Women's development - ixingephi!

This edition of ANC Today is published the day after we celebrated National Women's Day. Once again, we extend our best wishes to the women of our country as they, and the rest of our population, engage in activities targeted at advancing women's empowerment and development, to accelerate our advance to the creation of a non-sexist society.

In its January 8th Anniversary Statement this year the National Executive Committee of our movement drew attention to the centrality of the struggle to defeat poverty. The Statement said:

"At the ANC's National General Council (NGC) in June 2005, the commissions on the Theory of Development reported that, 'the central challenge our movement faces in the Second Decade of Freedom is to defeat poverty and substantially reduce the level of unemployment. This means that the ANC and government must produce a coherent development strategy... identifying where we need to move to and what strategic leaps we need to get there.'

"In 2004, we received a clear mandate to lead the country to lift our economy to a higher growth trajectory, and position it more effectively to create work and push back the frontiers of poverty. In 2007, we must work even harder, together, further to implement this mandate.

Nothing about women without the women

"We must.take care to ensure that women are integrally involved and targeted in the design and implementation of our economic empowerment programmes. As a section of society who, despite comprising more than half of our people, continue to confront additional economic disadvantages, all our programmes need to have a capacity to benefit and empower women. This will only be achieved by involving women in the process, and ensuring that they are able to help direct and monitor all the work in this regard."

It is clear that one of the outstanding features of this year's Women's Month is that the women of our country have indeed responded to this call. Various important interventions and initiatives by women have effectively placed the women of our country in a leading position in terms of the design and implementation of our socio-economic empowerment programmes, and therefore the determination of the national agenda in terms of what needs to be done effectively to benefit and empower women.

The clear message coming from the women of our country is that:

• in terms of national policy, our country is set on the right course in terms of the empowerment and development of women;
• our government has elaborated many interventions and established institutions that are appropriately focused with regard to the task to advance the objective of women's emancipation; and,
• now is the time to implement new programmes specifically targeted at accelerating women's development, while ensuring that we improve the effectiveness of all existing programmes.

SAWID and our immediate tasks

The women's network, South African Women in Dialogue (SAWID), held its Annual Conference on 2-6 July at the University of Pretoria, under the theme, "From Dialogue to Development: Women Uniting to Eradicate Poverty." Below we reflect on some, but not all the outcomes of this Dialogue.

In the principal document adopted at the Dialogue, SAWID said: "As a point of departure, we acknowledge the continuing poverty eradication and economic development work that is undertaken by government. There is no doubt, that today, the South African government invests much more in poverty eradication and development than in many countries.

"This is significant, especially in the global environment where many governments are systematically cutting back on social investments and investments in people. However, looking at poverty and its feminisation, there is no doubt that in the main, what informs (our) recommendations are women's own experiences, different realities, challenges and the alienation that arise from this daily grind.

"Of necessity therefore, our dialogue has focussed not only on macro-level policy planning but rather on whether it is in fact working, as we feel it in our daily lives. These carefully considered contributions and insights, seek to deepen the poverty eradication work currently undertaken in South Africa.

"Where do we go, when we do not get any response to our proposals? What do we do when we are not able to take our initiatives forward because government systems keep changing? What do we do, when we are told in municipal offices that the officials who dealt with our problems are no longer there? Our government has adopted land restitution as an important project. What do we do, when we are told that the very land we have been allocated is part of a land claim and therefore our loans cannot be approved?

"Women have shared many facets of the ways in which bureaucratisation of development has affected and in fact killed their initiatives. These are women who are committed to improving their own conditions as well as contributing to the development of their own communities. Sixinga phi -where do we get stuck?" - (and more idiomatically ­- ixingephi!)

To respond to the challenges of development as they experienced them, the SAWID delegates proposed "An integrated policy and planning that places women at the centre". Specifically they suggested that:

• "Co-ordinated poverty eradication strategies must be woven into the main planning and policy development processes;
• "Women must not only feature as a key target group in policy planning but also as shapers and developers of policy;
• "Policy Planning and Development must be integrated within government and should also include implementation, enforcement as well as monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.
• "Policy Planning and Development should be taken as a central function of an integrated governmental system and used as a reference point by all departments; and,
• "All government systems and strategies to eradicate poverty, must be informed by this integrated approach."

