NOVEMBER 10 2013 Operation Clean Sweep… dirty game? Clean Sweep.pdf · NOVEMBER 10 2013 THE...
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D i s p a t c h e s 1 4 independent NOVEMBER 10 2013 THE SUNDAY T OMORROW in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein, a penniless gogo from a remote rural area, will be pitted against a multimillion-rand Dutch-owned company in a six-year- long battle that remains trapped between South African mindsets of coloniser and colonised. The case of Johanna Mmoledi, 46, a chef de partie who was fired by the upmarket country estate Kievits Kroon outside Pretoria, after taking a month’s unpaid leave to get heal- ing for her psychological affliction – via sangoma training – reopens tomorrow in the SCA. Kievits Kroon, owned by Dutch businessman Ton Verachter (which, ironically, means “despiser”) – fears so deeply that “Africans will diag- nose themselves and turn the work environment into total disarray” that it has spared no expenses in a costly and relentless legal pursuit of a woman who earned a mere R4 000 a month. Since 2008, Kievits Kroon has refused three court orders (CCMA, Labour and Labour Appeal) to reinstate Mmoledi in her job – by escalating the battle to higher courts, perhaps to the Constitution- al Court if the SCA also rules in Mmoledi’s favour. Scratching under the veneer of what poses as a labour dispute lies an undisclosed battle of ignorance and prejudice that has raged in Africa since the first colonisers set foot here. For Mmoledi and her three chil- dren the consequences of this tena- cious six-year wrangle were devas- tating. They lost everything. She cannot obtain UIF, or new employ- ment, due to bureaucracy: by court order she is reinstated, but in reali- ty she is not. They had to leave their Pretoria home for a remote rural area. However, this case is not about Mmoledi. It is about what she sym- bolises – namely the emergence of global legal reforms around Indige- nous Knowledge Systems as equal to Western systems. Ethan Watters, in his book, Crazy Like Us, says: “Western healers are steamrolling indigenous expressions of mental health and replace them with their own concepts; the West prescribes to the rest of the world how it must define wellness, healing and mental disease, how it must go crazy.” Renowned Dutch cultural and international psychiatrist Professor Joop de Jong, founder of the Trans- cultural Psychosocial Organisation (largest NGO providing mental health services in more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe), says: “Traditional healers are the primary care mental health providers for the majority of global communities. The fact that new psy- chotherapies are no more effective than older ones – despite their ‘evi- dence-based status’ – is sometimes hard to accept. Healers have been described as the ‘ideal’ primary care workers (as) they are geographical- ly, culturally and financially accessi- ble. The question remains how to involve healers in our public mental system… Talking about healers always elicits intense emotions among all levels of the population.” Article 31 in the UN’s declaration on the rights of indigenous people states that “indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, pro- tect and develop their… sciences, technologies and cultures, includ- ing… medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions”. Unfortunately, through colonisa- tion, many black South Africans have been so stripped of their own expressions regarding mental health that even arguments from Mmoledi’s black legal teams over the years have missed this historical moment to dynamically forge SA legal reforms that are already sup- ported by global movements who advocate for the integration of Indigenous Knowledge Systems into mainstream health practises. And so Mmoledi’s constitutional right to health is absent in this case. Lengthy expert evidence on the rights to culture and religion – which are easy to find – are submit- ted; instead of using the more com- plex but available evidence that establishes African traditional healing as a recognised health paradigm. Constitutional rights to health are clear to everyone – irrespective of religion or culture. Why pose these as a main argument? Sango- mas have never been called “priests” – they have always been known everywhere as amaquirha (doctors, healers). What is this focus on religion and culture when discussing Africa? Is the Western paradigm not a culture, a well-disguised religious belief system posing as atheism? In six years no expert evidence was lead by Mmoledi’s team to demystify sangoma training for the Western business community. Both Kievits Kroon and Mmole- di’s legal teams seem to know noth- ing of how sangoma training works. It is erroneously referred to as a “course” or “classes” – as if taken in good