| Talking left and walking right | Send to a friend |
| Tuesday, 07 September 2010 21:30 |
 By Dr Azaveli LwaitamaThis think piece was scripted on a desk near a Durban hotel fifth floor window overlooking a gorgeous Kwazulu-Natal beach constantly caressed by gentle Indian Ocean waves. Viewing this rainbow nation, the new post-apartheid South Africa, from this window of the Elangeni Southern Sun Hotel, one found it difficult to see what was in common between this idyllic backdrop with the ugly statistics contained in a book whose launch last Friday this columnist witnessed. The book, Zuma’s Own Goal: Loosing South Africa’s ‘War on Poverty’, is edited by Brij Maharaj, Ashwin Desai and Patrick Bond. Africa World Press/Red Sea Press has just published it. It consists of articles that were originally presented as papers at a conference sponsored by the South Africa- Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD). In one of the articles in this book, the renowned University of KwaZulu-Natal Prof Patrick Bond presents an incisive critique of what he terms as “Mbekism.” He observes that “ the Gini coefficient soared from below 0.6 in 1994 to 0.72 by 2006 (0.8 if welfare income is excluded)”, which suggests that post-apartheid South Africa has witnessed a rise, instead of the expected fall, in income inequality. Prof Bond further observes overall, ‘the economy has become much more oriented to profit-taking from the financial markets than production of real products’. Prof Bond thus takes the view that the post-apartheid ANC dispensation under Mr. Thabo Mbeki, first as a Deputy to President Nelson Mandela, from 1994 to 1999, and as full-fledged President, from 1999 to 2008, was an example of a government that ‘talked left and walked right with confidence and eloquence.’ The luxurious South Africa one meets at the Elangeni Southern Sun Hotel is indeed difficult to align with the South Africa that until Monday this week has been suffering from a crippling strike by public sector workers including nurses and teachers. Placards carried by some of these striking workers offer a glimpse of how the low-income working class majority who previously respected and gave unwavering support to popular ANC leaders like current South African President Jacob Zuma are now beginning to slacken in their trust for these ANC leaders. One South African broad sheet, The Independent of Saturday, presented some of the messages carried by the placards, such as: “Zuma, your wives deplete state funds,” and, “Zuma took my girlfriend to Nkandla because I could not afford a house,” presumably referring to the President Zuma’s birthplace called Nkandla. Yet another screamed, “One president, one wife, one term,” while another yelled, “Zuma: give 7 per cent to the family of the bodyguard who impregnated MaNtuli on your behalf!” What is going on in South Africa with regard to acid relations between the trade union leadership and the presidency reminded me of the situation in Tanzania as well as in neighbouring Mozambique. The Secretary General of South Africa’s Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), Mr Zwelinzima Vavi, speaks plainly, when it comes to defending the interests of his trade union members, and this does not endear him to President Zuma’s flatterers. You may see parallels between Mr Vavi’s relationship with President Zuma and that, in Tanzania, between Mr Nicholas Mgaya, the Secretary of the Trade Union Congress of Tanzania (Tucta) and President Jakaya Kikwete. As for Mozambique, South Africa’s popular newspaper, the Sowetan, reported Tuesday this week that, ‘ almost 150 people have been arrested in the wake of riots the week before over soaring food and electricity prices while 10 people had been killed.’ According to South Africa’s Sunday Times, among the dead was 22-year-old Gildo Mowane who was first to fall victim to indiscriminate police shooting as the ruling party Frelimo sought to contain Mozambique’s first food riots since independence from Portuguese colonial rule. According to the Sunday Times, the food and fuel riots were prompted by a 13.4 per cent rise in electricity tariffs, an 11.7 per cent rise in water charges, and a government announcement that the price of bread would go up by 25 per cent on September1.” Mowani was not even one of the rioters. But a 23-year-old militant youth, Manuel Simayo, presumably a resident of the Chamankulu slum , on the outskirts of Maputo, told a newspaper reporter that, “ We are angry, my man, and now we want to go to the city to burn the rich people who think they have a God-given right to govern our lives as they wish.” The tide seems to be turning against parties like the ANC, Frelimo and CCM, whose leaders talk left but walk right! Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites           |
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