South Africa won't become less violent until it's more equal

South African police on patrol in Hout Bay, Cape Town, following requests for more intervention by locals.
EPA-EFE/Nic Bothma

The release of crime statistics in South Africa always triggers great angst among ordinary citizens, and obfuscation on the part of the South African authorities. This year was no exception.

In their latest release of crime statistics, the South African Police Service seem to have tried to downplay crime rate increases (and exaggerate crime rate decreases), by using the wrong population estimates. The police incorrectly used the June 2018 population estimates in their analysis of the 2017/18 crime rates. This is not the first time they have made this kind of bungle.

But their motivation is clear. Applying the correct population estimates suggests that the country saw the biggest per capita annual murder rate increase since 1994. Last year’s figures suggested that the murder rate had stabilised. But these were unfounded, as the murder rate has now risen to 36 per 100,000. The last time it was this high was in 2009. The increase is cause for serious concern.

Even the new minister of police Bheki Cele expressed shock at the numbers, describing South Africa as being close to a “war zone”. He admitted that the country’s police force “dropped the ball”.

South Africa’s annual murder rate per 100,000.
Author supplied

A logical response might be that there is a need for more policing. According to Cele:

We have lost the UN norm of policing which says one policeman to 220 citizens. One police officer is now looking at almost double that.

But this isn’t the answer. A sensible response to South Africa’s rising crime rates would be twofold: a problem-solving approach that would require a close analysis of what’s causing crime to rise in a given area. Then they’d need to devise a plan that takes into account all the contributory factors – and involves everyone affected in addressing it.

And, secondly, the country’s leaders must address inequality. South Africa is a highly unequal society. It has one of the highest gini-co-efficients (a measure of inequality) in the world. Research shows that inequality and crime go hand in hand.

The question of police numbers

Police leaders reported that their staff numbers have gone down by 10,000 since 2010. They argued that they had 62,000 fewer police than were needed.

Police agencies all over the world often claim that, to reduce crime, they need bigger budgets and more officers. But the evidence that these two things automatically lead to more effective crime prevention is far from clear.

Take the issue of police numbers. Short-term and extreme spikes in police numbers (such as in response to terrorist threats) do seem to reduce crime. But a review of a number of studies on the relationship between policing levels and crime rates suggested that the impact of more police is generally small. The paper also noted that part of the problem was that there have been few rigorous experiments on, for example, extra police resources being allocated randomly.

Bigger budgets also have mixed outcomes. This is because, very often, a significant proportion of spending on police is ineffectual. Police resources often aren’t targeted, even though there’s evidence that doing so produces good results.

This isn’t hard to do: crime is highly concentrated in hot spots that are often surprisingly small and quite stable over time. With the right focus, resources could be directed to these areas. But mostly they aren’t.

Targeted approach

What works best is a problem-solving approach. This involves focusing narrowly on understanding specific crime problems in specific places, and using not only police but drawing on the knowledge and resources of all parties, including other government departments and local communities.

For example, particular factors might be contributing to a spike in robberies in a particular area. These could include a large cohort of bored young people in the community, paths that are fertile ground for attacks because they are dark and overgrown, or unlit parks near a derelict building.

More police patrols wouldn’t necessarily be the best solution. The underlying problems would need to be addressed. This might include creating a partnership between property owners, the agencies in charge of parks and lighting administration, schools and parents, and the communities that use the spaces.

One concern with a targeted approach is that crime is simply pushed elsewhere. But evidence suggests that the displacement effect is usually limited and that, in fact, nearby areas often enjoy a diffusion of benefits.

Inequality

There’s a more fundamental problem that needs to be solved on a national scale before South Africa’s crime levels can be reduced: inequality.

Research shows that inequality is arguably the single best predictor of whether a country will experience high or low levels of crime and violence. Inequality

• makes property crime more attractive and profitable;
• drives frustration, hostility and hopelessness; and,
• undermines trust, community engagement and the functioning of social and institutional structures.

South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world.

Where to from here

Murder levels nationally have been at about this level or higher (above 30 per 100,000, which is considered very high by global standards) since at least the 1970s. High levels of violence are not a matter of police resources. They are a structural feature of this society.

This is not to say that the police are blameless. Among other things they should be doing more to solve cases. But addressing the key drivers of crime and violence requires that South Africa builds a much larger social partnership. It has no hope of becoming a fundamentally less violent country until it becomes a more equal one.

