Lucien van der Walt: discussing the NUMSA-initiated “Anti-Corruption March”

September 25, 2015 Leave a comment

Numsa pact: Shifting deckchairs or the real deal?

18 Sep 2015, Mail and Guardian, here

Sarah Evans

The launch of a new anti-corruption coalition could be a sign that major labour shifts are afoot.

NEWS ANALYSIS

It is like watching a pair of nervous teenagers flirt. Perhaps they are on a dance floor: their hands never touching, their eyes firmly locked. The trouble is, as with any tryst, predicting whether they will unite is like reading the horoscope to get the answer. It is a rather futile exercise.

So it is with the story of metalworkers’ union Numsa and its various coalitions.

Just after its expulsion from labour federation Cosatu in November last year, the workerist Numsa was unambiguous about its next move.

“The time has arrived to start with the building blocks of forming a new, independent, democratic, worker-controlled, militant, anti-imperialist trade union federation,” deputy general secretary Karl Cloete told reporters at the time.

This week the union presented to reporters a coalition, raising speculation that it is beginning to court other unions and working-class organisations with a view to forming this mooted new federation.

The coalition, reminiscent of mass-based anti-apartheid movements such as the United Democratic Front, is Numsa-led but former Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi is clearly its front man. His previous calls for a new trade union federation have not been forgotten.

This coalition will lead an anti-corruption march to the Union Buildings on September 30. More than 200 organisations are involved, from independent trade unions to civil society bodies and churches.

Later, there will be a workers’ summit organised by the same group of people behind the march. It could be the beginnings of a new federation, but analysts say that goal is a long way off.

Lucien van der Walt, professor of sociology at Rhodes University, says the coalition could be seen as part of a wider attempt by Numsa to forge alliances outside the workplace. For example, Numsa is behind the United Front and the Movement for Socialism, which some have seen as the beginnings of a political party.

However, Van der Walt says the direction these alliances will take is still up for debate within Numsa. This is also true of the envisaged new federation.

Those involved in the latest alliance are being coy about their intentions.

The workers’ summit so ardently argued for by the likes of Vavi is in the embryonic stages of planning.

Vavi’s previous remarks were unambiguous: this summit would be about discussing the possibility of a new, independent trade union federation. It has been scathingly received by Cosatu and its affiliates. Its public sector affiliate, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union, called the endeavour a “foreign-funded political adventure” designed to “undermine” Cosatu.

A meeting was held last week to discuss the proposed summit and anti-corruption march.

On Tuesday Numsa gave notice of its intention to hold the anti-corruption march. The protest action is to take place in terms of section 77 of the Labour Relations Act, which gives employees the right to protest in defence of their socioeconomic rights.

The same day, Vavi and representatives of six unions told reporters that the march would be the start of a long campaign against both public and private sector corruption. Members of the Food and Allied Workers Union sat alongside Numsa and Vavi. The latter two have been expelled from Cosatu; the former remains inside the federation.

Two independent union federations – the Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) and the National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu) – are also in the anti-corruption coalition. Nactu brings with it the support of its affiliate, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, which is the rival of the Cosatu-affiliated National Union of Mineworkers.

Solidarity is also part of the coalition, but it says it is early days and will not yet entertain talk of joining any new federation. Spokesperson Marius Croucamp pointed out that Fedusa and Nactu are also federations in their own right.

Solidarity is on board with the march and the workers’ summit, but is treading carefully. Despite Vavi’s promises that the summit will discuss forming a new federation, Croucamp pointed out that the first preplanning meeting will only occur next Monday. An agenda has not been set, he says.“It’s really early days. We will take this step by step and see how much we will be involved,” he told the Mail & Guardian this week.

He said the only issues on the agenda of last week’s meeting were the anticorruption march and the workers’ summit. While ideas had been thrown around by individuals in public, Croucamp said the possibility of a new federation was not discussed.

Numsa president Andrew Chirwa told the media this week that the march and summit represent the largest mass formation of organisations since the demise of apartheid.

Numsa’s other project, the United Front, is also involved in the march and summit. Its secretary, Mazibuko Jara, says the United Front is also part of the steering committee.

He says that Numsa is playing a crucial part in a variety of “wider initiatives”, such as the Movement for Socialism and the United Front. Whether either of these will eventually become a new political party or a new trade union federation is not yet clear, Jara says.

“There are different initiatives for different purposes. There’s a need for a new federation, without a doubt, and the workers’ summit will go some way towards [achieving] that. You need various initiatives to respond to various needs in various parts of society.

“But it’s too early to say which way things will turn out when it comes to the federation and the potential political party,” he says.

But are the tectonic plates shifting, or are the chairs merely shifting around the deck?

