Mark August 14 2012 as a significant day in South African history because at a most remarkable meeting held in Botrivier on that day, the institutional process of Theewaterskloof (TWK) local government truly engaged, for the first time ever, with the Botrivier community process of democratic participation in the practical matters of local government.
After suffering serious angst from two angry protests held by the community, along with two subsequent months of drastic tension while trying to help get a meaningful mediation process under way, my expectation of this meeting had been, quite frankly, rather low indeed. How wrong I was.
TWK government chose to bring to the meeting four councillors (one of them the deputy mayor, and one of them the speaker) the municipal manager, four departmental directors, the Botrivier town manager and several excellent support staff. This turnout was very, very impressive indeed. But most significantly of all what they also brought was genuine goodwill and a serious intent to engage meaningfully with the whole community of Botrivier.
For the first time since the giddy days of the RDP I awoke the following morning to feel that a rainbow was glimmering over Botrivier. But once the euphoria wore off I still found myself wondering was this process for real? Could we in our little town have actually made a breakthrough towards establishing real constitutional democracy?
Well, for an answer, there was another meeting held yesterday, August 15, which I believe proved beyond doubt that we had. This second meeting was also attended by two ministers from provincial government along with several of their senior support staff, and was a mind-boggling event I tell you. Under the chairmanship of our most excellent local intervention manager, the Botrivier Residents Association, TWK municipal manager, TWK speaker of council and ministers of provincial government had an open discussion about a very broad range of critical local issues.
To cut a long story short, the outcome of this incredibly positive discussion can best be summed up in the words of by far the most cynical member of the Botrivier contingent. In a relaxed discussion with the speaker afterwards he remarked, “I never thought I would see this day in my lifetime”. With the radical divisiveness in our national politics over the last few years, I must admit I harboured serious doubts about this eventually as well. But now I truly believe this breakthrough is very real indeed.
What this simple, frank and open, joint discussion process revealed for me were two crucial things.
1) All that holds back meaningful progress in this country are the tedious little mindset boxes that restrict and conflict our different roles and functions in the whole process of building “the democratic community” our Constitution requires for it to function properly at all.
2) Removing the divisiveness of party politics from the local democratic process, as well as from the domain of professional local, provincial and national government opens all of these awful mindset boxes, and provides the freedom of democratic expression for the “whole” of government to begin really working, as it constitutionally should.
These two things I have experienced for real over the last two days, and I can assure you they established a quite astounding process to be part of. There is obviously much work still to do in order to anchor this new process of complimentary cooperation into our everyday reality, but it is safe to say for now that, for all of us here in Botrivier, the rainbow is truly back.
@Ian, you are very priviledged to receive this type of action and response. It would be great if these officials could afford all communities in the Western Cape the same treatment. If one looks at the protest actions that have continued unabated and without much media coverage, one wonders what makes your community different to theirs. Also, it seems that you enjoyed the attention of a wholesale contignent and it yet, it seems very difficult for the DA to send a councillor or an MEC to a township that is very close by. Theewaterskloof is a distance compared to these townships and yet the quick response, is mind boggling. I say this simply because in a province, where ”open toilets” were the order of the day and where a Mayor, De Lille, tells communities not to complain to her but the councillors, epitomises the type of cheap politicking and lack of humanity the prevails in that province. Also, you should also be patting all and sundry on the back simply because your issues have ”jumped” the queue. Despite all the media hype about being the best province, we still find abject poverty and non-delivery to the poorest of the poor. Despite all the media hype, housing is still a major issue. The is no grand scale on housing delivery as promised. Rubbish is still not collected in townships and water and sewerage is a luxury for the majority of citizens who reside in this province. We see over 20 schools closed in a province where childres are called ‘refugees’in…
cont/… of birth. I am therefore wondering if I should congratulate you for being strategic for publishing this story and somersaulting your issues so conveniently or should I cry at the sheer unfairness of it all.
This sounds like a hopeful beginning. but, the proof is in the eating….or in this case “the delivery” of solutions to all issues that led to the protests in the first place.
