Xenophobia Is a Crisis of Inequality, Not Immigration

Xenophobia Is a Crisis of Inequality, Not Immigration

To save jobs, the government needs to shift to renewable energy

There has also been much emphasis recently at the COP27 conference on the need to reduce our dependence on coal as an energy source so that the effects of the environmental risk associated with the use of coal as an energy source can be mitigated. President Ramaphosa at the COP27 contended that Africa needs to build adoptative capacity and foster climate resilience to address loss and damage. Although there has been a shift away from coal as a source of energy generation in the world, South Africa also needs to rethink its overdependence on coal as a source of energy production in the future.

Sustainability development cannot be achieved if South Africa continues to move along the trajectory, it is currently on – the trajectory of burning fossil fuels to drive the economy, and relying on the coal sector to drive the economy.

It is a fact that whether or not South Africa mitigates against the effects of climate change, the world is moving towards renewable energy sources, which will ultimately affect the fossil fuel industries in South Africa in the long run. As an example, the European Union has set up the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism for the production and export of carbon intensive products within its region and imposes a tax on these products based on their carbon intensity. As a result, there will be a serious impact on the iron and steel, concrete, fertilizer, aluminum, and electricity generation sectors.

The over sensation of the debate over renewables versus coal in the circus of parliamentary debate is a cause for concern to me. It is not enough to say that South Africa has been subjected to the mineral energy complex for a long time, and therefore delinking from coal is not feasible from a purely economic point of view. There is also the problem that Germany struggles to keep the lights on due to the fact that its coal mines have been decommissioned.

In order for politicians to be able to effectively discuss a topic, they must invest a lot of time in researching the topic. It is a myth that coal mines contribute a lot to the economy and that coal mines employ a lot of people, so switching to renewable energies will have a negative effect on the employment prospects of South Africans.

In this article, my goal is to demystify the method used by coal fundamentalists in order to instill fear in the hearts and minds of our communities and mobilize them to reject the call for a just and social energy transition. A fact of the matter is that in the year 2019, South Africa produced a total of 306 million metric tons of coal.[1] It is worth noting that South Africa contributes 3.5% of the world’s coal resources, with the country’s production amounting to 3.3% of the world’s annual total and exporting about 6% of the total global coal exports.[2]

In addition to that, more than 70% of the country’s electricity and liquid fuel are produced from coal. Eskom, the state-owned company in this case, is the biggest consumer of coal in the country. Thus, this translates into South Africa being the third country in the world in terms of its contribution to the global carbon emissions.  According to the Deputy Minister of Finance, David Masondo, two months ago, South Africa must critically rethink its just transition, with the option of overlooking its contribution to carbon emissions or retaining the jobs of the mining industry as an alternative to the just transition.[3] At the moment, the total number of people employed in the mining industry amounts to 452,866 people, of which 91 649 are employed in the coal mining industry as a whole.[4]

The fact of the matter, whether we choose not to mitigate against the climate crisis or continue burning fossil fuels, the South African economy will deteriorate, jobs will continue to disappear as a result of the climate crisis. It has been estimated that the impact of rising temperatures could have a negative impact on global GDP of as much as 18% by 2050, compared with the world without climate change as a result of global warming. The worse thing is that South Africa is ranked relatively low in terms of its adaptive capacity in terms of coping with the effects of climate change.

In the event that South Africa fails to mitigate climate change under its economic system, then the South African economy will be severely affected by the effects of climate change. It has been proven that the high average temperatures lead to a loss of income and productivity. According to a study by Swiss Re Institute, if South Africa does not mitigate against the climate crisis, it will result in a loss of 37% in GDP and the majority of the population will be unemployed by the year 2050, resulting in a drastic increase in unemployment.

In the current conjecture, it appears that South Africa, as well as the rest of the world, face the challenge of achieving a rate of decarbonization of 15.2% per annum in order to keep global warming below 1.5°C.[5]

Therefore, politicians must disabuse themselves from relying solely on the current coal jobs to create jobs. Rather, they must create jobs in other sectors as well, and the increase in renewable energy has the potential to create more jobs than the current jobs in the coal industry. As the green economy is important trigger and a lever for enhancing South Africa’s economic growth.

Hence, the government needs to start thinking about how to re-skill South Africans to be able to adapt to the renewable energy industry (wind turbines, electric vehicles, green hydrogen, and photovoltaic solar energy). As of 2011, the employment potential in the formal sector of the green economy in South Africa in the short term was estimated at 98 000 new direct jobs for the short term in the formal sector of the green economy. On the other hand, in the long run, the renewable energy sector is predicted to create around 462 000 jobs over the next decade.[6]

The private sector is also engaged in mitigating the effects of climate change, for instance Nedbank has been vocal about the investment in renewable energy and MTN, the largest telecom company in Africa, has channeled its strategy into achieving net zero emissions by 2040 by contributing to a sustainable future. As a result of the current climate crisis, the government needs a clear-cut plan to deal with the issue.  Impressively is the partnership of SASOL and ArcelorMittal South Africa to develop carbon capture technology to produce sustainable fuel and chemicals. Through this partnership the ArcelorMittal South Africa steel plant in Saldanha Bay to produce and export green steel manufactured without fossil fuels through green hydrogen.[7]

To conclude, the government must also play a role in the sustainable development of the country. As a result of the conflicting assertions made by Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy with regards to President Cyril’s policy position on renewable energy, it is important that this matter be addressed in order to prevent policy uncertainty caused by the fact that government leaders do not speak the same language

Ashley Nyiko Mabasa hold Master’s degree in Economic Sociology focusing in Energy Policy and currently completing his second Master in Management and Public Policy.

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[1]https://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=14682#:~:text=South%20African%20coal%20production%20amounted,of%202%20710%20blue%20whales.

[2] file:///C:/Users/amabasa002/Downloads/minerals-council-facts-and-figures-2020-booklet.pdf

[3] https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2022-10-24-anc-must-find-balance-between-carbon-emissions-and-unemployment-crisis-masondo/

[4] file:///C:/Users/amabasa002/Downloads/minerals-council-facts-and-figures-2020-booklet.pdf

[5] https://www.pwc.co.za/en/blog/south-africas-energy-transition-and-growth-path-to-net-zero.html

[6] https://www.tips.org.za/projects/past-projects/sustainable-growth/green-economy/item/2672-green-jobs-an-estimate-of-direct-employment-potential-of-a-greening-south-african-economy

[7] https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/635873/sasol-partners-with-arcelormittal-to-develop-a-green-hydrogen-hub-in-south-africa/

Silencing of Guns by 2020 by African Union: Still Dream differed

The African Union in 2015 attempted to draw the plan that intends to drive its
agenda from 2015 until 2063. The strategic plan is called African Agenda 2063,
which contains the sectorial timelines to achieving envisaged Africa – prosperous
Africa which is free from violence.

Interestingly, the Agenda 2063 called for the silencing of guns by 2020, with an aim
of harnessing peace in our continent. However, the 2020 is coming to an end and
there is no sign of silencing of guns in our continent. As at Democratic Republic of
Congo is fouling killing of civilians.

Peace and stability are important elements in society, as they feed into our social
order. The ANC 54th National Congress succinctly highlighted that South Africa is
relatively stable in comparison to many countries of African countries and the world.
However, our ANC identifies economic weaknesses as one of the key threats to our
national security and interests due to the manifestation of unemployment, poverty,
and inequalities.

I concur with the ANC’s identified impediment for our peace and stability in our
country, as much as I would agree with the African Union Agenda 2063 that the
predicament for installing peace and stability in our continent will begin by silencing
of guns.

Even nation building agenda will never be pursued under the environment without
peace and stability. Peace and Stability are sacrosanct for nation building, therefore,
a failure to silence guns entails the stalemate for nation building.

In contrast, the African Union Agenda 2063 sees dialogue-centered prevention and
the silencing of guns of all guns by 2020 as a high resolution to installing peace and
stability in our continent. To a certain extent, dialogue-centered prevention can
relatively assist in instilling the spirit of peace and stability in our continent.

The reason for the dialogue-centered prevention to relative assist in instilling peace
and stability is that assimilating from the Swedish government. The Swedish
government has Study Circles which are government facilitated dialogues meant to

nurture the Swedish people dialogues to generate solutions for their socio-economic
challenges without using the barrel of a gun.