A Development Fund & a Women's Ministry

SAWID also suggested the establishment of "A Women's Development Fund". In this regard it said: "Women are not outside of the mainstream economy. They are part of it and by right they should benefit in all economic, development financing and other institutional mechanisms that are in place.

"However, from the experiences shared by women throughout the SAWID platforms, from 2003 to the present, funding remains a key challenge. It is important that such a fund be looked upon as an intervention and not taken to mean all women's developmental needs will be taken care of by this fund."

SAWID also commented on its "Development Caravan". In this regard it said: "As part of SAWID's contribution to development and poverty eradication, the model of a development caravan has been developed. The development caravan framework is based on an inclusive framework that is holistic approach. This model looks at the needs of communities, families, self-reliance and enhancement of knowledge, including indigenous knowledge systems which are rich in our communities. The SAWID development caravan model provides a useful reference and pilot project which must be tried and continuously built upon."

SAWID also addressed the challenge of "Strengthening Institutional Arrangements for Women's Empowerment". Among other things in this regard, like the ANC Women's League, it proposed the establishment of a Women's Ministry, saying:

"The very suggestion of a Women's Ministry is likely to cause concern. Some people, especially those who participated in the earlier debates on the NGM [National Gender Machinery] are likely to think of this as going backwards. Yes, it is true, we know that there is a possibility that the Women's Ministry is likely to be ghettoised.

"In calling for a Women's Ministry, we are also anxious that this structure should not be seen as the main caretaker of all issues pertaining to women. We believe that the Women's Ministry should take to a higher and deeper level, the brief of the Office on the Status of Women. Its work must in the main concentrate on co-ordination and monitoring but it must also be well-resourced, to make decisions to enforce compliance."

SAWID & the Government

Recognising the importance of these various proposals and the SAWID process itself, our government has interacted and continues to interact with SAWID. It has agreed with SAWID that we need a comprehensive and coordinated anti-poverty or pro-poor programme, improving on the existing interventions and integrated in all government programmes.

The July Cabinet Lekgotla considered the work done on this important matter and agreed that government should aim to finalise this work by the time the January 2008 Cabinet Lekgotla meets. It will work with SAWID and other stakeholders to finalise this programme. The programme will include the kind of work being piloted by the SAWID Development Caravan, and make other interventions to improve the government's Policy Planning and Development capacity and process.

Our government also agrees that the government machinery for the advancement of the agenda for the emancipation of women should be strengthened. Precisely because this task must be carried out by government as a whole, since 1994 to date, our government has determined that the work of "co-ordination and monitoring" should be located in the Presidency, to avoid the "ghettoising" of the gender question.

For this reason, for some years now, the Minister in the Presidency has had the issue of women's emancipation as one of his responsibilities. Our government accepts that the institutional capacity of this Ministry must be strengthened to improve its capacity to discharge its responsibility.

The Women's Retirement Fund

Following the July SAWID Dialogue, the Presidential Women's Working Group met at the Union Buildings on 7 August. The meeting considered the immensely important initiative proposed by the women who participate in this Working Group to form a Women's Retirement Fund, and agreed that it should be launched.

The Fund will be focused on significantly improving "social security and retirement provisions for women and vulnerable women workers". It will be managed by women and invest in a way that benefits the women of South Africa. The women leaders responsible for this major initiative stated that the Fund would: "Harness the collective influence of current retirement savings of women to create a greater role for women, and increase (security and retirement) coverage and income security of vulnerable groups, such as domestic workers and women in rural areas."

In the statistics they presented, which emphasised the central and strategic consideration that we cannot defeat poverty in our country without defeating poverty against women, they said:

• On average, women live 7 years longer than men.
• 42% of our women are breadwinners, and 44% are single mothers.
• 32% are divorced, while 83% are responsible for their children.
• 60% of the widows are destitute and depend on their children for their livelihood.
• Only 55% of our women make their own financial decisions.
• 66% of married women rely on their spouses to take the financial decisions affecting the family.
• As regards young women of 25 years and below, financial decisions are taken by their parents.

