Political turmoil in 2016 can be traced back to the 2008 financial crisis
- Thanti Mthanti
The Conversation Africa business and economy editor Sibonelo Radebe asked Thanti Mthanti to highlight key events and look at future prospects.
How would you rate and characterise 2016 in economic terms?
It was obviously an extremely difficult year for many countries, including South Africa.
From a South African point of view, the challenges are clearly reflected in a number of key economic indicators. Economic growth has slowed significantly and is projected by the country’s Reserve Bank to be close to zero for 2016. Unemployment reached 27%, the highest rate over the last decade.
South Africa’s economic challenges are largely a reflection of its inability to change in the light of global shocks. We have seen the persistence and evolution of the economic crisis emanating from the 2008 financial meltdown. South Africa’s policies have hardly changed to align with new global economic realities.
Fiscal, monetary, exchange rate policies and macro-prudential policies have essentially remained the same. This is due, in part, to the political strength of parasitic vested interests.
As a result, low economic growth, high unemployment and a strained fiscus have evolved to become a political crisis. This is partially reflected in the outcome of the 2016 local government elections and the increasing pressures around the country’s president, Jacob Zuma, and the governing African National Congress (ANC).
Globally the evolution of the economic crisis into political crises can be seen through the rise of populists like Donald Trump in the US and the Le Pen spectre in France. There is also general political instability in countries like Brazil and Turkey.
This simply confirms that, over time, economic pressures manifest as political crises. Leaders who fail to respond with effective economic strategies become the target as people express their anger politically.
How is South Africa dealing with the prevailing crisis?
South Africa is not doing very well. Unfortunately the country’s underlying economic structure has not changed for the last 40 to 50 years, largely surviving unscathed in the transition to democracy.
According to World Bank data South Africa has, on average, produced economic growth of zero percent on a GDP per capita basis in US dollar terms for over nearly half a century. The country has also performed badly, in relative terms, on industrial upgrading. And this goes to the heart of South Africa’s difficulty to navigate the prevailing economic conditions.
But there is hope. Increasingly a certain strata of the black elite is beginning to question the prevailing economic arrangements in the country. And there is a visible fracturing of the elite as the mainly white dominated economy struggles to accommodate the aspirations of the rising black elite.
We have seen that to a degree with the student protests. The aspiring middle class are demanding to be accommodated in the economic arrangements of the country. African children are clearly no longer happy to be merely hewers of wood and drawers of water.
This brings hope that, over time, the prevailing economic arrangements will be forced to accommodate an increasingly militant section of the black elite. This may lead to positive change.
What in your view were the highlights for the year?
The continued, and seemingly, successful rebalancing of China’s economy has been the highlight of 2016.
I’m of the view that China is set for a recovery that will surprise many over the next five years. And over the next decade the scope and scale of China’s economic recovery will see the Asian giant emerge as the dominant global economic and political power.
But China’s next growth trajectory will no longer be commodity intensive. This is because its cities and general infrastructure are pretty much built. The country is now focusing on moving up the economic value chain into advanced manufacturing, services, innovation and high technology activity.
Therein lies a lesson for countries like South Africa that suffer from the commodities curse and need growth to accommodate the aspirations of the emergent black elite. They must make every effort to diversify away from erratic commodity driven growth into value added manufacturing and innovation. This will help the country transition to inclusive, high growth.
Some significant shifts have brought the viability of the South African extractive state into question. Since the 1960s the country’s stock of natural resources per capita has dwindled significantly. The country has seen massive population growth from about 20 million people to about 57 million. Yet essentially all there is to serve them is a depleting stock of natural resources. No large country with a population above 50 million has reached developed status by relaying on extractive industries.
South Africa remains essentially an extractive economy. And despite a stagnant economy and protestations by the emergent black elite, fiscal, monetary, exchange rate and macro-prudential policies protect the vested interests of the white dominated parasitic elite. This contributes to economic growth and diversification being frustrated.
But the world economy is becoming knowledge intensive. Strangely, the defenders of the status quo in South Africa wish to maintain, within a democratic framework, a growth path that emphasises resource extraction, for consumption by the racialist elite. It’s essentially asking the African majority to voluntarily consent to the exclusive consumption of their resources by the white dominated elite.
What this means is that the government must challenge the political and economic dominance of the unproductive racial economic hierarchy which relies on control of the banking and extractive industries for its dominance. The very survival of the modern South African state and the liberal framework requires no less.
Unless this happens, the dye is cast. My sense is that the increasingly assertive black elite will accept no less than a fundamental transformation of the prevailing economic arrangement.
What do prospects look like in 2017?
Unfortunately it is more of the same.
The underlying crisis is an economic one. Countries, like Germany and China, that have effectively allocated their surplus to upgrading their productive capabilities have come out of it a lot better than those that are consumer-driven and allowed their productive capabilities to decline.
Over the next five years the economic crises in a lot of countries will intensify. The populist upheaval that you are seeing throughout the world is likely to continue if inequality and slower growth are not tackled.
Why caution is called for when analysing South Africa’s matric results
- Elizabeth Walton
The Conversation Africa’s education editor Natasha Joseph asked Associate Professor Elizabeth Walton to explain the results.
South Africans are poring over the latest set of matric results which show how the country’s school leavers performed in their final exams after 12 years of formal schooling. Nearly 718 000 people wrote the exams and 72.5% of them passed – a small increase on last year.
The results always generate a great deal of debate – and often anger. Why it’s crucial to remember the young people behind the numbers.
There’s a huge focus on matric results every year, particularly on the national pass rate. Is this a useful obsession?
I am not convinced that this annual obsession with matric results is productive. The national pass rate is a very blunt instrument with which to dissect South Africa’s very complex educational problems. The national pass rate obscures important differences in provincial achievements, the urban/rural divide and the unequal outcomes for learners in poorer schools.
It also does not tell us much about the quality of the passes, nor about the subjects taken. The national pass rate also reflects only the learners who sat the exam. It does not take into account the numbers of early school leavers who did not make it to matric.
This year the announcement by Angie Motshekga, the Minister of Basic Education, showed 828 020 candidates registered for the examinations. But only 717 971 – full time and part time – actually wrote the exams. This means that more than 100 000 learners made it to grade 12, but fell before the final hurdle.
Is a final set of exams at the end of 12 years of schooling the best way for South Africa to judge pupils’ readiness for entering the world of work or continuing on to tertiary education? What other options exist?
Many education systems around the world combine a school-based assessment component with some external standardised assessment as a school leaving qualification. But it seems to me that we should not be looking at a major change at this stage. The system needs to settle and mature. I do think, though, it would be good to revisit South African academic Professor Stephanie Allais’ proposal that the current pass or fail system be scrapped.
She suggests that learners should instead be allowed to complete grade 12 with a basket of subjects and results which could then be presented to an employer or institution of higher learning. This would shift the focus from the national pass rate to the enrolment and results of individual subjects. It might also mean that schools could be less concerned with an overall school pass rate and rather focus on subject-level improvement over time.
It is possible to improve a school’s pass rate without actually improving teaching and learning; for example by finding ways to exclude learners who may compromise a school’s results, or by not offering subjects that are perceived to be difficult, like maths and physical science.
I also think we need to be realistic in terms of what we expect a matric qualification to signal. The minister of basic education has noted that it is an exit qualification and not primarily a tool for evaluating the progress of the system.
For those who are not looking to pursue further education, a matric certificate is expected to provide proof of preparation for the world of work. Others expect it provide evidence of the foundations of academic literacy and subject competence that will enable success in higher learning. These expectations are not always compatible with what South Africans regard as “basic education”.
To address this “one-size-fits-all” matric, the Department of Basic Education has proposed a three stream education system with an Academic Stream, a Technical Vocational Stream and a Technical Occupational Stream. This is expected to address the problem of early school leaving and prepare learners for the world of work.
Maths and science results often get the most attention. They are obviously important “canaries in the coal mine” that point to the system’s overall health. But are there subjects that deserve more attention and whose results can paint a picture of what’s going wrong – or right?
I think it is vital that maths and science retain our attention, for several reasons. These are gateway subjects for the science, technology, engineering and maths occupations South Africa urgently needs to develop. They’re also subjects that bear huge scars of apartheid’s legacy.
They also build sequentially: poor foundations are not easily addressed by late interventions. Having said that I do think that languages, particularly indigenous African languages, also need our focus to secure their growth and development. The introduction of South African Sign Language as a home language examined at matric level is a definite success story.
What if you’re a young person who’s failed matric? What’s your best option?
This is an important question, because any analysis of the matric results must hold in tension the system and the individual. We cannot ignore the fact that there are real young people with hopes and dreams behind all the numbers. Failure is devastating – particularly in the face of a trend that sees South Africans celebrating individual “top achievers” in newspapers and at prestigious events.
I think we should be wary of this. It assumes that success at school is purely the result of individual effort and ability. Those who don’t succeed are presumed to be lazy and disinterested in education. These celebrations convey the message that everyone is equally positioned to succeed in a meritocratic process.