However, the eradication conflict on the continent requires to be encapsulated by
eradicating poverty, inequality, and poverty. We have reached 2020, but we not
nigher silencing guns in our continent.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, for instance, 1 300 civilians have been killed
in a conflict involving armed groups and government forces over the past eight
months in 2019 and 2020, this led to a United Nations rights chief Michelle Bachelet
articulating that the killings amount to crimes against humanity and a war crime.

The ongoing killing of civilians in Congo signifies the failure of AU set objective of
silencing guns by 2020. We cannot overlook the fact that the instability of Congo’s
state incepted by colonialism which saw Congo as a playground for the Cold War.
Mabutho Sese Seko who preceded over independence in the 1960s was in close ally
with the United States and managed to de-industrialized Congo and he corrupted the
state. Consequently, poverty and inequality started to creep in the Congo.

Therefore, mounting peace and stability in Congo need to be accompanied by the
eradicating of poverty, unemployment, and inequality.

In addition, our continent continues to struggle with the insurgent, Group such as
Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab remain the large rebel groups that continue to kill
civilians.

As a result, this cause is the cause of a refugee crisis and sub-regional socio-economic
scuffles. However, the realization of the AU Agenda 2063 must be embedded in addressing
our economic inequalities. In this case, the imperialists always find it easy to
interfere with other polities when there is a high level of poverty and inequalities.
Therefore, addressing poverty and inequality will heighten the struggle of the
silencing of guns in the coming years.

The AU Agenda 2063 acknowledges the fact that eradicating conflicts needs the
inclusion of youth. The inclusion of the youth in the goal of silencing the guns is

significant as this is for their future. Hence in November 2018, the AU’s Peace and
Security Council (PSC) established the Youth for Peace Africa Programme. The youth
program collaborates with the Regional Economic Communities and civil society this
was a leap forward toward youth to participate in the peace initiatives of the
continent.

However, the AU has also seen some successes in the effort on eradicating conflict in
Africa. In this regard, the AU in Lusaka pointed out the need to address peace
matters through preventative measures by national reconciliation and peace-making.
Subsequently, the AU has signed a peace agreement with rebel groups including in
2020 when the Sudan government signed an agreement with the leader of factions of
the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N).

Furthermore, the Central African Republic government signed a peace agreement
with 14 rebels’ groups in 2019. The AU with a Central African Republic government
offered the rebel group leaders’ positions at the ministerial level.

Finally, the AU Agenda 2063 resolution of the silencing of guns will not be fulfilled
without addressing our economic and social circumstances, as the ANC 54th
resolution pointed out that addressing poverty, inequality and unemployment will be
a great leap forward towards installing peace and stability in our continent. The
realization of the AU Agenda 2063 set goals will be achieved through youth
participation as this is a designation of their future.

Current Oil boom Hinders a Struggle Against Climate Justice

In the first quarter of 2021, the biggest oil companies appeared to the performing better than anticipated. Their better performance is despite the uneven waving of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Last month the biggest oil companies such as Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Saudi Aramco have shown growth and strong performance in comparison with last year’s performance as the global oil demand then dropped to 8.7 million barrels a day.

Whereas earlier this year British multinational oil and gas company BP has shown a better performance than anticipated. However, the question remains, what growth and better performance of the transnational oil companies do such as Shell and BP mean to ordinary citizens?

The Royal Dutch Shell PLC which is commonly known as “Shell” an Anglo-Dutch oil and gas company based in the Netherlands and incorporated in the United Kingdom. Shell is the third-largest company in the world measured through 2012 revenues. In this first quarter, Shell reported a profit of $3.2 billion and a 700% increase in comparison with the $393 million it made in the last quarter of 2020.

Whereas in the first quarter (of 2021) the BP reported is reported to be at $2.6 billion in comparison with the 2020 last quarter which was standing at $115 million in profit. 

The British oil company is vertically integrated, this entails that is involved in the whole supply chain, from discovering oil, producing it, refining it, shipping it, trading it, and selling it at the petrol pump.

The BP has operations in about 80 countries globally, produced around 3.7 million barrels per day of oil and gas reserves of 19.945 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Shell and BP currently own the 165 000 bbl/d Sapref refineries in Durban, which is the largest in South Africa.

Earlier last month, an American oil company ExxonMobil and Chevron reported being performing well after the loss of profit last year. However, this year has made a progress with the return profitability for the first quarter of 2021. ExxonMobil and Chevron have reported a profit of $2.7 billion in the first quarter of 2021. 

The profitability of these biggest oil and gas companies in the first quarter of 2021 comes as a result of the efforts to rebalance the supply and demand, including the reopening of the global economy. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically forced the changes in behavior, from working from home models, restriction of the leisure air travel and more governments are gearing towards the green economy characterizes by the low carbon future. The International Energy Agency (IEC) on the oil report contends that; 

“Growth will rebound sharply in 2021, and is projected to rise by 13.1 mb/d to 2026. Growth in road transport fuel demand slows to less than 0.5% per year from 2023 onwards.”

However, BloomMberg has reported that the first quarter of the 2021 oil boom may be the industry’s last growth, as the world is gearing towards the low-carbon energy system. The IEA argued that the world oil market may not go back to its normality and the oil demand will undoubtedly return to its normality by 2023. The below graph[1] by the IEA shows that the oil demand takes a downturn from 2022 to 2026; 

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[1] https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/1fa45234-bac5-4d89-a532-768960f99d07/Oil_2021-PDF.pdf

Furthermore, the IEC argues that the decline of the oil demand will continue to go down if the governments stick with strong policies to shift from the intensive carbon economy to the clean energy system. 

Moreover, the United States official re-joined the Paris Agreement in February after a four-year nonappearance and has unveiled assertive measures to address climate change. As the newly elected President Biden has pledged to decarbonize the power grid by 2035 and achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

United States President Biden is not dissimilar to South Africa’s Integrated Resource Plan which pledges just transition from South Africa’s intensive carbon economy to the zero-net greenhouse gas emission by 2050. 

The rise of the oil demands means that South African citizens must braze themselves for the continuum of the climate crisis. 

The global temperature is rising at 1.5°C which is above the global average temperature. Whereas for Southern Africa the temperature has been rising faster at 2°C as compared to 1.5°C of global warming. The IPCC Special Report on the impact of global warming highlighted that South Africa and parts of Namibia and Botswana are expected to experience the largest increases in the temperature. 

The IPPC has further argued that the climate crisis seeks to induce an increase in water stress. Therefore, the increase in oil demand is directed linked with the burning of fossil fuel and the heightening of the climate crisis. South African is already confronted with a water shortage due to the lack of sufficient rain. 

In addition, Dr. Hlamulo Makelane, a research fellow at Nelson Mandela University[1] asserted that South Africa is approaching physical water scarcity by 2025 and socio-economic development has been directly hindered by the recent drought, and South Africa is expected to experience a water deficit of 17 by 2030. He further contends that the shortage of water will only be worsened by climate change.

The increase in demand signifies the persistence of the fossil fuel energy system. Though government, citizens, politicians, and academics must engage in a holistic debate on the transition that needs to address the climate crisis and energy poverty in our less developed countries that depend much on coal, oil, and gas so that does not suffer severe damage from shifting off fossil fuel. 

Ashley Nyiko Mabasa

Hold a Masters Degree In Labour and Economic Sociology at Wits University focusing on South Africa’s Energy Policy and pursuing another Masters in Management Public Policy (Wits University).

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[1] https://www.esi-africa.com/event-news/south-africa-approaching-physical-water-scarcity-by-2025/

The paradox of the ANC Integrity Committee

Insofar as discipline and integrity are essential for supporting our ANC longevity the former and the letter must be harmonized with consistency. By consistency, I mean that organizational principles, organizational discipline, accountability, resolutions and ethnics need to be fairly applied to all ranks of members and the leaders of the movement. The ANC, by remaining consistent in addressing the internal and external challenges it is confronted with, will automatically deal with counter-revolutionary trends which Joel Netshitenzhe alluded to that are partly responsible for our movement’s problems[1].

