Harare — The Making of Poverty in South Africa

By Bethuel Setai

SAPES Trust

ISBN: 1-77905-111-5 (Paperback)

A lot of people, the world over, have wondered how South Africa -- a country blessed with an abundance of natural resources including vast tracts of fertile farmlands and unique mineral wealth -- could be a problem country where poverty is one of the chief reasons for the alarming statistics of violent crime.

While the country appears to have such abundant resources, it is widely seen as having two economies -- one for the poor, which is a Developing World economy and the other one for the rich, which is a Developed World economy. The reasons for this poverty have always been difficult to establish.

However, Bethuel Setai's book, The Making of Poverty in South Africa, seeks to unravel this mystery and establish how this poverty was created. Yes, created, because poverty is not a predetermined fate. The book is a multidisciplinary study of how poverty was deliberately manufactured in the Rainbow Nation.

It is multidisciplinary in that it adopts an economic, historical and public policy approach in explaining the causes of poverty among black Africans in South Africa, the rest of the African continent and and indeed the world.

The book covers the period from the coming of the Dutch East India Company to South Africa in 1652 to life under apartheid. The book explains rivalries concerning land and basic freedoms between and among Africans, the Boers and the British. It aims to provide an insight into the dynamics that occurred during this time frame.

The book contains facts, details and discussion that form the basis for understanding the nature of South African society in the latter part of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century.

The same facts also explain the emergence of the African working class and present a balanced discussion of the economic causes of and justification for the Boer War.

The Making of Poverty in South Africa can be read as a contribution towards the concern for a book that gave the point of view of the black Africans. In the book's preface, the author admits that: "The topic of inequity based on racial distinctions is a matter of feelings, emotions and human dignity and cannot be discussed without acknowledging the injustices dealt and their effect on the health, lives, hopes and aspirations of the millions of human beings." (pii)

Setai does not give definitive perspectives in his book but strives to provoke debate on the creation of poverty so as to achieve varied and deeper exploration of the issues as well as their implications for individual and collective decisions.

Setai focuses on the period in question because this is the time when African voices are lacking in issues that concerned their destiny and in a way, he therefore seeks to correct the deliberate misinformation, misconceptions and misinterpretations that had hitherto characterised scholarship on the subject.

South Africa was colonised by the English and the Dutch in the 17th century. English domination of Dutch descendants (the Boers or Afrikaners) led to the Dutch establishing the new colonies of Orange Free State and the Transvaal.

The discovery of diamonds in these lands resulted in the English invasion, providing the spark to the Boer War. Following the uneasy power sharing arrangement between the Afrikaaner National Party and the National Party, the latter invented apartheid as a means to cement their control over the economic and social system.

The initial aim of apartheid was to ensure white domination while extending racial separation. As a result, around the 1960s, a plan of "Grand Apartheid" was executed and it put emphasis on territorial separation and police repression.

Racial segregation was institutionalised with the passing of apartheid laws in 1948. Race laws touched on every aspect of social life, for instance the banning of marriage between non-whites and whites. This also extended to the sanctioning of "white-only" jobs.

These laws were tailormade to establish white supremacism and put black Africans in positions of perpetual subordination and poverty so that they would remain sellers of labour to the emerging mining and farming enterprises.

The year 1951 saw the emergence of the Bantu Authorities Act, which established a basis for ethnic government in African reserves, which had limited autonomy, and these were to be known as "Homelands". Between 1976 and 1981, four of these Homelands were created thereby denationalising over nine million South Africans.

The Homeland administrations refused to accept nominal independence but instead spoke strongly for political rights within the country as a whole. All political rights for Africans, including voting, were restricted to the Homeland.

With the coming of independence in 1994, the Homelands or Bantustans ceased to exist. Before then, people travelling from them required passports for them to enter "white" South Africa.

As a result of apartheid, black rights to land and property were forbidden. The 317 restrictive laws that gave apartheid continued existence affected the black population in matters such as land, jobs, housing, living areas, personal relationships, constitutional and other rights.

Thus began the institutionalised marginalisation of the black population that was going to continue until independence in 1994.

However, apartheid as a system had become so entrenched by 1994 that its ultimate and complete removal demanded a little more time and commitment than had originally been envisaged

The creation of Homelands affected the Africans in a number of ways. For instance, people were taken from places where they had few opportunities of earning a livelihood to places where these were non-existent. This effectively made them poorer.

In certain cases, people who were fluent say in Sotho would be resettled in Sotho areas but more often than not, they had little or no knowledge of Sotho traditions and culture. In a way, the ethnic divisions served to create more strain to an already besieged people and proved a step backwards in terms of cultural progress.

Wives and children were separated from husbands and fathers. The resettlement rules implemented a policy of violence -- "violence against individuals, violence against due process, violence against the basic principles of justice and humanity. Obviously the new areas were worse than the original ones.

"Africans who could no longer serve in the labour force were dispatched to strange surroundings in places they had never seen to be with people they had never known, separated from family and friends, to spend their remaining years trying to eke out an existence.

Thus labour is another way in which Setai explores how Africans remained marginalised in South Africa. Because of the pass system, unemployed blacks were dumped in the reserves and those who required their labour like the Chamber of Mines could easily get them from there.

Migrant labour was also introduced to cover the shortfalls of labour for the mines and farms. Countries from which the South African economy readily drew labour were Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.

Setai's book manages to interrogate the South African political system, from colonisation onwards, noting how it disadvantages blacks.

This is how poverty among blacks in South Africa becomes so entrenched.

For the serious reader this is one book you can not afford not to go through.

Bethuel Setai was born and raised in South Africa and spent 30 years in exile during which time he received scholarships to American universities and obtained a BSc in Economics from Columbia University, and an MA in Education, an MA and PhD in Economics from the University of New York.

He has had a distinguished academic career having taught at the American Universities of California, Santa Cruz and Lincoln University, Pennysylvania, the United Nations Institute for Namibia, Lusaka, Zambia and the National University of Lesotho.

He has published numerous academic articles and contributed chapters to books.

Setai received the New York University's Founder Award for outstanding scholarship and Lincoln University's prestigious Lindbergh Award for Excellence in Teaching.

He has served as a Visiting Academic at several universities including the University of the Free State.