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This looks like a picture to celebrate happy school days – yet, it is not; behind the smiles was sorrow. The snap was taken outside Morris Isaacson School, in Soweto, on the morning of June 16 1976 as children prepared to march into a day of blood and violence. By the evening three of the children lay bloodied and bruised as police opened fire killing at least 176 school children.



Mary Fisher, who grew up in Meadowlands, Soweto, was crouching to the right of the picture. She lives in Johannesburg and spoke to CNBC Africa about her brush with death during the 1976 uprising and the story behind the picture:         



“We thought this was going to be the last time we were going to see each other. We thought let’s take a memory picture so we won’t forget each other &#8211; I am the one squatting there. So if we lose each other we will at least have a memory. We put our placards on the floor; we took this picture just in case we are not coming back. 



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We had assembly in the morning and during we sang Senzeni Na (what have we done ). We all sang together freedom songs and after that we started lifting the placards and the teachers were standing aside. Then Tsietsi Mashanini  (a Morris Isaacson pupil and one of the leaders of the uprising) says Amandla  and we all said Awethu!



READ:<a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/article/2020/06/16/june-16-1976-the-man-behind-the-high-school-that-made-history-who-was-morris-isaacson/">June 16 1976: The man behind the high school that made history: who was Morris Isaacson?</a>



We marched out carrying our placards. We were showing our placards and singing all the freedom songs and walking and with one long, big, voice; there were so many. 



Morris Isaacson was in the lead the other schools followed behind. Children from nearby schools primary schools they all came with their placards. By that time we didn’t know how big this was going to be. We thought it was only Morris Isaacson and Naledi High. We were heading for Orlando West we were supposed to collect other schools   As we got to Orlando we heard gunshots we were in the middle, but most of the guys were in the front…They were so brave that they always wanted to lead. Even, even when thugs wanted to attack the ladies at school they always wanted to protect the girls. We had so much brotherly love for one another. We heard the gunshots, then, we stopped the march. People were saying people are shot and there are two down now. So we started panicking, what I did with my friends, we ran into the schoolyard trying to hide in the classrooms.



As they were shooting we were scattered all over running into the houses… As I looked I saw behind me this dog. I was an athlete at school and thought I could outrun this dog. The dog was about to get my leg and one of the boys hit it with a dustbin. Then the police started shooting I didn’t see because I jumped over the fence. I don’t know if they got this guy.



We could hear helicopters and we thought wow now they are going to bomb the area and we are now going die. We were also aware that anything can happen. They will just come don’t switch on the light because aeroplanes can pass and see where Soweto is so they can drop a bomb. So we already had that fear that anything can happen to us we are not safe…



Everything was quiet at 6pm when we were at home bleeding and shaking with fear. The more they hit us; the more we bled and got angry; there were boys who took a dustbin and a stone thinking it will stop a bullet.



They made us so angry. We felt we did nothing and yet you want to kill us…In my mother tongue, there is a saying that says: &#8216;Don’t die like a sheep, you must die like a horse you must kick.’ You don’t just die, the person who is killing you must also get hurt…So we thought let’s just fight with our little stone. ..We were thinking: enough is enough.



It has made us fight for justice, even in my old age I don’t like bullies. I don’t like to be bullied and don’t stand to see people bullying one another. Sometimes when someone tries to steal my rights I always fight – so I&#8217;m always an activist for justice. I will not sit back and let other people take advantage or take anything that belongs to me.”

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June 16 1976:  A happy picture that masks the sorrow of a bloody and violent day.

By Chris Bishop



Fellow prisoners of the late struggle hero Denis Goldberg have told how he worked selflessly to brighten the lives and ease the pain of incarceration for his fellow inmates. Also how he nursed the lawyer Bram Fischer, who saved the Rivonia accused including Nelson Mandela from the noose, through his last painful days.



Goldberg died this week, aged 87, after a life in politics fighting for the betterment of others. It was a long and tireless career that saw him turn his engineering skills into making bombs for the military wing of the African National Congress. Twenty-two of those years of activism were spent in prison in Pretoria serving a life sentence for sabotage handed down at the Rivonia trial.



Sean Hosey, one of the so-called London recruits who helped the South African liberation struggle, spent five years in the same cell block as Goldberg in Pretoria in the late 1970s. He recalls how Goldberg fought a campaign for the prisoners to get newspapers.



“One of the cruellest apartheid prison policies was to deprive prisoners of all current news. No newspapers, news magazines, radio, or any source of current news. Family letters and visits were heavily censored, and not infrequently stopped. Prisoners had to cope with this for many years, with lasting psychological damage, which even now is not fully understood,” recalls Hosey.



“For a period of about 18 months, in 1976-77, Dennis masterminded a campaign to get this information into the public domain and to try to launch a legal challenge in the South African courts. He battled relentlessly to brief a lawyer on the matter, despite harassment, delaying tactics, and threats from the prison authorities. For a variety of reasons, it didn’t get to court, but it did lead to a considerable easement in news deprivation from about 1978. Many ‘politicals’ would be thankful for that.”



Former Pretoria political prisoners also recalled how Goldberg cared tirelessly for the man who had saved his neck in the Rivonia trial – lead counsel Bram Fischer. The authorities, many of whom saw the Afrikaner as a traitor for his part in defending Mandela and his comrades, treated Fischer harshly, even after he was diagnosed with cancer in 1974. Fischer was sentenced to life imprisonment, in 1966, on charges of furthering communism and attempting to overthrow the government. In prison the warders did him few favours.



“In the years I spent there, Bram Fischer was with us until one day he slipped and fell, fracturing the collar of his femur. He was left without treatment for fourteen days,” says former activist &nbsp;Alex Moumbaris, who spent over seven years in Pretoria prison.



Hosey recalled how Goldberg nursed Fischer through his final, painful, days. &nbsp;



“Denis and Bram had adjacent cells in Pretoria Central. Bram developed cancer during 1974. Eventually, he was given treatment, which apparently included radiation therapy. On a number of occasions, he was brought back to his cell in a dazed and confused state and left to his own devices under lock and key, with heavy consequences for his wellbeing,” says Hosey.



“Denis vociferously and consistently raised this with the senior prison officers and complained about Bram’s treatment. After weeks and months of this, Denis was allowed to help Bram overnight, after these treatments, which I know was a comfort to him. Although the vicious regime kept Bram in that cell until days before his death, I believe that Denis’s actions, in the face of threats to himself, helped Bram in his last days.”



On a lighter note, Hosey recalled how Goldberg, who was far from religious, used to see a Rabbi six times a year for what he called philosophical debates.



