CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF DISCRIMINATION & EXCLUSION (CSDE)
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY
Invites you to a talk on
The Fault Lines of Development, Democracy and State Building in South Africa
Dr. Jayanathan Govender
School of Social Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
Date: 19th January, 2018
Venue: room no. 402, CSDE, SSS-I
Time: 11:30am
The lecture is based on three papers addressing inequality, social justice and the politics of redress in post-apartheid South Africa. Our three and half century’shistory is awretched account of violent, oppressive and exploitative colonial capitalism. European decedents (English, Portuguese, German, Dutch, and French), having discarded their identities for the common title of ‘white’, dominate the present day landscape, notwithstanding, that the 2019 democratic elections will usher in the 5thAfrican National Congress (ANC) government, representing the majority Black population. South Africa is the world’s most unequal country. Poverty and inequality, exacerbated by unemployment are the country’s foremost challenges. The present government has made significant progress regarding the provision of basic services and broadening the social wage. However, the unfortunate reality is that inequality grew since the advent of democracy. The policy efforts of the current ANC governmentis articulated by the political cliché “There are good stories to tell”. The best evidence of such successes are limited to public services, with a build-in contradiction of associated costs, which the majority, poor and Black population, cannot access. Deepening inequality runs contrary to the commitments of the South African Constitution and social policy provisions, thereby raising serious questions of rights and social justice. The continuity, depth and breadth of inequality, including the extraordinary social costs, is clearly linked to the legacy of apartheid. Inequality is structurally embedded in multi-dimensional formats. The politics of redress has notrealized meaningful material and human development outcomes, originally intended by the Mandela led government. Rather, political leadership and state performance have declined, evidentially in favour of state capture.
