TRANSNATIONAL MINING CORPORATIONS: THE GREATEST THREAT TO GHANA’S ENVIRONMENT

The huge pit you find in this photo was not dug by prospecting small scale miners popularly referred to as Galamsey operators; it is the handiwork of Newmont Gold Mining Company headquartered in the United States. Many of these pits are found in many parts of Ghana but no one talks about them and the Ghanaian media is not interested.

Traditionally Ghanaians obtained gold through small-scale artisanal mining. Small-scale mines have relatively few environmental impacts compared to open pit mining and are much more labor intensive. Mining companies in Ghana have had a terrible reputation for environmental degradation. Eight large open-pit mining companies are operating within a 2,354 square kilometer area in Wassa West District, the largest concentration of open-pit mines in Africa.

The most frequent problem for mining companies is contamination from spills. In 2001 there was a major spill of mine tailings at Tarkwa mine, operated by Gold Fields Ghana - one of five major cyanide spills in a seven year period. This spill released cyanide and heavy metals into the Asuman River, killing aquatic life for miles downstream, leaving 1000 people without access to clean drinking water, and contaminating all the food produced on adjacent lands. Five villages were affected by the spill. Abekoase, the worst affected village, brought a claim against Gold Fields Ghana and received a development fund as settlement. Unfortunately, the cyanide and heavy metal residue from the spill will continue to affect the environmental health of the area for decades.

The most recent disaster was a cyanide spill in October 2009 at Newmont's Ahafo mine. The spill contaminated local water supplies and killed a large number of fish. Serious concerns have been raised regarding food security in nearby villages and possibly the nation as a whole because the region where the spill occurred is recognized as Ghana's "breadbasket". The mine's sewage system also prompted concern after further investigation as it was found to drain directly into the river. The Ghanaian government fined Newmont $4.9 million for failing to prevent and report the spill.

The practice of open pit mining in Ghana has destroyed traditional social networks and ways of life. The biggest impact that gold mining has on Ghanaian society is relocation. It is estimated that 30,000 people were displaced by gold mining between 1990 and 1998. An additional 10,000 could potentially be relocated by Newmont's Ahafo North project . 95% of those forced to leave their land were subsistence farmers.

Agricultural lands were converted to dumps for mine waste and during the rainy season runoff flows straight into rivers that are important sources of drinking water.

The Sansu community is in the heart of the Obuasi mining concession. When their drinking water was fouled by mine waste, AngloGold Ashanti, formerly Ashanti Goldfields Company, dug a borehole for the community. Now residents of the community must stand in line for hours for access to fresh water. As a result, the community's economic output is reduced.

The wealth of displaced persons is in the land they farmed. Unfortunately, the settlements offered by mining companies, if any at all, were insufficient to maintain a similar quality of life. Farmers were either given inferior quality land, small cash settlements, or nothing at all. In several cases the military was called in to move people off of their land and silence protestors prompting serious concerns from citizen's groups about human rights abuses.

In addition to reducing villagers' abilities to make a living, the practice of resettlement also breaks social ties, which are important for the health of rural communities. Gold extraction companies have actively pursued traditional miners who continue to practice, considering them to be gold thieves. These efforts have resulted in military conflict and deaths.

Editorial

SO MUCH NOISE

Over the last month, there has been so much noise about fighting Galamsey but unfortunately there has been very little substance.

We agree that Galamsey is one of the causes of environmental degradation but it cannot be the only cause.

The so called legal mining and mining by multi-national corporations have also had a serious adverse impact on the Ghanaian environment.

As published on the front page of this issue, some of the trans- national corporations involved in mining have been worse offenders.

The Insight insists on a cost –benefit analysis of mining in Ghana, which will serve as a basis for action on mining and the environment.

Perhaps, there may be important lessons to learn from El-Salvadore.

Maize improvement in Ghana - The contribution of CSIR

By Allen Oppong, Manfred B. Ewool, Priscilla Ribeiro, K. Obeng-Antwi and Stella A. Ennin

A technician performing artificial pollination for breeding of hybrid maize at CSIR-CRI

Maize is the most important cereal in terms of production and use in Ghana. The crop is produced in all the five agro-ecologies, characterised by significant climatic variations with frequent periods of drought and other stresses, resulting in crop losses.

In Ghana, the Council for Scientific Research (CSIR) Crops Research Institute (CRI) based in Kumasi has contributed immensely to maize improvement. The contributions of CSIR-CRI Maize Breeding Programme to Ghana’s development can be found in every household where a maize product of local origin is consumed.

The focus of maize breeding at the institute has been to develop stable and high-yielding maize varieties with the capacity to perform well in all the agro-ecologies in Ghana. 

It is estimated that over 80 per cent  of improved maize varieties grown in Ghana were developed and released by CSIR-CRI with support from its partners. Prior to the official release of maize varieties, maize cultivation in Ghana was dominated by unimproved land races whose yield potentials were less than one ton/ha but now hovers around 1.9tons/ha on farmers field (See graph). Other maize-breeding objectives are focused on enhancing nutritional benefits of the crop to consumers. 

Hybrid development

The development of hybrid varieties has been embraced by Maize Breeders at CSIR-CRI. Hybrid breeding is a tedious process that involves the identification of suitable parents which when crossed, will produce offsprings that are far more productive than their parents (Plate 1). Farmers will always have to buy fresh seeds every year/season for planting if they want sustained yields, a situation most Ghanaian farmers have not woken up to! 

Drought resistance/tolerance

Drought constitutes a major threat to maize productivity worldwide. With climate change and irregular rainfall, the need for maize varieties with resistance/tolerance to drought is needed. In collaboration with international partners, CSIR-CRI has developed and released commercial varieties that are drought resistant.

Nutritional improvement

CSIR-CRI was the first research institute/organisation in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa to breed for quality protein maize (QPM) varieties rich in lysine and tryptophan. The famous ‘Obatanpa’ maize variety released in 1992 by CSIR-CRI is currently grown under various names in about 20 African countries and continues to stand tall both in terms of yield and nutritional quality. One estimate showed that over 80 million US dollars have been saved to the country upon the development of QPM varieties. Other nutritionally superior varieties rich in beta carotene and high yielding have been released by CSIR-CRI. Beta carotene rich maize are good for children, pregnant women and poultry. 

Agronomic packages

Important agronomic packages for improved productivity have been developed by the Institute. These range from good land preparation, timely planting, proper planting, fertiliser application, weed management, timely harvesting to proper storage of all the released varieties which are available. 

Challenges and the way forward

The major challenge to maize improvement efforts have been inadequate funding. According to a report prepared by Ghana’s Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), Ghana has a shortfall in maize production of about nine per cent to 15 per cent of national requirements and this is projected to increase. Adequate funding for the development of new varieties is needed to close this gap.

Low adoption of hybrid varieties is another challenge. Rapid adoption of hybrid maize varieties has the potential to triple farmer yields from the current 1.9 tons/ha to over 4.5 tons/ha or even higher in farmers’ fields. 

The challenges of poor seed supply systems in the country cannot be over-emphasised. Perhaps, with the promulgation of the Plant Breeders Bill, maize breeders can liaise with emerging private seed companies to help disseminate newly released hybrid varieties for rapid adoption. 

Other important areas that need research attention are breeding for improved popcorn and sweet corn varieties for the Ghanaian market. Farmers can earn decent incomes from the cultivation of these varieties. However, serious efforts are underway to attract funding from potential donors to support the breeding of these types of maize in the country.

