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Recursion

(56,582 posts)
Fri Oct 23, 2015, 02:47 AM Oct 2015

South Africa's ANC risks young voter anger in education fee row

Source: Reuters

As thousands of South African university students protested against tuition fee hikes this week, one banner stood out for its raw summary of post-apartheid disappointment: "Our parents were sold dreams in 1994. We are just here for the refund!"

...

They have boycotted classes for a week, angry over university administrators' plans to raise fees by as much as 11.5 percent and demanding that the government deliver on its post-apartheid promise to provide education for all.

Today's crop of post-apartheid students, dubbed "Born Frees", have no experience of white-minority rule but have borne the brunt of the legacy of the abject poverty that afflicts millions of blacks two decades later.

President Jacob Zuma's government, anxious to avoid downgrades by credit rating agencies as it nurses a budget deficit of nearly 4 percent of GDP, says it cannot afford to provide blanket free education.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/23/safrica-protests-anc-idUSL8N12L58I20151023

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South Africa's ANC risks young voter anger in education fee row (Original Post) Recursion Oct 2015 OP
Wow. What will they do? yeoman6987 Oct 2015 #1
A view from South Africa FarrenH Oct 2015 #2
 

yeoman6987

(14,449 posts)
1. Wow. What will they do?
Fri Oct 23, 2015, 04:18 AM
Oct 2015

Two choices raise taxes or end free education. I guess they could cut elsewhere, but where.


I predict they will raise taxes. Really the only way to keep everyone happy.

FarrenH

(768 posts)
2. A view from South Africa
Fri Oct 23, 2015, 06:53 AM
Oct 2015

My facebook feed has been filled with posts about the protests, which are unprecedented in both scale and the speed with which they escalated. Unlike other recent student protests (like the Rhodes must Fall campaign that sought to remove colonial symbols from our universities), which were often aligned with either the ruling ANC or the populist EFF (a breakaway party to the left of the ANC which has ridden a rising tide of anger with the government), these protests are unusual in uniting students of all political stripes. They were triggered by university fee hikes across the country that many poorer students can't afford. Initially their targets were university management, but quickly turned to the department of education and parliament on the back of claims by the management of various universities that they've been forced into that position by constantly diminishing budget allocations (relative to number of students and inflation) from government. One important bit of historical background to this was that at the end of Apartheid, the ANC specifically promised that its eventual goal was free education for all, which has not come about.

The diversity of support is particularly salient because we have massive inequality and student political activity is still, often, roughly divided along race lines and political party affiliation. I say "roughly" because it's a reflection of broader society. The ANC has, in it's 20 years in office, managed to produce a previously non-existent black middle-class and a very small class of extremely wealthy black people, as well as creating the largest welfare-state infrastructure in Africa and providing government housing, electricity and running water to 5-10 million poor South Africans (our population is around 55 million). But... the black middle class is roughly equal in size to the white middle class (which is most whites), while the white population is only 10% of the population. Which means that just under 90% of the black population is still poor or extremely poor. And when it comes to ownership of the economy, something like 80% of all shareholding of JSE-listed companies is still white and male. The small old-fashioned communist political movement aligned to the ANC continues to portray divisions as mostly about class not race but even among the middle-class the race divisions are evident, with wealthy black and middle class people being more likely to align politically with groups supported by poor black people than white middle class people are, although their day-to-day actions often reflect similar self-interest and disregard for the poor, from reports of abuse of domestic workers and so on. On top of that there is a minority traditionalist faction in the ruling party headed by no less than our current ANC president, who is (in South Africa, legal) a traditional polygamist and has been strengthening the hand of traditional leaders in rural areas in a distinct attempt to roll back progressive, democratic ideas there, and in direct opposition to progressives in his own party and our extremely progressive constitution (which for example, entrenches non-discrimination on the grounds of sexuality and reproductive rights - IOW the right to abortion). So it's complicated.