Anine Kriegler, Researcher and Doctoral Candidate in Criminology, University of Cape Town

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

South Africans come off second best as politicians play havoc with coalitions

EPA-EFE/Nic Bothma

For the past two years political party coalitions have become the “new normal” in South African politics. They became a key feature in 2016 after the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), wrested power from the governing African National Congress (ANC) by forming coalitions in three key metropolitan – Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane and Johannesburg.

But the coalitions have proven to be volatile and unstable, most notably in Nelson Mandela Bay. The metropolitan municipality council has found it difficult to pass budgets, approve and agree on a long-term strategic development plan for the city.

After a series of crises, the coalition which had been cobbled together between the DA and three smaller parties finally collapsed in August. Another motion of no confidence – the fifth in two years – was tabled against the DA’s executive mayor Athol Trollip. A slim majority of councillors voted in favour and he was ousted. Trollip has challenged the decision in court. For now the city has a mayor from the United Democratic Movement which has 2% of the vote in the council.

The coalition in South Africa’s second largest city Tshwane is also on shaky ground. The executive mayor Solly Msimanga, also from the DA, faced a motion of no confidence a mere three days after Trollip was ousted. But Msimanga survived to fight another day due to a technical glitch in the voting procedures.

The coalition in Johannesburg seems to be holding – for now.

But the troubles in Nelson Mandela Bay and Tshwane are raising real concerns that the political chess games are affecting accountability, governance stability and service delivery in the cities.

This is a serious state of affairs. If political parties can’t work together, passing resolutions and agreeing on developmental priorities becomes difficult. Once governance stagnates, a municipality cannot function effectively. This in turn affects its ability to provide services. When councils become political theatres, ordinary citizens suffer. This much has been evident in Nelson Mandela Bay.

Political expediency

Coalitions are usually formed on the basis of political expediency. The political marriages of convenience come about when political parties can’t get an outright majority. To secure power, parties scramble to find partners, at times without considering ideological, policy, or historical differences. As African political and governance scholar W. O. Oyugi cited by African human rights expert Dr Japheth Biegnon has noted:

coalitions are a necessary evil – an evil in the sense that normally no party ever coalesces except in circumstances in which not to do so would deprive it of a chance to exercise power

This certainly holds true for the coalitions formed in South Africa since 2016. The cooperation forged among opposition parties was designed solely to get the ANC out of power.

What emerged were uncomfortable coalition governments led by the DA. It promised to root out corruption and improve the delivery of basic services, such as water and electricity, to communities. But it lacked the required majority to govern on its own so turned to building coalitions.

It partnered with a number of smaller parties. One of them, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), helped the DA take over governments in Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane and Johannesburg.

The EFF, acutely aware of the power it wields in all these arrangements, has used the fragile political situation at local government level for its own political agenda. This has included promoting its radical stance on land expropriation and nationalisation with an eye on improving its performance in next year’s elections.

The EFF declined to formally join any coalition government, but effectively holds the position of political kingmaker, especially in hung councils.

Both the DA and the ANC realise that, potentially, they might need to work with the EFF in future. It is therefore not surprising that following the Tshwane motion of no confidence, Msimanga announced he would “reach out” to the EFF.

Lessons for the future

There are two key lessons that political parties should take away from the current political turmoil if they want to bring about a semblance of bureaucratic stability.

Firstly, using local coalition politics to advance political agendas can severely hamper service delivery. Secondly, this undermines public trust in local government, creating fertile ground for political unrest.

Political parties will need to heed these lessons to ensure effective governance and political stability in the country. This is particularly important in view of the 2019 national and provincial elections, which are expected to result in even more coalition governments.

If they don’t, ordinary citizens will suffer while politicians engage in a game of chess to secure power. As it is,
South Africans are increasingly dissatisfied with democracy. This is due to a number of factors, including poor service delivery and a lack of societal trust in government.

Ultimately, coalitions need to work for the citizenry, and not politicians.

The author’s has just published a new book, Delivering an Elusive Dream of Democracy: Lessons from Nelson Mandela Bay.

Joleen Steyn Kotze, Senior Research Specialist in Democracy, Governance and Service Delivery at the Human Science Research Council and a Research Fellow Centre for African Studies, University of the Free State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Xenophobia in South Africa: why it's time to unsettle narratives about migrants

Four people died in the latest violence and looting to hit shops owned by foreign nationals in Soweto, Johannesburg.
Sowetan/Thulani Mbele

Foreign nationals have, yet again, been attacked, displaced and had their shops looted in South Africa. This is an unfortunate – but entirely unsurprising – way to mark the anniversary of the 2008 xenophobic attacks during which tens of thousands were displaced and more than 60 people killed.