“However, a bonus to the visits was one of the rare treats that was permitted us – the annual ‘Passover Parcel’. This was a food hamper of appropriate Passover foodstuffs, all of it a delightful delicacy compared to our prison diet,” says Hosey. “Excitement would build for weeks with anticipation, because Denis shared everything the Rabbi brought with the rest of us. I never suggested to him that his ‘philosophical debates’ might have had an ulterior motive! But that was Denis, generous and always supportive of his comrades.”

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How kind struggle hero Denis Goldberg lit up dark days behind bars with the help of a Rabbi

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Zweli Mkhize, Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs reflects on Mam Winnie&#8217;s legacy.

Zweli Mkhize reflects on Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy

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Winnie Madikizela-Mandela&#8217;s legacy as a member of the ANC is controversial and highly critical. CNBC Africa&#8217;s Karabo Lethlathla spoke to Political Analyst and author, Ralph Matekga about her political career.

Minister Nomvula Mokonyane on #Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy

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Winnie Madikizela-Mandela&#8217;s legacy as a member of the ANC is controversial and highly critical. CNBC Africa&#8217;s Karabo Lethlathla spoke to Political Analyst and author, Ralph Matekga about her political career.

How will #Winnie Madikizela-Mandela be remembered?

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Winnie Mandela died at the Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg – the very hospital where her former husband fought for his life in 2011 – aged 81. She will be afforded a state funeral on April 14. CNBC Africa takes a look back at her life.

Mother of the nation, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela dies

At a time when new President Cyril Ramaphosa is trying to restore faith and credibility to the South African government &#8211; another strong link with the far off days of pride, struggle and sacrifice, more than half a century ago, has passed into history.
In many ways Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who has died aged 81, reflected both sides of the struggle for liberation in South Africa: on the one side its stoic pride in resisting the dark forces of apartheid; on the other, the grim and often far from noble struggle on the streets of the townships against the last, vicious, kicks of the security forces.
There are two images -of Madikizela-Mandela making the clenched fist black power salute &#8211;  that sum up her defiant support of the struggle and her husband Nelson Mandela.
The first was taken on the steps of the Palace of Justice, in Pretoria, in 1963, at the so-called Rivonia Trial as he faced the death penalty on charges of sabotage. Madikizela-Mandela, fresh-faced and determined, held the salute in the face of police who had tried to intimidate her and even attempted to stop her wearing her traditional dress to court.
Fast forward to February 1990 when Madikizela-Mandela again made the same clenched fist salute as she walked hand-in-hand with her freed husband into cheering crowds outside Victor Verster Prison, near Cape Town.
That joyous day also saw the beginning of the end for the couple&#8217;s marriage that began back in 1958 and ended in 1996. Mandela emerged from 27 years in prison as a pragmatic negotiator determined to heal his broken nation; Madikizela-Mandela remained a flinty, feisty, hard-liner and these differences mixed with domestic issues, ushered the couple towards divorce.
Few could blame Madikizela-Mandela for her tough stance in politics. She was dragged through the mill by the apartheid authorities and spent more than 18-months in solitary confinement where she was forced to lie naked on a cold concrete floor. Police hammered on doors and searched her home, like clockwork, she was tortured by special branch thugs and her children were taken from her. When she was freed, the authorities banished her to Brandfort, a small town in the Free State, where she suffered years of isolation and intimidation, including the fire bombing of her home.
Madikizela-Mandela&#8217;s image was undoubtedly tarnished by violence linked to  her bodyguards from the infamous Mandela United Football Club. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission &#8211; the hearings that tried to heal post-apartheid South Africa &#8211; found Madikizela-Mandela to have been linked to violence in the grimy days of the township struggle.
Yet Madikizela-Mandela threw many of her latter years into causes that cemented her nickname : Mother of the Nation. She shrugged off criticism for failing to attend Parliament and being slow in paying rent to remain defiant until the end.
Madikizela-Mandela died in Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg, the very hospital where her former husband fought for his life in a health scare in 2011, in the early hours of April 2. She leaves two daughters: Zindziswa and Zenani.

End of an era as #WinnieMandela – Mother of the Nation – dies aged 81

By Chris Hattingh
What does the sugar tax; an increased minimum drinking age; National Health Insurance; a wealth tax; the spectre of White Monopoly Capital; state capture; tenders; and repeated attempts to stoke racial tension by politicians have in common? They are all elements of collectivist philosophy. And, they are the tools of those in power who believe they know what is best for everyone else and are prepared to use whatever power they have to legislate measures that enforce that belief.
None of the examples mentioned are radical because they cannot be. None will produce any real, radical economic change because none of them holds the standard that the rights of the individual are paramount. Instead, they continue the socialist bent of the apartheid government, which was to increase the reach of the state. The collectivist philosophy is premised on the importance of the group over the individual and our current government’s philosophy is deeply collectivist, just like the apartheid state.
Throughout human history, those in political power have tried to control as much of the individual’s life as possible. Whether in the form of theocracies or socialist utopias, none recognise the importance of the individual.
<h5>The individual thinks, gains knowledge and acts on that</h5>
Thinking, gaining knowledge and acting on that knowledge are all actions of the individual. It is what individuals have to do to ensure their own survival. Any act (or system) that violates this, is immoral. And that is why capitalism is radical, by its very nature. Under capitalism, everyone must decide for themselves how they want to live, how they want to spend their time and how best to use their resources.
Capitalism is based on voluntary actions. As Walter Williams said, capitalism is a voluntary exchange between individuals free of third party intervention. This means that the government’s proper, and only function, is limited to protecting the individual’s right to think, to produce, to trade and to pursue his own life and happiness. The government does this by outlawing the initiation of physical force.
Capitalism, and the individual freedom it necessarily protects, flies directly in the face of history and the deep desire of some people to control the lives of others. No matter the justification offered, all social/economic systems that subject the interests of the individual to that of the group are immoral. The purported ends may be dressed up to appear as noble and caring as possible – but, once the metaphysical importance of the individual is jettisoned, the politics of the day loses all credibility.
<h5>Colonialism dictated peoples lives &#8220;for their own good&#8221;</h5>
Colonialism had, at its heart, the perspective that the state would dictate people’s lives for their own good. Apartheid had, at its heart, the perspective that the state would dictate people’s lives for their own good. The current government, and its view of economy and society, is such that it does not believe South Africans are responsible, smart or resourceful enough to live their lives as they see fit, and so it also attempts every possible avenue to control our lives, for our own good.
It is a stain on South Africa’s history that we have never had a system close to capitalism; that people have never been as free as they ought to be. However, it is also a great testament to the South African people that many have managed to build successful lives through all the state interventions and state failures. Imagine what they could do once the government retracts its tentacles.
I am an advocate for capitalism because its moral justification rests on man’s rational nature – it is premised on and recognises individual rights – and it protects that rational nature from the force of others.
Do we want to continue using the archaic, immoral class rhetoric of the communists? Or the racist groupings of people established by segregation and apartheid? If we want true radical economic change, we must move toward capitalism and jettison attempts to control the individual, in whichever guise they are presented.
Author: Chris Hattingh is a researcher at the Free Market Foundation
&nbsp;

