Capitalism and apartheid (1970)

 

From the May 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many political analysts of South Africa have seen in the Afrikaner based National Party the political representative of landed interests with the mainly British United Party and the more radical Progressive Party being concerned largely with the mining and industrial interests. This view has usually been developed along the negative line, of what a capitalist-orientated party would not do. It is suggested that since apartheid, the acclaimed ideal of the Nationalists, would be disastrous for the economic prosperity of South Africa in today's industrial and viciously competitive world, it could not possibly form the policy of a capitalist party.

True as this statement is, it is only of minor relevance to present political realities in South Africa. Firstly it should be noted that fully fledged apartheid (separate self-governing states for each of South Africa’s ethnic groupings), is treated by the National Party in much the same way as the Russian Communist Party treats communism. It is an ‘ultimate’ aim which stays far from achievements, whether the year is 1948 or 1970: a conscience absolver whose only practical evidence is a scattering of Bantu reserves constituting one seventh of South Africa’s territory in the worst and most backward areas.

The National government proves as well as anyone the impossibility of reconstituting the old tribal institutions amongst Africans in the reserves, for they have long since been smashed through the combined effects of military conquest, Christianity and urbanisation. It makes no attempt beyond social discrimination to constitute the Indian, Coloured, Malay or Chinese derived sectors of the population into self-sustaining territories. The situation is well summed up by this extract from the 1967 Unesco report on apartheid.

  In spite of the ideology of apartheid, in spite of the uprooting of thousands of families, the complete separation of peoples into tribal ethnic groupings in South Africa has proved impossible. The closely integrated economic structure. the location of all the major industries, ail the mineral wealth, all the important harbour facilities, and all the best arable land in that part of South Africa which was outside the reserves in white ownership, meant that Africans — as well as Coloured and Asians —remain dependent on the town and farming complex of White South Africa for a livelihood . . . In fact, whatever the stated policy of the Government, there has been an increasing number of Africans admitted to urban areas.

While early Afrikaner nationalism could be more easily attached to the interests of a land owning farmer class distinct from mining and industrial capitalists, drawing as it did nearly all its support from the country districts or plateau land, this is not the case with the National Party variety. The Nationalists certainly captured the plateau land vote, but their rise to power really came through the impetus from the urban working class.

In particular the Thirties depression, together with a severe drought which drove thousands into the towns looking for jobs, in competition not only with the skilled British workers but also many industrially trained non-Europeans, provided the political base from which the National Party grew. These Afrikaner workers carried with them many of the out-dated customs and political prejudices of the country and incorporated them into a political ideology which grew from the discipline of urban industrial life.

Once established, the National Party was able to detach quite a large section of the British working class vote that had formerly gone to the racist Labour Party. Electoral pacts were made between the two organisations and the first National Party government relied for its power on the balance held by the Labour Party members. Having used the Labour Party to get into the seat of power it then discarded it. The Nationalists had the racism and anti-capitalist slogans of the Labour Party; the Unionist and later the United Party had its British patriotism, so the Labour Party quietly faded away, having nothing better to offer.

The British industrialists have long supported, vocally and financially, the United Party rather than the Nationalists and the latter have made propaganda of this among both urban and country workers, but this in itself does not brand the Nationalists as anti-capitalists in the general sense. Afrikaner nationalism saw itself being attacked on two fronts. Firstly, by the colonialist interference of British imperialism and secondly, by the opposing nationalisms of the African and Indian. To deal with the first it was seen as essential to build up a strong industrial South Africa, and to deal with the second to develop apartheid. Here was the Nationalists’ dilemma, for the first policy inevitably came into conflict with the second. The result was a compromise of sorts; strict apartheid was thrown out, but there were increasing measures of social discrimination in housing, health and political rights.

