Patrick Bond: Can Durban Recover From Michael Sutcliffe’s Reign of “Neoliberal Nationalism”?
In an article for Pambazuka News, Patrick Bond, author of Politics of Climate Justice, weighs in on the nine-year reign of Durban’s former mayor, Michael Sutcliffe. Bond says that the “neoliberal nationalism” of Sutcliffe’s rule “terrorized many poor and working people”:
January opened as the South African city of Durban’s first time since 2002 without City Manager Michael Sutcliffe. He became well known across the world as a target of community and environmental activism, for catalyzing a $400 million stadium for the soccer World Cup in 2010, and for hosting the COP17 climate summit last month, in a city of 3.5 million of whom a third are dirt-poor and another third struggle as underpaid workers.
Why did they put up with Sutcliffe’s mainly malevolent rule? Alongside constituencies of fisherfolk, streetchildren and informal traders, many grassroots groups like the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, the Chatsworth Westcliff Flatdwellers, Abahlali base Mjondolo shackdwellers and Clairwood Ratepayers and Residents Association have long condemned race-and class-biased municipal policy and Sutcliffe’s viciousness. But the prestige of the African National Congress (ANC) liberation movement means the ruling party has been comfortably re-elected since the days of Mandela (1994-99). Until the leading trade unions break their alliance with the ANC, that won’t change, and ruthless men like Sutcliffe will stay at the top of government.
Book details
- Politics of Climate Justice: Paralysis Above, Movement Below by Patrick Bond
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EAN: 9781869142216
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- Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society edited by Patrick Bond, Rehana Dada, Graham Erion
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EAN: 9781869141417
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