The struggle continues
We Are the Poors: Community struggles in post-apartheid South Africa
By Ashwin Desai
2002
Monthly Review Press, New York
156 pages
Reviewed by Ziggy Melamed
Apartheid might have ended in 1994 but the struggle has not ended, it has merely changed its shape as new forms of community solidarity and resistance have emerged to fight for rights to housing, water and electricity, and workers’ rights. Material inequality has deepened and in response to this communities have forged new and dynamic political identities. It is these new forms of community resistance that Ashwin Desai records and analyses in We are the Poors: Community struggles in post-apartheid South Africa. Desai documents the real stories of those suffering and struggling in the South African townships, the ‘struggle electricians’ who reconnect their neighbours’ power; the grannies and aunties who blockade narrow flights of stairs in their tenement buildings to prevent the police from carrying out evictions; the entire communities that react to the arrival of new water meters by revolting, smashing the meters and chasing away the installers. It is "first and foremost an account from the frontlines of the establishment’s undeclared war on the poor. It is a heart-warming report because the war no longer seems to be one-sided".
Unlike the party-dominated struggle against apartheid, there is a quantitative difference, as Desai says, "these protests were not driven by ideology but by the need to survive and their desire to live decently". Such is the strength of these movements, and due to publicity they have received, academics and politicians are now debating their significance in forums such as the Social Movements Conference which was held in Johannesburg in October 2004.
In We are the Poors Desai shows how South Africa’s poor and the workers, in the townships of KwaZulu Natal, and on the factory floor have learned from the mistakes made in the struggle against apartheid and now struggle against the former political activists who have become officials in the new government. These ex-activist officials complain about a prevailing ‘culture of non-payment’ as a useless legacy from the anti-apartheid struggle and call any critics counter-revolutionaries, agitators or radicals – even as it cuts off water and slips eviction notices under doors. But "there [is] simply no income in these areas. What had taken root was an economics of non-payment".
Much of South Africa's liberation struggle had a near-religious faith in a small group of leaders, but now there is a growing disillusionment with party politics and the parliamentary system. Those politicians who try to use or influence the new community struggles are faced with laughter and derision. In Chatsworth, Durban, w
here Desai focuses much of his book, the election turn out in 2000, which saw Thabo Mbeki elected president, was 20 per cent. It was 15 per cent during the hated tricameral system of the apartheid era. "People came to see that lobbying and due process was a futile fob-off when live ammunition was fired at them while they were begging for just 30 minutes more to obtain a court order preventing their eviction. Although tragedy constantly haunts those who operate in Chatsworth, the heavy-handed response of the authorities has been a blessing. It has founded a politics that is unrepentant and unusually clear," writes Desai.
‘The current struggles take the forms of legal challenges to the evictions and cut-offs;‘emergency’ reconnections by ‘struggle electricians’ and ‘struggle plumbers’; and land invasions and workplace strikes’
He vividly describes the history and background to the areas he writes about, putting the current situation into context. The current struggles take the forms of legal challenges to the evictions and cut-offs; forming community organisations and linking with groups from other areas; ‘emergency’ reconnections by ‘struggle electricians’ and ‘struggle plumbers’; mass action against evictions; demonstrations to and occupations of the houses of the councillors and officers responsible for the decisions; disconnecting the water and electricity of these officers; land invasions and workplace strikes that involve a whole community. Desai describes anti-eviction actions in Chatsworth:
"In May 1995, the city council’s new housing director and former [community] activist called for an increase in rentals in the Greater Chatsworth area …. It took the city council two years of democracy before they called upon the chief constable, once again, to fetch the police dogs from the kennels and reach for the tear-gas canisters in the Old Fort Road armoury. In May 1996, a detachment of 50 security personnel rolled into Unit 3 in Chatsworth in four-wheel-drive pickups and began disconnecting water and electricity, throwing furniture and other belongings on to the street, before sealing doors of flats that were suddenly empty. It is impossible to chronicle how disillusionment turned into dismay and finally antagonism".
