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Violent events will continue to take place if poverty is not eradicated as a matter of urgency

27 July 2021 | Story Nombulelo Shange and Ntando Sindane | Photo Unsplash

Read more — Opinion article by Nombulelo Shange, Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, and Ntando Sindane, Lecturer in the Department of Private Law, University of the Free State

Opinion article by Nombulelo Shange, Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, and Ntando Sindane, Lecturer in the Department of Private Law, University of the Free State

The recent protests were originally sparked by the arrest of former president Jacob Zuma. His arrest might have started the protests, but the protests have arguably spiralled into something far greater. These protests/riots mirror the consequences of what happens when people live in extreme poverty, joblessness, and brazen inequality.

On Monday evening, 12 July, President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation and condemned the actions of the protesters. Ramaphosa missed the opportunity to appeal to the protesters as people; to identify with their daily struggles and speak to them from the space of genuine concern and empathy. Instead, President Ramaphosa delegitimised the protests, claiming that the violence and damage to property goes against the nature of protest. The resultant outcome of Ramaphosa’s utterances is that it has succeeded in whitewashing protest and, in some way, eroding emancipatory revolutions such as our own fight against colonialism and apartheid.

A brief history of protest in South Africa

Protests are disruptive in their very nature – when this disruption is responded to by the deployment of state machinery (such as the army), it follows that the protests culminate into utter violence, and even bloodshed. It is important to note that protests are the product of severe discontent – people are waging mass actions precisely because they feel that their voices are not being heard, and these mass mobilisations may take the form of violence. Various anti-apartheid movements have adopted similar strategies in the fight for freedom. The fight for freedom and against apartheid colonialism was won through mass mobilisation, and this included riots and protests. It is indeed true that liberation movements have used protest as a decisive tool to resist racist apartheid polity and demand the non-racial and democratic South Africa that we see today. Such a reality (and historical background) makes it somewhat bizarre to comprehend how a leader of the liberation movement can use apartheid-like characterisations to denote and refer to protests and protesters. To be sure, President Ramaphosa’s articulation is emblematic of deep-seated forgetfulness within the ruling party, and the political elite at its helm.

MK and Poqo (from the ANC and PAC respectively) were labelled terrorists by the government of the National Party. Even former President Nelson Mandela, now a global symbol for peace and reconciliation, has led and engaged in protest action to fight for the rights and dignity of marginalised South Africans. Of course, history lends perspective, and as a result, it would be incorrect to suggest that Nelson Mandela, MK and Poqo were inherently violent, because hindsight allows us to understand that the nature of the struggle in which they were engaged made ‘violence’ necessary.

A deepened discourse about violence reveals that poverty is far more violent and dehumanising than the violence that Ramaphosa was condemning this week. Upon closer inspection, Ramaphosa would be empowered if someone were to teach him that protests offer some hope for change, no matter how small, while doing nothing launches people deeper and deeper into poverty and repression. These are the difficult decisions that many had to make then and now. Poverty is the highest form of violence – it imputes indignity, it kills, and recreates itself as it transmutes into different forms between generations. The violence of poverty is evidenced in its ability to dehumanise people by stealing from them their humanity and their capability to lead a full lifestyle. This is a sort of violence that is hardly spoken about, because in a capitalist society, the only violence that is heeded is one that disturbs profit maximisation and the accumulation of private property.

Whitewashing protest

Protesters are not looting because it is fun, protest is not pretty, and it comes at great personal risk to the protesters and their families. To invoke a Fanonian expression: “When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.” People engage in protest action because the South African government protects capitalist structures over its people and has perpetuated a hungry society. People are hungry for resources, real empowerment, education, and economic freedom. To label their actions as illegitimate glosses over their pain like it is meaningless and it whitewashes protest, thus negating our own protest history.

President Ramaphosa’s discrediting of these actions also further criminalises the actions of what has been a patient citizenry that had to grapple with staggering unemployment, with the youth feeling the biggest brunt at 73,3% unemployment. When President Ramaphosa painted the protestors in this light, he also reinforced a dangerous anti-black, anti-poor sentiment which Steve Biko referred to as ‘Swart Gevaar’, which translates to black danger. During apartheid, it was the fear that black people would take over and threaten the safety and security of white people. Today, on social media pages and in the president’s address it is the fear that the poor, who are still predominately black, will threaten the ‘peace and stability’ of the minority middle class and elite through their protest action.

