Alex residents queued for hours to buy basic foodstuff after shops were looted. The unrest has caused a humanitarian crisis, as has not been seen since the dawn of democracy in South Africa. Credit: Dan Ingham

By Kevin Humphrey
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, Jul 23 2021 (IPS)

Twenty-seven years after South Africa’s first democratic elections, the country finds itself reflecting on the catalysts of a week of looting and destruction of property resulting in more than 200 deaths and US$ 1.3 billion in damage.

President Cyril Ramaphosa described the week-long riots earlier this month as a failed insurrection.

Immediately before the violence, former President Jacob Zuma had handed himself over to prison authorities to begin serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of court for refusing to appear before the State Capture Commission. The commission is investigating widespread corruption in the country.

While there is an apparent link between the jailing of the former president and the looting – most analysts agree that several factors led to what has been described as a perfect storm. Of these many explanations, analysts have highlighted this is a country left ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic, which contributed to an increase in unemployment, endemic poverty that has persisted since 1994, the ruling African National Congress’ (ANC) inability to unite its factions and entrenched racial and ethnic divides.

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has planned hearings on the matter. It says it considers the “events which led up to violent incidents in different provinces, along with the resultant consequences, are complex and multifaceted.”

The SAHRC also stated that it had noted tensions that have erupted within and between particular communities – from Phoenix in Durban, KwaZulu Natal, where communities took up arms against looters, to Alexandra, popularly known as Alex, in Johannesburg, Gauteng.

Alex is an area where tensions and dissatisfaction go back for many years. The area, which has been inhabited since before the infamous 1913 Land Act, which removed land ownership from all black people in the country, was a major site of resistance during apartheid. Its post-apartheid history has been one of many unfulfilled promises, botched service delivery and allegedly corrupt practices in the Alexandra Renewal Project.

Writing for GroundUp, Masego Mafata says activists in Alex say nothing has changed after a protest in the area in 2019.

“As Alexandra is seized by mass looting and protests this week, a report from the Public Protector and the SAHRC following the devastating 2019 protests has revealed persistent failures by the City of Johannesburg and the Gauteng Provincial government. While the recent protests are reportedly linked to the incarceration of former president Jacob Zuma, the joint report suggests that Alexandra’s community is a tinderbox for public unrest.”

Economic hardships and income inequalities, exacerbated by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, are seen as a leading cause of dissatisfaction around the country.

In the recently published International Journal for Equity in Health, Chijioke O Nwosu and Adeola Oyenubi say, “nationwide lockdowns have resulted in income loss for individuals and firms, with vulnerable populations (low earners, those in informal and precarious employment, etc.) more likely to be adversely affected.”

The Congress of South African Trade Unions’ spokesperson Sizwe Pamla also pointed to multiple reasons for the rioting and looting.

“While the current events were triggered by political restlessness and frustration following the arrest of Former President Jacob Zuma, it is clear now that criminal elements have opportunistically hijacked this issue and are using it to loot,” says Pamla.

“This is also a reminder that the problem of unemployment and poverty is real in South Africa. COSATU has been arguing for a long-time that unemployment is a ticking time bomb that will explode in the face of policymakers and decision-makers.”

For individuals like Georgio da Silva, the owner of a car repair workshop in Jeppestown, Johannesburg, xenophobia also appears strongly in the mix of contributing factors. He and others in the area have experience in defending themselves and their businesses against xenophobic attacks.

Georgio da Silva, a car repair shop owner, saved his business in an area vulnerable to xenophobic attacks.

Immediately after Zuma reported to Estcourt prison and violent attacks began, Da Silva told IPS he managed to shut down his workshop but had their property damaged. Later he realised that xenophobia was only one of the motivating factors.

It is imperative that the complex mix of factors contributing to this ‘perfect storm’ of anarchy and insurrection be examined to prevent future occurrences – the political tensions within the ruling party also have to be factored in.

The bitter factional battle going on within the ANC resulted in Ramaphosa’s display of weak leadership. Barely having recovered from a week of violence, South Africans were left confused as even members of his cabinet could not agree on the unrest’s cause.

Police Minister Bheki Cele says he did not get intelligence reports regarding the unrest from the State Security Agency’s Minister Ayanda Dlodlo, which she disputes.

Defence and Military Veterans Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula contradicted Ramaphosa by saying the unrest was not part of a failed insurrection. She had since backtracked from this statement.

Political analyst, author, director of research at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection and emeritus professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, Susan Booysen, told IPS the “signature of factionalism in the ANC is printed all over the recent unrest in the country. While not being completely a root cause of the unrest, factionalism can be seen as the basic trigger that, once pulled, set the series of events in motion. Clearly, a faction of the ruling party was prepared to take part in instigating this kind of behaviour as a way of ‘getting its own back’ in the over politicised atmosphere that currently holds sway in the country.”

Professor Steven Friedman, Research Professor at the Faculty of Humanities, Politics Department at the University of Johannesburg says his “reading of the violence is that factional politics was important but not necessarily in the obvious way.”

While the violence was caused in reaction to the jailing of Zuma, which gave it a factional slant, he doubted the ferocity of violence in KZN  if it had simply been about supporting him as head of an ANC faction.

“My view is that people in political and economic networks, which are part of the faction which supports Zuma became convinced that the balance of power had shifted and that their networks were now in danger of being closed down. This would have ended their political and economic influence, and so they reacted by triggering the violence to protect their networks,” Friedman says.

