1.1 INTRODUCING THE SERVICE DELIVERY AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION CONUNDRUM IN KHAYELITSHA
This study presents an assessment of connections between service delivery – water services in particular – and participatory strategies adopted by different communities. This study was thought-out within a context of heightened militancy in local government as exemplified by the widespread and so called service delivery protests in 2005-2006. A large body of literature (e.g. Benit-Gbaffou 2008a, 2008b, Piper and Nadvi 2010, Tapscott 2010, 2005, Ballard et al 2006, Miraftab 2006, and Zeurn 2001) already exists on the state-civil society nexus in the post apartheid era. A majority of these studies point to the failure of the institutionalised participatory system of governance such as ward committees and integrated development planning. Such failures of the mainstream participatory channels have inevitably set in motion the shifts towards unconventional methods such as protests and court action, which have been relatively more successful in attracting an audience and making voices heard.
Protest itself though is not a novel phenomenon in South Africa, as protest formed a key component of the anti-apartheid struggle. Yet there is a crucial distinction. In the colonial and apartheid eras, black peoples’ participation in governance was circumscribed through a host of laws directed at alienating their South African citizenship. This teeming obsession with and desire to subjugate the African to a permanent underclass in all their existence outside the homeland did not dissuade the black Africans from migrating into ‘white’ urban South Africa. Migration in search of job opportunities mainly in urban areas and mining compounds was a means of ...
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... able to extract compromises from the state through their ability to harness resources required to engage in intricate disputes by utilising various spaces such as mass media, the internet, and enlisting the courts.
In urban areas, transformation of citizenship requires the removal of race as the central basis of planning. While the ongoing transformation has resulted in legal exclusion of foundations of apartheid and the emergence of class as the central cleavage, the quality of urban services and socio-economic access arguably retains roots of the old. For many of the poor, the huge inequalities between their lot and rich and overwhelmingly white population of which the ‘Boers are the avowed nemesis, centres around the quality of houses and associated services at the disposal of the privileged class, and forms the basis on which to measure full citizenship.
Shaskolsky, Leon. “The Negro Protest Movement- Revolt or Reform?.” Phylon 29 (1963): 156-166. JSTOR. U of Illinois Lib., Urbana. 11 Apr. 2004 .
“Transnational Activism and Global Transformations: The Anti-Apartheid and Abolitionist Experiences” a study conducted by Audie Klotz looks to transnational activism as a social movement to encourage the formation of new socioeconomic systems and overall global transformation. Klotz draws upon two major historical events where transnational activism was relatively successful: the abolitionist movement following the civil war and the contemporary civil unrest in South Africa brought on by the apartheid. Klotz turns to these social movements as critical transnational participants that provide socioeconomic and political changes globally by means of massive mobilization.
The apartheid era in South Africa began shortly after the Boer War as the Afrikaner National Party overtook the government following the country’s independence from Great Britain. The Afrikaners, or Dutch descendants, won the majority in 1948 in the first election for the country’s government. Only a short time after were apartheid laws initiated by the minority white descendants. In the Afrikaans language, apartheid’s literal meaning is “separateness,” which is exactly what the laws were designed for. The Afrikaner National Party initiated the laws to ensure their dominance of economic and social powers, but more importantly to strengthen white people’s preeminence by segregating whites and colored peoples. In order to do this, the Afrikaners limited the freedom of colored people in various ways. First, t...
Human history has been marked with long and painful struggles that fought for human rights and freedoms. Discrimination and racial oppression has always been one of the most controversial struggles for mankind. For South Africa, it was a country where black people were oppressed by the white minority. The colonization of South Africa began in the 18th century by the Dutch empire after Dutch trading companies started using its cape as a center for trading between Asia and Europe (sahistory.org.za). Soon after, the British took over the country and declared it part of the British Empire (sahistory.org.za). Decades after, Afrikaners, who descended from the original Dutch settlers that occupied South Africa, started working on creating a state that separates between black people and whites. Their plans were to create a separation between black people and whites that involved excluding blacks from all types of social, economic, and political activities within the country. All South African natives knew the bad conditions that their people were forced to live in but only a few of them took the responsibility of sacrificing their lives and freedom for the rights of their people. One South African citizen, Nelson Mandela, can be considered the main hero for the South African freedom revolution and the hero for millions of people fighting for their freedoms worldwide. Mandela’s long walk for freedom defined South African history and entered world history as one of the most influential fights for freedom and human rights in the world.
The natives of South Africa are crying for their beloved country. They see it is in trouble and they cry out to help it. They continue working and praying for the dawn of a new Africa. They hope for a dawn of "emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear" (312).
To achieve civic engagement is undertaken in many diverse ways. These are determined by several factors, amongst them the purpose of the civic engagement, the people involved in it, the funds to be involved amongst others. The...