Some learners will be upset because they expected to do well; this sometimes happens when the demands of school-based assessment have not been as rigorous as the National Senior Certificate exams set by the Department of Basic Education.
There are opportunities to rewrite through the department’s Second Chance Programme . Learners should also seek counselling support for persistent feelings of hopelessness.
What you need to know about how your sugar intake over the holidays has impacted on your health.
The consumption of sugar and its effects on health has been in the headlines in many countries around the world again as countries from the UK to South Africa debate a sugar tax. The Conversation Africa’s health editor Candice Bailey asks Sundeep Ruder to explain how we process sugar and why too much is bad for us:
What are the biggest sugar carriers people should watch out for?
The holiday season has become a jet-fuelled boost of over-indulgence on an already excessive culture of over-consumption.
Even outside of the holiday season, everyone unknowingly consumes a large amount of added sugar in food products.
Most food labels show the total amount of added sugar in grams. What’s useful to know is four grams is equal to one teaspoon of sugar, so dividing the total number of grams of sugar on a food product by four gives you the amount of sugar in teaspoons.
The World Health Organisation recommends no more than 12 teaspoons of sugar a day for an adult. It points out that there are added health benefits if this is halved to six teaspoons.
Soft drinks and energy drinks contain up to 95% of a person’s recommended daily sugar intake. An average can of carbonated soft drink contains between eight and ten teaspoons of sugar.
Sweet snacks such as candies, nougat, cookies, cakes, pies and dried fruit apples contain between 70% and 80% of a person’s recommended daily sugar intake.
Sauces and instant gravies can make up 38% of a person’s recommended daily sugar intake. And ice creams, frozen yoghurts and milkshakes have a sugar content of up to 25% of a person’s recommended daily sugar intake.
What does sugar do to the body?
While you may be on holiday your liver is not. The liver has to metabolise large amounts of sugar – especially fructose – and goes into overdrive.
Most processed carbohydrates, sugary beverages and festive treats require very little work for digestion. This is because they are in their simplest form already. But the lack of dietary fibre means that it is rapidly absorbed into the blood stream.
The load of liquid energy is transported to an overwhelmed liver and the pancreas, which in turn releases a large amount of insulin to move glucose out of the blood stream and into tissue such as muscle and brain cells, where it can be used.
But because most people live a relatively sedentary lifestyle, only some of this glucose gets used up. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It gets converted from one form to another.
If the glucose load is not converted to kinetic energy (exercised), it will be stored.
It takes about 25 minutes of brisk aerobic exercise to burn off the energy content of one can of soft drink.
Excess “sugar” transported to the liver will be converted to glycogen and fatty acids. Glycogen is useful during periods of starvation but this is rare in urban environments. The fat gets stored around the belly and in the liver, in what is called “visceral fat”. A state of what is commonly known as insulin resistance ensues. More insulin has to be made to lower blood sugar and “overcome” the resistance.
This leads to increased inflammation in the body, abnormal cholesterol profiles, hypertension and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. These all increase the risk of cardiovascular disease (heart attack and stroke), cirrhosis, and even the risk of common cancers.
Some people say the problem is carbohydrates, not sugar. Is this true?
All sugars are forms of carbohydrates. The word sugar is loosely used to reference carbohydrates in their simplest form such as glucose, fructose and galactose.
These refined or processed sugars are rapidly absorbed into the blood stream. The most notorious is fructose found in most sugar beverages, which are often made from high fructose corn syrup.
Eating fruit is different from “drinking” fruit as the fibre in the edible form slows the absorption of sugar (fructose), and serves as a prebiotic.
Can you work sugar out of your system after a binge? Is it possible, and if so how long does it take?
The acute effect of the sudden release of insulin to shift the glucose load leads to rapid blood sugar lowering. So the initial high is quickly followed by a slump. Fatigue ensues.
In the long run it is difficult to burn off excess sugar.
The holiday period is a microcosm of what happens in our bodies on a macrocosmic level during the year. A year full of work, unhealthy living and too little exercise is capped by a holiday season of overindulgence – leading to higher risks of chronic illness.
This is why modifying and controlling one’s diet is so important. Exercise is important, but proportionately a diet change will make the biggest difference.
The ideal scenario over the holiday period is to abstain completely from sugary items and eat purposefully. But if you can’t then at least plan your festivities and portion treats by eating less inbetween special occasions, and setting limits when you do indulge.
Start the new year on a healthy note as a continuation of the changes made in December, rather than have to take empty resolutions to start again.
South Africa has work to do to make government more accountable
- Fola Adeleke
The South African government completed its term as lead-chair of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in December 2016.
The partnership is an international initiative formed by eight countries in 2011 that has grown to 75 members. Its aim is to improve public sector governance and encourage civil society participation in making governments more accountable and responsive to citizens.
Some of the original founding members include Brazil, Mexico, Norway, the Philippines, Britain and the US. Nigeria is the most recent African country to sign up.
Countries are invited to join if they meet the minimum eligibility criteria. These include a framework on open budgets, a law on access to information, public asset disclosure rules and basic protections for human rights.
Member countries are required to develop national action plans that are implemented in a two-year cycle. They are expected to submit self-assessment reports within the period. In addition, the partnership secretariat appoints a country researcher who consults with government and civil society organisations to monitor the implementation of the plans and develops both a mid-term and end of term assessment reports. Ultimately, the OGP provides an international platform for change agents at a country level both within and outside government to make government open, accountable and responsive to citizens.
South Africa has just been given an end of term report for its recently concluded two-year action plan. The report, released in December 2016, shows that it failed to meet key targets it set at the beginning of the process. But it also shows improvements in some areas.
Why people’s involvement matters
During South Africa’s two-year leadership the partnership hosted the Africa regional meeting focused on using open government for sustainable development in Africa.
This was significant because 2016 signalled the beginning of the implementation of the United Nation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). The goals are premised on the idea of partnerships for development. This includes the establishment of a collaborative platform that involves various stakeholders to ensure that marginalised people have a voice in determining priority areas to achieve the goal of poverty eradication.
Recent events in South Africa make it clear how urgently this ideal must be realised.
During 2016 the country was characterised by protests over the delivery of basic services and higher education fees. These distress calls came against a backdrop of growing concern about “state capture” – the diversion of state resources to benefit an already privileged elite. The problem of state capture shows a public accountability deficit which the partnership aims to address.
South Africa’s end of term report highlights the country’s accountability challenges. This is particularly true in relation to its failure to implement and mainstream public service anti-corruption laws. The report shows that the country failed to fully complete any of its seven commitments. These were the establishment of:
an accountability/consequences management framework,
service delivery improvement forums,
platform for citizen participation in government,
environmental management information portal,
online crowd sourcing tool on data conservation,
schools connectivity project, and a service rights and responsibilities campaign.
The report also shows that, contrary to agreement, the government didn’t formally establish a forum to involve civil society organisations in the partnership process. It still has to set up a joint mechanism to monitor the implementation of government’s commitments.
Transparency may not do much to reverse the disconcerting rise in corruption in both the public and private sectors. But it is a good starting point in promoting public integrity and accountability.
South Africa cannot continue to place the burden of holding the government accountable on just the media and brave whistle blowers.
These shortcomings not withstanding, it was not all doom and gloom.
The government must be applauded for setting up a citizen-based pilot monitoring programme. This was set up to collect community feedback on public services.
What needs to be done
It is important that the lessons of the previous action plan be heeded as South Africa embarks on a new two-year national action plan. The focus here will be to link its partnership commitments with its development goals.
South Africa is now on its third two-year action plan which will run from 2016 to 2018. It includes a commitment – introduced by civil society – to establish community advice offices to promote access to justice. This fits in with goal 16 of the SDGs – to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions.
Other commitments include citizen-based monitoring of service delivery projects and increasing public participation in government planning and budget processes. Another is to increase the level of civic participation in the provision of basic services.
These commitments require the sustained involvement of civil society. It is high time the South African government established a permanent dialogue mechanism that treats civil society bodies as equal partners. It also needs to develop ways of working more collaboratively so that it can make government work for all citizens.
It’s clear that the South African government recognises the importance of partnerships with civil society. But it stands accused of paying lip service to the idea of inclusivity. Indeed, the shrinking space for civil society in governance that is seen around the world is also evident in South Africa. The country’s civil society organisations are not seen as equal partners when it comes to accountability and governance.
For their part, South Africans need to re-imagine the role of civil society in the governance of their public services and management of their public resources. The partnership initiative offers that platform. But it needs to be implemented effectively and in the spirit of participation by ordinary people.
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma kicked off the new year by declaring that God was on the side of the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma kicked off the new year by declaring that God was on the side of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). Speaking ahead of the ANC’s 105th birthday celebrations which took place at the Orlando Stadium in Soweto, he reiterated a statement he has made several times before – that the party will rule until Jesus comes.
