HUMAN SECURITY IN SOUTH AFRICA

Abstract

1. Introduction The gains that can be attributed to the cause of human security since the end of apartheid are significant. The right to vote, to basic education and primary health care; the introduction of an extensive social security system that has lifted many people out of poverty; the provision of affordable housing and basic services to millions, are some of the undeniable achievements of 21 years of democracy. On the regional and international fronts, South Africa has shifted from being a source of insecurity to its neighbours to being an advocate for peace on the continent, playing a prominent mediation role in conflicts such as those in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Sudan. Yet the country remains dogged by unemployment and poverty, structural inequality in the economy, the failure of some state institutions to provide adequately for the needs of all people, and failures in the criminal justice system, to name several challenges. Moreover, South Africa's formal Pan-Africanist and internationalist posture has been sullied by recurring instances of violent attacks on migrants, many of whom have fled hardship in their own countries. It could be argued that human security has not prevailed, and might even be a waning value in the South African political and social fabric. Are we in fact, seeing a reversal of gains, and the return of the traditional security approach that had characterised the apartheid years? This commentary asks whether the human security agenda has been lost in the quagmire of political, economic and social challenges confronting South Africa, and if this is the case, what can be done to arrest the trend. 2. Africa's contribution to the global discourse on human security In the global discourse, 'human security' gained currency at a particular geo-political moment, soon after the end of the Cold War. At the time, South Africa's political transition was already underway, and ideas about what should replace the state-centred notion of apartheid, were an integral part of discussions. The poverty, racial discrimination, political repression and institutionalised violence that had characterised life for black people for centuries had been a focus of struggles and campaigns for decades. The state had clearly been a source of insecurity--this was conceded by the apartheid government during the negotiations in the early 1990s. The language in which discussions around a future security dispensation was framed, spoke resoundingly of a new era of 'freedom from fear' and 'freedom from want'--the language of human security. Whilst the United Nations' (UN) 1994 Human Development Report is often cited as a decisive moment in shifting the conceptual understanding of security, it was in fact part of a long continuum of global political thought and action. Anti-colonial struggles, the establishment of the UN, the international struggle against apartheid, all contained within them a desire to rid the world of physical violence and to establish inclusive, human and just societies. Not only were these aspirations expressed in the struggles fought by many peoples and movements, they also found expression in academic analyses. (1) Even before the 1994 UN Report, the relationship between security and development was captured in the seminal 1991 Kampala Document, which emanated from a meeting convened by the chairperson of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), President Yoweri Musoveni and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, who was then chairperson of the Africa Leadership Forum (Africa Leadership Forum 1991: 4). The meeting, attended by over 500 people including several serving and former heads of state, deliberated on the prospects for Africa in the 1990s and the 21st century. It proposed the launch of a Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa (CSSDCA). It argued that the erosion of insecurity and instability were major impediments to economic integration and the socio-economic transformation of Africa. …