The challenge posed by pests and diseases is not completely won as new and potent pathogens and pests keep emerging. The recent outbreak of army worms in some parts of the country is a case in point which had a toll on maize productivity in 2016. To overcome these challenges requires constant monitoring and breeding interventions to curtail any catastrophic consequences. 

We conclude by requesting the support of the Ghana government, donor agencies and organisations interested in food security to support maize improvement research, particularly at CSIR-CRI, to develop new higher yielding and preferred varieties for the diversified users.

Source: Daily Graphic 

We trust the President won't disappoint us – PWDs

Kwaku Ntim Twumasi

By Dorothy Frances Ward

The Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled (GSPD) has renewed its appeal to the President to appoint Mr. Kwaku Ntim Twumasi and Mr. Martin Obeng - two of its members, as Municipal Chief Executive and District Chief Executive, for Ejisu-Juaben and Sunyani West, respectively.

The pair are the only persons with physical disabilities (PWDs) in the race for the 216 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executive (MMDCE) positions.

The appeal was contained in a press statement issued and jointly signed by the Reverend John Mefful, President of the Society, and Mr. Mr Clifford Owusu Ansah, the National Public Relations Officer.

It said they were confident that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was not going to disappoint the country’s five million PWDs population.

The statement said it was only fair to give the two gentlemen, the Society described as capable, hardworking and resourceful, the opportunity to serve in the government.  

     

It added that “we must as nation, make concerted effort to include persons with disability in our governance system to realize the all-inclusiveness”.

GNA

A cold reception for African Intellectual Capital

Pictute: Logou Minsob from Togo. Multi award winning innovator

By Dumani Mandela

A case for African institutional reflection can be found within the ethics debate around issues of intellectual capital on the continent.

Intellectual capital is the intangible value of a business, covering its people (Human Capital), the value inherent in its relationships (Relational capital), and everything that is left when the employees go home (Structural capital), of which Intellectual property (IP) is but one component.

Measuring intellectual capital is about taking these non-financial contributions of a business and quantifying them to the bottom line. These non financial components of a business ere: intellectual capital (The value of a company or organization’s employee knowledge), human capital (the combination of knowledge, and the employee’s skills to adapt to the different requested tasks in the company), structural capital (supportive infrastructure, processes, and databases of the organization), customer capital (the value inherent in a company’s relationships with its customers), organizational capital (is the organizational philosophy), innovation capital (imagination capital), and process capital (techniques, procedures).

For people of African descent, managing their intellectual capital within modern business is a complex task.  A lot of very competent young African people have had short stays within corporate Africa because they cannot manage the ethics of intellectual capital the business that they work in.

In most cases young Africans will leave the corporate environment due to lack of appreciation for their contributed intellectual capital.  This is because in Africa you have corporations whose cultures and values are in opposition to indigenous African intellectual capital. There is a divide in corporate Africa between European and African context of ethics of intellectual capital, which sometimes gets in the way of doing business on the continent.

My view has always been that there are great African contributions that are being made, and will continue to be made in the development of indigenous African intellectual capital. According to the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s research office, these are some of the areas that are being researched and applied to African intellectual capital and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS):

§  African indigenous agriculture and food security, including the use of wild food resources and post- harvest technologies in the context of natural resource and disaster management systems for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Researchers in those areas investigate the behaviors of living organisms as early warning systems, taboos, and totemic systems as indigenous environmental protection mechanisms; 


§  African traditional medicine involving working with traditional healers in the identification and screening of medicinal plants for the treatment of various community ailments; smoke research for conservation; cultivation, and improving chemical constituents of indigenous medicinal plants; 


§  African indigenous approaches to conflict management and transformation, including investigation into actors, principles, mechanisms and their applicability in modern times within the context of culture, gender and human rights; 


§  African traditional leadership and governance systems. Researchers investigate the nature and characteristics of African traditional institutions; issues of legitimacy, democracy and accountability; traditional African institutions and modernity (challenges and prospects);

§  African Indigenous Knowledge Systems and creative/cultural industries, especially with regard to promoting indigenous community enterprises for employment creation and income generation among vulnerable social groups (women, youth and people living with disability); 


§  African indigenous languages where researchers investigate issues on the diversity of African indigenous languages and their impact on development policy, language demographics, linguistic features of African indigenous languages, etc. 


Lovemore Mbigi in his book; In Search of the African Business Renaissance goes further to describe the importance of African social or indigenous capital in modern organizations, and its contribution to modern intellectual capital, by saying the following:

“African Social capital–an organization’s emotional and spiritual resources–is a distinctive competitive factor akin to intellectual capital. Social capital affects the impact of any strategic intervention and the ultimate effectiveness of policies, procedures, and processes. But modern management thinking, practices, and literature are weak in managing emotional and spiritual resources, which also help determine the value of an organization. Science is not instructive on how to manage social capital in organizations. Social capital is a different form of energy and level of consciousness, and requires a different knowledge base.

It is not that people of African descent place less value on the bottom line but it is however in how that goal of achieving the bottom-line that is questioned. To a large degree this is largely an issue of the cold reception to African values, which underpin how Africans interpret intellectual capital and its potential in corporate Africa.

Navigating the subtitles of the cultural divide between people of African origin and people of European origin becomes the most important task for corporatized young Africans, in the intellectual capital debates.

Unfortunately in Africa to a large degree, intellectual capital still has a color in that if you are of European decent you are competent until you prove yourself other wise, and if you are African you are incompetent unless you prove yourself otherwise.

The cultural prerogative for measuring African intellectual capital for corporates on the continent does not form the basis for their desire to understand African intellectual capital, and integrate it into their management practices.   

When I worked in Sweden in the late 90’s early millennium, I had the pleasure of meeting a man by the name of Leif Edvinsson. He was the founder for the Skandia Navigator, a planning tool for the insurance company Skandia based on intellectual capital. Skandia navigator is classified as a non-monetary model and was first developed by Leif Edvinsson in 1998, while he was corporate director of intellectual capital at Skandia. He was the first corporate director of intellectual capital in the world, and from then he has become a leading proponent of intellectual capital measurement.

The Skandia navigator managed the intangible components of a business and correlated them with the bottom line resulting in financial capital. Leif Edivnsson argued that traditional accounting did not always respond to the market value, and that is because of the value of intangible assets or intellectual capital. The Skandia navigator was used as a planning tool to arrive at what the company had to look like in the future taking into account its intellectual capital. There was a belief with Mr Edvinson that financials measured the value of the company yesterday and in the past, and that intellectual capital gave the company a more accurate valuation of its present and future.

In my time in Sweden, I learned that if African countries wanted to be relevant in future economies, they had to leverage off their indigenous knowledge or intellectual capital.

Africa had to form knowledge societies. Sometime soon in the future, businesses will not be measured by financial wealth but rather the contributed human capital within business. There is no time like the present for Africa to begin to quantify some of its indigenous knowledge as African intellectual capital and to begin to monetize it. African intellectual capital can be found within the vast wealth of imagination capital on the African continent.

If Africa is willing to leverage off this indigenous imagination capital, this will lead to the resurgence of corporations on the continent that are open to African intellectual capital.  

About Dumani Mandela
Dumani serves as a Director at OSR Holdings (Pty) Limited. He is the grandson of former president Nelson Mandela. Dumani graduated from Wits Law School at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1999 and is the author of “Whispers from Nubia.”

Is South Africa at a turning point?

By Eddie Cottle

Does the gradual increase in the number of offensive strikes starting in 2007, the occurrence of the Marikana Massacre and the farm workers’ revolt of 2012, the five-month platinum strike and the one-month metalworkers’ strike in 2014 indicate that a new wave of offensive strikes has begun? Or is this just a short-lived revival? A key question is: has South Africa reached a turning point?