health – and not as a process of illness leading to recovery – which, if successfully managed, will lead to initiation as sangoma. Carl Jung says: “A good half of every treat- ment… consists in the doctor’s examining himself… It is his own hurt that gives a measure of his power to heal.” On both sides there is a denial, or omission, of the fact that Mmoledi was ill; that she suffered from a psy- chological issue – in a similar way that a “Western” person/employee can suffer an issue – and enter a therapy “course” for months to re- establish themselves. A cultural psychiatrist, Dr Vera Bührmann, explains in her book Living in Two Worlds that the “clin- ical picture of thwasa (a sangoma trainee) resembles an emotional dis- turbance, accompanied by physical symptoms… and (they) become real- ly ill physically… “The belief in the ancestors have many similarities to Westerners’ concept of the unconscious, his experience of the archetypes and his obligation to pay attention to these as they appear in his dreams, visions, fantasies and in his sponta- neous, creative activities. To remain healthy, (this is not) nonsense or ‘just imagination’… “The difficulty (for Westerners) is the term ‘ancestor worship’. It seems more correct to talk and write about ‘ancestor reverence’ and ‘ancestor remembering’… The claim that prolonged resistance to the ancestor’s call can lead to insan- ity is not to be taken lightly… neg- lected cases of thwasa can become psychotic… In Western psychiatry it is accepted that early treatment of psychological problems is desirable, i.e. before the condition becomes chronic or too disruptive for the individual, his associates and general environment”. Sangomas vs employers are more about the right to health than rights to culture/religion. HR should advise employees with thwasa symptoms to see a qualified sangoma. Dr Jo Wreford, an anthropolo- gist, emphasises that “diagnosis of a calling to ukuthwasa must be made by a qualified isangoma as the con- dition is distinguished by resist- ance to biomedical doctors”. Kievits Kroon’s HR manager treated Mmoledi’s sick certificate with contempt and informed Mmoledi that she will be fired – whereas a white employee reporting similar issues is likely to have been advised to see a psychologist. Kievits Kroon’s argument that Mmoledi’s absence from duty was not due to circumstances beyond her control, is countered by Bührmann: “One is often forced into analysis by inner conflict or an intolerable life situation, and not by rational reasoning or conscious choice… The inner compulsion is so strong that one has little, if any, choice.” It will be a sad day when Mmole- di’s endeavour to heal, which in a Western paradigm would be consid- ered prudent, is judged as an offence by the Supreme Court – effectively denying the future of African tradi- tional healing – at the very moment in time when its recognition takes off in global indigenous knowledge movements. From a psychological perspec- tive, it will destroy a unique way of working with the subconscious or human psyche. South Africa is one of the few accessible places in the world where the power of ritual and ceremony is still alive and practised more or less in its original form. Many foreigners and academics flock to this country to study ritual and to partake in it for healing pur- poses. Many discover healing through it. African ritual and ceremony is a global treasure. It is ours. Let us reclaim world sanity by protecting this Indigenous Knowledge System with solid sangoma training, clear information, cross-cultural fertilisa- tion and appropriate legal reform. ■ De Wet is a Pondo and Swazi- trained sangoma and freelance writer living in Cape Town. A n n e l i e d e W e t Indigenous healing must be respected in the workplace D OES anyone under- stand Joburg’s idea of a clean city? The cleaning isn’t just about removing litter. It also involves taking hawkers off the pavements. “Operation Clean Sweep” has not only seen thousands of hawkers pushed off the streets, but has also cut off their source of livelihood. Officials reckon hawkers are part of the city’s unseemly sight, a manifestation of urban decay. In removing them, city planners hope to bring an end to “illegal trading; illegal dumping and littering; land and building invasions and other by-law contraventions; illegal con- nection of infrastructure including theft of electricity and the lack of a sense of civic pride and owner- ship”. Downtown Joburg sounds like a real mess, doesn’t it? Any law-abiding citizen must of course sympathise with the city government. It is, after all, their job to maintain law and order. However, a closer look that casts the eye beyond this particular inci- dent, to how the city has generally treated its hawkers, reveals a much more fundamental problem than just a dirty pavement. A