Op-Ed: Capitalism – The only radical choice

Prof. Quinton Johnson | Nelson Mandela University
&nbsp;
A more than 365 year history of colonialism and apartheid have indelibly affected land, heritage and human rights in South Africa.
Among the vast array of discriminatory laws was the Land Act of 1913 that spatially segregated people through land dispossession. It amplified the vast canyon of inequality, further shattered the social fabric of communities and radically compromised economic development of the black majority.
It was only after the 1994 democratic elections that the vast majority of citizens could hope for constitutional restitution of their land.
Significant socio-economic advances have been made since 1994, but several challenges need to be overcome as indicated by recent trends. Much more needs to be done. This is particularly true when it comes to land distribution and restitution.
The 2013 state land audit report illustrates why. By 1994 about 87% of the land was owned by whites and only 13% by black people. By 2012 only 7.95 million hectares had been transferred to black owners through land reform. This represented only 7.5% of formerly white-owned land.
Land reform was discussed with understandable intensity during the recent National Policy Conference of the governing African National Congress. Debates centred on whether land should be expropriated without compensation.
It’s within this context that a National Forum was established for dialogues on land reform. The National Forum is made up of a network of organisations that includes three universities, the South African Human Rights Commission and Foundation for Human Rights.
The National Forum focused on whether it was possible to achieve effective land reform through Section 25 of the South African Constitution, which deals with property rights. The National Forum also examined the bureaucratic, legal and constitutional constraints that slow down land redistribution and restitution. It also explored the policy and legislative options necessary to address the complex challenges.
The National Forum concluded that South Africa’s constitution doesn’t stand in the way of land reform. However, it’s clear that political negligence has fuelled undue bureaucracy, mismanagement and corruption, which have severely hampered meaningful land reform. It reached consensus on a 10-point plan for constitutionally accelerated land reform. The hope is that it can help break the long-standing impasse over land, and move the country toward radically inclusive socio-economic growth.
<h2>Accelerating land reform</h2>
Aspects of the 10-point plan include:
<ol>
<li>A human rights approach to land redistribution, grounded in the effective implementation of Section 25 of the Constitution. This could still guarantee a life of dignity, equality and freedom for all citizens.</li>
<li>Existing land reform legislation is not effectively implemented. The Land Claims Commission and Land Claims Court, which were created through the Restitution of Land Rights Act (1994), have not been effective. Unnecessary bureaucratic bungling, significant corruption and limited expert skills have been exacerbated by cadre deployment. This is the practice of appointing party political loyalists to government positions irrespective of ability. In addition, these institutions have yet to be made more accessible and more representative.</li>
<li>The possibility of adopting further laws to accelerate land reform is not being used. This is the case even though Section 25(8) of the Constitution specifically indicates that it can be done.</li>
<li>The possibility of repealing existing legislation that’s inconsistent with or hampering land reform is not being pursued. This should be rectified.</li>
<li>There is a need for national legislation on expropriation. A bill is before Parliament – the Expropriation Bill – but it’s been introduced late and processed without urgency. The possibility of effecting appropriate amendments to the 1975 Expropriation Act should also be considered.</li>
<li>There should be improved communication and coordination between various government departments. Currently, the location of relevant land reform mandates and competencies are spread across several departments. These should be aligned to accelerate the pace of the process.</li>
<li>A draft bill on cultural and spiritual access to land must be developed to enable citizens’ access to cemeteries and related holy sites where their family members are buried.</li>
<li>The courts should pronounce on the meaning of “just and equitable” compensation in Section 25 of the Constitution, to provide for better definition and interpretation of this provision within the context of land reform.</li>
<li>Communal Property Associations, community and traditional leader tensions must be resolved through meaningful engagement. Communication channels must be open, all role-players included and all relevant information made available to every stakeholder. Furthermore, all affected parties must be able to influence the decisions taken. In addition, skills training for officials dealing with land restitution is necessary, whilst an updated land audit is required.</li>
<li>There is need for a Land and Economy Convention, similar to the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). This was held to negotiate the country’s peaceful transition to democracy. A role for the new convention would be to address poverty, inequality and unemployment. The aim would be to restore citizens’ dignity, strengthen the economy and advance democracy.</li>
</ol>
The National Forum envisions the 10-point plan being effected within the context of the country’s National Development Plan’s Vision 2030. The plan was drawn up to provide a roadmap for the country to 2030. Its central aims are to reduce unemployment, poverty and inequality.
If land reform is realised, South Africa could present a more humane, just, peaceful, prosperous and democratic face to the world.

