Volume 10, No.5 - August 2001

Privatisation

Anti-racism

 

 

Workers of the World Unite!


COSATU fights racism and xenophobia

From 31 August to 7 September, world leaders will converge in Durban to hold one of the world's milestone conferences - the World Conference on Racism Xenophobia and Related Intolerances. It presents an opportune moment to the world community to face the challenge of all forms of racial discrimination.

COSATU congratulates the UN for hold the conference. The unions will be playing an important part. The resolution passed at COSATU's 7th National Congress last year (see box) indicates our deep concern at the extent of racism and xenophobia in South Africa, and our commitment to eradicate it.

The conference will be taking place in South Africa because:.

The conference will show however that racism is not only a South African or African phenomenon, but a worldwide problem. Racism is amongst many ways in which the ruling class exploits and perpetuates the poverty of the majority, subjugates the vulnerable and discriminates against women.

Historical and political context
Racism in South Africa was created by the colonial powers that invaded Africa from the 17th to 20th centuries, and the wars they fought for domination. Their central objective was to dispossess the African people of their land and property through conquest, and make them slaves in their own land. Ownership of land led to ownership of slaves, mines and industries.

Racism is thus not merely hatred between whites and blacks but a product of both colonialism and capitalism, with its roots in the racial ownership and control of resources. The white minority who owned and controlled the means of production retained and then refined the racial subjugation of the African people. Those at the receiving end were mainly the unemployed or workers in lowest paying jobs, farm labourers and women.

Apartheid
In South Africa racism was institutionalised in law and imposed through the state apparatus. Black people were denied the vote or any control over government.
In rural areas they were thrown into Bantustans under imposed leaders. In the urban and mining areas migrant workers were forced to live in single-sex hostels or townships, as reserves of cheap labour for the employers. Movement to townships and hostels was strictly controlled through laws and the state security forces.

Blacks were not only oppressed because they were black but as workers. They were denied a stake in the economy and used as wage-labourers with no right to ownership and limited to jobs that ensured they remained at the bottom of the economic and social ladder.
The 'Bantu' education they received in schools with inadequate facilities, the hospitals with limited infrastructure and everything else was deliberately constructed for a people seen as sub-human.

For women the oppression was threefold:

Another feature of racism in South Africa was the sub-division of Africans, Indians and coloureds, and even different 'tribes' into different governing authorities, or bantustans. Over time, this systemic institutionalisation of racism and tribalism created rifts within the different race groups. Despite this however, black people in South Africa have begun to heal these rifts created amongst themselves as a result of bantustanisation and tribalism.

The 1994 democratic elections marked a turning point in the history of our struggle against racism, a victory after decades of struggle to get rid of apartheid. Since then, South Africa has put in place a constitution and many laws which decree that people must no longer be discriminated against on the basis of colour, creed, sexual orientation or social standing.

Acts such as the Employment Equity Act aim to ensure that all employers train and promote workers so that the demographics of the workplace reflect the racial and gender composition of the country.

Institutionalised racism however has left a deep-seated legacy. While the system has been defeated politically, its economic and social ravages are still visible.
The brutal murder in April of Pietersburg teenager, Thsepo Matloha, allegedly by a group of white rugby players, who then threw his body into a dam full of crocodiles, when they caught him 'poaching', highlights the kind of blatant racism which still exists in our country.

This was no isolated incident. In the rural areas in particular, the majority African population still live in poverty and fear, while their white employers prosper as before and use violence to impose their power.

Many black South Africans are still dehumanised, African children not allowed into some schools and some are employed in hard labour in farms and elsewhere. We still have far to go to ensure that the social fibre of our society is remade and we can claim that South Africa is a genuinely non-racial society.

Now let's conquer poverty
The biggest obstacle still to be overcome is the continuing racial inequality in the distribution of wealth, power and influence. Building a united South African nation can only succeed if these are addressed as urgently as possible.

The white minority still hold nearly all economic power they acquired over the last few hundred years through land dispossession and the exploitation of African workers through low wages and the migrant labour system.

While Africans make up 76% of the population, their share of income amounts to only 29% of the total. Whites, who make up less than 13% of the population, take away 58.5% of total income

Within the poorest 53% of the population, a third live in shacks or traditional dwellings, about 80% have no access to electricity, about 70% have no access to piped water to their premises, and more than 80% have no access to modern sanitation.

Inequalities in education and health care are striking. Even a World Bank study admitted: "While only one in a hundred white children dies in infancy, ten of every hundred African children do - five of them from easily preventable conditions. Of African children who reach the age of five, more than half suffer stunted growth because of inadequate nutrition.