Lack of consistency in holding leadership and members of the ANC to equal ethical judgement can also be attributed to some of the organizational challenges ANC has been faced with. Following the 53^rd National Conference in 2012, the ANC established the Integrity Committee as the organ that can hold the ANC’s public officials, leaders and members who are confronted with “damaging allegations of improper conduct” accountable. The Integrity Committee is significant in our movement for organizational renewal and always reflecting the society’s evolving standards and moral universe to emulate them within the movement. This is to ensure that our ANC does not detach from the downtrodden and multitudes of the grassroots which we usually referred to as the motive forces.

It must be clear that Integrity Committee must not be used for political subjectivity and become factionalized. The Integrity Committee needs to act and treat every leader and member with fair hands without any factional influences.  Early this this month Secretary General Ace Magashule voluntarily appeared before the Integrity Committee on damning allegations of money laundering, corruption and fraud.

Of course, the court of law will stand to provide verdict of SG Magashule’s fate, however, Republic of South Africa’s Constitution Section 35(3)(h) of the Bill of Rights ensures that everyone the right to a fair trial, which entails the right to be presumed innocent at that trial. In case of SG Magashule the mainstream media is trying by all means to portray him as corrupt citizen presumed by court of law. This importance of innocent until proven guilty was highlighted in the Constitutional Court in case of S v Dzukuda and Others; S v Tshilo, the constitutional court made a substantial argument for a fair trial;

“Despite being presumed innocent, the accused is subject to various forms of prejudice and penalty merely by virtue of being an accused, because many in the community pay little more than lip service to such presumption of innocence. “Doubt will have been sown as to the accused’s integrity and conduct in the eyes of family, friend and colleagues.”[2]

Ostracization of Ace Magashule before he is presumed guilty by the court defeat the ends of justice and is a betrayal for those undergone struggle against the apartheid to fight for Freedom which clearly articulated in the Freedom Charter that; all shall be equal before the law. Therefore, the ANC Integrity Committee needs to inculcate the notion of innocent until proven guilty, meaning that they must await a accused person to undergo court until presumed guilty or innocent, then can be called upon a Integrity Committee to account.

This is not to say Integrity Committee is factional or not factional, but it is to say if Integrity Committee might have been infiltrated by factionalism being used to serve personal interest of factions. Contrary to that view, Integrity Committee must deal with factionalism as well to redeem the ANC’s integrity. Drawing inspiration from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1921 that banned factions as first line to enhancing discipline in the party.

As a result, all ideological differences were clamped down and those refused to toe the line in the interest of the organization were eliminated. The ANC has been singing the song of ending factionalism yet cannot develop practicable and standardized mechanisms to end factionalism.

Currently the ongoing battle between Radical Economic Transformation and CR17 is the order of the day in the ANC. It is troubling that mainstream media has also drawn to the ANC factional battles which are devoid of any moral standing and ideological posture. However, the call for radical economic transformation is fundamental as United Nations reveal that; about 18.9% of the population survives off less than R27.66 a day.[3] While only 10% of the South African owns 95% of the economic and social systems.

Without a doubt, our ANC needs to make sure that Integrity Committee is an impartial organ that always understands dynamism of the ANC and responds to our ever-changing society’s moral standards. As for those in revolution moral standards and those with morals are those fighting for social transformation as an attempt to end poverty, inequality and unemployment.

In addition, we have witnessed that many of our comrades are now going to court to resolve organizational matters – this signify the fact that some members are not satisfied with the organizational processes in resolving their issues. The ANC organizational matters will always remain center of battle as is the battle to control the state which possess about 30% of South Africa’s economy. This shows that the Integrity Committee must also extend their scope of work to evaluate the integrity of those serving insofar as fighting poverty, and inequality is concerned.

In politics there is nothing neutral or objective, however, the Integrity Committee needs to be independent of space, time and individual influence but central to the organization while reflecting the societal standards. Last year Integrity Committee actively pointed out that those that were implicated in the VBS mutual bank “South Africa’s biggest bank heist” report should step aside from the ANC parliament and clear their names. That did not go unnoticed, Limpopo Provincial Treasury Dan Msiza and Florence Radzilani stepped aside and later were reinstated by the National Executive Committee.

In this case, the National Executive Committee (NEC) must oversee that that the Integrity Committee as is consistent in dealing with issues that taint the ANC image and impede on the government’s work. In order to ensure that our movement stands the test of time, the NEC must make sure that the Integrity Committee is not infiltrated by factionalism but remains an impartial organ to safeguard our movement image from the counter-revolutionary and anti-progressive forces. However, there should be no minimizing of damage done to our movement in the name of protecting ourselves or those we are aligned with. The Integrity Committee needs to ensure that all those complicit in any form of activities that happen to be demeaning to the ANC need to stepdown after the court judgement, as calling a person to step aside before the court judgement vilify those accused from getting fair trial. As Thomas Bongo the Member of Parliament and NEC Member of the ANC after the ANC instructed him to step aside due to allegation of corruption which are not even tested in the court of law. Thomas Bongo have argued to step aside on the basis that the ANC provide legal basis for him to step aside.

In addition, organizational discipline is important for our movement to fulfill its resolutions. It was unprecedented late in 2019 Northern Cape Sol Plaatje councilors were expelled and characterized as ill-disciplined for voting with opposition to topple the ANC mayor. Whilst several comrades in the National Parliament in 2017 attempted to vote out the former President Zuma alongside opposition parties – these comrades did not face any disciplinary hearing, nor was their integrity was assessed by Integrity Committee. Those parliamentarians did not get expelled by our movement, unlike the Sol Plaatje ANC councilors who were assessed and expelled for organizational-ill-discipline.

Finally, our ANC needs restructure the Integrity Committee and its mechanism of disciplining comrades in all ranks. The restructuring must begin by harmonizing integrity and discipline with consistency. The danger of not being consistent will render our ANC weak through not being listened to by the its members and organizational defiance will be the order of the day. Eventually, the ANC constitution will be undermined and that might detach the ANC from societal moral standards. All those complicit in putting ANC’s image in disrepute must be treated with the same hand and held accountable to equal standards.

Ashley Nyiko Mabasa

Hold Masters Degree in Labour and Economic Sociology Wits

ANC and SACP Member

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[1] Joel Netshitenzhe, “Presentation Notes for Political Overview to the NEC” 18-20 November 2005

[2] http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2000/16.pdf

[3] https://www.businessinsider.co.za/heres-how-many-south-africans-live-on-less-than-r28-a-day-and-why-its-getting-worse-2020-12#:~:text=South%20Africa%20is%20struggling%20to,than%20R27.66%20a%20day.

DA’s neo-liberalism and EFF’s statism will not resolve our climate Crisis

 

The Democratic Alliance (DA) and Economic Freedom Fighter manifestos do not have a clear strategy to address our energy and climate crisis. Currently, the world is confronted with the climate crisis, which is accompanied by severe consequences. Recently, we have witnessed Cape Town approach day-zero after a severe water crisis in 2018, Cyclone Idai and global warming is immensely affecting global and national food security. Both the DA and EFF manifestos have proposed an energy mix as one of the solutions in dealing with climate crisis. The DA proposition is that Independent Power Producers (IPPs) are to be owned by bourgeoise, therefore, the state must make environment conducive for wealthy business owners to invest in IPPs. Whilst the EFF is still stuck in the statist politics of 20^thcentury – wanting every industry under the sun to be owned by the state.

The EFF takes advantage of genuine ongoing debate about our climate crisis, however, the EFF does not take climate justice seriously in any way that could that lead to draft a clear analytical plan of action and tactical framework to addressing the climate crisis and energy crisis. Both manifestos of DA and EFF are flip-flopping around issue of climate crisis.

EFF’s statism politics contradict climate justice

 

Karl Marx taught us that society is not static but always in motion – always transforming. Society needs revolutionary dynamic parties. Therefore, the EFF’s leadership who always proclaim themselves to be socialist intellectuals in our society should understand that society is in motion and therefore needs dynamic solutions. EFF Deputy President Floyd Shivambu, who is a good reader of Lenin’s revolutionary book “State and Revolution”, should know better than to believe everything Lenin says is relevant and applicable insofar as today’s society is concerned.

