Amandla Double SCREEN

Mama Africa:
aluta continua
Obama: can he
make a difference?
2009
Elections:
Whats in it
for the left?
FEATU
R
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Deputy Minister Rob Davies speaks
to Amandla! on regional integration
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Global Financial Collapse
ANC Crisis: what Crisis?
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FEATURE
Zimbabwe Reconstruction:
what Possibilities?
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Amandl a! Doubl e I ssue No. 5 & 6 | December 2008 1
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Editorial 2
Letters to the editor 3
News briefs
How banks work 5
Grassroutes
The politics of the National Youth Development Agency Bill 6
African images
Will drug money buy Guinea Bissaus election? 7
Latin America calling
Hopes and fears 8
Left thinking
If not capitalism, what? 9
Policy debate: post-Polokwane
Political shifts and economic alternatives post-Polokwane: Walking through the doors 10
Are we set for a capitalist developmental state? 12
There is a Democratic Left response to the global crisis 14
Its the economy stupid
The biggest rip-off money can buy 16
The IMF will take advantage of the present crisis to grant more and bigger loans 18
Cover feature: elections 2009
Should the left participate in the elections? 20
How should the left approach the 2009 elections? 22
COSATU questions the born again democrats 24
COSATUs statement on Shikota yes, but 26
Amandla! investigates
Who are the real new rich? 28
News Analysis
Arms deal the truth will out sooner or later 30
Denel: a call for responsible closure 32
Displaced refugees need solidarity: Wheres the left? 34
Women & feminism
Is the family the appropriate site for social reproduction in South Africa? 36
Women farm workers growing and reaping hope 38
Focus: Regional integration
Regional cooperation not free trade should be SADCs agenda
Interview with Deputy Minister Rob Davies 40
Europes economic partnership offensive 42
HIV/AIDS: A metaphor for social inequalities 44
Namibia bans labour brokers 46
Eye on Africa
Mass strikes and the workers movement in Egypt 48
International
Stepping up to the challenge: left politics in the Obama era 50
Latin America: change is blowing in the wind 52
France: Toward the foundation of a New Anti-capitalist Party 54
Obituaries
Hamba kahle Comrade Billy Nair 56
Tribute to Miriam Makeba (19322008) 57
Left-style
Reviews 58
Better Read than Brain Dead 63
2 Amandl a! Doubl e I ssue No. 5 & 6 | December 2008
Towards a conference
of the left
T
he left in South Africa is more
divided than ever. Te Tripartite
Alliance left grouped around
the SACP and COSATU has
become more embedded in the ANC than
at any point since the end of apartheid.
Following the Polokwane ANC conference
and the recent un-seating of their nemesis
Mbeki and the subsequent split of the
Mbekiites, they desperately need to ensure
theirs is not a pyrrhic victory.
Whereas the SACP previously
came under internal pressure to stand
independently from the ANC in the
coming elections, they now need to ensure
that what was achieved at Polokwane and
subsequently is not lost at the polls. Tis
requires that they play a leading role in the
ANCs strategy to follow through on the
Polokwane resolutions and in the coming
elections.
Leading members of the SACP and
COSATU are now part of the inner
sanctum of the leadership of the ANC.
But the fruits of their victory will be
realised only when there is a marked
shift in policy from the Mbeki era.
Yet their situation is vulnerable. They
represent a small minority on the ANC
National Executive and when the crunch
comes in terms of deciding on and
implementing policy as government
(and this is especially true of economic
policy) the pressure on Zuma and co.
will be to compromise with capital
and conservative forces in the state.
Rumours already abound of ANC plans
to dump the Party and COSATU after
the elections.
The difficulty of the Alliance left
in defining its independence from
the ANC, especially since the latter
became the ruling party, is the basis of
the continuing division between them
and the independent left. But multiple
divisions within the independent left
prevent it from appearing as a viable
alternative force. These divisions
become more apparent as elections
loom. The independent lefts weakness
in numbers and lack of a national
profile makes it difficult to contemplate
standing in the elections. Not that the
independent left is even united on the
question of whether to stand. There
are strong impulses, particularly in the
social movements, to call for a boycott
no land, no house, no vote. Some
sections of the left call for a spoilt ballot
as a protest against current policies
as none of the parties represent an
alternative. In contrast, other groups are
launching electoral initiatives.
All components of the left claim to
be representative of the interests of the
workers and the poor. What they say and
do is motivated by the need to transform
the lives of the millions of downtrodden
whose condition has not materially
changed since the end of apartheid. Teir
struggles provide the basis for the left to
overcome the ideological and strategic
diferences and achieve greater unity
in action: in defence of jobs, working
conditions, access to basic services, for
land, decent education and health care
and against outsourcing and privatisation.
