Maverick Citizen

MAVERICK CITIZEN: SEVEN DAYS

Civil Society Watch, 16 – 22 March 2020

Civil Society Watch, 16 – 22 March 2020

Since January 202o this column has reported on weekly events and activities organised by civil society. But now we live in a ‘new abnormal’. Physical meetings, seminars, conferences and marches have suddenly become so last Tuesday. South Africa is in a National State of Disaster that may become a state of emergency. Civil society has a vital role to play. Going forward, this weekly analysis will look supportively but where necessary critically at civil society responses in the week before and the week ahead.

As expected after President Cyril Ramphosa’s announcement of a National State of Disaster last week, civil society plans and activities changed dramatically. Within days, most civil society organisations had shut offices or reduced operations to a skeleton of staff considered essential to continuing to provide a service to the poor and vulnerable.

However, fortunately, closed offices did not mean closed operations, but rather that operations migrated to systems of tele and video conferencing such as Zoom, Blue Jeans and Microsoft meeting, barely heard of a few months ago. It was therefore a good week for the environment at least, as reduced air and car traffic helped nature to breathe again. Note for the future: this should make many NGOs question their bad, expensive and ultimately unnecessary habits of air travel.

However, despite warnings, the President’s speech on Covid-19 caught most of civil society by surprise. As a result a lot of last week was spent setting up networks and systems for consultation, as well as on a rapid learning curve about the virus and its probable impact.

The first to issue statements and to make demands of government were the Civil society co-ordinating collective, a loose group of 50 organisations whose ‘Call to Action’ went public on 16 March; this was followed by five organisations of people living with HIV, coordinated by the Treatment Action Campaign, who issued a statement drawing attention to the vulnerability of people living with HIV and the need for greater community participation in devising and implementing the government’s plan; a day later Lawyers for Human Rights called for a moratorium on deportations of undocumented migrants, and on Tuesday 24 March a meeting is scheduled to take place between the UN High Commission for Refugeess (UNHCR), the Department of Justice and civil society. 

The South African National Editors Forum (SANEF) has also managed to up its game, establishing a special portal on its website for Covid-19 and working closely with GCIS on trying to ensure a flow of accurate information. Also on the media front: a network of more than 160 communications professionals and activists is currently taking shape at the initiative of veteran journalists including Chris Vick. Its aim is “to provide whatever assistance possible to official attempts to communicate around Covid-19”. It stems from a “concern about the lack of information in vernacular and in a form that is accessible to structures and individuals who are information poor”. 

Ensuring empathetic inclusive communication that reaches into every shack, village and settlement is going to be a game-changer in this epidemic. 

During the week, loose networks began to coalesce under the auspices of the Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education based in Cape Town who held a meeting of over 120 activists on Wednesday 18 March. In Johannesburg, Khanya College convened activists to focus on the role of capitalism in seeding this crisis and the need for a response that focused on the needs of the poor and working class; and the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, convened a group of civil society leaders, academics and experts to look at the economic and social impact and strategies to mitigate it on Human Rights Day.

It is important that Covid-19 does not disrupt poor people’s access to information or other essential services, or that it does not exacerbate pre-existing inequalities. 

As a result, legal service organisations collaborated on a plan to maintain access to legal services; the Amadiba Crisis Committee turned its activities on Human Rights Day towards informing villages of Covid-19 prevention measures; and COPAC and the SA Food Sovereignty Campaign issued a statement arising from an activists school drawing attention to the links between the climate crisis and Covid-19, describing the latter as the “second big shock” on poor communities. On Sunday night, 22 March, the Social Justice coalition was forced to issue a statement condemning water cutoffs in Khayelitsha by the City of Council. 

Such acts should be a criminal offence.

Statements have also been issued by social movements representing those who are most socially and economically vulnerable to Covid-19. On Sunday night Abahlali baseMjondolo issued an important statement giving voice to the needs and vulnerabilities of shack dwellers. Abahlali says it has suspended all protests, including its UnFreedom day on 27 April, and “declared a red alert in all land occupations and settlements affiliated to the movement”. Its statement lists 15 perfectly reasonable demands starting with stopping all evictions and disconnections. 

In a similar vein on 20 March, 10 organisations representing the estimated five million informal workers in South Africa issued a joint statement, warning: “We have little or no expectation that our employers will follow either the Covid-19 Advisory or the Workplace Preparedness Guidelines published by the Employment and Labour Department” and calling on “the inspectorate of the Department of Employment and Labour to target non-compliant employers, including employers of domestic workers, in this regard. And employers must not be allowed to send us home with no pay!”

And so it goes. 

The period of statement writing is not over yet. A statement from the Budget Justice Coalition is imminent and will be placed here, and a carefully considered statement from a very broad and diverse coalition of civil society organisations will also be made later on Monday and will be published by Maverick Citizen

Finally, on a regional and international front, major human rights organisations have begun to issue statements. UNAIDS has called for human rights to be placed at the centre of the response and issued a helpful guidance, Rights in the Time of Covid-19.

In Botswana, the Ditshwanelo Centre for Human Rights has issued statements on behalf of civil society in Botswana, including condemning President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s trip to Namibia (which has subsequently led to his self-isolation on return). Regionally, as the first infections are recorded in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, the Southern African Human Rights Defenders Network Memorandum to SADC remains unanswered, and a regional response seems a pipe dream; and Amnesty International, Civicus and Transparency International have issued a statement targeting the G-20 meeting later this week.

From declarations to united action

This week it seems that many more organisations will finalise plans and platforms that seek to express the needs and demands of the most vulnerable if Covid-19 is to be contained – and if its huge threat to development and basic human rights is to be prevented. 

However, the impression I get is that at the moment civil society is punching below its weight; decisions are being taken by governments that pay lip service to consultation with civil society, but it’s not clear who this civil society is that they are talking to. Later this week President Ramaphosa has promised a sector consultation with civil society – but it’s not clear who gets to sit at the table. In this period, the government cannot afford to work only with organisations that have been part of networks of patronage and political connection. It needs to work with everyone and within civil society there is a need to end historical animosities and get on with Covid-19 protection and prevention.

On the other hand civil society’s “demands” are numerous but fragmented, and in the melee of so many statements from so many quarters making so many demands it’s also not clear if anybody is listening. Every part of government needs to learn immediately how to work constructively with civil society. We d0n’t have time for division, at this point we don’t even have time for blaming and recrimination, so – after all the statements and declarations – civil society is going to have to think hard about its hands-on role in saving lives, preventing panic and social breakdown, forestalling a disaster and imagining a future free of the inequalities and injustices that have sown the seeds of this global catastrophe. MC

Activists live in every city, town and village in South Africa and we want to try to reflect on all of them. So, wherever you live, if things are happening which you think other activists ought to know about, write to us at: [email protected]

Also please sign up for our weekly newsletter here. It goes out every Tuesday and is a collection of the best articles published the week before.

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