Breaking the Bank

Volume 3 Issue 2 Oct 2008 - April 2009

www.ctglobalist.za.org

The Cape Town Globalist uct’s undergraduate international affairs magazine

Breaking the

Bank

Maybe it’s time we change the way we deal with money

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Who we are

he Cape Town Globalist is a non-profit, international affairs magazine published by students at the

University of Cape Town. We strive for excellence in student journalism, focusing on current themes in global affairs ­— we are, after all, part of a shrinking world.

We also recently launched our web project at www.ctglobalist.za.org. Go visit. We’re proud of it.

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Our team is open to students from all backgrounds and disciplines. We’re on the look-out for writers, designers, photographers, web editors, marketing staff and business managers. If you’d like to be part of The Cape Town Globalist for 2009, send us your CV at ctglobalist@gmail.com ... And just in case you’re wondering, we’re a volunteer organisation.

The Cape Town Globalist

editorial

Breaking the Bank “

If you beat your head against the wall, it is your

”

head which breaks, and not the wall.

So wrote Antonio Gramsci.

We called this edition of The Cape Town Globalist “Breaking the Bank”, seeking to probe the logic of the money systems which shape our world. After all, ideas must be challenged. An idea that goes unchallenged for too long will get lethargic. Every so often, we need to poke at it with a set of callipers. If the idea stirs, great. If it doesn’t, either we need to give it CPR or declare the bugger dead.

Breaking the Bank. The Bank means capitalism. The Bank means the Monopoly Man on our cover. The Bank means the financial services market that, at time of going to print, had just dropped to its knees for a $700-billion bailout from the US government. So we beat our heads against the thing, trying to challenge the principles of the Bank. Is there a better way? But, perhaps unsurprisingly, it wasn’t the Bank which broke. Still no answers to that one.

Yet a glance at the current financial crisis might suggest the Bank already broke itself. In recent days there’s been a surfeit of media images depicting forlorn stock brokers looking at the financial displays. But bankers aren’t the only people being affected by the financial crisis. Despite this, there are few images to be found of the small folk going bankrupt, losing their homes, losing their pension funds... Getting broken by the Bank.

Is there anything to be done to protect them the next time? We try to answer that in our special report on page 20. But it’s a pity that it takes a financial crisis to force us to challenge these ideas. As Anine, features editor, muses: “Some people are starting to wonder how many times we need to crash before we buy a new car.”

Initiatives like the SANE Network and their community exchange systems might be a way of filling the cracks (see page 25). No matter how well-intentioned they are, it’s hard to imagine they’d ever expand beyond small communities. Perhaps this is their strength. When the big guys won’t listen, the little guys will. The CES plans to set up an exchange system in the Cape Town township, Khayelitsha, with hopes that the community will eventually become self-sustaining. Even this, though, is hampered by contradictions: How to begin a moneyless society without serious financial backing?

Big questions. Answers? Good luck.

No need to tackle them just yet. For now, enjoy the magazine, and good luck with your exams. And please, wish us good luck with ours.

Cheers, The Editors

The previous edition of The Cape Town Globalist, “Strangers in a Strange Land” (May 2008), carried a strong focus on the stories of Africans displaced by violence. In what would turn out to be bitter-sweet prescience, the magazine went to print a few days before South African townships were rocked by attacks on foreigners. Five months on, photographer Sydelle Willow Smith trains her lens on the reintegration efforts in the community of Masiphumelele, and returns to the refugee camps, Blue Waters and Soetwater.

Waiting to Go Home: a photo essay www.ctglobalist.za.org

Visit The Cape Town Globalist website to support refugee craft workers at Blue Waters camp.

October 2008 - april 2009

www.ctglobalist.za.org ctglobalist@gmail.com Editor-in-chief Murray Hunter Deputy editor Duncan Scott Art director Graham van de Ruit

Appetisers

Contents

Photo editor Sydelle Willow Smith Features Anine Kriegler Bernhard Schlenther Advertising and finance David Pickup Vandana Gupta Kathryn Gibbs Marketing Sheila Afari Wayne Idas Contributors Sarah Ball Jonathan Bertscher Rudo Chitapi Catherine Cheney Tatenda Goredema Saif Islam Nicole Jonklass Twanji Kalula Tara Leverton Vasiko Manjgaladze Sno Nkosi Ilham Rawoot Bontle Senne

6

news bites In case you missed the headlines 8 The Armchair Globalist Mbeki’s out, Motlanthe’s in. And now?

9 us elections Tatenda Goredema and Anine Kriegler have the audacity to ask why Barack Obama is the world’s firm favourite 11 georgia vs russia A Georgian student explains how you watched the news but missed the point

Cover stories

Breaking the bank 20 Repaving Wall Street Love it, hate it, fear it. Is it possible to change our financial trading system?

And if it were, would you want to?

25 Make love, not money A group of idealists is fighting to create a moneyless society. The question is whether they have a shot at making it work 28 Microcredit Believe it or not, there’s a banking system that could help the poor to help themselves. But will it?

31 Responsible consumerism Doing the right thing feels great, but in a land of inequality, some says it’s as much a luxury as it is a duty

African politics

Photographers Antonia Brown Jennifer Hotsko Kunta Ndimande Nicole Velleman

Curtain calls

On the cover

Breaking the bank

Illustration by Graham van de Ruit

The Cape Town Globalist

12 morgan tsvangirai It’s been a long fight for the MDC. But the real struggle has just begun 16 more dark days in the drc The conflict in the Congo is a fight for

power, not for peace 18 Can Africa learn from china?

For African economies, the giant in the East can offer something, at a cost

34 Reading corner Jerusalema is a South African film confronting real-life crime while battling money problems of its own 35 Youth Politics South Africa’s youth needs bold new leadership 38 The Lighter Side We bring you the highs, the lows and the sheer hedonism of the last G8 summit

News bites Iraq seeks to build honeymoon island

Iraq’s tourism board has invited inves-

tors to submit plans for developing a multi-billion dollar resort on Baghdad’s al-A’arass island, on the Tigris River.

Al-A’arass, whose name means ‘wedding’, was described by the tourism board chief as having been a popular destination for weddings and honeymoon couples during the 1980s. Since then the tourism industry has been hampered by UN sanctions in the 1990s and the US-led invasion in 2003.

The board hopes to secure invest-

ment to build a six-star hotel, an 18-hole golf course with a country club and a five-star spa on al-A’arass, among other luxury facilities. At present, the ‘honeymoon island’ has limited recreational facilities, with Baghdad residents paying a 500 dinar entrance fee (about 40 US cents) to sit by the river.

Although roadside bomb-blasts and shootings still threaten Baghdad residents, security in the city is improving. Officials told AFP that al-A’arass’s location near Baghdad’s highly fortified

Green Zone, where the US embassy and most Iraqi government offices can be found, would attract foreign tourists.

Developing the island is part of the effort to increase tourism in Iraq, which gets over 93 percent of its revenue from the petroleum industry. Earlier this year the government cleared a $100 million proposal to build a 300-room hotel in the Green Zone opposite Saddam Hussein’s former Adnan Palace. Sky News reported that the country was seeking companies to build a giant cantilevered observation wheel in Baghdad, similar to the UK’s 135m-tall ‘London Eye’.

How the meat industry produces greenhouse gases

Afghan poppy farmers kick the habit Falling opium prices and rising food prices have led some Afghan farmers to abandon poppy farming for wheat farming. This, together with bad weather, contributed to the first fall in Afghanistan’s opium production in seven years, according to the United Nations.

Last year Afghanistan produced 93 percent of the world’s opium, with its poppy industry employing one in every seven Afghans. Eighteen of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces are now poppy-free, compared to 13 provinces last year.

Yet opium production fell by only 12 percent, from 8,200 tonnes to 7,200 tonnes. While there has been progress in the north, almost all the country’s poppy cultivation now happens in seven provinces in the south and west where

Taliban insurgents and criminals are most active.

An official in the Afghan ministry of agriculture told The Guardian that most farmers in Taliban stronghold areas are afraid to start planting wheat and that they may be put off by difficulties in transporting their crops to the market.

In Helmand, fighting between British troops and Taliban insurgents pose further challenges to transporting perishable produce to markets.

In their efforts to combat Afghanistan’s opium trade, authorities have sent security forces to destroy poppy fields, paid farmers to destroy their own poppy crops and urged clerics to tell villagers that growing the drug is un-Islamic.

Farming, especially livestock, contributes a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions, according to recent reports. This is more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.

Does meat-eating cost you more?

See Wayne Idas on the economics of meateating at www.ctglobalist.za.org.

October 2008 - april 2009

news bites

North Korea and the US in revived nuclear talks In early October, US assistant secretary-

of-state Christopher Hill visited North Korea to salvage the disarmament deal agreed upon in 2007.

In the weeks preceding Hill’s visit, North Korea had begun to revive work at its nuclear plant and test site. Pyongyang began reactivating the plant, capable of making weapons-grade plutonium, in defiance of the deal. Pyongyang claimed the US had not removed the Asian country from a blacklist linking it to state-sponsored terrorist activity, which

35,4% Deforestation & desertification 30,5% Manure

was a condition of the deal. Economically destitute and mostly isolated from world trade, North Korea would be more able to participate in international trade if they were removed from the list.

Hill’s visit was concerned primarily with a proposed verification protocol on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament programme. He returned stating that he had conducted “substantive and lengthy talks” with his North Korean counterparts. Hill appeared positive the six-nation talks would continue.

These talks may be stalled by the Bush administration’s decision to sell $6 billion in arms to Taiwan, announced the same week. China is vehemently opposed to such a deal. Beijing, as an ally of Pyongyang, was key to the success of previous negotiations. It plays an important role in drawing North Korea into constructive talks with the other participant nations.

South America thumbs nose at US The last few months have seen a rapid deterioration of relations between the United States and several leftist Latin American countries. Bolivia and Venezuela expelled the US ambassadors to their countries; the United States reacted in kind. Meanwhile, Honduras postponed the appointment of the new US ambassador to the South American country.

Tensions broke out between opposition groups and Evo Morales of Bolivia when a constitutional referendum was passed in mid-August. The referendum called for more equal wealth distribution and greater rights for indigenous groups.

Morales expelled the US envoy after accusing the US of giving support to the

opposition. Venezuela followed suit.

The events in Bolivia have caused a shift in US-South American politics.

Chavez of Venezuela courted Russia, China and Portugal on a recent visit to the three countries, and Bolivia suspended US Drug Enforcement Agency surveillance flights over its territory. Venezuela also recently took part in joint military exercises with Russia.

The United States, in turn, denied the allegations from Morales and Chavez.

The Bush administration claimed the Latin American leaders resorted to such actions because they were unable to build constructive international support.

Landmark Angolan elections a partial successful in September 2008, Angola hosted its

9,1% Other

25% Cow farts

first legislative election in 16 years. As was widely expected, the ruling party, Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) led by José Eduardo dos Santos, took the majority to win the parliamentary election. The party took just more than 80 percent of the vote.

