South African Democracy Research Articles

The Lack of Internal Party Democracy in the African National Congress: A Threat to the Consolidation of Democracy in South Africa*

This article argues that the lack of internal democracy within the African National Congress (ANC) is a threat to the consolidation of South African democracy. The ANC has leadership elections but few other elements of internal party democracy. There is a centralised style of leadership in which the National Executive Committee (NEC) or even individual leaders dominate decision-making to the exclusion of the membership and lower party structures, and there is still an adherence to Leninist principles such as ‘democratic centralism’ and the need for ‘absolute party discipline’ on the part of party members. Coupled with an intolerance of debate and dissent by the leadership, these features stifle debate of important issues and policies. Thus, bad decisions by the leadership cannot be checked within the party before becoming public policy. Since lower structures and the general membership are deprived of an opportunity to influence public policies, the government in some instances becomes unresponsive to the people's needs. Democratic centralism and the absolute party discipline required from ANC members deployed in various state institutions, especially parliament, weakens their ability to provide oversight over the executive or influence public policy that contradicts the party line. The executive is thus left unchecked and virtually free to act as it wishes where the institution of accountability is ANC-dominated. Instead of consolidating democracy, these factors could lead, eventually, to the gradual decay of liberal democracy in South Africa. Whilst multiparty democracy might well continue to exist, such democracy could be of low quality, particularly with regard to government responsiveness and accountability, given the overwhelming dominance of the ANC. Thus, internal democracy within the ANC is a prerequisite for the consolidation of South African democracy.

South African election posters: Reflecting the maturing of a democracy?

The South African democracy has survived three national and provincial elections and three local elections, since 1994. In comparison to other young democracies in Africa, South Africa has experienced a relatively stable transition to democracy. However, the ruling ANC has not been under pressure from opposition parties. Although this has helped pave the way, a dominant governing party does not necessarily encourage the growth of a mature, democratic political culture. The assumption of this article is that political parties in developing societies have a normative obligation to do more than canvas votes during election campaigns. Political parties should also be instrumental in fostering a democratic political culture by communicating democratic values, encouraging participation in the democracy and enabling voters to make an informed electoral choice. Although political posters contribute mainly to image building, the reinforcement of party support, and the visibility of the party, posters are the agenda setters or headlines of a party's campaign – it is therefore argued that political parties in developing societies also need to design political posters responsively, in order to sustain the democracy. In general it seems that the poster campaigns of parties have matured since 1999, in the sense that there was less emphasis on democratisation issues in the past, and the campaigns conformed more to the norm of Western political campaigning.

Tsuneo Yoshikuni, African Urban Experiences in Colonial Zimbabwe: A Social History of Harare before 1925; Firozi Manji and Stephen Marks (eds.), African Perspectives on China in Africa; Allison Drew, Between Empire and the Revolution: A Life of Sidney Bunting, 1873-1936; South African Democracy Education Trust, The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2; Ivor Chipkin, Do South Africans Exist?:

Tsuneo Yoshikuni, African Urban Experiences in Colonial Zimbabwe: A Social History of Harare before 1925; Firozi Manji and Stephen Marks (eds.), African Perspectives on China in Africa; Allison Drew, Between Empire and the Revolution: A Life of Sidney Bunting, 1873-1936; South African Democracy Education Trust, The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2; Ivor Chipkin, Do South Africans Exist?:

Book Review: The development decade? Economic and social change in South Africa 1994-2004

In the introductory chapter of this volume, the editor, Vishnu Padayachee, states, rightly so, that during the first five years of South African democracy, a great deal of energy went into getting the development model right. He refers to the francophone experience of development economics ranging from orthodox policies and alternative development models, as well as the South African decade of liberation from 1985 to 1995. He contends that these traditions played an important role in shaping South African development policy today, but admits that the African National Congress (ANC) and its alliance partners are now all pushing their own agendas.

Directional trends in selected aspects of rural poverty in the Eastern Cape Province: changes during the first ten years of South African democracy

This study analysed changes in demographic, gender, basic service access and agricultural production patterns in the rural black Eastern Cape Province between 1993 and 2002 in order to offer advice for future poverty alleviation strategies. It used secondary data from national surveys and the 2001 census and stratified the Eastern Cape districts into former Transkei, former Ciskei and commercial farming district sub-regions, in accordance with the pre-1994 developmental scenarios. The results showed that the demographic and basic service access changes were positive, but that pre-existing sub-regional differences had been reinforced, indicating that the populous former Transkei was being marginalised. There has been little development for rural women, agricultural production is almost negligible and employment in commercial farming has declined. Geographically targeted interventions seem to be warranted for the demographic, gender development and basic service accessibility aspects of Eastern Cape rural poverty, but improving rural production appears to be the major challenge.

