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“Parity of Esteem”: A Conceptual Framework for Assessing Peace
Processes, with a South African Case Study
Pierre du Toit
ABSTRACT
In the first part of this article a conceptual framework for assessing the durability of negotiated peace settlements is developed. The framework elaborates on approaches that hold
that dealing with issues of relative group status is central to the effectiveness of negotiated
settlements. The dynamics of post-settlement competition, the negotiated rules that shape
such competition, and the impact of competitive outcomes on inter-group status, whether
adverse or positive, is explored. It is argued that peace settlements with rules that shape
competition in such a way that both parity of outcomes and parity of esteem can be
achieved will be more durable. Parity of esteem is achieved to the extent that competitive
rules inhibit stakeholders from drawing invidious comparisons from competitive
outcomes. The second part of the article comprises a case study of South Africa. A descriptive analysis is made of a particular set of rules that emanate from the 1993/96 negotiated
settlement. The competitive arena is the employment market and the rules of affirmative
action. The case study centers on a ruling in a case brought to the South African Labor
Court by the Solidarity Trade Union. The case illustrates the emergence of invidious
comparisons, the dynamics of in-group and out-group interaction, the construction and
reconstruction of identities, and the shifting equilibrium of relative group status. In
conclusion, it is found that the current rules shaping this competitive situation inhibit the
emergence of parity of esteem.
The fragility of many recent negotiated peace settlements is apparent (Licklider
1995). A survey by Darby (2001) shows that in the decade from January 1988
to December 1998 thirty-eight formal peace settlements were signed, of which
thirty-one failed to endure for more than three years. The obvious indicators of
complete settlement failure are collapse and breakdown with a return to civil
war and/or warlord politics. Rwanda and Angola represent prime examples.
Indicators of settlement weakness, a precursor to failure, are many. These can
include: persistent violence rooted in a culture of violence; disagreement about
*
Department of Political Science, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1,
Matieland 7602, South Africa (email: [email protected]).
I was the recipient of a Fulbright New Century Scholars Award for 2002/2003,
and express my appreciation to the Fulbright Commission, who made this research
possible.
Copyright © 2004 SAGE Publications www.sagepublications.com
(London, Thousand Oaks, and New Delhi)
Vol 45(3–4): 195–212. DOI: 10.1177/0020715204049593
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the role of opposition parties (their legitimacy, status, and appropriate function
within democratic regimes); and disagreements about redistributive policies on
issues such as land, jobs, education, culture (language, religion), and symbols
(commemorative days, names of public places, monuments).
What are the criteria for durable peace settlements in divided societies?
What are the essential issues that have to be confronted and dealt with at the
negotiating table? How is this durability to be secured? The analysis presented
here is guided by the following propositions. First, following Horowitz (2001),
I believe the core issue underlying most other matters is relative group status,
where social status is understood as a ranking or hierarchy of prestige, as
perceived by the respective groups. Second, from this I propose that the key
criterion for durable settlements is the maintenance of parity of esteem
(Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement 1998) between various stakeholding communities. Very briefly, esteem in this context entails the positive
self-evaluation that a community can make on the basis of succeeding in living
up to certain standards of value. Third, conflicts that are settled for the first time,
even with adequate measures to address the issue of relative group status, may
experience an erosion of this quality over time. When these settlements weaken
and the impact of these failures is to undermine such parity of esteem, then renegotiating them effectively requires that parity in the status relationship be
re-established by way of a post-settlement settlement (Du Toit 2003). If addressed
early on, the agenda may include only specific items of weakness, and renegotiating them may be likened to a process of preventive maintenance. Once
settlement failure becomes pervasive, an entire constitutional order may need
to be re-drafted.
The aim of this article is to present a descriptive analysis of aspects of
the South African settlement with a view to assessing the durability of its
conflict-regulating mechanisms. A framework for analysis that utilizes aspects
of social identity theory will be constructed, so as to aid in the conceptualization
of the notion of parity of esteem. This overview will describe the evolving arena
in which job seekers compete with one another. A case study of conflict in the
labor market will then be presented. The case provides empirical demonstration
that some South Africans hold strongly divergent views as to the intended
objectives of the constitutional rules affecting competition in the labor market,
and about the meaning of the negotiated transition that produced these rules.
On this basis, and by interpreting the data within the conceptual framework
presented here, it is asserted that in this competitive arena the South African
transition fails in crucial aspects to deliver parity of esteem. It will be argued, in
conclusion, that there is a case for re-negotiating the meaning of these rules and
what they stand for.
