Applied Legal
Studies at Wits University.

Last year a group of APF activists was arrested after Johannesburg mayor
Amos Masondo's Kensington house was stoned during a protest against
electricity and water cut-offs. The 'Kensington 87', as the APF calls them,
appeared in court last week for the fifth time on public violence and other
charges.

McKinley said the APF was a political rather than non-governmental
organisation, serving as a socialist alternative to the ANC. 'Most ANC
policies are no longer beneficial to the poor,' he said. The AFP engaged in
'mass struggle' like marches and protests to ensure 'the power of the people
is heard by the government'.--Vicki Robinson

The National Land Committee

The pioneer of South African social movements, the National Land Committee
(NLC) was formed in 1987 from four land rights organisations opposing
apartheid forced removals. It describes itself as an independent,
non-aligned movement that helps communities gain access to land rights and
development resources. 'Government's land programmes are severely limited
and the promises made to the people have not been met,' said Zakes
Hlatshwayo, a former Pan Africanist Congress man and now NLC director.

It has affiliates in all provinces, including the Association for Rural
Advancement in KwaZulu-Natal, The Rural Action Committees in Mpumulanga and
the North West, and the Surplus People's Project in the Western Cape.
Internationally, it is close to Brazil's Landless Workers Movement.

The NLC supports independent movements that 'share its values', according to
Hlatshwayo, the most obvious being the Landless People's Movement, which the
NLC assists through funding and political mobilisation. It acts as a network
for land service organisations 'which cannot pressurise government on their
own'.

In 1999 the NLC launched the Rural Development Initiative, which laid the
groundwork for the growth of rural organisations as social movements and saw
the consolidation of NLC affiliates. The committee was active in the World
Racism Conference in Durban in 2001 and a friend of the court in support of
Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza in the case brought by
the Transvaal Agricultural Union to stop the expropriation of private
farmland. It intends lobbying against Didiza's Communal Land Rights Bill,
believing it fails to sufficiently curb the power of the chiefs.

It espouses mass mobilisation rather than litigation, which Hlatshwayo says
is ineffectual. 'Our pressure is from below. Unless the government faces the
masses, there will be very little change.' However, Hlatshwayo himself now
faces disciplinary action amid claims that ANC sympathisers on the NLC board
are moving to disable the Landless People's Movement.'--Vicki Robinson

Education Rights Project

The Education Rights Project (ERP) started last February as a joint
initiative of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies and the Education Policy
Unit at Wits University. The project, which includes legal researchers,
educationalists and civil society representatives, aims to enforce the right
to basic education. Comprising a small core of employees and a large
voluntary 'reference group', it works with community organisations and other
social movements, including the APF and anti-eviction groups. Grassroots
initiatives involve education rights awareness, legal community workshops
and legal support. 'The ERP is not a social movement, but our work is linked
to strengthening the social movements,' said Salim Vally, Education Policy
Unit researcher and founding member of the project. Vally became well-known
in the late 1980s as a member of the 'Trotskyist' faction in Saccawu,
Cosatu's retail affiliate.

The ERP's focal areas are free education; the lack of facilities at schools;
sexual harassment of female pupils; lack of facilities for disabled
learners; and adult education and training. Active in areas like Durban
South, Orange Farm, Ikageng and Thembelihle, it has written legal letters to
schools, brokered encounters between parents, schools and the government,
and organised community meetings. It is considering court action to force
the state to discharge its constitutional duties on education.

The ERP has no party affiliations, but locates itself on the left. Though
willing to work with the government in advancing education rights, it
opposes the growth employment and redistribution (Gear) policy and its
impact on education. Said Vally: 'The state is shirking its responsibility.
The cost of education is passed on to parents and education is becoming
marketised.'

The ERP opposes globalisation, especially in relation to the privatisation
of education. It was launched by the UN special rapporteur on education,
Katerina Tomasevski.--Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon

Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee

The Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC) was formed in 2000 in
response to Eskom cut-offs in the East Rand, Vaal and Soweto. Its campaign,
Operation Khanyisa ('light'), involves the illegal reconnection of
residents' electricity. 'It is criminal to rob people of the necessities of
life,' said chairperson Trevor Ngwane.