Prior to the elections, independent observers from the AU and the EU expressed concern that the lead-up to the event was poorly organised. When polls opened in Luanda, registration lists were

absent at some stations and other polling points opened late. Human Rights Watch later said that the pre-election atmosphere was not “free from intimidation or pressure”.

Dos Santos has been president of Angola since 1979, one year longer than Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

For the full story, see Jennifer Hotsko on democracy and development in Angola at www.ctglobalist.za.org.

NICOLE JONKLASS , ANINE KRIEGLER, Jennifer Hotsko, bernhard schlenther The Cape Town Globalist

The armchair globalist

Hail to the chief

A startled third-year commerce student recently asked the editors, “What’s this about the president resigning?” In the hopes it will stop her from packing suitcases for England, the Armchair Globalist looks at what lies ahead for the ANC. Illustration by Murray Hunter

T

Tatenda Goredema

is a second-year student majoring in history and politics. He is opinions editor at Varsity newspaper.

he swearing in of Kgalema Motlanthe as president of the Republic of South Africa brought Thabo Mbeki’s political career to an end (ed: “at long last”, some would add) and opened a new avenue of governance for South Africa. As a candidate for the presidency, Motlanthe is seen as a ‘safe pair of hands’, and a good cushion to the populist militancy of some of his peers. Motlanthe is not expected to make serious policy changes during his seven months in office before next year’s elections.

While the media seems keen to see Motlanthe wrest power away from Jacob Zuma (rumoured to be a fear held by some of Zuma’s supporters), this is unlikely to happen. As deputy president of the party, he is ultimately subordinate to ANC President Jacob Zuma. In South Africa the ruling party supersedes the individual holding national office.

The decision to ‘recall’ Mbeki is a culmination of the chain of events that followed Mbeki’s ousting as party president at the ANC national conference in Polokwane, December 2007. The ANC has swung

in a new direction and the party executive is proZuma. While discontented members of the party are rumoured to be planning a split from the ANC to form their own parties, such a party would certainly struggle to draw voter support from the ANC. For those like Mbeki who dedicated their lives to the movement, leaving the party would be tantamount to discarding their party heritage.

Campaigning for next year’s elections has begun in earnest, and despite recent polls by the Sunday Times which show the ANC losing support, it is likely that the ANC will keep its majority in parliament next year. The big question is whether the ANC’s future policy priorities will shift. Will it continue a tight fiscal policy, which has controlled inflation and curbed our massive budget deficit, but at the expense of the poor? If this were the case, Zuma would be abandoning the support by labour that voted him to the top of the party in the first place.

More than that, the Armchair Globalist cannot say. Watch this space.

October 2008 - april 2009

us elections

The great hope of Africa Tatenda Goredema and Anine Kriegler have the audacity to ask why Obama is the continent’s favourite. Images by Nicole velleman

A

s the US presidential election season draws to a finish, the eyes and hopes of the world are on the two men in the race and their bid to lead one of the world’s oldest democracies. The candidate for the Democratic Party, Senator Barack Obama, has been campaigning on the promise of hope and change, two things sorely missed in US politics since Mr Bush settled into the job in 2001.

Senator Obama has promised that if he gets elected to the most powerful post in the world, there will be a significant shift in both domestic and foreign policy. Meanwhile, his opponent from the Republican Party, Senator John McCain, has campaigned on a ticket of experience, stronger national security goals and an aim to decrease dependence on foreign oil.

Neither candidate has made any concrete statement of his intentions for US-Africa relations; the few foreign policy questions raised pertain mostly to the Middle East and the seemingly ever-looming terrorist threat. For some reason, however, much of the economic South seems to have cast Senator Obama as something of an American Nelson Mandela – as the answer to its prayers and the champion of a brighter African future.

One cause of the Obamania that has droves of Brazilian presidential hopefuls change their names

The Cape Town Globalist

to that of the popular young Senator of Illinois might be the fact that Obama includes even a few lines on African development in his list of campaign issues. McCain makes no reference in his top campaign issues to anywhere more than a mile beyond US borders (besides, of course, Iraq).

Even this, though, can be explained by what the parties traditionally represent: The Democrats have always shown a keener interest in diplomacy.

Obama’s adherence to this cannot account for the world’s unusual interest in this particular presidential race.

Obama does make some promising noises about providing eligible African countries with greater access to the US market. He has suggested extending the product list covered by the African Growth and Opportunity Act, for example. He has also promised to double foreign assistance spending, although this was before the recent financial services crisis sent the US and world markets reeling. It is less likely now than ever that even a strongly Democrat Congress would approve sending billions of dollars to Africa when major shifts in fiscal policy are clearly required at home. Strangely, the candidates’ development policy proposals seem of little concern to the African and pro-African press that so reveres Obama.

One Way Traffic

Barack Obama has won the support of the vast majority of Africans in his presidential bid.

Tatenda Goredema

is a second-year student majoring in history and politics. He is opinions editor at Varsity newspaper.

ANINE KRIEGLER

is in third-year, studying economics and politics.

She is features editor at The Cape Town Globalist.

us elections

Obama is uniquely placed to dispel the “worldwide generational apathy” that is choking meaningful and much-needed change.

THINK AGAIN, THINK MCCAIN

Mugabe Ratshikuni believes Barack Obama’s weakness lies in his policy making (right).

JUSTIFIED SUPPORT Sarah Reith sees Obama’s popularity as more than a result of Africanism (bottom).

Nicole Velleman is a first-year student majoring in film and media.

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It’s “just stupid”, says UCT student Mugabe Ratshikuni, a rare South African McCain supporter, to ignore policy just because it’s perceived that Obama is “a role model for blacks”. Until recently pro-Democrat, he says that “although Obama is a great orator, he has been very disappointing on policy”. In his eyes, the fact that Obama has, with what he sees to be little political substance, been able to get so much support is a “sad reflection of the world we’re in”.

Surprisingly, Ngao Sinyinza, another Cape Town student, born in Zambia and living in Botswana, told The Cape Town Globalist she has no real interest in Obama’s policy proposals. “I don’t really know what he says,” she admits, “I just know he’s black. It’s good to know one of us is up there.” The colour of his skin does seem to be a significant source of Obama’s support in Africa, with many hoping his victory will force a positive re-evaluation of the relationship between black consciousness and power.

Obama is also half African, with a father born and raised in Kenya and a brother still living on the outskirts of Nairobi. According to fellow Kenyan Brenda Obath, whose father is from the same tribe as Obama’s, national pride is a huge factor in his popularity. She says that the idea of an African underdog winning an American election, and especially doing it cleanly and transparently, is sweeping away healthy caution of opinion.

Zimbabwean student, Sara Reith, disagrees. For her, race and Africanism do not begin to explain the global galvanising effect of Obama’s campaign. She believes that while his youth, charisma and amazing oratory are appealing, his main drawing power lies in his refreshing grassroots approach to politics.

If only by helping us “regain confidence in collective strength”, she says, Obama is uniquely placed to dispel the “worldwide generational apathy” that is choking meaningful and much-needed change.

What Reith and the others do agree on, however, is that while Obama is distinctively a black man and half African, he is primarily a politician. Should he win this election, he will be constrained by the same bureaucratic inertia, party pressure and voter fear that every bright hopeful finds himself cursed with when he first brings his own shape to the unyielding Oval Office. As always, what change there will be on foreign policy issues is likely to be slow and very slight. Expectations are higher than ever, though, and if he manages to win, the hard part will just have begun for Senator Obama. We can only hope that he has the audacity to push for the future that Africans divine in his charismatic smile.

October 2008 - april 2009

The think tank

Georgia’s frozen conflicts return

The recent violence between Russia and Georgia caught the world’s attention. Vasiko Manjgaladze cuts through the confusion to explain the reasons for the war.

A

long time ago, in the dark days of the Per-

estroika, new borders were formed in what was once the mighty Soviet Union, and a radically nationalist Georgian government began shouting slogans like ‘Georgia for Georgians’. It went on to strip its autonomous regions of any degree of independence they had previously enjoyed.

Georgian militias attacked ethnic minorities and a previously peaceful and diverse population began to turn on itself. War ensued and the two regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, seeing themselves as truly Georgian, declared independence after stripping their land of other ethnicities through a savage genocidal campaign.The civil war that followed was fought in the heart of the country. Once the nationalists were ousted, the two regions were left as ‘frozen conflicts’, Russian and Georgian peacekeepers maintaining relative peace in the area.

Georgians have since witnessed a complex, bloodless revolution in which a US-educated lawyer, Mikheil Saakashvili, ousted the president who had, ironically, ousted the previous one. The charismatic young man promised to perform three major tasks in Georgia: to fight corruption, integrate the country into NATO, and reclaim the separatist enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, thereby returning a quarter of a million refugees to their homes.

Fast forward to 4 August, 2008, three days before the Georgian army attempted to reclaim the separatist region of South Ossetia. I told my flatmate then that war was on the horizon in my homeland. Russian soldiers were in Ossetia and shells were flying from either end. When, on 7 August, the Georgian army poured into Tskhinvali, the proverbial shit hit the fan.

All of a sudden, digitally drawn maps of the region flashed up on TV screens all over the world.

People who previously had no idea the country even existed now had opinions regarding its internal affairs. Talk of a new Cold War began immediately, with the US and Eastern Europe encouraging NATO to accept Georgia. Western Europe, meanwhile, urged caution.

Even to those who had followed the events closely leading up to the attack, the scale of the in-

The Cape Town Globalist

ternational reaction was a surprise. Although many pointed their fingers at President Saakashvili, decrying a major ‘military blunder’, the short-lived war became largely a dispute between East and West.

With Russia firmly opposing NATO’s presence on its doorstep, and the US and the EU working to secure a country which is to host one of the world’s largest oil pipelines, most forgot the original issue at hand. This was a government trying to reclaim a part of its territory that, if lost, would cleave the country almost in two.

With genocide, numerous revolutions, civil wars and military invasions (all within a matter of 16 years), it’s easy to say that the young republic has gotten off to a bad start. It might be an understatement, even. What is clear, however, is that the fates of hundreds of thousands of people affected by this conflict and the ones before it seem to be dictated by everyone but themselves.

Despite the grim reality of recent events, I still believe that people in the region can coexist peacefully as they have done for centuries before, as part of a multi-ethnic country which is governed by its own people. It’s the only viable option if the country is to survive.

WAITING ON A PRAYER

An orthodox priest waits in a bus to pass a Russian checkpoint in Gori, Georgia.

Photo courtesy of AP/ Darko Bandic

Vasiko Manjgaladze

recently completed a four-year design degree at the Edinburgh College of Art. He was born in Georgia and was raised in Turkey.

11

A (m)organ of the state Zimbabwe’s new prime minister has fought hard to get to where he is. He’s earned worldwide recognition as a champion of the oppressed, but in Zim’s power-sharing government, the struggle is just beginning. Rudo Chitapi and Saif Islam report.