This time he went even further, hitting back at the party’s detractors by declaring:
We believers never forget that, just like the son of man who came to wash away all of our sins, the birth of the ANC happened to free the people who were oppressed.
By implication, it would seem, any president of the ANC must be pretty well in with God, and those against him, on the side of the Devil.
Put aside, for the moment, any thought of whether Zuma actually believes this twaddle. Consider instead that it actually fits the liberation movement cosmology of the ANC.
In the beginning, there was the Garden of Eden, centred in Merrie South Africa, an ancestral land blessed by plenty, peace, wealth, comfort and ubuntu - (or human kindness).
Then came the Fall.
The chosen instrument of Providence?
Originally Africans had had the land, and the whites had come with the Bible. Colonialism and apartheid saw the whites grab the land, leaving the blacks with the Bible. But then along came the ANC, with many clerics at its head, with its fore-ordained mission to restore South Africa to its rightful owners. And save South Africa it did, leading the country to redemption by finally vanquishing apartheid in 1994 under the messianic leadership of Nelson Mandela.
Alternatively, of course, there is the secular version of much the same story, told in psuedo-scientific, Soviet-style Marxist language. This time round, the vehicle of salvation is the class alliance of the ANC with the South African Communist Party. This embodied a simultaneous struggle for national liberation and socialism – although now redemption comes in two stages, first that of the national democratic revolution, and only then, the heaven-on-earth of socialism.
Common to both versions is the certainty of history. It is the ANC that represents the people, and knows their true interests and destiny. Even if, on occasion, it follows the wrong path, as the chosen instrument of Providence it will find its way back to the straight and narrow.
All other parties are therefore heretics and impostors, and are therefore bound to be overcome, for the ANC and the people are one. The ANC will therefore rule until the End of History, or Jesus’ second coming. Which is why, in a previous speech late last year, Zuma had felt confident enough to tell church leaders who had become critical of the ANC to stay out of politics and stick to religion. It is only the ANC, apparently, which is entitled to blur the two. As far as Zuma is concerned, it is the ANC which is the historic bearer of Good News.
For as the ANC slogan had it at the last general election in 2014, the party had “a good story to tell”. Which is a good thing, for in his message to the ANC at its birthday bash, Zuma had little or nothing to say. He acknowledged South Africa had been going through hard times – mostly, he said, because of hostile global conditions – but assured the faithful that continued pursuit of ANC policies of “transformation” would lead to better times ahead.
From saints to sinners
The problem for Zuma’s political theology is that far too many members of the ANC have been experiencing a dramatic loss of faith. They look back in fondness to the years of the struggle against apartheid when the ANC – whatever its earthly faults – was recognisably and unequivocally on the side of right and the righteous.
It had more saints than sinners, and its ethos was one of duty, self-abnegation and sacrifice. The individual was as nothing; the movement, the struggle, was everything. Yet now they look at the ANC of Zuma, and see little else but a leader and his acolytes deeply mired in corruption, the party torn apart by factionalism, and selfishness rampant. The interests of the people, they say, have been forgotten. The party must therefore “self-correct” – and do so quickly if it is to win back its sheep who have strayed.
Is there a Martin Luther within the ranks of the ANC willing to risk all and to nail his or her manifesto of reform to the church door? If so, it is becoming increasingly difficult to see one.
Party deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa has recently positioned himself as the reform candidate to replace Zuma when his term as party president expires in December 2017. He took a firm stand against corruption just prior to the ANC’s birthday. By openly decrying the perversion of the party’s electoral processes, bewailing votes bought by money stuffed in the boots of cars, and deploring “state capture”, he put clear distance between himself and Zuma.
However, he doesn’t make a very convincing reformer. Not only has he previously kept as quiet as a church mouse as Zuma has lurched from scandal to scandal, but he lacks a significant congregation within the ANC.
Nor is it likely that his major rival in the succession race, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the president’s ex-wife, would get to grips with the corruption and patronage that has sunk deep into the ANC.
As she would have been placed in power by Zuma’s own disciples in order to defend their interests and keep their boss out of jail, she would be too deeply compromised to drive the money-changers out from the temple. It therefore seems unlikely that the ANC will prove able to cleanse its soul and present itself as a credible saviour to the voters in the general election in 2019.
It is true, certainly, that the ANC may be able to use its considerable powers of persuasion to lure some lost sheep to the polls. Yet many will not only stay away but cast their votes elsewhere, throwing an ANC victory into question. Zuma may preach that with God on its side, the ANC will never fail. Yet with the ANC in its present state of decline, God seems an unlikely backer at the next general election. God, it would seem, is not an ANC loyalist, but rather a floating voter.
Trump vs Africa: how the continent can counter destructive policies
- John J Stremlau
The CIA’s Global trends report provides a useful starting point to reflect on what’s in store for Africa over the next five years.
Every four years the CIA’s National Intelligence Council (NIC) provides the incoming president and his administration with an assessment of the most powerful global forces likely to affect foreign and domestic affairs. Known as the CIA’s Global trends, the report is also available to the public and normally has a time horizon of five years and beyond.
Donald Trump would probably be prompted to dismiss the 235-page 2017 edition with a tweet after getting just half-way down the first summary page. The next five years, the report says, will
close an era of American dominance following the Cold War.
Trump would undoubtedly see this as a personal affront to his promise that he will “Make America Great Again”.
Ironically, Trump’s own behaviour during his presidential campaign and transition only lends credence to one of the report’s general forecasts that the next five years
will see rising tensions within and between countries.
So far Trump has stirred tensions with a range of countries. He has made controversial statements that have offended, among others, Europeans, Asians and, of course, Mexicans.
The report provides a useful starting point to reflect on what’s in store for Africa over the next five years. And how the continent should think about responding to challenges it identifies in the context of a Trump presidency.
A case in point are the report’s findings set against Trump’s stance on climate change. The Global Trends 2017 puts greater emphasis on the urgent need to mitigate and adapt to global warming and other man-induced climate change than earlier editions. But Trump’s climate denial rhetoric and the prominent deniers he is including in his cabinet, contradict all available evidence-based judgements.
This might suggest that the continent and Trump are on a collision course given that Africa will suffer more than most regions from the threat of climate change. This needn’t be the case. There are some low-cost ways African Union members, individually and together, could undertake to slow down, and even derail, Trump and his climate deniers. And shrewd diplomats would do well to use the report as a useful reference for prodding US negotiators. They might also use it for gauging levels of public and Congressional support for Trump’s controversial policies.
Clues to Trump’s views on Africa
There have been few indications of Trump’s interest in sub-Saharan Africa. But a few clues of how his administration views the continent have been reported by the New York Times.
The report was based on a leaked four-page list of questions about Africa his transition team sent to the State Department and Pentagon. The questions indicate a general scepticism about the value of foreign aid or even US security interests in sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting Africans have squandered American money and effort.
Questions included:
With so much corruption in Africa, how much of our funding is stolen?
Why do we support that massive benefit to corrupt regimes?
and regarding US business interests
Are we losing out to the Chinese?
Based on these questions, it’s possible that Trump will opt for an American retreat from the bipartisan development, humanitarian, and security assistance goals of previous administrations. Even so, policies he pursues on global issues such as trade and climate change will have a dramatic impact on the continent.
Trends facing Africa
The Global Trends report conclusion is that prospects for progress on the continent clearly outweigh the dangers. It says that in the next five years African countries will focus on internal issues as they struggle to consolidate the gains of the past 15 years and try to resist the geopolitical and economic headwinds that threaten them.
It also identifies the key challenges, among them the familiar issues of rapid population growth and rural-urban migration, severe if uneven environmental and health risks, radicalisation, and failures of governing institutions.
The report’s emphasis on climate change is particularly telling. It cites credible scientific evidence of global warming and forecasts dire consequences for countries across the world, including in Africa.
The Obama Administration was a global leader in the IPCC and agreements reached in Paris in 2015 on reducing greenhouse gases emissions in a voluntary process now endorsed by virtually all UN members.
Obama was also committed to a bilateral agreement with China, obligating the world’s two largest emitters to major reductions. And he made a pledge vital to Africa of US$3 bn toward an initial IPCC $10 billion fund to assist the most vulnerable and under-resourced countries adapt to global warming. This fund is scheduled to grow to $100 billion annually by 2020.
Trump, however, has repeatedly threatened to renege on all these US commitments once in office.
What Africa needs to do
Here are some low-cost ways African Union members, individually and together, could undertake to slow and even derail Trump and his climate deniers:
Seize every opportunity in bilateral talks and multilateral forums to reference the findings presented in Global Trends 2017. Although prepared during the Obama administration, it is the work of non-partisan civil servants.
Devise and implement public diplomacy campaigns in partnership with civil society groups, environmental activists, and the African Diaspora. Recalling lessons from the highly effective anti-apartheid movement of the 1970s and 1980s could be helpful.
Develop a better understanding of and links to America’s booming alternative energy sector. Costs of solar, wind, and other clean energy sources have fallen dramatically to the point that economics, rather than politics or ethics now drive most major reductions of America’s dangerous emissions. There may be positive business opportunities for African companies and countries to exploit for economic grow, development and dealing with the effects of global warming.