An avowed Trotskyist, Ngwane says SECC members believe the ANC serves the
interests of big business. 'Mbeki uses revolutionary-sounding phrases and
ANC struggle credentials to implement a capitalist agenda.'

The SECC recently broadened its agenda to include a campaign against water
cut-offs and privatisation (Vula Amanzi--'turn on the water') and the
eviction of township residents for defaulting on bond and rent payments
(Operation BuyelEndlini--'go back to your house'). It was involved in the
attempted reoccupation of Sebokeng's KwaMasiza hostel by 6 000 evicted
people last September.

Linked to the Anti-Eviction Campaign, the Concerned Citizens Forum and the
Zimbabwe Anti-Privatisation Forum, it is part of the Social Movements
Indaba, an umbrella formed during the World Summit that includes the
Landless People's Movement, Jubilee South Africa and the APF.

'We dream of a society where no child will go to bed hungry,' said Ngwane.
He said the SECC believed in mass demonstrations and marches rather than
litigation. 'We focus on direct action rather than discussion. We will cross
the legal line when the law attacks the working class.'

The SECC and the APF are planning a march next month against a war on Iraq,
and campaigns on March 21 to mark Human Rights Day, and on June 16 to
mobilise for basic education rights.--Vicki Robinson

The Landless People's Movement

The largest of the social movements, the Landless People's Movement (LPM)
was formed in July 2001 by leaders of landless people's organisations
against a backdrop of growing frustration with the slow pace of land reform.
The NLC influenced its launch and funds it, and there is a large overlap
between the leadership of the two organisations. However, the LPM describes
itself as an independent NGO with no affiliates.

The LPM believes the government's prioritisation of the global market is to
blame for South Africa's land reform failures. 'Landlessness has been pushed
under the carpet, largely because it is seen as a socialist concern.

A people-centred rather then a market orientated approach is needed,' said
one LPM activist.

Linked to local movements like the Concerned Citizens Forum, it also has
ties with the Brazilian peasant movement Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurals
Sem Terra. LPM members attended The Peasant World Assembly in Brazil last
week.

The LPM played a major role in the social movements' march at the World
Summit, which embarrassingly overshadowed a parallel rally backed by the ANC
and addressed by Mbeki. Declaring 2003 'the year of the landless', it plans
a 'take back the land' campaign, which will involve land invasions if its
land reform demands are not met. It also plans a 'free the farm dwellers'
campaign to enforce farm workers' labour rights. It aims to have 100 000
paid-up members by July and to launch a campaign to boycott the 2004
elections if the government stonewalls its demands.--Vicki Robinson

Jubilee South Africa

Jubilee South Africa is the local branch of the international Jubilee
movement whose aim is the scrapping of the debt that burdens many poor
countries. Launched in November 1998 at a conference of more than 60 civil
society organisations, including Cosatu, the South African NGO Coalition and
churches, it focuses on global Third World debt; debt that financed the
destabilisation of Southern Africa under apartheid; and debt inherited by
the government from the apartheid regime, mainly to foreign banks.

In 1998 Jubilee embarked on its Apartheid Debt and Reparations Campaign. It
has agitated in Germany, Britain, Switzerland and the US for debt
cancellation and reparation by banks that lent to the apartheid state and
companies that invested in apartheid South Africa.'Debt cancellation is not
an act of charity, it's an act of justice,' said Neville Gabriel, Jubilee
South Africa spokesperson.

Jubilee launched legal action in the US last year against eight banks and 12
oil, transport, IT and arms companies based in Europe and the US. The
actions are based on the Alien Torts Claims Act, which allows foreigners to
file claims against companies active in the US accused of human rights
violations.

The cases have been brought in collaboration with the Khulumani Support
Group, which represents victims of apartheid state violence. Jubilee has
close ties with the Alternative Information and Development Centre,
undertakes research and has organised rallies against debt and such issues
as the high prices charged by international drug companies.

It avoids political alliances, preferring to empower individuals and
communities to force issues on to the agendas of the powerful. However, it
does believe in cooperating with the government without compromising its
right to speak out.--Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon

Concerned Citizens Forum

One of the most effective and innovative of the social movements that have
sprung up in post-apartheid South Africa, the Concerned Citizens Forum
(CCF), was formed in 1997, with Professor Fatima Meer and charismatic
activist, writer and former University of Durban-Westville academic Ashwin
Desai among its founders. It comprises a number of community movements in
the Greater Durban area organising against electricity and water cut-offs,
evictions and, more recently, racism.