two-year study on poverty, inequality and patronage-politics that the Mapungubwe Institute is scheduled to release next Tuesday, shows that officialdom suffers from a paradigmatic problem. In hawkers, city planners don’t quite see entrepreneurs. They see a nuisance. Inevitably, the official demeanour is to control hawkers, limit their movement so that they don’t infest the entire city. In other words municipal by- laws and initiatives don’t seem geared to aid hawkers to thrive, but effectively retard their economic activity. Take the trading permits, for instance. Permits confine hawkers to a particular spot. This meets the city’s impulse for regulatory con- trol, but is unhelpful to hawkers. In the interviews conducted as part of the study, hawkers complained that their economic activity flourishes on mobility. They go where their customers are located, moving from one spot to another. A construction site, for example, is an instant market to hawkers. They sell foodstuff and other daily needs to labourers at the site. Once the construction is complete that customer base disappears, but a new construction site elsewhere provides yet another customer base. To capitalise on the mobility of their customers, hawkers need to be similarly flexible. Tying them to one spot is obviously unhelpful. If not downright disruptive, hawkers berate the officialdom of being inconsiderate. They’re not forewarned of roadworks, for instance. This probably appears trivial to some of us. But repairs on roads that carry a large concentration of pedestrians and even motorists interfere with business. It denies hawkers of cus- tomers, which entails a potential loss of income. Because they sell perishable food-stuff, quick sales are crucial to prevent their stock going off. The hawkers we interviewed for the study felt quite strong about get- ting advance warning of impeding repairs on their “business sites” so that they’re able to prepare accord- ingly. And the problem is not confined to Joburg. The Western Cape’s Over- strand Local Municipality suffers from a similar problem, albeit in a different form. It is a problem of unequal access to the natural resources of the area. Hermanus, for instance, which is a coastal town, is endowed with nat- ural beauty and has a thriving fish- ing industry. The town’s coloured residents, however, bitterly com- plain that they don’t enjoy similar access to the sea as the established fishing industry. Only a limited number of licences are issued to fishermen. They fish largely for subsistence. They don’t have boats, do packaging of their “catch” or marketing of the fish. This commercial aspect of the industry is dominated by estab- lished white business. They have the capital base to take full advan- tage of opportunities offered by the industry. Inequality thus offers a lopsided benefit from what is a nat- ural endowment. In other words, coloured fisher- men fish for subsistence, while white business does so for commer- cial gain. This contrasting benefit from the ocean has consequently led to racial tension. Fishermen see the limit imposed on the number of licences as a way of entrenching commercial domi- nance over the industry. They dis- miss conservation measures geared at protecting fish population as a ruse to keep them out. Their sense of grievance is aggravated by the sense that coloured folks in Hermanus are criminalised. They complain that a mere sight of a coloured man wear- ing a swimsuit at the ocean is an instant police suspect for poaching, while a white person in a similar outfit doesn’t attract similar police attention. Just as in the case of Joburg, Hermanus’s poor feel that the municipality is not on their side. Instead, they charge that it sides with property developers and the town’s wealthy white residents, a significant number of whom are foreigners. The town’s natural beauty is a magnet for property developers and property seekers. From the inter- views with locals, it appears that the municipality is eager to make Her- manus attractive to wealthy resi- dents. An example of this, we were told, was the municipality prioritis- ing constructing entertainment facilities, such as golf courses, over providing housing and basic ameni- ties for its residents. And locals, especially those with houses facing the ocean, are being approached by property-seekers to sell their homes. This, and munici- pal behaviour, has even created a sense among some of the poor local residents that there’s a “conspiracy to drive them out” of the town to make way for wealthy people. If not by prejudice, poor people also protest that efforts purporting to promote local economic activity are blunted by sheer nepotism. In Free State’s Nketoana Local Municipality, near Ritz, numerous co-operatives, most of whom are led by women, are idling. Locals were encouraged to