A strike is a ‘social phenomenon of enormous complexity which, in its totality, is never susceptible to complete description, let alone complete explanation’ (Gouldner 1954:65). The complexity of the meaning and implications of strikes often come to the fore when offensive strikes force the attention of the state, capitalists and civil society. They lead to a varied level of interpretation not only how events unfolded but also the impact they have made.

Strikes are a key manifestation of the class struggle over the distribution of national income and reform of the labour relations system. When offensive strikes occur they can generate an extraordinary amount of pressure on the social system which often leads to structural changes such as the reconfiguring of the industrial relations system, the economy or political system. These kinds of events are referred to as a ‘turning point’.

In the immediate post-apartheid period, the trend of increased frequency of strikes continued, with the highest number of strikes in South African history of 1 324 strikes taking place in 1998. However, between 2000 and 2009, the strike frequency averaged 71 per annum, which was even lower than the 1960s and largely defensive in character.

Despite the low frequency of strike action, the year 2007 marks the beginning of a new militancy. The 2007 strikes are largely attributed to the huge support of the offensive public service strike involving some 700,000 workers which was closely followed by the more successful wave of 26 offensive strikes mainly led by workers committees at FIFA 2010 World Cup construction sites.

While centralised bargaining and sectoral determinations continued to act as counter tendencies on strike frequency, a trend of increasing numbers of days lost due to industrial action accelerated. The 9,5 million days lost in 2007 more than doubled to 20,6 million in 2010. Most of the days lost were in the public sector, where some 1,3 million came out on another militant strike. What was significant about this strike was that the ANC for the first time felt that it could not control its major alliance partner, COSATU, which led the labour movement.

Further, there was an unprecedented increase in the share of unprotected (mainly wildcat) strikes from 44% in 2012, 52% in 2013, 48% in 2014 and 55% in 2015. Thus, the increase in the number of days lost and the percentage increase in unprotected strikes are important indicators of a change in the mood of the working class. The offensive wildcat strikes of December 2011 to April 2012 were led by workers committees of post office workers against labour broking which at the same time exposed the lack of will by unions to take up the struggle of non-standard workers. These workers ended the system of labour broking in the post office, ensured permanent employment of 5000 workers and doubled the salaries of workers to R4,000 (€258). The post office workers became the first group of workers in South African history to reverse labour broking and win a 100% increase in wages.

Both the Marikana strike and the Western Cape Farm Workers’ strike started in August 2012. Rock drillers initiated a wildcat strike at Lonmin, a platinum mine, in pursuit of a pay raise to R12, 500 (€707) per month. The strike was led by an independent strike committee and the majority union, the NUM, actively opposed the strike siding with Lonmin management. On 16th August, a peaceful assembly of workers was forcefully broken up by a special paramilitary task team killing 34 mine workers. This became known as the Marikana Massacre. This strike secured only a partial victory, with a 14% increase in wages.

The historic Western Cape Farm Workers’ strike lasted from 27 August 2012 to 22 January 2013. The strike and associated community uprising spread to 25 rural towns and was led largely by seasonal workers coordinated by locally based vanguard groups. The farm workers’ strike was historic as it was the first strike wave in the post-apartheid period to unite workers and communities, and this forced the hand of government to announce a 52% increase in the daily minimum wage. In general, employment figures in the agricultural sector indicate a trend toward stabilisation of employment along with a significant shift from casual and seasonal to permanent employment, marking the beginning to changes in the labour process brought about through the agency of farm workers against capital.

A year after the farm workers strike, on 22 January, the longest and most expensive strike in South African history broke out in the platinum industry. The 70,000 strong, five-month platinum strike hit 40% of global production. The stoppage dragged the economy into contraction in the first quarter of 2014 and cost the companies almost R24bn (€ 1,4 bn) in lost revenue. The final agreement between the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and the three platinum producers included a R1 000 per month salary or 20% increase for lower earners.

On July 1, just over a week after the platinum strike, the 220 000 workers of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) downed tools, demanding a salary increase of 12%. The strike, lasting one month without pay, concluded with a 4% real wage increase. While labour brokers would not be banned as Numsa had demanded, it was agreed that a number of regulatory instruments would be introduced, including the appointment of compliance officers to act on complaints of alleged abuse and noncompliance.

The workers’ strike wave gave impetus to the nationwide 2015 student “Fees Must Fall” protests at higher education institutions and later expanded by including the “Outsourcing Must Fall” campaign. In the absence of leadership by the National Health Education Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU), workers were mainly being led by workers committees which developed a call for an end to outsourcing at higher education institutions nationally. The combined actions by students-workers-academics ensured that almost all universities across South Africa agreed to end outsourcing on campuses and to employ workers on the same conditions as full-time workers, resulting in most wage increases being between 66%-163%. This event was an expression of a new level of consciousness and unity with significant implications for the power relations at tertiary institutions and constitutes the third instance of a reversal of the labour process restructuring in the current period.

However, does the gradual increase in number of offensive strikes starting in 2007, the occurrence of the Marikana Massacre and the farm workers’ revolt of 2012, the five-month platinum strike (the longest in South Africa history) and the one-month metalworkers’ strike in 2014 indicate that a new wave of offensive strikes has begun? Or is the latter just a short-lived ‘revival’ upheaval on a depressive long wave of defensive strikes? A key question is: has South Africa reached a turning point?

There are several structural dimensions that are being affected. On the economic side, we have seen direct challenges and changes to the labour process and huge costs associated with strikes to the economy. On the industrial relations level, there is pressure by business and the formal opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, for changes in the law to undermine the right to strike. Further, in January 2015, the Labour Relations Amendment Act (No.6 of 2014) took effect and ensures that vulnerable groups of employees, especially those employed through labour brokers, get adequate protection. On the political level, a new opposition to the ANC, the Economic Freedom fighters (EFF), was formed in 2013, and the more militant NUMSA was expelled from COSATU in 2015, setting the stage for the launch of an alternative, politically independent federation. Also, in the 2016 municipal elections, the support for the ANC as the manager of neo-liberalism in South Africa fell, indicating a loss of hegemony.

While some have argued that the Marikana strike wave is not a turning point, they have limited their analysis to a formalistic view of the events as a specific ‘labour dispute’ gone wrong and cite the fact that the labour relations system remains intact. Other mainstream economists instead focus on the irrationality of the actions in terms of losses of incomes to workers. Does the fact that Marikana workers lost 12% of their annual wages, that R10 billion in wages were lost in the 2014 Platinum strike, or that NUMSA workers only gained 4% in its one-month strike, relegate the strike waves as defensive incidents?

By focusing on the formalism of industrial relations and economistic views, the above perspectives fail to comprehend the complexity of strike dynamics and the historical process of class struggle that is being unleashed. As Marx said regarding the dynamic of strikes:

“In order to rightly appreciate the value of strikes and combinations, we must not allow ourselves to be blinded by the apparent insignificance of their economical results, but hold, above all things, in view their moral and political consequences” (Marx 1853).

* This article is based on extracts from, Cottle, E. Long Waves of Strikes in South Africa: 1900-2015. Forthcoming in, Balashova O, Karatepe I & Namukasa A. 2016.  Where have all classes gone? Collective action and social struggles in a global context. International Center for Development and Decent Work, Kassel University, Germany.

Source: Pambazuka

SPORTS:

What is wrong with football in Ghana?