Among those who manage to enter school, only one in seven reaches standard 10, after many years of repetition.
"Of adults, fewer than half work in the formal economy. For those who become parents, the maternal mortality rate is 70 times higher among Africans than among whites.

The cumulative effect of such inequity carries through life. Per capita, whites earn 9.5 times the income of blacks and live, on average, 11.5 years longer. In sum, South Africa exhibits that most bitter of social outcomes: destitution amid plenty."

These inequalities are not accidental but the outcome of low-wage policies followed for years by the private sector and the deliberate policies of the apartheid governments to under-spend on social services for black people.

The South African economy is still owned and controlled mainly by a few large white-owned corporations. Such high levels of economic concentration, combined with a corporate culture which excludes workers from decision-making, produces a society of two nations - one powerful, wealthy and white, the other powerless, poor and black.

These problems are perpetuated since blacks are not adequately trained develop skills properly. Whites still mainly hold most highly skilled jobs, such as managers, accountants, train drivers, highly specialised artisans and technicians.

In some of these careers, there are still appointment and promotion procedures that are exclusionist in nature. As a result, South Africa remains a country of white people who own property and rich and black people who are unemployed or if employed, earn lower wages.

Attempts to reverse this situation have at best led to a tiny minority of African capitalists and professionals and at worst a crude tokenism, where black faces are used as 'fronts' for companies still effectively in white hands. Overall the gap between the rich (whites) and poor (blacks) is as wide as ever, while at the same time a new gap is opening up between the small new black capitalists and middle class and the majority poor.

Combined with these factors has been the rise in unemployment, made worse by the tariff policies that have been pursued since 1996. These are increasingly harming the most underdeveloped sector of the economy such as textile, the decline in mining and the shrinkage in the public sector.

The way to narrow these inequalities is not to promote a tiny minority of middle-class Africans into positions of wealth and power but a fundamental redistribution of the nation's wealth from the rich, white minority to the overwhelmingly black, poor majority.

If all South Africans are to reap the fruits of the new democracy, the state must continue to lead in the development of the country, and uplift the poor. The restrictive monetary policy and the broader fiscal austerity measures whose principal aim is debt-reduction, will compromise such economic redistribution because the market alone cannot bring about equity and equality.

Xenophobia
The democratic breakthrough in 1994 occurred at a time when the continent of Africa, Southern Africa in particular, was under severe economic and political strife. The apartheid regime had striven to undermine those countries supporting the liberation movement in South Africa. They tried to destroy the economic infrastructure in Mozambique and Angola, and supported counter-revolutionary movements, Unita and Renamo, to get them to destabilise freedom and democracy.

This coincided with an economic downturn. Therefore many refugees from Southern Africa, the rest of the continent and indeed the rest of the world, began to cross into South Africa seeking greener pastures, not knowing that the country has high levels of poverty and joblessness.

Employers, especially in the farms, take advantage of and exploit these immigrants, paying poverty wages, ignoring labour laws and housing them in squalid conditions. Concrete steps must be taken to halt this super-exploitation of migrants and bosses who are breaking the law must be severely punished.

These workers have little or no rights because if they dare demand complain, police are quickly organised to arrest and deport them.
African immigrants receive the worst treatment from the police, suggesting that elements in the SAPS are still trapped in the apartheid era and ill-treat illegal migrants just as they treated all Africans in the past. These police who treat the immigrants as sub human beings must be severely punished.

Corrupt and inefficient Home Affairs officials must be removed and replaced by more humane officials who understand the challenge of transformation. The Minister of Home Affairs must launch an investigation into rampant corruption and inefficiency that were exposed by the SABC's Special Assignment programme earlier this year, including the fact that it takes the refugees up to three months to get the necessary papers and that some of them must bribe corrupt officials to get them.

Because of our apartheid history, many black South Africans have low level of skills and therefore compete with immigrants for the lowest-paid jobs, unlike people from Europe and elsewhere, who tend to be highly skilled. African workers are thus pitted against each in competition because of their low skills.

Tragically, this has led to some of the most oppressed South Africans turning their anger against African migrants, arguing that the high rates of unemployment and crime result from the number of illegal and legal migrants.

Significantly immigrants from Europe, East Asia and America and even highly skilled African immigrants, are not seen in the same light. The victims of xenophobia are poor, working-class African immigrants who depend on unskilled jobs.

The facts however show clearly that these xenophobic expressions however have no scientific grounds. They are using the migrants as scapegoats.

The extent of illegal immigrants is sometimes exaggerated to suggest that we have been flooded.. But the Department of Home Affairs estimates that there are only 200 000 illegal immigrants and 60 000 refugees in South Africa (though these figures should be treated with caution since we do not have accurate statistics of the extent of illegal migration into South Africa).