It has used the courts to halt evictions, has won cases where its members
have occupied empty houses, and recently won a significant victory on
council rentals and levies at the Housing Tribunal.

However, it has also been involved in a number of violent skirmishes with
police and council security officials. It openly supports the illegal
re-connection of water and electricity for the poor and has trained
'struggle plumbers and electricians'. It has also marched on the houses of
councillors who support disconnections.

The CCF sponsored a march of about 5 000 people last year to support the
payment of a basic monthly service fee of R10.

Currently locked in a battle with the council on plans to relocate rent
defaulters, the CCF has clashed with all political parties. It says it is
seeking to rebuild a sense of community in townships destroyed by apartheid
and now by what it terms the ANC's 'brutal Reaganomics'.

The CCF has no formal structure, preferring a loose association with leaders
rooted in communities. Its community meetings are often boisterous affairs,
with much music and dancing. It is criticised by some on the left for
lacking ideological coherence--its T-shirts carry slogans like 'Smash
GEAR--Celebrate Life'.

The CCF has spread into a number of Durban townships and has taken to
sponsoring independent unions organising sweatshop workers. It has close
links with the Landless Peoples Movement and the Anti-Eviction Campaign in
the Western Cape.--Sam Sole

South Durban Community Environmental Alliance

The South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) is an umbrella
body formed in 1996 by five residents' and ratepayers' organisations in the
South Durban industrial basin. Initially a pressure group on pollution
issues affecting residents of the basin, it has begun to focus on broader
community grievances.

The alliance blames government economic policy for the loss of 10 000 jobs
in the South Durban chemical industry alone. This, with the introduction of
labour brokers, water and power cut-offs and evictions, has led to militant
action against industry and the ANC council. During the Engen strike of
2001, for example, the Wentworth community tried to burn down the local
police station.

This year the alliance is planning an 'Anti-Forced Removal Campaign' with
other militant communities under the banner of the CCF. It has made common
cause with Chatsworth, Umlazi and other communities in opposing the Durban
council's proposal to relocate poor Durban residents with rent arrears.

There have been rumours of relocation in South Durban since consultants
recommended an industrial future for the basin, saying residents were
'living in the wrong place'--a view echoed by new city manager Mike
Sutcliffe.

The alliance, in conjunction with militant factions of Friends of the Earth
and Greenpeace, also has an 'anti-corporate criminal' focus, targeting South
Durban's three biggest polluters, Engen, Sapref and Mondi. Its spokesperson,
Anna Weekes, is a former Samwu official. It also has links with two chemical
unions opposed to outsourcing.--Sam Sole

Anti-Eviction Campaign

The Western Cape-based Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC) has been mobilising
since November 2000 against evictions of low-cost housing bond defaulters
and water cut-offs in council houses .

It was officially formed in February 2001 as an umbrella body after
community activists came on board after the establishment of the Tafelsig
AEC. Anti-eviction groups have since been launched in areas like
Khayelitsha, Blue Downs and Mandela Park.

The AEC also acts as an umbrella for up to 20 residents' organisations. With
no fixed membership, it operates only in the Western Cape, although it
supports other anti-evictions organisations like the Anti-Privatisation
Forum.

Clashes with police in poverty-stricken areas across the Cape
peninsula--most recently in Mandela Park--have led to a flurry of arrests
and prosecutions on charges including trespass, intimidation and public
violence. Last week AEC executive committee members Max Ntanyana and Fonkey
Goboza were arrested.

The AEC's method is to move into an area to organise protests against
pending evictions, stage sit-ins at homes whose owners are being evicted
and, often, restore evicted owners to properties even if new occupants have
moved in. 'The AEC has at times responded by making the contested property
unliveable, saying if the people cannot have the land, then no one will,'
says its website.

Describing itself as 'a grassroots social movement' with no political
affiliations, it is close to Samwu and has established ties with left
organisations abroad that took up the 'Free Max' campaign after the arrest
of Khayelitsha AEC leader Max Ntanyana last year. The World Summit provided
the opportunity to link up with other such groups under the Social Movements
Indaba.

Most AEC executive members are unemployed community members. Spokesman and
executive member Ben van Heysteen is a former member of the International
Socialists, a Trotskyist movement.