In 1998 one particular round of evictions in Chatsworth ended in one death and several injuries. There was a spontaneous and surprisingly well-attended protest of 2,000 people at Durban City Hall but "no organisation to absorb and direct the militancy. Many people were so terrified that they went without food to keep up with payments". But then the community started to take the offensive – for example going to politicians’ houses and also speaking to the gangsters to tell them not to trouble the vulnerable people in the area. The community in Chatsworth celebrated Diwali, the annual Hindu festival of lights, by holding a Festival of No Lights, casting the local City Council as a satanic villain pushing them into darkness.
They also took Durban city council to court, claiming that the evictions went against their human rights to shelter and water. The council’s reaction was to attempt to get the people to buy the houses, after paying their rent arrears in full. A council administration entourage arrived in Chatsworth, to ‘sell’ the houses. "After the protesters had spent two hours encircling the room, the process was forced to stop. It had become clear to the officials that there were no takers for that deal". When one of the officials accused the group of being ‘privileged Indians’ an elderly woman screamed back "We are not Indians, we are the poors". Within minutes this could be also heard as ‘we are not Africans, we are the poors".
Desai records three evictions that were to take place in Chatsworth in February 2000. The first was Mr Biswanath, an epileptic man who lived with his niece and carer, Vanessa, her husband and one of their three children. (The other two were with her father, as the council official would not let the whole family live there). Vanessa and her husband sell cosmetics and make R500 ($70) a month. The police arrived at the eviction with ten vehicles and two platoons of armed men. Firing tear-gas they entered the premises. Mr Biswanath suffered a seizure. All the goods were thrown out of the flat.
The next person on the list that day was Mr Mhlongo. A single African father of four children and self-employed mechanic. A group of over 150 people, mostly Indian women, blockaded the stairs to Mhlongo’s flat. They asked the police to wait for half an hour while they attempted to gain a postponement from the courts. The police did not wait. They fired live ammunition and tear gas at those preventing the eviction. The onlookers were so angry that they all joined in. "The ferocity and dedication of the community forced the security forces to call for further backup in order to retreat from the area, without effecting the eviction".
The third family on the eviction list were squatting a flat after living for two years in a shed without water or electricity, and with snakes nesting in the floor. They had been on the council housing list for nine years. The community and media presence was so strong that the authorities did not even attempt the eviction.
Desai also records the struggles in Tafelsig and notes: "In the context of the relentless poverty in Tafelsig, the role women play in building structures of communal responsibility has become a vital part of day-to-day existence. The meetings that launched the campaign were mostly comprised of women, and in the crowds that confront the sheriffs and police, women are always prominent."
The multi-racial Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign was born through linking such struggles in the Cape Town area.
"The initiative of poor communities in self-organising, rehousing evicted families, and reconnecting disconnected water supplies (often using inventive local technology), and the courage of campaigners to fight the police in the streets, has meant that to enforce the war on the poor in Cape Town is no simple thing … By and large the actions of the council grind to a halt."
Between 1994 and 2002 more than a million people across South Africa had been disconnected from municipal water supplies because they could not pay, and Desai tells uses examples to show how this has become an area of struggle.
Thulisile Christina Manqele left her job as a domestic worker after 12 years, due to ill health, aged 28. She did receive any severance pay, let alone a pension. She has four children of her own and permanently looks after three others. In 2000, already behind with her rent and without electricity – her water was cut off. She turned first to neighbours, then, as their water was cut off too, to a leaking pipe and then a stagnant, contaminated stream. The Westcliff Flats Residents Association, took the case to court as a test case. The Water Services Act gives everyone the right to a ‘basic water supply’ and 6 kilolitres of water free of charge. But the council argued that Thulisile had previously illegally re-connected her water; had given water to neighbours; the council could not police the restriction of use to the free amount; and the court had to consider the 8,000 other households that would want their water turned back on in order to have the free 6 kilolitres. The courts ruled against Thulisile, and her water was disconnected as a ‘credit control’ mechanism.
Desai criticises court cases as consuming energy and deflecting from mass mobilisation. But they "also generate publicity and provide focal points for mobilisation. Linkages with other communities similarly affected by service cuts have also occurred on the back of court cases. They have the potential to serve as a lightning rod for similar actions in other areas of the country."