Even if all these illegal immigrants and refugees were working in South Africa, our unemployment crisis would still be as bad as now - unemployment is 36% and an estimated five million are out of work.

It is also not true that migrants cause crime. A number of migrants have been arrested for various crimes but it is wrong to generalise from isolated incidents that illegal and other migrants are responsible for crime in general. The overwhelming majority of prisoners are South Africans, not immigrants. Crime has its roots in poverty and unemployment, not illegal immigration.

The government spends millions of rands repatriating alleged illegal immigrants but has not managed to stem their flow into South Africa. This points to the even worse socio-economic crisis in the rest of Africa. Most immigrants are desperate enough to jump off moving trains or risk death walking across the Kruger National Park, rather than face the hunger in their own countries.

COSATU calls for a Southern African Regional Summit between key stakeholders to discuss a development programme to build and revive the economies of the region. There will be no successful South African reconstruction and development while a sea of poverty surrounds it.

Racism and Xenophobia in Trade Unions
Unions, as part of the wider society are neither free nor immune from racism and xenophobia. They arise when different race groups believe they are superior to others. In many of the countries where unemployment has escalated, as in South Africa, the unemployed are drawn into believing that they are unemployed because of the immigrants.

On the contrary, joblessness must be attributed the fiscal austerity measurers that in many countries are driven by the IM F and World Bank. These have led to poor people being retrenched because of privatisation and the contraction of the state sector. This has set up the working class and the poor in general against each other.

Even within the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, COSATU has observed how unions from the wealthier Northern countries use the power of their greater resources to influence how the Confederation takes decisions on policies and leadership structures.

The Japanese and many trade union centres from the North treat their fellow unionists from the South with mistrust. Those who oppose the candidatures or policy proposals from the Southern counties are challenged: Who will fund such a programme of action or such an appointment?

The way forward is redistribution

The World Conference Against Racism and Xenophobia reflects the growing resolve by the peoples of all our nations to roll back the hatred amongst and between them. But the fight against intolerance will require the maximum determination.

As a matter of priority we want agreement on reparations from countries with a history of colonialism and slavery to break the barrier between the haves and the have-nots.

Provision of water, health care, education, electricity and other basic needs have over centuries been inaccessible luxuries for many victims of racism and slavery. To compensate for our colonial past, the wealthy former colonisers must provide all our people's basic needs.

The developed countries must also be committed to an international trade regime that benefits countries of the South, unlike the present regime that makes the Southern economies vulnerable to collapse at every stock market jitter in the developed countries.

Essential too is the cancellation of African countries' accumulated debts, especially those owed to from the Bretton Woods institutions - the IMF and World Bank, which are a serious barrier for development.

We can then develop the skills capacity of the marginalized and poor, improve their health and education and create the conditions necessary for equity and bring them into the mainstream of economic and social participation.

It is high time for all people to see the need to co-exist with each other. The UN should not make the racism conference the end of the debate, but use it to build instruments to heal the rifts amongst our peoples and create a permanent institution to work with affected communities to combat racism.

COSATU's Congress resolution points the way forward. The challenge now is to implement it. The UN conference should give a boost to the struggle to fight and destroy xenophobia, racism and tribalism in South Africa and throughout the world.

Where COSATU stands -


Resolution from 7th National Congress
Uprooting Racism, Tribalism and Xenophobia


This Congress,
Noting
1. Racism remains a major threat to the consolidation of our social transformation. It is a major source of divisions threatening working class unity. It also undermines working class unity and its role as the key motive force for fundamental change in our country and globally.
2. The progressive labour movement in general and COSATU in particular played an important role in the liberation of our country and continues to participate actively in shaping our society to achieve the strategic objective of a united, non-sexist, non-racial democracy.
3. One of COSATU's founding principles is non-racialism and international worker solidarity.
4. As a country, whilst we are beginning to address the problems of past racism, the majority of our people in the country live in abject poverty and work under slave conditions.
5. South Africa is a diverse country with many different cultures because of the past; we acknowledge the enormous task, not only of government but of society as a whole to begin to change the mindset of the people.
6. The deep-rooted problems of racism, tribalism and xenophobia are today making the road to building a truly non-racial society much more difficult. Racism is a class issue and should be defined in that context, while tribalism is a special breed of race, power and supremacy.
7. When elections are looming, some elements within our ranks bring this issue to the fore on a much higher level with devastating effects in the pursuance of personal interest and as a result performance and ability is ignored.
8. Xenophobia is an additional negative mindset that is dividing the working class in our country and internationally.

