Social movements are numerous in South Africa. They take various forms and attest to the distrust which now surrounds the leaders of theANCunable despite their efforts to remedy social inequalities.
South Africa is neither an idyllic “ rainbow nation “, nor a country of crimes and rapes, contrasting versions that the press readily gives ; it’s a “ turbulent country »: a country in movement in which social movements are constantly taking place. It is to make this better understood that Jérôme Tournadre, research manager at CNRS (Institute of Social Sciences of Politics, University of Paris Ouest – Nanterre La Défense) wrote this work following surveys carried out in various large cities in South Africa between 2002 and 2012. Based on field observations, interviews and the analysis of an abundant literature, it allows us to grasp the complexity of the political and social evolution that the country has experienced since 1994.
The fighting continues
The first observation made by the author is that the demonstrations and protests have practically never stopped and that, from this point of view, there has been no break between the “ mass movement » of the 1980s, with its strikes, boycotts and marches, and the protest actions organized in the 1990s and 2000s. The reasons for this persistence are diverse but are largely due to the disappointments caused by the policies carried out after 1994. While there is no denying what the African National Congress government has accomplished (ANC) in terms of access to health, water and electricity supply, nor its efforts to very widely distribute social assistance leading to a significant reduction in extreme poverty, it remains none the less, to remember that these indicators, that in 2012, almost 40% of South Africans still lived on less than $50 per month and that there were probably 40% unemployed among the working age population. These figures must, moreover, be understood against the background of a strong increase in inequalities, including within the so-called “ formerly disadvantaged “, which has led to a loss of confidence in leaders, a feeling of dereliction and anger among the poorest.
It is on this ground that social movements have multiplied which, due to the history of South Africa and in particular the experience of the fight against apartheid, have a repertoire of modes of action still usable, especially since many of the activists present are former activists. Since the 1990s, associations of poor citizens affected by evictions and water and electricity disconnections began to organize. The reduction in the capacities of local authorities due to the reduction in allocations from the national government and the significant increases in prices for basic services have made official campaigns to promote citizenship lose all meaning. responsible » (therefore solvent). Local movements set out to reconnect, reconnect those sanctioned for non-payment and oppose evictions ; then they came together in larger organizations that intellectuals were quick to describe as “ Social movement » by often homogenizing what was heterogeneous and disparate.
It is true that all these groups have in common the reference to the notion of “ community “, entity of variable scope which, above all, connotes the “ people » of the poor and consolidates the perception of a society divided into “ them “, the powerful and the rich, and “ We “, there “ community » in whose name social movements speak and act. This opposition extends to the forces operating in the institutional political field: parties and unions, suspected of “ treason » and corruption, are therefore included in the “ them “. Many members and many leaders of the movements have also gone throughANC or the union federation COSATU which they left out of disappointment or from which they were excluded for being too critical. One of the boundary markers which separates the “ official ” of the “ movements » is their relationship with the law: the latter do not hesitate to undertake illegal actions. However, they are not reluctant to use legal recourse when necessary. The important thing, from their point of view, is the moral legitimacy of the action, its objective of defending the wretched of South African land. But their game with legality allows the authorities and the dominant party to seek to disqualify them as “ subversives “, even agents of an infamous “ third force “.
Transition to politics ?
However, here again, the relationship between action “ movementist » (neologism taken up by Jérôme Tournadre) and partisan or union activism is not simply made up of antagonisms. Their systems of thought, their modalities of action are partly common, what strongly distinguishes them is that the former are seen as not having kept their commitments, ignoring, even contemptuous of the “ communities » as soon as they are elected, while the latter, working in weakly hierarchical organizations, working to perfect a citizenship experienced as “ unfinished », are required to report regularly to the rank-and-file members. The entanglement of official politics and the operations of the Social Movement obviously raises the question of the transition to politics (institutional, in particular electoral) of the organizations which make up the latter. This perspective encounters a number of difficulties, one of the greatest being the ambivalent attitudes that members of the “ communities » maintain towards the dominant party. Its policies, at least their concrete effects on daily life, are rejected ; its local elected officials are poorly regarded ; but theANC remains the one led by Nelson Mandela, the one who led the struggle and obtained liberation from apartheid.
Even if the votes received by the dominant party are steadily decreasing, even if a growing proportion of potential voters do not register on the electoral lists, a majority of the poor still vote for Congress, especially since the parties of opposition do not seem more credible to them: the main one among them, the Democratic Alliance (D.A.), strives to get rid of a party image “ white » but, if it succeeds a little, the fact that its programs hardly differentiate it from theANC attracts only a minority of voters, except in the Western Cape. Furthermore, the presentation of candidates in elections, even local ones, is not unanimous: some activists advocate abstention, while a few organizations, such as the Operation Khanyisa Movement, have tried the experiment. The divisions that this issue creates within the Social Movement have not prevented attempts at regrouping either through a magazine, Amanda !or within the Democratic Left Forum.
However, from this political space “ intermediate » — located neither totally in the world of social protest, nor totally in that of official politics, but participating a little in both — does not seem to be emerging a force capable of gathering a minimum of votes at the national level. The 2014 elections demonstrated this again, in which a new party, founded apart from the Social Movement although trying to mobilize on the basis of the discontents which make the latter act, managed to impose itself after theANC and the D.A.. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) founded by Julius Malema, former head of the youth league of theANCcombining with a proven sense of spectacle a taste for luxury and a claim to represent the underprivileged, managed to gather 6.35% of the votes cast. Behind their revolutionary speeches, it is not difficult to detect an enterprise promoting the predatory bourgeoisie to which their “ commander in chief » ; the future will tell whether their relative success will remain short-lived or whether they will manage to strengthen their positions. Their emergence, however, raises the question of the capacity of the Social Movement to propose something other than defensive or restorative actions, to have a lasting influence on political decisions, to develop a real social project, coherent and mobilizing for the disadvantaged.
The just and the unjust: the driving forces of the Social Movement
From this point of view, the South African Social Movement does not differ from other similar movements that have appeared throughout the world. By analyzing South Africa based on very important social science literature, particularly French, on social movements, Jérôme Tournadre places South Africa in an unusual light which opens the way to comparison. His work captures a social and political life whose intensity and complexity we do not always perceive, from the outside. ; he confirms that citizens are not in the process of “ depoliticization » but that they also continue to get involved in companies that go beyond official and institutional frameworks, thus placing themselves in the continuity of the anti-apartheid mobilizations of the second half of the XXe century. We understand better, with the help of these South African examples, what the conventionally drawn boundaries between what, in politics, is unofficial and what is official, between what is institutional and what is extra-institutional have artificial. Political thought and action are matters of immediate objectives, directly related to the living conditions and needs of citizens, and of moral principles involving notions of just and unjust. ; they aim to establish power relations, to influence decisions at local, provincial or national levels. The author shows that the Social Movement, in its diversity, has often succeeded.
We can only regret that this work is a little dryly written. ; it is full of factual data, drawn from the author’s investigations and observations as well as from the analysis of other studies carried out, in particular, by South Africans, but it could have given a little more “ flesh » to its descriptions by drawing more in-depth portraits of activists and leaders, more complete presentations of the organization and functioning of the movements studied and more lively accounts of the actions analyzed. The reader, whose interest is piqued by the qualities of the research, would want to feel more fully the very life of these movements. His frustration probably stems from a question of writing ; the fact remains that this book will henceforth occupy an important place in writings in French on South Africa.