Business Times Africa Magazine 2017 /vol 9/ No2 BT2Edition2017_web | Page 37
SOUTH AFRICAN PROTESTERS ECHO A GLOBAL CRY: DEMOCRACY ISN'T MAKING PEOPLE'S LIVES BETTER
public spaces in towns and cities, as
we are seeing in Venezuela, happens
seldom.
While there are important differences
there are also commonalities. Whether
protests focus around the “1%” as they
did during the Occupy movement or
around the lack of service provision
in townships, protesters around the
world are critiquing the failure of a
representative democracy to provide
socio-economic equality.
Broken promises
South Africa’s governing ANC came
into power in 1994 on the promise of
a “better life for all”. There have been
important gains, such as increasing
access to electricity from 51% of the
population in 1994 to 85% in 2012, but
inequality remains endemic. Recent
data from the World Bank confirms that
South Africa remains one of the most
unequal countries in the world.
As part of research by the Centre for
Social Change we spoke to protesters all
over the country. A new book from the
centre highlights the extent to which
protesters are raising not just concerns
about the quality of service delivery but
also about the quality of post-apartheid
democracy. As Shirley Zwane, from
Khayelitsha, near Cape Town, explains:
For Shirley the qua