Democracy’s Children? Masculinities of Coloured Adolescents Awaiting Trial in Post-Apartheid Cape Town, South Africa

This study explored the young, marginalised masculinities of 25 boys awaiting trial for various offences in Cape Town, South Africa. The boys came from impoverished areas created by Apartheid legislation and most of the boys were involved in gangs. Through their language and descriptions of practices the boys construct three intersecting discourses of masculinity, as they strive to be the toughest gangster, the sweet mommy's boy and a gentleman who provides and protects for his family. Although the boys end up in the criminal justice system awaiting trial, they still have a certain amount of agency, as they slide between discourses and temporarily become gangster superheroes. These boys' masculinities are bound up with their context: they live in a with a violent past and a tumultuous post-Apartheid present, precipitating substantially ambivalent subjectivities. Keywords: boys, masculinities, post-Apartheid, crime This study explores the young masculinities of 25 coloured,1 Afrikaans-speaking boys from the Cape Flats who were awaiting trial. The Cape Flats is a wasteland where non-white people from Cape Town, South Africa were re-settled after Apartheid legislation separated race groups in the city. This tumultuous history partly results in Cape Town having one of the highest homicide rates for a city globally, as South Africa has the third highest murder rate internationally and Cape Town is the city with the highest murder rate in South Africa (Louw, 2007). Cape Town's homicide rate is 88 per 100 000 population, much higher than the global rate of 28.8 deaths per 100 000 population (Prinsloo, Matzopoulos, & Sukhai, 2003). The contemporary Cape Flats is a hornet's nest of poverty, gangs, guns and drugs. Sixty-one percent of young people under 30 are unemployed; there are approximately 80 to 100 thousand gangsters and 130 gangs that contribute to 40% of the murders, 42% of the robberies and 70% of the crime generally in the Western Cape (Kagee & Frank, 2005; Kinnes, 2000; Samara, 2005; Standing, 2004). These gangs have become criminal empires, trading in different forms of contraband, with the result that drugs are widely available (Kinnes). Crime, drugs and gangsterism on the Cape Flats are therefore inextricably interlinked and this is the turbulent context in which we are studying the masculinities of these children of the new South African democracy.2 The boys in this study were awaiting trial for various crimes at a place of safety, where we were granted permission to conduct research. A of safety is a location where young men, under eighteen years of age, are kept while they await trial. According to the boys, five were being tried for murder (three of the boys were being tried for two counts), one for attempted murder, three for rape, one for assault, three for armed robbery, seven for housebreaking or car theft, two for petty theft, one for possession of a gun and one for throwing stones on a neighbour's roof (one made no mention of what he was being charged with). Nineteen of the 25 boys claimed to be involved with gangs on some level. Our study of these young boys' masculinities is informed by two streams of theory, both of which see masculinity as a contextually contingent phenomenon. Firstly, we follow Connell's (1995) sociological approach that identifies the existence of different masculinities and explores how these masculinities are placed in relation to one another and result in some men subordinating others. These different masculinities include hegemonic (which we will explore in more detail shortly), complicit (people who support hegemonic masculinity), subordinate (for example homosexuals) and marginalised masculinities (Connell). The boys in the current study would fall under the category of marginalised masculinity, as Apartheid and colonial dynamics result in them being marginalised by race and class. Marginalised masculinity usually comprises a large degree of machismo, as these men try to regain power lost through class and race subjugation (for other examples of marginalized masculinity, see Bourgois, 1996; Willis, 1977). …

South African Democracy Education Trust. The Road to Democracy in South Africa. Volume 1 (1960–1970). Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2004. xxviii + 756 pp. Photographs. Bibliography. Index. R299.95. Paper.

South African Democracy Education Trust. The Road to Democracy in South Africa. Volume 1 (1960–1970). Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2004. xxviii + 756 pp. Photographs. Bibliography. Index. R299.95. Paper.

Historical Memory and a New Democracy

This essay explores the meaning and the form of historical memory in the context of the young South African democracy. Differentiating between the concepts of constructive and responsive memory and the inclusive or exclusive character each can take, it attempts to determine what kind of historical memory is necessary to forge a common political enterprise in a multi-ethnic and multi-racial environment. In this regard it refers to some sharply divisive collective memories and suggests ways in which the naturally ethnocentric consciousness of any given cultural group might be supplemented and enriched by the emergence of a national consciousness built around the idea that people bond not despite their differences but because of them. The paper touches on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as an example of responsive memory focusing on the meaning of truth both in the process of dealing with the past and as a means towards reconciliation in the future.

