Talk left, walk right: South Africa's Frustrated Global Reforms By Patrick Bond
The summary largely concentrates on chapter one which is entitled:
Introduction- Against global apartheid. The book analyses South Africa's
foreign policy during Thabo Mbeki's presidency which without doubt affected the
political and economic climate in the country.
Below are parts of two speeches delivered by Thabo Mbeki at different
occasions in 2002 and 2003:
"We have converged at the Cradle of Humanity to confront the social behavior
that has pity neither for beautiful nature nor for living human beings. This
social behavior has produced and entrenches a global system of apartheid. The
suffering of the billions who are the victims of this system calls for the same
response that drew the peoples of the world into the struggle for the defeat of
apartheid in this country"
"The critically important task to end the poverty and underdevelopment in which
millions of Africans are trapped, inside and outside the country, cannot be
accomplished by the market. If we were to follow the prescriptions of
neo-liberal ideology, we would abandon the masses of our people to permanent
poverty and underdevelopment... Poor as we might be, and precisely because we
are poor, we have a duty to contribute to the elaboration of the global
governance concept... opposing the neo-liberal market ideology, the
neo-conservative agenda, and the unilateralist approach"
To any progressive those words are inspiring, but perhaps skepticism is
necessary. Since democracy in 1994 South Africa has had many opportunities to
put those words into action. In the ANC's first seven years of rule Mbeki and
his other officials presided over Non-Aligned Movement, the UN Conference on
Trade and Development, the Commonwealth, the OAU, the AU, the SADC, the board
of governors of IMF and World Bank and other international bodies. But little
came of these efforts except that Pretoria gave legitimacy to the status quo
Global apartheid is defined as an international system of minority rule whose
attributes include differential access to basic human rights, wealth and power.
It is the outcome of political power associated with the 20th century economic
crisis, and the ideology of neo-liberalism, that is, relying more upon markets.
This has led to the growing of inequity between rich and poor countries. This
injustice has been perpetuated by the worsening of terms of trade where exports
cheapen as import costs rise and the poor countries find themselves in a
foreign debt trap having to pay huge loans made to elites.
The ANC (which is a liberal party and it calls itself a broad church) has
succeeded in maintaining the alliance with SACP and Cosatu which are supposed
to be on the left. The same approach was used by Thabo Mbeki in building a
broad-based alliance internationally sleeping with the angels while dining with
the devils. Self-congratulatory press statements were made that Pretoria
benefited, as a host or in high-profile roles,at many important international
gatherings.
If Thabo Mbeki were to be judged only for his statesmanship he would pass with
flying colours, however in the home front his negatives piled up to choke him
until he lost his job. He lost the battle against crime, corruption, service
delivery, water and electricity cuts, HIV/AIDS, job creation and many other
deliverables. The process of privatization back fired. Moreover the promised
miracle drug did not materialize; the Mbeki government had pursued the liberal
policies hoping that the gains of capitalism
would trickle down to the poor masses only to find out that they were wrong.
StatsSA in October 2002 indicated that in real terms the average black
household income declined by 19% from 1995-2000 while white household was up by
15%. The poorest half of all South Africans claimed a mere 9.7% of national
income, down from 11.4% in 1995 while the richest fifth grabbed 65%. The
official measure of unemployment rose from 16% in 1995 to 31.5% in 2002. Cosatu
expressed dissatisfaction and concluded: "The main reason for this jobs carnage
is that after ten years of liberation, our economy remains largely
unrestructured with the structural problems we inherited from apartheid
mismanagement still in place. The economy remains firmly in white hands,
dominated by the few companies operating in the mining and financial sectors."
Atleast 10 million people had their water disconnected for non-payment of
electricity and water. Pretoria had promised to redistribute 30% of the
country's agricultural land from 60 000 white farmers and yet only 2.3% of the
land was redistributed through land reform.
Residential segregation was a policy in apartheid South Africa and was based on
race; that did not end in 1994 but took on a class-based character. This can be
attributed to public policy, ironically designed by the then chairperson of
SACP, Joe Slovo. As the first democratic minister of housing he adopted World
Bank advice that included smaller housing subsidies than were necessary and
more reliance upon banks for credit. The policy was to give R16 000 per unit,
leaving scant funds for foundations, quality building materials and sound
construction. Banks and commercial developers played a major role instead of
state and community-driven strategies. Low-cost houses continue to be built in
outlying areas away from the cities and towns and also away from jobs and
community amenities, and are characterized by poor service delivery.
Worsening class division and social segregation appear to be an inexonerable
outcome of South Africa's elite transition. When the ruling party was
challenged by the left it responded by talking left and walking right. At the
international level the ANC did not do what a former liberation movement was
supposed to do, that is, reverse the unequal power relations that define global
politics and economics today.
In conclusion, a frustrated confession from Michael Sachs the former head of
ANC policy and research will suffice in explaining the position of the ANC in
global politics which are ultimately local politics: "Should we be out there
condemning imperialism? If you do those things, how long will you last? There
is no organizational alternative, no real policy alternative to what we're
doing." Hence, ANC officials were so afraid of being defeated, that instead of
trying to reverse unequal power relations, they became an accomplice to global
apartheid.
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