Even before 2008, a handful of scholars and activists were urging the government to do more to protect those targeted for violence because of their geographic origins. Only after the 2008 melee did the government join civil society and international organisations in committing to ensure that such bloodletting would never happen again. But, it has.

Why? Firstly, both the government and civil society are culpable. The government continues to sideline xenophobic violence the same way it does most violence affecting poor South African communities. It has naturalised anti-outsider violence by blaming it variously on criminality or the natural resentment poor South Africans feel towards those they perceive as “stealing” opportunities from them.

Civil society efforts have fared little better in arresting the violence. Many organisation, foreign and domestic, have responded in a classic “garbage-can” fashion, matching ready-made solutions to problems they only poorly understand. The results include innumerable marches, education campaigns, rights awareness symposiums, and social cohesion summits. Various bodies, including the one I work for, regularly document the abuse of migrants at the hands of police, authorities and neighbours.

The solution doesn’t lie in simply doing more of the same. What’s required is to recalibrate how xenophobia is covered, particularly how stories are told about migrants – their rights, suffering, and their relationship to the citizens around them. The way it’s currently done is doing more harm than good.

South African coverage of migrants falls into what the president of the global Ethical Journalism Network, Aidan White, recently noted was a trend towards “victim journalism” in global migration coverage.

But changing course means going against the grain of the dominant narratives. It means destabilising the language and approaches used to speak about violence and immigration. This is as true in South Africa as it is elsewhere in the world.

When one does this, as Tanya Pampalone and I have tried to do in the book I Want to Go Home Forever: Stories of Becoming and Belonging in Africa’s Great Metropolis. the stories are often difficult to digest. They are uncomfortable because they upset easy binaries and accusations. They also point to new opportunities to build communities that are inclusive and safe.

Victim journalism

The accounts of migrants described in White’s article are very recognisable in South Africa. Many of the accounts offered by South African civil society and scholars rapidly descend into a parade of miseries and indignities. As if the more people suffer, the more deserving they are of not only sympathy, but a place in a hosting country. It’s as if the only way one is allowed to stay is if you completely deserve pity.

Miriam Ticktin, a leading migration scholar, similarly observes how migrants need to ensure they are read as helpless, needy and innocent to secure access to protection and help. While such claims may get you “in”, they also feed perceptions that migrants are wards, stealing resources.

The problem of focusing on migrants’ rights and victimisation is that it does little to hold the political and criminal elements leading – and benefiting – from the violence against migrants responsible. It also prevents empathy from citizens grappling with the competition for scarce resources such as houses, or for jobs, as well as the ethical dilemmas of migration. Migration is a complex process that by its nature transforms communities. It introduces new languages and customs. It creates new forms of economic and social exchange. These can be unsettling and disorienting, especially during times of economic hardship and political transition.

Framing xenophobic violence as a question of immigrant victimisation invites divisions between neighbours. There are multiple examples, such as accounts of immigrants as somehow superhuman people who have suffered violence and persecution across a smorgasbord of sites, yet heroically continue commerce to feed their families.

Journalists and scholars overlook or suppress unsavoury elements of migrants’ histories and activities. This is often for fear of feeding anti-immigrant reactions. Perhaps more importantly, migrant-oriented journalists and activities too quickly condemn South Africans as thoughtless purveyors of violence.

Both sides become caricatures, people without politics or the complexities that are inherent to all humans.

Humanising migration

It’s true: there are many stories of victimisation. But there are a host of other accounts that reflect a complexity often ignored in the simple narratives.

There are the geriatric refugees from Ethiopia who fear reprisals for political actions taken decades ago. There are conflicts among immigrant families far more vicious than anything South Africans are offering. There are immigrants who make court cases against them disappear.

There are also thoughtful, patriotic South Africans convinced xenophobia is socially just. For them, overcoming apartheid’s legacy means redirecting resources and opportunities to the citizens who most suffered from it. For them, sharing the country’s wealth and urban space with “others” can only frustrate a transformation agenda that has been too slow to bear fruit.

There are also stories – seldom told – that can salve and offer direction. They remind those willing to listen that while immigrants live in almost all South African townships, violence against them is remarkably infrequent. It’s not random or driven solely by rage, but calculated, purposeful, and directed.