 

Ghana Black Stars

By K. B. Asante 

Frankly, I do not know what is wrong, but the atmosphere has changed.

There was not the usual excitement during the recent African Cup matches. Normally when the Black Stars are playing in a major match, I leave the television to save the old heart from great tension by taking a book to bed.

But I quickly go down to put the television on to watch the replay when the national team scores.But how did I know that the Stars had scored a goal? It is simple. There were then yells and deafening shouts of joy from “Palm Wine Junction” to “Wireless” at La where I live. Taxis and even sedate cars sounded their horns. The excitement was usually great and widespread.

Nothing of the sort, however, happened when the Stars played for the championship of Africa recently. My area was quiet.  There was no indication that we had qualified for the semi-finals. There appeared to be some disenchantment with football.

Even the press seemed to share in the yawning on football. But was it the game the people appeared to be tired of or were those involved in its administration and promotion found ineffective and disappointing?

The public disenchantment appeared to have affected the Ghanaian team. The second goal scored by Cameroun to deny the Stars firmly going into the finals was farcical. The Ghanaians were naturally applying great pressure for an equaliser. But was that a reason for ignoring the defence? The chasing of the Camerounian with the ball by two Ghanaians was funny. The Ghanaians appeared tired and aimless.If not, how could they not overtake the Camerounian who was naturally slowed down by controlling the ball? And more importantly, why was there no defence?

And why did the Black Stars fail to score after so much pressure? It appeared they had only one plan - get the ball to one or two strikers.

There were no attempts to try long shots through the many openings in the opponents’ defence; and the headings from the many good corners were not that good.  The Stars appeared to have been affected by the displeasure of many Ghanaians.

Instead of being heroes in waiting, they were regarded as money. Grabbers at a time when corruption appeared to be rife in the country. It was rumoured they asked for executive allowances to represent their country and had to climb down after some pressure.

But can we blame the Stars? They were subjected to so much haggling about allowances and other payments during the World Cup competition in Brazil.  There appeared to be so much time-consuming arguments and confusion that eventually a plane had to be hired to carry allowances and other payments from Ghana to Brazil in this day and age of electronic transfers. We became the laughing stock of the world!

Those who administer football in Ghana have, together with those who play, brought the game to a low ebb in Ghana.  We must get rid of the bad administrators and restore the image of football.  It is still the most popular game in Ghana and as we promote sports in general, we should not forget the pivotal role of football.

We should restore football as the most popular game played by the youth.  It is good for them in many ways.  In the bad old days, a housemaster at Achimota College had to coach his house team in football, hockey and cricket.  He could ask colleagues who were not housemasters to help but he would do well to read, study and play the game so that he could coach his house team.

Of course as a teacher, you learn about the importance of games and sports in physical and mental development.  We should vigorously promote the inter-school and college games of old.  Facilities for other games should be provided to usefully engage our boys and girls at school.  In particular, there should be grounds and parks at schools and in the country for games.

In my youth, we had many open fields in which to play football.  An open space, four heaps of stone for goal posts and a tennis ball and you were game for football.  Today, it is more expensive to play even football.  You need boots, goal posts, footballs and marked fields. 

In my youth, practically all you needed was open space and there were many of them.  Where can the young play today? We build anywhere, anyhow and have no parks, open places of leisure let alone football parks.

I am afraid without parks, football will go into decline.  Not long ago, Germany dominated the field of tennis with Boris Becker as the leading star.  At a meeting in Hanover, I asked a German friend how they produced so many good tennis players.  He said he would talk to me about the matter after the afternoon session. 

He took me round after the session and without any comments simply called my attention to the many tennis courts practically on every street.  It was clear you could not create great tennis players if there were no tennis courts.  Likewise, we cannot create great strikers, midfielders and the like if there are no football parks.  Incidentally, we practically have no tennis courts in Accra apart from the apology of a couple of courts at Ridge. In my youth, people such as Paa Dove had extensive tennis courts at home at Tudu.

So let us put a stop to the rampant development of towns without football and other parks.  We must keep the young healthy.  Camping children on the sixth floor of a conurbation will not help.  The youth must be up and around to maintain and promote health and wellbeing.  We cannot develop good footballers without parks and facilities for enjoyment. 

What is wrong with football in Ghana is more serious than the lack and search for expert foreign coaches and trainers and the provision of adequate money for players.  What we need is to provide facilities so that we can tap talent throughout the country and imprint our character and style on the game.

Football is not merely a game to be watched and in which to promote teams and in which to place bets.  It is to be enjoyed.  In my youth, we were excited not only by the number of goals scored by our side but by the dribbling delight of players.  We were thrilled not by “strikers” but by those who displayed “Amε” (dribbles).

Football has moved on and we should follow development.  We should express our national character while we win matches.  The Brazilians do not play football like the British who took the game over there. What is wrong with football is not the temporary disenchantment.  We should make facilities available, especially parks.  It should be a crime to build on every available piece of land.

The benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism: An integral part of the South African history

Thabo Mbeki

By Sehlare Makgetlaneng

Since 1994 South Africa has been unable to seriously change the national socio-economic direction in the interest of the majority of the people. The end of apartheid has helped to increase SA’s integration into global capitalism. The benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism are mass poverty for the majority and wealth and privileges for the powerful minority, which includes a few blacks.

There has been the dialectical and organic relationship between the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism in South Africa since their inception in the country. The capture of the interlinkages between these problems in the South African history for their concrete understanding and resolution is through the theoretical use of the relationship between race and class and the theoretical and practical recognition of the primacy of class over race in South Africa. Capitalism since its inception in South Africa has constituted the primary or irreconcilable contradiction with the masses of its exploited people. This work uses the dialectical relationship between race and class to explain the relationship between the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism in the South African political economy.

Thabo Mbeki, on the proposed domestic and foreign policies of the post-apartheid South Africa, examined key characteristic features of apartheid South Africa. He pointed out that the provision of “a penetrating understanding” of South Africa is the task requiring that we look into its past. According to him, to have this understanding, we must appreciate the reality that we are dealing with a class society in which   “the capitalists, the bourgeoisie are the dominant class.” The dominance or “supremacy of the bourgeoisie” was conditioning “the state, other forms of social organisation and social ideas” in the South African society. This essential feature of South Africa was characteristic of other societies in which the bourgeoisie was dominant.  Providing a socio-historical background of South Africa as a class society, he maintained that:

‘The landing of the employees of the Dutch East India Company at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 represented in embryo the emergence of class society in our country. And that class society was bourgeois society in its infancy. The settlers of 1652 were brought  to South Africa  by the dictates  of the brutal  period  of the birth  of the capitalist  class  which  has been characterised as the stage of the primitive accumulation.’

Mbeki excluded Karl Marx’s statement: ‘on their heels treads the commercial war  of the European nations, with the globe for  a theatre’ which  is immediately  after he pointed out  the characteristic  features of the process of the primitive  accumulation of capital.

Mbeki quoted Marx in explaining ‘the expropriation  of the African peasantry’  or ‘the expropriation  of the great mass of the people from the soil, from the means of subsistence and from the means of labour.’[2] This quotation is as follows:

‘The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. (Capital, Vol. 1, p. 703). … the transformation of the individualised and scattered means of production into socially concentrated ones, of the pigmy property of the many into the huge property of the few, the expropriation of the great mass of the people from the soil, from the means of subsistence, and from the means of labour, this fearful and painful expropriation of the mass of the people forms the prelude to the history of capital.  It comprises a series of forcible methods ... The expropriation of the immediate producers was accomplished with merciless vandalism, and under the stimulus of passions the most infamous, the most sordid, the pettiest, the most meanly odious’ (p. 714).