Leonard Gentle, the director of the International Labour and Research Information Group, says that ever since Numsa’s exit from Cosatu, there has been speculation about what might happen, including the possibility that the union would form a workers’ party.

But organising a march and a summit, and genuinely responding to the issues that have beset the broader trade union movement, are not the same thing.

If a new federation is on the horizon, Gentle says Numsa must first face up to the challenges experienced by the working class.

These are international trends, he says, which include the move away from permanent work to casual or “precarious” work. New forms of organisation to respond to these trends must be at the top of the agenda, he says.

“It’s to Numsa’s credit that it is the one union that’s at least trying to do something different. But that doesn’t free it from the difficulties that labour has across the board,” he says.

Gentle adds that this must include finding common ground with working-class struggles.

“There have been some attempts to do this, but it’s been done in a very top-down way.”

He says this often stems from a bias among the middle-class intelligentsia, which assumes that the working class cannot organise itself. But the events in the wake of the Marikana massacre in the platinum belt show this is not true.

Instead, the country is being taken on a “roller-coaster ride”, anticipating that something “new and exciting” is about to happen, in the form of a new party or federation.

“Is there a desire to form new federation? Yes. Is there a desire to form a new political party? Yes. Were they expecting those intentions to find resonance all over the country? Yes, but the reality is proving to be a lot more difficult,” Gentle says.

Van der Walt says the anti-corruption theme could take a radical direction. “But it could also be quite bland,” he says. “In one way it’s a less ambitious and less radical idea. With the corruption theme, a lot of people could come on board. Your average Democratic Alliance supporter could come on board.

“It also ties it to the governing party. If somebody in government doesn’t support this anticorruption agenda, you could say: ‘Oh, really?’ The same goes for your average ANC branch.”

But Van der Walt adds that corruption is part of a larger class formation: a new, powerful elite using the state as a source of patronage.

This suggests that, while the march’s theme may seem quite mild, it could take a radical turn if it is used as part of a wider assault on neoliberalism.

Sarah Evans is a Mail & Guardian news reporter.

Filed under From 2010s, press citations

Lucien van der Walt: discussing state of the unions in South Africa

August 7, 2015 Leave a comment

Mail and Guardian here

‘Workers do not have a good story to tell’

30 Jul 2015 16:09 Sarah Evans

Between the second quarters of 2014 and 2015, union membership in South Africa decreased by 17 000 members

Levels of unionisation in South Africa remain stable relative to other countries, but union membership is on the decline.

Analysts and unionists put this down to a number of factors, including mass retrenchments in key sectors and a failure on the part of unions to organise non-permanent workers, and to keep their workers who become unemployed inside unions.

Between the second quarters of 2014 and 2015, union membership in South Africa decreased by 17 000 members.

About 3.7-million workers in South Africa are union members. This is according to the Statistics South Africa Labour Force Survey, released this week.

A survey by the South African Institute of Race Relations, released in February this year, revealed a 26 % decline in union membership between 1994 and 2014.

A perceived distance between trade unions and their workers is often cited as a key factor which drives workers away from unions, and towards cheap, private legal services such as LegalWise.

This is particularly true in the mining sector, where several mining companies are now threatening to retrench thousands of workers. Lonmin could retrench up to 6 000 workers as it restructures its operations, while Anglo American Platinum has said it will reduce its workforce in the Rustenburg area from 24 000 to 16 500 workers. Globally, Anglo American is cutting its workforce by a third. Harmony Gold is also considering retrenchments, while Kumba Iron Ore has closed one of its mines, with 1 160 workers losing their jobs.

Cosatu’s political crisis reached its apex at its special national congress in July, sealing the fate of the expelled metalworkers union Numsa, as well as former general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.

But Cosatu’s labour market policy coordinator Patrick Phelane told the Mail & Guardian this week that if one were to take a broad view of the problem, “membership is not only declining due to the factors that are often stated”.

He was referring to the popular view that workers are leaving unions because their interests are not represented.

“Explosion” of casualised labour

Retrenchments and increasing levels of casualisation and outsourcing are central to the declining numbers, he said.

This view is shared by Igshaan Schroeder, coordinator at the Casual Workers’ Advice Office in Johannesburg. Schroeder previously told the M&G that an “explosion” of casualised labour, even in sectors not traditionally associated with non-permanent work, means that more and more workers are not unionised.

This is because non-permanent workers are difficult to organise, and unions admit their failure to come up with creative ways of unionising these workers.

However, Phelane said there has been some growth in membership, particularly in the transport sector.

Professor Lucien van der Walt, professor of sociology at Rhodes University, said that South African unions typically did not hold on to their members when they were retrenched. In this way, unemployment was compounding the problem.