What is more, there are poor, black South Africans who know that foreigners are not the problem. They are perfectly aware that foreigners aren’t the reason they are jobless, homeless, and frightened to walk the streets. Better than most, they know that it is officials’ false promises and unwillingness to counter corruption, violence, incompetence and institutional incapacity that are to blame.

These are problems with no easy solutions. Yet that is precisely the message that scholars, activists, and concerned citizens need to hear.

Loren B Landau, Research Chair on Mobility & the Politics of Diversity. Migration; Urbanisation; Refugees; Xenophobia, University of the Witwatersrand

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

South Africa is paying a heavy price for dysfunctional local government

Violent protests over the poor delivery of basic municipal services occur frequently in South Africa.
EPA/Kim Ludbrook

South Africa’s Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Dr Zweli Mkhize, recently painted a bleak picture about the state of local government. It should worry all South Africans, not only those suffering as a consequence of dysfunctional municipalities.

In his budget speech in Parliament in May Mkhize said that 87 municipalities – about a third of South Africa’s total of 257 – “remain dysfunctional or distressed”. He identified two problems. One set is systemic and relates to the size and structure of municipalities. The other is mismanagement due to “political instability or interference, corruption and incompetence”.

Whatever the causes of the dire state some municipalities are in, it is evident that this situation has a huge negative impact on society.

South African municipalities form the third sphere of government after the provinces and national government. In accordance with the Constitution, they must be democratic, accountable institutions that provide a range of basic services to local communities, such as water and electricity.

They are also key institutions for the promotion of social and economic development, given their direct link to local communities. Successful municipalities are essential for the country’s prosperity.

What dysfunctional looks like

A number of characteristics are evident in dysfunctional municipalities. Firstly, there is very poor or no service delivery – in other words rubbish isn’t collected and basic services such as water supplies are patchy or non-existent. Another feature is that they suffer from serious financial problems such as low debt collection and huge overdue creditors’ payments. There is also always evidence of infrastructure, such as roads, deteriorating at a fast pace.

Communities in these areas often experience a range of problems that reflect this state of dysfunctionality. These include potholes; significant water losses due to infrastructure not being maintained; an increasing backlog in new infrastructure; financial mismanagement as well as fraud and corruption.

A second important impact is that service providers are affected. If a municipality doesn’t collect all the revenue due to it, it can’t pay its creditors or takes a very long time to do so.

An example of this is the R16 billion owed by municipalities at the end of 2017 to Eskom, the country’s power utility. Smaller service providers, some of which are small and medium enterprises, could face serious liquidity problems if they don’t get paid. At worst they could go under.

The effect of all this is often civil unrest. In the longer term consequences will be increasing uncertainty or even instability in affected communities and a spiralling financial crisis. And financial problems will have a snowball effect. This is because investors won’t be interested in investing and current businesses might decide to move elsewhere. This will mean that local economic development and much-needed job creation won’t get off the ground.

What needs to be done

In addressing systemic issues, there needs to be a thorough investigation into the structure, size and types of municipality and their governance structures. This should ideally be done by independent experts on behalf of the government.

This should be directed to the overall improvement of the design of local government. And it should also take into account the fast-changing, technology-driven environment in which we live.

In reflecting on the current state of affairs two potential scenarios – which I name after Beatles songs – are presented.

The first is a low road scenario. I have called this “Crying, Waiting, Hoping”. The other is a high road scenario, which I have named “We can work it out”.

In the first scenario, bad governance continues. On the financial side this involves financial mismanagement, tender fraud, corruption, low debt collection and very slow payment of creditors. In this scenario services will deteriorate. Refuse will be collected less frequently and there will be more water losses due to old infrastructure not being maintained. In addition, more potholes will lead to more claims due to accidents. And finally, increasing dissatisfaction among the citizens which lead to more civil unrest.

If this went on for a prolonged period of time it could lead to the total collapse of a municipality. This in turn would require a long time and significant funding to get it into an acceptable functional state again.

The “We Can Work It Out” scenario envisages the successful prosecution of corrupt officials and councillors, cooperation across the political spectrum to create a stable organisational basis and a serious attempt by communities to help solve municipalities’ problems. They can do this by providing expertise and participating constructively in the rebuilding of their society.

In this scenario all available resources from all three spheres of government, the business community, academia and citizens would be used in a spirit of cooperation to work out solutions that can benefit society.