Op-Ed: A 10-point plan to accelerate orderly land reform in South Africa

In the liberation struggle against apartheid a small number of white people joined the battle to overthrow the South African regime. One of them, academic Raymond Suttner, was first arrested in 1975 and tortured with electric shocks because he refused to supply information to the police. He then served eight years in prison because of his underground activities for the African National Congress and South African Communist Party.
After his release in 1983 he was forced &#8211; after two years &#8211; to go underground to evade arrest, but was re-detained in 1986 under repeatedly renewed states of emergency for 27 months – 18 of these in solitary confinement.
First published in 2001, Suttner’s prison memoir “Inside Apartheid’s Prison”, has been made available again, now with a completely new introduction. The Conversation Africa’s Charles Leonard spoke to Suttner.
Why did you write the book?
I was hesitant to write it because there is a culture of modesty that is inculcated in cadres. I used to think it was “not done” to write about myself. I also thought that my experience was a “parking ticket” compared with the sentences of Nelson Mandela and others. But I came to feel that I have a story to tell.
Nevertheless I hope that resources will be found so that more stories are told, not only of prison but the many unknown people who pursued resistance in different ways in a range of relatively unknown places.
You were imprisoned and on house arrest for over 11 years. It was based on choices you made. Would you make the same choices today?
Yes. I did what I believed was right at the time and even if things are not turning out so well at the moment that does not invalidate those choices. I saw the liberation struggle as having a sacred quality and considered it an honour to be part of it.
I was very influenced by the great Afrikaner Communist <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/abram-fischer">Bram Fischer</a>. He had nothing to gain personally and could have been a judge, the president of the country or anything else. Instead he chose a life of danger and later life imprisonment. I was inspired by that example, amongst others, to do what I could.
When one embarks on revolutionary activities there are no guarantees of success. I was not sure that I would come out alive. I did what I believed was right and would make the same choices again.
So those choices were worth it?
Definitely. This was not a business venture where one could answer such a question through balancing profits and losses. For me joining the struggle, as a white, gave me the opportunity to start my life afresh by joining my fortunes with those who were oppressed. It gave me the chance to link myself with the majority of South Africans.
That was a more authentic way of living my life than whatever successes I may have achieved, had I simply focused on professional success. Most importantly I see this choice – to join the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/liberation-struggle-south-africa">liberation struggle</a> – as giving me the opportunity to humanise myself as a white South African in apartheid South Africa.
Do you still feel the damage after all these years in prison?
Yes. I have post-traumatic stress. I am not sure that it will ever be eliminated or that I always recognise its appearance. Many of us live with scars from that period.
I have not always acknowledged or understood that I have been damaged but it is directly related to my having <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fibromyalgia/home/ovc-20317786">fibromyalgia</a> (a disorder characterised by widespread musculoskeletal pain accompanied by fatigue, sleep, memory and mood issues), according to the specialist who diagnosed it. She cautioned me about returning to my prison experiences, in this book, fearing the possibility of it setting off physically painful symptoms. That didn’t happen as far as I am aware and returning to the scene of trauma may be part of healing, according to some.
Why did you break with the ANC over 10 years ago?
I had not been happy with many aspects of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a>‘s presidency but that did not mean I should align myself with his successor <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jacob-gedleyihlekisa-zuma">Jacob Zuma</a>. Zuma’s candidacy was promoted not only by ANC people but especially the South African Communist Party (SACP) and trade union federation <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/congress-south-african-trade-unions-cosatu">Cosatu</a>’s leaderships, presenting him as having qualities that were not valid. In particular the claim that Zuma was a man of the people with sympathy for the poor and downtrodden was untrue.
It was already known that he was <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/president-thabo-mbeki-sacks-deputy-president-jacob-zuma">linked</a> with corrupt activities before he was elected as ANC president in 2007. But what was decisive for me was Zuma’s 2006 <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2016-08-10-the-khanga-womanhood-and-how-zumas-2006-rape-trial-changed-its-meaning">rape trial</a>. There was something very cruel in the way the complainant, known as <a href="http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2016/10/10/who-was-khwezi-heres-what-we-learnt-during-the-zuma-rape-trial">“Khwezi”</a>, was treated, in the mode of defence that Zuma chose. I found that <a href="http://www.capetalk.co.za/articles/191680/khwezi-was-let-down-by-the-justice-system-of-this-country-nomboniso-gasa">unacceptable</a>.
Is it not lonely outside the ANC?
I miss the comradeship that I understood to bind me to people with whom I had shared dangers, joys and sorrows. When you are together in difficult times it creates a special bond. I did not conceive of that being broken.
But when you break away in a <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/rdm/news/2017-04-11-uct-slams-corruption-state-capture-under-zuma/">time of decadence</a>, what is it that one misses? I cannot resume relationships on the same basis as those which I previously counted as comradeship. Our paths diverged. I went out into the cold and some with whom I used to be very close chose to link themselves with a <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-need-to-despair-even-as-the-dream-of-south-africa-feels-like-a-nightmare-76129">project</a> that has meant corruption, violence and destroying everything that was once valued in the liberation tradition.
These former comrades have all been accomplices in <a href="https://mg.co.za/report/zumaville-a-special-report">Nkandla</a> (Zuma’s private rural home which was upgraded at a cost to the country of R246-million to taxpayers), the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-grant-scandal-exposes-myths-about-how-the-state-should-run-things-74325">social grants scandal</a> and many other <a href="http://www.groundup.org.za/article/who-are-guptas/">features of this period</a> which have seen some individuals benefit unlawfully and at the expense of the poor. I do not say that every person I know has been improperly enriched. But all those who have been in the ANC/SACP/Cosatu leadership have endorsed, indeed even provided elaborate defences of some of the worst features of the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-17450447">Zuma period</a>.
In the new introduction to the book I use the word “betrayal” and I choose it to refer to these people, many of whom were once brave, who turned their backs on those from whom they came or whose cause they once adopted as their own.
Yes, it’s lonely. But that loneliness cannot be remedied by resuming bonds with people who have taken fundamentally different paths. I now build relationships with others from whom I am learning and growing.