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Parity of Esteem
Why would esteem be such a crucial ingredient of long-lasting peace settlements? Why not socioeconomic status as measured in parity of income,
education, and employment? The World Bank recommends this approach in
one of its latest reports, Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development
Policy (Collier et al. 2003). However, there is ample evidence that adversaries
in communally based conflicts tend to be relatively insensitive to material costs.
Ethnic groups often pursue their objectives at the expense of material gratification and, as Varshney (2003) has shown, sometimes at great cost, knowing that
deprivation, impoverishment, and hardship will be their immediate reward. So,
if they do not pursue material rewards in the first place, if there is something
else, something more fundamental and basic subsumed within their pursuit of
overt political objectives such as regional autonomy, secession, national independence, etc., what is it? Self-respect, dignity, recognition, and sense of worthiness are concepts often cited and usually used interchangeably. For the purposes
of this analysis, the concept of esteem is used.
Self-esteem is a crucial ingredient of personal identity. According to one
perspective, a positive sense of self-esteem, along with a sense of self-efficacy (a
sense of personal competence) and self-consistency (a sense of personal coherence), allow the individual to maintain an identity that serves to help him/her
cope with anxiety (Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski 1991). Some of the
core propositions in this perspective are that “the experienced world is an
uncertain and anxiety-provoking place and a sense of selfhood is essential in
dealing with it,” and that “anxiety-reduction is the ultimate driver of identity
formation” (Smyth 2002: 149–150).
In order to maintain analytical usefulness and to avoid concept stretching, it is necessary to demarcate the concept of esteem from related concepts.
Why not just call it the ability to rate yourself highly? This uncomplicated definition is attractive in its clarity, but not appropriate for the analysis of conflict
behavior and methods of containing and moderating conflict. It is important to
know how positive evaluations are acquired and lost and what may happen
when they come under threat. The definition by Greenberg et al. is useful: “selfesteem is the feeling that one is an object of primary value in a meaningful
universe. Individuals sustain self-esteem by maintaining faith in a culturally
derived conception of reality (the cultural worldview) and living up to the standards of value [emphasis added] that are prescribed by that worldview” (Greenberg et al. 1999: 106).
In this definition, then, individual esteem is acquired through individual
actions, and is not an attribute that is inherent to the person, either by being an
inborn quality or by being a quality assigned or awarded to the person by society
and/or state irrespective of his/her actions. Adhering to strict moral codes
(Brown 2000: 760), acquiring material prosperity, and achieving competitive
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success are pervasive standards of value in contemporary society against which
people can measure their worth.
Social Identity
One method of an individual acquiring a positive evaluation is through social
identity. Social identity consists of those aspects of an individual’s self-image
that are drawn from the social categories with which the individual identifies
and to which the individual perceives himself/herself as belonging. Social
identity theory holds that individuals can gain positive personal identity in a
vicarious way, if the group they identify with can be rated positively. This is
likely to occur in conditions where individuals tend to relate to one another less
on the basis of their individual characteristics or personal relationships, and
more on the basis of their affiliation and or membership to particular groups or
social categories. When such inter-group relationships attain salience over interpersonal relationships, strong in-group and out-group solidarities tend to
emerge. This positive social identity is achieved to the extent that favorable
comparisons can be made between the in-group and some out-groups that are
considered relevant reference points. Relevance here would entail sufficient
similarity or proximity so as to make the comparison plausible. Tajfel and
Turner maintain that the comparison is gratifying to the extent that the in-group
can perceive themselves as distinct and positively different from these outgroups, because “the aim of differentiation is to maintain or achieve superiority
over an out-group on some dimensions” (Tajfel and Turner 1979: 41).
Any range or kind of group may serve as such a vehicle of positive
collective esteem. Many commercial brand names, especially those in the
competitive sporting arena, serve this function. If you are a fan and your team
wins on the field, you share the victory, the sense of being a winner too, and can
gain a sense of achievement from their prowess. But our concern is with conflicts
in South Africa, where communities, often clearly identifiable by cultural
markers, are the antagonists.