Actively support Americans (and anyone else) who support a carbon tax, with generous allowances for low polluting African countries swap credits with rich emitters, with cash generated assisting climate adaptation.
With Obama gone, China alone appears poised for global leadership on climate change. South Africa could help by using its membership in the BRICS and close ties to China and Brazil to press India, and especially Russia to meet their obligations. Perhaps it might even get the group to increase its contributions to the special fund for seriously affected African countries.
Reassure potential American donors and partners, including Trump and his allies, that funds allocated for helping Africans adjust to climate change will be accounted for through a voluntary transparent process of planning and reporting. Such accountability is a key vision of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and its African Peer Review Mechanism, currently under renewal.
Finally: tap into African expertise. Arguments should make full use of the continent’s small but growing community of climate scientists and their many links to America’s scientific community and environmental activists. Holding Trump to facts, not opinion, has failed so far. But evidence suggests public sentiment and economic incentives increasingly favour better climate management.
Africa’s appeals to America for fairness can be as effective as they once were for freedom.
The case for a people’s smart sanctions campaign against Trump’s America
- Patrick Bond
Could this resistance be mobilised into a global movement against Trump, perhaps drawing lessons from the victory against apartheid South Africa?
The forces arrayed against Donald Trump’s presidency and the emboldened neo-fascist movement in the US range from the Central Intelligence Agency to oppressed minorities and women anticipating the loss of reproductive rights. They could soon encompass most of the world once Trump’s climate change threats meet resistance.
But opposition to Trump from above – moderate Republicans, Democratic Party elites, so-called Deep State opponents, exporting companies concerned about protectionism, as well as “budget deficit hawks” worried about Trump’s borrow and default history – could soon fade away.
In contrast, resistance from below will continue rising as progressive activists move out of their single-issue silos and offer each other solidarity. Is a global sanctions strategy appropriate against the new president, his cronies and US corporations more generally?
Lessons from the past
Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaigns now underway include a Palestinian call to oppose the Israeli state due to its legal and human rights violations. Another is the “divest-invest” campaign against the fossil fuels industry.
But the sanctions campaign against apartheid, which formed a critical part of the resistance against the South African regime, remains the exemplar. According to Ronnie Kasrils – a leader of the anti apartheid underground movement – the campaign
made apartheid’s beneficiaries feel the pinch in their pocket and their polecat status.
In 1985, the South Africa campaign drove a strategic wedge between white capitalists in the country and the racist Pretoria regime. Just as internal protests surged in the mid-1980s, the regime was confronted by a foreign debt crisis caused in part by the rising tide of sanctions. This finally broke the capital-state alliance and compelled the transition to democracy.
Breaking Trump’s ties to crony corporations would be a comparable project. At least in the short term, the impetus for such a campaign would be Trump’s stance on climate.
Trump’s climate chaos
Climate change denialism is the “default position” of Trump’s government, as confirmed by his chief of staff. According to Trump’s 100-day plan he will build fossil-fuel pipelines, airports, roads and bridges. He will cancel international obligations like the United Nations treaties and payments due to the Green Climate Fund. He will retract shale gas restrictions and the ban on the Keystone oil pipeline.
His plan also disempowers the Environmental Protection Agency and will attempt to “save the coal industry”. After that, expect privatisation of public land, including Native American reservations, in search of more oil.
In addition, Trump has chosen carbon-filthy individuals to fill the main climate-related Cabinet posts. These include secretary of state Rex Tillerson, EPA director Scott Pruitt and energy secretary Rick Perry.
Voices for sanctions and carbon tariffs
Already a decade ago, economist Joseph Stiglitz argued that
unless producers in America face the full cost of their emissions, Europe, Japan and all the countries of the world should impose trade sanctions against the US.
The idea was reaffirmed last November when climate justice advocate Naomi Klein reacted to Trump’s election:
We need to start demanding economic sanctions in the face of this treaty-shedding lawlessness.
States may also join in. French former president Nicolas Sarkozy had this to say: “I will demand that Europe put in place a carbon tax at its border, a tax of 1%-3%, for all products coming from the US, if the US doesn’t apply environmental rules that we are imposing on our companies.”
Micro-sanctions are already stinging Trump. He recently defended clothing retailer LL Bean against the #grabyourwallet boycott of 75 Trump-related firms. His ego may have been bruised by singer Cher’s “Turn him off” call aimed at denying the inauguration a substantial television audience. Most A-list entertainers rejected invitations to perform on inauguration day while dozens of Democratic Party members of Congress announced a stay-away.
Trump’s vulnerable business interests
Setting aside other personal pin-pricks from journalists and politicians which have drawn blood, activist and legal attacks on Trump’s business continue to mount. Decades worth of extreme corruption in real estate gambles, debt defaults and full-fledged bankruptcies, nonpayment of suppliers and tax chiselling have reportedly attracted more than 4,000 lawsuits. And the new president refuses to divest any of his business holdings.
Grievances against his family-firm holdings are legion, but political attacks on Trump-associated companies are far more important. Last February, for example, the activist network Color of Change petitioned a major sponsor of the Republican Party annual convention:
How can Coca-Cola, a company that heavily markets to and profits from Black people, fund a platform for a presidential nominee that is being bolstered into office by former Grand Wizard David Duke, the KKK, and other white supremacists?
After 100,000 signatures within three weeks, Coca-Cola agreed to withhold $600,000 it had earlier earmarked to help pay for the convention.
Another success is the “Sleeping Giants” Twitter network of several thousand clicktivists. Since last November they have discovered more than 1,000 businesses and nonprofit institutions advertising (most without being aware) on the Breitbart white nationalist website. They confronted these firms by sending them a screenshot and requested that they withdraw their advertising from the sites. Soon 400 firms had done so.
Mega-corporations are more difficult targets. The Dow Jones stock market index has soared since Trump’s victory on November 8, led by banking, oil and military firms. Trump’s cabinet and top officials come from Goldman Sachs bank, ExxonMobil oil, Koch Industries oil, Lockheed Martin military, Pfizer drugs, General Dynamics military, Wells Fargo bank, Amway beauty, Hardees food and Breitbart media. Some of these would be the most obvious targets for a people’s smart sanctions strategy.
As soon as the time is ripe it will be up to grassroots activists fighting hardest from within – and anyone else concerned about climate – to make the call: Boycott Divestment Sanctions USA.
Dear President Trump: let me share some home truths about Africa with you
- Gilbert M. Khadiagala
Africa has occupied a more or less constantly insignificant position in both Republican and Democratic administrations in the US since the 1960s.
Studies of US-Africa policies have tended to depict Republican administrations as “globalist” – more likely to look at Africa as part of a bigger picture than as its own unique geopolitical space. Democrats, meanwhile, are perceived “Africanists” who have close sympathies to African interests.
But these distinctions are deceptive. Some Republican administrations, such as that of George W. Bush, paid more attention to African issues such as HIV/AIDS than, for instance, Bill Clinton’s Democratic administration did. There were great expectations that Africa would feature prominently during Barack Obama’s presidency. Instead, his administration built on some of the initiatives of the previous Republican governments rather than breaking new or distinctive ground in Africa.
Donald J. Trump is the new man in charge of the US, and Africa seems to have little cause for celebration. During his presidential campaign Trump gave no indication of how his administration would relate to Africa, a continent with a large diaspora in America. Worries about his stance on Africa were compounded by Trump’s deliberate articulation of divisive policies regarding migration, foreigners, Muslims and race.
In the week before Trump’s inauguration it was reported that the president-elect’s advisers had posed pertinent questions to the State Department about Africa.
I’d like to offer unsolicited responses to four of Trump’s questions. I will direct these to the man himself. In doing so, I hope to address the question that’s top of mind for the continent right now: what does a Trump presidency mean for Africa?
US aid to Africa
With so much corruption in Africa, how much of our funding is stolen? Why should we spend these funds on Africa when we are suffering here in the US?
President Trump, your administration will not be the first to discover that foreign aid is a double-edged sword. It rewards autocratic regimes while also strengthening institutions in more democratic ones. So it’s important to understand the institutional conditions under which aid is disbursed.
Your administration should continue the correct policy of selective discrimination of aid recipients. The United States Agency of International Development (USAID) has garnered significant experience in managing aid over the years. You should let it continue the work of putting American dollars where they make a difference. Of course, it is your sovereign responsibility to guarantee that US taxpayers’ money isn’t stolen by venal regimes.
Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram
We have been fighting Al-Shabaab [in Somalia] for decades. Why haven’t we won?
This is an unwinnable war. The fight against Al-Shabaab is part of the war on terror that your predecessors prioritised in Africa. The US has made some difference in how Al-Shabaab is managed in Africa, but your administration should seriously rethink its approach if it wants to see genuine change.