SAA has just decided not to accept white men for their pilot training programme in order to get the “racial ratios” in the cockpits in line with the “national racial ratio” on the ground. Instead of asking themselves why this situation exists and addressing the cause, SAA chooses the easy way out: “ban white men from flying for SAA”.
This after some international airlines have been roaming the SAA staff of trained pilots to add to their staff.
Immediate public reaction: “boycot SAA when and where you can”….
I wish that the kind of meeting you described here, could be repeated….that a similar formula as for this meeting could be found for many other meetings addressing the real problems instead of creating more racial confrontations and conflicts as done by SAA and closely followed by the saddening mine workers conflict and its deadly solution.
Let us not underestimate the effort and quality of the Bot River Residents Association facilitator and the TWK Municipal Manager in this evolutionary event – they are responsible for the creation of this meme.
A meme is defined by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
The Bot River Residents Association have a way to go. They will negotiate the demise of the existing Ward Council Committee – who have no teeth – and be replaced with a committee of non-political residents seeking social justice in terms of what TWK can deliver in their role as providers of municipal services and managers of social housing.
I too cannot believe what happened – I suspect the DA leader had a word with someone – I could be wrong. The level of commitment from the Ministers was too real to be contrived. Similarly the the presence of municipal political appointees.
This event could be the beginnning of and provide the poor and those with low income with a system to satisfy their needs.
Or are they just scared the residents will close the N2.
@Tofolux. The doubt I had about posting this piece, for the strategic reasons you point out, was finally overruled by the fact that I felt it was a noteworthy event which needed to be shared. Besides, I thought we could all do with some good news right now.
The reason it happened in Botrivier rather than in the metro is that here our various population groups live together in close proximity and share what local facilities there are such as the one local mini-mall and the post office. A fully representative engagement between all groups is therefore possible to achieve here whilst this is not possible in the great separateness of the metro. This is why I prefer to live and work in small towns. I love the greater connectedness of the small community.
The crisis of the protests brought the townspeople together because they were ALL very badly effected by what took place. As such we were able to establish a fully representative organization for local and provincial government to engage with. Its as simple as that.
Mistrust all round nearly destroyed this process on several occasions, but in the end a neutral discussion was held, and an action plan is on the table to resolve the reasons behind the crisis.
The bottom line is I think the disorganized and dysfunctional state of ‘the community’ makes it impossible for government to work in the first place. And I think political division and conflict is the ultimate culprit. Let’s just lose the politics I say.
That’s all we had to do here in Botrivier to get our local democracy working after all.
Thank you for sharing this Ian. Advising for local government I often see promising cases of partnership, collaboration and delivery that the press doesn’t cover. Its good to see one being written about for a change. I think smaller areas offer greater potential to showcase democratic problem solving, because there is already a well defined “community”. However even in the City of Cape Town, while some areas typify the kind of conflicts we see in the media and mentioned by Tofulux, others show great promise. For example the Harare Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading process and the cities new “live well, build well” program. We need to celebrate and discuss when things go well more often or the state of the country will seem bleak indeed.
@Ian, the irony is that the DA reported this in the WCape legislature as one of their successes. Now sure I am all for good news and good stories but excuse me for being cynical. In the Wcape today, we have seen the largest amount of protests in that Province. Some of these protests were there long before your issue hit the radar screen. Of late, we have seen closures of much needed schools with absolutely NO consultation with communities. The point I am making, is that it is unfair to jump the queue because of associated influence. It also proves the point, that the poorest of the poor have no influence. It is just simply disgraceful and my challenge to you is to highlight in your forums issues of the poor, so that they too can enjoy such priviledged treatment from a political party for the priviledged.