“That’s a failing on the part of unions,” he said.

Van der Walt said that while any loss of membership is a cause of concern, it is still “remarkable” how sustained the levels of unionisation have remained in South Africa in spite of mass retrenchments in many sectors.

He said that outside of industries such as agriculture, union membership is sometimes as high as 40% of the workforce.

He said the trend is for unions to shed members in industries which are facing job cuts, such as mining.

Organise the unorganised

While mining is certainly in trouble, Phelane and Van der Walt agree that the retail sector, with its high rate of casualisation and outsourcing, is bleeding.

Phelane said, “We have to organise. We just have to come up with new ways of recruiting members. We also have to identify where enterprises are being created. We need to organise the unorganised.”

Van der Walt said that this was not just happening in the private sector.

“In large parts of the public sector there is also large attrition of jobs,” he said. This is a sector where Cosatu has tended to grow its membership thanks to large public-sector unions.

But it is also a sector where labour is increasingly outsourced.

“For example, you’ll find a police station using a private security company, or government institutions that use private cleaning companies,” he said.

Outsourcing “fractures the workforce,” said Van der Walt.

In this regard, an example could be made of Wits University, which has faced heavy criticism for its outsourcing of labour.

Wits’ vice chancellor Adam Habib has previously said that insourcing support services at the university was crucial to transforming the institution, as outsourced labourers were often “grossly exploited and sometimes abused”.

But Habib said the university did not have the funds to insource these services.

Van der Walt said the result of this fractured workforce was that there were many different negotiating platforms.

So cleaning staff negotiated with the cleaning company, and security services negotiated with private security companies.

“This makes it harder to unionise these workers,” he said.

Phelane says there are around 235 000 workers who are not organised in the metals sector. This is a sector where upstart the Liberated Metalworkers Union of South Africa (Limusa) is now competing with the country’s biggest union, Numsa. Limusa is now part of Cosatu, Numsa’s former home.

Phelane said that besides that opportunity, Cosatu recognised that it had to find ways to organise workers in the informal sector.

“It is very, very difficult to organise those workers. But it is not impossible,” he said.

Castro Ngobese, Numsa spokesperson, told the M&G that the union’s membership had grown over the last three years, from about 290 000 members in 2013 to well over 360 000 members.

Ngobese attributes this to “quality services”, but also Numsa’s decision to expand its membership base along the value chain, “because of the way the industry is changing”.

This resulted in Numsa organising workers outside of its traditional, manufacturing base – something that irked Cosatu with its policy of “one union, one sector”.

“Some of the new members that we’ve received are not from our traditional base. They are from sectors like transport, aviation, where workers are disgruntled with the service they get from their previous unions,” Nbobese said.

Ngobese says Numsa faces a threat in the steel industry, where mass retrenchments are looming.

He said the union is looking at ways to mitigate against this.

As Cosatu admits, another union weakness is the movement’s failure to recruit workers on short term contracts, or “casual” workers.

Winning, delivering

This speaks to a need for unions to get better at organising, and to develop new methods of organising in general.

Van der Walt cites Numsa as an example of where this has been achieved with some success.

“Numsa is expanding the boundaries of who it can unionise. The other thing is what attracts people to a union is that there’s a record of winning and delivering.

“NUM lost a huge amount of members in platinum, as it was seen as distant, corrupt, and too close to power. I think NUM is improving though after the shock it got with Amcu.

“When it comes to organising, Numsa is far more militant and successful,” he said.

Compared with other countries, like Zimbabwe, where unions are being “slaughtered” by massive restructuring, as well as the political environment, and the US, where unionization is decline, Van der Walt said it is also true that union membership in South Africa is stagnant.

“This is a sign that unless the unions begin to find ways to organise workers who are employed in other types of ways, they will not grow.”

However Van der Walt says reform is not impossible.

For example, the first trade union federation to be formed in South Africa, the Federation of South African trade unions, was formed in 1979, following the 1973 strike wave in Durban and Pinetown.

“The union federation was formed during an extremely repressive government regime. It was a time when workers could be fired on the spot for wearing the wrong T-shirt,” said.

And so the challenge for unions was “more a political question, of unions developing strategies of organising the broader working class”, he said. This includes the unemployed, workers who are not employed through traditional means, and workers in the informal sector.

Ngobese said that for unions to remain relevant, they must remember that workers can walk away from them at any time, and so their issues must be paramount.

“Unions must focus more on workers’ issues, as opposed to being politicians’ lackeys, going around talking about the “good story to tell”. Workers do not have a good story to tell, he said, referring to the ANC’s 2014 election slogan.