This  quotation is important for several  key reasons. It enables us to fully understand, firstly, why the labourers of the Dutch East India Company landed at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. Second, that violent methods were used in the "fearful and painful expropriation" of the masses of the South African people. Third, that they were forcibly separated from the means of production, distribution and exchange. Fourth, why the first group of slaves were brought to the Cape to serve the interests of the forces of imperialism. Fifth, why South Africa became thrust directly into wars between Britain and Holland in their intensified competitive expansion on an international scale. This quotation  enables us to fully understand that oppression and exploitation of the masses of the colonised and enslaved people by imperialist powers provided the socio-political and economic foundation for the rise, growth and dominance of capitalism in its centre. Mbeki’s view of South Africa as a capitalist society  under the dominance of   the bourgeoisie  is a vital contribution  to our understanding  of the reality that  it is not  an exception  to the strategic working class thesis that capitalism constitutes the primary, irreconcilable or antagonistic contradiction with the masses of the oppressed and exploited people.

Adam Smith’s thesis of the benefits and misfortunes of the colonial conquest of America and the passage to the East Indies through the Cape of Good Hope as the greatest and most important developments in the history of the world provides the socio-historical background of the dialectical and organic relationship between the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism in South Africa. It is useful not only in providing a critical analysis of the dialectical and organic relationship between race and class in South Africa, but also in paving the way for the understanding of the dialectical and organic relationship between the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism as an integral socio-economic part of the South African history.

According to Smith, the colonial conquest of America and the passage to the East Indies through the Cape of Good Hope are some of the greatest and most important developments in the history of the world. ‘The discovery of America and that of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope,’ he wrote, ‘are the two greatest and most important events in the history of mankind.He continued, pointing out that:

‘Their consequences have already  been very  great: but, in the short  period  of between  two  and three  centuries which has  elapsed  since these  discoveries were  made, it  is impossible  that the  whole extent of their consequences  can have  been seen. What benefits, or what misfortunes to mankind may hereafter result from those great events, no human wisdom can foresee.

Smith later recognised that while the benefits of these two developments went to the decisive minority of the world, their misfortunes went to the decisive majority of the people of the world. In other words, he recognised socio-political and economic problems of imperialism and colonialism and their consequences.  He wrote:

‘By uniting, in some measure, the most distant parts of the world, by enabling them to relieve one another’s wants, to increase one another’s enjoyments, and to encourage one another’s industry, their general tendency would seem to be beneficial. To the natives, however, both of the East and West Indies, all the commercial benefits which can have resulted from those events have been sunk and lost in the dreadful misfortunes which they have occasioned.’

Superiority of force

When these ‘discoveries’ were made, ‘Europeans’ were enabled by their possession of ‘the superiority of force’ in committing ‘with impunity every sort of injustice in those remote countries.’[7] This ‘savage injustice’ of the European forces of imperialism and colonialism was an integral part of the organised brutal, violent measures visited upon ‘nations in America’ which ‘were destroyed almost as soon as discovered.’[8] These measures applied to other colonised countries. According to Smith, they were ‘ruinous and destructive to several of those unfortunate countries.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels agreed with  Smith  on the decisive role  that the colonial conquest  of America and the passage to the East Indies through  the Cape of Good Hope  played  in the development of   capitalism. They pointed out that:

‘The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian  and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of  exchange and in commodities generally, gave  to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an  impulse never  before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element  in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development.’

As organic intellectuals of the struggle to establish community as the basis of social existence whose essence is socio-political and economic equality, Marx and Engels were clear that arising from the dialectically and organically linked benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism was the creation of the world reflecting the image of the centre of capitalism. The benefits and misfortunes of imperialism and colonialism have dialectically and organically led to the existence of the centre and the periphery of capitalism. The dialectical and organic creation and sustenance of these links of the imperialist chain are critical to the concrete understanding of the mechanisms of exploitation of finance capital in its global operations in the dominated links or the developing countries. Global capitalism, referred to by Sven Beckert as war capitalism, depends on the control, domination and exploitation it exercises over human, natural, material and financial resources of these countries which include South Africa. That the relations, institutions  and structures  upon which international finance capital  depends could never have been  established, maintained and sustained without human, natural, material and financial resources of these countries is of theoretical and practical importance to the understanding of this dependence. The process of colonialism constituted the base of the mechanisms of international finance capital controlled from the centre of capitalism. The existence of neo-colonialism is the material support of the fact that these relations, institutions and structures of control, domination and exploitation are still in place.

Throughout the whole socio-historical phase of capitalist development from mercantilist imperialism, through free trade imperialism and financial imperialism, to the present period of multilateral imperialism, South Africa, according to Ngugi wa Thiong’o, served as ‘a mirror of the emergence of the modern world.’ It executed this task by embodying ‘more  intensively  than  most  the consequence  of  the benefits’ of capitalism and racism  ‘to a white minority linked to Europe’ and ‘the misfortunes, to the majority  linked to the rest of Africa and Asia, with the minority  trying  to create  a South Africa  after  its image, which it also  saw  as representative  of what it called  Western civilization.’  South Africa ‘was also to embody  the resistance  against  the negative consequences’  of capitalist ‘modernity,’  and in ‘its  history we see the  clashes  and interactions of race, class, gender, ethnicity, religion and the social forces  that bedevil the world  today.’

These ‘clashes and interactions of race, class, gender, ethnicity, religion and social forces’ bedeviling South Africa today constitute challenges faced in the struggle against racism and capitalism.

Race and class in South Africa

The class question in South Africa has key aspects of the race question. There are the dialectical and organic relationship between race and class. Capital and labour in South Africa are socio-historical formations of class and race. There is the articulated combination of the struggle against racism and the struggle against capitalism. This socio-historical development is the consequence of the dialectical and organic relationship between race and class in the country since the inception of colonialism and capitalism. This reality is articulated by wa Thiong’o as follows:

‘South Africa as the site of concentration of both domination and resistance was to mirror the worldwide struggles between capital and labour, and between the colonising and the colonised. For Africa, let’s face it, South African history, from Vasco da Gama’s landing at the Cape in 1498 to its liberation in 1994, frames all modern social struggles, certainly black struggles. If the  struggle, often  fought out  with swords, between racialised capital and racialised  labour was about  wealth and power, it was also a  battle over  image, often  fought  out  with words.’

The issue of the struggle between ‘racialised capital and racialised labour’ has been and continues being of theoretical and practical importance in the understanding of the relationship between the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism in the present South Africa. In other words, the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism in South Africa have been having not only the class factor, but also the racial factor.  It is for this reason that the relationship between race and class should be weaved without departing from the importance of the racial factor is of theoretical and practical importance in the South African political economy.

The existence of the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism and dialectical and organic relationship between the struggle against capitalism and the struggle against racism in South Africa have been such that the South African revolutionary and progressive forces should dialectically weave the relationship between race and class and never depart from the importance of the racial factor in the South African politics of the structural socio-economic change even before 1994. This reality was supported by the African National Congress (ANC) in its view of the South African national liberation struggle in 1970 as follows:

‘In our country – more than in any other part of the oppressed world – it is inconceivable for liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the land to the people as a whole. It is therefore a fundamental feature of our strategy that victory must embrace more than formal political democracy. To allow  the existing  economic forces  to retain  their interests  intact  is to feed  the root  of racial supremacy  and does not represent even the shadow of liberation.