@ Tofolux. Yes, the Western Cape has experienced arguably the largest number of ‘service delivery’ protests and there is compelling evidence that most of these protests have been politically motivated and manipulated, to the detriment of people who may have genuine grievances. You seem to have misunderstood what Patricia de Lille said: she merely said that councillors have a role to play in the democratic process and that they should be held to account if they do not listen to the communities they are paid to represent. When she attended a community meeting in Khayelitsha recently she had to leave because of the aggressive and threatening behaviour of the ANCYL members present. Why did they not want the Khayelitsha community to hear what she had to say? She has vowed not to give up meeting with the communities in person. Remember that the DA took control of the Western Cape only from June 2009. Before that the ANC controlled the WC for seven years, and during that time there were also frequent service delivery protests. Since 2009 the DA has closed 15 schools, and built 33 new schools, and a further 81 schools will be built in the next few years according to their programme. They have proposed the closure of another 27 schools and are currently engaged in the public participation process after which they will decide if any of the schools should be closed. During their tenure the ANC followed the same rationalisation process and closed 47 schools in the Western Cape – no…
@Tofolux. Well for starters we did not ‘jump the queue’ as you put it. Our community was in a deep and scary crisis which demanded immediate action to stop it. This we did as best we could, and, as it turned out, maybe managed to create a local governance breakthrough in the Western Cape.
The external help we, the community, unavoidably required to pull this off were crisis intervention and conflict mediation. In the first instance this facilitation was provided by CoGTA and was extremely well done. But we think that CoGTA was worried about jumping in over the heads of province. It appears that problems have arisen for them in two other provinces from such interventions.
Although it took a while to materialize, (and was nudged along politely by CoGTA), province did provide the second instance of facilitation, and again it was very well done. So all in all everyone participated very professionally in finding a meaningful solution, and end, we hope, to our particular crisis.
The thing is, what got it all motivated in the first place was that the Botrivier community got itself organized by forming a non-political association to deal with its own crisis. Interestingly the provincial minister for local government observed that there were an impossibly large number of individual requests for help to deal with; but that having a request from a one community body made it possible to help.
Whatever. Botrivier is calm again, so I don’t care if they take the credit.
@Marianne, if truth be told you are giving the youth league too much credit. If truth be told, they simply do not have that kind of influence. If you followed reports in other media, you will find this very youth league having problems trying to convene a simple conference, regional or provincial. So sure, its quite convenient, that the issues of the poor is always the cause of ”someone else” It is quite convenenient that the issues of the poor are never addressed. It is quite convenient that the issues of the poor have no influence whatsoever. As the author quite gallantly displays in his do-not-care-about-them attitude, the DA does not care about the poor.
“The DA does not care about the poor” is a mantra repeated by members of the ANC, who hope that if it is repeated frequently enough that perception will become entrenched and generally accepted as the ‘truth’. However, it bears no relation to reality because since the DA was elected to govern the Western Cape, far more resources have been directed towards service delivery to the poor than under the ANC. There are a number of recent independent studies by IHS Global Insight, Empowerdex, the S A Institute of Race Relations as well as the Dept of Local Government & Traditional Affairs’ Universal Household Access to Basic Services Report, which rate the WC highest for service delivery to the poor. Of course there are still challenges that lead to service delivery protests, but the DA does not claim to be a perfect government, they do not make unrealistic promises, and they look for viable and long-term solutions. When they took over the WC they inherited 227 informal settlements with little or no services, an enormous housing backlog, and there is the ever moving target created by people migrating to the WC, coupled with limited resources. I believe that many of these challenges can be overcome if they are allowed to do what is necessary without destructive political interference. As far as the local ANCYL involvement in service delivery protests is concerned, charges have been laid with the SAPS and we shall have to wait for the outcome of the investigation (if there is…
@Marianne & Tofolux. Well really. You’re having a political spat on my democratic blog page.
The point I may not have made clear in this post, and several responses to responses, is, let’s lose the politics from the local community and get on with finding professional, democratic solutions to the many crises. If you do not believe this is possible it is exactly what happened in Botrivier. It was far from perfect, but it worked.
Whether they are DA poor, or ANC poor, or COPE poor they ALL need urgent relief and socio-economic progress.
Continuing to play the political blame-game just obscures this critical reality, wastes time and effort, and does them all a great disservice.
