Bee: Helping or Hurting?. Anthea Jeffery
relations. This requires: the deracialisation of ownership and control of wealth, including land and equity; affirmative action in the provision of skills and access to positions of management; … and systematic and intelligent ways of working in partnership with private capital in a relationship … defined by both unity and struggle, co-operative engagement and contestation on fundamental issues. It requires the elimination of the legacy of apartheid super-exploitation and inequality, and the redistribution of wealth and income to benefit society as a whole, especially the poor.38
The Preface noted that this programme would involve ‘a continuing struggle’ that would intensify over time. ‘Because property relations are at the core of all social systems, the tensions that decisive application of this objective will generate will require dexterity in tact and firmness in principle.’39
The Polokwane Strategy and Tactics document, adopted in December 2007, describes the ANC as ‘a disciplined force of the Left, organised to conduct consistent struggle’. Emphasising the need to ‘change colonial production relations and the social conditions of the poor’, it reaffirms that ‘the main content of the NDR is the liberation of Africans in particular and blacks in general from political and socio-economic bondage’. This requires ‘a systematic programme to correct the historical injustice’, while the need for such affirmative action will ‘decline in the same measure as all centres of power and influence became broadly representative of the country’s demographics’. The document adds that ‘a national democratic society … requires the de-racialisation of ownership and control of wealth’ as regards land, management, and the professions.40
The Strategy and Tactics document adopted by the ANC at Mangaung (Bloemfontein) in December 2012 endorses the Polokwane document and adds to it a Preface reaffirming the need to ‘eradicate the legacy of apartheid colonialism’. The Preface also urges further ‘interventions … to speed up change’ as part of ‘a second phase’ in the country’s transition. It once again calls for the ‘eradication of apartheid production relations’, reaffirms ‘the centrality of the Freedom Charter as our lodestar’, and speaks of the need to confront ‘the dominance of the capitalist system’.41
The ANC’s Strategy and Tactics documents are public statements that often express worthy aims: to heighten state efficiency, increase economic growth, maintain macro-economic discipline, improve living standards, counter the HIV/Aids pandemic, enhance education, and reduce inequality. However, although the documents recognise the importance of growth, their main emphasis is on redistribution. The more recent Polokwane and Mangaung documents also stress that the balance of forces has shifted substantially in favour of a more rapid implementation of the national democratic revolution. The Mangaung document, in particular, calls for a ‘second phase’ in the transition, which requires more radical policies and ‘decisive action to effect thorough-going economic transformation’.42
The Mangaung Strategy and Tactics document also stresses the need to pursue affirmative action until such time as ‘all centres of power and influence … become broadly representative of the country’s demographics’. Since the goal of demographic representivity is inherently unattainable, this means that affirmative action will persist for the foreseeable future. Moreover, given the fact that Africans, ‘coloured’ people and Indians cumulatively comprise some 91% of the South African population, the targets for BEE and land reform that have thus far been set (a 25% shareholding for blacks in listed companies, for instance, and the transfer of 30% of agricultural land to black people) are likely to be revised upwards over time.43
However, radical redistribution of the kind envisaged overlooks the age profile of the African majority, the skills shortage among black people, and the limited capital available to Africans to pay for major stakes in companies and other assets. Hence, full implementation of the national democratic revolution could easily undermine South Africa’s economy and constrain the rapid rates of growth essential to future prosperity. The scale of redistribution it requires is also contrary to the spirit of South Africa’s negotiated transition and in conflict with key provisions of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.44
‘What is also striking about these demands is their extremity,’ writes political analyst James Myburgh. ‘When white minority rule ended in 1994, there was widespread agreement among all sectors of the population that black advancement was essential, as were major improvements in the living conditions of the African majority. There was also a chronic skills shortage in the country which the white population was not large enough to meet. The number of blacks with tertiary qualifications was growing, while white racial attitudes towards blacks had changed dramatically. If policies aimed at faster economic growth had been vigorously pursued by the new government, there would have been ample capacity to absorb a rising black middle class into both the private and public sectors without the need to displace whites.’45 However, this evolutionary approach has consistently been trumped by the ideological requirements of the national democratic revolution and has never been attempted.
2. Affirmative Action in Education
When the final Constitution was being negotiated between 1994 and 1996, all parties to the talks, including the African National Congress, agreed on the need for a ‘soft’ form of affirmative action that would help provide redress for apartheid wrongs. This was to be done by focusing on inputs (education and opportunities) rather than outputs (targets or quotas). Towards this end, the ‘equality’ clause in the Constitution (Section 9) included a sub-clause authorising legislative and other measures designed to ‘protect or advance people disadvantaged by unfair discrimination … [in order to] promote the achievement of equality’.1
According to FW de Klerk, state president from 1989 to 1994, this sub-clause was intended to reflect the prevailing consensus that ‘the most important and effective form of affirmative action was through the provision of excellent education and training, and the creation of employment’.2 Affirmation action of this kind, so delegates to the talks agreed, would be more successful than any other intervention in opening up opportunities for black South Africans and compensating for the poor quality of black education under the earlier segregated system.
School segregation under the National Party government
Under the National Party government, education for the different races was both separate and unequal. Schooling for Africans was particularly inadequate, making the Bantu Education Act of 1953 one of the most pernicious laws introduced in the apartheid era. The revenue allocated to African education was far too little, while a rapid expansion in pupil numbers – from 800 000 in 1953 to 1 800 000 a decade later – made it still more difficult to meet the scale of need.3
Racial disparities in funding were stark. In 1953/54, for instance, spending on white schooling stood at R128 a head whereas the amount per capita for African schooling was a mere R17 – a ratio of 7.5 to 1. By 1972/3 this ratio had widened even further to 20.6 to 1. Though it then began to narrow quite dramatically, in 1993/94 it still stood at 2.2 to 1 – the state then spending R4 772 for each white pupil and R2 110 for each African one. The main reason for the remaining differential was that white teachers were better qualified and thus better paid, whereas many African teachers had no formal qualifications and their salaries reflected this.4
In a further indictment of Bantu Education, the 1970 census showed that 79% of urban Africans and 93% of rural ones had not been able to progress beyond Standard Six (now Grade 8) – the first year of high school. It also emerged that half of urban Africans and 75% of rural ones had not passed even Standard Three (Grade 5). Yet rapid economic growth in the 1960s had generated a great demand for skills that the small white population was unable to supply. This situation left the National Party government with little choice but to start taking measures to build up the skills of black South Africans.5
In 1967 the government announced that the time had come to concentrate on developing secondary education for Africans, thus prompting a rapid expansion in African high schools from 1970 onwards. Initially, the government intended to locate these secondary schools in the ‘homelands’, as this would promote grand apartheid by encouraging African resettlement in these putative ‘states’. In time, however, its stance here shifted as well – and secondary schools for Africans began to grow apace in urban townships too. By 1985 the overall