Culture and Comparison
The perspective provided by social identity theory also allows us to take up the
question of what it is about culture that produces conflict. Cultural theories of
conflict claim that incompatible cultural values are the source of conflict and the
expectation is that the greater the incompatibility (“value dissensus”), the more
intense and hostile the confrontation is likely to be. This theory has been challenged on a number of grounds and, in the case of ethnic conflicts, Horowitz
(1985: 135–139) has shown that the empirical record contains many examples
showing that elites, the sectors where rival ethnic groups are most alike, clash
most severely. This is consistent with the claim in social identity theory that
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comparison is most likely between groups regarded as being similar enough to
one another to make the comparative evaluation plausible, relevant, realistic,
and persuasive. According to this perspective cultural differences are important
not for the intrinsic differences of custom, value, tradition language or religion
each embodies, but rather to the extent that these differences impact on matters
of perceived prestige. When an in-group and an out-group are differentiated by
clearly visible cultural markers, then it can be expected that the comparative
evaluation by the in-group will be not so much about substantive differences of
culture between itself and the relevant out-group, but rather about the relative
merits of the own group over the out-group, and how this bears on the given
cultural differences. Being “different” is one thing, but being different and, at
the same time, “better” or “worse” is quite another matter. According to
Horowitz (1985: 166–184), when culture becomes the basis for insulting,
invidious comparisons, the cultural mechanism of conflict is ignited.
The Competitive Arena
Social identity theory is especially relevant to this article, which has as its focus
not only ethnic conflict but also post-settlement conflict. When adversaries
emerge from conflict that has stretched over decades, if not centuries, and they
have managed to do so with a negotiated peace agreement, each party has
ample reason to award itself a high sense of collective esteem. This applies
especially to situations when all parties announce the outcome of negotiations
as positive, possibly even characterizing those outcomes as a “win-win” result.
But this highly positive collective assessment may come under immediate threat when the new democratic context draws such parties into new,
unfamiliar competitive arenas from which new clear-cut winners and losers are
expected to emerge. Competitive success is an obvious source of high esteem,
as much as competitive failure is an equally obvious threat to such esteem.
Competitive arenas provide very stark opportunities for comparative
evaluations, from which clear-cut, indisputable, unambiguous winners and losers
emerge. Winning represents success, losing represents failure. Everything else
being equal, those with a competitive advantage (“the strong”) tend to end up as
winners, those at a competitive disadvantage (“the weak”) end up as losers. Note
that these labels are indicators of competitive ability, not of relative status
rankings in terms of collective esteem. Neither group has reason to perceive itself
as “backward,” or the others as “advanced,” precisely because they both emerged
from the (previous) competitive engagement with a positive result.1 The entire
process of negotiated peacemaking is about trying to escape from, and to transcend, previously held status rankings and/or to end violent contestation over
such matters. If this proves to be successful and a settlement is clinched, then the
contest over status is, for that moment, resolved. Both parties are able find ample
reasons for entering the new competitive engagement as equals in status.
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My interest is in how newly negotiated rules affect both the strong and
the weak in terms of process as well as outcome. Rules can therefore be placed
along a spectrum, ranging from those that benefit the strong to those that benefit
the weak. At the one end of the spectrum the weak will prefer rules that restrict
those who have a competitive advantage. The strong will likewise prefer rules
that favor themselves, at the expense of the weak, but even rules of open, unrestricted competition will suit them, as this allows them to exercise their
competitive edge to full advantage.
Only some rules have the possibility of producing outcomes which both
the strong and the weak can accept as fair. In the long run, outcomes should
allow both the strong and the weak to believe that they will escape the condition
of being perpetual losers, either as objects of exploitation or as objects of
discrimination (Austin 1979). Fairness thus entails far more than outcomes that
produce a “splitting of the difference” between opposing claims. Criteria of
fairness also bear on what the competitive outcomes reveal about the caliber
and relative worthiness of the competitors.
Perceiving one’s self as being an object of primary value within a
meaningful universe, within a competitive context where culture and ethnicity
affect both identities and competitive abilities, is the key to maintaining parity
of esteem. Parity is achieved to the extent that competitors who end up as losers
can escape from the insult and derogation that are inherent in invidious
comparisons. Rules that inhibit, punish (or at least not reward), and discourage
such comparisons facilitate the achievement of such parity.
The invidious comparison can be made with various layers of humiliation. The single humiliation is found in a loser being reminded that her/his losing
streak is not the result of personal qualities (dispositions such as laziness, indifference, miss-motivation, or lack of trying) or of sheer bad luck. Instead,
winners, with cultural attributes different from those of the loser, impute the
competitive weakness to the very culture that identifies the individual loser and
the group with which she/he identifies. And the more the attribute assumes a
permanent quality, the worse the insult, because “to lose out in competition and
comparison to others who are differentiated on a birth basis is to be afflicted
with an apparent permanent disability” (Horowitz 1985: 147). Racist practices
and rules are common examples of policies that can serve to produce such
derogatory assessments. Accusations of racism are frequent examples of
invidious comparisons.