South African democracy: role model or deviant?

Given its history of institutionalised racial discrimination and conflict, it was a remarkable achievement for the principal antagonists, the National Party (NP) government and the African National...

Exploring Teacher Identity in an Emerging South African Democracy: Bodies as Objects of Pedagogical and Professional Relations

Exploring Teacher Identity in an Emerging South African Democracy: Bodies as Objects of Pedagogical and Professional Relations

Bloodier than black and white: liberation history seen through detective sergeant Donald Card’s narrative of his investigations of Congo and Poqo activities, 1960-1965

By 1950 the African National Congress and the Natal and Transvaal Indian congresses, had already embarked on an activist road to free Africans, Coloureds and Indians from unfair discrimination, injustices big and petty, and oppression. Over the next ten years, the liberation struggle quickened into a multifronted thrust against the apartheid state, including civil disobedience, strikes and boycotts, and the transition to violent struggle. From the pioneering works such as Edward Roux’s Time Longer than Rope (1964) through a host of treatises to the latest study by the South African Democracy Education Trust, The Road to Democracy Volume 1 (1960-1970) (2004) the liberation struggle has, with few exceptions, been sketched in black and white. Scholars generally sing the praises of the seekers of the public good (the liberation movement) and excoriate the perpetrators of evil (the apartheid state and its functionaries).1 The liberation struggle did indeed involve the efforts of those aspiring to freedom, opportunity and republican virtue against those who oppressed African, Coloured and Indian people and held them hostage through legislation and denial of opportunity and who appropriated the best fruits of society for white South Africans. Political struggle, and indeed political combat, as it played out in South Africa, however, made for a messy picture that often defies the hero-andvillain narratives that had invariably been produced and which seeped into our national consciousness. This article will explore the evasions, omissions, and twists that made possible the black and white liberation history that are currently consumed. To do so the activities of the Congo or iKongo movement, will be probed into as well as that of and Poqo.2 It will be done through the story of police detective Donald Card who had been involved in almost every significant event in South African history the past five decades.3 The why of certain events and developments, including crime under the cloak of politics, are often ignored or romanticised. This included charges of torture and brutality, push so readily into the public domain – as in Red Dust, the latest drama on torture in South Africa.

Resistance, Memory, and Hope

From October 7, 2004 through May 28, 2005, thousands of Southern California residents and visitors viewed a large-scale exhibition at the California African-American Museum in Los Angeles that simultaneously afforded a rare opportunity to explore recent South African history, to reflect on the power of documentary photography, and to discover and celebrate the life of acclaimed South African photojournalist and artist Peter Magubane. Entitled “Deconstructing Apartheid: The Photography of Peter Magubane,” the exhibition showcased eighty-four photographs and artifacts documenting the egregious practices of apartheid and the stirring resistance that eventually led to a nonracial democracy in 1994. The first comprehensive display of Magubane's iconic works in the United States, the exhibition received outstanding reviews and attracted civic leaders, teachers, students from all educational levels, and the general public to the Museum, one of the premier African-American cultural institutions in the nation. Several events augmented the educational objectives of the exhibition itself. At the opening, Peter Magubane spoke about his life and works to a large audience. Throughout the eight months of the show, South African dancers, poets, and others added additional artistic dimensions that appealed especially to young visitors, including children from many area public schools. Shortly before the exhibition closed, an academic symposium with the curator and local African scholars reviewed the current prospects for South African democracy and indicated the political, economic, social, and healthcare challenges that its residents face in the early years of the new century. Written in conjunction with the exhibition, the present essay likewise invites audiences to deepen their curiosity about South African history, politics, and culture. Seeking to locate Magubane within the longer tradition of documentary photography, it provides an overview of his decades of brilliant work in the context of the turbulent history of his native land.

