Another good piece: Can South Africa’s Anti-Capitalist Left Rise to the Occasion? Editorial of Amandla! Issue 37/38. The hard copy appropriately carries a picture of Neville Alexanders book One Azania One Nation-the National Question in South Africa. After outlining the harrowing overview of the state were in the editorial speaks to an area long neglected by sections of the left (click on the link below for the full editorial): ...Given the legacy of South Africa’s working class movement, it is actually quite surprising that it has taken so long for the ANC-led alliance to unravel. But we have clearly now entered a new period, in which the alliance is unquestionably unravelling. This affords both dangers and opportunities... When compared with the task of unifying COSATU, which has received so much attention in the press and amongst the chattering classes, the task of building real working class unity is massively more challenging. The divisions within COSATU reflect on a small scale the social divisions that exist within the working class, both in South Africa and abroad. This challenge – of building real working class unity – is made more complex by the unravelling of a non-racial consciousness within the movement since at least 1994, and the emergence of deep, reactionary divisions based on racial, cultural and ‘ethnic’ identities. In the face of an increasingly fierce struggle for scarce resources and scarcer opportunities, identity has become a powerful and tempting motivation for both economic aspiration and political ambition. It is a double-edged and often a toxic weapon – one that can deepen divisions within the working class, undermining prospects for both political unity and practical solidarity. The monumental challenge we recognise even by posing the question of unity just between the so-called ‘coloured’ and ‘African’ working class communities provides an insight into the depth of the problems that we face. These challenges cannot be avoided, nor the solutions be taken for granted. And the mighty task we have been handed – of attempting to overcome identity-based factionalism in the name of working class unity – lies squarely at the feet of the ruling party. Not even two years ago we celebrated 100 years of the formation of the ANC – an organisation that once set out boldly on the road to overcoming ‘tribal’ divisions. Today, the fact that the ANC has become so dominant in the KwaZulu Natal region is largely due to a fatal capitulation to Zulu nationalism if not chauvinism. It is in relation to this latter challenge that we must understand the call for a new ‘United Front’. While we must resist any temptation to simply mimic the UDF of the 1980s, there are also valuable lessons to be drawn from that experience, and we should actively recall them and consciously refresh our recollections, while also striving for new insights into the strategic question of building class alliances, and into crafting a political programme around which a broad alliance can be built that can advance the interests of the majority. The irony of our reality is that it still remains the task of the working class to forge national unity – yes, to build the nation. However, the lesson of the last twenty years told so eloquently by the statistics quoted above regarding the state of the working class in South Africa, is that this nation cannot be built without the radical redistribution of wealth. It cannot be built on capitalist foundations. It is for this reason that any movement serious about providing a serious left alternative must revisit the national question. Above all, this means how a class-based left can successfully challenge non-class-based identities, when the latter are often so dominant amongst many working and poor people. The call for a united left, which NUMSA is in effect leading, must also respond very concretely to the need for livelihoods for the 8 million South Africans who are unemployed, and must forge ways to do so without wreaking ecological havoc on the country through accelerated resource extraction. As the impacts of climate change become increasingly evident, it is clear that competition over food and water resources will be a source of intensifying conflict. As this issue of Amandla! goes to press, we read of police shooting unarmed people in Mzamba who were gathering rice from an overturned lorry, reportedly killing at least two and wounding several more. Without a decisive shift from the politics of enforced scarcity out of respect for the profit making system, such violent confrontations over increasingly privatised, commodified and monopolised resources are sure to become more frequent. We cannot expect quick or definitive answers to these questions, but they must become entrenched at the heart of the debate amongst those who are looking for a political alternative. These are daunting tasks. Together, they constitute the challenge of our lifetimes. We must rise together and meet them if we are to have any chance of pursuing a genuinely emancipatory politics through South Africa’s accelerating political realignments.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 13:52:21 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015