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October 2008 - april 2009

african politics

O

n a Sunday afternoon in June, 2000, Sarah

Huddlestone was inspired. As she watched one of Africa’s prospective leaders on her television in her Johannesburg home, she began to believe in the future of the continent and its people. The speaker was Morgan Tsvangirai. He boldly proclaimed, in what would become known as the Freedom Speech, that there was a “new wind whispering through the people of Africa”. As Tsvangirai stood in front of thousands of Zimbabweans in the Rufaro Stadium in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, Huddlestone decided to begin a project that would eventually culminate in her biography of Morgan Tsvangirai: The Face of Courage.

The cynics among us might note that buttery speeches and powerful promises were also features of the ignoble careers of men like Robert Mugabe and Idi Amin. Nevertheless, given the events of the eight years since then, there is no denying Tsvangirai’s earnestness, not to mention his charisma. But what is it that makes him different? At the time of writing, the MDC and Zanu-PF had signed a power-sharing deal, but hadn’t yet elected ministers to take on portfolios to run the country. Tsvangirai has been named Prime Minister, but has compromised severely on his vows never to share power with Robert Mugabe. Critics have called him indecisive and said that this has cost the MDC the chance to lead a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. Despite this, support for him abounds.

A father and a leader Regardless of everything, says his son, “He is still Morgan.” Edwin Tsvangirai, the Zimbabwean politician’s eldest son, told The Cape Town Globalist that his father’s personal and political perspectives could not be separated from his upbringing, which was crucial to his development into a trade unionist and political activist. Born on 10 March, 1952, in Gutu, in what was then Southern Rhodesia, Tsvangirai was the eldest of nine children. He took on responsibility for his siblings and grew to appreciate his family’s principles. For Edwin, the elder Tsvangirai is “humble and not imposing,” and while people may view this as a weakness, Edwin believes it is a matter of principle for his father. He’s no elitist and believes that accessibility and contact with the people are what distinguish an ordinary man from a leader.

In a telephone interview with The Cape Town Globalist, Huddlestone reveals that Tsvangirai is an avid reader, particularly of biographies. When they first met, he was reading a book on Margaret Thatcher, one of Britain’s longest serving prime ministers. As he told her about his reading habits, a man who was accompanying them challenged him, calling the book “colonial drivel”. Tsvangirai’s response was simple but firm: “I’m picking up tips.” For HudThe Cape Town Globalist

dleston, this incident confirmed what she had seen and felt after the Freedom Speech: “He is every sort of person’s idea of what a great person is.” Here was a man unlike the leaders of the past and present.

Huddlestone relates another anecdote revealing Tsvangirai’s down-to-earth character. Soon after Tsvangirai’s appointment as vice president of the Associated Mine Workers Union in 1985, there was an incident at a remote mine that needed his attention.

None of the union’s vehicles were running; undeterred, Tsvangirai climbed on one of the ‘Shu Shine’ buses, notorious for being mechanically unreliable and prone to breakdown in remote locations. For Huddleston, like Edwin, it is this humility that has been one of Tsvangirai’s principle qualities throughout his political career.

Although Tsvangirai says that in his youth he would have “laid down” his life for Robert Mugabe, he soon grew disillusioned with the ruling party. Tsvangirai’s view was that Mugabe’s government had developed an elitist attitude similar to the Smith-led Rhodesian state.

It was in this light that Tsvangirai, as Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), emerged as a prominent leader. He began to form an informal opposition to the ruling party, gradually leading the ZCTU away from its alliance with Zanu-PF because of disagreements on policy and workers’ rights. Under Tsvangirai’s leadership the ZCTU became an independent and profitable organisation that served as a forum for discontented workers. This time in his political career highlighted

There’s concern that attached to Tsvangirai is a long chain of favours leading right back to the West. his commitment to the people he represented, and was to form the basis of his opposition to the ruling party. Edwin claims his father is “fearless about life”.

Despite this, there’s no shortage of critics to his approach. They say he has lacked strength and has depended on Western backing for his party’s opposition of Zanu-PF. There is also a concern among many ordinary Zimbabweans that attached to Tsvangirai is a long chain of favours that leads right back to the West.

The fight is over but the struggle begins

Opposite

Tsvangirai has led an historic fight for democracy in Zimbabwe, but governance presents a different set of challenges.

Image courtesy of John Baucher.

Following three months of Mbeki-mediated ne-

gotiations, on September 15, 2008, Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and the leader of an MDC faction, Arthur Mutambara, signed the much anticipated 13

Mugabe is not compelled to follow suggestions from him or the Cabinet.

2

Zanu-PF dominates cabinet

The deal provides 31 cabinet ministries. The majority of these were allocated to Zanu-PF, which gets 15 ministries. Tsvangirai’s MDC has 13 seats and Arthur Mutambara’s MDC faction gets the remaining three. As a result, Tsvangirai’s MDC is outnumbered by Zanu-PF in cabinet.

3

Mugabe wants the top slots

The deal was signed before the allocation of ministries and, at time of going to print, negotiators for all three parties had failed to reach an agreement about it. The stumbling block is that Zanu-PF wants key ministries that would tip political power their way. “Tsvangirai has to certainly fight for some key ministries like home affairs, finance, information... because obviously reforming the state begins with having a hold over some key ministries,” says Raftopoulos.

4

Mugabe keeps the army and secret service The MDC has already conceded the National Security Council to Mugabe, which means the 84year-old leader will be in charge of the army and secret services. In the past, Mugabe has used the military to terrorise his political opponents. Moreover, it is widely thought that Zimbabwe’s war veterans are mistrustful of Tsvangirai. As it stands, the MDC will have control of the police.

Image courtesy of John Baucher

Rudo Chitapi

is a first-year student majoring in anthropology, politics and film and media.

saif islam

is a second-year student majoring in print production and politics.

Sno Nkosi

is a first-year film and meda student. She contributed reporting.

14

5

power-sharing deal. This agreement forms the basis for the creation of a temporary government of national unity. It also stipulates that a new constitution will be drafted within the next 18 months, and in the space of three months following a referendum on the new constitution, elections would be held. Yet in spite of initial optimism for the power-sharing deal, it is far from inclusive. There are several reasons that this deal is fundamentally unfair. Five, in fact:

1

Morgan settles for number two According to the provisions of the deal, Mugabe will be the president of Zimbabwe while Tsvangirai will serve as prime minister. Mugabe was also named the chairperson of the Cabinet while Tsvangirai will lead the Council of Ministers. According to Professor Brian Raftopoulos, a Zimbabwean academic, “It’s not clear yet what the relationship will be between the cabinet and the Council of Ministers.

As it stands, the Council of Ministers will oversee the day-to-day areas of governance.” Though this arrangement gives Tsvangirai some executive power,

The not-so-minor issue of fixing Zimbabwe As the head of government, he is expected to perform the Herculean task of fixing Zimbabwe’s broken economy. Tsvangirai needs foreign money to kick-start the economy and curb a rampant inflation rate. However, unless the deal is finalised and seems both stable and democratic, Western powers won’t give economic aid to Zimbabwe. Yet the skewed power-share stifles Tsvangirai’s executive powers, of which he’ll need plenty in order to bring real change for Zimbabwe.

There can be no doubt that the conclusion of the deal is cause for great celebration and international praise. Yet it would be better if the ideological challenges of power-sharing could take a backseat to Zimbabwe’s practical needs for governance. Zimbabweans’ hope in Tsvangirai is the hope for a better future. Yet Tsvangirai does not have ‘a wholesale endorsement’ by the people. Whatever the reasons for his past indecision, Zimbabwe must hope his strength of character prevails for the difficult choices that lie ahead.

Can Tsvangirai deliver on his people’s hopes?

Comment at www.ctglobalist.za.org.

October 2008 - april 2009

The Centre for Film and Media Studies Undergraduate majors in Film Studies and Media and Writing Undergraduate programmes in Film and Media Production, specialising in: Screen Production, Radio Production, Screenwriting, Print Journalism and Interactive Media.

Honours programmes in Film Studies and Film Theory and Practice An Honours and Masters programme in Media Theory and Practice Collaborative Honours and Masters programmes in Political Communication

For details of these courses and of the Centre’s staff, equipment, research activities and plans, go to www.cfms.uct.ac.za

AFRICAN POLITICS

dressing for success

Ermale (left) is master tailor in the village of Lopka, DRC. He takes in former child soldiers as apprentices to his trade. This is part of his village’s contribution to a UNICEF-driven project to reintergrate former child-soldiers and “sex slaves” as productive members of society.

Image courtesy of Julien Harneis.

More dark days in the DRC Politics in the Congo have a history of going badly. The battle for peace is lost in factional fighting and a messy past, says Tara Leverton.

J

oseph Kabila and the transitional government

of the Democratic Republic of Congo have not had an easy run since their inauguration at the end of the Great African War (1998-2003). One reason for this could be the lack of cross-border spring-cleaning since 1994, which has allowed foreign rebels to disrupt whatever peace is eventually instilled in the region. Many of the rogue agents are from the same Hutu militia forces that perpetrated the Rwandan genocide. This, in turn, has given impetus to the Congrès Nationale de la Défense du Pays, under the command of one rebel messiah General Laurent Nkunda. Nkunda is an evangelical and a Tutsi, who has stated that defending the honour of the Congolese Tutsi is his sacred mission.

Since defecting from the army in 2005, Nkunda has settled in North Kivu, from where over 23 000 have been displaced. He blames much of this on government forces, despite eye witness accounts of his own forces initiating conflicts. In 2007, UNICEF estimated that there are at least 2000 child soldiers still under militia control in the eastern region of the province, a large portion of which are almost certainly under Nkunda’s command.

Both the UN and the Congolese government have fingered Nkunda and his ‘Rebels for Christ’ as the flies in the ointment of conflict resolution. On 16

the other hand, a spokesperson for the Rwandan government has gone on record in the Washington Post, blaming ex-Rwandan Armed Force members as the culprits. Controversially, he stated that Nkunda’s actions are “understandable”. One wonders whether the bar for “understandable” in C­entral Africa is that low. It would, at least, explain the African Union’s attitude to Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe.

Another aspect that plagues the nation lies in ethnic hatred. Following the first Congo War, which cost 60 000 civilian lives, Rwanda-backed Laurent Kabila ousted Mobuto Sese Seko. Having declared himself president, however, Kabila then abruptly dismissed his Rwandan chief of staff and ordered all Rwandan military forces out of the country. The ensuing tension heightened when the Tutsi-led Rwandan and Ugandan troops backed an uprising in the resource-rich area of Goma by the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RDC). This, in turn, evoked anti-Tutsi retaliation by Kabila, who recruited militant Hutu forces, leading to public lynchings in Kinshasa. Relations between the DRC and Rwanda have remained rocky in the least, to say nothing of HutuTutsi relations the region over.