The EFF’s manifesto is fully based on the statist politics and centralisation of power that caused the Soviet Union fall under Stalin. This means that if the EFF were to win elections, everything will be controlled by Julius Malema. Take a minute and think about this, everything in South Africa, land, banks, mines, and monopoly industries centralized in neo-fascist Julius Malema’s office. All of us we know the results of neo-fascist-Julius Malema leadership practices, some examples being continuous expulsions of dissenters and Malema critics within the EFF, involvement VBS Mutual Bank collapse and tender hijacking in Johannesburg Municipality Metro.

The implication of top EFF brass in the VBS scandal leaves a lot to be desired! We must consider their commitment of governing the state viz-viz their  plunder and subsequent collapsing of small black-owned bank.

In the case of the mining sector, the EFF stated that they will nationalize all mines and mineral wealth in South Africa by the year 2030. Thereafter, nationalizing all mines they will allocate key shares of minerals and petroleum to Sovereign Wealth Fund. Here, the EFF’s is promising us that will continue with fossil-fuel based economy and continue to produce more carbon emission and methane – continuing to damage the greenhouses and ozone layers.

The EFF’s section of “Environment and Climate” pledges that the party will reduce carbon emission by 10% by 2024 and in their fiscal framework section they claim that they will increase the carbon tax to raise revenue and discipline multinationals for high carbon emissions. However, carbon tax is not an adequate sanction or a solution to deal with carbon emission, companies will merely pay more corporate tax (R120 per tonne) if they produce carbon emission that exceed a specific threshold. Globally, large multinationals have frequently opted to pay carbon tax and continue producing the high emissions which will build them large profits.

Furthermore, the EFF’s supports and wants to continue with carbon-intensive economy founded on the mineral energy finance complex (MEFC) by nationalizing all mines by 2030. The EFF’s statist approach to increase revenue through transferring ownership of mines to the ownership of the state does not posit systematic changes to mitigate our climate crisis.

Clearly, the EFF does not want to dismantle the mineral energy finance complex because their view of political economy cannot be detached from statist politics and centralization of power to one person – Julius Malema. And this contradict program they have adopted of One Million Climate Jobs.

The EFF must understand that part of climate justice must challenge the state power relations. A good example of revolutionary environmental politics is the National Union of Mineworkers (NUMSA)resolving to radically shift the energy sector from carbon intensive economy to socially owned renewable energy in their national congress in 2012. This deepens the energy democracy as they will give the workers, communities, and municipalities ownership of energy whilst reducing state ownership of energy.

DA’s neo-liberal economy not go for climate justice

Put succinctly, the DA’s manifesto says that only the elites or bourgeoise must control and take charge of the economy and the rest of South African society must only continue to be exploited, outsourced and subcontracted in the labour force. Despite the fact that they are liberal bourgeoise political organization that prioritizes the interest of the elites or bourgeoise at the expanse of the society. The DA’s manifesto explicitly says that government must make environment conducive for wealthy to invest in Independent Power Producers (IPPs).

The capitalist companies do not only focus in making profit from cheap labour but also exploit natural environment. The DA failed to prepare to for a catastrophic drought in the Western Cape in which Cape Town almost ran out of water – this happened despite DA being warned by academics and scientist about the impending crisis. Consequently, the day-zero in Cape Town largely affected the poor and the working class and middle-class households the most. Therefore, took advantage of the water crisis raised the water levies in the DA led metro while the working class and poor households were struggling and confronted with high tariffs that’s undermine their basic right to water and sanitation.

In addition, if the DA was serious about the climate justice, they would have understood that day-zero was about climate injustice and created a new formed of climate inequality and environmental disparities. The DA’s neo-liberal approach articulates climate justice within the green neo-liberalism, which is not a solution at all for the working class and the poor South Africa. Co-operative and Policy Alternative Center (COPAC)[1]has expressed the fact that DA’s neo-liberal response to the Day-Zero always privileges the wealthy. For examples, the boreholes which was encouraged as a solution during the drought were only affordable to the wealthy minority.

The DA’s manifesto supports the market-approach to renewable energy. They assert that Eskom must make environment conducive for the Independent Power Producers which supply the national grid and local government. The DA’s approach to dealing with climate crisis through reducing carbon emission through renewable energy does not concern with workers in Eskom who their Jobs will be phased-out and working condition under the renewable industry. Their proposed renewable energy it is devoid concern for workers, communities, and households. The bourgeoise ownership of renewable energy is the driver of the energy shift for DA’s manifesto.

The DA supports of carbon capture and storage as a way of addressing South Africa’s carbon emission problems. This proposed strategy of dealing with carbon emissions is a clear illustration that DA is not serious about climate justice.  The carbon capture and storage as a way of dealing with carbon emission is just fantastical and foolish optimisms by DA because this is an untested technology and ultimately a techno-fix that does not deal deeply with the climate crisis of transiting from carbon-intensive energy to renewable energy system.

The DA’s approach to addressing climate crisis is impractical and follows the lead of multinational corporations which destroyed the radical environmentalist movements in the 1960s and 1970s, which were anti-multi-national corporation and pursuing the punishment of corporate if they were environmentally harmful. These radical environmentalists sought to reduce multinational corporations’ autonomy to secure human freedom and environmental preservation. And the multinational corporation responded by funding and starting their own environmental movements.

The DA is no different from Sierra Club, an environmental social movement which was clandestinely funded by gas industry multinational corporation such as Aubrey McClendon. The Sierra Club protected the capitalist corporations by contending that multinational corporation are reformatories of what consumers want and if we want to address climate crisis caused by multinational corporations, we must change the consumers lifestyle politics then we must start recycling and producing eco-friendly production. Sierra Club’s narrative shifted the climate crisis blame from corporates to consumers. The DA’s neo-liberal manifesto has no solution for our climate crisis, but they are just trying to take advantage climate crisis to generate profit out it.

What are the examples of progressive climate justice?

Germany

Germany is progressive country insofar as climate justice is concern, recently Germany has closed their last coal mine. The Germany shift from coal intensive electricity to renewable energy has been initiated and embraced by the communities. This contradict the EFF’s statism approach to dealing with our climate crisis and DA’s neo-liberal green revolution which prioritizes ruling class over the working class and the poor. Germany generate more than 30% of its electricity from renewable energy this has reduced and planning to generate more than 65% of energy in by 2030 using renewable. This is not dissimilar to South Africa.

In addition, our government strategy packaged in the Integrated Resource Plan of 2010 aspiring to reduce coal intensive energy from 85% to 65% in 2030. From the lesson of German it is clear that the EFF’s manifesto does not have a clear and coherent plan for climate crisis and energy challenges – because they aspired to nationalize mines and continue with their coal-intensive economy structure of mineral energy finance complex whilst adopting the one million climate jobs as a way of trying to buy the environmentalist votes.

Uruguay

Uruguay can provide a good example for South Africa in dealing with climate and energy crisis. Uruguay’s 90% of their electricity is generated from renewable energy. Uruguay’s use government as a facilitator of transition from high coal intensive to renewable energy. Again, Uruguay’s renewable energy regime has been led by a democratic government at the national level. In Uruguay the government play an important role in transition from carbon intensive energy to renewable through investing 3% of its annual GDP in renewable energies.  Uruguay’s approach to renewable energy contradicts DA’s neo-liberalism approach, which suggest that renewable energy was be privately owned by the ruling class.

Spain

The Spanish government has planned that by 2050 they must have 100% of renewable energy. The new Spain Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera[2]has removed the sun-tax. The sun-tax was tax which was anti-progressive introduced by Mariano Rajoy in 2012. The sun tax outlined that Spanish homes fitted with solar panel must pay about EUR 70 an additional tax of 7% to remain connected to Spani’s electricity grid in case solar panels do not generate enough energy.

The EFF’s manifesto they do not show how they will finance the renewable energy project, except DA that want to foreign national corporations to control our energy system, they argue that investor must invest in IPPs this will definitely undermine our national sovereignty as other countries will be producing and controlling our electricity. Spain through European Investment Bank has secure EUR 450 million financial package to support the renewable energy projects and following European Union requirement that 2020 countries organized under European Union must have generate 20% of its electricity through renewable energy.

Spain renewable energy project play an important role in addressing climate crisis and energy crisis. This has benefited its citizens by giving them cheap, safe and clean energy. This cannot happen under the EFF or DA government. As DA proposed the market orientated renewable energy which will expensive to most of the working class and poor South Africans. Whilst EFF’s asserted that they will nationalize mines, which most of them are coal mines and supply coal directly to Eskom, EFF’s manifesto pose contradictory logic to the clean energy packaged in renewable energy.