Rebuilding the state in Somalia is the antidote to violent extremism. This rebuilding won’t happen when American administrations indiscriminately drop bombs in Somalia or support weak regional governments that may never marshal the resources to defeat the Islamic insurgents.
What is required are renewed efforts to negotiate a political settlement between the Somali government and Al-Shabaab through international mediation. Al-Shabaab may be amenable to negotiations once the relentless drone attacks from America stop and once regional players can be weaned away from unsustainable militarised approaches.
Why is the United States bothering to fight the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria? Why have all the [Chibok] school girls kidnapped by the group not been rescued?
The Chibok girls may never be found, thanks to the incompetence of the Nigerian military. In the past the Nigerian military was the leading professional army in West Africa. But corruption and political interference have weakened it significantly. A more capable Nigerian military should be able to defeat Boko Haram without American assistance. Probably the US might channel some aid towards supporting a strengthened Nigerian military so it can take care of its own local problems.
In addition, the best policy toward Boko Haram should be to encourage Nigeria to find negotiated solutions to a problem that stems from political and economic marginalisation.
The Chinese conundrum
Are we losing out to the Chinese?
Yes. The US has gradually lost out to the Chinese, which has large investments and is trading robustly with Africa. But instead of complaining about the Chinese, your administration should try to figure out why and where they are succeeding in Africa.
If, as you claim, one of your major policies will be to promote business interests abroad, then Africa will need more attention. This, by the way, will not be inconsistent with broad African opinion that clamours for enhanced international investment in Africa.
Negotiation will be key
So what does all this tell us about Trump’s stance on and approach to Africa?
First, there is understandable cynicism about Africa from the incoming administration. This is born from the negative images that inhere in a large segment of the American psyche. Gradually, however, this scepticism will be tempered by the realities of dealing with a continent that cannot be written off. Second, all new administrations need to have the space and latitude to question the logic of previous policies, as a starting point for new and innovative policies.
But in foreign policy, clean slates are the exceptions rather than the rule. Thus, there will be both change and continuity in Trump’s African policies. The doomsayers may perhaps be surprised at what comes out of the Trump White House.
Trump will not run the US alone. As has always been the case, American presidents must negotiate policies with Congress. African governments and citizens will hope that these negotiations yield compromises across a wide range of issues that benefit the continent into the future.
Africa needs to manage food, water and energy in a way that connects all three
- Agathe Maupin and Mercy Mwanikah Ojoyi
There is an increasing global demand for food, water and energy. All three are inter-linked and increasingly the focus for policy makers and government.
One initiative has been the Water-Energy-Food security nexus developed in Bonn by Holger Hoff under the auspices of the international climate change conferences of the parties (COP). The aim was to improve management of the complex links between water, energy and food systems. It is increasingly being used by international organisations to evaluate whether approaches to meeting development targets set out under the Sustainable Development Goals are coherent.
Understanding the connections between basic food demands and accessibility to water and energy is also important when it comes to climate change and its impact on agriculture and livelihoods. This issue featured prominently at COP22 in Marrakech in 2016.
The approach can play a massive role in reducing resource loss and maximising benefits. For example, countries like South Africa and Tanzania have started using the approach to develop policies around water, energy and food production.
In South Africa the Water Research Commission has begun to use the model in national discussions on managing the effects of climate change.
Tanzania applied integrated water resource management in its water sector and African Union strategy on climate change. But very little progress has trickled down to actual policy development.
Regions like southern Africa need to move beyond simply having a framework for understanding the connection between the three. This is only the first step. Now more case studies are needed to see how the three components interact and also how policies can be successfully implemented.
Why and where is the nexus important?
The problem is that water, energy and food systems are often treated independently. Most countries have isolated water and energy policies. But policies that ignore the link between them can be inefficient and even counterproductive. The nexus approach can help transform isolated policies into integrated development plans.
Countries with severe water constraints, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, have started to develop policy that looks at all three factors. These regions have become testing grounds for the practical application of the nexus approach. Solutions, such as the development of multi-functional productive systems to improve natural resources use, have been implemented.
In Jordan, these have been developed to include water, energy and food. A pilot system has been implemented around the Sahara Forest Project. This includes solar energy farming in water scarce regions.
There are others signs of progress. Awareness about the challenges posed by climate change has led to the better allocation of resources through careful planning, savings and recycling. Some countries have developed national policies around these issues.
And governance patterns and language in policy development have started to reflect the linkages between water, energy and food.
But attempts to integrate water, energy and food management still have a long way to go. Most institutions – like the various water, energy and agriculture departments or organisations – operate under a complex system of unclear mandates and obscure funding and don’t consult with others.
This doesn’t mean that efforts to shape resources management are doomed. But there is a clear need to improve how it’s done.
Bringing the nexus to fruition
In southern Africa the nexus approach has been discussed by the Southern African Development Community in the water sector. One of the biggest challenges for the region is that water is distributed very unevenly. But it is short of electricity and some countries are highly dependent on hydro-power. What this means for food production is a challenge given that the over-allocation of water resources for food production would have a detrimental impact on energy production.
But each member state faces very different challenges. For example, South Africa is a middle-income country and has a fairly developed industrial sector that produces food. This requires concentrated investment in energy and water infrastructure, which the country has maintained partly due to its economy’s size and maturity.
Malawi, on the other hand, lacks the basic infrastructures to supply its population with water and access to energy. It is also much more vulnerable to the impact of drought and flood.
Tanzania’s economy relies heavily on agricultural production. It is therefore particularly vulnerable to changes in weather patterns. In addition, it doesn’t have the capacity to adapt to these changes which limits agricultural productivity.
What’s needed
For a policy to be effective it must take into account what infrastructure is available in a country and a region. It must also be backed up by proper data collection and institutions must be strengthened to overcome bottlenecks. What’s also important is that interventions must be designed with the involvement of all stakeholders, including consumers.
A common mistake is that governments are solely responsible for managing resources. Cooperation is key. Governments, institutes, and consumers must build relationships. Discussing their needs is crucial to success.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach. One common factor is that investment in innovation and technical support is vital so that a range of solutions can be developed.
The nexus approach has the potential to help African countries meet sustainable development goals. This can only happen if the approach is turned into actions, like policy development and implementation.
The history of science abounds with stories about discoveries made by chance but when it comes to big finds it is more than luck and chance.
One of the most famous cases, involves French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel, who accidentally discovered radioactivity by leaving a piece of granite on photographic paper in a drawer of his desk. Another, is the story of Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming, who forgot his bacterial cultures at home when he went on holiday. They rotted – and Fleming discovered penicillin.
These charming stories showcase science’s most human aspect: men and women who make lucky mistakes that can save lives or change the world. Even scientists are happy to believe these tales, though they don’t do much justice to our colleagues’ expertise.
But is this really the way science works? Can anybody, scientist or not, rely on luck to make important discoveries? My own “lucky strike” as a palaeontologist – finding a nearly complete fossil of a pre-mammalian ancestor – helped me to understand that good science isn’t rooted in chance. It’s based on people with expertise being in the right place at the right time, equipped with enough knowledge to know what they’re looking at.
A fossil find
My moment of “luck” occurred in South Africa’s Karoo in 2015. I’d been invited to join an international team of palaeontologists led by Professor Bruce Rubidge and Dr Michael Day from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. We came from Europe, South America and Africa to look for the fossils of pre-mammalian therapsids, which date back around 260 million years.
The Karoo is a semi-arid desert mostly populated by sheep and thorny bushes that covers a huge swathe of South Africa between Johannesburg and Cape Town. Hundreds of millions of years ago it was covered with lakes, rivers, dense primeval vegetation. Large reptile-like beasts roamed this landscape.
On the day in question we were fossil hunting between the towns of Sutherland and Fraserburg. There were rich pickings: Bruce and Michael had identified an area filled with fossil remains. So, we were in the right place. And, crucially, my shoes were totally wrong for the Karoo. Between the thorns and the heat, the plastic of my shoes had melted and their toes had been ripped open by thorns.
So I sat down on an outcrop of sandstone that formed a natural bench, putting my backpack down next to me. A brief burst of rain brought a bunch of critters out from their hiding places to drink; an astonishing spectacle. When the sun returned, I felt ready to carry on. I picked up my backpack – and saw the beautiful, nearly complete fossilised therapsid skeleton it had been covering.
It was 30cm long and in great condition, and it has been right next to me, under my backpack all the time ! I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm, exclaiming, “How lucky am I?”. And that’s when I started thinking about “luck” in the context of scientific discovery. Was I that lucky after all?
Serendipity and science
Bruce and Michael, two experts in their field, had chosen our prospecting spot carefully based on what they knew. They had sent out a complete team of palaeontologists who knew what to look for. This doesn’t look like luck to me: it was probability in action.
This is the very essence of what we call serendipity: the art of creating the good intellectual, scientific and experimental context for a “fortuitous” discovery to happen. Fleming may well have discovered penicillin by chance, but the conditions were right because he had all the equipment and specimens he needed.