Having said that the National Party is not establishing strict apartheid, which would be disastrous for industrial development, it still remains a fact that policies pursued by the regime have not helped the development of South Africa’s industrial potential. In particular they have, through a combination of Pass laws, segregation in residential areas, repression of trade unions etc., bolstered with state power the system of migratory labour. This system was common during early industrialisation, but unusual and highly unsuitable to the commercially complicated and automated structure of modern capitalism. Such a structure requires a trained, disciplined and reliable work force and this can only be approached where workers are permanently resident in urban areas, settled in their family relations and having the inducement to involve themselves in industry. The migratory labour system prevents this by herding workers together in all male compounds, or male ghettos, by denying them political right in urban areas, and by turning their attention back towards their small patch of land on the reserve. The result, as H. R. Barrows has explained, is that:

   Though the traditional structure of the African family and tribal life is disintegrating because of its inadequacy when brought into close contact with the developing exchange economy with its implicit wage system, its breakdown is being protracted by the system of segregation and migrant labour. The social disadvantages of sudden disruption have been avoided at the cost of delaying specialisation. As a result, there is to-day no self supporting peasant economy, no permanent agricultural labour force, and no stable urban population.

Labour turnover in South African industry is enormous, compared with similarly industrialised areas elsewhere in the world. The Tomlinson Commission recorded turnovers of 117 per cent in a period of ten months in Johannesburg around 1948 and Sheila Van der Horst a figure of 138 per cent in East London generally, with 600 per cent in the building industry around 1957.

The National government is committed to the further industrial expansion of South Africa, but it is hampered by an out-dated political ideology, which it can only enforce by a massive system of state repression. It is a capitalist party since it governs a country completely dominated by capitalism, and a long way from the agricultural economy of the old Boers. Afrikaner farmers have themselves invested in industry, merging more and more into a common capitalist class, and there has been a significant growth in state corporations, and state financed industries under the Nationalists. While the removal of all racial barriers in employment and political rights might well advance industry in South Africa tremendously, such a course should not necessarily be expected in the immediate future. Further repression might lead to a bloody revolt, yet it may well be the fear of the existing native white ruling class in South Africa of such a revolt that causes them to support National Party policies. Capitalism would not fall through such a revolt but the existing capitalists might well be turfed out. Even the United Party is aware of this and has retained from the days of Smuts’ leadership a less rigorous policy of “separation” of the different ethnic groups. Only the now dissolved Liberal Party has openly demanded a multi-racial society, and in this they have only really represented the hopes of foreign capital for a greater field of exploitation in South Africa.

Mike Ballard

The Aged in Africa

Africa's older population is growing fast. 

According to a 2017 UN report on population ageing, Africa's elderly population is expected to grow faster than in any other region in the world. The continent's population aged 60 and over is "projected to increase more than threefold between 2017 and 2050, from 69 to 225 million". In some countries, the number is expected to increase even faster. In Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, for example, the report anticipates that older populations will quadruple by 2050. According to a 2015 World Health Organization report, Africa's productivity loss due to just non-communicable diseases among the 60+ age group was valued at 159 billion international dollars (the dollar equivalent in purchasing power for the specific region).

But despite their increasing numbers, Africa's older population continues to be largely overlooked.  In Sub Saharan Africa, universal pensions that provide for older populations exist in fewer than 10 countries. Contributory pensions, which are offered based on past earnings and contributions to pension schemes, are common in many African countries. But those social safety nets exclude people working in the informal sector, which accounts for 85 percent of employment in Africa. For the 6.3 percent of Sub Saharan Africa's working-age population that contributed to a pension scheme, the payout is often not enough to cover their living expenses because pension payouts are only a percentage of earnings before retirement and are not adequately adjusted for inflation.

In 2016, the African Union member states adopted the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on The Rights of Older Persons in Africa. The charter urged all African countries to put in place policy measures to protect the rights and address the needs of their older populations. But of the 54 member states, only 14 signed the charter and, in the four years since, Benin and Lesotho are the only two nations to formally ratify it. 