form co-operatives in order to take advan- tage of various economic activities that would supposedly follow in the community. But now they complain that ten- ders go only to certain companies. For a semi-rural place such as Nketoana, whose economy has his- torically relied on a flagging agricul- tural sector, unemployment is a dire problem. What is certainly clear is that South Africa’s policy regime and official conduct is not consistent with the country’s high level of poverty and unemployment. There’s no urgency to assist struggling informal traders out of poverty. And the informal sector already employs a sizeable number of peo- ple, almost 2 million. This is quite significant for a country that’s fail- ing to create jobs. It also shows self-initiative that should be commended. Too many South Africans, more than 16 million, already depend on social grants and services. These range from cash-transfers and free electricity to paraffin and food packages. Their livelihood is effectively sustained by the state. This is not viable, especially because the revenue collection is dropping while the number of recip- ients of social welfare is increasing. Informal trading lightens the burden on the fiscus, enabling peo- ple to fend for themselves. And for a city that claims to be the best “African City”, Joburg’s posture is mind-boggling. Africa’s economy suffers from a structural problem that is a legacy of its colonial past. It’s primary- based, with a relatively small indus- trial sector. That is why the infor- mal sector is booming on the entire continent. Africans have taken to creating a livelihood for themselves. Joburg cannot be located in Africa, yet hope not to suffer from African problems. Or the city telling us that we “shouldn’t think like Africans, in Africa… generally”. ■ Ndletyana is head of the Politi- cal Economy Faculty at the Mapun- gubwe Institute for Strategic Reflec- tion. In hawkers, city planners don’t quite see entrepreneurs – they see a nuisance, writes M c e b i s i N d l e t y a n a Operation Clean Sweep… dirty game? VOLATILE: P o l i c e a r r e s t e d h a w k e r s a r o u n d J o b u r g ’ s C B D i n a c l e a n - u p o p e r a t i o n o f t h e c i t y ’ s s t r e e t s o n O c t o b e r 2 4 , a t t i m e s u s i n g f o r c e t o h a v e t h e m r e m o v e d . F o r a c i t y t h a t c l a i m s t o b e t h e b e s t “ A f r i c a n C i t y ” , t h e M e t r o ’ s d e c i s i o n s o v e r i s s u e s i n v o l v i n g i n n e r c i t y t r a d i n g i s m i n d - b o g g l i n g , s a y s t h e w r i t e r . PICTURE: ADRIAN DE K OCK “ AFRICAN RITUAL AND CEREMONY IS A GLOBAL TREASURE
Transcript of NOVEMBER 10 2013 Operation Clean Sweep… dirty game? Clean Sweep.pdf · NOVEMBER 10 2013 THE...
Dispatches14 independentNOVEMBER 10 2013
THE SUNDAY
TOMORROW in theSupreme Court of Appeal(SCA) in Bloemfontein, apenniless gogo from aremote rural area, will be
pitted against a multimillion-randDutch-owned company in a six-year-long battle that remains trappedbetween South African mindsets ofcoloniser and colonised.
The case of Johanna Mmoledi,46, a chef de partie who was fired bythe upmarket country estate KievitsKroon outside Pretoria, after takinga month’s unpaid leave to get heal-ing for her psychological affliction –via sangoma training – reopenstomorrow in the SCA.
Kievits Kroon, owned by Dutchbusinessman Ton Verachter (which,ironically, means “despiser”) – fearsso deeply that “Africans will diag-nose themselves and turn the workenvironment into total disarray”that it has spared no expenses in acostly and relentless legal pursuit ofa woman who earned a mere R4 000a month. Since 2008, Kievits Kroonhas refused three court orders(CCMA, Labour and Labour Appeal)to reinstate Mmoledi in her job – byescalating the battle to highercourts, perhaps to the Constitution-al Court if the SCA also rules inMmoledi’s favour.
Scratching under the veneer ofwhat poses as a labour dispute liesan undisclosed battle of ignoranceand prejudice that has raged inAfrica since the first colonisers setfoot here.
For Mmoledi and her three chil-
dren the consequences of this tena-cious six-year wrangle were devas-tating. They lost everything. Shecannot obtain UIF, or new employ-ment, due to bureaucracy: by courtorder she is reinstated, but in reali-ty she is not.
They had to leave their Pretoriahome for a remote rural area.
However, this case is not aboutMmoledi. It is about what she sym-bolises – namely the emergence ofglobal legal reforms around Indige-nous Knowledge Systems as equal toWestern systems. Ethan Watters, inhis book, Crazy Like Us, says:“Western healers are steamrollingindigenous expressions of mentalhealth and replace them with theirown concepts; the West prescribes tothe rest of the world how it mustdefine wellness, healing and mentaldisease, how it must go crazy.”