Further noting,
South Africa will be hosting the UN World Conference against Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in 2001.

Resolves
1. To reject the notions of racism, tribalism and xenophobia, and to maintain the unity of the oppressed masses of our country.
2. To develop a solid class analysis of racism, tribalism and xenophobia.
3. To develop a coherent national public campaign against racism, tribalism and xenophobia.
4. Through its affiliates, regions and locals, COSATU must embark on a systematic and aggressive campaign to educate our members, families and communities on the importance of non-racial unity and worker solidarity. This campaign must create awareness of the demon of racism, tribalism and xenophobia and its manifestation at a socio-economic and cultural level.
5. Our recruitment and organising campaigns must intensify and build worker solidarity across racial lines. This must help deepen understanding amongst all South Africans of our history, the nature and manifestations of racism, with the aim of building class-consciousness on the need for workers to unite. This will contribute to the deracialisation of the working class and the demise of racially based trade unionism.
6. COSATU must ensure that at every workplace a copy of the Employment Equity Act and other relevant legislation are made available, that members understand it and are able to exercise their rights and responsibilities under the law. Implementation strategies should be formulated for such legislation. COSATU should campaign for the provision of resources by government and employers for educational programmes on the Employment Equity Act.
7. Every union structure should have on its agenda the issue of eliminating racism, tribalism and xenophobia, and a programme of action to implement an Anti-Racism Audit within clearly defined time frames for engagement with management.
8. Mass media aimed at reinforcing our values of dignity, respect and non-racialism must be produced and distributed through our locals and branches.
9. Education should, from an early age, include programmes aimed at combating racism, tribalism and xenophobia. The new revised curricula statement should reflect this commitment.
10. The Federation must develop a dynamic relationship with organisations and institutions on issues of racism, tribalism and xenophobia, and establish forums with other organs of civil society organisations especially SANCO and SANGOCO to debate and campaign against these ills leading up to and after the UN World Conference. COSATU should develop a submission for the Conference.
COSATU must ensure that government promotes more integrated communities, and dismantles all forms of institutionalised racism by creating a representative public sector as a fundamental stepping-stone to a non-racial society.

By Lesego Wolfe, Northern Cape Provincial Secretary, POPCRU

At the 4th National Congress of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, POPCRU, on 11-14 June at Badplaas, the union's Northern Cape Province submitted this analysis of the problems with the transformation of the SAPS.

History cannot be based on official decisions and documents alone, if our descendents are to understand fully what POPCRU and the citizens have had to endure during the leadership of the former Northern Cape SAPS Provincial Commissioner or what is happening at present under the new police leadership.

Can the community of Northern Cape say with conviction that the SAPS has changed, in terms of both structural and service delivery?
There are simmering problems emanating from racial attitudes within the police, manifested in many ways, particularly in rural areas. Farm labourers are still treated like slaves and farmers break the laws of the land with impunity. People see the law as an instrument which takes away from them and gives nothing in return.

Disunity based on racial lines is ripping the police apart. The opposing forces are light years apart and the gap is being filled with chaos, confusion, frustration and dangerous opportunism.
Transformation became an imperative in South Africa after 1994 but the rate of change is too slow. Government commitment to create civilian control of the SAPS is being undermined by its own red tape and there are signs in the Northern Cape of deliberate overlooking of government guiding principles that advocate change in all spheres of our society.

Past imbalances must be corrected and government policies on transformation, representivity, affirmative action - and the Labour Relations Act and Employment Equity Act - should be implemented without further delay.
In our view no transformation of the SAPS in the Northern Cape will be complete without:

Currently the deplorable situation is that there are 90 white and 20 black superintendents, 165 white and 45 black captains, showing a clear and deliberate effort to thwart the government policy on transformation.

The progressive transformation policies and legislation flowing from the constitution - the Employment Equity and the Labour Relations Acts and affirmative action policy - which were brought about to fast-track the redress of imbalances of the past, are being totally undermined and ignored by the Provincial Commissioner.

Unfortunately those who were deployed by the Mass Democratic Movement to advance the agenda of the National Democratic Revolution are also now transformed and swallowed by the same system to perpetuate and defend the status quo.

The distribution of human and material resources still favour advantaged communities, which grossly hampers service delivery and drastically reduces the resources needed by the disadvantaged communities. Policing areas declared 'red areas', because of the high density of crime, are not adequately and equally resourced to provide effective and efficient service delivery, whereas previously advantaged areas are well- and even over-resourced.

The management who control and command Northern Cape SAPS are predominantly white males. Discrimination manifests itself in various ways. Very often the experience and knowledge of disadvantaged is totally disregarded. Lily-white management exclude other race groups and insist on using one language, excluding all other official languages.

