Dear Comrade Gwede Mantashe, I can’t believe you are making the case for Shell – here's why

Dear Comrade Gwede,

This is an open reply to your recent position in favour of Shell, where you described anti-Shell protests as “apartheid and colonialism of a special type” to promote economic oppression. I do not respond to you as the minister of energy, but as “comrade” because your words convey a political position on the matter.

We met many years ago during a Workers’ Day celebration at the Good Hope Centre in Cape Town. I was in the company of Comrade Tony Ehrenhreich of Cosatu. I gave you a copy of my book, Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Steps to the Gallows. I believed that we shared a similar ideology about Africa.

Let’s review the ANC’s history or stance against oil companies, Shell included. I remind you that the ANC endorsed the oil embargo against apartheid South Africa on 20 May 1980. The ANC carried out a serious attack on the Sasol oil refinery in Sasolburg on Monday, 2 June 1980. The ANC sustained a series of attacks on oil installations, including Shell’s depot in Alberton, in June of 1981. In October of the same year, a new oil facility under construction at Secunda was bombed by the ANC’s foot soldiers. This trend continued to 1986 with a similar pattern of attacks in Scheepersnek, Paulpietersburg, Hectorspruit, Mkuze and Durban.

Dear Comrade Gwede, in recalling these events, it is not my intention to present the ANC as a violent organisation or to demonise the ANC. My understanding is that the ANC took those actions based on well-considered principles. I have all the while believed that the ANC’s position was that oil companies, Shell particularly, played an ignoble role that aided apartheid. My reading of history is that the ANC saw the activities of Shell and other oil companies as synonymous with the military machinery of the apartheid regime. I thought that the ANC’s position was that attacks on Shell’s facilities were a statement for black liberation.

Perhaps it would not be out of place to remind you that there are still countless numbers of ordinary people who were victims of the brutality of the military machines of the apartheid era, and Shell was one of the companies that fuelled those operations that violated and maimed black people.

I know some of the victims; they belong to a group called the Khulumani Support Group, and the scars from injuries inflicted on them remain. May I also remind you that in the July-September 1981 edition of the ANC publication, Social Development and Progress, the headline was Fuelling Apartheid. Your organisation was blunt in its stance against oil companies and their role in supporting violence against the people in the fishing communities along the coasts of South Africa.

I am struggling to see how your support for an apartheid-aligned company heals the historical past or helps the collective psychology of the victims of those dark days. 

Comrade Gwede, since I came across your remarks about Shell, I have been wondering if the principled position against oil companies like Shell has changed. I cannot help but ask when Shell became the saviour of the black majority that the ANC extricated from the claws of apartheid? I am not sure that the ANC knew in the 1980s that there were oil and/or gas deposits off the coast of South Africa. I mean, was oil and gas extraction ever or always part of the liberation struggle? Instead of a fixation on an extractive sector, why not put in place mechanisms for millions of the previously oppressed people to get involved in viable, sustainable agrarian productivity at scale? 

Comrade Gwede, when we met, you highlighted the importance of restoring the dignity of the formerly oppressed. You spoke about fostering unity between the black, coloured and even the white communities in the Western Cape. You also said it was wrong for black people from the Eastern Cape to be treated as “immigrants” in the Western Cape. That wish for unity is manifesting. Shell’s seismic survey has brought together both people of colour and the white community. The middle and working class, the rich and the poor are saying that they all have differentiated but equal connectivity to the Wild Coast — everyone wants the sustainable use of the country’s coast. They want the oceans for the intrinsic value of the ocean.

So, it is the attempt to hand the ocean over to Shell to degrade, and the denial of the connectivity of the different communities that should be described as “apartheid of a special type”.

Comrade Gwede, you are a leader in the ANC and a Cabinet minister. You have enormous power to make decisions which reflect the wishes of the people. Comrade Gwede, to advocate for Shell as the answer to the country’s staggering unemployment is a cheap solution to a complex problem. I hear that the maximum number of jobs that could be created from oil and gas activities is 50,000, of which the majority will be temporary jobs. Even if all the jobs were to be permanent employment, the majority of the people in these coastal communities lack the skills required by Shell for their operations. 

Comrade Gwede, the number of anti-Shell protests is a clarion call for climate-friendly jobs. South Africans want to end poverty. Those protests represent the desires of people to reduce inequality in the country, but they don’t want to achieve it at the expense of the environment. I don’t see how that fits into the definition of “apartheid of a special type”. DM

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