A further layer of humiliation can be found in the revelation, upon
introspection, that your own culture does in fact disempower you. Despite
South Africa having eleven official languages, this is a daily experience for most
South Africans who do not have English as a first language. The other ten
language groups are at a major competitive disadvantage in terms of access to
the world of computers, commerce, high technology, and global networks.
Lastly, the above threats to positive self-assessment are likely to be so
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much more acutely distressing when the losing party has just emerged from a
historic transition, and has done so with much credit to itself and where this
credit has been acknowledged and even acclaimed worldwide.
The objective of any competent peace process, therefore, should be to
devise rules that allow for competitive processes such as elections, redistribution
of land, allocation of public service jobs, maintenance of language, and religious
access to proceed without becoming arenas of renewed status anxiety, contestation, and, eventually, new status hierarchies. Many peace settlements try to do
precisely this. Much energy is invested into finding new rules for an electoral
system, devices such as “willing-buyer willing-seller” are set in operation for
land distribution and preferential policies (affirmative action) are devised for
the job market. This is a tall order, as the post-settlement period is unknown
terrain for any negotiator. Changes to the context, unforeseen factors, and
unanticipated outcomes all impact the way rules affect competition. When these
rules do, however, produce new status-threatening outcomes, the settlement
itself becomes less secure. Unless attended to, settlement weakness and, eventually, settlement failure may ensue.
Some creative options exist for dealing with ego-threatening comparisons. These are available to both low and high status groups. One option is for
individuals to exercise individual mobility and leave the group under threat.
This can be done physically by relocation or emigration, or socially by disassociating from the group. A second option is to alter the elements of the
comparative assessment. This could be done by comparing the in-group to the
out-group on the basis of a different dimension, or by changing the values
assigned to the attributes of the group (from negative to positive), or by
changing the frame of reference away from the high status out-group to another
group. A third option would be to compete more vigorously with the out-group,
hoping to emerge as winners (Tajfel and Turner 1979).
A final option is to resort to violence against the source of egothreatening comparisons. Two rival sets of propositions about violence present
themselves. One is by Horowitz, who argues that low-esteem groups are likely
to become the aggressors.2 He claims that generally “there is much evidence
that so-called backward groups are more frequent initiators of ethnic violence
and advanced groups more frequent victims” (1985: 166) and, more specifically,
“with very few exceptions, where such juxtapositions exist, riot behavior
involves the targeting of advanced groups by backward groups” (2001: 179). The
contrasting position is represented by Baumeister, Smart, and Boden (1999:
244) who argue the high-esteem hypothesis: “People turn aggressive when they
receive feedback that contradicts their favorable views of themselves and
implies that they should adapt less favorable views.”
Both sets of stakeholders can agree to revise punitive rules, which either
discriminate or allow for exploitation. Revision can entail the rewriting of rules,
or of policies that follow from agreed upon rules or of the meaning and intent
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of agreed upon rules. If the rules punish the weak, then the strong have to be
persuaded that it is to their own benefit to revise. If the rules are to the detriment of the strong, then the weak have to be persuaded that they also stand to
gain from such revision. This persuasion has to be conducted within the political
arena, where stakeholders are, again, either strong or weak. Weak competitors
in the economic arena may be strong in the electoral arena, and vice versa.
Revision cannot be a unilateral affair. It requires re-negotiation, with all-round
public endorsement by all stakeholders of the eventual outcome—in short, a
post-settlement settlement.
In summary, parity of esteem is a concept that relates to competitive
situations and affects the outcomes of competitive relations. Parity of competitive outcomes is achieved to the extent that the outcomes of the competitive
process are perceived to be fair by all parties and to the extent that each party,
especially those who exit any particular round as a loser, is prepared to reengage in the next competitive round under the same rules. Parity of esteem is
achieved when the competitive process as well as the outcomes are of such a
nature that both strong and weak competitors are inhibited from taunting their
opponents in ways that entail plausible invidious comparisons.
The achievement of parity of esteem requires the effective management
of issues of relative group status in competitive situations. These include matters
such as symbolic politics; rules pertaining to derogatory public statements (such
as hate speech); and rules affecting competitive distributional politics.
South Africa and the Politics of Affirmative Action
Context
“In South Africa the worst never happens.” This local adage entered the South
African idiomatic repertoire as part of the negotiated transition that culminated
in the 1994 elections. Less than a decade later, an authoritative “state of the
nation” analysis by Mattes (2002: 23) concluded that “seven years into its new
dispensation, South Africa’s democracy in form appears to be relatively healthy,
but in substance shows signs of early decay.”