The RCD/Rwandan/Ugandan/Burundian forces took more and more of the country until Kabila wooed Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola for their October 2008 - april 2009

troops. On top of this, he received reinforcements from Chad, Libya and Sudan, thereby setting up the cluster-catastrophe that would be the Great African War. Following colonial and Mobuto rule in the area, it was difficult to imagine that human rights violations could be committed on so brutal a scale again. But they were.

A further problem faced by the country is that several empowered entities in the DRC often appear to be working at cross purposes; indeed, even the entities within those entities do not always agree on what they are or should be doing. In January, 2008, for example, over 22 armed forces agreed to a ceasefire via the Goma Agreement. Since it was signed, Amnesty International and UN monitoring forces have noted over 200 violations. In South Kivu, 20 percent of reported rapes are committed by governmental armed forces. This, supposedly, is the army’s way of breaking down those pockets of support for the rebel militias in the villages. Indeed, the report suggests that some civilian groups were “specifically targeted” for this purpose.

It seems unfair to blame a peacekeeping unit for continued violence in the area, but the contention is there. Originally a 5578-strong UN peacekeeping force in 2000, the unit’s numbers inflated to 17 000 following the signing of the Lusaka Peace AgreeThe Cape Town Globalist

ment. At that stage it had a higher budget than any other UN branch globally. And yet it still seems incapable of getting a grip on the situation. In early September of this year, MONUC suffered a violent protest in Rutshuru, suspected to be due to protesters desiring the national army to come through and sweep the rebel forces clean out of the DRC. By the end of last year, the unit’s total reported losses since its deployment came to an incredible 116 men and women.

Solutions are depressingly elusive. Like elsewhere on the continent, the problems posed by colonial rule have severely impacted countries struggling to find their post-independence identities.

Xenophobic hatred is not unique to Africa, but the combination of grinding poverty and rich natural resources on the doorstep, yet out of reach of the local inhabitants, is perhaps more pronounced here than in any other part of the world. The three factors are a dreadful combination.

Tara Leverton Looking for some good news on Africa? See “Angola’s march towards change”, by Jennifer Hotsko, at www.ctglobalist.za.org.

is a second-year student majoring in politics and archaeology. She is deputy features editor at Varsity newspaper.

17

china in Africa

Chasing the

dragon For African economies, China offers an alternative, but at a cost.

By Bontle Senne

Cartoon by Murray Hunter

S

ay what you will, but the developing world

is always willing to be a little ‘out there’ to accomplish what needs to get done. In China, for example, fish farmers clean out the bottom of their fishponds towards the end of the year and wade through not just muck and sludge, but also a thick layer of contraceptive pills. As it turns out, the Pill not only protects the fish from disease but also accelerates their growth. Depending on your perspective, planned parenthood under-the-sea might be an alien concept or sharp innovation. Regardless, as China continues its march through Africa its ways are likely to catch on.

The as-yet unmatched economic dominance of the United States means that what America dictates becomes the norm in global policy. It comes down to a question of capacity: the US has the financial (and military) capabilities to ensure that the costs of disobedience far exceed those of compliance. Somewhere along the way the Golden Rules of “privatise” and “liberalise” became the Golden Straightjacket.

But just like its people’s sometimes unorthodox, yet effective, practices, Beijing has always played a fast-changing international market game by its own rules. It continues to disregard the Powers That Be of the North, regardless of what the West and development theory would have it do, and chases growth 18

in methods that read like a comprehensive list of what not-to-do.

Until fairly recently, the free trade story had been the only one to tell. Mary Simons, a senior lecturer of Political Science at UCT, maintains that good development theory should never be “one size fits all”.

She suggests that Africa should never have played to the Washington Consensus to begin with. Reflecting on her disapproval of the Consensus, she likens it to rain: “When it falls, you have to protect yourself or get wet.” Now that Africa finds itself still caught in the downpour, China may present the Dark Continent with something History has never been too generous with before: an alternative.

China’s economic game plan protects industries and maintains complete government control. In its relations with Africa, without the complications of domestic consensus or pesky interest groups to consider, China has been able to keep up its foreign policy of non-interference and no-strings-attached trade and aid. We might call this policy mix the ‘Beijing Consensus’, going against everything the principles of free trade teach us. This, along with its shared history of colonisation and the success of its alternative policies, has led many African leaders to the conclusion that Beijing might offer more realistic lessons in economic policy than the West.

October 2008 - april 2009

china in africa

To be fair, China did follow a programme of gradual liberalisation and partial privatisation for some time, but these reforms have always been implemented on its own terms. Beginning 30 years ago and continuing to this day, the notion seems to be that the West may have been too remote and patronising in its attitude to growth and Africa, in general. When Toronto mayor Mel Lastman was asked in 2001 about his upcoming trip to meet with African Olympic officials in Kenya to promote his city’s bid to host this year’s Summer Olympics, he answered: “Snakes just scare the hell out of me. I’m sort of scared about going, but the wife is really nervous. I just see myself in a pot of boiling water with all these natives dancing around me.” Faced with Western leaders like Lastman, China’s approach to Africa is refreshing in its deviation from the norm.

All this considered, the question that springs to mind is whether Africa, with China as its model, could emulate the Asian country’s success? Could Africa listen to what Washington says but act as Beijing has?

Reza Daniels of the School of Economics at UCT thinks not. As far as China is concerned, it has developed through a unique process which has included a long period of socialist administration, preceded by substantial land reform and industrial decentralisation. As a result, other countries’ abilities to replicate the model have been limited, even though important policy lessons are constantly observed. China’s economic success has been based not only on independence from international pressure, but also on a brutally efficient and disciplined political system with the will and capacity to go to great lengths to maintain near complete control over its people. African governments have never shown China’s steely, often criticised, resolve, and few possess the capacity and resources to manage the balancing act between a powerful government and a thriving economy.

Nevertheless, Simons believes Africa could learn other lessons from the Beijing model: Officials acting in the interest of their country, for example, rather than for their own benefit. African countries could (and probably should) walk a Chinese-like path towards growth via public investment and targeted, gradual reform. By easing some of the international pressure on Africa and continuing its emphasis on investment and trade, China’s involvement may help considerably. China’s partnerships with Sudan and Angola, with the latter becoming China’s top oil supplier in 2005, have revealed that this is certainly an option.

The concern is whether Africa will be able to endure the consequences, unknown as they are, of such a move. China is no saviour, it doesn’t come in shining armour, and it doesn’t always have Africa’s interests at heart. In 1999, Chinese investors set up factories in Lesotho and Swaziland to avoid US The Cape Town Globalist

and EU quotas on Chinese textiles. When the legal loopholes were cleared up, reigning in China once more, the country closed the factories. Thousands of people were left unemployed, but production in China became cheaper - it was another day of business as usual in Africa. Perhaps the lesson here is the same one Africa has encountered before, that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, no matter whose table you’re eating at. China has more recently begun to invest in agribusiness, agriculture, and fisheries in Africa; contracts have been signed with Sierra Leone, Gabon and Namibia to allow Chinese fishermen to fish in their coastal waters. Feel free to speculate about what pharmaceutical delights that might bring to the shores of Africa.

China now not only imports oil and minerals from Africa, but also access to agricultural land.

With its increasing population and rapid industrialisation, farmland in China has become scarce and the country will soon have to rely on food imports to feed itself. Already, they have leased agricultural land in Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Though opinions fall along the spectrum between dread and excitement, many have come to believe that China may be Africa’s last hope to escape its history as a continent of problems. But once again, Simons isn’t convinced. To her, the picture is more complex than that. There are various suitors trying to woo Africa, from Australia, who recently began operating the largest open-cast copper mine in the world in Zambia, to India, another country certain to upgrade from the third-world kiddies table sometime

Though opinions range from dread and excitement, many believe China is Africa’s last hope to escape its history as a continent of problems. soon. In the midst of a second scramble for Africa, the continent has the chance to play catch-up with innovation, technology and education.

To be sure, China still has a long way to go if its aim is the brand of world domination about which so many seem concerned. With just over $2000 per capita GDP, battling all the standard ills plaguing developing nations, and 22 million of its urban population still dependant on allowances for basic upkeep, there is much the People’s Republic needs to work on. Whether China will take Africa back somewhere the continent has already been - more of a pawn than a real player - or lead it to the success China and others believes is near, is uncertain. Beijing will continue to be key to Africa’s development, regardless.

a beacon of light

China has cut its own path through the economic haze.

Photo by Jennifer Hotsko

Bontle Senne

is in her third year of a B.Com PPE.

19

breaking the bank

Repaving Why there’s no quick fix – and no easy fix at all – to Wall Street’s problems

“So, this credit crunch... How crunchy is it?”

Are you still confused? We sum up the mess in case you haven’t been paying attention.

The origins of the crisis go back as far as eight years. The global economy had been growing rapidly, while interest rates had been consistently low. Banks had plenty of capital but were receiving low yields because of the low interest rates. In an effort to boost returns, investment banks came up with new investment packages.

The point of these packages was to spread the risk inherent in holding a loan. Through investment vehicles like collateralised debt obligations (CDO), traders hoped to limit the risk any single entity was exposed to. In the event of default, everyone would take up a little of the bad debt and no one would be severely set back.

20

However, these debt packages would prove to be deadly practice for many financial institutions. Instead of protecting the banks from excessive risk, the packages spread the bad debt among everyone.

Because the packages had been bundled up and re-sold many times, it was difficult to rate how much bad debt everyone was carrying. Traders relied on the credit rating agencies like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s to do just that.

The systems proved to be inadequate. The sub-prime crisis made shockingly clear how much bad debt everyone had carried and investors lost confidence. Banks have written off billions of

October 2008 - april 2009

breaking the bank

lot can change in a year. A toddler can learn to walk. Pink can become the new black. And a financial system can lose $5trillion like blood from a wound. This has been one such year. To some, it’s a vision that borders on the apocalyptic.

Until recently, the current situation seemed unthinkable on Wall Street. The US housing crisis had been severe (see Volume 3, Issue 1 of THE CAPE TOWN GLOBALIST), but bankers and investors were confident the market was stable and could take the losses in its stride. Only the keenest-eyed economists, and the gloomiest, saw the punishing that was to come. But come it did.

There’s been much talk – at election podiums, around dinner-tables, and in many newspapers – about the need to control “recklessness” and “greed” on Wall Street. Certainly, there’s something slightly disturbing about a system so prone to volatility; where a bank can vanish on little more than a whispered rumour; where bankers pursue profit with regular folks’ money, and lose it in what turns out to be reckless practice.

Hysterical as these thoughts may be, these are hysterical days. (At least, you probably feel that way if you have money invested in the markets right now.) But once we get past the populist rhetoric,and past the pseudo-economics, is serious reform a serious possibility?

“Cowboys or traders?”