Other recent student protests have often been dominated by black students, with white students (and a portion of black students who are part of the generation that grew up middle class) mostly remaining out of it. And even among black students, participation in protest action has often been contingent on party affiliation, specifically to either the ruling ANC or the breakaway EFF. But after these protests initially began with the mainly poor black students who might have to drop out of university next year on the back of 10-11% fee increases, they quickly the expanded to include allies among all student groups. Many of the more privileged students are protesting not for themselves, but in solidarity with the disadvantaged students. So the protests have yielded a lot of uncharacteristic scenes. In Cape Town, we saw white students forming a protective front ahead of black student protestors when the police started using concussion grenades and beating the protestors back at the gates of parliament - and in the process revealing white privilege when police use of force seemed to abate as soon as they were faced with a wall of white students. Other unusual characteristics of the protests include student leaders insisting that they will not allow political party representatives to hijack their cause and discouraging party-political grandstanding. Another signature quality of the protests which a lot of observers have noted is the prominence of women, who are leading most of the protests. The student leaders appear to be acutely aware of the impact of stereotypes above violent, destructive behaviour that have marred previous protests and have maintained exceptional discipline. And there are a surfeit of photos circulating around facebook showing students going around picking up litter after various marches.

On the substance of their demands and their impact in terms of public perception: over the course of the protest, the balance of opinion across all socioeconomic groups has shifted rapidly in the student's favour. One of the reasons the privileged classes have swung over to sympathy is a lot of numbers circulating that show we could easily afford to make higher education free with the money that is currently disappearing down the black hole of fraud and wasteful expenditure. Costs of the president's massively controversial and government funded rural family homestead alone could have put 2,000 students through a 3 year degree and that's just a drop in the ocean. On the other end of the spectrum it's been calculated that a massively controversial multi-trillion Rand deal with Russia to build a string of nuclear plants could put 10s of millions of students through a 3 year degree. Between those we have extraordinary increases in salaries to ANC-affiliated officials in multiple government departments, excessively expensive solutions for infrastructure upgrades (almost certainly because of kickbacks), like toll gates for highway expansion and maintenance where a fuel levy would be much cheaper, et al. The government's own auditors report tens of billions in the "fraud, irregular and wasteful expenditure" year on year. An item from a researcher friend at the SA Institute for Security Studies just crossed my feed saying that the (government official) VIP protection services now have a bigger budget than South Africa's universities.

This could be a turning point for the ruling party, which has enjoyed complete dominance of the political landscape since the end of Apartheid on the back of their liberation credentials. While disgruntlement has steadily been rising, a large proportion of the electorate have stuck with them even while voicing anger, believing they could bring about needed reform through the party's internal representative democratic processes (leaders are elected to a national committee in a similar fashion to American primaries). In addition to that, significant losses in urban support have been offset in recent years by the president's embrace of traditionalists and specifically playing up his Zulu roots to win over the large rural Zulu population and poach a lot of supporters from the regional traditionalist party IFP. Nationally their portion of the vote hasn't dipped below 60% since Apartheid.

However, polls show that they're at serious risk of losing 5 of the biggest cities in local government (the economic powerhouses of the country) in the next elections and I'm seeing posts on facebook from my young, ANC-aligned friends who have consistently called for reforms within the party rather than a switching of allegiance, saying they will never vote ANC again because of the education funding issue. I don't know what the impact of that will be but we might be in for a major change. The present, profoundly corrupt President and the cabal around him in the ruling party has thrown our security sector into disarray with a series of senior appointments specifically in the national prosecuting authority and police that seem designed entirely to protect his own ass by making sure over 30 corruption charges against him don't reach fruition, but aside from that most other institutions that are guardians of democracy (the judiciary, the office of the public protector, the army and the electoral commission) are still strong. So if the public mood does undergo a major shift, there is little to no risk that it won't be reflected in election results, since that is a common concern with young democracies in developing countries.

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