The data indicating early decay and settlement failure are incontrovertible. Unemployment, the result of largely “jobless growth,” stood at over 37
percent in 2001 according to the South African Institute of Race Relations
(2001: 145), while inequality within all race groups increased from 1994 onwards
and the poor have become more destitute. The democratic government has
been unable to contain violent crime (Du Toit 2001: 46–51). It has been claimed
that the constitutional framework, one written as a framework to accommodate
multiparty politics and constitutional accountability, has become a vehicle for
one-party dominance by the African National Congress, a party itself
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committed to internal, centralized decision-making. What remains is a façade
of multiparty politics (Mattes 2002).
South Africans have the task of trying to become practitioners of
democracy under very trying circumstances. From the very start of the country’s
democratic era, ordinary South Africans have been directly concerned with the
very harsh challenges of everyday life. The 1995/96 World Values Survey asked
respondents to rate their “most desirable” priorities for the country in terms of
first, second and third-rank orders. From a list of eighteen items in the first
order, the most highly rated first-order priority was “making sure that all people
are fully employed.” Then came “maintaining a high rate of economic growth”
followed by “providing shelter for all people.” Fourth was “fighting crime,” fifth
was “making sure that everyone can go to school,” sixth was “maintaining law
and order,” and “providing land for all people” came in at number seven (Kotzé
and Du Toit 1997: 67). Sheer survival clearly outranked issues related to the
quality of democracy.
Six years later the priorities had not changed. In a national survey
conducted by Schlemmer (2001: 3–4) in 2001, respondents were asked (interviews were used, rather than questionnaires) to list the most “serious problems
not yet resolved since 1994.” The top four issues were unemployment, crime and
violence, housing and shelter, and lack of water and sanitation, in that order.
Distributive policies that deal with jobs are therefore likely to be salient. Under
the prevailing (2004) conditions of rising unemployment they come close to
producing zero-sum distributional outcomes and, therefore, are laden with high
conflict potential.
The New Competitive Arena for Employment
The negotiators anticipated that, given the historical legacy of inequality, rules
pertaining to equality and redress would have to be established. Some of the
most important ones would be those concerning employment. The interim 1993
constitution provided a first set of rules, soon to be superseded by the 1996
constitution. The most relevant sections were section 9 (on equality) and section
195 (on employment criteria in the public service).
The constitution provided the platform for redress, but did not provide
the mechanisms for doing so. Specific legal mechanisms for effecting this
appeared, among others, in the form of the Employment Equity Act No. 55 of
1998 (South African Department of Labour 1998). It put the above constitutional principles into effect in the following way.
In the preamble, the Act articulates that the historical disparities in
employment, occupation, and income in the national labor market have become
so pronounced that those at a disadvantage will be unable to redress these
disparities under conditions where the discriminatory laws are simply repealed.
They are unable to do so on their own and can be described in the terms used
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in this article as weak, at a competitive disadvantage, and, therefore, in need of
help in the form of preferential treatment.
In the Act, the weak are described as the “designated groups,” and are
singled out for preferential treatment. Using the terminology of the preceding
apartheid legal order, the Act defines the designated groups as “black people,
women and people with disabilities.” “Black people” in turn, is used as a generic
term for “Africans, Coloureds and Indians” (South African Department of
Labour 1998). The remaining category of South Africans in the labor market is
therefore white men. They are referred to in the Act simply as “people who are
not from the designated groups” (South African Department of Labour 1998).
These non-designated persons are clearly considered to be strong, at a competitive advantage, and not in need of preferential treatment.
Preferential treatment takes the form of affirmative action measures,
which are “measures designed to ensure that suitably qualified people from the
designated groups have equal employment opportunities and are equitably
represented in all occupational categories and levels in the workforce of a designated employer” (section 15(1)). “Designated employers” refers to any firm
that employs more than 50 people, or with a financial turnover exceeding a
specified amount, and any municipality or organ of state. For the purposes of
this act, the South African National Defence Force, the National Intelligence
Agency, and the South African Secret Service are excluded from the organs of
state.
Measures relevant to this objective include the elimination of barriers
created by “unfair discrimination”; measures aimed at increasing diversity in
workforces; “preferential treatment” including skills training, numerical goals
promoting equitable representation, but not quotas. Some key concepts are left
undefined. These include the concepts of “equitable representation” and “preferential treatment.”