EFF and DA manifestos do not have plan for climate crisis

It is clear, that both EFF, and DA’s manifestos does not have solid solutions for our climate crisis and our energy problems. EFF takes advantage of our climate crisis as a way of trying to attract votes out of the environmentalist social movement. The EFF’s statist politics of the 20^th Centuries are not good for radical social change because concentrate everything to the ownership of the state. On the other hand the DA advocates for renewable energy through green capitalism and market orientated renewable energy which only focuses on generating profit at the expense of the working class and the poor. Both EFF and DA do not have a clear plan for climate justice.

By Ashley Nyiko Mabasa

Wits MA Candidate

[1]https://www.safsc.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Climate-Justice-Critique-of-Parties_9-April-2019.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2cLtjy4zOdeUj5HvpbVXPA5cB4o8NKujifRpmjkdqXKzlKWGhT0T0vZDE

[2]https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/spain-suspends-solar-power-tax/53112/

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Review By Ashley Nyiko Mabasa of “Critique of Black Reasonby Achille Mbembe”

 “Self-consciousness is, to begin with, simple being-forself, self-equal through the exclusion from itself of everything else. For it, its essence and absolute object is ‘ I ‘; and in this immediacy, or in this [mere] being, of its being-for-self, it is an individual. What is ‘other’ for it is an unessential, negatively characterized object” (Hegel, 1977: 113-114).

Hegel in the above quote addresses the question of personhood as being comprised of the conscious and rational being and the other as the object that cannot be recognised – this other can be regarded as the black person. Hegel’s dialectics deals with how one is recognised by the other and recognises the other. Achile Mbembe’s seminal book “Critique of Black Reason” 2017 deals with how black people have been negatively characterised as the other and how they can define blackness through positive traits instead. This review will show how Mbembe offers a new theoretical perspective in the social sciences. This review affirms Mbembe’s argument that black people cannot change history but they can decide how they shape their own identity against negative definitions of blackness which have been historically dominant. This review will also show the key elements which can be drawn from Mbembe’s argument and linked with the author’s ontological experiences. In this case, I will draw from the notion of blackness as the concept that signifies the other, inferiority and defined as the problem.

Mbembe like Karl Marx in volume one of Das Kapital has shown that in order to study commodity, it is important to first look at appearance of the commodity and delve into essence and revisit appearance again with the knowledge of essence of study – this would be proven to be scientific study of commodity in Marx’s terms. This is not dissimilar to Mbembe’s study of black reasoning which is divided into two dimensions – looking at black people from the outside (appearance) and asking questions of personhood, “what makes people, people?”. On the other hand, theories of perspectives derive from inside (essence) of black spirits trying to ask, “Who are we as black people” and what does it entail to be black in our own ontological experience and global experience.

As mentioned earlier what constitutes personhood in Hegelian is being a self-reflective, self-possessed, rationally and self-motivated being. The aforementioned traits that constitute personhood relate to inside spirits. Hence, Mbembe alludes that everything begins with external identification, “I am black” is the outwards form of identification that is based on the internal question we ask ourselves, which includes inside spirits– “who am I, then?”. However, in a country such as South Africa black people’s identity was shaped largely by colonialism and the Apartheid system. For example, colonialism marginalized black people and defined them as inferior compare to the white race and as the lowest race in the racial hierarchies. Furthermore, many thinkers have argued that racial subjugation of black people in South Africa was a mechanism to acquire cheap labour by the white state.

In addition, Mbembe contends that black identity is the way of clarifying ourselves and positioning ourselves in relation to other people. In the same breath, black is a descriptive word and it is meant to invoke particular meanings. Mbembe further argues that blackness, due to its association to race and black identity with historical progression, is not neutral term. In this case, the notion of blackness historically carries weight onto it because of its association with this historical progression of suffering, slavery, colonialism, apartheid and oppression. In defining black identity, it is defining with relationship of slavery, colonialism and apartheid. In regards to my ontological experience, my ethnic group, race and culture were marginalised by colonialism and apartheid and continue to be marginalised in South Africa as a result of colonialism and the Apartheid system.

Furthermore, my culture and ethnicity have been manipulated to suit the industrial colonial capitalism and apartheid system. In this case, my ethnic group, the Shangaani people, have over the years migrated to different countries in Southern Africa – such as Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa. However, the languages and dialectics of the Shangaani people of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa (the Vatsonga people) are different, meaning they have social and cultural differences and varied political dynamics. The aforementioned differences between Shangaani groups as well as their identities were largely shaped by the colonial regimes under which they lived in different countries. Similarly, black is the name given by somebody else to black people as Mbembe argues. Put differently, blackness is external to black people – black people did not invite the notion that they are black and therefore they are different, blackness was imposed upon them in the same way tribal distinctions were imposed large ethic groups.

Mbembe, in borrowing from W E Du Bois’s theory of “double consciousness” , has noted that black people have to continuously keep it in mind that there is a way other people perceive them and they cannot free themselves from this gaze because the way people perceive them has consequences. This does not only bring psychological consequences but also individual consciousness. For example, Mbembe has contended that black people are defined as a problem and Du Bois questions how it feels to be defined as a problem as a person. Furthermore, Mbembe is clear that one cannot change history but can decide how to shape their identity against negative labels. Mbembe  believes that blackness can be turned into a positive identity that is associated with positive traits by black people themselves.

Using notion of blackness as the positive proposition come out following the analysis that notion of blackness has historically carried as continuous insults and other demeaning stereotypes imposed on black people by white supremacist discourses. Hence, Mbembe argues that blackness was used both as mechanism for objectification and degradation. He further argues that, contrary to this, strength can be drawn from notion of blackness. For instance, the South Africa’s government through its Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and Affirmative Action has offered some black people strength from receiving financial support from the state because of the historical marginalisation the faced under the colonial state and apartheid state.[1] Mbembe acknowledges that colour black has no meaning and exist only in reference to power that invited it to infrastructure that supports it and contrast it with other colours. As Mbembe (page 155) argues that:

“The Black Man could not become an authentic human, that is, a human like all others, capable of doing what all humans have the right to do and exercising the kind of authority intrinsic to any human worthy of the name over themselves, others and nature”

Moreover, Mbembe contends that blackness always stands in a relationship with power and is capable of transforming it. Mbembe draws from Marcus Garvey and Aimé Fernand David Césaire with aim of turning the notion of blackness into the subject of an essential positive conversation. Revolutionary black intellectuals such as Garvey and Césaire used the notion of blackness as the subject of conversation that developed an empowering discourse, politics and debate about the meaning of black – which was given to the other. Mbembe clearly, believes and illustrates that blackness can be utilised as mechanism of opposing oppression and as a device of emancipation.

Furthermore, following Mbembe’s argument of using blackness as liberation and following my own ontological experiences. For example, in 2015 I was part of the black students who initiated the #FeesMustFall movement following the University of Witwatersrand proposal to increase fees by 11per cent. My experience as black student was understood in relation to other many black students who cannot afford fees and the mostly black students confronted with financial exclusion. In the same breath, I was part of the largely black student leadership which mobilised and organised students to fight for free education and perceived this as the mechanism that would give institutional access to education to the many black students ascending from poor background.  Looking at my subjective experience at the liberal and cosmopolitan University of Witwatersrand – I am alienated from my culture, language, and society because of the curriculum whose content focuses on American and European modernist theory.

Mbembe acknowledges that slavery was used as way of oppressing the other – which has inherited black colour. For example, the plantation was the main institution of the slavery which was aimed at weakening the capacity of slavery to guarantee their social reproduction occurs in a way that they will never unite and revolt. However, revolt was possible in the 1791-1804 slave revolution in Saint Domingue which defeated the French arms and establish the first black state. Here, the Haitian revolution affirms Mbembe’s argument that the notion of blackness as oppressive mechanism can be used as a vehicle for unification and liberation.

