Time and again, poor communities have blockaded highway lanes with rubble and burning tyres.
This may seem like what has over the past three years become a familiar scene of South African-style service-delivery revolt. But look closer, and there is something new afoot: this time it is organised.
Social protest almost disappeared from the landscape after the ANC's landslide victory in 1994 under the impetus of the social compact it was able to enforce through both its strategic alliances with the likes of Cosatu and the sheer weight of the prestige of its national democratic revolution.
But by 2000 dormant old concerned residents associations in the formal townships of Joburg, Cape Town and Durban were on the move again, now joined by new formations in challenging that revolution's tardy delivery on its promise of "a better life for all"...
But in September 2004, with violent protests in the Free State town of Harrismith, the pattern shifted towards those who had nothing, with the outbreak of service-delivery revolts in rural areas and in the shantytowns abutting small platteland towns.
Since then, a study by the University of the Free State has shown, the smoke of burning tyres again marred the horizon, with something like 6 000 service-delivery revolts across the country, at least 30 of them described as serious.
These were different to the social-movement protests: spontaneous, driven by local petty politics and jealousy, they were mostly not planned.
The protesters were also different: often young, newly impressed into the peri-urban poor, they were mostly bywoners, renting from shack-dweller landlords.
"It's a mixture of people who are taking to the streets. You have those who were involved in the struggle against apartheid - but the youth are quite active also.
"You have quite a few Indians and coloureds, not just blacks, supporting the action."
"You have people who have been living in proper houses for 50 years, and others who come from very disadvantaged areas. There is this new commonality between people fighting against prepaid water meters and those who have nothing." ...
Part of the problem appears to be that police are illegally assuming magisterial powers to ban protest - and even assembly - outright: APF chair Brickes Mokolo and eight APF leaders were arrested on Tuesday simply for addressing a crowd.
This is despite two landmark court rulings in March 2006 in favour of the shack dwellers' movement: anyone has the absolute right to gather and demonstrate without police permission; police must merely be informed so that traffic arrangements can be worked out. They have no right to ban any gathering or demonstration, unless it turns riotous...
Local government specialist Professor Greg Ruiters, of Rhodes University, said in 2005 that the yawning chasm between the promises of the developmental state and the grinding poverty of SA's sprawling shackland would increasingly see people take to direct action.
One of the main reasons for this, Radebe says, is that the poor distrust their councillors: "Wards are run as ANC party branches and there is no representation of the broader community at meetings," he notes.
"In addition, people have come to suspect that their councillors do not have real power because whenever they deliver petitions to them, they are told the councillors don't have the power to implement their needs and demands."
Professor Sheila Meintjes of Wits University's political studies department has warned: "There is a growing sense the councillors don't necessarily hold all the power, that the municipal officials are really, if anything, to blame for a lack of service delivery." ...
"The key problem for all parties," according to Ruiters, "is that citizens have discovered another, more direct, channel for giving voice to their needs: 'collective bargaining by riot' may become more common than waiting to vote." - THE STAR
This may seem like what has over the past three years become a familiar scene of South African-style service-delivery revolt. But look closer, and there is something new afoot: this time it is organised.
Social protest almost disappeared from the landscape after the ANC's landslide victory in 1994 under the impetus of the social compact it was able to enforce through both its strategic alliances with the likes of Cosatu and the sheer weight of the prestige of its national democratic revolution.
But by 2000 dormant old concerned residents associations in the formal townships of Joburg, Cape Town and Durban were on the move again, now joined by new formations in challenging that revolution's tardy delivery on its promise of "a better life for all"...
But in September 2004, with violent protests in the Free State town of Harrismith, the pattern shifted towards those who had nothing, with the outbreak of service-delivery revolts in rural areas and in the shantytowns abutting small platteland towns.
Since then, a study by the University of the Free State has shown, the smoke of burning tyres again marred the horizon, with something like 6 000 service-delivery revolts across the country, at least 30 of them described as serious.
These were different to the social-movement protests: spontaneous, driven by local petty politics and jealousy, they were mostly not planned.
The protesters were also different: often young, newly impressed into the peri-urban poor, they were mostly bywoners, renting from shack-dweller landlords.
Their demands were for houses, jobs and services, none of which they had.But the revolts of the past month along the highway have seen a new dynamic emerge, according to Radebe: the merging of the organisational forces of the formal social movements and of the spontaneous mobilisations of the shackland underclass.
"It's a mixture of people who are taking to the streets. You have those who were involved in the struggle against apartheid - but the youth are quite active also.
"You have quite a few Indians and coloureds, not just blacks, supporting the action."
"You have people who have been living in proper houses for 50 years, and others who come from very disadvantaged areas. There is this new commonality between people fighting against prepaid water meters and those who have nothing." ...
Protesters complain that they have seen more of police rubber bullets than any concrete government plans.
Part of the problem appears to be that police are illegally assuming magisterial powers to ban protest - and even assembly - outright: APF chair Brickes Mokolo and eight APF leaders were arrested on Tuesday simply for addressing a crowd.
This is despite two landmark court rulings in March 2006 in favour of the shack dwellers' movement: anyone has the absolute right to gather and demonstrate without police permission; police must merely be informed so that traffic arrangements can be worked out. They have no right to ban any gathering or demonstration, unless it turns riotous...
Local government specialist Professor Greg Ruiters, of Rhodes University, said in 2005 that the yawning chasm between the promises of the developmental state and the grinding poverty of SA's sprawling shackland would increasingly see people take to direct action.
One of the main reasons for this, Radebe says, is that the poor distrust their councillors: "Wards are run as ANC party branches and there is no representation of the broader community at meetings," he notes.
"In addition, people have come to suspect that their councillors do not have real power because whenever they deliver petitions to them, they are told the councillors don't have the power to implement their needs and demands."
Professor Sheila Meintjes of Wits University's political studies department has warned: "There is a growing sense the councillors don't necessarily hold all the power, that the municipal officials are really, if anything, to blame for a lack of service delivery." ...
"The key problem for all parties," according to Ruiters, "is that citizens have discovered another, more direct, channel for giving voice to their needs: 'collective bargaining by riot' may become more common than waiting to vote." - THE STAR
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