The sole specific rule protecting white men appears in section 15(4),
which prohibits a designated employer from setting up an “absolute barrier” to
the employment of “people who are not from designated groups.” Some flexibility is introduced into this rule by section 42. The exact composition of a workforce is made subject to practical considerations such as: the national and
regional demographic profiles of the “economically active population”; the pool
of suitably qualified people from the designated groups who are available for
appointment or promotion; the economic and financial circumstances of the
firm; and progress already made in the implementation of equity plans.
The way these rules of competition have been applied by firms and state
institutions has varied. In a number of instances individuals have taken employers to court and, in some cases, have won. Both white and black litigants have
been on the winning side, but a clear pattern and acceptable standard of
interpretation and application of both of these constitutional and derived legal
principles has yet to emerge. An appropriate way of facilitating this is to
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establish a code of good practice for the implementation of this Act (the Act
makes provision for such a code to be established), but at the time of writing
(March 2004) this has not yet been done. While there appears to be a fair
amount of agreement on these principles, at the policy level the rules of affirmative action remain contested terrain.
Case Study
This case study focuses on a court case in which the judge ruled against the state
on the application of affirmative action legislation. The immediate and subsequent attitudinal responses of a wider set of stakeholders responding to the
court case and the subsequent initiatives of the various actors are also described.
The major stakeholders in this case are the Solidarity Trade Union, representing the non-designated South Africans, and the Ministry of Labor, the
FEDUSA trade union federation, the Black Management Forum, all on the side
of the designated South Africans. On the periphery, slightly removed from the
action, are the South African Communist Party3 and a member of the Cape
Town Unicity Management.
During the course of 2002 the Solidarity Trade Union brought a case
against the South African Police Service (SAPS) to the South African Labor
Court on behalf of twelve White police officers, who had been refused
promotion by the SAPS to the rank of captain within the force. The applicants
were all from the explosives unit within the police force, a highly specialized and
technically sophisticated unit, requiring highly trained personnel. Their work is
also extremely risk-laden, as the members of this unit are required to dispose
of undetonated bombs and other explosive devices found in public places.
The judge found that the refusal of the National Commissioner of Police
to promote these White officers was unfair discrimination, as it violated other
constitutional provisions, such as the duty to maintain an effective police force
in general, and a capable explosives unit in this particular instance. Affirmative
action criteria (representivity) were applied at the expense of “the constitutional imperative that the service maintain efficiency.” The judge ruled that
all the applicants were to be awarded promotion to the rank of captain
(Republic of South Africa 2002). The SAPS appealed against the ruling, but it
was dismissed with costs.
The first public response, following the refusal of appeal to the SAPS,
came from the Federation of Unions of South Africa, FEDUSA, which, through
its general secretary Mr Chez Milani, called on the government not to allow the
Solidarity Union to continue to operate. He called for the deregistering of Solidarity as a legal trade union. His argument was that the union was using the
“race card” to recruit members and mobilize workers, undermining the task at
hand, which is to build, what he called, “a non-racial society.” He then followed
this accusation of racism with a call for the development of a strong Black
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middle class and the empowering of the majority of poor people in the country
(South African Press Association 2003a).
The Minister of Labor then entered the fray by responding to Milani’s
call. Without mentioning names he warned: “Organizations—whether predominantly Black or White—that whip up hysteria over race in order to canvas for
membership are playing a dangerous game” (South African Press Association
2003b). Solidarity took this as a direct rebuke and an endorsement of the
FEDUSA statement, and replied: “The minister must not accuse Solidarity of
racism while thousands of its members are alienated. Solidarity don’t have any
other choice than to take the government to court to protect its members from
unfair discrimination.” They defended this course of action as follows: “We have
an obligation to keep the constitution alive. If we need to go to court in order
to test affirmative action we are only building the democracy and are not
suppose [sic] to be criticized for it.” (South African Press Association 2003b).
Solidarity (Solidarity Trade Union 2003) prepared a submission for a
public hearing on affirmative action held by the Parliamentary labor portfolio
committee on 14 May 2003. At the hearing they presented evidence that their
members, the non-designated group, defined by the Act as consisting exclusively of White men, are experiencing increasing levels of alienation, a sense of
powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, and a sense of isolation. Taken
together, they felt like “second-class citizens” in their own country. To remedy
this effect, the union called for plans that would apply affirmative action in such
a way “that imbalances of the past can be rectified but without creating new
forms of imbalances” (Solidarity Trade Union 2003: 9) To further this aim, they
proposed, firstly, that an Equality Accord be established between the government and the non-designated group of South Africans. The objective of such an
accord should be, according to them, to “find a balance between the legitimate
rights of the non-designated group and the expectations of the designated
group” (Solidarity Trade Union 2003: 9). Their second proposal was that a code
of good practice (provided for by section 54 of the Act) for affirmative action
policies be established. They then listed some of the items they would like to be
entered into such a code. According to press reports (Leuvenink 2003), the
presentation before the committee was marked by accusations from members
that Solidarity was racist and proceedings became so rowdy that the chair, Mr
Salie Manie, had to intervene to restore order.