Many African countries, such as Nigeria, which has the largest older population in Sub Saharan Africa, do not yet have a functional policy focused on older people. But even when countries have policies focused on older populations, the lack of coordination between government agencies along with insufficient budgets make implementing those policies a challenge. Cameroon and Nigeria, for example, have plans for training healthcare professionals for geriatric care, but experts have pointed out that such steps have not translated into action and that government support is "almost non-existent."

Contributory pensions, which are offered based on past earnings and contributions to pension schemes, are common in many African countries. But those social safety nets exclude people working in the informal sector, which accounts for 85 percent of employment in Africa. For the 6.3 percent of Sub Saharan Africa's working-age population that contributed to a pension scheme, the pay-out is often not enough to cover their living expenses because pension pay-outs are only a percentage of earnings before retirement and are not adequately adjusted for inflation.

In the absence of strong healthcare and social protection systems, the economic weight of caring for older people will increasingly fall on family members. A study in a peri-urban district of Ghana showed that 94 percent of the surveyed caregivers spend nearly half of their income on caregiving while 59 percent of caregivers said they had to give up one or more necessities to care for an older member of their family. With a large portion of their income going towards caregiving, families are left with little disposable income for saving. 

As the Cameroonian proverb says, rain does not fall on one roof alone. If Africa continues to overlook its older population, the impact will not only hurt them, but the entire continent.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/africa-population-aging-social-protection-200516101003773.html

DRC and Covid-19

The Congo (DRC) is used to emergencies and people dying, whether it’s a result of the long-running conflict or Ebola, cholera and malaria.

People are now suffering from Covid-19 or the consequences of the government-imposed lockdown. Many of the older people have chronic diseases, such as hypertension and diabetes, and without public transport were unable to get their medicines. They have no money for taxis. Older people here really have nothing. There is no state pensions in the DRC. The economy is weak, with limited funds to support older people or sustain a robust health system. On the other, many aid agencies prioritise other groups such as women and children.

Kinshasa’s hospital had no ventilators and very few health workers. Many had left, too scared to work without PPE.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/may/18/drc-has-seen-epidemics-before-but-covid-19s-toll-on-older-people-leaves-me-sleepless

COVID-19 - Let us not forget Africa

More than 43 million people in west Africa are likely to be in urgent need of food assistance in the coming months – double the initial estimates – as the Covid-19 outbreak accelerates, the World Food Programme has said.

Food insecurity could also double this year to affect 265 million people across the continent; west Africa, where the outbreak of the virus is most severe, is of increasing concern.

The region faces the three-pronged threat of surging jihadi attacks across the Sahel
and Lake Chad area, climate change harming vital food supply chains, and now the pandemic.  

The WFP had estimated a 70% rise in food insecurity to 21 million people in west Africa this year before the outbreak, but now anticipates a further 22 million becoming reliant on food aid by August, unless major steps are taken.

“Even before Covid we had a number of shocks which were affecting people,” said Dr Chris Nikoi, the WFP’s regional director for west and central Africa. “Food flows were already not optimal because of conflict across west Africa,” he said. Covid has exacerbated existing crises, presenting an immense challenge to food insecurity.

The World Health Organization also estimates that 65 million children are now having to do without a previously provided nutritious meal at school.

Measures to prevent the spread of the virus among displaced populations have been swiftly adopted, yet aid organisations say those measures have also increased hunger, as distributing support has become a greater challenge.

The economic pressures – particularly on the millions working in informal economies, earning daily wages – have diminished the capacity for governments to lock down cities without rapidly impoverishing large populations.

“Governments are having to put in place certain measures, lockdowns, restricted movements etc, which are making an already bad situation in some areas, in some contexts, worse,” Nikoi said.

A competitive global market for test kits, favouring higher prices and bulk purchases, significantly disadvantaged many African countries.

COVID-19 or Malaria?