These statistics present a graphic picture of the work our society must do to achieve the universally agreed objective of the empowerment and emancipation of the women of South Africa. The Women's Retirement Fund is a critically important initiative to respond to this reality.

The Women Entrepreneurs & Cooperative Funds

However, important as it is, the Fund is only one of the focused interventions we must celebrate during Women's Month. Another is the Women Entrepreneurs Fund which was also considered during the meeting of the Presidential Women's Working Group. Originally proposed by Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka while she was Deputy Minister at the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti), this Fund has been championed and will see the light of day thanks to the leadership of current DTI Deputy Minister, Elizabeth Thabethe.

This important Fund, the counterpart of the Umsobomvu Youth Fund, is an initiative of the Ministry and Department of Trade and Industry, and will be managed by the Industrial Development Corporation, (IDC). It will provide finance and comprehensive support to women small and medium entrepreneurs precisely for the women to empower and develop themselves, and break their subjection to an inherited and anti-democratic unequal power relationship with the male species of our society.

Following the inauguration of the Women Entrepreneurs Fund, our government will also launch a Fund for Cooperatives. This Fund will be linked to the important Working for Jobs programme which our government has already initiated under the leadership of the Deputy President of the Republic, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, actively assisted by Percy Barnevik, member of our International Investment Council.

The Working for Jobs programme targets the poorest women in our country, including rural women, seeking to engage them in productive economic activity that structurally links them to the mainstream First Economy, and thus act as a bridge between the First and Second Economies. Among other things, the initiative to establish the Fund for Cooperatives responds to the reality that women constitute the overwhelming majority of members of our country's cooperative movement.

Women's empowerment & the ATKV

The second last of the women's empowerment and development initiatives I would like to mention, and believe we should celebrate during Women's Month, has been taken by the ATKV-DAMES. The ATKV, Afrikaanse Taal and Kultuurvereniging - Afrikaans Language and Cultural Society - was established in 1930 as part of the struggle of the Afrikaner people to liberate themselves from English domination.

Today, the ATKV constitutes one of our most important national civil society organisations, with 180,000 members, committed to the objective to build a new South Africa that respects and implements the goal of "no discrimination against any person".

In a recent document the organisation says: "The ATKV regards social upliftment of all the people of South Africa as an essential prerequisite to a successful South Africa and the Ladies Committee of the Board of Directors of the ATKV has been tasked with this function within the organisation.

"(The short term objectives of our skills development programme, which includes the development of small business entrepreneurship, are to ensure that):

• " Individual people are empowered, supported and uplifted;
• Family members have employment and an income;
• Women are able to cater for their children in an adequate way;
• (Everybody achieves) increased self-esteem; and,
• Vulnerable children are supported.

"We can change the world by starting to care for one child. One step at a time, ATKV-Dames will continue to look for opportunities to care for children, to start and support projects to change the destiny of Africa's children.(Together with our financial partners, we must make) a positive difference for the generations to come."

Charlotte Maxeke & Aliwal North

On Women's Day, 9 August, I was privileged to participate in an inspiring celebration in Aliwal North in the Eastern Cape, after addressing the National Women's Day Rally in Kimberley, Northern Cape.

In Aliwal North I was privileged to join the Premier and other women leaders of the Eastern Cape, as well as the women of the Province as a whole, as they celebrated the developmental advances they have made as a result of support extended to them through the Charlotte Maxeke Women's Economic Development Fund established by the Government of the Eastern Cape in partnership with three of our national banks.

This wonderfully joyful occasion made the incontrovertible statement that indeed the women of our country and our society as a whole have much to rejoice about as we celebrate Women's Month. For this we salute and thank all the women of our country including those organised in SAWID, the Presidential Women's Working Group, ATKV-Dames, the women in all spheres of government, and others such as those in the ANC Women's League and other political formations, and the Progressive Women's Movement.

But even as we celebrate what we have achieved, and implement vigorously what we have agreed, we must continue to confront the reality that we have much to do to achieve the objective of the total emancipation of the women of our country. To move forward continuously, we must always act to remove the obstacles that impede our progress. Thus, at all times, we must ask ourselves the question - ixingephi!