Clearly, the current financial system can have

disastrous consequences, however periodic they may be. A system built on faith can send centuryold banking institutions crumbling as soon as investor confidence evaporates. The whole system is at risk from self-fulfilling prophecies, where investors withdraw their money from a bank that is thought

to be failing, thereby causing it to fail.

The fundamental issue is responsibility. In a system where bankers can lose billions of dollars which aren’t really theirs, there are no safety nets for common citizens who have their savings invested through pension funds. Those who lose the money aren’t the ones who pick up the tab. In a rational world, how can the reckless behaviour of a few determine the fate of so many?

Only one other institution carries so much individual power: government. But there’s usually a structured, democratic process that invests this power in a government, as well as some system of check and balance. So why do bankers have near total freedom to pursue profit?

dollars of bad debts and, with their share prices diving, some banks’ worth has fallen up to 75 percent.

Another one bites the dust... (oh, and another!)

The biggest investment banks depend on trading vastly more

money than they have in assets, day-to-day. For this they use shortterm inter-bank loans, often extended to them overnight. Faith in the system ensures that they are always able to get loans, and so are always able to make up losses in future trading.

When fears grew that bad debt had spread deeper than previously imagined, banks were much more cautious in lending money to each other. For the investment banks this was a potential death sentence, as Bear Stearns learned in March, and Lehman Brothers

The Cape Town Globalist

just like old times?

Drama on the US financial markets has set the global economy reeling, evoking memories of 1929.

Image courtesy of US Library of Congress.

learned more recently in September. When doubts whipped ’round about the banks’ solvency , their share prices plummeted. While they could have shored up their assets through their daily trading, nobody was willing to loan money to a bank that might have been on its last legs. The rumours grew until they became reality.

It seems like all the big investment banks are doomed to suffer the same fate unless they merge with larger commercial banks.

This was the prediction of economist Nouriel Roubini, labelled “Dr Doom” by the New York Times for his dismal outlook (which turned out to be frighteningly prescient). While the government helped bail out Bear Stearns, and put together a rescue package for the struggling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it drew the line with Lehman Brothers. The financial groups must either step in to help themselves, or watch some of the biggest institutions come tumbling down.

21

breaking the bank

Wall Street’s $$$hit-list Bear Stearns was one of the world’s biggest independent investment banks. It collapsed in March and was acquired by JP Morgan Chase in May 2008.

Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in September 2008. It was one of the five largest independent investment banks.

The Federal Reserve, like any other central banking system, is responsible for developing monetary policy. It also has regulatory and supervisory responsibilities.

Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association) was created in 1938 to provide easier housing loans in the post-Depression years. A publically traded company, it backed loans in the secondary mortgage industry. Together with Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae was taken into Federal hands after increasing liquidity troubles in 2008.

Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation) was created in the 1970s as a competitor for Fannie Mae in the secondary mortgage industry.

American International Group (AIG), one of the world’s largest insurance firms, was bailed out by the Federal Bank of New York in September 2008 after suffering a liquidity crisis.

Bank of America is the United States’ largest commercial bank and, after the acquisition of Merrill Lynch, the largest financial services company in the world.

Merrill Lynch was another large independent investment bank that was sold to Bank of America in September 2008.

JP Morgan Chase is one of the oldest traditional bank holding companies in the world. It purchased Bear Sterns in May 2008.

Goldman Sachs & Morgan Stanley are the two largest investment banks in the world. In light of recent financial market developments they changed their status to bank holding companies in order to be eligible for emergency government funding.

To save, but not spoil or smother There is no clear solution to the question of what to

do about this inherent instability. All the parties affected have their own views on what should be done.

For many regular people, the answer appears to be a no-brainer: increased regulation of the financial sector, and greater intervention form governments and central banks.

The problem is that regulation needs to prevent immense failures like the ones seen recently but also allow for immense profits in the good times. Even if one accepts that modern economics is cyclical, it’s always tempting to intervene to try to moderate the economic slumps. Though central banks and the IMF are drafting new policy in this regard, it is mostly focused short-term solutions: trying to promote transparency, improve rating techniques for the debt packages, and restore investor confidence.

Nevertheless, there’s a lingering question about hard policy: Can we restrict banks’ financial activity to stop them from hurting themselves and the rest of us?

For mainstream economists and financiers, increased regulation is not a comfortable solution.

“Regulation is dangerous because you do not want to discourage innovation,” argues Brian Kantor, an Investec strategist in Cape Town. “Any regulation may inhibit innovation.” With the capitalist economy built on entrepreneurship and innovation, anything that might stifle this is unappealing.

Greater government involvement also brings complications. Kantor feels that when government

Crash Report 24 September 1869

October 1907

A brazen pair of speculators named Gould

Two men’s failed attempt to corner the

Black Friday

In the last century, there have been dozens of major stock market crises of varying degrees of severity. With many of these at least partly due to reckless profit-seeking by individuals or small groups, some people are starting to wonder how many times we need to crash before we buy a new car.

Sources: New York Times, MarketThoughts. com, The Economist, Wikipedia.org, Time.

22

and Fisk caused financial panic after trying to corner the US gold market. The men used influence with US President Grant and his Treasurer, using inside information to anticipate prices. They bought large amounts of cheap gold, intending to sell once prices rose due to government withholding the sale of its gold. Prices did rise astronomically. When the government responded with increased federal gold sales, the gold price plummeted within minutes. The US economy suffered severe disruption and several brokerages went belly up, but Gould and Fisk emerged relatively unscathed.

Bankers’ Panic copper market caused general panic at a fragile time for the stock market (there had already been a crash that year thanks to speculation). There were runs on several large banks, as millions were withdrawn. The stock market fell by nearly 50 percent over a year and the city of New York was dragged to the brink of bankruptcy. The US Treasury pumped $35-million to save the day, and banker JP Morgan personally came to the rescue. Six years later, the Federal Reserve Bank was created to prevent future financial calamities. The biggest financial calamity in US history was just sixteen years away.

October 2008 - april 2009

breaking the bank

bails out a struggling bank with taxpayers’ money, it creates “a serious moral hazard”. He elaborates: “Once you bail out a big bank, then it sets a dangerous precedent because others may begin to think that they are infallible, and enter into even greater risk.” Because of the huge growth in the industry over the last ten years, some institutions have simply become too large to be allowed to fail. An entity becomes “too big to fail” when their collapse would cause intolerable consequences in the eyes of the government. This is the case with the two mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If these institutions were to collapse, “the American real estate market would suffer a terrible short term shock,” says UCT Economics Professor Don Ross.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s histories make them, in part, the responsibility of the US government. “Fannie Mae was created during the Great Depression by Roosevelt in order to provide affordable housing to the people,” explains UCT’s Dr Tchana Tchana. Freddie Mac was established in a similar vein in 1970. They were quasi-private companies with their shares publicly tradable. Thus, they were responsible to their shareholders although they remained under congressional oversight. With Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae having lent or underwritten $5.3 trillion of the United States’ $12 trillion mortgage debt, it is quite clear that the fallout of their bankruptcy would have been disastrous. This does not apply to private banks, as the US government made clear in the case of Lehman Brothers.

Economic orthodoxy says the answer lies in a competitive, almost Darwinian, environment. Some banks need to fall to teach others a lesson. Intervention only allows inefficiency and malpractice

Photo by Nicole Velleman

to thrive. Yet this must be the bitterest pill for the millions of people whose only part in this was their pension fund.

There is no denying that the financial system as it stands regularly hurts a lot of people, but neither can we ignore that it makes them and others a great deal of money the rest of the time. It would be narrow-minded to suggest that the status quo is the best or only viable way to run a global economy, but there is as yet no alternative with real traction beyond the few members of the group that conceived it. While the economists and bankers work on it though, the restt of us will be stuck with the up-anddown, boom-and-bust cycle that makes modern economic life so interesting.

bernhard schlenther

is research editor at The Cape Town Globalist.

WAYNE IDAS

is a third-year PPE student.

Jonathan Bertscher

is a second-year business science student

Murray Hunter

is editor-in-chief at The Cape Town Globalist.

October 1929

19 October 1987

February 1995

A decade of prosperity on Wall Street

After several years of healthy trade, stock

Barings, Britain’s oldest merchant bank, was toppled by the rogue tradings of one Nick Leeson, a trader in their Singapore office. Leeson had made big profits for Barings, but when his luck changed, he hid his losses from the bank and tried to recoup them through increasingly desperate deals.

By the time his bosses realised what was happening, there was a $1.4 billion gap in their budget. The bank went insolvent, and was bought by a Dutch bank for one British pound. Leeson fled but got dragged back to Singapore for a six-year prison stint.

The Wall Street Crash memorably gave out due to over-confidence and speculation. In a week, the market lost a staggering $30-billion, more than the US had spent in the whole First World War. Compounded by protectionist government reactions, this humbling of the market tipped us to the Great Depression (and, some claim, contributed to the start of WWII).

Taking office in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt’s administration brought in an ambitious New Deal to provide Relief, encourage Reform and speed Recovery, but it was not until well after the war that US employment returned to pre-Depression levels.

The Cape Town Globalist

Black Monday markets across the globe took a nose dive in what became history’s biggest one-day crash.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 22.6 percent in one day – almost twice as much as ever before or since. Interestingly, markets rallied with record gains over the following days and took only two years to recover completely. Quite what happened remains largely a mystery. The collapse has been the subject of much subsequent debate, even necessitating the creation of a number of new models. A lot of the blame probably lies with irrational investor behaviour and computerised trading systems.

Barings gets buggered

23

The DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT (formerly the School of Social Work) is pleased to offer a number of scholarships for postgraduate study. Preference will be given to those applicants wanting to do Master’s or Doctoral studies by research.

Submit applications to: Department of Social Development, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch 7701, Cape Town.

Tel: (021) 650 3493 Fax (021) 689 2739 email: Marguerite.Armstrong@uct.ac.za Deadline for applications: 31st October 2008 Please submit the application forms even if your current course results are not yet available.

Academic Programmes 2009 We offer innovative academic programmes at both under- and postgraduate levels. These programmes have been developed to equip a wide range of social service professionals with knowledge and skills to address social development needs effectively and efficiently.

The programmes are designed to enable you to: • Keep abreast with current issues and trends in South Africa and globally • Update your basic qualification with a postgraduate specialization • Develop research skills • Improve your career opportunities • Strengthen your profession and contribute to social development.

Degrees on offer: • Bachelor of Social Work At undergraduate level we offer a four-year Bachelor’s degree which is required for registration as a Social Worker in South Africa. A limited number of bursaries are available for undergraduate study in the Department.

Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) The Honours programme (four taught modules and a practice

research project) is offered in the following areas: • Social Development • Clinical Practice in Social Work* • Probation and Correctional Practice* • Social Policy and Management The Honours programmes are of one-year duration and offered in modular form (five weeks of Cape Town-based teaching) to benefit students not resident in Cape Town.