Becquerel would never have realised what he’d found if he hadn’t been carefully studying natural fluorescence. His existing knowledge allowed him to recognise a major discovery.
Maybe I discovered this skeleton by chance – or perhaps I found it because that was what we were looking for, in the right place and with the right people.
My humble fossil was certainly far from the level of Fleming and Becquerel’s discoveries. But it offered a valuable reminder that pure luck can’t account for scientific breakthroughs. Hours of work, and countless people and money are invested to create the right opportunity for discoveries to happen. Serendipity happens when scientists create their own luck.
How night club bouncers police the social order all over the world.
Across the world bouncers remain gatekeepers to the nightclub experience: controlling the queue at the door; curating the size and look of the crowd; and securing the institution from unwanted “intruders”. Indeed, “door policies” and “bouncing” remain characteristic of nightclub cultures globally.
Last year I attended the Berlin NIGHTS Conference which saw artists, club owners, researchers, policymakers and night mayors gathered to discuss Europe’s nighttime industry. Discussions about door policies permeated the conference, prompting me to think about how “bouncing” was being understood, and how this differed from my experience of nightclub doors in South Africa. What might the varying bouncing cultures of Berlin and Johannesburg, for example, tell us about these two metropolises? Both are at the centre of their respective countries’ night cultures, and both have undergone fundamental social transitions since 1990.
Door policies in Berlin
I learnt that door policies in Berlin, and indeed many other European cities, were notoriously strict, with seemingly mysterious criteria for who is granted entry. After hours of queuing, clubbers might still be turned away: “It’s not your night.” No need for explanation. It could be that arbitrary.
Hopefuls queuing for the Berlin’s most famous nightclub, Berghain, can wait up to three hours, sometimes with as many as 60% being turned away. The club, housed in a refurbished Communist-era power station, is guarded by former East Berlin punk photographer: Sven Marquardt. Now of celebrity status, he has featured on the cover of the men’s fashion magazine GQ, is soon to release a book, and is an icon of the global night-scene.
Berghain’s enigmatic door policy has given rise to a slew of online articles, all offering advice for how to “crack the code” to entrance. According to Marquardt, he, and his team, are simply trying to create the “perfect salad”: an optimum diversity.
The internet, however, offers more actionable tips for how to access Berghain: don’t arrive in groups, don’t be too drunk, “don’t sound like a tourist” (with some worrying implications for recent immigrants), wear casual clothes (preferably black), take it seriously.
Berghain and Marquardt are on the extreme end of what appears to be a wider phenomenon: unspecified entry requirements and discerning, deified bouncers.
Also presenting at the NIGHTS conference was Smiley Baldwin a former US military officer deployed to Cold War West Berlin, and now one of the city’s most-loved bouncers. Baldwin was instrumental to GI Disco, which, in the 1980s and 90s, brought black American music to Berlin night culture. Today, as a Berlin bouncer, he told conference audiences that he gives himself 100 meters to decide the fate of a potential club-goer: the way they walk, how long it takes to hear them, what they’re wearing, how they interact with others.
Many who participated in the NIGHTS conference seemed to view strict door policies as a way of championing diversity, keeping out aggressive and so-called “fascist” patrons, and ultimately curating a “Utopian” social space. But others saw door policies as fundamentally discriminatory.
Since my return, I’ve spoken to a number of Johannesburg bouncers about bouncing in Berlin. We’ve agreed that Berlin door policies would fail in this city. The reasons, in my opinion, are interesting signals about our social aspirations and anxieties.
Club owners need customers
Clubbing is seen as risky business.Beth Vale
South Africa’s night industry is too fragile to be turning away so many of its clientele. Clubs are perceived as risky business, not only by owners, but also many clubbers. To grow the night industry, party-goers need to feel secure. Where Berlin bouncers might serve as discerning cultural curators, Johannesburg’s are primarily “security”, posted to make customers feel “safe” and “welcome”. Drawing from an old police adage, one bouncer told me his job was to “serve and protect” so that people could “enjoy their time”.
Class undoubtedly plays a role. While Berlin bouncers are pseudo-celebrities, Johannesburg’s are former security guards, refugees, working class gym-buffs or immigrants. “You can be a professor or a doctor in your own country,” one Congolese bouncer told me. “[Here], you find yourself in a situation where you have to hustle to survive.” When I asked him whether being a “foreigner” made a difference in his work, he said:
Yes. You get insulted every day because of those things.
Some bouncers indicated that the extent of challenge or insult they received from customers could be differentiated along racial lines. The more societal power, the less likely the patron was to feel affronted by a bouncer’s reprimand or refusal. When confronted by a bouncer, white customers were reported to be “respectful”; black patrons less so. Indian and Coloured clientele — the population groups that are all too often invisible in the national discourse — were reported by these bouncers to have the most volatile aggression.
Constitutional rights on the dancefloor
South Africans believe they have a right to party.Charles Leonard
Being arbitrarily denied access to a club in South Africa would provoke suspicions of discrimination, enshrined in the country’s constitution. “They’d definitely be angry,” one bouncer told me. “You can’t say someone is not allowed without a proper reason”.
Nevertheless, Johannesburg nightclubs still entail multiple forms of prejudice. Entrance fees and high-end dress codes create significant barriers to entry. Level of protection and leeway within the nightclub is often a function of a person’s spending capacity. “VIP, VVIP, VVIP Platinum: all those people, they would have paid a lot of money, so you have to look after them,” I was told. And conversely,
If you look at someone (in the club) and you can tell, this one can’t afford to be here, we make sure we watch those people.
Covert racial discrimination persists through the directives that some club owners give bouncers.
In Johannesburg, there are some clubs that don’t want Indians. There are some clubs that don’t want Coloureds. Some they don’t want to mix whites with others: when the whites notice that this place is accommodating more blacks these days, they start to run away. [When I get instructions like this], I just tell them [the “undesirable clientele”] that it’s a private party.
I was also told: “It’s not easy to find a club that’s accommodating everybody, unless it’s a fancy club at Nelson Mandela Square (in upmarket Sandton).”
The rich, it seems, can party together, no matter their skin colour.
The common factor is that everybody wants to be recognised: to feel like a “very important person” (a VIP). This is one of the primary commodities on sale in nightclubs. In a city like Johannesburg, where so many feel the newness, contested-ness, or perpetual volatility of their social position, the stakes are invariably high.
Bouncers, in both Berlin and Johannesburg, are witness to, and sometimes arbiters of, these social struggles.
An outbreak of bird flu has been reported in Uganda where hundreds of birds were found dead on the shores of Lake Victoria. Some key facts about the virus.
Ugandan authorities have not confirmed which strain of the avian flu caused the birds’ death. But the country along with neighbouring Kenya have put their countries on high health alert. The Conversation Africa’s health and medicine editor Candice Bailey asked Dr Sibongile Walaza to explain the deadly virus.
How many different strains of bird flu are there? How different and potentially serious are they?
Birds, just like humans, get influenza. Avian influenza, more commonly known as “bird flu”, is an acute viral respiratory infection caused by influenza A viruses which spread from bird to bird.
The influenza A viruses are classified into subtypes according to the two types of proteins found on the outside of the viruses, also called spikes: haemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). The viruses use these spikes to attach and infect human cells. For example, there is avian influenza A(H5N1), A(H7N9) and A(H9N2). The most commonly known of these is avian influenza A(H5N1) viruses which are found in poultry.
There are a number of sub-types that have been circulating since regular monitoring for avian influenza viruses started. H5N1 viruses circulate in poultry in parts of Asia and northeast Africa. Avian influenza is also a problem in other countries including in Europe where millions of birds on farms have been culled. These have led to people being infected while working or handling infected birds or carcasses. The first fatal human cases were reported in 1997.
Are some strains of bird flu more dangerous for humans than other? Why?
Yes, some are more dangerous than others. There is highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) based on the clinical illness caused in poultry. Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses have the ability to spread fast through all organs of the birds or poultry causing a high number symptomatic illness and deaths in birds.
Low pathogenic avian influenza viruses usually cause asymptomatic illness in poultry and birds and can go undetected.
The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 is also responsible for a high number of deaths in people infected with the virus.
How is bird flu passed onto humans? And once a human has contracted the flu can they transmit it?
Avian influenza strains do not normally infect humans, but some can. Three prominent influenza A viruses are known to infect people (H5, H7 and H9).
People can get infected in two ways. Through direct contact with live or dead birds infected with avian influenza or through indirect contact, for example being exposed to an environment that’s contaminated by products (like droppings) of infected birds.
Symptoms include a sudden onset of high fever, aching muscles, headache, severe sickness, a cough and a sore throat. Infected individuals can show symptoms from between two and up to 17 days after infection.
When it comes to human to human transmission, current epidemiological and virological evidence suggest that A(H5) and A(H7) have not acquired the ability to spread easily among people. But small clusters of A(H5) and A(H7) virus infections have been reported previously, especially among health care workers caring for patients with avian influenza.
How common are bird flu outbreaks in Africa? Where have the most severe outbreaks taken place?