Recent statistics of disciplinary cases depict whites as the disciplinarians and blacks as radicals to be dealt with through the disciplinary hearings and dismissed.
The human resources are unequally distributed. Trained police personnel are working in administration instead of at operational level to do the core functions of crime prevention and investigation.

Experts are deliberately moved when they become successful in implementing government policies and placed in posts they are not trained for, adversely affecting service delivery to the community as espoused by the Batho Pele policy.

Recently the Provincial Commissioner placed a white senior work-study officer in the crime prevention post in Upington, of which this officer has no knowledge. This was because he informed the Provincial Commissioner that he had reached the ceiling at provincial management service.

This state of affairs creates the impression to the mass of our people that the government is not delivering on crime prevention. This is done deliberately by the predominantly white SAPS management, who come from the old dispensation and want to see the status quo maintained. They engage the anti-revolutionary police unions, who are there to protect the legacy of the past and want to maintain white minority rule.

Perpetrators of racism and discriminatory acts are protected. A report on racism at Hartswater was first leaked to the SA Police Union before it was sent to the MEC for Safety and Liaison. POPCRU is still denied the report.

The recent total disrespect shown to provincial cabinet members, led by the Premier, speaks volumes. The MECs had gone to Hartswater to verify POPCRU's allegations of racism at that police station. On arriving they found white policemen having drinks in the canteen, some in full uniform and wearing pistols.

As the MECs entered the canteen they were shown disrespect and verbally abused. The lights of the canteen were switched off at one point.
The cabinet called for the suspension of those involved but the police management failed to respond adequately. An investigation was conducted which concluded that there was no racism involved. Later on however disciplinary charges were brought against the perpetrators, the outcome of which is a mystery to us.

The management should have suspended the perpetrators pending investigation, as is consistently done against black police members.
White police members perpetrate acts of brutal violence against the community with impunity. One captain was accused of torture yet nothing has happened to him and he was praised for his good performance.

White police officers in Winsorton charged with murder are out on bail and nothing has happened in terms of disciplinary action or suspension. Another white officer was found drunk in Winsorton police canteen, wearing uniform and a firearm, and again no disciplinary action was taken.

It took the Provincial Commissioner more than a month to act after POPCRU reported the circumstances surrounding an unsigned letter sent to head office regarding promotions, without his or his deputies' knowledge.

There had been a statement that inspectors were to be promoted to captain, specifically to address representivity. 126 posts were demarcated in terms of designated and non-designated. Designated posts were 70% for blacks and 30% for whites. Blacks could also apply for the non-designated posts whereas whites could not apply for the designated ones.

A mysterious letter was sent to police head office from the provincial head of human resources indicating that the Deputy Provincial Commissioner had instructed that some of the designated posts be changed to non-designated. The letter was not signed and on enquiring the Deputy Provincial Commissioner denied any knowledge of the letters but the damage was done already.

The Olifantshoek station commander shot and wounded eight people during a community protest, with an R1 rifle. He was arrested by the ICD but the Commissioner and his management arranged bail ten minutes later. A captain was granted R500 bail on five charges of attempted murder.

This unequal treatment of police officials leaves much to be desired, especially when it is based on race. Police management intervenes only when white people are offenders and they get bail irrespective of the nature of the crime.

There is a clear strategy by the Northern Cape SAPS management to unleash its forces on progressive and vocal leadership of blacks by using disciplinary tribunals to victimise and gag members who blow the whistle against collaboration, victimisation and misuse of state resources.

Several calls to disband and restructure the monster have fallen on deaf ears, despite overwhelming evidence presented.
It is utterly impossible for POPCRU to build their lives on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. POPCRU hears the approaching thunder. The Northern Cape Police Service is in a crisis because of the indecisiveness of the Northern Cape SAPS management. It needs a decisive political intervention.

The situation is having a negative impact on community/police relations and service delivery. As a result police members are demoralised and frustrated, which causes conflict between black and white colleagues.
Transition has been described by Gramsci as the most dangerous period in the history of any nation: "It is that period when the old has not died and the new not yet born."

In addressing transformation it is probably instructive to consider a number of contradictions, many of which seem to have potential to stifle the process of change.
POPCRU needs to entrench itself in the bureaucracy to ensure that its values and ethos are imprinted. Only through the eyes of the marginalised can transformation be put in place and consolidated. Transformation is not a matter of choice for the SAPS but a constitutional imperative.

The aim of transformation should be to give the SAPS a new look, in the eyes of both the people and the government. Transparency and legitimacy should not be announced by the SAPS management but by civil society.