Renowned Dutch cultural and
international psychiatrist ProfessorJoop de Jong, founder of the Trans-cultural Psychosocial Organisation(largest NGO providing mentalhealth services in more than 20countries in Africa, Asia andEurope), says: “Traditional healersare the primary care mental healthproviders for the majority of globalcommunities. The fact that new psy-chotherapies are no more effectivethan older ones – despite their ‘evi-dence-based status’ – is sometimeshard to accept. Healers have beendescribed as the ‘ideal’ primary careworkers (as) they are geographical-ly, culturally and financially accessi-ble. The question remains how toinvolve healers in our public mentalsystem… Talking about healersalways elicits intense emotionsamong all levels of the population.”
Article 31 in the UN’s declarationon the rights of indigenous peoplestates that “indigenous peoples havethe right to maintain, control, pro-tect and develop their… sciences,technologies and cultures, includ-ing… medicines, knowledge of theproperties of fauna and flora, oraltraditions”.
Unfortunately, through colonisa-tion, many black South Africanshave been so stripped of their ownexpressions regarding mentalhealth that even arguments fromMmoledi’s black legal teams overthe years have missed this historicalmoment to dynamically forge SAlegal reforms that are already sup-ported by global movements whoadvocate for the integration of
Indigenous Knowledge Systems intomainstream health practises.
And so Mmoledi’s constitutionalright to health is absent in this case.
Lengthy expert evidence on therights to culture and religion –which are easy to find – are submit-ted; instead of using the more com-plex but available evidence thatestablishes African traditionalhealing as a recognised healthparadigm.
Constitutional rights to healthare clear to everyone – irrespectiveof religion or culture. Why posethese as a main argument? Sango-mas have never been called“priests” – they have always beenknown everywhere as amaquirha
(doctors, healers).What is this focus on religion and
culture when discussing Africa? Isthe Western paradigm not a culture,a well-disguised religious beliefsystem posing as atheism?
In six years no expert evidencewas lead by Mmoledi’s team todemystify sangoma training for theWestern business community.
Both Kievits Kroon and Mmole-di’s legal teams seem to know noth-ing of how sangoma training works.It is erroneously referred to as a“course” or “classes” – as if taken ingood health – and not as a process ofillness leading to recovery – which,if successfully managed, will lead toinitiation as sangoma. Carl Jungsays: “A good half of every treat-ment… consists in the doctor’sexamining himself… It is his ownhurt that gives a measure of his
power to heal.”On both sides there is a denial, or
omission, of the fact that Mmolediwas ill; that she suffered from a psy-chological issue – in a similar waythat a “Western” person/employeecan suffer an issue – and enter atherapy “course” for months to re-establish themselves.
A cultural psychiatrist, Dr VeraBührmann, explains in her bookLiving in Two Worlds that the “clin-ical picture of thwasa (a sangomatrainee) resembles an emotional dis-turbance, accompanied by physicalsymptoms… and (they) become real-ly ill physically…
“The belief in the ancestors havemany similarities to Westerners’concept of the unconscious, hisexperience of the archetypes andhis obligation to pay attention tothese as they appear in his dreams,visions, fantasies and in his sponta-neous, creative activities. To remainhealthy, (this is not) nonsense or‘just imagination’…
“The difficulty (for Westerners)is the term ‘ancestor worship’. Itseems more correct to talk andwrite about ‘ancestor reverence’ and‘ancestor remembering’… Theclaim that prolonged resistance tothe ancestor’s call can lead to insan-ity is not to be taken lightly… neg-lected cases of thwasa can becomepsychotic… In Western psychiatry itis accepted that early treatment ofpsychological problems is desirable,i.e. before the condition becomeschronic or too disruptive for theindividual, his associates and
general environment”. Sangomas vs employers are
more about the right to health thanrights to culture/religion. HRshould advise employees withthwasa symptoms to see a qualifiedsangoma.
Dr Jo Wreford, an anthropolo-gist, emphasises that “diagnosis of acalling to ukuthwasa must be madeby a qualified isangoma as the con-dition is distinguished by resist-ance to biomedical doctors”.
Kievits Kroon’s HR managertreated Mmoledi’s sick certificatewith contempt and informedMmoledi that she will be fired –whereas a white employee reportingsimilar issues is likely to have beenadvised to see a psychologist.
Kievits Kroon’s argument thatMmoledi’s absence from duty wasnot due to circumstances beyond
her control, is countered byBührmann: “One is often forcedinto analysis by inner conflict or anintolerable life situation, and not byrational reasoning or consciouschoice… The inner compulsion is sostrong that one has little, if any,choice.”