Ngobese said that union’s alignment to political parties was hurting workers.

Sarah Evans is a Mail & Guardian news reporter

Filed under From 2010s, press citations, South Africa, union strategy

Lucien van der Walt: discussing crisis in COSATU’s SACCAWU union

July 8, 2015 Leave a comment

Mail and Guardian here

Massive union on brink of collapse

20 Mar 2015 00:00 Sarah Evans

Saccawu is being sued for R30-million by its provident fund but has been given a last chance.

One of trade union federation Cosatu’s biggest affiliates is one missed deadline away from being liquidated, potentially leaving 140 000 workers without a union, in a low-wage sector in which labour is regularly outsourced.

The South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers’ Union (Saccawu) has one more chance to pay R30-million to its provident fund or face liquidation, and probable dissolution.

Although negotiations are continuing to prevent it, analysts have asked whether the development means Cosatu has “taken its eye off the ball”.

The union’s debt stems from allegations of the misappropriation of funds. Its provident fund, under curatorship since 2002, has sued the union for money allegedly siphoned off through an investment fund. But the union has denied the allegations.

The union missed its March?9 deadline to pay back the money or face liquidation. Apparently Cosatu’s top brass recently made a last-minute appeal to the provident fund’s curator, Tony Mostert, for another extension.

If the union is liquidated, it will have no control over its finances and its assets will be wound up. Mostert said liquidation would be a last resort because it would have dire consequences. He had given the union one more extension, “but if they default again, it’s game over”.

Retirement funds are safe
Cosatu also asked him to allow the union access to some of the money in its bank accounts to pay staffers’ salaries, which Mostert agreed to. But, he said, the provident fund was healthy, so the workers’ retirement funds and disability benefits would be safe if the union collapsed.

Lucien van der Walt, a professor of sociology at Rhodes University, said the potential collapse of the union would leave workers exposed in a sector in which casualised labour was prevalent and in which the organising of workers was particularly difficult.

Although there might be smaller unions in the sector, there was no other the size of Saccawu that could absorb workers on a national scale, he said.

“While the situation differs vastly from retailer to retailer, labour broking is cheaper for companies instead of having a big group of permanent workers,” Van der Walt said. “It also allows employers to outsource industrial relations.”

He said workers were often divided into smaller groups in the sector. For example, packers might be organised separately from cleaners in the same shop. Or waiters might be organised separately from kitchen staff in a restaurant.

A number of companies had maintained good relationships with Saccawu, but some large retailers had taken a hard line against unions over the past two decades, in what was already a low-wage sector. “Losing the single biggest union in the sector would leave workers especially exposed,” Van der Walt said.

Richard Pithouse, a politics lecturer at Rhodes University, said the crisis in Saccawu and other unions was indicative of a “serious, entrenched crisis in Cosatu from which there is no easy exit”.

‘Disaster for workers’
“It’s clear that when unions collapse that it’s a disaster for workers. As soon as workers are not organised, bosses will push back as far as they can, both in terms of outsourcing and in changing working conditions. A part of the crisis of Cosatu is that a lot of the union leadership has become distant from workers.”

Pithouse said part of the problem was the idea in the trade union movement that the South African Communist Party (SACP) was the vanguard of workers and would provide the intellectual muscle. But the SACP had become mainly concerned with supporting the ANC and President Jacob Zuma.

“There appears to be an attempt to contain workers, not to empower them. The logic of trade unions, which is to advance workers’ struggles, has been inverted.”

Saccawu is not the only embattled union in Cosatu. The Communication Workers’ Union was hit hard by the strike at the South African Post Office, which arose from divisions between casual and permanent workers, as illustrated by research conducted by Professor David Dickinson from the University of the Witwatersrand.

The Food and Allied Workers’ Union was also dealt a blow by the Constitutional Court in 2013, when it was ordered to pay damages to two workers it had failed to represent adequately in a labour dispute.

Van der Walt said many unions were “rudderless. Cosatu has been concerned with infighting within its central committee, and a lot of that is around trying to get rid of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa [Numsa]. Cosatu took their eye off the ball.”

He said part of the problem was that the unions were at a political impasse. They recognised that the government was part of the problem but were too deeply invested in the ANC to take action.

Van der Walt said the government was as bad as the private sector for not always enabling large-scale unionisation. Retrenchments and labour broking were rife on the shop floor, even at the state-owned Post Office.

Proximity to power
Pithouse said the unions’ original argument was that their proximity to power would give them influence. “The one thing that the unions did take a position on was labour broking, and it went nowhere. It shows that proximity to power isn’t always the way to change things.”