According to Trouillot the Haitian revolution “challenged the ontological and political assumptions of the most radical writers of the Enlightenment” (page 108). Similar to Mbembe  he uses his blackness as liberation by challenging modernist epistemology of the West – by producing a new episteme on the account of his experience as the “other” or black and challenges the scientific racism which posits the other as not intellectual. Indeed, Mbembe  offers new theoretical way of understanding social, political and cultural dynamics of the subaltern. Using blackness as tool of liberation has capacity to produce new knowledge from perspectives of those who are oppressed and marginalized because they are black.

However, Mbembe notes that slavery as a system of brutality has somatic dimension referring to the body with an intention to immobilize the body of black people and eventually attack their nervous systems and take away the capacity of its victim to create symbolic power. For example, he argues that the body of black people has locked itself in an inferiority complex while the body of white locked itself in superiority complex. Mbembe presented us with questions of the future – which was always central to resistance against slavery. Furthermore, Mbembe asserted that slaves tried to create a future of their own independence and formulated themselves as a free subjects seeking to create new identity.

In addition, according to Mbembe Garvey attempted to offer positive perspectives on blackness, on identity and legacy of slavery that will liberate people and embrace unity – and give birth to a new kind of human or humanity. Mbembe, drawing from Garvey, argues that a new identity was to be formed on the basis of fragmented experience of slavery that was going to create new type of identity, not going back to the past. Hence, Garvey argued that identity was important and established his campaign and movement called “Back to Africa.” Of course, Mbembe provided the argument that the notion of Africa remains mythical and abstract. In Garvey’s arguement Africa was deemed as a place which was the name of the promise of the reversal of history of oppression and slavery. In this Mbembe highlighted the marginalized black activist and scholars which challenges metanarratives scholars.

Another black revolutionary scholar Mbembe invoked is Aimé Césaire the founder of the theoretical intellectual movement called the Negritude[2] Movement. The Negritude movement stressed that black people are surely different from white people, not only physically but intellectually. Given the fact that black people have much of natural relationship with the world which is organic. Césaire pointed out that black respect and understand ecological issues by not destroying their nature. However, Mbembe argues that this relationship was a double-edged sword – because while Césaire praises black people for being part of environment and co-exist in harmony with ecology, Mbembe counters Césaire’s assertion, arguing that living in harmony with nature could have caused black civilisations to not pursue scientific and technological endeavours. In this regard is Mbembe means that black pre-colonial black civilisations were historically not educated and lacked aspiration to develop science due to their disinterest in controlling nature. Some might build on the perspective to argue that historically, black civilisations have been respecting nature to their detriment.

However, as highlighted earlier the Hegelian dialectics of personhood, Mbembe further extends the argument by contending that there are many varieties of human beings and that we have in our own way and European have their way. In this regards, there is no universal model of humanity and progress of humanity offered by Europe. In this case Europe represent their model of humanity we our model of humanity. Mbembe borrowing from Fanon explicitly argued that white colonisers internalise domination – colonialism and racism have violated the colonised bodies and for colonised to heal themselves, they need humanity.

In addition, for Fanon violence is one of the mechanisms of liberation because was initiated to undermine colonial rule and give black people[3] the sense of agency which was taken by colonial regime. However, Mbembe opposes Fanon’s view by arguing that violence provides people with the sense of initiative but create psychological injuries – has its own psychological consequences. However, Mbembe’s rejection of Fanon’s violence as self-emancipation against colonised have its own consequences. Here, Mbembe does not offer new theoretical framework to achieve liberation without violence. Looking at my ontological experience, during #FeesMustFall I and many other students witnessed and experienced brutalisation and violence from the police as a response to student protests and this experience resulted in psychological trauma for many.

This review has shown the manner in which Mbembe’s argument on blackness as two distinctive dimensions – one as dehumanized being and the other dimension which show that blackness can be used to form a positive being. Hence, he reiterates that black people have no power over changing the history but have power to shape their identity in the future. The review draws from ontological experience of the author of this review and argues that indeed black people can shape the future of their identity – the participation in #FeesMustFall was to fight for decolonized education that focus in on the recurring of African orientation content and resistance against Euro-American modernity hegemony.

Ashley Nyiko Mabasa

Wits SRC General Secretary and YCLSA Wits Branch Secretary

 

References

Hegel, 1977. Hegel Phenomenology of Spirit. London: Oxford University Press.

Marx, 1867. Das Capital volume I

Mamdani, 1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late. Princeton: Princeton University Press

Masondo, D., 2010. Zuma Economic Empowerment. s.l.:City Press.

Mbembe, A., 2017. Critique of Black Reason. Johannesburg: Wits Press

Trouillot, M., 1995. Silencing the Past. s.l.:USA-Beacon.

 

[1] However, David Masondo have argued that Black Economic Empowerment does not bring meaning transformation of black people as it is narrow and serve most political connected elites.

[2] Meaning blackness

[3] Referring to those colonised such as South Africans, Zimbabweans, and black people of Mozambique etc.

Accommodation for students not for profit

Last week, on the afternoon of 27 September 2018, Wits University students mobilised and organised themselves to march towards the City of Johannesburg Municipality to hand a memorandum to Mayor Herman Mashaba demanding that the municipality does not increase rates, to avoid a rise in student accommodation costs.

The struggle for affordable accommodation is ongoing against renter-capitalists who seek to turn universities into profit-making machinery. Accommodation is supposed to be affordable; however, capitalism’s rentiers take advantage of the scarcity of accommodation for students and charge high prices, such as in the case of South Point and Student Digz in Braamfontein for University of Johannesburg and Wits students.

This struggle for affordable accommodation renders the introduction of free education meaningless. It is clear that free education is a historic victory for students. It was not achieved for free, but through students’ massive protests against the government with some serious consequences — some student activists are facing jail and others, such as Khaya Cekeshe, remain in jail.

In addition, the struggle for affordable accommodation is intrinsically linked with other social movements such as the Reclaim the City movement in Cape Town, which advocates for public land to be developed and used for affordable housing. This struggle is not dissimilar to the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement struggle, which is fighting for the government to use the land to address the housing crisis in that country. In this case, in 2015 the Joao Pinheiro Foundation reported that there was a housing deficit of 6.2 million houses in Brazil – meaning 6.2 million family units did not have housing.

The student accommodation crisis needs to be addressed or the government will be confronted with a massive protest that can threaten its legitimacy, as #FeesMustFall 2015 and 2016 did. Government’s symbolic legitimacy depends on people’s satisfaction with government performance. The student cry for affordable accommodation should be a priority. Accommodation is an essential need for students and people in general, as The Freedom Charter alluded to in 1955:

“There Shall be Houses, Security, and Comfort! All people shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security; Unused housing space to be made available to the people; Rent and prices shall be lowered, food plentiful and no-one shall go hungry; A preventive health scheme shall be run by the state…”

This year marks 63 years since The Freedom Charter was adopted. It explicitly outlined that rent and purchase prices for land and housing shall be lowered. However, students in our universities sleep in libraries, go to classes hungry and are faced with highly priced accommodation.

All of the aforementioned challenges benefit the rentier capitalists. For example, being a student at Wits University, staying at The Wits Junction accommodation, a student expected to pay the deposit of R13,000 and the rounded-off accommodation price a year ranges from R55,000 to R65,000 for 10 months. Private accommodation such as South Point buildings, which is 40 percent owned by the Unemployment Insurance Fund through the Public Investment Corporation, charges very high prices:

Johannesburg South Point KSI Braamfontein 2018 Prices:

	Rent pm	Rent pa (10 months)
Single room	R 4,375.00	R 43,750.00
2 Sharing	R 3,525.00	R 35,250.00
3 Sharing	R 3,200.00	R 32,000.00

South Africa is a country with inequality, poverty and unemployment. All those problems mostly affect black people. Eddie Webster, David Francis and Imraan Valodia reported that:

“The richest 10% owns 95% of South Africa’s wealth which are products of an economic and social system that continues to produce inequalities.”

Student from backgrounds of poverty, with parents faced with unemployment and low income, cannot afford accommodation and they are likely to drop-out.

South Africa’s education system is supposed to be a vehicle to reduce inequality and elevate people from poverty. The government needs to provide students with affordable accommodation that will make the schooling environment conducive.

This correlates with the government’s commitment to making an environment conducive for investors to the point that it subsidises the automotive industry to the tune of R23-billion. Numerous subsidies and bailouts of industry prove that government has the capacity and will to subsidise sectors of the economy it deems essential to economic development.