There have been a number of outbreaks on the continent. Between 2014 and 2016 outbreaks of the H5N1 avian influenza were reported in west and central Africa. Several poultry farms in Cameroon, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria were affected. In 2006, a reported 3,5-million birds in Nigeria were killed by the virus or culled to stop its spread.
The first case of H5N1 bird flu infecting humans was detected in Hong Kong in 1997. Since then it has spread across Asia and to Europe and Africa. In some countries H5N1 in poultry has become endemic. More than 700 people from 15 countries have been infected with H5N1 – about 60% of these people have died. In Africa Egypt is the hot spot for highly pathogenic H5N1 outbreaks in poultry and has had the highest number of human cases and fatalities reported since 2003.
How selfies and family photos put 300 million years of evolution on display.
These days, many of us have cellphone picture galleries full of selfies, family photos and snaps of our friends. If you’ve ever visited a zoo, animal sanctuary or game reserve, you probably also have photographs of yourself or your kids with various mammals or primates. You may not realise it, but all of those pictures aren’t just happy memories: they’re compelling evidence of evolution in action.
A recent visit to the Lory Park Zoo, a South African animal park, and the resulting photographs offered visual evidence of what I have been researching for years: the muscles that bring your smile to life; your teeth; your nose; even your thumb – each of these features shows how we’ve reached this point through hundreds of millions of years.
Smile, you’re on camera!
Humans can smile because of our muscular cheeks. We developed this feature because we chew our food: cheek muscles hold the food in the mouth cavity during chewing.
Much like the hair you carefully rearrange before a selfie, your cheek muscles and the accompanying smile date back about 250 million years. There were no people then; not even mammals. It was a time before dinosaurs, when earth was ruled by our pre-mammalian ancestors, the therapsids.
They were the first to evolve cheeks, as evidenced by the muscular scars found on their fossils in South Africa’s Karoo region today.
Other non-mammalian animals like crocodiles, tortoises, iguanas and flamingos can’t smile precisely because they don’t have cheeks. They can’t even chew, since without the relevant facial and cheek muscles, the food would just dribble out of their mouths.
If you smile with your mouth open, your teeth will be visible in a selfie or family portrait. All of those teeth are very different from each other, from the pointy canine to your spatulated incisors and those large post canine teeth at the back of the mouth that we call molars.
Those choppers are another legacy of our pre-mammalian ancestors. They evolved an enlarged canine to seduce their mates some 300 million years ago.
These two primates – that’s a lemur sitting on the author’s shoulder – have a lot in common. Photograph courtesy of Lory Park Zoo.
Did you nose?
So what else about our evolutionary history is clear in photographs? Well, one element is as obvious as the nose on your face.
Human noses are pretty unique in the animal kingdom: they’re dry. We don’t have the black, moist nose that for example dogs and cats have. Our nose is made of regular, dry skin. The same is true for monkeys, apes and a strange tiny primate with huge eyes called the Tarsier. In fact, humans and the Tarsier have a common ancestor that lived around 50-60 million years ago – a fact that’s proved by our dry noses.
Another evolutionary signpost is the thumb. If you’ve got kids, nieces, nephews or godchildren, you probably have at least one photograph of a small person sucking their thumb. This action is not unique to human babies – all primates have an opposable thumb, and thumb-sucking has likely been usual among baby primates since they first appeared some 70 million years ago.
Next time you set up a family portrait or fuss with your hair before snapping a selfie, just think: you’re about to reveal the story of evolution. It’s literally written all over your face.
[The Star] Wealth disparities undermine the social and economic fabric of our society.
Don't fool yourself – inequality really does matter and we had better start doing something about it.
Two recent events in the international arena have highlighted the urgent need for South Africans to debate issues of inequality in our society.
The first – a sad event – on January 1 this year was the passing of Anthony Atkinson, which hardly received a mention in the South African press.
Sir Anthony Barnes Atkinson – or Tony Atkinson as he was known – was a British economist who is without doubt the doyen of studies on inequality.
Atkinson, somewhat against the grain for an an economist of the modern era, pioneered the historical, empirical and theoretical study of inequality. While classical economists such as Marx and Ricardo were concerned with inequality, their approach was very much theoretical.
Atkinson pioneered the gathering and analysis of historical data on inequality, enabling us to understand patterns of economic growth and inequality. Through many years of painstaking work, he put together and analysed inequality data, first in Britain and later in much of the developed world... [Read more]
Sadly the top contender of the country's top position offers more of the same.
For South Africa’s beleaguered governing African National Congress the rise of a high-calibre woman leader should signal a turning of the pages, and lead to rejuvenation of the body politic. But sadly, for every accolade about the woman touted to be the next party president after Jacob Zuma ends his second term, there are questions, queries, and lots of red flags.
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is an ambiguous ambitious figure, an operator and bureaucrat. She reads the currents, positions herself, and collects the benefits. Hagiographies and more neutral observation alike show that she is a leader in her own right. This is far more than just a Zuma hoping to replace a Zuma.
The 68-year old comes with exile-struggle and transition credentials, extensive experience at top government level in health, foreign affairs and home affairs, and Africa-continental engagements that helped elevate her to head the African Union. She has skirted gaining ANC leadership positions, but her ascent comes through public deployment.
Granted, campaigning in the ANC’s succession race is at the “don’t-be-seen-to be-campaigning” and “let others do the work for you” stage. But South Africans are familiar with the main successor candidates’ pitches and strategic approaches, due to the abundance of proxy campaigning.
Dlamini-Zuma has taken the regal, cougar-style of let-the-men – along with the ANC Women’s League – do the work. She soaks up every utterance of “South Africa is ready for a woman president”.
This is reminiscent of her divisive ascension to the African Union Commission. Her campaigners did the work for her –- much of the South African state was mobilised to bring in the political capital that would thwart both Francophone Africa and the convention that continental big powers should restrain ambition for the continent’s good.
It is more difficult to evaluate her organisational leadership of the ANC as she has never held a high-level party position. Her ascent comes through public deployment. Here she has gained solid credentials across her portfolios.
Yet blotches and question marks bedeck this new and gender-correct page that some in the ANC hope to turn. The ANC faction aligned to President Jacob Zuma, her former husband, is her dedicated backer.
Leadership is effective if it meets the needs of the time – and if it is really good it will define the needs. Yet a core doubt about her candidacy is that it promises more of the same ANC and government culture that has bedevilled the party recently.
President Zuma’s de facto radio endorsement of a woman candidate by any other name than Dlamini-Zuma reconfirmed that he hopes to entrust his future to the woman who will not rock the Zuma boat.
Chip of the same block
Dlamini-Zuma appears an unlikely candidate to bring a break with the past, and with it a renewal and reconnection of the ANC with its founding ideals and early-democracy optimism. This includes connecting with a younger generation.
To crown this shortlist of shortcomings, the two words used regularly to describe her – “incommunicative” and “not-people-friendly” – hardly elicit images to fit the bill. She is also intelligent, assertive, controlling, and takes no prisoners, characteristics of many strong leaders.
Digging deeper into the Dlamini-Zuma enigma, there is scant evidence of inspirational leadership, of qualities that will help restore respect for the presidency of South Africa.
She hardly leads from the front. Instead, she has fronted for several big men (presidents Thabo Mbeki and Zuma in particular) in the name of the national interest and to serve their ideological and reputational needs.
Hence the question that demands coldblooded assessment: is Dlamini-Zuma too embedded to fit the ANC bill? Are the similarities between her and the other Zuma just too tangible? Traits such as stubbornness, arrogance, and the sense of knowing best what the ANC needs come to mind.
Legacy as a minister
Dlamini-Zuma’s cabinet-level office holdings over the years reveal much about her blend of strategy and policy substance.
She held the prime position of minister of foreign affairs for a decade (1999-2009), under presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe. Mbeki’s African Renaissance and African Peer Review Mechanism offered her platforms to operate across Africa.
She embraced these, while never upstaging her boss. She did not oppose Mbeki, for example, when his quiet diplomacy ruled the roost in relations with Zimbabwe. Together they turned a blind eye to torture, vote rigging and human rights abuses in the name of continental brotherhood.
As minister of home affairs in the Zuma regime (2009-2012) Dlamini-Zuma was part of an auditing turnaround and improved efficiency. A succession of consultants and senior departmental bureaucrats leveraged the improvements. She took the bow, but did help improve departmental efficiency. This time around there appeared to be no scandals until it emerged in 2015 that she, a member of the local organising committee, had ordered the payment of the $10 million FIFA bribe, disguised as a football development contribution, for Caribbean football boss Jack Warner and two others.
Dlamini-Zuma’s stint as Minister of Health (1994-1999) facilitated important sectoral transitions into the democratic political order. As in most departments at the time, a post-apartheid order started emerging and new policies were introduced.
She brought anti-smoking legislation and took on the big pharmaceutical industry. The other Dlamini-Zuma, however, was in full flight. She helped open the sluice gates of state corruption when she commissioned the extravagantly funded anti-AIDS play Sarafina II .