• Masters of Social Science The taught Masters programme (four taught modules, an internship and a mini dissertation) is offered in the same specialized areas offered at Honours level. The Masters programmes are of two years duration and classes are offered during the late afternoon/early evening to accommodate working professionals • Master of Social Science in Social Work (by dissertation only) • Master of Social Science in Social Planning and Administration (by dissertation only) • • •

Doctor of Philosophy Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work (by thesis only) Doctor of Philosophy in Social Development (by thesis only)

A limited number of bursaries are available for the undergraduate study in the Department of Social Development. *Admission is limited to social work graduates

Alternative economics

A wholesome alternative A group of idealists are striving to create a moneyless society. Clearly it’s never going to take off as its members would wish, but it might just do some good in small doses.

Words by Duncan Scott Images by Sydelle willow smith

D

on Northcott and Dawn Pilatowicz both

speak passionately of the Community Exchange System (CES). As with any members of a tight-knit community, historical details matter, a lot. So they quibble as they try to determine whether, a few years back, members of the Cape Town CES paid a four-percent or a five-percent levy on transactions. But it’s immaterial. What really matters is they both desire that one day everybody on earth will be on a talent exchange, a system whereby transactions of all kinds are conducted without using money.

In a CES, all products are sold for ‘talents’, a measure of their worth relative to the local national currency. So, for example, at the monthly Cape Town CES market, you can buy Organic Lemonice Lemonade for T10, or second-hand clothes for T5. You can also buy toy cars and other dinky gadgets, but on a sluggish Saturday afternoon at the Salt River Community House, customers are few.

Certain movers and shakers in the Cape Town CES, such as Northcott and Pilatowicz, keep their finger on the pulse of the global economic markets and tend to have sound reasons for their convictions. The local CES falls under an umbrella organisation, the South African New Economics network (SANE), a think tank for alternative economics, and the organisers of the Exchange System are wellThe Cape Town Globalist

versed in the finer details of SANE’s doctrines. Typically though, members’ reasons for joining the CES range from the practical to the spiritual. Eastlynne Nelson-Tansley, a CES member since 2002 and organic lemonade mixer, is an example of the latter.

With business so slow, she was happy to share her views on the economic system. Effusive, in fact.

“It’s the issue of being human.” She sits behind her simple stall, the counter draped with a white sheet advertising the price of an organic refreshment (T10 – Northcott thought it was steep), describing animatedly how money leads to debt, giving way to fear and driving down self-esteem. Barefoot, with loosefitting slacks, a dark top of thin cotton, and short grey hair, Tansley has the look of a hippy who made it to middle-age unscathed. Her thin, bright green necklace, which matches the green of the bottles of lemonade in front of her, is the only piece of clothing that isn’t a browny shade of earth.

Tansley has chosen the moral and economic high-ground, but her knowledge of the intricacies of the global economy is sparse: her argument for global reform is that “being human is more than enough”. But as she summarises her belief in the alternative trade system, she says something no economist could deny, that SANE and the CES have taken “a step towards something different”, an alternative.

back to basics

SANE and the Community Exchange System believe emphasis should be placed on building intimate communities.

Duncan Scott

holds two undergraduate degrees, and is currently working on his honours in media. He is deputy editor at The Cape Town Globalist.

Sydelle Smith

is a first-year student in anthropology and media.

She is photo editor at The Cape Town Globalist.

25

Giving and taking

CES members offer what they can in return for the goods and services they receive from others.

OPPOSITE

Top: SANE elder Don Northcott believes economic pressures will force the world to adopt the principles of the CES. Middle and bottom: CES wares range from the potable to the practical.

26

Perhaps the most exciting of these alternatives, and the one most likely to sustain itself after the initial excitement has passed, is the Transition Network. Dawn Pilatowicz, a small-framed woman in her middle years, spoke enthusiastically of her initiative to set up a CES specifically for the sprawling Cape Town township, Khayelitsha. By implementing the Exchange System, the group hopes the township will become an empowered, self-sustaining community, independent of the economic system which, according to SANE, saps the community members of their meagre income. Confined to a wheelchair, Pilatowicz relies heavily on other members of the CES to ferry her from place to place. In turn, her account is debited the number of talents charged by her driver, so that she is indebted to the community at large to the sum of that debit. After each transaction has been concluded, the parties involved enter the details into an online log so each member of the Exchange can keep up to date with the latest transactions. When you need something, you post an ad for it on the site, and when you have something to give, you do the same. No currency ever changes hands between two people, each trusting in the CES mantra: “What goes around comes around.”

Somewhat contradictory to the ethos of both SANE and the Exchange System, the Transition Net-

work needs outside funding before it can get up and running. The irony doesn’t pass Pilatowicz by; chuckling round the point, though, she continues.

It’s a small glitch in the system but it points to the much larger difficulties that face the organisation.

How to work in the world but not be of it, so to speak? Especially considering that a CES was implemented in the Muizenberg township, Masipumelela, a few years back, which thrived at first but fell flat after funding was pulled. Neither she nor Northcott can give an answer, but Pilatowicz, in her plucky, die-hard manner, has a metaphor at hand to help her illustrate the importance of implementing the new Network: As if the current economic system was a piece of wood in the road, the CES has taken an initiative that circumvents the problem. The way Dawn sees it, the group hasn’t just waited “for the mythical ‘they’ to move the branch”. They’ve done something more with it than the rest, even if they haven’t managed to lift it completely.

SANE chairman, Joseph Edozien, wrote in a paper published early this year of “economic apartheid”. He states that “Political Citizens of South Africa will become fully-fledged Economic Citizens” when they realise that it’s only when a “Pro-Poor State” makes its own money that it can continue on a sustainable path, from both a practical and moral standpoint.

October 2008 - april 2009

Its liberal use of the upper case notwithstanding, Edozien’s statement reflects the Network’s official take on the effects of globalisation. Fundamental to their stance on global affairs and their aim in setting up a Transition Town is the belief that a local currency keeps local wealth for longer. SANE’s perspective is that by trading in knowledge and skills instead of money, a community is able to sustain itself for longer; even if a man has no money, he’s likely to know or be able to do something that another man can’t. And so the community goes round.

At heart, SANE and the CES are wholesome beasts. All they seem to want, and there’s no obvious reason to doubt them, is a better life for all. They call for the strengthening of community networks so that newcomers need not be subjected to embarrassing encounters with strangers; they hope to build a sense of a meaningful community to counter the effects of loneliness and isolation caused by the common fragmentation of the family. It’s an ethos steeped in the tradition of yore, but in striving towards something that has been forgotten, the organisation plays to its strength and weakness. A strength because it’s likely that reverting to a more close-knit society will appeal to and benefit poorer communities, immensely, perhaps. And a weakness because the rest of the world will continue, unheeding of Pilatowicz’s absolutely unselfish approach to trade: that it’s “more about living than earning a living”.

The Talent System Even with SANE, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Here are some prices in the ‘Talent’ market.

ADSL USB modem Used Nikon Camera Yoga classes Tarot Readings PC software coaching Time-management coaching Dog walking Humane mouse trap Trailer hire “Princess” Wedding Gown

T270 T750 T30 T130 T100/ hour T100/hour T20/hour T60 T50/hour T1800.00

Self-delusion or workable solution?

Send us your comments at www.ctglobalist.za.org The Cape Town Globalist

27

Breaking the bank

Meet Mister Microcredit How a Bangladeshi banker went where no other banker would go... Poor people.

trendsetter

Yunus has called his business “sub sub sub subprime”, extending very small loans to very poor people to help start micro-businesses.

Image courtesy of www.igt2008.de

I

t was 1974 when Dr Muhammad Yunus, a university lecturer in Bangladesh, grew frustrated with teaching what he calls “elegant theories of economics”. In a country mired in poverty and shamelessly exploited by moneylenders, these policies seemed empty. His frustration lay at the heart of what would become Yunus’s big idea: making very small loans to very poor people, especially women, to help them start or strengthen a profitable business.

Yunus’s first move to help the poor was bailing out 42 people who were in debt to money-lenders for US$ 27. He paid back the debts from his own pocket, and soon started working toward establishing an official lending scheme for the poor. Banks in Bangladesh were reluctant to lend money to poor people on the grounds that they are not creditworthy, so he often acted as a guarantor for loans.

Despite the banks’ scepticism, the borrowers paid back on time. Slowly, his programme attracted more members and in 1983 Yunus created the Grameen Bank with the aim of granting microcredit 28

to the poor. Grameen Bank used a system of grouplending, which means a borrower must join a group of borrowers in order to obtain loans.

Microcredit banks like Grameen target people who can’t access formal financial services and encourage the poor to create their own microbusinesses, and then pay back the loan as their businesses start generating income.

Today, Grameen Bank also provides financial services such as pension funds, savings initiatives, insurance products, and housing and student loans to millions of families. After almost three decades of service to the poor, Yunus and Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Statistics from the Grameen website indicate that borrowers own 95 percent of the total equity of the bank and government owns the rest. Of its 7.54 million borrowers, almost all are women. Its loan recovery rate is an astonishing 98 percent, and more than half of the borrowers are believed to have crossed the poverty line.

October 2008 - april 2009

Veracruz, Mexico.

T

wenty-two-year-old Claudia Apala Pacheco lives with her six-year-old daughter in San Andres Tenejapan, a small village in the central-eastern part of Mexico. “My husband left Mexico when I was three months pregnant,” she said. “He said he would come back, but now he says he will not.”

Pacheco is one of many women in this region left behind by their husbands. Every week, a van pulls into the nearby town of Tequila, luring workers with the promise of a better life across the border.

Men from the area pay coyotes — human smugglers — in hopes of safe passage to Alabama, in the United States, where better-paying jobs await them.

Many men leave their families behind. Some dutifully send money over the border to support their loved ones at home, but others stop sending money altogether, leaving their families to fend for themselves.

Pacheco and her daughter gave The Cape Town Globalist a tour of their future home, which is now under construction. As the child traced her small fingers across the stucco walls and danced barefoot on the dirt floor, Pacheco said that the existence of this home is only possible now that she has access to credit and financial services.

Mexican credit unions use a model created by the World Council of Credit Unions to bring small loans and savings education to isolated, poor communities, creating possibilities for people who traditionally receive no financial support. It’s a system of fighting poverty that has gained recognition across the globe.

How a little can help a lot Since its inception in Bangladesh 30 years ago

(see article, opposite), the microcredit revolution has spread through Asia, offering the chance of economic upliftment to families like Pacheco’s in Latin America and Africa. According to a report by the Microcredit Summit Campaign, by the end of 2006 there were over 3300 existing microfinance institutions worldwide, reaching an estimated 133 million clients. About 92 million of these people were among the poorest of the poor when they started the programme.

At the core of microcredit is the belief that, under the right conditions, the very poor can make reliable candidates for small loans. Loans as tiny as a few dollars can be enough to start a small business or secure the basics needed to stabilise the pockets of poor families.