It will be a sad day when Mmole-di’s endeavour to heal, which in aWestern paradigm would be consid-ered prudent, is judged as an offenceby the Supreme Court – effectivelydenying the future of African tradi-tional healing – at the very momentin time when its recognition takesoff in global indigenous knowledgemovements.
From a psychological perspec-tive, it will destroy a unique way ofworking with the subconscious orhuman psyche. South Africa is oneof the few accessible places in theworld where the power of ritual andceremony is still alive and practisedmore or less in its original form.Many foreigners and academicsflock to this country to study ritualand to partake in it for healing pur-poses. Many discover healingthrough it.
African ritual and ceremony is aglobal treasure. It is ours. Let usreclaim world sanity by protectingthis Indigenous Knowledge Systemwith solid sangoma training, clearinformation, cross-cultural fertilisa-tion and appropriate legal reform.
■ De Wet is a Pondo and Swazi-
trained sangoma and freelance
writer living in Cape Town.
Annelie de Wet
Indigenous healing must be respected in the workplace
DOES anyone under-stand Joburg’s idea ofa clean city? Thecleaning isn’t justabout removing litter.It also involves taking
hawkers off the pavements.“Operation Clean Sweep” has
not only seen thousands of hawkerspushed off the streets, but has alsocut off their source of livelihood.
Officials reckon hawkers arepart of the city’s unseemly sight, amanifestation of urban decay. Inremoving them, city planners hopeto bring an end to “illegal trading;illegal dumping and littering; landand building invasions and otherby-law contraventions; illegal con-nection of infrastructure includingtheft of electricity and the lack of asense of civic pride and owner-ship”. Downtown Joburg soundslike a real mess, doesn’t it?
Any law-abiding citizen must ofcourse sympathise with the citygovernment. It is, after all, their jobto maintain law and order.
However, a closer look that caststhe eye beyond this particular inci-dent, to how the city has generallytreated its hawkers, reveals a muchmore fundamental problem thanjust a dirty pavement.
A two-year study on poverty,inequality and patronage-politicsthat the Mapungubwe Institute isscheduled to release next Tuesday,shows that officialdom suffers froma paradigmatic problem.
In hawkers, city planners don’tquite see entrepreneurs. They see anuisance. Inevitably, the officialdemeanour is to control hawkers,limit their movement so that theydon’t infest the entire city.
In other words municipal by-laws and initiatives don’t seemgeared to aid hawkers to thrive, buteffectively retard their economicactivity.
Take the trading permits, forinstance. Permits confine hawkersto a particular spot. This meets thecity’s impulse for regulatory con-trol, but is unhelpful to hawkers. Inthe interviews conducted as part ofthe study, hawkers complained thattheir economic activity flourisheson mobility. They go where theircustomers are located, moving fromone spot to another.
A construction site, for example,is an instant market to hawkers.They sell foodstuff and other dailyneeds to labourers at the site. Oncethe construction is complete thatcustomer base disappears, but anew construction site elsewhereprovides yet another customer base.
To capitalise on the mobility oftheir customers, hawkers need to besimilarly flexible. Tying them toone spot is obviously unhelpful.
If not downright disruptive,hawkers berate the officialdom ofbeing inconsiderate. They’re notforewarned of roadworks, forinstance. This probably appearstrivial to some of us.
But repairs on roads that carry alarge concentration of pedestriansand even motorists interfere withbusiness. It denies hawkers of cus-
tomers, which entails a potentialloss of income.
Because they sell perishablefood-stuff, quick sales are crucial toprevent their stock going off.
The hawkers we interviewed forthe study felt quite strong about get-ting advance warning of impedingrepairs on their “business sites” sothat they’re able to prepare accord-ingly.
And the problem is not confinedto Joburg. The Western Cape’s Over-strand Local Municipality suffersfrom a similar problem, albeit in adifferent form. It is a problem ofunequal access to the naturalresources of the area.
Hermanus, for instance, which isa coastal town, is endowed with nat-ural beauty and has a thriving fish-ing industry. The town’s colouredresidents, however, bitterly com-plain that they don’t enjoy similaraccess to the sea as the establishedfishing industry.