Experts across Africa are warning that as hospitals and health facilities focus on COVID-19, less attention is being given to the management of other deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which affect millions more people. In fact, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that four times as many people could die from malaria than coronavirus.

“Today if you have malaria symptoms you are in big trouble because they are quite close to COVID-19 symptoms, will you go to the hospital when it is said we should not go there?” Yap Boum II, the regional representative for Epicenter Africa, the research arm of Doctors Without Borders, told IPS.

“Hospitals are struggling because they do not have the good facilities and equipment; it will be hard to take in a patient with malaria because people are scared. As a result the management of malaria is affected by COVID-19,” Boum, who is also a Professor of Microbiology at Mbarara University of Sciences and Technology in Uganda, said, pointing out that HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis were also being ignored.

• In 2001 African governments drew up the Abuja Declaration to invest 15 percent of the national budgets in improving health care services.

• Nearly 20 years later, a handful of countries such as Swaziland, Lesotho, Ethiopia, Liberia and Burundi have invested in building their health systems, according to 2016 WHO assessment report on public health financing for health in Africa. Many African countries have reduced their spending in health as a percentage of total public expenditure than they did in the early 2000s.

• For every $100 that goes into an African nation’s state coffers, on average $16 was allocated to health. Of this amount  only $10 was spent, with less than $4 going to the right health services.

“For the first time in our lifetime, the human being and the world is realising that the most important thing we have is our health,” said Boum, questioning why African governments have all not prioritised health spending despite the Abuja Declaration.

“With our borders closed we are all being taken care of in the poor health system that we have built,” Boum, told IPS. “There is no more flying to India, London or the United States. We are all in the same boat because we have not invested what we were supposed to invest and I hope beyond the pandemic, we will make health care a just cause and even manage to go beyond the 15 percent health investment agreed upon.”

“With COVID-19 spreading, we are worried about its impacts on health systems in Africa and that this may impact negatively on the delivery of routine services, which include malaria control. The bans on movement will affect the health workers getting to health facilities and their safety from exposure,” Akpaka Kalu, team leader of the Tropical and Vector-borne Disease Programme at the WHO Regional Office for Africa, told IPS. “We do not want a situation where we are protecting people from COVID-19 and they die of malaria and other diseases,” Kalu told IPS.

Kalu stressed that domestic financing for malaria was needed. He commended the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and other private sector partnerships that have provided funds for malaria. But he pointed out that this was neither ideal nor sustainable unless national governments contributed a lion’s share to malaria control.

• There is a $2 billion annual funding gap when it comes to malaria prevention, which should be closed to sufficiently protect people in malaria affected countries, according to the RBM Partnership to End Malaria, a global private sector initiative established in 1998. The partnership has sourced funding and equipment for malaria prone countries, providing mosquito nets, rapid diagnostic tests and antimalarials.

Mamadou Coulibaly, head of the Malaria Research and Training Center at the University of Bamako, Mali, concurred that the pandemic was straining health systems in developing countries. He urged malaria-endemic countries not to disrupt prevention and treatment programmes.

“To avoid this catastrophic scenario, countries must tailor their interventions to this challenging time, guaranteeing prompt diagnostic testing, treatment, access and use of insecticide-treated nets,” Coulibaly, who is also the principal investigator of Target Malaria in Mali, told IPS. 

http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/05/africas-health-dilemma-protecting-people-covid-19-four-times-many-die-malaria/

COVID-19 and Colonialism

With no containment the coronavirus pandemic could kill between 83,000 and 190,000 people in Africa in the first year and infect between 29 million and 44 million during that period if it is not contained, the WHO has warned. 

Melinda Gates expressed her belief that she foresees bodies lying around in the street of African countries. While United States has surpassed Italy and the UK in terms of the number of dead from COVID-19 with reports of hospitals overwhelmed with patients and dead bodies left to decompose in homes and in trucks parked on the streets of the US  the billionaire philanthropist still chose to talk about dead bodies in Africa. Gates is not the only one to be predicting total doom in Africa. United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in April stated: "Anywhere between 300,000 and 3.3 million African people could lose their lives as a direct result of COVID-19."