Transformation Tensions in Higher Education: Equity, Efficiency, and Development

Nico Cloete and Teboho Moja Transformation Tensions in Higher Education: Equity, Efficiency, and Development H IG H ER EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA SIN CE 1994 IS braided into the bargain struck by President F. W. De Klerk and prisoner Nelson Mandela—both in terms of the baggage it carried and the promises it offered. When the new government came to power in 1994 on the basis of the “implicit bargain” (Gelb, 2001) reached between the National Party and the liberation movement led by the African National Congress (ANC), there was consensus in the government of national unity that higher education needed transformation. Not as clear was the nature of the tensions implicit in the compromises that had to be made and how the trade-offs would be negotiated. In the course of 2004 many reviews of the first decade of South African democracy were published. They can be classified into two main categories: self-congratulatory eulogies reluctantly conceding a few “challenges” that need to be addressed in the next decade, and condemnatory critiques of the new government’s readiness to sell out to Washington-led neoliberal globalization in order to promote nonracial class formation. In an attempt to avoid such position taking, this review aims to show that a combination of the politics of macro social and economic processes and historical legacies in higher education led to the emergence of a number of “transformation tensions.” In social research Vol 72 : No 3 : Fall 2005 693 this paper we identify some of these tensions and argue that problems have arisen because the tensions were not anticipated during the initial policy-making process. Two related sets of tensions in the higher education sector are identified and discussed later. The transformation of higher education and the policy decisions taken to effect it fall predominantly within the tension lines of equity and development, and equity and efficiency. These are not the only tensions; there are other veiy important pres­ sures such as the tension between leadership (steering from the top) versus participation, but these will not be the subject of this article. The tensions discussed do not imply a choice between the good and the bad because all the tension points are important. The real challenge is to prioritize and pay attention to what seems most urgent while not ignoring the other end of the tension line. EQUITY VERSUS DEVELOPMENT There was strong anticipation in South Africa, as there was in the sixties and seventies in many newly independent African countries, that higher education would contribute to social and economic devel­ opment. At the infamous Accra workshop of 1973, the Association of African Universities declared that “the university in Africa occupies too critical a position to be left alone to determine its own priorities and should therefore accept the hegemony of government” (Yesufu, 1973: 45). In many countries in Africa this line of argument was used to violate academic freedom and justify political interference, and not to provide a development agenda (Moja, Muller, and Cloete, 1996). In South Africa, the stoiy has thus far been rather different, but not unlike other countries in Africa, the government is struggling to construct a socioeconomic framework that provides appropriate signals for higher education. From the first attempts to start formulating a new policy frame­ work for postapartheid South Africa (the 1992 National Education Policy Initiative), the possibility of tension between equity and development was present in policy debate. Badat, Barends, and Wolpe (1994) reasoned 694 social research that higher education would be confronted with sets of contradictions, and that the most problematic would be the tension between equity and development. For example, it was argued that a transformed, expanded, and democratized higher education system could become more equitable in terms of access for large numbers of black students registered in cheap courses, such as the then popular biblical studies and language majors. But it was also foreseen that two problems could possibly emerge out of such a system. The first was a growth in enroll­ ment figures and a massive increase in student-to-faculty ratios with the likelihood of a drastic reduction in quality. The second problem was that the choice of cheap courses would not...

The Quality of South African Democracy

There is a tendency amongst sections of the left to romanticise the most recent revolution, only then to replace it with a later one and consign it to the category of those that have failed expectations. This has happened, among others, with Vietnam, Cuba, Guinea-Bissau, and Zimbabwe. Sometimes, this has been deservedly so, as certain countries have drifted into various forms of authoritarianism and other abuses.

Potholes in The Road

The author reviews the South African Democracy Education Trust's The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 1 (1960–1970).