The question was whether this was bad strategy on the part of the unions, or whether it was symptomatic of a bigger system they had bought into. But the result was control of the workers and a patronage network for the union elite.

Pithouse said the economy was increasingly debt- and consumer-based and was no longer built on mining and industry. “So retail is where the money and the jobs are.” This made the potential demise of the biggest union in the retail sector “disastrous”.

Mazibuko Jara, the national secretary for the Numsa-aligned United Front, said Saccawu’s potential collapse and the infighting among Cosatu’s leadership presented an opportunity for the broader labour movement to renew itself.

“What is required is unions that are controlled by workers and unions that think carefully about their political allegiances,” he said.

Saccawu did not respond to requests for comment, and Cosatu’s spokesperson, Patrick Craven, said it would be unwise for him to comment until the matter had been discussed at a senior level in the union federation.

Filed under From 2010s, press citations, union strategy

Lucien van der Walt: quoted on “working class solution” to anti-immigrant attacks

July 8, 2015 Leave a comment

Mail and Guardian, from here

Swinging guns and fleeing foreigners: What is the state doing?

15 Apr 2015 18:32 Sarah Evans

Although the latest outbursts revolve around xenophobia, the state needs to put a stop to all violence in South Africa.

From the varied reactions of politicians to the xenophobic violence to the response of the South African Police Service (SAPS) on the ground, the state’s response to the violence is being increasingly scrutinised.

A heavy police presence characterised the streets of Durban and Johannesburg this week as xenophobic attacks – and the fear of xenophobic attacks – spread.

Durban’s CBD appeared quieter on Wednesday, according to reports, but attacks had spread to Pietermaritzburg. About 800 police were deployed in Durban.

In Johannesburg, many shops were closed on Wednesday and police raids conducted amid fears – later proven to be largely unfounded – that foreigners would be attacked.

But the state’s response – rhetorically and on the ground – is considered reactionary and insufficient to quell the anti-foreigner sentiment that abounds, many experts have said.

Analysts say the state’s messaging is confusing and have warned of a tendency towards the language of nationalism.

‘Unhelpful’ rhetoric
Ingrid Palmary, associate professor at the Wits University African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS), who has written extensively on the subject, said the rhetoric coming from the state was “unhelpful, overall”.

“What we’ve seen are contradictory messages from government officials. Sometimes there has been condemnation, but there has also been support for anti-foreigner sentiment, and sometimes inaction. What was needed was a decisive message of condemnation from all sectors of society,” Palmary said.

But messages would remain ineffective without action, she added.

The language of nationalism and patriotism that often came from the state was problematic, said Lucien van der Walt, professor of sociology at Rhodes University.

“Strong nationalism requires a strong enemy. And who is the enemy?”

Side issue
But are the attacks Afrophobic or xenophobic, criminal or organised, and does it matter? While the attacks were clearly xenophobic and criminal, Palmary and others have called this debate, sparked by Police Minister Nathi Nhleko, a side issue.

“Right now that’s an unhelpful debate. That is not my central concern right now,” Palmary said. What is central is the need to stop the violence, she said.

Sanele Nene, political science lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said the state response has been badly co-ordinated.

“It seems like the state didn’t think this would be a problem while it has been brewing for some time,” Nene told the Mail & Guardian.

He agreed that the debate over whether the attacks were Afrophobic or xenophobic was a diversion from the real issues. However, he said the attacks were definitely xenophobic, as Pakistanis, Indians and other foreign nationals were also targeted.

“Maybe the president should have spoken much earlier,” Nene said. “It is at times like this when leadership is required. Some people might think his silence was a condoning of the acts. The president’s condemnation would show the world that we do not condone this.”

Critical intervention
Nene said it was critical because President Jacob Zuma comes from KwaZulu-Natal.

“He is probably the only person who can rein in the king [Goodwill Zwelithini],” Nene said.

“[Zuma’s] silence is telling. Either he’s unable to respond quickly or he’s reluctant to respond.”

Research conducted by the ACMS since 2005 has revealed high levels of organisation and co-ordination in xenophobic attacks.

Palmary said the brutality of the attacks is indicative of a failure in the transition from apartheid to democracy.

“This kind of violence has a long history in SA. It shows the lack of faith that people have in official institutions. These xenophobic attacks were triggered by the Somali shopkeeper shooting the boy. Why did the shopkeeper not call the police when he thought he was under threat? Nobody used official ways to resolve the conflict. That also shows a lack of faith in the system,” she said.

Lack of trust in police
Van der Walt said that historically, black and coloured working class communities had very low levels of trust in the police. This had not changed much.