What the media says

Ban the letters from the President!

Not for the first time, the editor of the Sunday Times, Mondli Makhanya, used the pages of his newspaper to urge the restriction of the right of the President of the ANC and the President of the Republic, Thabo Mbeki, to speak his mind. He argued that the President's freedom of expression must be circumscribed, in the national interest, unless he speaks through the established media.

In this instance we refer to Makhanya's article in the 5 August edition of the Sunday Times entitled, "Weekly glimpse into the President's mind may be too much information."

In this article Makhanya said: "Every Friday, thousands of people in influential positions around the land wait at their computers for the arrival of the country's favourite newsletter. When the missive lands, the reaction is often one of disbelief, followed by a collective shaking of heads - and then mirth.

"It is the mirth that really worries one. For the man who writes these missives is none other than President Thabo Mbeki, the head of our Republic. But you cannot blame those who partake (sic) in this mirth. A lot of the content can really be disturbing, to the point of amusing."

Beyond this he explains that he finds what out President writes to be "wordy, convoluted and downright bizarre", and, certainly in one instance, forcing "South Africa (to) cringe" - in other words verbiage not worthy of any attention by any discerning reader.

(Surprisingly, Makhanya could not even understand the simple meaning of the reference to mini-skirts in the President's Letter in Vol 7 No 29, except in vulgar terms, and obviously could not measure up to, or cope in any way with the President's discourse on the relationship between empirical evidence, modernism and post-modernism.)

Our readers, discerning or not, would of course know that in his article, Makhanya was referring to the "Letter from the President" we have published in almost every edition since we started publication in 2001. In his article Makhanya says of these Letters, "A lot of the content can really be disturbing, to the point of amusing."

Later in his article Makhanya says: "Many, including this writer, have wondered aloud why the President of our republic feels the need to be at war with the world. The disconcerting part is the language and tone. The labelling of citizens as enemies and the construction of bizarre conspiracies against critics is dangerous. And downright embarrassing when mouthed by the head of state. Time for advisers to keep a closer watch on that laptop, perhaps?"

As editor of this journal, I must confess that I am not as fortunate as Makhanya obviously is. Unlike him, I am not privy to the reactions of "thousands of people in influential positions around the land" when they read our latest edition. Nor do I have the possibility to see "South Africa cringe", or demonstrate any other emotion in response to the Letters from the President.

Were I ever to claim that I am as fortunate as Makhanya obviously is, able to access the reactions of the thousands of our readers, and "South Africa", to the Letters from the President, on a weekly basis, I would be telling an outright lie.

However, I accept that Makhanya may very well have access to resources that enable him to track the reactions of the thousands of our readers, and our country, in a manner, and to a degree, that I and my ANC Today editorial colleagues could never dream of.

Absolutely nothing I have received in the feedback from the thousands of our readers, at home, in Africa and the rest of the world, over many years, has suggested, in any way whatsoever, that these readers have responded to the Letters from the President with disbelief, mirth, embarrassment or grave concern. Again I must accept that Makhanya, editor of the Sunday Times, may very well have better access to the honest views of the readers of ANC Today than the editor of this journal has.

We have no choice but to treat Makhanya as an honest man, unless we can prove the contrary. We must therefore presume that he is telling the truth when he says he knows the views of thousands of readers of ANC Today. Naturally, like other readers of the Sunday Times, we are most interested to see the proof of Makhanya's claims in this regard.

We are determined to resist the temptation to believe that Makhanya's claims amount to nothing more than a campaign of disinformation, to which others subjected us as we fought for our liberation. (Evidently, in the light of the disclosures about the "Browse" report, as with regard to the earlier anti-ANC "e-mail" episode, our democracy has not yet buried the phenomenon of the disinformation "Stratcom" operations against our movement which were used by the apartheid regime.)

While we await Makhanya's response to the particular request we have made, we would be pleased if Makhanya could also respond to yet another request. This relates to the allegation he made in his article concerning "attacks on people who irked the President in one way or another". In this regard Makhanya writes: "Many a time The Letter (from the President) is angry, venomous, wordy, convoluted, and downright bizarre."