Op-Ed: It’s cold outside Zuma’s ANC. But there’s little warmth left inside

The first thing I saw when stepping out of the taxi was a sign advertising craft beer, popular with hipsters everywhere. Sidewalk tables were occupied by attractive young people; a pleasant tableau of the multiracial middle classes eating wood-fired pizza and playing with their smart phones.
It could have been a scene from gentrifying downtown Los Angeles or Shoreditch in London. It reminded me of New York but in reality it was Maboneng, Johannesburg. I am conducting <a href="http://jias.joburg/2017/04/joint-seminar-on-spatial-transformation-in-johannesburg/">research</a> about the area and issues of spatial transformation.
Maboneng was carved out of Jeppestown, a working-class neighbourhood in Johannesburg’s CBD. It has developed rapidly since 2009. But surrounding Jeppestown is still mostly occupied by low-income black people. Maboneng is a distinctly hipster “cultural time zone” or microspace. Its upmarket bars, fashionable restaurants, creative work spaces and loft-style apartments have more in common with its equivalents in Euro-America than less developed local areas adjacent to it.
Maboneng represents one strand of the type of urban “development” that’s advocated for by the <a href="https://www.atkearney.com/research-studies/global-cities-index">proponents</a> of “global cities”. The problem with this type of development is that it often leads to cities becoming more spatially unequal as urban regeneration or gentrification displaces people.
The city’s core areas are occupied by the wealthy. Low-income residents are pushed to the urban peripheries in search of affordable housing. This trend is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/oct/05/building-way-to-hell-readers-tales-gentrification-around-world">intensifying</a> around the world: in New York, London, Sydney, Los Angeles and Vancouver as well as in globalising or emerging cities like Johannesburg, Accra, Beijing, Cape Town, Jakarta, Mumbai and Shanghai.
We have seen this model before. It was called the apartheid city.
<h2>Apartheid cities</h2>
South Africa’s <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/franco/urban-issues-apartheid-city.html">apartheid architects</a> wanted Johannesburg and nearby suburbs to be reserved for the white population. Economically disadvantaged black people, so-called “<a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/historians-miscellaneous-biographies/colored-people-south-africa">coloureds</a>” and Indians were warehoused on the outskirts in segregated, under-resourced townships. They provided an underpaid labour force for white business.
Apartheid was also known to its critics as “<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03085147200000023">racial capitalism</a>”. It was a type of social engineering that both spatially and economically gave the white population an advantage to keep them wealthy.
In the era of globalisation since 1990, these same spatial dynamics have played out in cities around the world. They are no longer based on purely racial lines. Instead, they’re grounded in blatant socioeconomic segregation. Urban theorist Richard Florida <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2463346.Who_s_Your_City">wrote</a> in 2008 that
<blockquote>the most successful cities and regions in the United States and around the world may increasingly be inhabited by a core of wealthy and highly mobile workers leading highly privileged lives, catered to by an underclass of service workers living farther and farther away.</blockquote>
Several scholars have <a href="http://www.saskiasassen.com/pdfs/publications/the-global-city-brown.pdf">warned</a> that inequality is an <a href="https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/blog/global-insight/inequality-global-cities-chicago-forum">inherent feature</a> of the global city. Others, like Martin J. Murray, <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/city-of-extremes/">argue</a> that post-apartheid Johannesburg has introduced “new patterns of social segregation that have further marginalised the largely black underclasses and urban poor.”
Yet many cities are striving to become more “global” – and ever more unequal. Why is this?
<h2>Defining “global”</h2>
Annual indices produced by groups headquartered in places like Chicago and London competitively rank global cities according to certain metrics. A city is “global” if it consists of very particular types of cultural time zones: skyscrapers, cafes and malls which adhere to western notions of “modernity” and “development”. Global cultural time zones in global(ising) cities create a network of geographically disparate but culturally similar spaces that allow for certain types of socio-economic transactions.
This sort of development has seen gentrification being generalised as “<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8330.00249/abstract">global urban policy</a>”. In recent years major cities have witnessed a particular strand of gentrification that I call global hipsterification. A scholarly article on the subject has been accepted for publication in the journal <a href="https://newleftreview.org/">New Left Review</a>.
Knight Frank’s <a href="http://www.knightfrank.com/resources/global-cities/knight-frank-global-cities.pdf">2015 Global Cities report</a> states that “former industrial districts” like London’s Shoreditch and Brooklyn’s DUMBO are some of the “new districts [which] are of increasing significance” because they attract “younger staff” who can find housing, an active social life and burgeoning employment opportunities in various technological or “creative” industries.
These youngsters often identify as hipsters, originally a counter-cultural movement that has now gone mainstream and global from <a href="https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/08/17/delhi-journal-hangouts-for-delhi-hipsters/">Hauz Khas village, New Delhi</a> to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They are defined by their consumption of particular types of beverages (coffee, craft beer) and food (quinoa, kale) as well as music, fashion, art and their distinctive <a href="http://nymag.com/news/features/69129/">aesthetic choices</a>.
Meanwhile, cities in the global South use hipster areas like <a href="https://scroll.in/magazine/823802/is-dadar-mumbais-first-planned-suburb-becoming-hipster-cool-and-at-what-cost">Dadar</a> in Mumbai or Maboneng to beef up their global city credentials.
And while the hipsters move in, others are pushed aside. “Development-induced” migration is a growing phenomenon in many cities like Shanghai. There, authorities are <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498529044/Development-Induced-Displacement-in-India-and-China-A-Comparative-Look-at-the-Burdens-of-Growth">removing millions</a> of low-income residents from prime real estate in their quest to become more “global”.
But here’s the question if we are to reduce the global trend of increasing spatial inequality: who gets to define “global” and why does it only mean skyscrapers and hipster cafes?
<h2>A new definition</h2>
Instead, shouldn’t “global” be redefined to mean adequate and affordable housing for all income levels, good schools for all children, universal health care, a zero rate of homelessness and greater income equality? What if “global” was correlated with the <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/studies/cities-where-income-is-most-equal-2015/">Gini coefficient</a> which measures equality?
City officials need to rely less on profit-driven, private developers and more on specific government policies to aggressively protect and create more low and middle-income housing in city centres.
Spatial and economic inequality have <a href="https://www.businessincities.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/GCBA-Housing-Economic-Impact-Study.pdf">many drawbacks</a> and may <a href="http://city-press.news24.com/Voices/moving-sa-out-of-its-low-growth-and-high-inequality-trap-20170219">negatively</a> impact growth. Inclusive growth can only be achieved by rejecting the apartheid/global city model.