“Historically, black and coloured working-class communities have not been given protection from crime. During apartheid, a lot of the police’s job was to arrest people, mainly for crimes related to pass laws.” This distrust continues today.

“There is a near-complete failure of the state to deal with crime unless it affects the elite. Public trust in the police is exceedingly low. After Marikana, the working-class trust the armed forces even less.

“I don’t think that a few people walking around with guns is really going to solve anything. It’s just putting a lid on it. A much more bottom-up response is required.”

Palmer said that, according to her research, the belief that foreigners were stealing resources was widespread.

Breeding ground for violence
Van der Walt said South Africa, with its policies on foreigners, poverty and inequality, was a breeding ground for violence.

“When there is bitter competition for jobs, spaza shops and so on, that’s the context in which these things take hold. The blame should be fundamentally on the state. It’s delivered a lot since 1994 but overall we’ve kept in place a lot of the structural defects that were in place,” he said.

“South Africa is a very tough and brutal place for a lot of people. The stakes might seem small – like opening a spaza shop – but for many people that is a massive issue. And so the working class and poor lash out at the working class and poor.”

Nene said the state should have seen this coming.

“We’ve been hearing of attacks on foreigners for a long time. You can’t deploy police to deal with the problem that is far deeper than just its manifestation.

“The proper response is integrating foreigners into society and to address underlying causes. We need to discover how and why these attacks are orchestrated.

“This is why you have police intelligence,” Nene said.

‘Faster reaction’
He pointed out that the police’s head office was situated in the Durban CBD where the attacks began. “Their reaction should have been much faster.”

Nene questioned the police’s motives.

“Many politicians are not really opposed to this kind of violence. There have been videos of cops standing around watching people loot. This raises questions about the attitudes of the police towards foreigners.”

Van der Walt said it was clear that the state was not capable of dealing with xenophobic attacks.

He said it was time to consider bottom-up, working class-driven and democratic forms of combatting the issue.

These should not equal kangaroo courts, he said, but could mirror the example of Abahlali baseMjondolo. The movement responded to xenophobic attacks by calling for the children of foreigners to be escorted to and from school.

“It’s a common response to most protests by the state: move in the troops, so to speak. Raid homes, close down taverns and so on,” said Van der Walt.

“I know that sounds idealistic, but it’s just as idealistic to expect the state to solve all of these problems.”

Filed under From 2010s, press citations, South Africa

Lucien van der Walt: quoted in Polish press on SA anti-immigrant violence

July 8, 2015 Leave a comment

Clipboard01

 

 

From here

 

Michał Staniul

akt. 07.05.2015, 13:30

Pogromy imigrantów w RPA -​ co kryje się za ksenofobicznymi wybuchami?

Osiem ofiar śmiertelnych, dziesiątki rannych, setki zniszczonych sklepów i mieszkań oraz tysiące ludzi zmuszonych do ucieczki. A dodatkowo dyplomatyczna wojna. W RPA przez niemal cały kwiecień dochodziło do pogromów imigrantów. Jednego z brutalnych mordów dokonano nawet przed obiektywem fotoreportera. To wszystko nie pozostawia złudzeń: “Tęczowy Naród” wcale nie czuje się dobrze ze swoją różnorodnością. Tylko dlaczego manifestuje to w aż tak makabryczny sposób?
 
W ciągu ostatnich siedmiu lat zamordowano co najmniej 350 imigrantów. Każdego roku jest gorzej. prof. Loren Landau, politolog i dyrektor Afrykańskiego Centrum Badań nad Migracjami i Społeczeństwem

Emmanuel Sithole nie był nerwowym człowiekiem. Bliscy wspominali, że nigdy nie podnosił głosu, a gdy w rodzinie wybuchała kłótnia, to właśnie on występował jako rozjemca. Cichy, łagodny, pracowity – tak go opisywali.

Ale kiedy czterech wyrostków ukradło papierosa z jego kramiku, Emmanuel nie mógł tego tak po prostu zignorować. Od dwóch lat harował po 12 godzin dziennie, handlując mydłem i powidłem w nieprzyjaznych johannesburskich slumsach, by utrzymać żonę i trójkę dzieci czekających w Mozambiku. Jeśli pozwoliłby się okradać, lokalne męty nie dałyby mu żyć. Musiał się postawić.

Gdy podbiegł do złodziejaszków, jeden z nich bez ostrzeżenia uderzył go kluczem nasadowym w głowę. Po chwili na sprzedawcę spadły pięści i kopniaki. W końcu pojawił się nóż. Jedno z pchnięć przebiło serce. Wszystko możemy oglądać dziś na zdjęciach – do tragedii doszło na oczach fotoreportera, który akurat szedł do swojej redakcji.

