A History of South Africa

by Leonard Thompson

  Trouble began on August 10 at a Lonmin platinum mine called Marikana in Mafikeng in the northwest. Lonmin was the world’s third-largest producer of platinum, and Cyril Ramaphosa, once head of NUM, was a board member. After Lonmin representatives refused to discuss their demands, drillers, encouraged by AMCU, began a wildcat strike, calling for a tripling of their salaries to R12,500 per month. The following day, as striking NUM workers marched on their offices, NUM leaders fired at them, killing two. Over the next three days, nine more people were killed, including two policemen and two security guards.266 By then, the conflict had the world’s attention.

  On the scene were more than 500 armed officers and a police helicopter. Violence soon erupted. On August 16, members of an elite SAPS unit fired on some of the strikers.267 Thirty-four died, and at least 78 were wounded.268 The shootings, immediately christened the Marikana Massacre, represented the most deadly encounter by South African security forces since Sharpeville in 1960. The following day, Zuma went to Marikana, declared a national week of mourning, and announced the creation of a commission of inquiry.269 Known as the Farlam Commission for its head, former Supreme Court of Appeals judge Ian Farlam, the commission included cabinet ministers, raising questions of impartiality.

  Meanwhile, accounts of the violence appeared worldwide. Images of protests by poor Africans being met by official force yielded comparisons to the apartheid era. One commentator wondered whether the mine’s ANC ties were “economic apartheid.”270 The Sowetan newspaper, the largest with a historically African readership, suggested that nothing had changed since the end of apartheid.271 One journalist wrote that Marikana had forced the country to examine “its postapartheid soul.”272

  Any such national reflection was subsumed by recrimination and ongoing strife. There were conflicting reports from eyewitnesses and the press. National Police Commissioner Mangashi Victoria Phiyega’s official statement, released the day after the shooting, claimed that after peaceful negotiations by SAPS members failed, it was only when the miners attacked and the SAPS retreated to the point where their safety was in danger that they were permitted to use maximum force against the miners.273 Rifts among trade unions were apparent. The opposition deplored the government’s actions.274

  Mediation efforts by the Ministry of Labor began on August 28, but only on September 18 was there a settlement of a 22 percent pay increase, a one-time payment of R2,000, and a return to work the next day.275 By then, 47 people had died. The investment sector feared that Marikana would establish a national precedent.276 It already had. The massacre had set off a rash of strikes and protests nationwide. Police presence and, sometimes, violence accompanied them. By early October, some 75,000 gold and platinum miners were engaged in strikes, most of them illegal.277 The important agricultural sector was also affected. Since the end of apartheid, poorly paid farmworkers had staged strikes for higher wages and improved living conditions. In November, workers in the Western Cape set fire to farms, overturned a police truck, and clashed with police in riot gear who fired tear gas. One man was killed, and at least five others were injured.278 The year concluded with the distinction of being the one with the most labor protests since the ANC came to power.

  The Farlam Commission continued the focus on police brutality into 2013.279 There were widespread allegations of official evidence tampering. Photos of dead victims allegedly showed them unarmed and later with weapons presumably planted in a police cover-up. Many believed that the police had herded the miners into a small area and systematically shot them, as there was no evidence of a hail of bullets. There was also the claim that many of those killed had been shot in the back far from the line of demonstration.

  Labor troubles also continued. In February and March 2013, there was a five-week coal miners’ strike involving violence and police use of rubber bullets. It threatened to disrupt ESKOM’s already much decried coal-dependent electricity service.280 The country braced for more strikes and violence surrounding May’s biennial mining sector wage talks. While workers viewed the settlement at Marikana as an AMCU victory, swelling its ranks to 105,000, a fifth of South Africa’s mineworkers, talk was rife about marginal profitability at many gold mines and deficits at more than half of the platinum shafts. Closing mines, as Amplats, the world’s largest platinum producer, threatened to do in order to restore profitability, would only further rankle their workforce of predominantly semiliterate rural men with many dependents and very few prospects for other employment.

  The Quality of Life of the Majority of the People

  It seemed that the real war on poverty was being fought by the poor in increasing numbers of protests over the lack of services. Official violence was common. At some demonstrations, the police relied on Casspirs, the heavily armored vehicles deployed throughout the country during the struggle against apartheid, and used live ammunition. One incident that riveted the nation was the death of Ficksburg activist Andries Tatane, who was brutally beaten by several policemen and shot twice in the chest with rubber bullets after he tried to block the passage of a water cannon vehicle that was targeting some elderly people.281 The entire episode appeared on SABC-TV that evening. Perhaps a class war had replaced South Africa’s race war, noted one commentator.

  In 2009 there were 105 protests; the following year, 111.282 The number dropped in 2011 to approximately 100, but there was a geographic shift toward urban areas, especially toward squatter camps; the 2011 municipal elections, which offered an outlet for dissatisfaction, may have been responsible for the decline. The decrease was only temporary. The number rose markedly in 2012 and by August had surpassed that for the entire previous year. The media described South Africa as the protest capital of the world.