In their rush to become “global”, cities risk creating spatial apartheid

Thirty years ago in southern Angola, four military forces were mobilising for <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/battle-cuito-cuanavale-1988">the largest conventional battle</a> in Africa since the Second World War. It was a battle that would have huge consequences for Angola, Namibia and South Africa. Indeed it has been referred to as a <a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2013/04/01/cuito-cuanavale-angola/">turning point</a> in southern African history.
On the one side was the Angolan army backed by Cuban forces and Soviet advisers. On the other was the South African backed Angolan rebel movement fighting to overthrow the government.
The rebel Union for the Total Independence of Angola, better known by their Portuguese acronym Unita, had been one of the three liberation groups fighting Portuguese colonialism. But it is the pro-socialist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) which <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/11/newsid_2539000/2539679.stm">won power</a> in 1975 and formed the government.
With western support and arms supplies from South Africa and the <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/79546/next-stop-angola-reagan-doctrine-communism-intervention">Reagan administration</a>, Unita’s campaign to topple the government turned Angola into a Cold War battleground. The climax of this was the battle at Cuito Cuanavale in southern Angola that lasted from March 1987 until the end of June 1988.
There are still fierce arguments about how important the battle was, who won and whether the South African army was really defeated.
That those who fought in the battle should have wildly different interpretations of its importance is not surprising. This is brought out strikingly in a new edition of Fred Bridgland’s book <a href="http://www.casematepublishing.co.uk/index.php/the-war-for-africa.html">The War for Africa: Twelve Months that Transformed a Continent</a>. Originally published in 1990, it’s an account, primarily from the South African side, of the military campaign that reached its climax at Cuito Cuanavale.
<h2>Contesting narratives</h2>
The ANC and it’s leader Nelson Mandela, the Cubans and the Angolan government claim the South African army was decisively defeated. The veteran ANC military intelligence chief Ronnie Kasrils, <a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2013/04/01/cuito-cuanavale-angola/">described</a> it as
<blockquote>a historic turning point in the struggle for the total liberation of the region from racist rule and aggression.</blockquote>
But many South African who fought in Angola swear that they were never defeated, as South African author and academic Leopold Scholtz noted in his <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/African-Defence-Forces-Border-1966-1989-x/dp/1909982768/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1496043564&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=Leopold+Scholtz">book</a> on the battle.
Objective observers declared the end to have been a tactical military <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/battle-cuito-cuanavale-1988">stalemate</a> between the allied forces on either side. But it was a stalemate that led to major strategic realignments with huge consequences for the whole region, leading to the independence of Namibia, the withdrawal of South African and Cuban forces from Angola and the eventual <a href="http://www.historytoday.com/gary-baines/replaying-cuito-cuanavale">dismantling</a> of apartheid.
Nelson Mandela lauded the result of the battle during a visit to Cuba in 1991 to thank Fidel Castro for supporting liberation struggles in southern Africa. The future president of South Africa said in his <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/11/nelson_mandela_on_how_cuba_destroyed">keynote speech</a>:
<blockquote>The decisive defeat of the racist army in Cuito Cuanavale was a victory for all Africa. This victory in Cuito Cuanavale is what made it possible for Angola to enjoy peace and establish its own sovereignty. The defeat of the racist army made it possible for the people of Namibia to achieve their independence. The decisive defeat of the aggressive apartheid forces destroyed the myth of the invincibility of the white oppressor.</blockquote>
<h2>Stalemate in Cuito Cuanavale</h2>
At the time of the campaign and the key siege of Cuito Cuanavale, Bridgland was a journalist with unrivalled access to the rebels. Through the rebels, he also got access to South African Defence Force (SADF) in southern Angola. He says that the chief of the SADF, General Jannie Geldenhuys, gave him unfettered access to his officers and men on the frontline.
His account of the Cuito Cuanavale campaign is detailed and fascinating, but clearly written from one side. It was impossible for him to report from the Angolan government and Cuban side. The South Africans had been in Angola almost continuously since their unsuccessful bid in 1975 to put UNITA in power.
Their present objective was to weaken the socialist-oriented Angolan government, stop it from supporting the ANC and the Namibian Swapo movement. The aim was then to create a buffer to stop Swapo guerrillas entering South Africa-occupied Namibia.
The fighting lasted from initial skirmishes in March 1987, through the smashing of the Angolan army advance at the Lomba river in September-October 1987. Then followed the siege of Cuito Cuanavale by the South Africans and Unita from January to the end of March 1988. It ended with the Cuban bombing of the Calueque dam on 27 June 1988.
The battle for Cuito Cuanavale ended in stalemate with the SADF and Unita unable to overrun the Angolan positions and the Angolan-Cuban force unable to continue the offensive. The South Africans admitted to losing 79 dead, with two Mirage fighters and one Bosbok spotter plane shot down, plus three Olifant tanks and four Ratel armoured vehicles destroyed, as Bridgland describes in his very detailed book.
<h2>Politics by other means</h2>
The combination of being fought to a stalemate in the battle, and the heavy loss of life and material that couldn’t be replaced, was something South Africa couldn’t ignore. On top of that was the attack on the Calueque dam which demonstrated Angolan and Cuban air superiority.
Taken in the context of the domestic political violence, the growing economic crisis and international pressure, the results of the Cuito Cuanavale campaign were crucial in persuading the leaders of South Africa’s National Party to cut their losses. They did so following talks with the Soviet Union, Angola, Cuba, Britain and the United States.
This led directly to a ceasefire agreement on the total withdrawal of South African and Cuban forces from Angola. Also agreed was a timetable for UN-supervised elections in Namibia, leading to independence in March 1990. By this time, the ANC had been unbanned and Mandela released.
Cuito Cuanavale was not a military victory for any of the combatants. One must view it in the light of the maxim of the 19th century military theorist, Carl von Clausewitz that war is the <a href="https://www.clausewitz.com/readings/OnWar1873/BK1ch01.html">“continuation of politics by other means”</a>. There was never going to be a decisive military victory in southern Angola.
The battle of Cuito Cuanavale was a turning point, but one that needs to be taken in context.

Op-Ed: It’s 30 years since Cuito Cuanavale. How the battle redefined southern Africa

Ed Stoddard | BOTHAVILLE, South Africa
South Africa&#8217;s ruling African National Congress (ANC) is not likely to approve any expropriation of land from white farmers without paying compensation, the agriculture minister said on Tuesday after President Jacob Zuma mooted such an idea.
Faced with opposition mainly from ANC&#8217;s urban base, Zuma appealed to the rural poor in February with promises to seize land without paying the owners and then handing it out.
Agriculture Minister Senzeni Zokwana said the ANC was unlikely to back such a policy at a party conference in June and July, particularly given government efforts to attract investment.
&#8220;I don’t think so,&#8221; he told Reuters on the sidelines of an agricultural conference and exhibition when asked about the possibility of seizures. &#8220;It will be challenged in the courts. You would need to first amend the constitution to do that.&#8221;
<blockquote>&#8220;The issue is that to attract investors in any industry you need policy certainty. If you are not sure whether you will find your farm tomorrow or you will find shacks around it, you will not invest in that land,&#8221; he added.</blockquote>
Analysts have said they did not expect farm seizures in South Africa, where most agricultural land is still owned by whites more than two decades after the end of white rule.
Violent seizures in Zimbabwe sent its economy into tailspin. But analysts said that even talking about the idea of expropriations in South Africa unnerved investors.
The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform says only 8 million hectares of arable land has been transferred to black people since 1994, less than 10 percent of the 82 million hectares available and a third of the ANC&#8217;s 30 percent target.
On a government proposal to establish a strategic grain reserve, Zokwana said one of the aims was to have enough maize to satisfy domestic demand for 120 days, which equates to about 3.5 million tonnes at current consumption rates.
&#8220;If you can have a cushion of 120 days, then you won&#8217;t have a situation where you have no maize at all,&#8221; Zokwana said, although he said commercial farmers with whom he discussed the idea opposed it, saying it risked distorting the market.
Zokwana said one proposal involved buying surplus maize from smallholders who lacked storage facilities but were producing more than needed, as yields rose with the use of genetically modified (GMO) crops and improved farming techniques.
Neighbouring Zimbabwe and Zambia both hold such reserves. But it would require a major policy shift in South Africa, where agriculture is driven by market forces not state purchases.
A strategic grain reserve usually requires a government to buy and store crops, releasing them at times of need.
Zokwana said private business could have a role in setting up the strategic reserves, but did not give details.
South Africa was set to reap 14.54 million tonnes of maize in 2017, almost double last year&#8217;s harvest and its second largest ever due to good rains, the government&#8217;s Crop Estimates Committee (CEC) said last month.
Industry body Grain SA said on Tuesday it expected a surplus of 3.5 million tonnes this season and aimed to export all of it. [L8N1II45X]
(Editing by Edmund Blair)