Sithole zmarł dwie godziny później. Czy miał szanse na przeżycie? Być może tak. Najbliższa klinika znajdowała się zaledwie sto metrów dalej. Lekarz, który powinien tego dnia dyżurować, nie zjawił się jednak w pracy. Był obcokrajowcem, a od kilku tygodni w okolicy Johannesburga i Durbanu dochodziło do brutalnych ataków na imigrantów. Dla bezpieczeństwa został więc w domu.

Możliwe, że Sithole był – tak jak stwierdził krótko potem prezydent Jacob Zuma – ofiarą zwykłego ulicznego zabójstwa. Każdego roku w RPA mordowanych jest co najmniej 15 tysięcy osób, większość w czarnych dzielnicach nędzy, często podczas napadów. Sęk w tym, że oprawcy Emmanuela nie ukradli mu ani portfela, ani telefonu. Dla wielu było to ostatecznym dowodem na to, że 35-letni Mozambijczyk padł ofiarą ksenofobii. Był obcym, a Republika Południowej Afryki coraz częściej pokazuje, że ma ogromny problem z zagranicznymi przybyszami.

Zapalnik

– Gdy obcokrajowcy widzą nasz kraj, myślą sobie: musimy wykorzystać ten naród idiotów – przekonywał pod koniec marca w czasie jednego ze swoich płomiennych przemówień Goodwill Zwelithini, tradycyjny król Zulusów, największej grupy etnicznej w RPA. – Muszę to powiedzieć: imigranci powinni spakować manatki i wrócić do swoich państw! – wzywał.

Choć zuluski król często uchodzi za polityczne kuriozum, tym razem jego słowa padły na podatny grunt. Już wkrótce w Durbanie, stolicy stanu KwaZulu-Natal, doszło do pierwszych ataków na sklepy prowadzone przez imigrantów. Po paru dniach pogromy ogarnęły sporą część największych dzielnic nędzy w całej prowincji, a po tygodniu wybuchły też w townshipach (południowoafrykańskich dzielnicach nędzy, wydzielonych za czasów apartheidu strefach biedoty) w Johannesburgu. Na celowniku znaleźli się przede wszystkim obywatele Zimbabwe, Nigerii, Malawi, Etiopii, Bangladeszu i Pakistanu.

– Kwerekwere (obelżywe określenie obcokrajowców – red.) zabierają nam pracę – cytowano w miejscowych mediach rozwścieczonych napastników. Do tego dochodziły inne zarzuty: o gwałty, morderstwa, przemyt narkotyków, a nawet handel ludźmi. – Te argumenty pojawiają się zawsze w takich sytuacjach, tak jakby usprawiedliwiały odbieranie życia – mówi Wirtualnej Polsce prof. Loren Landau, politolog i dyrektor Afrykańskiego Centrum Badań nad Migracjami i Społeczeństwem przy johannesburskim Uniwersytecie Witwatersrand. – Nie ma zresztą dowodów na to, by imigranci byli bardziej podatni na przestępczość niż obywatele RPA. Do tego w rzeczywistości często sami tworzą nowe miejsca pracy dzięki swoim umiejętnościom i elastyczności – dodaje.

W połowie kwietnia ataki osiągnęły apogeum. Liczbę ofiar śmiertelnych określono na – umiarkowane, jak na południowoafrykańskie standardy – osiem osób, lecz swoje domu musiało opuścić już kilka tysięcy. Część państw zaczęła zapowiadać ewakuację obywateli, a z całego kontynentu spływały głosy potępienia. Nigeria, rywal RPA w walce o subsaharyjski prym, wymownie wezwała swych czołowych dyplomatów na “konsultacje”.

Wtedy rząd Afrykańskiego Kongresu Narodowego (ANC) postanowił wyprowadzić na ulicę wojsko. Obecność mundurowych prędko przywróciła porządek, lecz nie była wcale oznaką solidarności z gnębioną mniejszością; żołnierze, oprócz patrolowania townshipów, zajęli się masowymi łapankami i osadzaniem imigrantów bez odpowiednich papierów w obozach przejściowych. – Rządzący pokazali tym, którzy wszczynali rozruchy, że w pewnym stopniu są po ich stronie. Chociaż było to politycznie nieodpowiedzialnym przesłaniem, pozwoliło na uspokojenie sytuacji – uważa prof. Landau.

Ląd obiecany?

