(Re)formulating the Social Question in Post-apartheid South Africa: Zola Skweyiya, Dignity, Development and the Welfare State

Abstract

Democratisation in 1994 meant that, for the first time, the South African state recognised that all South Africans had claims on and responsibilities to society. To address the racialised legacy of apartheid, the new government sought to expand opportunities for black South Africans—and hence solve the social question—through racially inclusive economic growth and development. The government initially viewed the system of social grants that it inherited as insufficiently developmental and worried about the poor becoming “dependent” on public support. When unemployment and poverty persisted, compounded by HIV/AIDS, reformers—including especially the Minister of Social Development from 1999 to 2009, Zola Skweyiya—reframed the social question in terms of dignity and responsibility and expanded the social grant system.

Afrocentric analysis of music in political advertisements of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)

“…"Isikhalo sa bantu usihoye", 6 The above political metaphor appropriately exhorts the ANC to "listen to the concerns of people". The ANC-led government in its failure to improve the socioeconomic conditions of black people, rather chooses easy solutions by creating a welfare state where black people in particular are dependent on government for their livelihood (Vidojevin & Chipkin, 2021;Seekings, 2021). The The ANC has failed to provide black people with high-quality public education (Workman, 2020), that could enable them to stand on their feet, compete, and create economic opportunities for themselves and for others.…”