The government needs to buy buildings near universities and TVETs and renovate those buildings to provide affordable student and varsity workers’ accommodation. This accommodation will not be driven solely by profit-making but it will boost the ANC’s 54th National Conference resolution of building the national democratic society characterised by the developmental state.

The envisaged developmental state must increase the population’s access to education because in the 21st century ideas and knowledge will drive economic growth. The vision of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is centred around technological education in which countries with a low quality of education will likely be spectators due to lack of innovation, production of ideas, and democratisation of knowledge.

The accommodation crisis will never be resolved by universities alone — national and local government have to play their part. For instance, student numbers at the urban-located Wits University have increased drastically from about 19,000 in 1999 to about 37,000 today. The then Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, said in 2012 that government would be unable to solve the shortage os 200,000 university beds.

The Higher Education and Training Department’s September 2011 report on the ministerial committee for the review of the provision of student housing at South African universities suggested that given the dire shortage of suitable student accommodation, a public-private partnership model recommended that:

• Given the dire shortage of suitable student accommodation, public-private partnerships in the form of student villages, particularly in the metropolitan areas, should be explored further;

• Mechanisms designed to foster and enhance co-operation between all stakeholders involved in the provision of student housing and accommodation need to be established, under the auspices of the department.

• An investigation into universities’ use of reserves for priorities such as student housing should be undertaken.

• A “wealth tax” mechanism should be explored as a way of increasing residence access to disadvantaged students.

The government must address the accommodation crisis. Great sacrifices were made to establish a people’s state. In the same breath; students will not get affordable accommodation without a fight — students have to mobilise and organise themselves. The protest by Wits University students on 27 September was only the beginning.

In response to student protests, our government must establish a solidarity economy and green universities. For example, Stephen Devereux of the National Research Foundation told the National Colloquium on Access to Food for students that more than 30% of students are food insecure. Building green universitites will mean that our universities will start installing renewable energy that can result in universities spending less on electricity, which would mean more funds available for affordable accommodation.

Making student accommodation affordable and conducive will greatly contribute to reducing university dropouts and failure rates. If the environment for learning is conducive our country will begin to produce knowledge, to be innovative and be a participant in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Inversely, lack of a comforting environment for learning and for producing ideas contributes to the underdevelopment of our country.

Providing affordable accommodation for students will contribute to former president Nelson Mandela’s dream of seeing the downtrodden using education as a vehicle for upward mobility. As he asserted:

“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”

The government and private sector need to play their joint role of providing feasible student accommodation. The Wits University students protest “Land is Accommodation” is a revolutionary cause, along with movements such as Reclaim the City in Cape Town. This struggle is the struggle to protect the poor and working class’s safety and dignity.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-10-01-the-ongoing-struggle-for-affordable-accommodation-renders-free-education-meaningless/

Ashley Nyiko Mabasa

Wits University Students Representative Council (SRC) Secretary

Race, Ethnicity and National Question – Learning from Stuart Hall

 

 

Introduction

Race, ethnicity and the national question are significant concepts for the understanding of the ongoing resistance against and for the social formation. Race, ethnicity and national question – these concepts continue to be relevant to contemporary South Africa. This review will critically examine Stuart Hall’s seminal book in 2017, “The Fateful Triangle: Race, Ethnicity and Nation.” Race in countries such as South Africa and United States continues to be eminent issue – other scholars such as Stuart Hall whom I will be using his argument to support my argument that the nation and race are social constructed.  This paper argues that race and nation is not scientific concept but social construct like other social constructs such as, gender, class or what Judith Butler calls hetre-normative sexuality– couched on socio-historical culture.

This paper further argues the conceptualization of ethnicity by Stuart Hall and shows the junction between race, nation. Moreover, this paper will further use Stuart Hall’s approach on the national question. This paper will show how Stuart Hall’s aforementioned approach relates to South Africa’s social formation.  In this case, I acknowledge that South Africa continues to battle with resolving issues of race, ethnicity and the national question. Furthermore, I will use Polyculturalism explanation of the  formation of the nation states viz-a-viz resurgence of ethnic consciousness in South Africa. I will show how Polyculturalism can be used to understanding of the formations of nation-states in Europe and how it is different from Africa which experienced colonialism.

 

Theoretical conception of race and South Africa’s experience

 

The point of departure is that, race is not dissimilar to language which is fundamental to culture. Hence, Stuart Hall sees race as a cultural and historical manifestation rooted in cultural difference which is not per se linked with genetic, physiological or biological difference. Pallo Jordan[1]concurred with Stuart Hall in conceptualizing the race in reflective to South Africa’s historically and contemporary social formation:

“race is nonetheless a social and political reality, in terms of which power, status, access to wealth and social position descriptive term, but one that was highly charged as indicator of advantage or disadvantage… apartheid was probably one of the most extreme expression of apartheid”

Here, Jordan and Hall agree that race is commonly conceived as physical, phenotypic differences which make racial groups socially, intellectually and emotionally distinct but that is not correct as race is a discursive construct.

In addition, viewing race on basis of physical traits overlooks its basis on cultural and socio-historical grounds. In this line Appiah cited by Hall[2]that Appiah contends that

“substituting a sociohistorical conception of race for biological conception of race for biological one…is simply to bury the biological conception below the surface, not to transcend it”

The Kwame Anthony Appiah posits race as the discursive formation[3]that makes sense in the social relationship and this social relationship is driven by the regime of truth. In another words, the regime of truth is similar to discourse which formulates the social constructs.  For example, race cannot be considered in a vacuum by “itself” because “itself” is biological traits without genealogy of social-cultural history.  In this case, Stuart Hall explains how in the 18th century the physical and cultural differences between peoples lead to the construction of the discourse of black primitive barbarian nations in opposition to mature white civilized ones as a way to accommodate both “us” and “them” in a single human group whilst previous construct relegated them to a different species which is inferior. In that way, Stuart Hall further contends that while this idea of some races as ‘other” is fixed, it is also a sliding signifier because it means many different things to many people.

South Africans imagining race based on the physical features and deducing that racial differences explained social and cultural differences was a useful tool for them because race as a discourse was a social construction through which people could be categorized and socio-cultural messages about those people could be reproduced. Furthermore, race has different purposes and therefore different meanings in different contexts. For example, Ran Greeinstein concurs with Stuart Hall by arguing that race has differed between societies and over time – in South Africa or Latin America the viewing of the race, what constitutes blackness and whiteness in particular, is not the same as these two distinctive societies social and political systems have been evolving. In other words, Hall argues that, the meaning of race is not fixed and instead changes within the given context.

In addition, StuartHall states that during conception of race as “other” is fixed, is grounded in the sliding signifier because entails that many things to different many people. Put differently, Stuart Hall argues that for many years’ scholars and activists have contended that race as a cultural construct not as in the premise of biology because even though historically science or pseudo-scientific theories were used as a service of imperialism to put forward some genetic basis to define race. For example, apartheid system in South Africa was used define and marginalize black people on the basis that black people are inferior and white are superior. Or under the world war two in Germany where Nazi fascists used pseudo-scientific theory to justify injustices and holocaust.

Furthermore, according to Hall race was given a biological meaning based on physical appearances deductions were made about genetic differences between racial groups. By giving racialization a genetic basis, white supremacists were able to construct rigid racial hierarchies in which the social and economic oppression of those characterized as being of an inferior race were justified – Apartheid was such a hierarchy. For example, the apartheid system which was founded on the basis of race and the race to justify black discrimination through colour bar which has been reproduced in South Africa’s post-apartheid. Despite the end of apartheid, patterns of racial oppression have continued in contemporary South Africa through capitalism that has eroded and reproduced forms of racial inequalities. In the same vein, apartheid government falsely discredited the fact that race was being as a social and political tool.