The success of microcredit institutions in recovering these loans is largely due to the fact that they are usually granted to a group rather than an indi-

The Cape Town Globalist

The poor (wo)man’s bank Microcredit offers a helping hand to hundreds of millions of poor people, especially women. But is it solving the problems of poverty or just softening them? By Saif Islam and Catherine Cheney 29

Aneel Karnani gives a nod to the positive impact of microcredit in education, healthcare and social development, but doubts its economic benefits. He argues that employment in large industries can do more to solve poverty than microcredit can.

Dr Imraan Valodia, in the School of Development Studies at University of KwaZulu-Natal, shares Karnani’s suspicions: “I agree that microcredit can play an important role in poverty alleviation but I think that too much emphasis is placed on microcredit.” He continues, saying, “It is incorrect to see the poor as all ‘budding entrepreneurs’.”

Most poor people lack skills and entrepreneurial attributes; they end up competing with other selfemployed poor people instead of accumulating wealth or creating jobs.

The World Bank has also been reluctant to lend its full support to microcredit, and until recently the Bank refused to allocate more than one percent of its loan portfolio to microcredit programmes. The Bank claims that for the poorest families, living on less than a dollar a day, the focus should stay on immediate safety nets and handouts.

Many believe that charity from the World Bank is not the answer to poverty alleviation; the poor will only cross the poverty line, and stay there, even once they become financially self-sufficient.

The road ahead

previous page

Mother and daughter Lopez sell fried tortillas from their concrete patio. Their business is funded by a “grupo”, or microfinance group.

vidual. The borrowers are incentivised to help each other not to default on the manageable and regular repayments. Interestingly, women are by far the more dependable borrowers – the fact that the vast majority of microcredit clients are women is fastchanging the gender dynamics among the poor in the communities reached.

Above

Just one piece of the puzzle

Man and beast toil on a microcredit-backed lime farm.

Saif Islam

is a second-year student at the University of Cape Town, majoring in print production and politics.

Catherine cheney is a third-year student at Yale University, majoring in politics and international studies.

She is a senior editor at The Yale Globalist.

30

Although it’s mushroomed in underdeveloped economies elsewhere, microcredit has only a modest presence in South Africa, where economic inequality is rife. Thus, it remains to be seen whether microcredit brings real economic development.

According to Professor Gerhard Coetzee, director of the Centre for Microfinance at the University of Pretoria, microcredit could be a long-term solution to poverty alleviation in South Africa, but only if a wide range of microfinance activities are in place for the poor. “You cannot solve all challenges with group lending methodology alone,” he says. “You also need other products, individual lending, microinsurance and savings services.”

Others are sceptical that microcredit alone can solve global poverty. In an article titled “Microcredit Misses Its Mark”, University of Michigan’s Professor

The Microcredit Summit Campaign plans to reach 175 million people by the United Nations Millennium Development Goal deadline of 2015. The World Bank is also slowly starting to invest more in microfinance, with its initiatives reaching the poor in war-torn countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.

Yet microcredit can’t hope to reach every poor person in the world by 2015, if ever. It would also be naive to think a small loan is all every poor person needs to become a successful entrepreneur and start creating jobs for others in flourishing new microenterprises.

Nonetheless, microcredit is already playing an important role in human development and social reform. For women’s empowerment alone, the potential is enormous.

In Mexico, at a roadside restaurant down the hill from where Pacheco lives, The Cape Town Globalist met Rosaura Cerezo Lopez. She’s only 14 years old, but left school after third grade to support her family financially. For over three years she has earned a salary helping her mother make fried tortillas with sauce, cheese, and pork rinds on a streetside patio. Rosaura now makes 500 pesos a week and has already learned the importance of savings.

“Every 15 days I save 20 pesos,” she said. “I think my life will be better in the future because I am starting to save now.”

October 2008 - april 2009

breaking the bank

Buying into a good thing With more pressure than ever on consumers to make the right choices, Ilham Rawoot looks at what makes doing the right thing so difficult.

Images by Murray Hunter.

T

he developed world undeniably has its

fair share of those smugly annoying people who go around switching off Nestle vending machines, teaching waiters at cafés about fair trade coffee, and lecturing customers buying Coke products. But put them in Cape Town Central Station, face to face with the woman wearing slippers in the rain, with a black bag in one hand and a child in the other. She is buying a cup of coffee. Even they might feel ridiculous saying, “Excuse me, lady, but do you know that people in Ethiopia are being exploited to make this coffee, so you should go online and buy fair trade instead?” It’s difficult to preach in a country where the people can’t hear over the rumbling of their stomachs.

As a leading economic power in Africa, the country seems well situated to prioritise responsible consumerism. There are certainly factors that make South Africa’s dilemma a unique one, and we are some way from a satisfactory response.

The creation of more responsible South African consumers would mean boycotting companies that test on animals, damage the environment, exploit workers or invest in countries with human rights violations. Such a bold move would certainly come with a fallout, and would might well require an official monitoring authority. How, for example, should

The Cape Town Globalist

31

A family affair The Adams family has owned a stall at the Salt River fresh produce market for decades. They built a flourishing business based on bringing a sense of community to commerce. But they say supermarkets and shopping malls have drawn away customers. Zubaida Adams, the matriarch of the business, seems dumbfounded by the allure of impersonal franchises: “Pick ‘n’ Pay: Inspired by what?” she exclaimed in an interview with The Cape Town Globalist.

Previous page

Zubaida Adams and her son Yuthman pose for the camera on a quiet Saturday at the Salt River fresh produce market.

Above

Meanwhile, a few hundred metres down the road at the Old Biscuit Mill, Luqman Adams and his mother Rumina enjoy a bustling trade at their stall at the Neighbourgoods Market. There, they find wealthier shoppers who are often looking for organic products and gourmet foods.

Opposite

The Adams’ stall has an intimacy about it, but supermarkets’ lower prices and fresher produce make up for the lack of atmosphere. When the photographer told one long-time customer that the article was about changing patterns of consumption, he replied, “You want to know changing patterns?” He gestured across the empty lot where the fresh produce market once thrived.

South Africans decide which companies’ products to boycott and which countries’ goods to avoid?

There are currently a few small monitoring organisations and individual activists doing the work of what should, in reality, be a large, unified body.

The next step would be to prioritise the effects of human rights violations, oppressive regimes or environmental perpetrations, settling on the action that should be taken against each one. One scenario would be the South African government placing sanctions against Zimbabwe, but not on those companies investing, or operating, in China or Israel.

On the other side of the debate is Economics Professor Don Ross, of the University of Cape Town, who suggests that the responsibility for disciplining rogue governments and companies lies not with consumers, but with first-world governments.

Direct government action, he says, is the best way to hurt perpetrators.

“Consumers cannot coordinate on what to buy, and how much more to pay for it,” says Ross of ethical products. “And in South Africa, we definitely won’t agree, because the income gap is too wide.”

The only way that ordinary citizens can be expected to buy fair- trade, for example, is if the rich compensate the poor for their extra cost. Considering the inefficiency and expenses that come with this, it seems to be an unlikely proposition.

Boycotts themselves leave the argument for responsible consumerism in a rather tight spot. It cannot be forgotten that international consumer pressure made strong moral demands of South Africa and played its part in the downfall of Apartheid.

But the reality is that, despite the country’s relative The Cape Town Globalist

economic success, the average South African cannot afford an alternative to low cost imports, even if they do come from countries with oppressive governments. As Helen Zille, Mayor of Cape Town and leader of the Democratic Alliance, told The Cape Town Globalist: “We are not a first-world country. We cannot ask people not to buy cheap Chinese imported clothing when they are struggling to put food on their tables.”

But Mike Louw, organiser for the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in the Western Cape, believes that consumers of all backgrounds would be prepared to pay a little extra for ‘responsible’ products, if only they were told of the significance of doing so. Lack of information does appear to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks to the implementation of a comprehensive countrywide programme.

Even where information is available, it needs to be sought. In a country like South Africa, this excludes many citizens who lack the ability and opportunity for research. Even more importantly, perhaps, is that all the relevant information must be accessible in the languages of all communities. Perhaps then the responsibility lies with government, retailers and monitoring organisations to educate consumers.

The small proportion of elite consumers at the top end of South Africa’s dual economy will always have the power to buy responsibly when they feel the moral pinch. But given the chance and with a lot of work, the vastly more numerous working class may be able to harness its real consumer power to make a positive change when it shops.

Ilham Rawoot

is studying a one-year certificate in journalism at City Varsity. She holds a business science degree with honours in marketing.

33

the reading corner

Battling the box office Jerusalema confirms South African films can be good. The problem is money. By Twanji Kalula

T

outed as the next Tsotsi, Ralph Ziman’s

Twanji Kalula

is completing an honours degree in media studies.

Jerusalema had a lot to live up to when it started gaining traction at film festivals earlier this year. With an increasing number of South African movies exploring the issue of crime in the country, a trend is emerging in which crime and its contributing factors are shown from the perpetrators’ points of view. Generally, these films provide heart-wrenching stories, set on gritty backdrops, with thrilling action sequences, while the subtext about the plight of the poor and previously disadvantaged does just enough to pander to upper-middle class guilt.

That said, this particular film is excellent. Rapulana Seiphemo, who incidentally also starred in Tsotsi, plays Lucky Kunene – a surprisingly likable, talented man with an eye for business, who turns to crime when he gets tired of trying to counter life’s hard knocks. Joining him is his best friend Zakes (Ronnie Nyakale). Nazareth (Jeffrey Zekele), a former MK soldier turned local crime boss, draws them into a web of illegal activity.

Frustrated by the failure of his attempts at a legitimate life, Kunene finds himself in Hillbrow, where he eventually formulates a plan to hijack der-

elict apartment buildings by convincing the tenants that he is going to improve their living conditions and reduce their rent. Having conned the tenants, he withholds the money from the legal owners of the buildings.

The plot is based on real events. Ziman, an expat, felt compelled to research, write and direct the film after hearing about what he thought to be a fascinating scam. The movie has political intentions, but the film remains entertaining. It questions social class in the new South Africa, BEE and the rise of socalled ‘Black Diamonds’. The film also draws heavy comparisons between Kunene’s actions and colonisation. While local and international feedback has generally been positive, MK veterans have criticised the film as insulting for the way it portrays struggle veterans.

The cast ensemble includes Robert Hobbs, Kenneth Nkosi, Michelle Maxwell and Shelley Meskin.

The latter has come a long way since her days as a children’s television presenter, playing Kunene’s love interest Leah. Another of the film’s promising young actors is Jafta Mamabolo, who plays the adolescent Kunene.

The budget is estimated to be in the region of $2 million and the filmmakers certainly put every penny to good use. Disconcertingly, though, South African feature films tend to barely manage to break even at the box office. After failed negotiations with Ster-Kinekor, the film has experienced a limited release, leaving it doubtful whether Jerusalema will be able to rake in the almost R20 million it needs to come out even.