Only a limited number oflicences are issued to fishermen.They fish largely for subsistence.They don’t have boats, do packagingof their “catch” or marketing of thefish. This commercial aspect of theindustry is dominated by estab-lished white business. They havethe capital base to take full advan-tage of opportunities offered by the
industry. Inequality thus offers alopsided benefit from what is a nat-ural endowment.
In other words, coloured fisher-men fish for subsistence, whilewhite business does so for commer-cial gain. This contrasting benefitfrom the ocean has consequently ledto racial tension.
Fishermen see the limit imposedon the number of licences as a wayof entrenching commercial domi-nance over the industry. They dis-miss conservation measures gearedat protecting fish population as aruse to keep them out.
Their sense of grievance isaggravated by the sense that
coloured folks in Hermanus arecriminalised. They complain that amere sight of a coloured man wear-ing a swimsuit at the ocean is aninstant police suspect for poaching,while a white person in a similaroutfit doesn’t attract similar policeattention.
Just as in the case of Joburg,Hermanus’s poor feel that themunicipality is not on their side.
Instead, they charge that it sideswith property developers and thetown’s wealthy white residents, asignificant number of whom areforeigners.
The town’s natural beauty is amagnet for property developers and
property seekers. From the inter-views with locals, it appears that themunicipality is eager to make Her-manus attractive to wealthy resi-dents.
An example of this, we weretold, was the municipality prioritis-ing constructing entertainmentfacilities, such as golf courses, overproviding housing and basic ameni-ties for its residents.
And locals, especially those withhouses facing the ocean, are beingapproached by property-seekers tosell their homes. This, and munici-pal behaviour, has even created asense among some of the poor localresidents that there’s a “conspiracy
to drive them out” of the town tomake way for wealthy people.
If not by prejudice, poor peoplealso protest that efforts purportingto promote local economic activityare blunted by sheer nepotism.
In Free State’s Nketoana LocalMunicipality, near Ritz, numerousco-operatives, most of whom are ledby women, are idling.
Locals were encouraged to formco-operatives in order to take advan-tage of various economic activitiesthat would supposedly follow in thecommunity.
But now they complain that ten-ders go only to certain companies.
For a semi-rural place such asNketoana, whose economy has his-torically relied on a flagging agricul-tural sector, unemployment is a direproblem.
What is certainly clear is thatSouth Africa’s policy regime andofficial conduct is not consistentwith the country’s high level ofpoverty and unemployment. There’sno urgency to assist strugglinginformal traders out of poverty.
And the informal sector alreadyemploys a sizeable number of peo-ple, almost 2 million. This is quitesignificant for a country that’s fail-ing to create jobs.
It also shows self-initiative thatshould be commended.
Too many South Africans, morethan 16 million, already depend onsocial grants and services.
These range from cash-transfersand free electricity to paraffin andfood packages. Their livelihood iseffectively sustained by the state.
This is not viable, especiallybecause the revenue collection isdropping while the number of recip-ients of social welfare is increasing.
Informal trading lightens theburden on the fiscus, enabling peo-ple to fend for themselves.
And for a city that claims to bethe best “African City”, Joburg’sposture is mind-boggling.
Africa’s economy suffers from astructural problem that is a legacyof its colonial past. It’s primary-based, with a relatively small indus-trial sector. That is why the infor-mal sector is booming on the entirecontinent. Africans have taken tocreating a livelihood for themselves.Joburg cannot be located in Africa,yet hope not to suffer from Africanproblems. Or the city telling us thatwe “shouldn’t think like Africans,in Africa… generally”.
■ Ndletyana is head of the Politi-
cal Economy Faculty at the Mapun-
gubwe Institute for Strategic Reflec-
tion.
In hawkers,city planners don’t quite see entrepreneurs – theysee a nuisance,writes Mcebisi Ndletyana
Operation Clean Sweep… dirty game?
VOLATILE: Policearrested hawkersaround Joburg’sCBD in a clean-upoperation of thecity’s streets onOctober 24, attimes using forceto have themremoved. For acity that claims tobe the best“African City”, theMetro’s decisionsover issuesinvolving innercity trading ismind-boggling,says the writer.
PICTURE:ADRIAN DE KOCK
“AFRICAN RITUAL
AND CEREMONY
IS A GLOBAL
TREASURE