South Africa at Ten: Readings on Postapartheid South Africa

SOUTH AFRICA AT TEN: READINGS ON POSTAPARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA Fred Hendricks. Fault-Lines in South African Democracy: Continuing Crises of Inequality and Injustice. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2003. Discussion Paper 22. 32 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Price not reported. Paper. Terry Bell, with Dumisa Buhle Ntsebeza. Unfinished Business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth. London: Verso, 2003. 385 pp. Sources. Index. $26.00. Cloth. Sample Terreblanche. A History of Inequality in South Africa 1652-2002. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 2002. 527 pp. Appendix. Sources. Index. $43.95. Paper. Allister Sparks. Beyond the Miracle: Inside the New South Africa. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers/Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. 370 pp. Notes. Index. R.169.95/$32.50. Cloth. Hermann Gilliomee. The Afrikaners: Biography of A People. Charlottesville. University Press of Virginia, 2003. 560 pp. Bibliography. Index. $39.95. Paper. After the excitement and euphoria followed South Africa's transition to multiparty and multiracial democracy in the early 1990s, and following the transfer of from the larger-than-life Nelson Mandela to the down-to-earth Thabo Mbeki, the time has come for a sober and realistic assessment of the new South Africa at ten and to look at the other face of the miracle. This review includes a number of authors and works do precisely that. It is not often we come across a work reveals the complexities involved in South Africa's liberal democracy as vividly and concisely as Fred Hendricks's Fault-lines in South African Democracy. Based on a lecture Hendricks gave at the Nordic Africa Institute, the book focuses on two issues: the inequality and injustice inherited from the apartheid regime. His major concern is how historic compromises made during the negotiations for a new South Africa between the African National Congress and the National Party have affected the administration of justice. He argues in spite of the political transition, inequalities between Africans and whites have continued to grow. Racism is so embedded in South African society, he declares, that its reversal requires an all-encompassing state-directed approach (9). According to Hendricks, the emphasis of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on forgiving wrongdoers in order to legitimize the new state allowed class inequalities to continue. As a result, the new government has been unable to tackle the problem. Furthermore, its land reform efforts have been dismal, with only 1 percent of the land returned to the rightful owners. According to the rhetoric, reconciliation was supposed to develop from the truth; however, when the truth lies hidden under so many crimes for which the senior perpetrators are not prosecuted, it is difficult, Hendricks notes, to achieve lasting peace. He discusses the Committee, in which perpetrators were forgiven if they acted on the orders of a public organization, not for personal gain, and without any knowledge of the victims. Once perpetrators appeared in front of the TRC, they could not be prosecuted in a criminal court. As a result, Amnesty sends a message to future state criminals there is the chance they may be exonerated, especially if they remain in long enough to ensure they are not easily dislodged, or some compromise may be necessary to remove them from power (25). Such an attitude puts democracy in jeopardy. Hendricks concludes as long as the society is structured along a cleavage between poor and rich, the chances for reconciliation are very slim. What Hendricks calls fault-lines become unfinished business to Terry Bell and Dumisa Buhle Ntsebeza. Unfinished Business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth draws on Ntsebeza's experience as a lawyer who represented apartheid's victims and subsequently participated in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. …

Economic policy in the post‐colony: South Africa between Keynesian remedies and Neoliberal pain

The jury is out and the verdict is in, according to most leftist commentators on the African National Congress (ANC) government. The South African political leadership has forgotten its institution...

Center for the Book's South African Journey

From May 25-June 4,2004, the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress led “South Africa: A Journey to Promote Reading & Literacy”, a trip that focused on reading and literacy promotion efforts currently underway in schools, libraries, and educational institutions throughout South Africa. The visit took place during the 10th anniversary year of the new South African democracy - and the link between democracy and reading was a theme for the journey and many of the presentations and discussions. Participants learned about the “new” South Africa directly from their South African counterparts, sharing ideas and experiences with people who also believe in the power of books, reading, literacy, and libraries.

Leadership towards a just economic society

This actuality article on leadership argues for the need to move towards a just economic society. The implications of different terms are considered within a conceptual framework. This framework is essential for a better understanding of economic justice in an institutional environment, where economic relationships and economic justice has come to dominate public debate. The relations between public opinion and material wealth are analysed before justice in a mixed economy receives attention. Related conditions are discussed in succession, firstly, individual freedom and the Rule of Law, and secondly, distributive justice. The article then proceeds to discuss challenges for economic leadership in South Africa, indicating trends present in both the theoretical and political leadership current in the rest of the world. Perspective is thereby given on the situation in South African democracy, where the political focus has moved from the issue of justice as freedom, to justice in the distribution of wealth and income.

RESTRUCTURING SOUTH AFRICAN GEOGRAPHY

ABSTRACT Geography literature is rife with calls for the protection of the integrity of the discipline with specific reference to the preservation of the space-in-time perspective, and calls for the discipline to start responding to the transformation imperative of the country are also abundant. Throughout the literature, jmphasis has thus far always been on the need for geographers to ensure that their skills and research are applied and are useful in promoting the transformaion process in South Africa. It is however our opinion that the relevance and contribution of the discipline have proven unquestionable, whilst the issue of possible costs or compromises that the discipline may have to endure as a result of ensuring “usefulness” is not always discussed. It is therefore argued in this aper that we as geographers need to pledge a commitment not only to protect the integrity of the discipline (space-in-time perspective) but also to ensure that our skills, knowledge and research are used in an accountable and uncompromising manner during the transition toward a ‘new South African democracy’. Ultimately, the paper aims to reaffirm the fact that we need to ensure that any restructuring of geography does not take place at a cost that is detrimental to the integrity of the discipline.