The question is no longer whether South African feature films are able to stand alongside their international counterparts. Tsotsi, especially, answered that. The current concern surrounds the financial viability of local feature films. It’s uncertain whether local blockbusters will be able to secure a permanent place in South African cinemas. What is clear is that South African audiences will be the eventual determinant of their futures.

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“T

here’s something missing,” Dr Thiven Reddy says, looking up from a pile of unmarked politics essays. Surrounded by the country’s up-and-coming political elite, he feels that radical politics as South Africa once knew it is dead, or at the very least, dormant. Yearning for the days of sit-ins and protests, rallies and marches, Reddy and other members of the struggle generation look at the current South African youth with a sense of what can only be disappointment that the flame of radical politics has not been kept burning in the 21st century. In Reddy’s mind, a new way of engaging the nation must be found.

Elsewhere in the world, this way of engagement has taken the form of technological interaction and communication. In South Africa, where only a small minority of the population has access to the internet and the social and political networking opportunities it presents, this type of interface takes on a limiting, elitist quality and prescribes the disclusion of those most urgently needing an intervention.

Perhaps some kind of metamorphosis is taking place. Perhaps the days of mass organisation and mass participation are over. Perhaps the loss of legitimacy of extreme politics suffered after the fall of the Soviet Union has heralded a new era of political activism.

The Cape Town Globalist

Requiem for

radicalism Fourteen years after the country’s first democratic elections, radical politics on South African campuses is rare. Sarah Ball goes looking for young leaders at a time when the country needs them most.

35

youth politics

Candles in the Dark “We’re getting lip service, not real service,” says

Tsepho Baloyi, founder of the newly-formed Youth Consiousness Movement. He is referring to the government’s performance, and says South Africans are slowly coming to terms with the difference between the two.

His organisation aspires to reinvigorate youth politics. He first came to the attention of The Cape Town Globalist when he dramatically thrust his manifesto into the hands of Trevor Manuel, Mamphela Ramphele and Alex Boraine at a recent UCT panel discussion.

Mainstream youth groups in South Africa are characterised by hierarchical battles, stagnant ideology and bureaucratic barriers, leaving them with little energy to tackle the issues facing the country.

Nostalgic rhetoric limits the capacity for foresight and party groups tend to leave behind them a trail of apathetic, would-be supporters. Among the youth, loyalty to the ANC seems to be withering away in proportion to its growing loss of legitimacy at a national level. This as leaders’ assurances for delivery continually fail to materialise. The best indication of this is the changing power structures in the country’s universities. Former minority parties such as the DA and the FF+ are getting an increasing amount of support by students who might, in the past, have aligned themselves with the ANC. “I love this guy, he’s like a father to me”, says a grinning Baloyi, paging through a well-thumbed copy of Steve Biko’s I Write What I Like. The quote he is looking for lies at the centre of the concerns of the Youth Consciousness Movement.

“God is not in the habit of coming down from the heavens to solve man’s problems on earth”. Bayoli and his fellow group member Thami Mquba

believe that South Africans feel helpless to take action against poverty, crime, poor education and unemployment. Instead they “sit around” waiting for the government to deliver on promises. In their opinion, this will only be changed when a sense of capability and independence is instilled in young South Africans, allowing them to escape from their unquestioning ANC alliance and to enter the sphere of competitive party politics.

The Youth Consciousness Movement has made its mission to harness the energy and passion of the youth and set it in the right direction. “We refuse to be labelled as a lost generation. We are the same youth with the same vigour…the platform is just not there.” These two young men have taken it upon themselves to provide young South Africans with a suitable platform for creating awareness and providing them with alternative opinions and courses of action to those that are currently being presented.

“If you only have a path B, of course you are going to follow it. We are offering the youth a path A as well,” says Baloyi. He says South African youth are like people in a dark room. “At the moment they are all just hitting against a wall. We can be the candle.”

RE-ENERGISED FOR THE REVOLUTION Speaking in a hush usually reserved for secrets of

the most serious variety, Ben Cronin of the Young Communist League shared his optimism for South African youth politics. Confident that the “temporary victory” of neo-liberal politics in the 1990s has come to an end, he says a new space for fringe politics has opened up. In his mind, fringe movements such as the Young Communist League can only function once the dominant centre has firmly established its position in the political system. In the case of South Africa, the 1990s were unquestionably

New guns

Tsepho Baloyi (left) & Thami Mquba (right), of the Young Consciousness Movement, want to instill a sense of indendence in students and so revive the spirit of radical South African youth politics.

Photo by Antonia Brown

36

October 2008 - april 2009

youth politics

Reviving old times

Students staged a mass procession in March, 2007, in solidarity with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai had been arrested and severely beaten on his way to a prayer rally in a Harare township.

Photo by Murray Hunter

a teething period for the ANC, who, for this reason, faced little active opposition and answered to minimal dissent from outside parties and organisation.

As this period has come to an end and a space for criticism has opened up, opposition parties are able to become increasingly vocal about their differing viewpoints.

To Cronin’s mind, the world is slowly coming to terms with what he sees as the disastrous effects of capitalism. The economic and societal pressures placed on the average global citizen are awakening them to the fact that the current global hegemony is forcing them into an unsustainable lifestyle. The example of Cuba is a source of inspiration, a reminder that the Socialist ideal is not as far removed from the realm of possibility as is commonly believed. Guevara T-shirts and Palestinian scarves are more signs of the youth’s internalisation of radical political ideals than they first seem.

CLEANING OUT THE ROT Among the smaller movements rising from the

ashes is “Students for Change”, headed by UCT student Richard Wilkinson. The central tenet of his approach is that youth need to be educated on the issues for which they should be fighting in order to affect valuable change. According to Wilkinson, lack of awareness and education is the cause of what appears to be apathy. The aim of the organisation is to combine the knowledge and energy of young people into the workable implementation of ideas through the use of online networks and research bureaus.

It has been widely accepted that the idea of reconciliation between people of different races in South Africa has become redundant, and Wilkinson is no exception to this belief. He sees a new idea

The Cape Town Globalist

emerging whereby real reconciliation needs to happen between economic growth and social justice.

Wilkinson compares South African politics with South Africa CBDs - both “rotting cores that need to be regenerated from the inside”. Young people’s unthinking adherence to outdated ideology causes an inability to find solutions to current problems. This won’t be altered until a capacity for change is created through luring South Africa’s best young leaders back into politics and away from civil society, which is a perceived as an oasis of admin-free social interaction. Wilkinson sees the academic basis of his movement as a way of achieving this.

A recurring theme among these very different groups is that the youth’s battle needs to be more clearly defined. In one sense, this is what sets today’s youth most clearly apart from the youth of the ’70s and ’80s; Apartheid was a clear regime against which people were able to mobilise.

“Do people have to be oppressed before something is done?” says Mquba in reference to the political vitality of the youth of the ’70s. Perhaps so.

It’s disheartening to believe that South Africans will only rally together in the case of a disaster. The fact that the membership of both Students for Change and the Youth Consciousness Movement is under 500 seriously calls into question the viability of these groups as tools of mass mobilisation. If this is all they can do to reach out to the people, all that they can hope for is that the people will eventually reach out to them. Only then can a truly effective and well supported movement emerge. “History does not betray itself,” says Mquba, of the Youth Consciousness Movement. “When leaders are called for, they will appear.” One hopes that he’s right, and that when they do, South Africans will have the courage and awareness to follow them.

sarah ball

is a third-year student majoring in English, French and politics.

Antonia Brown

is a first-year student majoring in anthropology and drama.

37

&

the lighter side

Hard policy heavy drinking I

The Cape Town Globalist reports from behind the scenes at the last G8 Summit.

t is a startling thing to see someone doing

Murray Hunter

is completing an honours degree in media theory.

He is editor-in-chief of The Cape Town Globalist. For him, the notion of reporting on an actual G8 Summit is not so much a lifelong dream as it is a recurring fear.

38

body-shots off the chancellor of Germany. Especially when the chancellor of Germany is Angela Merkel. And more especially still when the person taking the shots is the prime minister of Italy, Silvio Burlusconi.

The Chancellor was lying on the bar in the Hokkaido diplomatic lounge, her blazer and blouse pulled to accommodate a shot of grappa in her doughy midriff. A cheer went up from the watching statesmen as Burlusconi sucked the alcohol from the depths of her navel.

It was a fitting conclusion to a day of hard policy discussions. Climate change and third-world debt relief had been high on the agenda. Talks ended today with a firm resolution to seriously consider adopting new proposals to hold further discussions on those matters.

And at the G8 Summits, the motto has always been one of, “Talk Hard, Drink Harder.”

It was certainly a privilege to be the only member of the press corps to get access to the post-Summit drinks. The venue combined shoji wall panelling and disco club decor. There was a karaoke unit in one corner, and a disco ball spun light idly across the floor. As I surveyed the room, scribbling notes, a man of unassuming bulk sidled up beside me. It was the president of the United States of America. He gave me a sideways grin and drummed his hands on the pinewood bar.

“So whaddya think of the economony?” the Texan asked the room affably. I caught a whiff of scotch.

There was no response. Sarkozy of France and Medvedev of Russia were bent over a billiards table, their jackets off. Sarkozy appeared to be in the middle of a raucous joke that relied heavily on the phrase, “It was in zhe monkey’s arse after all!” Merkel was standing further down the bar, buttoning her

blouse. Yasuo Fukuda of Japan and the Canadian Prime Minister, whose name I can never recall, stood politely as Carla Bruni did a run-down of one of her songs. I couldn’t hear the lyrics, but the accompanying dance certainly seemed to have their attention.

“Somebody get this boy a drink,” barked President Bush, clapping a hand over my shoulder. Another whiff of scotch... only much later in the evening, hunkered around a table with several world leaders and an equal number of culturally appropriate beverages, I noticed the Plus Five nations (Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa) were nowhere to be seen.

I mentioned it, and an awkward silence fell on our group. The Canadian Prime Minister (whose name I can never recall) studied his shoes. President Bush looked at the ceiling. Wincing, Mr Brown spoke: “The Plus Five are lovely fellows, you know. But, hmm, they’re not, umm, our sort of people, you understand?” He looked at me expectantly.

Yes, I said, I understood.

There were reports the G8 intended to reduce the amount of aid it had pledged to developing nations at the 2005 Summit. I asked if this was true.

Another hush. Everyone peered into their drink.

Suddenly, the Japanese Prime Minister brightened: “Karaoke?”

In unison, the G8 looked up. “Karaoke!” they cried. Someone whistled for the bartender.

I don’t recall much else from the evening. My notebook carries the following words, in my handwriting: “2AM. Wow. Nice guys. If only Oxfam could see this side of G8, wld nt b so critical. Merkel = robust singing voice. Pity Gordon went to bed early.”

Below that, in a softer script I didn’t recognise, it said: “Carla xoxo” and then a nine-digit number.

Can’t wait for next year.

October 2008 - april 2009

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