This year the AEC also took up the issue of exclusion of school pupils who
cannot afford fees. Next month it will launch its 'R10 Campaign', in terms
of which township residents will gather at municipal offices to pay R10 for
rates and water.--Marianne Merten

National Association of People Living with HIV/Aids

The National Association of People Living with HIV/Aids (Napwa), which
started as a tiny association in Cape Town in 1994, has become the largest
association representing people living with HIV/Aids in South Africa,
claiming between 200 000 and 300 000 members.

Its aim is to protect people living with Aids from 'victimisation,
stigmatisation, dehumanisation and discrimination'; to facilitate care,
counselling and support for them; to lobby for their rights; and to foster
HIV awareness and gender sensitivity.

Recently, Napwa began a campaign of protests and civil disobedience over the
price of Aids drugs and discrimination against HIV/Aids sufferers, beginning
with a fast outside the Midrand offices of GlaxoSmithKline and an attempted
sit-in at the Pharmaceutical Manufacturer's Association's offices, which
resulted in arrests. The campaign, targeting drug companies, the insurance
industry, the Banking Council and the Department of Social Development, will
run until Human Rights Day on March 21.

Napwa takes a conciliatory view of the government, arguing that it is doing
what it can but lacks support from business. Spokesperson Thanduxolo Doro
said: 'The general attitude of civil society is that government is
responsible, but we believe we need to help it.' However, they say they will
speak out when government errs.

Napwa has close links with Nehawu and the Democratic Nursing Organisation of
South Africa. Its association with the TAC is strained over Napwa's
acceptance of funding from the state and pharmaceuticals.--Matthew
Wilhelm-Solomon

Palestine Solidarity Committee

The committee was formed in 1998 by former anti-apartheid community
activists, Palestinian exiles, union members, youth activists and students,
though many members had done solidarity work for years, even under
apartheid.

Aiming to educate South Africans about Palestine and to strengthen links
between Palestinian and South African social movements, it is headed by
Naeem Jeenah, a political science lecturer at Wits University, and Thembisa
Fakude, a tour operator. It promotes the political, diplomatic, trade,
academic and cultural isolation of Israel and campaigns 'against the torture
of political prisoners in Israel and to counter the Zionist media spin that
distorts the Palestinian struggle'. It also seeks the expulsion of the
Israeli Labour Party from the Socialist International.

The committee falls under the umbrella of the Social Movements Indaba. 'We
don't limit our activities to support of the Palestinian struggle,' said
Salim Vally, an executive member of the committee. 'There are struggles in
South Africa against inequality and poverty.'

The committee intends staging an international anti-Israel conference in
Soweto this year. 'We decided to hold the conference in Soweto because of
the parallels between the Soweto and Palestine uprising, and because of the
symbolism Soweto has internationally,' he said.

Vally said the ANC government should be 'in the forefront in supporting the
Palestinian struggle' and more forceful in condemning US support for Israel.
He accused it of 'hypocrisy' for supplying Israel with military equipment
and maintaining trade links until 2000.--Dikatso Mametse

Khulumani Support Group

Khulumani was established in 1995 to support victims of apartheid human
rights violations uncovered by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)
process. It continues to represent victims' interests.

'Khulumani provided a critical platform for members to speak out about the
human rights violations they had experienced. Support groups were formed in
Soweto, the East Rand and the Vaal and then spread to other regions,' said
Marjorie Jobson, board chairperson.

Active groups in the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Limpopo, the
North West, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape try to meet the educational,
psychological and medical needs of victims; develop projects to give victims
and their families longer-term socio-economic support; and try to resolve
unfinished business, such as apartheid disappearances.

Khulumani is suing the TRC and the justice minister, accusing them of
failing to release a reparations policy, and has threatened court action if
the government declares a general amnesty for apartheid-era political
crimes. It has taken part in lawsuits against transnational corporations
that benefited from apartheid

'It provides a home for people from all political backgrounds who wish to
rebuild their lives and to find reconciliation and the completion of the
TRC's unfinished business,' said Jobson. 'There is deep disillusionment with
government's failure to keep its promises, especially over reparations.'

The group works closely with a range of organisations, including the South
African Council of Churches and Jubilee South Africa.--Dikatso Mametse