 To put this into perspective, based on the lowest projection from UNECA and at the present growth rate, African nations would need to see at least 7.6 million confirmed infections to be able to reach 300,000 deaths; 84 million people will have to be infected continent-wide for the UNECA projected 3.3 million deaths to happen. 

Many like Gates are assuming that the only reason African countries are reporting low rates of infection is due to its limited testing capacity. While this is not untrue for many countries, it excludes countries like Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Mauritius, and others which have ramped up their testing capability. If the low numbers are only a result of the lack of testing, African countries would be seeing increased rates of hospitalisations and even deaths, which has not been the case so far.

Predictions of mass deaths in Africa are problematic for reasons beyond inaccuracy. They assume that nothing that African countries do can mitigate the spread of the disease and prevent high death tolls. They presuppose that Africans will be just passive victims of yet another viral outbreak.

But many African countries have long experience in dealing with infectious diseases and by now have developed know-how that many Western countries might not have. And many Africans  are also not unaware of their fragile healthcare systems - unlike those in some Western nations are now just finding out.

African governments understand that their most effective strategy in the battle against COVID-19 is prevention and applying lessons learned from previous and/or ongoing outbreaks.

Uganda has already redirected its screening efforts and systems from combatting Ebola into its current interventions against COVID-19. Even before the country registered its first case, President Yoweri Museveni put in place travel restrictions and social distancing measures that advanced into full lockdown. Since the first case was announced on March 22, Uganda has seen a total of 100 cases, 55 recoveries, and no deaths. 

Rwanda was quick to react, too. Shortly after the outbreak was confirmed in January, the government organised a committee to evaluate and bolster preparedness and response to the pandemic and trained about 500 health workers, including laboratory technicians to cope with a potential national epidemic. 

Senegal is another example where local experts are leading the way in developing critical interventions during the pandemic. The West African country has used its experience in fighting HIV-AIDS and Ebola to create a $1 COVID-19 testing kit, a cost-effective and necessary resource it plans to share with other countries on the continent.

In Nigeria, drive-through COVID-19 testing has been deployed. People who suspect they may have the disease register online, are screened to ascertain whether they qualify for a test, drive through a testing centre, if they meet the parameters, and then receive their results electronically too. 

Mauritius has enforced a lockdown and rolled out mass testing, planning to have 100,000 people (roughly 10 percent of its population) tested in the span of two weeks. The island nation has established strong social welfare buffers and mobilised its healthcare facilities, which boast 3.4 hospital beds per 1,000 people - more than some Western nations have, including the UK, the US and Canada. 

Indeed, there surely will be some African countries where the COVID-19 outbreak will have a devastating impact. But painting with a wide brush a whole continent of 54 countries and dismissing efforts of African governments to deal with the situation is simply wrong. The view that all Africans think the same way and that all African countries will suffer the same fate is deeply rooted in colonial ideology, which dismisses an entire continent as inherently backward and dysfunctional. There is a time and place for every culture and country to be the expert, to be the frontrunner and African countries deserve to be perceived as autonomous, complex, and nuanced as every part of the world.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/problem-predicting-coronavirus-apocalypse-africa-200505103847843.html

COVID-19 and Migrant Misery

Tens of thousands of migrants are trapped in dangerous conditions at frontiers, mines, ports and in transit camps across Africa after states shut their borders in an attempt to stem the spread of Covid-19.

Some have been abandoned by smugglers unable to take them further on their journeys to Europe or elsewhere. Others were returning home or moving across the continent in search of work when frontiers were closed in March.

They include large numbers of Chadian students stranded in Cameroon, about 1,800 Nigerien workers stuck in remote goldmining areas in Burkina Faso, and more than 1,000 migrants from Mali and Senegal trapped in Mauritania.