Już w czasach apartheidu RPA było częstym kierunkiem migracji Afrykanów, zwłaszcza tych zza miedzy. Rasowa segregacja dawała się we znaki niemal każdemu przybyszowi, ale prężny południowoafrykański sektor wydobywczy oferował coś, czego Malawijczycy czy Zambijczycy nie mogli znaleźć w swoich ojczyznach: pracę. Gdy w 1994 roku władza przeszła w ręce reprezentującego czarnoskórą większość ANC, do kraju popłynęła także rzeka liczących na lepszą przyszłość uchodźców z Konga, Zimbabwe i Rwandy, a nawet z tak odległych miejsc jak Somalia i Etiopia. Napływ imigrantów kolidował z podejmowanymi przez rząd ANC próbami wytworzenia nowej, południowoafrykańskiej świadomości narodowej, które opierały się głównie na rozbudzaniu nacjonalizmu. “Nieprzewidzianym skutkiem ubocznym tych działań jest zauważalny wzrost nietolerancji i przemocy wobec obcokrajowców” – ostrzegali w połowie zeszłej dekady badacze pretoryjskiego Instytutu na rzecz Demokracji w RPA.

Co gorsza, masowa poprawa warunków życia, na którą po upadku rządów białych liczyli czarnoskórzy Południowoafrykańczycy, uparcie nie chciała nadejść – do dawnych elit dołączyła bardzo wąska grupa, a większość narodu nadal tkwiła w nędzy. Imigranci, nie mając szans na rządowe subsydia i zapomogi, musieli wziąć los we własne ręce. Według badań Afrykańskiego Centrum Badań nad Migracjami i Społeczeństwem, dzisiaj zaledwie około 15 proc. z 1,2 mln “obcych” w wieku produkcyjnym nie pracuje.

Choć do zbrodni na tle narodowościowym dochodziło wcześniej, prawdziwy wybuch nastąpił dopiero w maju 2008 roku. Zapalnikiem był spór między południowoafrykańskimi a zagranicznymi handlarzami w johannesburskiej Alexandrii (to tam zginął też Emmanuel Sithole), który szybko zamienił się w istną rzeź napływowych. W parę tygodni represje rozlały się na Durban i Kapsztad, a lista zamordowanych wydłużyła się o ponad 60 nazwisk, głównie czarnoskórych imigrantów. Wielu komentatorów zaczęło pisać wtedy o szalejącej w RPA “Afrofobii” – szczególnej nienawiści wobec innych Afrykanów. – Ta teoria nie ma akurat żadnego uzasadnienia, bo ofiarami bywają też Azjaci, np. Pakistańczycy. “Afrofobia” to tylko semantyka, która zamazuje realia – stwierdza w rozmowie z WP prof. Lucien van der Walt, socjolog z Uniwersytetu w Rhodes. – Po prostu zdecydowana większość obcokrajowców żyjących w dzielnicach nędzy pochodzi z innych krajów Afryki, więc to z nimi najczęściej stykają się biedne masy – tłumaczy.

Zgadza się z tym także Loren Landau. – To temat, w którym kwestia rasy odwraca naszą uwagę od innego czynnika: przestrzeni. Do przemocy wobec obcych dochodzi w bardzo specyficznych społecznościach, źle zarządzanych i borykających się z licznymi trudnościami. W takich miejscach każdy z łatką “obcego” – inny Afrykanin, Azjata, czy choćby i obywatel RPA – może spodziewać się ataku – wyjaśnia ekspert z Uniwersytetu Witwatersrand.

Beczka prochu

Mimo że od czasu masakr w 2008 roku ksenofobia w RPA nie przyciągała uwagi Zachodu, wydarzenia z zeszłego miesiąca nie były wcale wyjątkowe. – W ciągu ostatnich siedmiu lat zamordowano co najmniej 350 imigrantów. Każdego roku jest gorzej – opowiada prof. Landau. Czasami do tragedii wystarczy jedna iskra. W styczniu somalijski handlarz zastrzelił nastolatka, który rzekomo próbował włamać się do jego sklepu w Soweto, najsłynniejszym slumsie kraju. Gdy wieść rozniosła się po townshipie, lokalni mściciele przez tydzień palili i dewastowali imigranckie sklepy i mieszkania. Zniszczono kilkaset budynków.

– Republika Południowej Afryki zmaga się z wielkim bezrobociem (oficjalnie 25 proc., nieoficjalnie – powyżej 40 – red.), biedą i nierównościami. To rodzi frustracje i rywalizację o ograniczone miejsca pracy. Gdy dochodzi do tego nacjonalizm, często promowany przez władze lub prywatne media, otrzymujemy przepis na konflikt – dodaje Lucien van der Walt. – Niestety, RPA ma bardzo dotkliwe problemy. Nawet gdyby jutro deportowano wszystkich imigrantów, bezrobocie, nędza i nierówności pozostaną.

Filed under From 2010s, press citations, South Africa

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