Mzamo Zondi of the Treatment Action Campaign on Weak, Disorganised and Desperate Civil Society in a Hard State

CCS Activist Brief June 2021

Introduction

• Governments support each other (they sign agreements, their forums are organised by themselves).
• Business people work together (their forums are initiated by themselves, they can fund and loan each other money).
• The majority of Civil Society forums are organised by the State: SANAC, Safety Forums, Social Development forums and many others (KZN though has a KZN Civil Society Coalition not coordinated by the state but by mass grassroots organisations).

Why is civil society weak, desperate and disorganised?

South Africa is considered a ‘shining democracy’, with elections held every five years, an independent judiciary system. Yet it has been a democratic system with a weak, desperate and disorganised civil society. Four main reasons are: first, the political culture makes it difficult to question authority; second, it is difficult to mobilize citizens because of the culture of dependency created by the clientelistic state; third, the Government has for a long time denied—and still does—the role of civil society as a legitimate player in the development process; fourth, civil society is not a cohesive group and lacks funds, especially the advocacy group. As a result the space for civil society is shrinkling and shrinking space describes a situation of increasing criminalisation and bureaucratisation of human rights work, aiming to make life difficult for activists and civil society organisations, and preventing them from carrying out their work. To answer this question, let’s first start by looking at the rights of civil society. They can be summarised as the freedom to exercise three interdependent rights: freedom of assembly and association, and freedom of expression. Sometimes freedom of association and assembly are directly restricted, but authorities can also use alternative legislation to harass human rights defenders. Human rights defenders find themselves forced to use human and financial resources to counter harassment rather than to carry on with their work.

The space for people to speak out, organize and take action against poverty, inequality and injustice is shrinking in South Africa. Activists in many communities around South Africa face serious restrictions and repression when exercising their basic rights. TAC activists in Free State, Abahlali baseMjondolo, Fees Must Fall activists and many peaceful protests in South Africa have ended in blood. This includes citizens who raise their voices against corruption and political dysfunction, organizations that save lives and provide basic services to people in need, communities that defend their sustainable livelihoods and demand a fair share of natural resources, and activists who fight for gender justice. PLHIV composed a song namely Babesidubula Kanjani sine AIDS (How they shot us living with HIV). It is a very touching song when PLHIV sings it you feel tears in your eyes. The trend of shifting and shrinking civic space develops differently in each province and district. Shrinking space is in speed driven by those who see their power and privilege threatened by civil society and its leaders. It is also driven by those who attack the values that are fundamental for inclusive civic spaces, and by those who prioritize other interests over their acknowledged concerns for civic space.

The state has created dependence, in many wards everything that comes to the ward is expected to come through Ward Councillor. Ward Councillors in many areas control state accountability structures like WARD Development Committee, Health act structures like Clinic Committees, South African AIDS Council Structures (SANAC) structures and many structures. It is difficult for any person to lead these structures if you are not known by certain people in the state. They don’t want neutral people. They demonise and antagonise people championing genuine issues. While all these things are being done by the state. Civil Society organisations close to state leaders end up conflicting with those representing communities. When this happens it weakens civil society. Because civil society is competing for funding, that on its own disorganises civil society while the politics also disorganises civil society. Stronger movements are harassed by the state and labelled counter revolutionaries by ruling party leaders and state employees.

The state has been too hard on the civil society and fees must fall activists, who wants to be like Queenstown activists who were shot by the police, who wants to be like fees must fall activists who were arrested by the head of state who in his farewell speech of his political party congress declared that education will be free without introducing a plan for fees must fall activists who are still going to court even today. Civic space is urgently needed by people to express and act on their interests and ideas; to navigate tensions and differences and to find commonalities. Civic space must be a vital ingredient for any strategy to protect national security, to foster development or to preserve social harmony. Yet many leaders misuse these objectives as a pretext to restrict rather than expand civic space. In many contexts, weak accountability structures and a changed development discourse negatively affect the ability of civil society to effectively defend civic space. Yet there are also many initiatives around the world that have proven the power of people, of activists, civil society actors and their allies to resist the trend of shrinking civic space and to take advantage of shifts in civic space. Civic space can be protected, or even expanded, if citizens mobilize to defend their basic freedoms; if resilient and diverse civil society actors work together in strong alliances; if policy makers demonstrate political will to provide legal and political spaces; if global institutions uphold norms and accountability on civic space and if businesses respect and defend civic freedoms. It should be the highest priority for civil society and its allies to concentrate and combine individual efforts towards a consolidated global response to defend our common space for engagement, debate and action.

The following makes civil society weak:

• One-way relationships with donors
• Factionalism
• Activists who become employees, draw salaries and attend international conferences

Because the space we need for this work is closing, we must come together, understand our mutual dependence and interrelatedness, and support each other in this work. We must forge a new solidarity.

*All views are author’s own.