At a subsequent conference on the evolving doctrine and practice of
human rights in South Africa, the spokesperson for Solidarity related the above
series of events and Solidarity’s role in them. He again defended their court
actions in the same terms. His fellow panelist, a representative of the Black
Management Forum, then confirmed this interpretation by retorting that Solidarity was not merely using the constitution, but instead was misusing the
constitution so as to block and thwart the goals of “transformation.”
Some further responses by these and related stakeholders representing
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the weak (designated group) and the strong (non-designated group) relevant to
this specific case study can be noted. Mr Mabela Satekge, head of the Cape
Town Unicity’s procurement department, made a notable contribution on the
side of those who represent the designated group. According to press reports
(Smith 2003), he spoke at a conference on Black economic empowerment and
called on the government to “urgently review” the definition of “historically
disadvantaged groups,” that is, designated groups, so as to exclude White
women, as they were getting jobs and contracts that could otherwise have gone
to black entrepreneurs. According to him, White women were thus blocking the
advance of Black economic empowerment. Should his call be heeded, the reracialization of the labor market in South Africa would be almost complete.
On the other side of the spectrum, Solidarity, representing the nondesignated group, signed a joint declaration of intent with the South African
Communist Party (SACP) on 17 July 2003. In the declaration they commit
themselves to work toward applying affirmative action in such a way so as not
to marginalize any sector of the population and to establish an Equality Accord.
Analysis
Five significant points can be raised from this case study. The first is that for
both Solidarity and for the Cape Town Unicity manager the Act no longer meets
their minimum demands. For Solidarity it eradicates former discriminatory
practices only to institute new ones. For them, the rules need to be re-written.
The same applies to the interpretation of the Cape Town Unicity manager.
Under the new rules, according to him, White women can proceed to do just
what White men did under the old rules. His call is also for re-writing the rules,
but in a way diametrically different to the preferences of Solidarity. When these
two views are considered together, the contract zone, or zone of convergence,
has disappeared.
The second relates to the use of litigation. Solidarity defended its
actions by taking the SAPS to court as a matter of taking up their rights, of
turning the written constitution into a living constitution, and of enhancing
democracy in the process. To them, this was merely an enactment of what the
constitution made available to them and a practical step in the evolution of a
human rights doctrine and culture. Their opponents called this strategy obstructive and criticized the union for using the courts in such a way as to thwart the
achievement of an objective beyond the constitution, namely, “transformation.”
The two positions represent strongly contrasting views and raise a further
question: what does the constitution represent and embody? Is it a contract with
supreme binding legal status, to be used by stakeholders in a way that is written
into the document and available to all South Africans, to be put to use to further
their diverse interests as they see fit? Or is it a document that is subject to the
larger objective of “transformation”? Does this objective, that is nowhere
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explicitly defined, has no written legal status, or written frame of reference, have
a superior status to the constitution? And is the function of the constitution to
serve as an instrument of those, and only those, who stand to benefit from such
transformation?
This leads into the third point. In all their documents Solidarity calls for
the need to resolve the disputes about affirmative action by finding “win-win
solutions” and they claim that their proposals for a code of good practice and
for an Equality Accord, in fact, contain such elements. The question, then, is
whether the concept of a “win-win outcome” is compatible with that of transformation or not?
The above set of questions leads to a further question: what was the
overall objective of the negotiated democratic transition? Was it to secure winwin outcomes, or to further transformation? Each of these objectives, in turn,
are central to two contrasting systems of meaning about the nature of conflict
resolution. The win-win concept is anchored in a framework that considers
negotiated peace-making as a project in joint problem-solving, where the
outcome is accorded the status of a contract that serves to shape and mold
future relations between the signatories. The concept of transformation is more
compatible with a framework that considers relationships central and contracts
as secondary. Negotiated settlements, in this view, should serve the larger goal
of a “transformed” relationship between former adversaries, and should reflect,
not shape, the relationship. Contracts must bend and be remolded as the
relationship shifts and evolves.