 

Ethnicity and globalization

 

Race has been framed as biological differences – black and white whilst ethnicity is more complex cultural identity. In this context, ethnicity is broad, and it is more subsuming term than race. In the same breath, ethnicity is packaged in cultural differences such as shared “languages, traditions, religious beliefs, customs and rituals that bind together particular groups.”[4]Put differently, ethnicity is the sense of being attached to a place and community over generations, in Hall’s cemented the fact that ethnicity is built on historically and culturally with the sense of origin – “kith and kin” or “blood and soil.”[5]

 

In South Africa ethnicity was used by apartheid system to divide and rule the natives. As Mamdani has shown, the apartheid government formulated bifurcated state in which they entrusted chiefsand indonaswith authority to govern different ethnicities in order to minimize revolt during apartheid[6]. Ethnicity is embedded in the institution of national and cultural origin. Hall has shown that ethnicity hybrid of ethnicity by diaspora societies– he calls it ethnocization of racial taxonomies. For example, black people in America have adopted ethicize national description such as African  American including the black Caribbean and Asian migrant communities in Britain called themselves black British.

In addition, the rapidly increasing of ethnicization is as the result of mass migrations that start globally in 1900s.  As the results, Black British identification is the hybrid ethnicity in which British diasporas have created themselves as new subjects.  However, Caribbean and Asian ethnicities in Britain or Africans in United States are united because they share the historical roots. Other thinkers have argued that mass migration poses a threat to ethnicities. In addition to the creation of the new subject ethnicity – Black-British identification show another threat to the fixed notion of race and notion of duality between white and black in Britain because some can be both Black and British. This made Stuart Hall invoke the racist slogan which entails how some racists responded to the Black-British moniker point it: “There Aint’t No Black in the Union Jack.”[7]

Another threat of ethnicity is globalization which means the compression of time and space – this follows by the disruption of the settler borders and integration of different national frontiers. Indeed, ethnicity it is tied by cultural identity, thus cultural theorists characterizing modernity as the late modernity contend that there is potent trend toward global independence which is leading to breakdown of all strong identities. For example, Mcdonald in South Africa has managed to become glo-calised – meaning they have been able to take America productions of food and mix them with our local experience. Mcdonald in China they sell Chinese food. Despite that, in South Africa Chinese have been able to ecstatically build Chine malls with largely chines products.

 

National question in South Africa

Nation is simply the question of belonging[8]and citizenship; however, in this case nation focuses on ethnicity and cultural differences. Borrowing from “Janus-like” nature of national identity in 1994 is constitutive of mutually increasingly open and hybrid and closed and fundamentalist. Here Benedict Anderson’s analogy that the nation is like a “imagined community,” in which Hall clearly argues that doesn’t exist and therefore that the nation does not exist, it exists in myth. Moreover, Stuart Hall further contended that:

“We should think of national cultures, then, as discursive-like in their mode of constructing collective identity. Organized around the national signifier, whose function is to represent difference-as-unity, to make all constituent element present as identity…”[9]

Furthermore, Hall has expressed the fact that British and English are often used interchangeably these terms operate as a “closed, unitary, homogeneous, essentialist, and originary”[10]term. Notwithstanding, the discursive power relations between the English and Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish this is packaged in the so-called United Kingdom.

In relation South Africa, the national question has been ongoing debate as South Africa is multi-racial and multi-ethnicity nation. In simple terms, national question is largely the question of belonging. This is led Hall into argue against a fixed conception of migration as loss and of the disporic experience as the nation deprived of one’s authentic identity. Because discursive formation not only denies the process of continuous identification but also omit the complexity of ethnocization or hybrid of different ethnicities.

In addition, Hall logically reached conclusion by believing that identification that asks “not who we are but who we can become.” This shows that nation same as race and ethnicity are social constructs. Hence, for instead, South Africa’s homeland institutionalised nations within black people and deprive them of citizenship but subjects of traditional authorities. Similarly, to the diasporas which comprises of cultural formations which cuts across and interrupt the settled shape of race which Hall call ethnos.

Polyculturalism and national questions

Polyculturalism is at rise – polyculturalism is political aspect of culture. The Most variety of culture, communities and social groups are not only concerned with being recognized and given equal value, it is also about developing political claims to have all forms of political rules, structures of governance, self-determination – it is a process of challenging centrality of power that formulated the nation-state as the single centre of the society. For example, the Referring to those colonised such as South Africans, Zimbabweans, and black people of Mozambique etc. English and Afrikaaners convened in 1910 to form Union of South Africa in which they undermined the different communities that existed such as Zulu kingdom which was the largest political unit– the Union of South Africa centralised the political rules and structures of governance, through this it established the single centre of power that controls all aspects of the society.

Historically and contemporarily, South Africa had variety of cultures and racial groups which argued that they deserved to rule themselves and different communities with claims to control their own polity autonomously from territorial government. For example, Afrikaaner Orania which is a community attempting to govern themselves autonomously from South Africa’s nation state. Centralising of the power to the national state led to the rise of dominant state in other territories as this process goes back to the European epoch of 18th and 19th century.

Furthermore, the mistake that scholar make is that they cannot distinguish the process of formation of the state insofar as national questions is concerned.  In this regard, there was a process of unification of different territories in 19th century, this undergone two different routes but arrived at the same conclusion. Jean and John Comaroffs pointed out that one of the process was the unification of many different political entities in a centralise nation state. For instance, countries such as Germany and Italy did not exist until unified political entities in the late 19th century. Of course, the process of Germany unification essentially involved taking different of independent, autonomous political communities and merging them together in a modern nation state, that controls the entire national territory. The reason behind the unification of Germany was that all people spoke the same language and could live together in the abundance of the single state.

However, other process that leads to the rise of the dominant state was to unify different polities into one powerful nation- state. This includes the creation of the nation state from empires by discarding external territories and unifying country around all ethnic territory. For example, Britain is a product of the revolution empire and within itself integrated external territories such as Scotland into the nation state. Consequently, the process of unification generated independent centralised states; many of the ethnic differences remained but were regarded as an insignificant legacy of ethnic differences without any political differences. Contrary to the process of unification European countries, African countries undertook different process because unification and process of state formation happened as colonial process not organic process. For instance, South Africa became the unified country because colonial conquest not through different territories convening together as in Europe – but because unification was imposed on them by colonial regime.

Resolving national question through Polyculturalism

Stuart Hall explaining of ethnicity and nation is not convincing without understanding of Polyculturalism. To explain the creation of ethnicity by colonial state and enforced national unification with the aim of centralising power to the state colonial which they were governing. Polyculturalism is taking all the legacy of different cultures, distinct communities and using them to formulate political claims which packaged the challenges of the nation-state.

Moreover, the creation of the Homelands or Bantustands in the 1970s occured under the claim of tradition authority to independent tribes to have independent political power and authority which challenges the central state. However, the tribal authority was intended to minimize the revolt of black people and at the same time was a mechanism which was used by colonial government to divide and rule colonized nations.  However, this mechanism of nation state was challenged – for example, in Sibasa villange in Limpopo Venda people and Tsonga speaking people formulated new identity known as ‘Venture” signifying the mixture of Venda and Xitsonga languages and cultures. This was a spontaneous resistance to central modern nation state of apartheid.

 

Conclusion

 

I have attempted to critically discuss Stuart Hall conceptualisation of race, ethnicity and nation insofar as South Africa is concern. Race is a social construct marked by the cultural differences which is not linked with genetic difference. In other words, if one knows other people biological trait does not mean one know their cultural history. Though, what makes black people united America and European countries is the social history of slavery. Whilst in South Africa was reinforce unity of black people is social, cultural and economic history of exclusion by colonial and apartheid state. Ethnicity is also the share of cultural, language and customs, however, ethnicity has been disrupted by globalization since it is not independent of time and space. One can be Indian originating at India can find their customs in Britain such as food. I also argued that nation which is about the cultural belonging and origin – however on the national question, Stuart Hall is not convincing and applicable in South Africa because there was not unification of the state, but the state was formed as a conquest of colonialization. Finally, Polyculturalism is important theoretical perspective to be explore as a tool to be use to understanding national question and possibility of nation building.

 

 

 

[1]2000 November, Umrabulo: “Allocative Capital for Productive Investment.”

[2]Hall. P49

[3]Discursive formation extracted from the work of Michel Foucault’s The Archaeology of Knowledge (L’Archéologie du Savoir, 1969.

[4]Hall Page 83

[5]Ibid, 17

[6]  Mahmood Mamdani “Citizen and subject” 1996

[7]Stuart Hall 153

[8]David Masondo “Tribalism, language and the national question in post-apartheid SA” 2015

[9]Ibid 141

[10]Ibid 157