Johannesburg — There have been demonstrations throughout the first week of the World Summit on Sustainable Development by many different groups. But Saturday is the day for the biggest demonstrations planned to date.
Several South African government ministers are joining the ANC, the South African trade union federation Cosatu and thousands of marchers in a demonstration in support of the goals of the World Summit on Sustainable Development that will culminate in the presentation of a list of civil society demands to the leaders of the meeting. The ANC hopes this demonstration will focus civil society groups on mobilising constructively to influence the global gathering.
The World Summit on Sustainable Development has also become a focal point for broader debates about corporate driven globalization, the effectiveness of privatisation as a development strategy and the South African government's own internal economic policies. As a result, two other groups of demonstrators have also won approval for marches on Saturday that follow a similar route to the ANC led demonstration.
The Social Movements Indaba, a coalition of South African groups that includes the Anti-Privatisation Forum, the Environmental Justice Movement and other groups, is leading a march from Alexandria township to the main meeting location of the Summit in Sandton. This second march will precede the pro-summit march by a few hours. The Indaba groups, explains Virginia Setsedi, one of the coordinators, do not believe the formal summit meetings will accomplish anything useful for the majority of the peoples of the world.
But the occasion of the summit provides these groups with an opportunity to meet with opponents of corporate driven globalization from other parts of the world who are drawn here for this meeting. In addition, Setsedi told allAfrica.com, the march on Saturday provides an opportunity to highlight the destructive macroeconomic policies adopted by the South African government. These groups are particularly concerned that the privatisation of state companies will reduce employment without generating meaningful benefits for the majority of the population. The ANC, warned Setsedi, is losing popular support because of its economic policies.
AllAfrica's Akwe Amosu asked Virginia Setsedi to describe the background to some of this week's protests and to explain why there will be several marches on Saturday. Below are excerpts from their conversation.
How did you get started in politics?
I started to be active in politics when I was a student here at Wits university in Johannesburg, in the South African Student's Congress. Then I became active in the community; when people had problems we set up street committees and so on. But then we formed the Soweto Crisis Committee when there was a massive electricity cut off in Soweto and we realised that people were facing problems.
The problem wasn't only that they didn't want to pay [for their electricity], but there were real issues behind the whole thing. Then we came together and we workshopped ourselves around the issue and wanted to know more about how electricity is provided and who is responsible and why the cut-offs were happening; and when we were busy learning that, it linked with issues of globalisation and neo-liberalism and the new policies that our government is promoting today - our macro-economic policy which is Gear - Growth, Employment and Redistribution - which calls for privatisation of basic services.
And we realised that the reason for so many cut-offs is that people can't afford (to pay) the bills because they don't have income - unemployment is very high and also there's the issue of unaffordability - the price itself; electricity has become a commodity, rather than being a service for the people and the community.
Why do you think it has been so hard for you to get that message across to the government? Why do they insist on the bills being paid first, rather than ensuring that there is income first?
It's very broad. Our governments are so concerned about being globally competitive, you know; issues of neo liberalism say you should make sure that the state cuts subsidies, adopts fiscal discipline, intervenes less in the economic process; so now the sort of issues that people fought for in 1994 - people fought for a better life and they were promised that all these things will be provided - but now the wheel is turning the other way. They're told: "You can't have electricity or water if you don't have money to pay."
And those are the positions included in the new document that our president is promoting, the New Partnership for African Development. He promotes public-private partnership, trade and foreign direct investment; those aren't bad - we need trade and FDI, but we are concerned about the manner in which they are done, where institutions like IMF and the World Bank impose the procedures at the expense of our people who are expecting their government to deliver, since they voted them in.
Does that mean that the ANC government is losing a lot of grass roots support among former supporters?
I think they are losing a lot of support. But I must say also that there is some sort of loyalty in which people feel "but - you know - it is the ANC. If we don't vote for the ANC who do we vote for?" When they look at these political parties we have, there's no party that will try and do what the ANC did at first.
But organisations like the Anti-Privatisation Forum and the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee are bringing new hope for the people. Now people see the ANC as the failure. Now they want to take up the struggles for themselves and try and change the situation for themselves. There's this shift from being ANC members. Some are still ANC members but they depend on these 'peoples' organisations' because they see that when the struggles are taken up, in action, they feel that "this is where we should be and we can try and change our situation".
So for you, what sort of an opportunity does the World Summit offer - to protest? Or to engage and make arguments for a different way forward?
I think, most importantly, summits like this are an opportunity to bring struggles from all over the world together. Because even if, in Brazil, they are fighting against something different from here, we all know the root cause of these problems. When I see people coming together, when I stand in the hall and see all the colours of the rainbow, people from different parts of the world, this hope grows in me that says, we are not alone, we are not alone. There's a very big and strong movement that's going to come from this.
The summit itself, to me is a talkshow; that's why, as the Anti-Privatisation Forum, we have parallel events where we can voice our grievances and say this is what we want. When you talk about sustainability, this is the kind of sustainability we are talking about - people's sustainability not corporate sustainability.
You and others took part in the protest march last weekend, and that was, at least ostensibly, focused on the issue of land. Was it also on other issues?