In reality, this particular matter, of allegedly angry, venomous and unbecoming attacks on individuals by the President, constitutes the heart of the concern expressed by Makhanya in his article, as a consequence of which he advises that ANC Today should no longer publish the Letter from the President.

In this context, of the ire of the President, Makhanya mentions former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon, newspapers, "corruption watchdogs", COSATU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, AIDS "activists", the Daily Dispatch newspaper, "and so on and so on."

Since Makhanya suggested that these 'angry and venomous attacks on people who irked the President' were a distinguishing feature of the Letters from the President, we decided to conduct a rough review of this publication and the letters, covering the period of our history, from 2001 to date.

During this period, we published 327 editions of ANC Today. In these editions we carried 311 Letters from the President. Twenty-six of these letters contained comments of the kind we presume Makhanya identified as amounting to "attacks on people who irked the President in one way or another", whatever this means.

Consequently we must conclude that Makhanya was especially offended by the contents of 8,36% of the Letters from the President that ANC Today has published. Even if we agreed with Makhanya that these letters were particularly offensive, which we do not, we would like to understand from Makhanya why 8% of the "offensive" content of opinion pieces written by the President justifies the suppression of the 92% that makes up the rest of this content.

Beyond this, we believe that Makhanya has an obligation to answer some questions relating to each of the specific instances he mentioned, and any others, to substantiate the allegation he made that the President launched unjustified and unacceptable attacks on individuals and institutions. This is particularly important in the light of Makhanya's view that these attacks were not worthy of the President of the Republic, embarrassed our country, and therefore justify the banning of the Letter from the President.

What did the President say about Tony Blair's position on Zimbabwe that was factually wrong, laughable, or in any way gratuitously offensive?

What did the President say about Archbishop Tutu's comments about the ANC record in government that was factually wrong, laughable, or in any way gratuitously offensive?

What did the President say about "newspapers and corruption watchdogs" concerning the defence acquisition, (the so-called arms deal, as in a deal between criminal gangs), that was factually wrong, laughable, or in any way gratuitously offensive?

What did the President say about "newspapers for what newspapers do" (whatever this means), that was factually wrong, laughable, or in any way gratuitously offensive?

What did the President say about Zwelinzima Vavi, regardless of the constituency on whose behalf he spoke, that was factually wrong, laughable, or in any way gratuitously offensive?

What did the President say about "Aids activists" that was factually wrong, laughable, or in any way gratuitously offensive?

What did the President say about the Daily Dispatch and its report on Frere Hospital that was factually wrong, laughable, or in any way gratuitously offensive?

What did the President say about any other person, (Tony Trahar?), or institution, (Sasol?, Solidarity?), "and so on and so on", that was factually wrong, laughable, or in any way gratuitously offensive?

What did the President say that demonstrates, factually, that "he feels the need to be at war with the world", which tickles humanity?

In the very first Letter from the President in our inaugural issue, Vol 1 No 1, 26 January - 1 February 2001, the President wrote: "The world of ideas is also a world of struggle. ANC Today must be a combatant for the truth, for the liberation of the minds of our people, for the eradication of the colonial and apartheid legacy, for democracy, non-racism, non-sexism, prosperity and progress."

Both I, the editor of ANC Today, and my comrades in the ANC, firmly believe that this journal in general and the Letters from the President in particular, have, throughout the last six-and-half-years, remained faithful to these editorial directives and values.

Clearly Makhanya does not agree with us, particularly with regard to the Letters from the President we have published. We would like to inform Makhanya that this journal will continue to publish the Letter from the President as long as the President makes it available to us, and will not act as a censor. We are also confident that it will continue to serve as "a combatant for the truth, for the liberation of the minds of our people", and will publish it as such.

Fortunately, in his article Makhanya graciously grants our President and movement and the government the right to "hit back when they are criticised. In an open, democratic society, robust engagement is key. Those who throw punches should expect to be hit back similarly hard. That includes the media." So far, so good!

However, Makhanya says "the President and his lieutenants" should "treat other societal stakeholders as partners and take criticism and opposition in their stride." Quite what all this means only Makhanya can explain.

