By Buntu Siwisa
Published December 2008 in the Journal of Southern African Studies
Abstract: This article considers the problems of water in Mpumalanga Township in Durban, South Africa, and examines the emergence and activities of the Concerned Citizens Forum (CCF), for whom activism around water services was centrally important. It contributes to the debate over the backlog in municipal services delivery and the attendant emergence of new social movements in post-apartheid South Africa. Set against a background of changes in water policy, a profile of the water industry and the drive to cost recovery, the article provides an account of collective action in Durban, by investigating the history and activities of the CCF. The article questions the standing of the movement and argues that the CCF is given to ‘crowd renting’, lacks transparency, and is prone to disorderly decision-making and racial and leadership crises. The article contextualises CCF’s collective action programmes,
including its activism over water disconnections, by situating them in Mpumalanga’s neighbourhood politics. By doing so, the reader encounters councillors of the ruling and opposition parties, CCF city-based intellectual-cum-activists, African township youth activists and local council officials and bureaucrats. The collusion and conflicts between these various parties highlight political opportunism, careerism, and the ruthless pursuit of
self-enrichment, revealing the complexities of collective action and the contentious politics of new social movements. The article also highlights the looming crisis of the breakdown of social citizenship in relation to cost recovery and the struggles over water services.
Published December 2008 in the Journal of Southern African Studies
- Note: The academic piece below by Buntu Siwisa profiles the involvement of Heinrich Bohmke and Ashwin Desai in communtiy struggles in the Mpumalanga Township in Durban. It makes very clear that Mr. Bohmke and Mr Desai were outsiders but still believe it was their right to coordinate and direct community struggles. It shows how these privileged activists did not believe that poor people have the ability to be in charge. This clear authoritarianism shows us that we should take with a grain of salt Mr. Bohmke's libellous critiques of Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Unemployed People's Movement.
Abstract: This article considers the problems of water in Mpumalanga Township in Durban, South Africa, and examines the emergence and activities of the Concerned Citizens Forum (CCF), for whom activism around water services was centrally important. It contributes to the debate over the backlog in municipal services delivery and the attendant emergence of new social movements in post-apartheid South Africa. Set against a background of changes in water policy, a profile of the water industry and the drive to cost recovery, the article provides an account of collective action in Durban, by investigating the history and activities of the CCF. The article questions the standing of the movement and argues that the CCF is given to ‘crowd renting’, lacks transparency, and is prone to disorderly decision-making and racial and leadership crises. The article contextualises CCF’s collective action programmes,
including its activism over water disconnections, by situating them in Mpumalanga’s neighbourhood politics. By doing so, the reader encounters councillors of the ruling and opposition parties, CCF city-based intellectual-cum-activists, African township youth activists and local council officials and bureaucrats. The collusion and conflicts between these various parties highlight political opportunism, careerism, and the ruthless pursuit of
self-enrichment, revealing the complexities of collective action and the contentious politics of new social movements. The article also highlights the looming crisis of the breakdown of social citizenship in relation to cost recovery and the struggles over water services.