South Africa farm minister sees no land expropriation without payment

South Africa&#8217;s struggle stalwart Ahmed Kathrada died this morning, age 87 at the Donald Gordon Hospital in Johannesburg.. This is how the world remembers him:
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A generation of true leaders of heart and spirit who served our people with humility no selflessness. I salute <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AhmedKathrada?src=hash">#AhmedKathrada</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/hamba?src=hash">#hamba</a> kahle <a href="https://t.co/fTr2CqrgPi">pic.twitter.com/fTr2CqrgPi</a>
— Jay Naidoo (@Jay_Naidoo) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jay_Naidoo/status/846591348010553344">March 28, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Leah &amp; I extend our deepest condolences to all who loved &amp; were loved by <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AhmedKathrada?src=hash">#AhmedKathrada</a>. God bless you all.
— DesmondTutu Official (@TheDesmondTutu) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheDesmondTutu/status/846595955889754112">March 28, 2017</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
&#8220;To hate is to be enslaved by evil&#8221;&#8230; RIP <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AhmedKathrada?src=hash">#AhmedKathrada</a> <a href="https://t.co/7Qx4Pjrq5O">pic.twitter.com/7Qx4Pjrq5O</a>
— Sideshen Pather (@Sideshen) <a href="https://twitter.com/Sideshen/status/846595947752775685">March 28, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Rest in peace <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AhmedKathrada?src=hash">#AhmedKathrada</a> <a href="https://t.co/SB8aWNZcKb">pic.twitter.com/SB8aWNZcKb</a>
— Phindy (@IamPhindy) <a href="https://twitter.com/IamPhindy/status/846598518072639488">March 28, 2017</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;It is a very sad moment for us as the Mandela family to have lost such a giant and icon,&#8221; Mandla Mandela on the passing of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AhmedKathrada?src=hash">#AhmedKathrada</a>. <a href="https://t.co/BhJvaGG2qi">pic.twitter.com/BhJvaGG2qi</a>
— eNCA (@eNCA) <a href="https://twitter.com/eNCA/status/846594630036537345">March 28, 2017</a></blockquote>
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&#39;Freedom did not fall from the sky, bt was fought for with blood , sweat &amp; tears&#39;- Ahmed Kathrada. Rest in peace uncle Kathy <a href="https://t.co/ziXyKr8Eh3">pic.twitter.com/ziXyKr8Eh3</a>
&mdash; TREASURY.GOV.ZA (@TreasuryRSA) <a href="https://twitter.com/TreasuryRSA/status/846601881883459584">March 28, 2017</a></blockquote>
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READ: 
<a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/special-report/2017/03/28/ahmed-kathrada-gentle-soul-died/">S.A’s struggle stalwart Ahmed Kathrada: The gentle soul has died 
</a><a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/southern-africa/2016/04/21/apartheid-struggle-stalwarts-receive-joburgs-highest-honour/">Apartheid struggle stalwarts receive Joburg’s highest honour 
</a><a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/southern-africa/2013/12/15/kathradas-tribute-to-nelson-mandela/">Kathrada’s tribute to Nelson Mandela 
</a><a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/2013/12/13/the-rivonia-trial-for-the-heroic-and-unflinching-in-the-face-of-death/">The Rivonia trial: For the heroic and unflinching in the face of death 
</a><a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/2013/12/06/nelson-mandela-my-friend-and-cellmate/">Nelson Mandela, my friend and cellmate</a>
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The world remembers Ahmed Kathrada

One of the last survivors of the rebels who faced death with Nelson Mandela was a genial, gentle, soul with resolve of iron.
Ahmed Kathrada (87) who died on Tuesday was one of the great worker bees of South Africa’s struggle against apartheid in the 1950s and early 1960s; at Liliesleaf farm, in the middle class Johannesburg suburb of Rivonia that was used as a hideout for the underground movement, Kathrada, wrote, worked and photocopied pamphlets tirelessly. When the struggle called on him to pose as a white man – he dyed his hair, put on make-up and pretended to be a Portuguese man called Pedro. It was a disguise that fooled people; despite this, he never felt comfortable going in to restaurants and the like where a non-white like himself was not allowed to go under apartheid.
This is the kind of gentle soul Kathrada was. Iron resolve, always, when it came to principle, but never arrogant or full of bravado. He admitted to me once, in an interview for CNBC Africa, that he feared he could have broken if he had been tortured by the special branch after his arrest. His heart was always tender and 26 years in prison left few callouses. Once, on national radio, I heard Kathrada break down when a caller reminded him of a comrade who had been tortured to death more than half a century before.
READ: <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/southern-africa/2016/04/21/apartheid-struggle-stalwarts-receive-joburgs-highest-honour/"> 
Apartheid struggle stalwarts receive Joburg’s highest honour 
</a><a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/southern-africa/2013/12/15/kathradas-tribute-to-nelson-mandela/">Kathrada’s tribute to Nelson Mandela 
</a><a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/2013/12/13/the-rivonia-trial-for-the-heroic-and-unflinching-in-the-face-of-death/">The Rivonia trial: For the heroic and unflinching in the face of death 
</a><a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/2013/12/06/nelson-mandela-my-friend-and-cellmate/">Nelson Mandela, my friend and cellmate</a>
If the scars were deep, Kathrada’s spirit maintained a salving sense of humour that often saw the absurdities of the struggle and the brutal system they were fighting. With a laugh he told me how Govan Mbeki – the father of South Africa’s former president &#8211; used to sell the eggs he coaxed from the Liliesleaf chickens to his fellow activists despite their protestations. He also told me how the underground activists of Liliesleaf used to sell the vegetables they used to grow.
“Our best customer was the Rivonia Police!” he chuckled as it was the police of Rivonia who raided Liliesleaf with dogs, in July 1964 and sent Kathrada, in chains, to prison for life on Robben Island.
“We subsequently found out that life was to mean life,” he said with irony and his trademark smile.
When Kathrada emerged from a lifetime in prison in 1989, apartheid had taken a lot more from him than his youth; it had also taken his birthplace. The place where he grew up in Schweizer-Reneke, in South Africa’s North West province, had been bulldozed by the authorities in the cause of keeping the races apart.
Incarceration had taken much more. Computers, hotel room cards instead of keys, and the clutter modern world were a mystery to him. He tried driving on the motorways that he had never seen, once, but found it too stressful and confusing. Even a harmless ATM was a mission as Kathrada found out when he went to get some money with fellow Robben Island prisoner Laloo Chiba one Sunday morning.
“He put in his card and it was swallowed, then I put my card in and pressed a few buttons and it was also swallowed. We had to phone the bank and they came to open up the ATM and get our cards out. Now Barbara gets my money for me,” he told me.
Politician Barbara Hogan was Kathrada’s loving partner in later life and they appeared kindred spirits. It was compensation for a prison sentence that robbed Kathrada of being able to raise a family. The prison guards used of Robben Island used to cruelly keep children out of sight for all prisoners; Kathrada told me of the pain of two decades of never hearing that most natural sound, the carefree laughter of a child. Hogan was the nearest to family Kathrada ever knew upon his release.
“When I phone home from overseas my first question is: ‘What happened in Isidingo ( A TV soap opera) my second question is about whether the country has been overthrown!” Kathrada said in his own dry way.
One or two people in the African National Congress would whisper to you that Kathrada was a bit star struck when it came to big names and would drop everything to be with them. It was Kathrada who accompanied the then rising United States senator Barack Obama to Robben Island on his visit to South Africa.
When it came to integrity, there was never a waver or whiff of scandal around Kathrada. I shall remember him for six words he shot back to me in the studio all those years ago. I ventured that there was a rising generation of young people who didn’t know, nor care, about the causes and sacrifices of the struggle generation. 
“That is what we fought for.”
The principled and upstanding way of Ahmed Kathrada; sadly many of those principles he fought from were ignored by a generation old enough to know better.