In east Africa, about 2,300 migrants are stranded in Djibouti after being abandoned by traffickers. Most were hoping to cross the Red Sea to Yemen and then reach Saudi Arabia and the Arabian peninsula, mainly in search of work. The migrants are among the marginalised communities who are most vulnerable to the Covid-19 pandemic. Many are women and children.

The pandemic has pushed some migrants to take enormous risks on the final stages of their journeys to reach Europe. There are reports that smugglers are taking migrants in unseaworthy boats on long journeys across the Red Sea to remote beaches in Yemen. On the northern borders of Niger, migrants are forced to use remote paths in the desert, travelling in small groups to avoid detection, to cross from Niger into Libya or Algeria. The combination of increased risk and demands for bigger bribes from corrupt border guards have pushed transportation fees for the trip across the Red Sea to US$1,000 (£800), up from US$500 before the pandemic, while the fee to cross the desert frontier from Niger into Libya has gone from about $80 to as much as $300. Large groups of migrants often find themselves abandoned in perilous situations. In late March, 256 migrants from across west Africa were left by smugglers in the desert at the border with Libya, a day’s walk from the nearest settlement.
Along with hundreds forcibly expelled from Algeria between mid-march and mid-April, they are now stranded in transit centres and across Niger. Some are living in harsh conditions in makeshift quarantine camps in Agadez, the town in the north of Niger that has historically been a hub for migrants. They include children, pregnant women and older people.

Barbara Rijks, the head of mission for IOM in Niger, said the organisation was stretched to the limit, as new funds had yet to come in.

“While waiting for the thousands of migrants in our transit centres to return to their countries of origin, new migrants are continuing to arrive from neighbouring countries or having been abandoned by their smugglers in the desert, adding to the number of people in need of assistance,” she said. There are 2,462 migrants in Niger in transit centres, quarantine sites and other types of accommodation. “In addition, all of the transit centres have already reached maximum capacity and we can no longer admit new migrants, despite the high demand,” Rijks said.

There are also concerns about thousands of people stuck in poor conditions in overcrowded accommodation or in detention facilities in Libya, where they are vulnerable to Covid-19. About 1,500 people are stuck in the unstable country’s official detention centres suffering poor hygiene conditions, limited food and constant risk of abuse, rape, forced labor and trafficking.

“Covid is exacerbating increasingly negative trends seen over five years,” said Hara Caracostas, a Tunis-based migration specialist for the Danish Refugee Council. “It is not just that movement has stopped but work has stopped too. So people cannot continue their journey but they can’t survive where they are.”

For those without reliable accommodation, curfews imposed to fight Covid-19 mean constant fear of arrest and extortion by unscrupulous security forces. Migrants have also been caught by border closures in southern and central Africa. One group has been blocked from entering Uganda from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Every year, thousands also travel down the continent’s east coast to reach the relatively developed economy of South Africa – passed down a chain of smugglers who use rickety boats, overcrowded lorries and dangerous paths through the remote bush areas to cross frontiers. The dangers of the route – and the numbers using it – were highlighted when 64 people believed to be from Ethiopia were found dead in a container attached to a truck in Mozambique in March.

Others have been blocked heading back to Zimbabwe
. In Musina, the last town in South Africa before the frontier, hundreds of people have gathered in increasingly harsh conditions. 

The migrants in Musina are not eligible for the emergency relief grants recently announced by South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and lack food. Matakanye appealed for help from international NGOs and governments.

The xenophobia prompted by the pandemic has caused real problems for migrants everywhere, legal and illegal.

Last month, the captain and six crew members of a Panama-registered bulk carrier pleaded guilty to charges of attempted murder in Cape Town, after allegedly forcing two Tanzanian stowaways overboard because they feared they had Covid-19.

The men drifted in a home-made raft off the KwaZulu-Natal north coast before eventually washing up on a beach.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/05/coronavirus-border-closures-strand-tens-of-thousands-of-people-across-africa