/ 7 September 2002

A new war for the allegiance of the poor

The success of the weekend mass march on Sandton "surprised" the anti-government activists who organised it -- and is a wake-up call to the ANC, whose own march was left in the shade. A mass of people marched 10km from Johannesburg's impoverished Alexandra to upmarket Sandton.

The success of the weekend mass march on Sandton “surprised” the anti-government activists who organised it — and is a wake-up call to the African National Congress, whose own march was left in the shade.

A mass of people — estimates range between 10 000 and 25 000 — on Saturday marched 10km from Johannesburg’s impoverished Alexandra township to upmarket Sandton, the main World Summit venue. They went under the banner of the Social Movements United, an alliance of leftist groups protesting against what they see as the government’s anti-poor policies and the corporate-friendly agenda of the summit.

Hot on their heels, taking the same route after an Alexandra rally addressed by President Thabo Mbeki, was a far smaller march led by the ANC and its alliance partners. Estimates range between 2 000 and 5 000.

“The march marked a turning point in the country’s political landscape,” said some social movements organisers in a later statement. “A new movement is being built that for the first time since 1994 poses the potential of a serious challenge to the South African government … This was more than apparent by the extremely poor response to the [Mbeki rally].”

Comments Patrick Bond, a left-leaning University of the Witwatersrand academic: “Just as important as the symbolic route of the march were the battles of numbers and of passion. The independent Left surprised itself by conclusively trumping the mass-based organisations.”

Some in the ANC argue their march was “no flop” compared to the rival march. They feel the ANC achieved its objective of linking with civil society, on the streets. But they also say the ANC was less single-minded than the social movements grouping in mobilising specifically for a street demonstration, and that that partially accounts for the difference in turnout.

It is probably true that a simple numerical comparison will reveal little about relative strength in electoral terms, since factors such as mobilisation play a large role.

But the success of the social movements march does highlight a new war for the allegiance of the urban poor, rural landless and others who have not benefited from the government’s transformation agenda. That this was likely the largest anti-government protest since 1994 confirms that the ANC is losing at least some battles on what used to be its home turf.

And what also may be more telling than numbers is that the social movements group has given a voice to people within the ANC’s traditional constituencies to openly criticise the ANC, its leaders in government and the government’s policies.

The rhetoric of the march leaders and marchers themselves was strident. Anti-apartheid terminology was dusted off — phansi (down with) the ANC, Mbeki and Nepad (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) was standard in the repertoire.

The New York Times observed that while Saturday’s crowd condemned United States President George W Bush and his Israeli and British counterparts, it “reserved some of the bitterest attacks for President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, who was criticised for not tending to the needs of the poor”.

The Social Movements United does not pretend to be a political party. It was a last-minute coalition mainly of the Landless People’s Movement, a fast-growing group demanding urgent land redistribution, and the Social Movements Indaba, itself an alliance of anti-privatisation, community and environmental groups.

The alliance coalesced around opposition to the World Summit and the way it was perceived to serve a global agenda dominated by multi-national corporations inimical to the interests of the world’s poor and the environment. The alliance sees itself as part of the international anti-globalisation movement that has become increasingly vocal since the disruption of the 1999 World Trade Organisation summit in Seattle. Mbeki’s government is seen to have bought into the corporate agenda.

Even before the march, the anti-globalisation movement and its local manifestations have been occupying some ANC thought. In his online Letter from the President, Mbeki last week dismissively wrote: “Even as many are battling in the [summit] for a meaningful outcome that will benefit the billions of poor people in our country, Africa and the rest of the world, there are others who claim to represent the same masses, who say they have taken it upon themselves to act in a manner that will ensure the collapse of the summit …

“For this reason, they have decided to oppose and defeat the UN, all the governments of the world, the inter-governmental organisations, the major organisations of civil society participating in the summit and the world of business …”

Mbeki’s public utterances, though, have often resonated with those of the anti-globalisation movement: In Genoa last year, he said that “we want the same” as protesters. At this summit, he fought for the acceptance of the term “global apartheid”.

A recent ANC discussion paper argues for judicious engagement with the anti-globalisation movement, saying: “If the liberation movement fails to engage with the spaces of extra-state mobilisation from which it has drawn so much strength and vitality in the past, it will only have itself to blame if people opposed to its historic project are drawn in to fill this vacuum.”

Trevor Ngwane, a social movements leader, says organisers will try to build the coalition and “attract more forces”, but the organisational form will “depend on how the comrades play their cards”.

The moral of the tale of the two marches, perhaps, is that left-wing, anti-government dissent has found a voice. Exactly how that voice will be embodied remains to be seen.