  There was a crisis of expectations not ameliorated by the ubiquity of the ANC slogan “a better life for all.” As protesters relied on the apartheid-era tactic of refusing to pay taxes, a limited revenue base was partly responsible for inferior or nonexistent delivery of services. Skills deficits and corruption exacerbated the problem.283 In the 2011 municipal elections, Zuma campaigned door to door in many of the most deprived communities. Claiming shock at what he found, Zuma issued a statement that he now understood the protests.284 However, he seemed to have recovered his equanimity for his 2012 state of the nation address, which was silent on delivery issues.

  Electricity

  In order to address the crisis in electricity, in 2012 the government announced a “keeping the lights on” policy. Part of the strategy was to improve ESKOM’s maintenance practices. It was not a success. The backlog was not cleared, and in 2013 repairs continued well beyond the South African summer, the time of their projected completion, as more equipment broke down. Consequently, the electrical grid typically operated dangerously close to its limits, and rolling blackouts were again likely in the winter.285 The government’s main hope lay in the building of two new power stations, Medupi in Lephalale, 160 miles northwest of Johannesburg, and Kusile in the Nkangala district of Mpumalanga. The two coal-fired plants were the first new such construction in more than twenty years. Part of a R350 billion plan to give South Africa enough power to support economic growth, they were already way behind schedule, largely because of frequent strikes at the sites and other construction delays.286 The government talked tough about the problems, but ESKOM’s longer-term viability was not assured.

  Water

  Just as the electricity supply was dubious, so, too, was the water supply. Blue Drop Program results were not encouraging. Private sector observers said a “strong spin element” surrounded the program; water quality was actually deteriorating nationally.287 With respect to sanitation, progress was even slower. According to estimates by the WHO/UNICEF Global Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation, the proportion of South Africans with improved sanitation rose slowly, from 71 percent in 1990 to 75 percent in 2000 and 79 percent in 2010.288 While the 2011 census reported higher figures than WHO/UNICEF because of a looser definition of access, it f
ound that approximately 11 million still used shared facilities (4 million), used buckets (3 million), or practiced open defecation (4 million).289

  Wastewater also proved problematic. Fifty-five percent of treatment plants, particularly smaller ones, did not meet effluent standards, and some did not even measure effluent quality. As a counterpart to Blue Drop, the government initiated Green Drop, a certification program for municipal wastewater treatment, but few plants met regulatory compliance requirements.290 By May 2011, only 7 of 159 water supply authorities and 32 of 1,237 wastewater treatment plants were Green Drop approved.291 The adverse health impact of inadequate sanitation was evidenced by more than a million cases of diarrhea in children under five each year and the persistence of cholera, with more than 6,000 reported cases and more than 50 deaths in 2009 alone.

  Beginning in 2011, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) began to investigate 144 water supply complaints, including cases from every province about no water or sanitation at all. In March 2013, after five months of public hearings, the commission released its findings during Water Week.292 Most of the bulk water infrastructure was near the end of its life, resulting in uncontrolled, high levels of pollution, particularly in dams. Necessary infrastructure upgrades would require R670 billion over the next ten years, but the Department of Water Affairs reported it would be able to provide not even half that amount. An SAHRC spokesman blamed the problem on high levels of government inefficiency, lamenting, “We are two decades into democracy and some people have not tasted clean water.”

  Housing

  The people wanted housing, too. Although official statistics for housing, as for other fields, were not entirely reliable, the government claimed to have provided some 2.7 million houses—usually small cinderblock structures—since 1996.293 By September 2011, the Department of Human Settlements reported a backlog of some 2.3 million houses,294 with more than 12 million people, approximately one quarter of the total population, still needing accommodation. While many government-built houses continued to collapse, the department announced a new policy aimed at reining in corruption and improving delivery, with a commitment to eradicate the backlog by 2030. In his 2012 state of the nation address, Zuma announced a new “gap market” subsidy for those whose income was above the cutoff level for free housing.295

  There was growing concern that the government’s efforts would not be enough, a fear highlighted by the clash of the haves and have-nots at Marikana and the ongoing labor problems. In 2013, a BBC journalist described the misery of millions of South Africans. At Marikana, he found that, “in the shadow of the mine, most of its migrant workers live in Wonderkop, a sprawling shanty settlement of 40,000 people with no running water, no proper electricity, no sewage—families in unspeakable poverty. I saw even more destitute circumstances 700 miles south near Mandela’s birthplace in the Transkei, home to the widow of one murdered striker, their extended family income suddenly destroyed. It was hard to see how two decades of democracy had made any improvement to their living standards.”296

  Health Care and AIDS

  Although some observers were disappointed when Zuma did not include Barbara Hogan in his cabinet, most were delighted with his December 2009 World AIDS Day speech.297 After his much ridiculed testimony at his rape trial three years before, about showering to prevent AIDS, he now became the unlikely hero of South African AIDS activists. Zuma indicated that the government would distribute ARVs to many more infected people, including all HIV-positive children under one year old and pregnant women. The United States announced a $120 million two-year assistance package to coincide with the speech.298