As AU leader
The AU Commission chair was supposed to be a crowning glory, the stomping ground or finishing school on her way to presumed presidential glory back in South Africa. She tried to ring in the big ideas with her Vision 2063, but excelled rather through attention to bureaucratic matters.
She never overcame the ignominy and controversy of her election, and became synonymous with continental divisions, replete with suspicions of South Africa as the continental power that turned into a neo-colonialist force . When it came to big continental conflicts Dlamini-Zuma’s AU was likely to be silent. One of the big criticisms against her was that she always had one foot back in South Africa, awaiting the signal to enter the succession race and capture the presidential trophy.
What the ANC and the country need
The ANC needs to stop – decisively and decidedly – the culture of state looting by opaque, subterfuge actions and by open government contract. It needs to find ways to direct black economic empowerment into consistently credible, clean tracks. It needs to embrace each and every project to show that the ANC is on the straight and narrow, including lifestyle audits of its leadership. It needs to show through actions rather than smart words that leaders are there to serve the citizens of the country.
But Dlamini-Zuma is probably not the person who can deliver on this.
Well-placed sources who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, share the information that Dlamini-Zuma’s presidential plan is to ring the changes through getting service delivery sharpened up, arguing that
even if you got this contract in corrupt ways, let’s move on and get you to deliver; get those roads, bridges, houses, water pipes, to work!
This would be the sound of rain on the roof for Dlamini-Zuma’s scandal-hopping and court-avoiding ex-husband – as well as for an expansive echelon of exploitative and corrupt tenderpreneurs and money launderers in, or associated with, the public sector in South Africa.
Such an approach might very well secure Dlamini-Zuma the top job should her current campaigners retain unity and momentum. Business as usual: but the ANC’s need for a reinvigorated political organisation is likely to go up in smoke.
In a world set on objectifying everybody and every living thing in the name of profit, the erasure of the political by capital is the real threat.
There is no sign that 2017 will be much different from 2016.
Under Israeli occupation for decades, Gaza will still be the biggest open prison on Earth.
In the United States, the killing of black people at the hands of the police will proceed unabated and hundreds of thousands more will join those already housed in the prison-industrial complex that came on the heels of plantation slavery and Jim Crow laws.
Europe will continue its slow descent into liberal authoritarianism or what cultural theorist Stuart Hall called authoritarian populism. Despite complex agreements reached at international forums, the ecological destruction of the Earth will continue and the war on terror will increasingly morph into a war of extermination between various forms of nihilism.
Inequalities will keep growing worldwide. But far from fuelling a renewed cycle of class struggles, social conflicts will increasingly take the form of racism, ultra nationalism, sexism, ethnic and religious rivalries, xenophobia, homophobia and other deadly passions.
The denigration of virtues such as care, compassion and kindness will go hand in hand with the belief, especially among the poor, that winning is all that matters and who wins — by whatever means necessary — is ultimately right.
With the triumph of this neo-Darwinian approach to history-making, apartheid under various guises will be restored as the new old norm. Its restoration will pave the way to new separatist impulses, the erection of more walls, the militarisation of more borders, deadly forms of policing, more asymmetrical wars, splitting alliances and countless internal divisions including in established democracies.
None of the above is accidental. If anything, it is a symptom of structural shifts, which will become ever more apparent as the new century unfolds. The world as we knew it since the end of World War II, the long years of decolonisation, the Cold War and the defeat of communism has ended....[Read the full article]
This article first appeared in the Mail&Guardian. Achille Mbembe is based at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research. His new book, The Politics of Enmity, will be published by Duke University Press in 2017.
Crumbling municipal entities lack oversight, transparency and action
- William Gumede
It is no surprise that poorly run municipalities are often home to failing endeavours rife with mismanagement.
Municipal-owned entities in SA are overseen by an extensive array of governance legislation, regulations and codes, yet are often engulfed in corruption, mismanagement and inefficiencies.
So dysfunctional are many of the cities’ municipal-owned entities that late last year, Johannesburg’s new DA mayor, Herman Mashaba, threatened to close the lot of them in exasperation and incorporate their staff into the public service.
The irony is that the rationale for a municipal-owned entity is for it to be an alternative way of delivering public services that is supposedly more efficient and more profitable than traditional public services.
Municipal-owned entities are essentially ring-fenced businesses that have a mandate to deliver a public service, can operate independently from the municipality and ideally, would have less bureaucratic constraints in order to improve performance using private sector delivery models.
In the General Report on Audit Outcomes for Local Government for the years 2009 to 2015 the auditor-general lists noncompliance with laws and regulations, lack of internal controls, supply chain management transgressions, unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure and corruption as some of the key failures of municipal-owned entities... [Read the full article.]
Welcome to Wits University, a place to call your own, and your home for the next few years.
Good day, Sanibonani, Dumelang, Goeie more. Siyanamukela eWits (Welcome to Wits).
Welcome to Wits University, a place to call your own, and your home for the next few years.
I know that this is a special moment for all of you and that many of you have made tremendous sacrifices to be here today.
I thank you for choosing Wits, one of the leading universities in the world. Wits is ranked in the top 1% in the world in several academic areas, and is one of the top two universities on the continent.
Wits is an important University with a tremendous global footprint, but also an institution that impacts locally.
You will find some of the best minds in the world on our campuses. Our exceptional academics create new knowledge, explain novel discoveries, make new policies, change the way we do business, promote human rights and social justice and help us to think critically to find alternative solutions to the pressing challenges of the future.
At every turn on our campuses, you are likely to meet smart people working to change the world for the better. You will run into academics developing AIDS vaccines, professors trying to pack information into light, young explorers searching for clues to the past, geologists telling the story of earth and life, engineers finding solutions to mining problems, doctors warning against sugar intake and sociologists helping us to better understand each other.
It is this University that produces the political and business elite in our country. Some of the greatest anti-apartheid stalwarts emanated from this University – the great Nelson Mandela walked across these very lawns, as did Gwede Mantashe, Dr Robert Sobukwe and others. We also produced the leaders of several of our opposition parties – Helen Zille and Mmusi Maimane and half of the EFF leadership – Floyd, Mbuyiseni and others.
Wits produces the most number of entrepreneurs, when compared to any other University in the country. We are close to industry and business, particularly because of our location in Johannesburg, a key economic hub on the continent.
Our location on the cusp of Johannesburg’s cultural precinct is fortunate and I urge you to explore beyond the walls of our campuses. The regeneration of Braamfontein in the last few years is incredible, and if you haven’t yet done so, explore the fashion districts, the Neighbourgoods market, the craft coffee shops (many established by Wits alumni), eateries and our own silicon valley.
In 2016, Wits, in partnership with the City launched the Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct, South Africa’s very own tech hub in Braamfontein, in partnership with IBM, Telkom, Microsoft and a number of other tech companies. Setswana for “new beginnings”, Tshimologong is Johannesburg’s newest high-tech address, where the incubation of start-ups, the commercialisation of research and the development of high-level digital skills for students, working professionals and unemployed youth will take place.
The Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital, built on land donated by Wits is located in the Wits Parktown Precinct, opened in December. Wits is the lead academic partner and the hospital will serve as another platform for specialised training and research. Wits academics and students work in all the major hospitals in and around Johannesburg,
I urge you to explore the many museums and places of interest across our campuses. You have access to a world-class Art Museum that holds over 9 000 works of African Art, the Wits Origins Centre which tells the story of modern humans and the Planetarium, which hosts thousands of learners annually.
Wits students are active social citizens and they leave their mark on society. They are problem-posers and problem-solvers. They are creative, smart innovators who make a difference in the world. One such example is the #FeesMustFall campaign which was started by Wits students in protest against high fees, as a direct result of the underfunding of universities by government over the last two decades. In ten days, the students placed student funding on the national agenda – a feat that vice-chancellors were unable to achieve over ten years.
Wits University supports access toquality, higher education that is decolonised for those who cannot afford it and is engaged with multiple stakeholders including the state, the private sector, NSFAS and others to rethink the financing of the sector. We are hopeful that a long-term solution will be reached during the course of the year.
While Wits supports the rights of students to peaceful protest, these protests should not violate the rights of those who wish to work and learn. We believe that the academic programme is sacrosanct and should protests arise, we will do all that is within our power to keep Wits a safe space and to ensure that the academic programme continues. We ask all students to remember that all rights come with responsibilities.
A Wits education is an asset and genuinely ‘gives you the edge’. It is a place where you learn as much beyond the walls of lecture theatres as you do within. You will be immersed into a diverse community where we strive to celebrate our cultures and embrace our differences. I encourage you to extend beyond your circle of influence. Attend the hundreds of events that take place on our campuses every year. Learn. Network. Share. Explore.
Make the most of your time at this great University because it will determine your future role in this country, on this continent and on this beautiful planet. Wear the Wits badge with honour and pride. You are about to embark on an unforgettable journey that will change your life forever. Enjoy it.