What needs doing in the wake of this catastrophe is that South Africa deals with the glaring issues that have made this situation possible. These include appalling economic inequalities and a society racked with endemic violence that is the legacy of apartheid and colonialism. The country has democratic foundations, including a widely-lauded Constitution necessary to build a better society.

South Africans do have the capacity to face these challenges and build a country that delivers on its full potential as a thriving nation where there are equal opportunities for all.

–        Kevin Humphrey was an activist during the anti-apartheid struggle and is a freelance writer and editor.

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Thousands of people have rallied in streets of major Bosnian cities since last week, demanding social justice, decent living conditions and resignation of top officials who they openly blame for unprecedented poverty and the country’s economic decline.

The first protest rallies since the end of the bloody 1992-95 war began earlier this month in the north-eastern town of Tuzla, where thousands of workers from five major privatised companies had received no payments in years. They were joined in following weeks by thousands of unemployed young people and pensioners."The biggest fear of ruling elites all over and their nightmare is for ordinary people (of all ethnicities) to unite."

Backed by social networks and informal groups, the protests spread to capital Sarajevo and to Zenica, Kakanj, Travnik, Jajce, Brcko, Bihac, Mostar and several other towns. International media immediately dubbed the protests, some of them turning violent, the “Bosnian spring”. Some call it “the winter of Bosnian discontent”.

“It’s still winter here and we’d rather describe the events as an expression of widespread discontent and an introduction to ending the arrogant, unemotional and even scornful behaviour of authorities towards most people, who live in poverty,” Kemal Kurspahic, co-founder of the Media in Democracy Institute in Bosnia, told IPS.

Data from the central Bosnian statistics office puts the unemployment rate at 44 percent. It says that one in five out of 3.8 million people in Bosnia live below the poverty line. For the employed, the average monthly salary is 570 dollars.

“More and more people live in misery and poverty. They are hungry,” Vahid Sehic from the NGO Forum of Tuzla Citizens told IPS.

After the bloody war of the nineties ended with the loss of some 100,000 lives, the country’s industry came to a standstill. It seemed at first that recovery could be at hand, but the slow transition into a market economy entailed a complete change from what used to be former Yugoslavia with its deeply rooted social benefits.

“There are practically two decades of economic devastation, where private interests of the ruling elite, masked as ‘protection of national interest’ served as an excuse for unfair distribution of wealth among the privileged,” said Kurspahic.

The complicated regulation of the internationally sponsored Dayton Peace Accords, that defined the power structure for former warring ethnicities – Bosniak Muslims, Croats and Serbs – had a devastating effect on any possibility of creating an efficient state with a positive investment climate.

Bosnia-Herzegovina is divided into two entities – the Bosnian Serb Republic of Srpska (RS) and the Muslim-Croat Federation, both topped with a Sarajevo-based central authority. Vetoing decisions at the central level have often blocked any initiatives for reforms.

Both entities have their own governments and parliaments, plus a central one in Sarajevo. The Federation is divided into 11 cantons created on ethnic lines for areas with a Muslim or Croat majority. This in practice means that the Muslim-Croat Federation area has 11 local governments with 11 prime ministers.

Most political leaders now are those who were leaders of major national parties during the 1992-95 war. That is “about 80 percent,” said Kurspahic. “Approximately half of Bosnia’s budget goes to salaries in administration.”

Privatisation of major industrial complexes was mostly hasty. It enabled newly born tycoons, close to people in power, to size down or even shut dozens of companies and make quick profits by selling their assets before declaring bankruptcy. Bosnian media has widely reported that new owners often failed to comply with privatisation contracts and failed to pay workers for years.

One of the worst instances is the Sodaso factory in Tuzla. It produced 80 percent of the table salt consumed in former Yugoslavia, amounting to 208,000 tonnes in 1991. In 1999, it produced 21,000 tonnes.

Besides, Tuzla had an additional burden to cope with. After the fall of the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995, when Bosnian Serb forces executed some 7,000 men and boys, their family members adding up to some 35,000 children, women and the elderly were transported to Tuzla.

Since protests began, several cantonal prime ministers, including Tuzla’s, have resigned. Sarajevo protestors have been offered negotiations by authorities over the modifications of certain laws, and new elections. The authorities have agreed to create ‘plenums’ in major cities such as Sarajevo that include representatives of political parties and leading civil society organisations in order to negotiate possibilities of fresh elections or other peaceful means for ending the protests.

“This is the first time we saw fear in people in power,” Sehic said. “They worry that the social unrest will spread, and that the story of ‘endangered ethnicity’ will go down the drain; this means they go down the drain as well.”

Several analysts point out that the protests in Bosnia carried no ethnic dimension. “It was more solidarity of people with no rights, the poor and unemployed, regardless of their nation,” said Zarko Papic from the Sarajevo-based NGO, the Initiative for Better and Humane Inclusion.

Svetlana Cenic who teaches economics at the University of Banjaluka in the Republic of Srpska says there can be no serious changes in Bosnia Herzegovina without the social unity of all ethnicities.

“The hungry belly is mine as well as yours, it does not differ between ethnicities,” she said. “The biggest fear of ruling elites all over and their nightmare is for ordinary people (of all ethnicities) to unite.”

That does not seem very likely. Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik visited Belgrade almost immediately after the unrest in the Federation began, and told journalists after his meeting with first Vice Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic that there were no reasons for Bosnian Serbs to join the protest, claiming that “the RS will remain calm” as “some forces from the Federation want escalation of unrest into the RS.”