‘Our drive towards national emancipation is therefore in a very real way bound up with economic emancipation. We have suffered more than just national humiliation. Our people are deprived of their due in the country’s wealth; their skills have been suppressed and poverty and starvation has been their life experience. The correction of these centuries-old economic injustices lies at the very core of our national aspirations.  We do not  underestimate  the complexities  which will face  a people’s government  during the  transformation period  nor the enormity  of the problems  of meeting economic  needs of the mass of the oppressed people. But one thing is certain – in our  land this  cannot  be effectively  tackled  unless  the basic  wealth  and the basic  resources  are at  the disposal  of the people as  a whole  and are not  manipulated  by sections or individuals  be they White or Black.’

Articulating this reality, Joe Slovo maintained that:

‘The elimination of national inequality, if it is to be more than a mere gesture, involves a complete change of the way in which the country’s wealth is appropriated. This must surely be the major premise of every social group or class in the subordinate majority, even if its ideology is limited solely to an urge for national vindication. This premise bears on the correction of historical injustice stemming from conquest; it is concerned with the fundamental source of existing grievance, and it has vital relevance to the question of future power relationships. If every racist statute were to be repealed tomorrow, leaving the economic status quo undisturbed, ‘white domination’ in its most essential aspects would remain.’

This articulation of the dialectical and organic relationship between the struggle against racism and the struggle against capitalism and the relationship between race and class by the ANC and Slovo in the service of the structural socio-economic change has been of strategic importance in the task to solve the problem of the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism even before 1994. It pointed to the possibility of capitalism structurally buttressing racism in the post-apartheid South Africa if determined efforts were not to be made to achieve the structural socio-economic change upon the end of the apartheid rule.

Deracialisation of the economy and society

Since 1994, the political leaders of South Africa have been attempting to solve the problem of the national question through ‘the deracialisation of the economy and society.’[19] How to solve he national question without solving the problem of the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism in South Africa? The problem of the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism is in essence the problem of the national question in the country. Thabo Mbeki played a leading role in the formulation, adoption and implementation of the national economic policy since 1994.  He declared that the struggle ‘against racism in our country must include the objective of creating a black bourgeoisie.’

He called upon blacks to support the creation and consolidation of the black bourgeoisie in the continued struggle to end racism. The national task to ‘create and strengthen a black capitalist class’ was an integral part of the ‘goal of deracialisation within the context of the property relations characteristic of a capitalist economy.’

What was Mbeki’s understanding of the ‘goal of deracialisation’ of the South African economy and society ‘within the context of the property relations characteristic of a capitalist economy’ he was referring to? This question is of political, economic and ideological importance given the fact that:

‘The negotiations to  end apartheid  were in the event  premised  upon  the achievement  of political  equality whilst leaving  the structure  and functioning  of the economy  intact.  Yet, of course, if white capital was to be untouched how was capitalism in South Africa to be de-racialized, never mind decent living standards achieved for the majority? The transitional compromise removed questions of wealth redistribution from the agenda and confined the settlement to narrowly political and constitutional issues, the establishment of bourgeois order, democratic rights and liberal democratic structures.’

The policy measure whose aim is the primacy of the advancement of material interests of the few over the advancement of the popular socio-economic empowerment structurally serves the strategic interests of the bourgeoisie of advanced capitalist countries in South Africa. It structurally helps to forge and sustain a class alliance between the bourgeoisie of the centre of capitalism and that of South Africa and imperialism in the country. This reality was explained by Sehlare Makgelaneng in 2000 as follows:

‘The task of increasing the camp of African, Asian and Coloured bourgeoisie through ‘black economic empowerment’ programmes will make the South African bourgeoisie more ‘multi-racial’ in composition. It will not be the solution to our economic domination and exploitation by imperialism. It will not even constitute a crucial threat to the dominant position occupied by imperialism in the South African economy.  It will help to cement ties between the South African bourgeoisie and the imperialist bourgeoisie.  The point is that the advancement of African, Asian and Coloured bourgeoisie is in line with the strategic interests of the South African European bourgeoisie and of imperialism. The advancement of African, Asian and Coloured bourgeoisie will be the advancement of imperialism in its domination and exploitation of the South African economy.’

This position helps us to understand why the dominant fraction of the South African capital with well-entrenched structural interlocking network of interests, interlinkages, exchanges and ties and common patterns of cooperation with international finance capital initiated the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy deals for its strategic and tactical interests.  According to Kgalema Motlanthe, as the deputy president of South Africa, the BEE policy through which the state has been embarking upon the programme of action in creating and consolidating the black bourgeoisie, was:

‘the brainchild of the mining industry, which deliberately went out to select blacks who could serve as insurance against possible nationalisation. They basically went out in search of blacks who were “connected” and therefore could guarantee some kind of protection. And that is why they had a small pool of people that they could rope into the first BEE deals. And they were debt-funded – the deals were structured such that payment for those shares would have to come off the profit.’

Motlanthe pointed out further that the ‘major beneficiaries’ of the BEE deals ‘were the financial institutions.’

Central to the reality articulated by Motlanthe is the tactical means used by the leaders of the South African mining industry in enriching blacks they selected from ‘a small pool of people’ in advancing their strategic interests. It entailed ‘opportunities and massive enrichment for a relative handful of well-placed individuals’ of ‘debt-funded wealth’ and their ‘advisers’ who became ‘enormously wealthy.’[26] Ann Crotty maintained that this process was not ‘merely  the greed  of well-placed  black individuals’ but also ‘the greed  of an army of white financial advisers who realised that  BEE deals  offered  huge opportunities to generate enormous  transaction fees.’ Given the strategic importance  of the management of the relationship between  race and  class  and the role of state political power in the provision of the economic, financial and trade direction  of the South African society since 1994  which included  the participation of some blacks as capitalists, one of the crucial important issues to achieve this structural objective was ‘how  to provide  finance  on reasonable  terms  to the targeted  beneficiaries, who  generally  had limited  access to funding.’ This programme of action became ‘huge opportunities’ seized  by ‘a team  of financial advisers scouring  the economic landscape  for deals  to be done and  transaction fees  to be  earned, largely for their own pockets.’ 

Crotty explained how ‘a relative handful of well-placed individuals’ or ‘the high-rollers made their millions’ or became millionaires within a short period of time. Cyril Ramaphosa, deputy president of the ANC and South Africa, did ‘score substantially’ after the Molope Group was ‘rescued by Rebhold when he was given substantial mining-related assets, which were used to build up Shanduka.’ The Anglo American Corporation unbundled its Johnnies Industrial Corporation (JCI) when it sold its controlling shares in the JCI or Johnnic to the National Economic Consortium in 1996. This development was a massive opportunity for the BEE deals and its selected beneficiaries.  The point is that JCI’s assets included significant shares in the South African Breweries, Premier Food and Times Media. They also included indirectly significant shares in the Mobile Telephone Networks (MTN). The coming to an end of the Johnnic conglomerate led to the consolidation of the MTN. Patrice Motsepe who was excluded from the 1996 Black Economic Consortium made the BEE deal with ‘the enormously wealthy Sacco family, which controlled iron-ore company Assore.’ His shares in Assore were central to the development of the African Rainbow Minerals. 

Buffers against fundamental change

Some aspects of the criticism of the BEE policy depart from the importance of race in the South African political economy. They are in favour of the white bourgeoisie. Christine Qunta attempted  to expose this problem when she maintained in 2011 that the ‘most obvious and rational answer’ to the question raised by some ‘white people’  as to  how  long Affirmative Action and  BEE policies  will continue being implemented would be ‘until the economy is controlled  by black Africans who constitute the majority’ of the South African population. She maintained that the BEE policy was viewed by some whites as ‘a short-term  means of  controlling  even  more  of the economy and empowering  certain well-connected  individuals to act as  buffers against  fundamental change.’