Mpumalanga township in KwaZulu Natal was violently divided during the anti-apartheid struggle with the ANC and Inkatha youth tearing each other apart. It is also a place of desperate economic need. A University of Natal survey concluded that in 2001 the average income per person was R23.70 per month. The council’s electricity and rates bills are R200 a month.
Nowadays there is a vibrant, militant and united struggle against both the ANC-dominated local government and the Inkatha-controlled provincial government. This was sparked in 1999 when the council tried to install water meters. The community reacted by ripping up the meters and chasing the contractors away. Running battles were fought with the police and the broken water meter gadgets were left strewn everywhere.
But there was also police repression, arrests, impoundment of communal cars, and two people shot dead by a shadowy ANC vigilante group. But the most clever and dangerous tactic employed by the council was to employ local people, desperate for piecework, to install the meters, thereby risking a return to violence within the community. But the community realised this and agreed to suspend the violent sabotage policy and instead waited for the first non-payment disconnection letters. In March 2002 the whole community closed down, schools, taxi ranks and roads were shut as tens of thousands of people marched to the local rent office. There, they demanded to pay R10 a month. They got let in 50 at a time and the UniCity officials had to process each singular payment. There was, of course, also much singing and ridiculing of the president, the mayor and local councillors. The idea caught on and there were ‘ten rand marches’ in Tafelsig, Chatsworth, Wentworth, Umlazi and Mpumalanga.
Electricity supply has also proved to be an area where communities have found themselves in conflict with the state. The government made a commitment to privatise all the public companies in South Africa and in order to make these companies more attractive to potential buyers, the government tried to clear any outstanding debts. In 2001 a manager at Eskom, the parastatal power utility, announced: "The aim is to disconnect at least 75 per cent of Soweto residents." About 20,000 households a month were cut off during 2001.
Eskom security forces assaulted and bullied members of the community and opened fire on protestors. The community marched to the Soweto mayor’s house. As he was not there to agree to their demands they pledged to "embark on a campaign of mass non-payment". After struggle electricians reconnected 3,000 houses in six months, Eskom announced that it would not be cutting off those who could not pay.
The Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee also went to the home of the Johannesburg Mayor Amos Masondo and disconnected his water supply. Councillor Rocky Naidoo also had his electricity and water disconnected at his house in May 2001.
The nature of workers’ struggle was also transformed thanks to the ANC government’s pro-business stance. "In one four-month period in 1989 there were 30 industrial actions at VWSA [the carmaker]. These included nine strikes and 15 work stoppages. Bit by bit the management had conceded decent conditions. But now, management was using every opportunity to roll back the gains of the 1980s".
Desai records the workers struggle at oil company Engen and its links to the community. The Engen plant on the outskirts of Durban is the single biggest employer of people living in Wentworth. Once a year Engen employs thousands of temporary workers for six weeks during the annual factory overhaul.
In 2001 a strike was planned. But there was a danger of the anger turning in on the community itself, either the scabs, or the temp agency bosses, many of whom also lived in Wentworth. But the workers invited prominent members of the community to be on their organising committee. A joint body called the Industrial Relations Forum was formed and operated as both the strike committee and the equivalent of the residents associations in the other areas.
"The executive of [the union]… devolved their organization into a loose and very broad grouping of activists and community and religious leaders. The unemployed (some would say "gangsters") were represented at the discussions and their inclusion played a crucial role in cutting off Engen’s ability to recruit scabs. All the time the workers tried to ensure Engen was totally isolated from reaching potential allies in the community, by … "getting there first" in the information battle and creating space for various interest groups to become part of the strike committee. For much of the time the union and community structures appeared as one."