Social Protest Cry the Beloved Country was a book written to bring about change. Through out the book Alan Paton reveal the social injustices of South Africa. This whole book, although a fictional stories, is to protest of the ways of South Africa. Paton brings up the inequity of the natives’ verses the whites; he makes points about education, superiority, and separation. Paton clearly showed that the white man is superiority to the black, he gives numerous examples throughout the novel. The white man had more money, a better job, a nicer house… With James Jarvis, Paton showed that he was superior by making him live on high place, because he was so much superior than the natives that lived below him. At the end of the book James Jarvis (even though he had changed) could not get off his horse to talk to Steven Kumalo. He could have easily gotten off but "such a thing is not lightly done" (307). Paton includes this part in the novel to show that the white man can be amicable with the natives, but they will always have to come out on top. The whites needed to feel like they were on a higher level than the natives. If this country ever wants to be as one the whites are going to have to give up there need for superiority. Many times in the novel Paton showed there was a problem without even saying it. One of the major examples of that would be when he gave the scene of people asking "Have you a room to let?" and the response would always be "no I have no room to let"(85). Paton dosent outright say that its horrible that there is not even enough housing for the natives and they have to cram together in shared houses with no privicy at all. He just tells us the story and the reader recognize that there is a problem. Paton offten leves it up to the reader to figure out the social injustices of South Africa. When Kumalo was talking about his son Absolam he said "he is in prison for the most terrible deed a man can do, He killed a white man" (144). Here Paton shows, again, how whites were considered to be superior to blacks. It could have been said the worst thing to do is kill a man, but in South Africa’s society it was not the same if a black man was murdered as compared to a white man.
Through a brief recap of South African historical events, it is evident that native Africans have been treated as less than humane for centuries. The laws that governed slaves (known as Tulbagh Slave Code), dates back to 1753, and includes such laws as: curfews that required slaves to carry passes; slaves were forbidden to make any noise at night, including singing or whistling; slaves could not converse on the streets of Cape Town; and should they revolt in any manner perceived as violent, they were put to death (Mountain, 2005). Although its title changed, the practices of slavery continued in South Africa until 1994. Documented negotiations to end slavery can be seen as early as the 1893 when Mohandas (Mohatma) Ghandi began his crusade against racism known as “Satyagraha.” Although considered “war without violence”, Ghandi’s 1908 campaign stirred the Indian nation to protest en-mass by burning their passes. These acti...
...rry their pass books (“Black’s resistance to Apartheid”). “During 1980 there were 304 major incidents concerning struggle with apartheid including arrests, tear gas violence, stoning, and strikes (“Black’s resistance to Apartheid”). In 1986 violent conflict forced the government to assert a national state of emergency (Wright, 68). The Public Safety Act increased penalties such as fining, imprisonment, and whippings for protesting the law (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”).
The recent attacks on black non-nationals in South Africa which were labelled as Xenophobic attacks have had a negative impact on how South Africa is viewed Globally and have caused a threat of an economic backlash. In this essay we look at South Africa’s pan-African identity and if these attacks were indeed Xenophobic or whether they were a form of Afrophobia. Looking at how only the Black immigrants were attacked and not people from any other ethnic groups and choosing to only attack Black foreigners must have been deliberate thus the argument that the attacks were Afrophobic.
A system of legal separation amongst races dominated the Republic of South Africa, namely apartheid between 1948 until 1993. Apartheid led to the separation and discrimination between whites against people of colour. Not only was this racism commonly accepted between whites against blacks, but it was also legally enforced as white’s maintained priority in terms of housing, education, political power and jobs. I will be examining a particular event, The Soweto Uprising of 1976 which was an education related outcry by students. This event carries with it a great deal of importance as it was a very powerful thing to impact South Africa and help in the deconstruction of the Apartheid government.
This paper, while defined and highlighted advantaged and disadvantages of public participation in the policy process, gave suitable ways in which citizen participation can be increased in Jamaica. Public participation in a democratic society is vital. The diversity of perspectives from individuals, will lead to an increase in public feedback for effective policies. It increases democracy, and aims to achieve and maintain good governance.
South Africa has a conflicted variety of capitalism as it displays a range of CME-like labour regulations and neo-patrimonialism but it is in conflict with the more liberal economic environment that is claims to have. These adversarial labour relations resulted in the class compromise which contributed to the violence of the Marikana Massacre. This Marikana saga has had a huge effect on the economy, stalling foreign investments and the loss of countless millions of rands. Despite this wake-up call for South African executives, nothing has really changed this protectionist relationship that the state has with capital. There seems to be no immediate prospects for a more co-ordinated, social democratic variety of capitalism on South Africa’s horizon.
It is therefore an indispensable component of democracy (Tshabalala & Lombard, 2009:397). Local government should therefore be concerned with democratising development (Maserumule, 2008:439). The reason for the continuing dissatisfaction and protests by the communities because of poor service delivery eighteen years into democracy is an indication that the local government in South Africa has not been able to provide effectively for local participation (Mathekga & Buccus, 2006:11). In the South African context, community needs cannot be isolated from structural causes, so participation is incorporated into the social justice perspective (Patel,
... African government, but there are still discreet forms of inequality out there. Ishaan Tharoor states “ Protesters at the University of Cape Town, one of Africa 's most prestigious universities, dropped a bucket of human excrement on a statue of Cecil Rhodes, the swaggering 19th-century British business magnate” (2015). This article that is most recent shows how black students still feel unwelcomed at the university, because of the racial identity. The statue represents when the British colonized South Africa, which further lead to the apartheid. By black students standing up for themselves reveals they are tired of seeing this statue of a man who is some-what responsible for encouraging apartheid. However, the racial barriers black students face in South Africa will continue to influence a change for equal educational opportunities, and maybe some day they will.