@Ian, it is difficult to lose the politics because politics has been played with this very particular issue. Notwthstanding the fact that a political party claimed this issue as their issue but also noting that despite all intentions, this was nothing but a ”strategic” media exercise and some cheap politicking. Sure the community benfitted, but at whose expense? We cannot be this blase and unsympathetic to the needs of the poor. Not when there are so many that are struggling just to be heard. I am all for activism wherever and whenever. But can we agree that there are those out there who really require these very scare resources more than we do and that we dont have much to lose by giving them a chance for a bite at the DA cake. Also, a humanitarian has a concern for humanity at large. Is there a chance that we are losing our sense of concern for other human beings and that we do not care? Idealistically, on reading this article, one would claim a ”wow” moment but in hindsight, it just leaves a bad taste because of this cheap politics!
@Marianne, you know, one just have to drive from the airport in Cape Town to the city centre and note that nothing has changed. No amount of stats(who in any case trust stats) can change this fact. Maybe you should look at the background facts of this story. Do you think that the people in Theewater protested because of ANCYL? Please read the previous blog i.t.r and try and be objective.
@ Ian Dewar. I apologize. My intention was only to put right some misconceptions that Tofolux seems to hold about the DA – seems that it is not that easy for me to step out of my box, but you have inspired me, and I’m sure many others, to try.
@Tofolux. I find myself at a loss as to how I can appease your unhappiness with this process. But I’ll try.
The Botrivier community will benefit from this process for sure. But not at anyone else’s expense. The list of grievances submitted to the TWK are all based in local government law, and having them addressed is their due right in that self-same law. Every democratic community has the same rights everywhere, so I can’t see what is so wrong with this particular Botrivier process.
Must the Botrivier community be pilloried because they got themselves off their backsides and (possibly) made it happen first? I don’t think so. That would be most unfair. Whatsmore, the institutions of government seems very keen to engage with the process.
Every other community must just play catch-up as far as I’m concerned. And believe me, my community is very poor so I feel no guilt at all about saying this.
What more could a poor community want for starters? All they would have to do first is get democratically organized.
@Ian, firstly, there are two spheres of govt at play here. This is the background to the protests after all. One, the local municipality, which I agree, should deliver much needed services to their local constituents and secondly, the Provincial sphere, where the problem exists. ie protests were not only located to municipal issues but to provincial issues eg the schools. What we have is a scenario, where there is a disconnect between the local municipality and the province because of unnecessary politicking. The issue of the schools is a clear eg where the DA created that problem. But this problem is different to the issue of service delivery. What is being created is that all problems have been fixed and that Theewaterskloof will live in land fantasia until Jexus comes. All protests are multi layered and multi dimensional. To play politics with the issues of the poor should be discouraged and frowned upon.
@Tofoloux. Nice assessment. But dare I suggest that with national government not being able to fix the economy all three tiers of government are at play here. (I believe it is deeply biting poverty which fundamentally ignites these local-issue protests). This means there is a three-way disconnect with each tier spinning freely to its own political drum – and getting nowhere. So here’s what I see now.
National government arrived in Botrivier to make the first crisis intervention – but then cautiously stepped back. With a little prodding from national AND province, TWK local government then came to the table – once they had checked that the Botrivier democratic process was legitimate, and not political-party motivated. Next province is going to facilitate the round table engagement about the grievances. And CoGTA is still observing in the background.
So what we have right now are the three cogs of government fully-engaged and turning carefully together in a professional manner – without spin – and, along with the Botrivier democracy, beginning a journey to somewhere.
To where exactly remains to be seen. But at least we’re moving; and it’s already better by far than our prior moribundity from self-divisive political spin.
@Ian, hence it brings me back to my point ie that cheap politicking is being played with these issues. I am rather one who would celebrate results rather than the posturing and I just have a certain fear of this end result. Furthermore, it is obvious how very limiting our knowledge is of the roles and responsibility of the different spheres of govt. What this means is that the those who should be blamed are never fingered simply because they hide behind the usual suspects. However, this is once again,another failure of our concessions at Codesa. ie being duped by the Nats. Hence I wonder when we assess, is there proper consideration of the material conditions on the ground and are we objective enough to use the proper tools for a meaningful analysis?
@Tofoloux. Sometimes that exercise just causes analysis paralysis.
My solution is to just work with the positive and to hell with the rest.
I’m a bit dizzy from all this. Think I’ll just pop off for a few weeks fishing.
Will keep you posted on what pans out though. Ian