No peace while poverty prevails

The reality is that there is no peace and security while poverty prevails, and to restore stability without dismantling the capitalism system that brought us colonialism and apartheid, is to damn the majority back into poverty. These violent events will continue to take place and will become more and more violent with every passing moment if poverty is not eradicated as a matter of urgency.

News Archive

The failure of the law

2004-06-04

Written by Lacea Loader

- Call for the protection of consumers’ and tax payers rights against corporate companies

An expert in commercial law has called for reforms to the Companies Act to protect the rights of consumers and investors.

“Consumers and tax payers are lulled into thinking the law protects them when it definitely does not,” said Prof Dines Gihwala this week during his inaugural lecture at the University of the Free State’s (UFS).

Prof Gihwala, vice-chairperson of the UFS Council, was inaugurated as extraordinary professor in commercial law at the UFS’s Faculty of Law.

He said that consumers, tax payers and shareholders think they can look to the law for an effective curb on the enormous power for ill that big business wields.

“Once the public is involved, the activities of big business must be controlled and regulated. It is the responsibility of the law to oversee and supervise such control and regulation,” said Prof Gihwala.

He said that, when undesirable consequences occur despite laws enacted specifically to prevent such results, it must be fair to suggest that the law has failed.

“The actual perpetrators of the undesirable behaviour seldom pay for it in any sense, not even when criminal conduct is involved. If directors of companies are criminally charged and convicted, the penalty is invariably a fine imposed on the company. So, ironically, it is the money of tax payers that is spent on investigating criminal conduct, formulating charges and ultimately prosecuting the culprits involved in corporate malpractice,” said Prof Gihwala.

According to Prof Gihwala the law continuously fails to hold companies meaningfully accountable to good and honest business values.

“Insider trading is a crime and, although legislation was introduced in 1998 to curb it, not a single successful criminal prosecution has taken place. While the law appears to be offering the public protection against unacceptable business behaviour, it does no such thing – the law cannot act as a deterrent if it is inadequate or not being enforced,” he said.

The government believed it was important to facilitate access to the country’s economic resources by those who had been denied it in the past. The Broad Based Economic Empowerment Act of 2003 (BBEE), is legislation to do just that. “We should be asking ourselves whether it is really possible for an individual, handicapped by the inequities of the past, to compete in the real business world even though the BBEE Act is now part of the law?,” said Prof Gihwala.

Prof Gihwala said that judges prefer to follow precedent instead of taking bold initiative. “Following precedent is safe at a personal level. To do so will elicit no outcry of disapproval and one’s professional reputation is protected. The law needs to evolve and it is the responsibility of the judiciary to see that it happens in an orderly fashion. Courts often take the easy way out, and when the opportunity to be bold and creative presents itself, it is ignored,” he said.

“Perhaps we are expecting too much from the courts. If changes are to be made to the level of protection to the investing public by the law, Parliament must play its proper role. It is desirable for Parliament to be proactive. Those tasked with the responsibility of rewriting our Companies Act should be bold and imaginative. They should remove once and for all those parts of our common law which frustrate the ideals of our Constitution, and in particular those which conflict with the principles of the BBEE Act,” said Prof Gihwala.

According to Prof Gihwala, the following reforms are necessary:

• establishing a unit that is part of the office of the Registrar of Companies to bolster a whole inspectorate in regard to companies’ affairs;
• companies who are liable to pay a fine or fines, should have the right to take action to recover that fine from those responsible for the conduct;
• and serious transgression of the law should allow for imprisonment only – there should be no room for the payment of fines.

Prof Gihwala ended the lecture by saying: “If the opportunity to re-work the Companies Act is not grabbed with both hands, we will witness yet another failure in the law. Even more people will come to believe that the law is stupid and that it has made fools of them. And that would be the worst possible news in our developing democracy, where we are struggling to ensure that the Rule of Law prevails and that every one of us has respect for the law”.

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