S.A’s struggle stalwart Ahmed Kathrada: The gentle soul has died

South African anti-apartheid veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, ex-wife of the late president Nelson Mandela, is &#8220;absolutely fine&#8221; after being admitted to hospital for observation, her spokesman said on Friday.
Doctors decided on Wednesday to keep the 80-year-old former first lady in hospital after she underwent a routine checkup.
&#8220;I was with her and she&#8217;s absolutely fine,&#8221; spokesman Victor Dlamini told television broadcaster eNCA.
Madikizela-Mandela spent several weeks in hospital last year for back surgery.
During her ex-husband&#8217;s 27-year incarceration for his fight against apartheid, Madikizela-Mandela campaigned for his release and for the rights of black South Africans, undergoing detention, banishment and arrest.
(Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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Winnie Mandela “absolutely fine” in hospital – spokesman

Most people would agree that racial discrimination characterised apartheid. However, with all the confusing political rhetoric heard nowadays, the true methodology used by the apartheid government to oppress the majority of South Africans is often misunderstood.
So how did the apartheid government succeed in creating several generations of poor black South Africans? The answer is simple: by restricting their property rights.
As Leon Louw said recently on The Renegade Report on CliffCentral, “The worst thing about apartheid … was the economics of it.” According to the Liberal Party parliamentarian, Edgar Brookes, co-writing with JB MacAulay in 1958, “[the economic life of] the African is almost entirely in the hands of officials … possessed of very wide discretion.”
The inability of black individuals to engage freely in the market played a major role.
Since 1994, various schemes have been devised by the democratic government to ‘solve’ poverty, but none of them have really broached the source of the issue, insecure and uncertain property rights. One scheme was the Reconstruction and Development Programme’s (RDP) housing project.
RDP properties are allocated to previously disadvantaged individuals – clearly, a better alternative to unhygienic shacks. However, beneficiaries do not immediately become the full owners of such properties. Included in RDP agreements, there are ‘pre-emptive clauses’, which often prohibit beneficiaries from selling or letting the property for several years, or provide that there may be only one residence on the property.
Many claim that these conditions are in place for good reason; for example, to ensure that the beneficiaries do not immediately sell the house for the money. But a rationale such as this is indicative of the patronising mindset at the heart of paternal statism. Other home owners are able to sell, let, or sub-let their property – why not the poor? What matters here, is that we cannot call the RDP entitlement of the beneficiary “ownership”, because a central feature of ownership is the ability to sell or let your property, or build on it as many dwellings as you desire.
A consequence of this lack of full ownership is that it does not encourage investment in the upkeep and development of the property. It also means that the property, besides simply providing a roof over the beneficiary’s head, does not help to alleviate actual poverty.
Many RDP house beneficiaries have decided, in contravention of the law, to use ‘their’ properties as income generating resources anyway. They are letting them out to other desperate families while they go elsewhere , say, to where they can find employment. Being unable to legally sell the property to pursue employment opportunities in other cities, forces them to do so illegally. And because it is illegal, they ‘sell’ the home at a much lower value than its true worth.
In 2012, Johannesburg metro official, Bubu Xuba, spoke with Corruption Watch and told them that beneficiaries have to remain in their allocated houses for at least eight years, and then, if they wished to sell, first preference had to be given to the State. If they try to sell before the period has elapsed or give preference to someone besides the State, it “can be regarded as fraud and the beneficiary can be charged with committing a criminal act.”
Only when dealing with the government, can a harmless action such as deciding to sell your house put you in jail.
Furthermore, the allocation process itself is not transparent and has led to reports of corruption. Some municipal officials have accepted bribes from applicants low on the allocation list (whose applications, as reported in 2012, went back as far as 1996) to be moved to the top.
Clearly, this is not how ‘transformation’ should occur. Poor, mostly black South Africans are still being subjected to the discretionary whim of the executive government and are still being denied property rights under our Constitution. Nothing less than full ownership and transparent government, being the antithesis of apartheid, can lead to empowerment for the poor.
 
Author Martin van Staden is Students for Liberty’s Academic Programmes Director for Southern Africa. The views expressed in the article are the author’s and are not necessarily shared by the members of the Free Market Foundation.﻿

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June 16 1976: A happy picture that masks the sorrow of a bloody and violent day.

How kind struggle hero Denis Goldberg lit up dark days behind bars with the help of a Rabbi

Zweli Mkhize reflects on Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy

Minister Nomvula Mokonyane on #Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy

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The world remembers Ahmed Kathrada

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