The march was actually not only on land. It covered all the issues. But most important, the reason why we had that march was to say, we have freedom of expression. Because that right is being taken away from people in this country. When you say something, you are locked up in jail. We saw 87 of our Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee comrades locked up in April, and we saw the 77-strong leadership of the landless people also locked up ten days ago. And retrenched soldiers who wanted to say, 'you promised us our pensions, you promised us our jobs back, where are our jobs?' - they were locked up.
So that march was to say, we have freedom of expression, please let us exercise our right. You know everything is being suppressed - they are also trying to suppress and sabotage activities that we are planning during the summit; but we are prepared to fight, with the support of our international comrades, and even those who are sending mails from abroad saying, 'we are with you in spirit'. It gives us hope and the way forward.
I've heard some people making parallels between your marches, including the upcoming march on the 31st of August, and what happened in Seattle and Genoa. Are you happy with that? Those were explicitly anti-globalisation protests; but here you're talking about some very specific South African issues - is it the same?
I think it depends on how people understand the issues. But when I see marches in Genoa or Washington, even though I didn't go, in my mind, all these issues erupt from the fact that there is this globalisation process. People might not understand it but the way I view it, even if its in Genoa, I feel it's about me. Globalisation brings up all those issues like privatisation.
I was in Canada in June in a protest with people who are not affected by our problems, and they said we are doing this for our brothers in Africa, wherever these issues are affecting them. Even though some of these marches don't specify, I see in all these activities, the spirit of fighting, of standing up against what we don't want and what is not good for us.
What do you say to people who say, 'but look, we do sympathise, but you are diverting attention away from things that we think are important'? Maybe you have some African NGOs who are poor, have made a big effort to come to Johannesburg and talk about what they are doing and get support; and then the world just focuses on this pro- and anti-globalisation agenda and doesn't focus on the grassroots activity that's going on. I've heard that view expressed by Africans from other parts of the continent, complaining that this is what happened to them at the Durban anti-racism summit.
I'm very sorry if people think that the way to solve things is to go inside to sit around the table and discuss the issues. We've been through that. We've experienced that. The only language that will involve everyone who is affected, is to go on the streets. Everyone there can have his own placard to say what's in his heart.
You know, going into board rooms, we've realised that it doesn't work. I'll just make you a practical example. When we started the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee we started engaging the electricity company and the government and sat down with them and had meetings with them; but they would always give us some technical stuff so that we would end up being confused.
You must also understand that in these struggles we have people who are really grassroots. And when you go to these meetings and these big technical words are being said they end up not understanding. So we decided to embark on a campaign called Operation Khanyisa, meaning that when they switch of your electricity, we come and switch it back on! We were trained and then we switched it on for anyone whose power was switched off. It made a tremendous impact.
The authorities retaliated with their Operation Lungisa, trying to deal with the issues that we'd raised a long time ago but they didn't listen to us. It was when they realised that we were now switching electricity on for people and telling them not to pay because we switched on the electricity for them, then they realised that we mean business and that's when they decided to act.
And did you get positive outcomes?
Definitely. First of all, it was a kind of mobilising tool because we were going to meetings and putting out our phone numbers - 'If they switch off your electricity, just call the office and we'll come and turn it back on.' Next time they come to the meeting, they become part of the organisation.
How do you see the change that took place in the government? Many South Africans thought this was going to be the government that would look to the interests of ordinary people and yet you seem to see your government as being more interested in pleasing the rich North than in looking after its own. Given the ANC's own history, with the Freedom Charter, the ANC's association with the trade unions and with the communist party, are you surprised?
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I'm surprised, you know, because when we were struggling in 1985, we were chanting 'socialism, socialism' but now that word doesn't come from the ANC any more. We are told globalization is a fact, that we have to live with it. We know we need to attract investors. At whose expense, that's the question? At the expense of the working class, of the poor people who can not even afford to buy a loaf of bread. I'm not just talking about something that I'm picturing; its something that we live with, where people struggle to buy a loaf of bread. And there are people who are working for the government and driving big cars and coming home every month with R125,000 ($12,500). so there's no longer a balance between what we originally fought for, and what is now happening.
On the 31st August, the ANC government is hoping to lead the march, perhaps hoping that if they lead it, they will draw off the heat. What's going to happen?
We are always dealing with such situations! Every year on June 16, to commemorate June 16 1976 and the Soweto uprising, the government organises some events. So last time , we decided to go into their march with our own placards and T-shirts and we made our point. I remember there was this woman wearing all the gear of the ANC - the hat, the T-shirt etc - and then she saw us and said: "I don't have electricity! Fuck ANC!" and she took off and ran over to us.
These are the things that we experience and that make us strong because, you know, it is not an easy job, a quick job, an overnight job; but as people see, they learn, they experience and then make decisions. So we are going to be on that march but we'll have our own T-shirts and placards saying "Mbeki, you are not the right president."
That's what we had at the June 16 march. We said, " Mbeki, stop Gear, provide for the poor" and the hard core ANC was angry but the working class got the message.
If you go to Soweto right now and ask one person, what do you think about Mbeki, they will say: "Ah, Mbeki is not supposed to be a president!" because although they don't understand the issues, they blame things on him. They expect him to be delivering but they see the opposite.
Is there anybody else that they see out there? Cyril Ramaphosa for example?
My opinion is that there's no-one who can do the right job until we change the system. We need to change the system that promotes inequality, that promotes the working class being suppressed and exploited all the time. That's the system of capitalism. We need to build a system whereby everyone is equal, whereby everyone benefits from the wealth of this country and this world.