The fourth point of significance is the matter of racism. The litigation
by Solidarity, as a procedure for defending the interests of their members, was
described by their opponents, FEDUSA, as an act of racism. By extension, they
accused the Solidarity members of being racists, while presenting the actions of
their own trade union federation as working towards a “non-racial society.” This
is an invidious comparison, targeted at a category of people defined by law in
terms of race and gender. It contains an insult and carries with it the implication
that the collective self-esteem of this category of people requires a downward
adjustment, should such litigation persist.
Taken at face value, this accusation is quite understandable. Solidarity
is taking up the interests of White men only. The insult of racism is therefore
almost unavoidable. But the structure of the Act is such that there is no way
that Solidarity can advance the interests of individuals from the non-designated
group without focusing on White men. The Act defines the non-designated
group in racial terms and thus defines interests in racial terms, and, therefore,
channels mobilization of interests in racial terms. The Act also does not inhibit
the slur of racism, but almost invites invidious comparisons (racists vs. nonracialists). This is the single outstanding reason why parity of esteem cannot be
achieved under this Act as it stands now (at the time of writing, March 2004).
A fifth and final observation can be made about the working
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arrangement that Solidarity established with the South African Communist
Party. These are two of the least likely allies in South Africa. Solidarity has its
roots in the White working class movement of the 1920s, and has for decades
supported racial discrimination under apartheid. The SACP with its black
working class support base has been one of the core components in the liberation movement. Yet this initiative from Solidarity is entirely consistent with the
predictions of social identity theory. When a group experiences a threat to their
status position, but is loath to accede by lowering its own subjective assessment
of its relative worthiness, then a number of creative options can be explored.
One of these, according to Tajfel and Turner (1979: 43), is for group members
to “seek positive distinctiveness for the in-group by redefining or altering the
elements of the comparative situation,” by comparing the in-group and outgroup on the basis of some new dimension. What Solidarity did was to look at
themselves and define themselves not in terms of the Employment Equity Act,
which categorizes them as “white men,” but instead as “workers.” In their press
statement (De Lange 2003) at the announcement of their working relationship
with the SACP, they were quite scathing in their contempt for the way they had
been left in a lurch by their closest ethnic brethren, the Afrikaner elite capitalists. They knew they were on their own, as workers, and had to face the perils
of a globalized neo-liberal economy with their Black fellow workers in the
SACP. With this, they broke the mold of racial and ethnic stereotyping inherited from the apartheid past and perpetuated by the in-group/out-group
dichotomy set up by the Employment Equity Act.
Conclusion
Distributive policies shaping outcomes in the South African labor market are
showing signs of polarizing opposing stakeholders. The Employment Equity
Act, as it stands, is prone to inducing insulting, derogatory, and invidious evaluations based on race from various parties. This affects the relative status
positions of the different stakeholding communities and inhibits the achievement of parity of esteem. This process, in turn, relates to fundamental disagreements about the nature of South Africa’s transition and, hence, the status of the
country’s negotiated constitutional rules. Re-negotiating the meaning of the
transition to democracy, and the constitution that embodies the transition, is
one way of forestalling further polarization.
NOTES
1
Horowitz’s (1985: 141–171) distinction between “backward” and “advanced”
groups refers to both a competitive and a status differentiation. The specific
aspects of a competitive disadvantage are peculiar to the context, but usually
affect the attributes needed to excel in a modern political economy. Groups are
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backward when they internalize their own disabilities. Not only are they weak
competitors, they also feel weak when they compare themselves to advanced
groups. In this model, strong and weak groups, by contrast, enter into a new
competitive relationship with differential abilities, but do not yet enter these
differences into their own calculations of their own worth.
2
Horowitz (2001: 384–395) uses the low-esteem hypothesis as a basic point of
departure in his framework for explaining deadly ethnic riots. His theory incorporates a number of conditions that have to be met for such forms of public
violence to occur.
3
South African communists first organized themselves with the launch of the
Communist Party of South Africa in 1921. They were then a mostly White
working class movement. When the Nationalist Party took power in 1948,
however, they aligned themselves with the Black resistance movement. After
the Suppression of Communism Act was passed in 1950, they disbanded, only
to reactivate themselves clandestinely as the South African Communist Party
in 1953. They were officially unbanned in 1990, and are formally aligned with
the ANC and Cosatu trade union federation. They are not registered as a
political party, and do not contest elections under their own banner, but support
the ANC candidates.
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Pierre du Toit is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the
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a Fulbright New Century Scholars award for 2002–2003.
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