The strike was solid from the beginning, despite the knowledge that this two months work was all many of the people would get all year. At the first meeting every single worker attended, along with their wives and teenage sons – "keen for action". They all put their badges needed to gain entry to the plant into a large bag and a constant roving picket was planned, but as the meeting broke up some of the key organisers were arrested and the bag of badges was taken by the police. Desai was at the meeting the next day:
"Reggie, one of the workers, takes to the stage. In a speech, replete with Durban slang, he talks of labouring at Engen for over two decades. He talks of exploitation, of being pushed around, and the hurt of still having to find employment again and again every year through a labour broker, being ‘inducted’ anew each time into a plant he built. It is a moving speech that he translates himself into Zulu for the benefit of the African ‘chargehands’ of a particular labour broker who have just joined the strike after walking off the nightshift. They form a bright blue knot in the back of the hall where they stand in their overalls. Spirits are unbelievably high. I feel transported back into the 1980s and the meetings of righteous anger against apartheid that abounded. A member of the Cape Town gang of metalworkers brought down to assist on the shut, pledges his crew’s support for the strike. He speaks in Afrikaans and the message is translated into English and Zulu".
After the meeting everyone went to the police station to demand back their badges. Not a single window in the Wentworth police station remains unbroken. Several police vans are overturned and smashed. The army moved into Wentworth using apartheid-era security legislation. The company was unable to get the community back to work and let the temp agencies know that they would accept the strikers’ demands and made a written offer to underwrite the important wage parity demand.
But now that the community had found a voice there was a sense of purpose beyond the compromises. Desai writes: "When I pointed out to one of the community leaders that they had won the strike and could just as well call it off his answer confounded me: ‘We are not striking for demands, we are striking for dignity’. I told him that Engen could not provide ‘dignity’. ‘Exactly, my friend, exactly!’ was his answer". The strike went on for another week until Engen itself negotiated with the strikers and capitulated to all their demands.
This level of organisation has gone beyond the local community, was could be seen when South Africa hosted the World Anti Racism Conference. The conference provided a focus point for the formation of the Durban Social Forum, a loose collective of the various groups such as the residents and concerned citizens groups, the Cape Town Anti-Eviction Campaign, the Anti-Privatization Forum, the Landless People’s Movement, Durban University Students, Keep Left (a group of Jo’burg Socialists), Jubilee South Africa, and SA Indymedia. The DSF organised a national march and a series of meetings and exchange visits for the various groups to get to know each other and discuss together.
But such a loose collection of groups brought problems. "It attracted the usual array who earn their keep lobbying, politicking, and gaining public notice for some or other cause. Many of the causes are noble but many of those speaking on behalf of those causes are not. The world of the NGO is a cynical yet self-righteous, populist yet undemocratic, and sympathetic yet disempowering arena." In fact when the Jo’burg contingent arrived, those very NGOs who were holding an official ‘alternative’ conference at the Cricket ground, called the police to disperse them when they wanted to camp and sleep the night there.
The DSF march was a success because it was "not a conceptual rejection of capitalism or neoliberalism, but a direct attack on the agents of the anti-poor policies in this country". Over 30,000 people attended from all over South Africa. "For the first time there was a mass based and very public reaction of the ANC… This loose collection of community-based social movements unified by their opposition to the ANC’s policies is now a significant force in South African politics…. It validated a form of collectivity, the community movements, free from the ideological inhibitions of organised labour or the tired dogmas of the Left".
The Durban Social Forum declaration is available online at http://www.monthlyreview.org/durbanstmt.htm
The question remains as to where these struggles could lead in the context of contemporary South Africa. Desai says: "The struggles … reveal much about the transition to democracy in South Africa. So often they are aimed at no more than remaining in dilapidated accommodation devoid of basic social amenities, without lights and water. And yet they are seen as a threat to the state. The poor are having to fight to remain ensconced in the ghettoes to which apartheid consigned them. Are these the revolutionary demands we make?" Are we seeing the start of a new movement based on autonomous ‘communist’ principles and the emergence of a new politics based around community activism or just desperate and isolated responses by communities under constant assault?
Within this new movement any direct action taken by ordinary people to meet their needs is not only considered justified but heroic. Whilst abstract ‘political’ identities are rejected – there is also an understanding of the global nature of capital and those struggling against it. "News of social struggles in Soweto, Zimbabwe, Bolivia and Genoa… are received with intense interest and joy." The people are interested in both the common forms of struggle and the common enemies.
Ziggy Melamed is an autonomous Marxist based in UK and Germany