The ‘unspoken  agreement’ between some members of the white bourgeoisie and their organic intellectuals and these blacks was ‘we will  make you  rich  overnight  and you will not  rock  the boat  by changing  the staff  and our method of doing business.’[29] The issue of departing from  the importance of  race  in the South African political economy in favour of some white bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie in some aspects of the criticism of the BEE policy can best be understood if we take seriously into account Qunta’s statement:  ‘White businesses continue  to make  enormous profits, often  at the expense  of their BEE partners’ and that while ‘there is much focus  in the media on “tenderpreneurs” and fronting, very  rarely are white   companies called out  for their fraud and dishonesty.’[30] She concluded that the South African economy is run by the decisive minority of the South African population which is ‘2.77 percent’ and ‘yet we expect it to be a competitive growing economy.’ What would be the consequence of this expectation? According to her, what ‘we cannot imagine, however, is that  in 15 years we will still have the same  highly concentrated, unequal,  racialised and underperforming economy of today.’

The reality that some aspects of the criticism of the BEE policy that depart from the importance of  race  in the South African political economy are in favour of the white bourgeoisie and betty-bourgeoisie is supported by Pallo Jordan in his analysis of the socio-political and economic changes brought into existence by the end of the apartheid rule. This socio-historical development has substantially opened the doors of opportunity to some blacks. One of its consequences is the rapid growth of the African petty-bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie. He maintains that the profile of this relatively wealthy African social forces hides the reality, first, that the end of the apartheid rule has ‘benefited the white minority disproportionately – 87% of whites’ who ‘are now in the upper-income brackets.’  The second reality is ‘the growing disparity between the incomes of the wealthy and the poor, who are overwhelmingly black.’

The fact that some aspects of the criticism of the BEE policy that depart from the importance of  race  in the South African political economy are in favour of the white bourgeoisie can best be understood  if we take into  account the reality that before 1994 there was  a concentrated focus on the white bourgeoisie. Since 1994 there has been a shift from the focus on the white bourgeoisie to the black bourgeoisie. The focus on the black bourgeoisie excluding the white bourgeoisie is as if or implies incorrectly that the white bourgeoisie in its alliance with imperialism is no longer the central impediment to the long walk to the structural socio-economic change and transformation. It is as if the black bourgeoisie is the key social force within South African capitalism to be defeated by the black working class. Having left out the white bourgeoisie from the requisite criticism, the white working class has been left to white liberal and conservative parties for mobilisation into the defence of the South African capitalism led by the white bourgeoisie in alliance with imperialism. Is it a progressive position to call upon white socialists and communists to play a leading role in mobilising white working class into a progressive and revolutionary movement as an integral part of the struggle to end the benefits of capitalism and racism?

Thabo Mbeki’s about-face

The direction of the BEE policy has been such that some of those who played a leading role in its formulation, adoption and implementation had to criticise some of its consequences. The black bourgeoisie created on the basis of the BEE policy has not, first, contributed towards the support base of the state or the exercise of state political power in South Africa’s internal and external affairs. Second, rather than contributing towards the ‘de-racialisation’ of the South African capitalism, by demonstrating their commitment to have financial, industrial and mining bases within the national economy,  BEE beneficiaries have been preoccupied with the accumulation of wealth not the development and progress of the country.  It was for these reasons, among others, that in 2006, Mbeki criticised one of the profound consequences of the policy he played a leading role in its formulation, adoption and implementation. In his words:

‘The capitalist market destroys relations of kinship, neighbourhood, profession, and creed [and makes people] atomistic and individualistic. Thus, everyday, and during every hour of our time beyond sleep, the demons embedded in our society, that stalk us at every minute, seem always to beckon each one of us towards a realisable dream and nightmare. With every passing second, they advise, with rhythmic and hypnotic regularity – get rich! get rich! get rich!  

‘And thus it has come about  that many of us accept  that our  common  natural  instinct  to escape  from poverty  is but  the other  side of the  same coin  on whose side  are written  the words -  at all costs, get rich in these circumstances, personal wealth, and the public communication of the message that we are people of wealth, becomes, at the same time,  the means  by which we  communicate  the message that we are worthy  citizens of our community, the very  exemplars of what defines the product of a liberated South Africa.

‘This peculiar striving produces the particular result that manifestations of wealth, defined in specific ways, determine the individuality of each one of us who seeks to achieve happiness and self-fulfillment, given the liberty that the revolution of 1994 brought to all of us. In these circumstances, the meaning of freedom has come to be defined not by the seemingly ethereal and therefore intangible gift of liberty, but by the designer labels on the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the spaciousness of our houses and our yards, the geographic location, the company we keep, and what we do as part of that company.’

This raises the question as to whether Mbeki was not aware that the policy which he played a leading role in its formulation, adoption and implementation was going to lead to the existence of what he is criticising as the former president of the country. The answer to this question is that he was fully aware of the consequences of what he was doing as the Deputy President and the President of South Africa. The point is that the BEE policy formulated, adopted and implemented under the leadership of Mbeki ‘was a deliberate policy.’

Mbeki criticised harshly black capitalists in 1978. In his paper, The Historical Injustice, presented at a seminar in Ottawa, Canada, in 1978 and published in Sechaba in March 1979, he pointed out that ‘black capitalism instead of being an antithesis is rather a confirmation of parasitism with no redeeming features whatsoever, without any extenuating circumstances to excuse its existence.’[36] In criticising this deliberate policy, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela maintained in 2010 that it was ‘a joke.’ In her words:

‘Black economic empowerment is a joke. It was a white confidence measure made up by local white capitalists. They took malleable blacks and made them partners. But those who had struggled and had given blood were left with nothing. They are still in shacks: no electricity, no sanitation and no sign of an education.’

The ANC through its political administration of the South African society since 1994 has not been able to seriously change the national socio-economic direction in the interest of the majority of the people. The end of the apartheid rule has helped to substantially increase South Africa’s integration into global capitalism. Characterised, among others, by a small minority of blacks being bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie, it has led, firstly, to a limited reduction of the socio-economic division between blacks and whites and, secondly, to an increase in the division between the rich and the poor.

One of the consequences of these forms of division has been the structural failure to achieve a substantial progress towards a meaningful socio-economic empowerment or justice or to move decisively against the foundation of the structure and the operational framework of the political economy of the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism in the country.  John S. Saul regards this socio-historical development as ‘recolonisation’ of South Africa by finance capital.

Saul’s statement points to the structural definition of the post-apartheid South Africa being a neo-colonial social formation in its relation with the international financial capital. There are some scholars who maintain that the domination   of the South African economy by finance capital has increased following the end of the apartheid rule and that this is reflected in the direction of its economic policy. Sam Ashman, Ben Fine and Susan Newman maintain  that ‘financial interests have influenced policy  and  affected class formation’ and  that ‘many  commodity  markets have become  increasingly  financialized, with  speculation  affecting  their volatility (not  least food and energy).’ The domination of the South African economy by the white national bourgeoisie is relative in relation to that exercised by the financial oligarchy of the advanced capitalist countries. Directly related to this reality is the fact that the domination of South Africa by imperialism has survived the end of the apartheid rule.