Dirk Brand, Extraordinary Senior Lecturer at the School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch University

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Why South Africa's main opposition isn't gaining traction against the ANC

Democratic Alliance leader, Mmusi Maimane is struggling to grow the party further.
EPA/Nic Bothma

After more than two decades in power, South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) is in severe trouble. The euphoria around the appointment of the new president Cyril Ramaphosa is rapidly fading as he increasingly encounters resistance from within the party to a thorough cleansing of the state.

On top of this the financial crises in key public utilities seem to be getting worse while key economic indicators like unemployment, production and inflation are rapidly deteriorating.

You would think that amid all of this the prospect of the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), displacing the ANC at the next election would be getting better. But the latest polls indicate that the DA’s support has shrunk since the last election. The party’s prospects of equalling its performance at the last national poll – when it obtained 23% of the national vote – look dim.

What, then, is going on?

There are a whole host of reasons to point to. The first is that Ramaphosa, despite his initial post-Zuma popularity having been punctured, remains a far more impressive and weighty figure than the DA’s leader, Mmusi Maimane.

Part of Maimane’s problem is that DA’s attraction to many has been its claim to represent cleaner and more efficient government. But these claims are being severely tested as it faces the dilemmas and temptations of running the three major metros it took control over after the 2016 local government elections.

It gained control by forging awkward coalitions with the Economic Freedom Fighters (to whose principles it’s bitterly opposed) and other smaller parties. This has meant that its hold on power has often looked fragile, and it’s had to engage in all sorts of wheeler-dealing. Necessary, but not good for the image. Meanwhile, the party allowed its fight with its Cape Town mayor, Patricia De Lille, to drag on for far too long.

And then of course there is the issue of race, which divides the party all the way to the very top.

The DA was founded on principles of liberalism. Its ideological position comes with the assertion that the individual, not the group, is the primary unit of society, and that freedom and equality are realised through the freedom of the individual. That’s not sitting very well within many of its newly found black supporters.

On top of this, the DA’s classic liberalism has run up against the problem of how to address racial disadvantage on an individual basis in a society where fundamental rights and material goods have been allocated by race historically. Either the DA breaches its liberal principles by accepting the need to address racial disadvantage frontally. Or, if it doesn’t, it sends out the message to black voters that it’s not really committed to addressing racial inequality.

This tension played out recently when the party became embroiled in an internal spat over whether or not to support Black Economic Empowerment, an affirmative action policy.

Growth or principles?

Until recently the DA’s share of the vote in the country has increased with every election. That growth came at the cost of having to dilute its core liberal principles, as it sought to expand its appeal beyond its white base to black, coloured and Indian voters.

In 2013 the party accepted that race should become a basis for redress. In 2015, it adopted freedom, fairness and equality of opportunity into its constitution.

Subsequently Maimane has also suggested the party needs to adopt affirmative action by pushing hard for the DA to accept the need for “greater diversity” in its composition. This was a way of saying that more black people are needed in leadership positions without actually using those words.

The more recent internal spat about Black Economic Empowerment also points to these tensions.

Head of policy Gwen Ngwenya announced that the DA has ditched Black Economic Empowerment in favour of real empowerment from the bottom. But many among the party’s newer influx of members realise that they would never be where they are today if it was not for a policy engineered by the ANC – for all its failings.

True, the DA pumps out the message that the children of a black millionaire do not deserve a special hand up from the state. However, without a clearly stated policy about how it is going to pave the way for “equality of opportunity”, it’s going to have to work hard to rid itself of its unwanted reputation of being primarily a party protective of white interests.

Liberalism, conclude many black people, works for white people only.

No easy way out

The problem for the DA is that there is no easy way out of the dilemmas it faces. It comes with the territory of being the major party of opposition and drawing the major body of its support from a white racial minority. Its problem is that on the route to power, principle is always likely to become fudge.

This points to the still greater problem that the DA has to confront (and this is the great unsayable). No opposition party in any country in southern Africa has yet managed to displace a liberation movement. This is despite the fact that the record in government of the region’s liberation movements has been dismal, and the vehicle for the rise of corrupt “party-state” elites. Look no further than Zimbabwe, where in 2008, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change won a parliamentary majority before crashing into the rocks of ZANU-PF intransigence.

The great question which hangs over South African politics is what the ANC would do if it really did lose its majority.





How the DA resolves its dilemmas around race will dictate how it will react in such a situation, for without mass black support it would lack any chance of confronting the ANC were the latter to trash the constitution and maintain its hold on state power.

Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand

This article was originally published on The Conversation.