We, the lieutenants, must confess that we do not understand what he means. Neither do we understand what he wants us to do that is different from what we have done during our 13 years of democracy, in defence of an open and plural society.

The actual (censor's) sting is in the tail, attached to Makhanya's lofty pronouncements about open, democratic society, and the seeming mumbo-jumbo about taking criticism and the opposition in our stride.

This becomes obvious when Makhanya says our President and movement and the government are allowed to participate in 'robust engagement' if only they do so within the confines of what he, and presumably the media, prescribe in terms of permissible language and tone, whom to describe as enemies, identification of conspiracies, what might be embarrassing if uttered by the President, etc, "and so on and so on."

Makhanya argues all this presumably in defence of the further entrenchment of our democracy, which must include respect for the freedom of speech for all our citizens!

To return to the practicals, we would be honoured if Makhanya responds to the requests we have made and the questions we have posed. We undertake truthfully to publish the substance of any and all responses he might kindly send to us, taking all necessary measures to ensure that we do not distort or misrepresent anything he might say.

As a matter of principle this journal will never allow itself to succumb to the tactics of the gutter press. It will therefore never conduct a smear campaign even again the most determined of the opponents and critics of our movement and ANC Today. It will never make accusations against anybody, or write negative "mood pieces", which it cannot substantiate with facts.

We would like to believe that our critics, such as Makhanya, the editor of the Sunday Times, also support these ethical media positions. For this reason we are convinced that Makhanya will indeed respond to the issues we have raised.

We do not believe that Makhanya would avoid the simple obligation to tell the truth as he sees it. That truth would be composed of verifiable facts. Obviously Makhanya must be in full command of these facts. Otherwise he would not have made his allegations about how we have erred badly and concocted "bizarre conspiracies", among other grievous mistakes.

He could not have hoped to educate us out of our bad ways, if he was unwilling to tell us where and how, exactly, we had erred, including how we had come to base our opinions and actions on false information.

We must assume that the owners of the Sunday Times, its editorial board, and its editor, also abide by an editorial policy which requires that all our media must be "a combatant for the truth, for the liberation of the minds of our people, for the eradication of the colonial and apartheid legacy, for democracy, non-racism, non-sexism, prosperity and progress."

POSTSCRIPT: In his article, Makhanya described the Daily Dispatch as "a sister paper of the Sunday Times." We do not know whether the reprehensible behaviour of the Daily Dispatch, confirmed in what follows, constitutes part of the culture of its sister newspapers, such as the Sunday Times.

In our last edition, on 3 August, in this section, we published a piece headed "The Truth, Public Accountability & the Mind of an Editor". The Daily Dispatch published an article in its 4 August edition, responding to this piece. The newspaper quoted some paragraphs from this piece and deliberately, falsely attributed them to "the President's letter". The particular paragraphs cited by the Daily Dispatch appear under the column in ANC Today, 'What the media says', which is directly controlled by the editor. These paragraphs read:

"Precisely because of what she thinks of our movement and its leadership as reflected in these comments, we should not be surprised that Oppelt should take it as her task to discredit our movement and destroy its credibility in the eyes of the people."

"The Frere Hospital story demonstrates the deeply disturbing reality that it is perfectly possible for otherwise decent South Africans, some of whom might occupy important positions as opinion-makers, to falsify the truth, consistent with their 'concerns, personal prejudices and backgrounds (that) accompany them'. Thus would they use the possibility to generate popular opinions, especially through the media, that serve to increase the possibility of the public acceptance of their agendas."

None of these paragraphs appears in the signed "President's letter", contrary to the claim made in the Daily Dispatch. This illustrates precisely the point which both this journal and our President have sought to emphasise, that some within our society find it very easy to falsify the truth, to increase the possibility of the public acceptance of their agendas!

Courtesy demands that we politely describe the lie told by the Daily Dispatch about "the President's letter", merely as a fabrication. Beyond the semantics, we know that, in the substance, there is no material difference between lies and fabrications. In the end, the critical and comforting reality is that the people will accept only that which they know from their experience is authentic and truthful, regardless of what editors and presidents might say.

The Editor

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