The reality that the structure and operational framework of the economy has remained essentially the same since 1994 is articulated by Njabulo Ndebele when points out that:

‘It seems that instead of setting out to create a new reality, we worked merely to inherit an old one … Redistribution was given   priority over creation and invention. We reaffirmed  the structures of inequality by seeking  to work  within  the inherent  logic  (and)  the promise of human  revolution  once dreamed  of was  conceptually subverted.’

Post-apartheid power relations

Analysing old apartheid social power relations as they meet the post-apartheid South Africa, Gunnett Kaaf maintains that ‘in many respects old power relations formed under apartheid, in the economic production systems’ have ‘remained almost the same.’ His conclusion is that the ‘big  monopolies  in the mining, energy and finance industries’ have ‘remained  in charge, continuing  to wield social power’ and that  they have  ‘co-opted, as junior partners, the black  business class and the black  political elites  to lend  legitimacy.’ The assumption and exercise of political power by some blacks has not seriously and negatively affected economic power and authority exercised by some whites. Kaaf’s view of social power relations challenges the position that the 1994 political dispensation has led to the separation between political power and economic power. According to him:

‘Because  of the centrality  of wealth  and economic power in capitalist  societies, those who have  wealth  and economic power wield political power, even if  they  are  not in  political life – and they  wield even more  social power.’

Through the BEE policy initiatives, South African capitalists dominant in the mining, energy and finance sectors of the economy ensure that they are structurally represented within the state for economic policy to advance their strategic interests.  According to Moeletsi Mbeki,  the objective of these  empowerment initiatives was to ‘wean the ANC from  radical economic  ambitions, such as  nationalising  the major elements  of the South African economy’ and to provide themselves with ‘a seat  at the  high table  of the ANC government’s  economic policy formulation system.’

The few black capitalists depend economically, financially and ideologically also on white South African capitalists and imperialism. Its advancement is limited by its being the beneficiary of the reallocation of rights, particularly in the mining sector of the South African economy. Black capital has not yet articulated a clear, coherent and strong ideological commitment to capitalism. It is not active in the strategic manufacturing and agricultural sectors of the South African economy. Despite the strategic importance of the land reform in the South African political economy and unequal control, ownership and distribution along racial lines and the consequent structural need for their transformation, the new black capitalists are not practically active in terms of engagement in land. They are also not theoretically active in terms of being vocal in demanding the transformation of control, ownership and distribution of land. They are also not vocal in ensuring that the South African state political power and authority and public capital are used in directing South Africa’s external economic and trade interests in conjunction with foreign policy in their interests. Their ownership of  companies controlling  South African leading newspapers has no impact on their content particularly regarding their view of black South Africans, South Africa’s role in Africa and beyond and South Africa’s relationship with Africa, the South, the North and the rest of the world.

Briefly, they are not active in the productive activities of the South African political economy and social life including on matters relating to black South Africans. Their call for change and transformation is essentially their demand that they should be more and more included in the task to widen the boundaries of privileges. The transformation process incorrectly viewed as the task to widen the boundaries of privilege has so far helped to protect and entrench the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism in the country.

 Motlanthe provides some of the key characteristic features of the members of the black capitalists created and sustained on the basis of the BEE policy. According to him:

‘they don’t have an impact among the blacks, as it were. Their impact is minimal. It’s why they channel their support, to curry favour directly from the ANC. In a sense, if we are brutally frank, they’re rent-seekers who extend that role to the ANC as an organisation and therefore are very central in corrupting the ANC, as it were. And so, for them to be described as part of the motive forces can only mean that they will vote for the ANC. That’s all. But they are not a factor, as I said. You can’t rely on them to play a meaningful role, for example, in discussion on transformation of the economy. They have no ideas. They have no brainpower, are not engaged in research. They are not a factor, as I see them. Instead, I think, they have been included in an already existing business class, which determines the voice of that business class and the views of that business class are determined by a different set of people.’

Ashman, Fine and  Newman provide a critical analysis of the key factors characterising   members of the black capitalists created and sustained on the basis of the BEE policy. On the creation and integration of the black bourgeoisie or ‘the formation or incorporation of a small black elite,’ they maintain that this social class among blacks is ‘both highly financialized and often highly dependent upon the state’ and that its ‘enrichment is notable for involving neither land (other than reallocated mineral rights as opposed to agriculture) nor, in general, productive activity.’

Black companies encounter profound problems in entering some sectors of the economy except through acquisition. The significant exceptions are sectors such as mobile telecommunications, media, information technology and healthcare. BEE as an integral part of the economic policy is limited, among others, given the fact that many of its beneficiaries are whites. Its privatisation component as a means of creating and consolidating the black bourgeoisie is limited. Significant BEE deals have links with international finance capital. Its profound limitation is the fact that it ‘does not   create a productive class within South Africa.’

Ashman, Fine and Newman point to the crucial decline in the qualitative movement towards socio-political and economic change and transformation in the post-apartheid South Africa. This can best be understood if we come to grips with the reality that one of the key characteristic features of the relationship between the race question and the class question in the post-apartheid South Africa is the ‘incorporation of erstwhile progressives through enrichment once in power.’ The formation of ‘a black elite’ or bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie, ‘often out of trade union leaders and political activists, has been a decisive part of the process and has entailed significant intellectual and political retreats and is sickeningly depressing.’[49] Why is this development ‘sickeningly depressing?’ The point is that:

‘It has been matched  by an equally  significant  expansion  of black employment, opportunities and advancement of for  at most  a minority, primarily through  the state, with a corresponding  and understandable  shifting  balance  of trade  union activity  to further material interests as opposed to  more fundamental  transformative  goals, as decline  is experienced  across  the more traditional  sources  of militancy and organization across mining and large-scale industry.  

‘In the case of South Africa, the intensive globalization and financialization of the economy has involved the corporate restructuring that has enabled incorporation of black elite. Here the form of enrichment is notable for its lack of productive activity. The black elite’s  incentives  to engage in and  promote  policies  for economic  and social  investments  are reduced  to the minimalist imperatives of social, political and ideological  containment.’

The benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism in South Africa are in the form of mass poverty for the majority of its people and wealth and privileges for its decisive minority which includes few blacks. One of the profound contradictions of the post-apartheid South Africa is that wealth and privileges of the beneficiaries of apartheid have been protected through the end of the apartheid rule. The fact that the end of the apartheid rule has so far been structurally protecting the wealth and privileges of the beneficiaries of the apartheid rule raises the fundamental question as to how the post-apartheid state can effectively de-racialise capitalism and make qualitative achievement in the material conditions of the majority of the South African people without at the same time embarking upon a programme of action which negatively affect those who have been benefiting  more than the decisive majority of the population from its economic policy.

Conclusion

This work has provided a critical analysis of the relationship the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism as an integral socio-economic part of the South African history. This task was executed by highlighting the importance of the relationship between race and class in South Africa before and since 1994. It provided analysis of the relationship between the Black Economic Empowerment policy and the perpetuation of the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism. 

It recommends that the relationship between race and class should be dialectically and organically weaved without departing from the importance of the racial factor in the South African politics of the structural socio-economic change. Its theoretical and practical importance is that the resolution of the benefits and misfortunes of capitalism and racism is in essence the resolution of the South African national question.

* Dr Sehlare Makgetlanenng, a rated researcher in African affairs by the National Research Foundation and political scientist and political economist based in Pretoria, South Africa, can be contacted at sehlarengaka@gmail.com. This essay is a compressed  version of  a journal article, ‘How capitalism and racism continue to shape the socioeconomic structure of South Africa’, published in Africanus: Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 46, Issue 1, 2016.

Source: Pambazuka