Jason Robinson

South Africa in Transition – Introduction

In their editorial introduction to the special edition of JSAS commemorating a decade of democracy in South Africa (JSAS, 31, 4 [2005]), Beall, Gelb and Hassim use the phrase ‘fragile stability’ to describe the state of the post-apartheid order. Reading further, it would be fair to say that they invest more faith in the ‘stability’ side of this duo than in the ‘fragile’ side. While they signal that ‘immense social problems ... remain a threat to social order’, they none the less diagnose the foundations of South Africa’s democratic order to be fairly secure. ‘The non-racial regime is fully accepted as legitimate’, they write. Moreover, ‘state authority and capacity have been regenerated from a position of severe weakness at the time of the transition to a situation today where it has substantial capabilities in exercising basic functions such as policing, border control and taxation’ (p. 681). They thus conclude that ‘fragile stability ... represents an “equilibrium” that is likely to persist in the shortto medium-term’ (p. 681); that the country’s acute social problems are unlikely to threaten the political order any time soon. A decade on, the political order remains standing, but the pressures it faces are significantly more acute. Since that anniversary edition of JSAS, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has been roiled by a succession of internal ructions. In December 2007, the party unseated its president, Thabo Mbeki, at its national conference in Polokwane, and forced him to step down as president of South Africa the following year. Behind this palace coup were signs that the deep social problems of which Beall et al. spoke were finding expression in the heart of the political establishment. Indeed, the ousting of Mbeki was just the first sign of acute strain. The ANC’s trade union movement ally, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), has split, signalling an end to the social consensus through which the ANC has hitherto governed. Twice, major figures in the ANC have formed breakaway parties: first the Congress of the People (COPE), made up primarily of disgruntled Mbeki-ites who had been ousted at Polokwane; later the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), led by former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, now the third-largest party in parliament and principal opposition in two provincial legislatures. There is an increasing sense in South Africa that the settlement reached in 1994 was not so much the foundation of a new order as a holding operation, keeping in abeyance a host of unresolved issues in regard to economic distribution and race relations. Concealed beneath the ANC’s continued electoral dominance is a diminution of its authority and, indeed, of the authority of a host of the new order’s institutions. In April 2014, academics from across Europe, North America and South Africa came together at the University of Oxford to probe the nature of the South African settlement 20 years on from its founding election. This part special issue represents a snippet of the analyses that emerged from this conference, occurring on the eve of South Africa’s fifth national democratic contest. Twenty years – a generation – is sufficient time to begin to get a sense of the longue durée. How successfully have democratic institutions been able to shift long-standing structural features in society? How have the aspirations of those who fought for liberation and equality fared relative to those of the 40 per cent of the population born since 1994, who have no experience of minority rule?

Remembering John Marshall and Bitter Roots: The Ends of a Kalahari Myth

Remembering John Marshall, a short look at the life of John Marshall and his engagement with the Nyae Nyae in North East Namibia, provides a useful introduction to Bitter Roots. The earlier DVD gives us a brief account of Marshall’s life while describing his work with the Ju/’hoansi people of the Kalahari. In Bitter Roots we see Marshall’s ideals, embodied in his and Claire Ritchie’s development NGO, ultimately distorted into a well-meaning, albeit flawed project. As well as probing ideas of representation and modernity, and in particular Western demands for an ‘authentic’ African way of life, the two documentaries serve to show how well-meaning initiatives and community development can be undermined by unfettered Western influence and manipulation. Remembering John Marshall looks at the complex figure of John Marshall, a man who became intimately acquainted with the Nyae Nyae region of the Kalahari. We see how Marshall’s simple interest in the Nyae Nyae region and the Ju/’hoansi developed into a lifelong endeavour and ultimately an activist crusade – (a development already well documented in Lauren van Vuuren’s ‘And he said they were Ju/Wasi, the people... ’: History and Myth in John Marshall’s “Bushmen Films” 1957–2000’, in Journal of Southern African Studies, 35, 3 (September 2009). The most prominent break in Marshall’s style probably came with the 1980 film N!ai: The Story of a !Kung Woman (1980)). Remembering John Marshall contains footage of family members, former colleagues and students speaking, as well as archival material from his own documentary movies. We see the development from youthful engagement to almost familial ties with his then-subjects, now friends and colleagues, and the change from an objective observer and documentary filmmaker to an engaged participant. Interviewees reveal a complex figure, respected even by those that disliked him, yet prone to inciting fear into his awe-struck students and colleagues. Marshall had a sense of purpose and drive that at times infuriated those around him, yet also possessed a lasting determination and exceptional ability. The high point of his research and filmmaking came in the form of the five-part, six-hour documentary series A Kalahari Family, reflecting over 50 years’ engagement with the Ju/’hoansi and the development of their/Marshall’s relationship over a half-century. Marshall passed away in 2005, four years after the end of the series. Bitter Roots: The Ends of a Kalahari Myth is not a documentary about John Marshall, yet his presence looms large. Adrian Strong, who worked with Marshall and the Ju/’hoansi in the Kalahari, returns to Nyae Nyae 20 years after his last involvement with the region and its inhabitants. In the aftermath of A Kalahari Family and Marshall’s death, Strong and Claire Ritchie go back to Namibia to see how the people of Nyae Nyae have fared since they last set foot in the country. What remained of the community’s interaction with Marshall/Ritchie’s NGO (the Nyae Nyae Development Foundation) had become all but meaningless: the community which had become self-empowered and engaged in farming and maintaining livestock see this livelihood all but eroded, as the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) and other international bodies set a primacy on conservation projects and tourism in the region and a move away from small-scale farming and landholding. We see the ultimate irony of those who wish to farm being told they cannot expand due to conservation programmes, with these very conservation programmes seeking to protect lions in the region, lions which attack the remaining livestock. These former hunter-gatherers, whom we see in Marshall’s films building functioning wells and learning crop maintenance and modern farming techniques, are thus left in a strange paradigm: no longer the hunter-gatherers of old, yet also deprived of their long-fought for economic independence, now forced to make ends meet through basic rations from NGOs and the government. Furthermore, they are put in the position of having to dress in traditional costume for tourists or documentary film-makers seeking to re-create images of the hunter-gatherer way of life. Water and access to water provide a key theme throughout Bitter Roots: in one scene we see a watering hole once built for a local community standing in disarray, while one for elephants, where