The protest within a protest
So, we went marching in protest against attacks on foreigners this weekend, to point out that no, we’re not all like that. Surrounded by communists and socialists and unionists and other great folks, I tried valiantly to get my “free markets, free immigration” message in front of the big red banners. Call it a protest within a protest. Not having marched in any cause since before 1994, I made two double-sided posters and one tall one, and met up with Duncan McLeod from the Financial Mail, and our convict-cursing comrade, Brian Bakker. Somehow we swindled him into carrying the poster with Duncan’s line on it. He will not be living this down any time soon.
The other side of my placard says “free markets, free immigration, free south africa”, and the other side of Brian’s placard reads “foreigners are scapegoats for government failure”.
A few more pictures can be found below the fold, and here’s a cool photo-essay by someone I don’t know, to a very appropriate sound-track:
For more pictures… That’s me, under the free markets banner, somewhere on Empire Road:
Marching through Hillbrow, Brian was easily distracted from government failure:
By the time we got to the High Court, the throng was many thousands strong. The spirit was great and everything went well, except if you were Bob Mugabe, in which case you’d have got a poster of you burnt. Or maybe it was just a banknote, who knows how big they are these days.
Chatting with Geraldine Fraser-Moloketi, the only cabinet-level government official who marched with us (as far as I could determine). I have a lot of time for her. She’s competent and sincere, but as minister for public service she wasn’t too keen to be photographed with my free markets placard. She was, however, kind enough to pose with me under the “great countries welcome immigrants” side of the sign, but the picture didn’t come out very well, unfortunately. Cellphones in bright sunlight make dubious cameras.
Finally, we arrived at the Guild Hall, which is conveniently located across from the end of the march. We ran into several people we knew, and had cold beer and dodgy steak on the balcony, where we could watch the crowd, and where no TV could annoy Duncan (yes, that was a Sharks shirt, earlier) with the final 15 minutes of the rugby.
It was a good day. An important day. Glad I was there.
Hey Ivo,
Love the website advertising. Protest 2.0…?
Not sure if you have seen this yet but Alex Matthews has taken up your slogan with the title of his blog post (Immigrants the scapegoats for ANC delivery failure)
The marches here is Cape Town are a little lame - Roger says they are more like flash mobs than organised protests so its great to see someing powerful happening in Jozi.
s
you made the press statement:
Fears are patrolling our freedom and already determine with who or what South Africans associate with. It is regrettable that the APF can report that the buses from its affiliates in Atteridgeville and Shoshanguve had to be cancelled for threatened reprisals. Buses and taxis from other townships did otherwise arrive for the march unhindered. For APF comrades, this was a march unlike any other – at its start at the Pieter Roos Park below Constitutional Hill, the Minister of Public Service and Administration, assumed the platform to number herself among the ‘we Africans united against the scourge of hatred’; one demonstrator at the march held a placard professing – ‘Free markets/Free Immigration/Free South Africa’. Nonetheless, the vast majority of the marchers were agreed that the government’s consistent failure to deliver adequate basic services to poor communities, combined with macro-economic policies that have benefited corporate capital/the rich, are a large part of what is behind the explosion of xenophobia and hatred amongst the poor who live in this country. The memorandum addressed to Premier Mbazima Shilowa as well as the Departments of Housing and Home Affairs calls on the “South African government to acknowledge its role in the crisis, and to assume responsibility for providing solutions to the problems that speak to the root causes of the problem.” This would include, the memorandum stated, the suspension of “the neo-liberal macro-economic policy approach.”
that’s the APF statement
http://apf.org.za/article.php3?id_article=285
Why is that free marketeers can’t organise themselves? I’d happily march downtown chanting pro-markets slogans. I can picture the banners now:
“Privatise state assets!”
“Viva Adam Smith, viva!”
“Down with socialism!”
That’d send a powerful message to government. Pity we’re all too busy making money to bother taking on the loony left on the pavements.
—Why is that free marketeers can’t organize themselves? —
haha, and here i thought you guys were far better organized than any brand of left wing politics.
“haha, and here i thought you guys were far better organized than any brand of left wing politics.”
In most things, yes, but not when it comes to carrying placards through city streets. Sadly, SA is one of the few countries where socialists and communists haven’t yet been totally discredited. That day will come. Hopefully it will happen *before* the new ANC under Zuma and his left-wing allies in Cosatu and the SACP destroy the economy.
Hmm, what exactly does an anarchist know about organisation? And what is it about the FM that makes people who hang out there such incurable optimists?
Good to see. BBC is my only window to the outside world here so I’ll hopefully catch the protest on their nightly broadcast…
—Why is that free marketeers can’t organize themselves? —
er… because you already have an entire collection of states doing it all for you?
That’s a bit of a contradiction in terms. I see governments do get PR mileage out of illogical spin such as “market-based regulation” and “harnessing the market”. Doesn’t mean they’re any less contradictory, though.