A SECOND LOOK
Jaspreet Kindra
The South African government last week announced there will be no limits on foreign ownership when the first of its parastatals Telkom goes up for sale.
There has not been a whimper of protest from the anti-globalisation movement or those in the government who not so long ago professed to be fighting for national sovereignty. Mbhazima Shilowa, while general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), said: “We are in danger … of relinquishing our national sovereignty in the sphere of economic decision-making and sacrificing it on the altar of profits.”
A developing country, bogged down with priorities such as linking a Third World rural South Africa with the rest of its First World cities, should think twice before handing the family silver over to foreigners. Can any government seriously think that a foreign concern will sacrifice its profit-making motives the reason for any company to venture into other markets to help the country realise its national objectives of building a communication network in the poor rural areas?
Cosatu’s criticism is dismissed by leaders in the government: “They only speak on behalf of the unionised members of the society who have jobs and not for those rural poor who will benefit from this move as we get much-needed funds to expand,” reasons one senior African National Congress member.
It is ironic that senior members of the Cabinet, including President Thabo Mbeki, take on globalisation and fight for the rights of the underprivileged in world forums such as the G8 summit while at home, they conduct themselves according to the diktat of those bent on limiting control of the world’s economy to a few hands.
What we need are ordinary heroes.
Lawyer Baba Amte (90), the last of the Gandhians left in India, moved his ashram precariously close to the river Narmada in central India more than a decade ago in protest against the government’s intention to construct 3?200 dams over the river. Amte’s concern was for the 400?000 people, many from tribal groups, who would be displaced and the thousands of species of indigenous flora and fauna that would be destroyed. He awaits the day when the project becomes operational and the waters sweep him away.
Frenchman Jose Bov, a middle-aged sheep farmer from Millau, is being hailed as that country’s new Asterix for vandalising a McDonald’s outlet in his hometown. Sentenced to three months in jail, he told The Times of London: “Our struggle is not with the American ‘Great Satan’. It’s with the multinationals. A lot of them happen to be American. I tell the Americans that what we did in dismantling the McDonald’s restaurant was what they did at Boston when they threw the English tea into the sea.”
Back home, South Africa has no one, except Cosatu, fighting the common man’s battle.