  Zuma likened the fight against HIV/AIDS to the struggle against apartheid. AIDS activists who had so vehemently opposed Mbeki’s denialism now praised Zuma’s “great leadership.”299 The government moved quickly. By the end of 2012, some 2 million people—more than twice as many as in 2009 and nearly ten times as many as in 2006—were taking ARVs in what had become the world’s largest ARV program. According to a study in the British medical journal Lancet, the change caused a dramatic increase in life expectancy to 60 years. The lead researcher, Bongani Mayosi of the University of Cape Town, noted, however, that there was still a huge gap in access to health care between Africans and Whites. While the former made up 80 percent of the population, only 10.3 percent had health insurance, while 70.9 percent of Whites, who made up only 10 percent of the population, did.300

  Inequality in insurance coverage was part of a much larger problem of lack of access to health care and of low-quality services. Children and pregnant women especially were affected. Although the government provided free primary health care to children under the age of six and pregnant women, mortality rates were not encouraging. Child mortality rates were virtually unchanged since the end of apartheid.301 One in 15 died from preventable illnesses. Although by the end of Mbeki’s presidency the District Health Information System reported that 84.2 percent of children under the age of one year had had their required vaccinations, subsequent surveys found that immunization rates were much lower than claimed and that there was poor delivery of vaccines. The quality of neonatal care also was unsatisfactory, with deaths in the first month of life accounting for 22 percent of deaths in children under five.

  Maternal mortality, high and rising, added to the serious problem of orphans. The United Nations estimated that one of every 250 women died during pregnancy or childbirth. While AIDS-related illnesses were the major culprit, responsible for some 23 percent of all deaths, complications of pregnancy-related hypertension were next, even though reported rates of prenatal visits were high and 95 percent of women gave birth at hospitals and other types of clinics. After an estimate that better health services would prevent 38 percent of maternal deaths, the Department of Health introduced an improvement plan, which included a major community outreach component. Healthy children with at least one well parent would have better life chances. Nevertheless, given the burdens of poverty, including a disastrous education system, it was unlikely most would reach their potential.

  Education

  In education, apartheid’s injustices endured while Zuma repeatedly insisted that improvement was his government’s “priority number one.”302 In 2010, with government spending at 6.1 percent of GDP, more than most other nations, the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitive Index ranked South Africa last of 133 countries in math and science.303 This was no better than in 2003, when the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study put it last of 48 countries,304 or in 2006, when Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study placed it last of 40.305 A Development Bank of Southern Africa analyst labeled the system a “national disaster.”306

  To increase enrollment and retention, the poorest families paid no school fees, but even so the situation was dismal. Of the approximately 87 percent of school age children who began primary school in 1999, only 42 percent finished secondary school; some 1.3 million from that cohort alone had dropped out.307 By the time they reached the tertiary level, of the 14 percent of university age students enrolled, only 17 percent received a degree, a figure representing just 1.8 percent of those who entered the educational system in 1999.

  Under apartheid the slogan “no education without liberation” regularly accompanied school boycotts, but the ANC government had failed to provide “education for liberation.” Except for high-quality formerly white schools now racially integrated by the children of the new black middle class who had moved into previously white areas, the system was inept. The government admitted that 80 percent of state schools were failing.308 As parents fled state schools, the independent school sector had grown by 75 percent since 2001. The very wealthy sent their children to a host of outstanding independent day and boarding schools. Those of modest means who were able to scrape together the tuition put their children into low-cost private schools that sprang up around the country.309 Although the quality varied greatly, some 5,000 children had left state schools for suc
h inexpensive alternatives. In many cases, the schools had very favorable matric results, but just a pass below a certain level was insufficient for university entrance.

  In government schools, low teacher morale and poor pay often led to absenteeism. The Johannesburg-based Centre for Development and Enterprise claimed that data showed that low-paid teachers—drunk or moonlighting at other jobs—increasingly were not present on Mondays and Fridays.310 Many schools had wretched facilities, with leaky roofs and broken or no windows and no running water or sanitation. In one case, students regularly entered the building via the windows because the broken door could not be opened.311 By mid 2012, the deplorable conditions had prompted civil society groups to sue to enforce the constitutional right to education.312 Despite overwhelming and very public evidence, the minister of basic education insisted that there was no crisis.

  In 2012, University of the Free State Vice-Chancellor Jonathan Jansen claimed that the government’s apartheid-era approach yielded poor performance, particularly in math. “Neither Hendrik Verwoerd nor the current minister of education,” Jansen asserted, “believe that a black child can excel in mathematics.”313 The reference was to an infamous 1968 question by Verwoerd, then minister for native affairs: “What is the use of teaching a Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice?”314 Now, black children received a dumbed-down math curriculum that would exclude them from university degree programs requiring math. Jansen decried the low international rankings and blamed the system’s failure for the country’s endemic violence. “Teachers sleep with pupils, here is rape, drugs, and pregnancies right in our schools. The violence we witness daily is because of the failure of the education system.” Certainly, “a democracy should be concerned” about the results because “our democracy will implode if we do not.”