The majority of South Africans die without having even the basic conditions of dignity realised, said Nelson Mandela Foundation researcher Themba Mbatha in a report on what is sufficient for human dignity in South Africa.
The report forms part of a body of work that has come out of the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s recent exploration of what is sufficient for human dignity. The Foundation recently co-hosted a dialogue on the topic with the Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute (SPII) and the Hanns Seidel Foundation. It is clear that this is a question not yet adequately answered, and is a conversation that needs to continue.
Poverty and inequality continue to plague South Africa in ways that should continually force us into reimagining the strategies and tools available for engaging with, and solving, this problem, the Foundation said.
Speaking at the dialogue, activist and academic Leigh-Ann Naidoo said the greatest indictment against modern South Africa is that inequality has increased since the first democratic elections in 1994, even if the greatest general increase in income has been experienced in the black community.
Poverty and inequality, plus the police killings at Marikana in 2012, the #FeesMustFall student protests and the deaths of almost 100 mentally ill patients removed from the Life Esidimeni hospital to ill-prepared NGOs, show that democracy has “failed” in South Africa, she said.
The complicity between government and corporate power, the failure of democracy in South Africa and the world, and the country’s deep inequality, which still runs along racial lines, has been exposed through these incidents, Naidoo said.
Business Leadership South Africa chairperson Jabu Mabuza said that black economic empowerment (BEE) and government redistribution programmes have failed. Too many black businesspeople have jettisoned “optimal profit”, in which business grows, but not at the expense of others, for “maximum profit”.
To Mabuza, the language of policy represents the best way to have a conversation about what is sufficient to lead a dignified life.
Mabuza was criticised by Naidoo for saying that civil society has to come up with solutions for South African society, and replied that business is in no position to come up with solutions for the poor. He said that business is “willing to be part of” whatever solutions society devises.
Cape Town activist Faeza Meyer’s comment that the greatest problem facing indigent communities in South Africa is that “we haven’t had an opportunity to say what we want, what we need”, would seem to back Mabuza up.
Meyer was made homeless in 2011 and became an activist for Cape Town organisation The Housing Assembly.
She said that government agencies and NGOs come into communities with ready-made solutions, or ask “about four” people what is needed, and go ahead based on that inadequate level of consultation. This is wrong.
There needs to be more comprehensive community involvement in decisions about their futures. Without a proper conversation along these lines, South Africans will continue to have “protest as the only language”, she said.
Meyer said single solutions are inadequate. “We can tax people and give everyone a house ... but what will I do with a house if there is no job and my children are sick? The system has to change.”
Another hurdle Meyer highlighted is that there is no central understanding of what is needed to give all South Africans a dignified life. “Everyone is fighting everyone else,” she said, adding that even within groups – townships, organisations, political parties – there is no one idea on what would be sufficient for dignified life.
Isobel Frye, director of SPII, said her organisation is working on developing a decent standard of living index for South Africa that could be used to lobby government, especially in respect of the national minimum wage and social grants.
South Africans have to come up with a “theory of change” that uses home-grown methods to solve the problems of poverty and inequality in South Africa, she said.
Mbatha argued that solving the problem of such widespread lack of dignity cannot be left to the government. Non-governmental organisations, business, academia and other parts of civil society have to pitch in.
“In other words, if sufficiency and dignity are to be addressed in any meaningful way, it would have to be accepted that – while there irrefutably exists these enumerated injustices – the greater injustice by the South African community would be to allow the government absolute control over the lives and livelihoods of its citizenry.”