Te impact of the global economic
crisis, contrary to Finance Minister
Manuels denials, is going to seriously
afect the lives of the poor. Tis should
instil greater urgency for unity amongst
left forces. Already it is reported that
more than 70 000 workers have been
retrenched in the third quarter of this year
alone! Worse is to come as demand for
exports crumbles, more markets crash
and the decline in the value of the Rand
leads to further increases in infation.
In the face of this situation the
employers will shift the crisis to
workers and the poor. With mass
unemployment and frustrated hopes,
an explosive situation is unfolding. This
could either be channelled into mass
mobilisation for change or could quite
possibly lead to intensified reactionary
outbursts of xenophobic and other
anti-social violence.
A long-standing resolution of
COSATU calls on the federation together
with other forces to convene a conference
of the left. A bilateral summit of COSATU
and the SACP, held in Johannesburg
over 27/28 March 2007, similarly
committed itself to convene within a year
a conference on socialism, as part of an
efort to build and lead a mass movement
for socialism in our country.
Such a conference would provide
the opportunity for forces of the left to
discuss the complex issues of dealing
with the global fnancial crisis and
how the global energy and food crises,
which take a particular form in South
Africa, compound the situation. In spite
of diferences over strategy it would
also ofer an opportunity to agree on a
programme of mass action in defence of
working-class interests. Hopefully issues
of the region Zimbabwe, Swaziland,
regional integration would also be
debated and common action agreed.
While there are serious challenges to
building greater left unity, the collapse
of the neo-liberal consensus on the one
hand, and the danger of major attacks
on the working class on the other hand,
should be the impetus to get the left
to hammer out a joint programme of
action. Tis will require humility, the
preparedness to listen, and, above all, a
commitment to embrace a vision of unity
of the democratic left.
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Disclaimer
Te views expressed in the articles
do not necessarily refect those of
Amandla Publishers, or the Amandla
Editorial Collective.
EDITORIAL
COSATU will have to play a signifcant role in bringing about
greater unity of the left.
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Of the quest for political
power and religion
Te interplay between religion and politics
never ceases to amaze and fascinate.
Te Jacob Zuma juggernaut has always
openly firted with religion. Religious, and in
particular Christian rituals, have surrounded
him since his removal from ofce as Deputy
President of the country. Prayers, vigils and
the likes have accompanied him throughout
his varied trials.
Jacob Zumas ordination into the ministry
is probably the height of this interplay.
But he is not alone. Keynote speakers
at the convention of the breakaway party
included clergy. A church voice came and
afrmed the rightness of the cause the
born-again charterists were fghting for.
And it did not start now. In times
like these, when it is fghting to retain the
favour of the public, the ANC is quick
to remember its religious founding. It
remembers that it was founded by men
and women of the cloth and the faith;
that its leaders were formed and shaped
in classrooms of schools founded and run
by missionaries the same ones who left
our forbearers clasping Bibles and landless
as they taught them how to pray and do
similar religious rituals. It occasionally
knocks on the doors of one-time allied or
so it is perceived religious institutions
such as the SACC, whose counsel it
deems dispensable in political peace and
prosperity times. And the ANC is not alone
in these religionpolitics firtations.
Te other two broad liberation
movements in our country have had their
own firtations with religious leaders. And
this not, in a manner, diferent from the
firtations of the oppressor regimes with
their own religious masters. We know
about the apartheid churches. We talk
less about the big business church with its
blessing of the exploiters and the greedy
and the capitalist as being rich because
they have been blessed. And behold the
emergence of the designer BEE churches
all over our country.
What is it about the church and power?
Well, power is seductive. Is it not its allure
that led to the fall of humanity in the
garden? And power, once attained, will not
be easily given up. It will do all it can to keep
itself going. It can also smell vulnerability
and opportunity from a long way of. Te
seduction of the Zion Christian Church by
provincial governments in the democratic
South Africa; the co-option of the mainline
churches the theological literati, by the
erstwhile president of the republic; the
hijacking of the indigenous churches; and
the paralysis of the current leadership of
the current leadership of the ecumenical
movement should not be seen as a mere
accident of history. Tis is an outcome of
a strategy of power holders and seekers
to win the soul and minds of the religious
community.
It knows that millions of South
Africans defne and have their lives
defned by their faith and religious
commitment. Power knows this to be true
despite the seeming contradictions inside
religious formations and the fckleness of
peoples adherence to religious principles.
Power knows that religion ofers a captive
audience; it gives moral afrmation (and
even cleansing); it provides a refuge
in times of want; and it inspires hope,
especially in situations of hopelessness.
And in the masses of South Africans, it
still gives identity.
And the church is vulnerable, seduced
as it is by its love for power.
Quite often the church, individually
and institutionally, falls to this seduction.
Despite all its better wisdom it fnds itself
unable to resist the allure of power.
Could it be that the present church
fnds the momentary glory of being feted
by kings and would-be kings in resonance
with glimpses of power and glory
promised in the scriptures?
Tis afnity to power, this firting
with power, is cancerous. It continues to
eat away at the very essence and being of
what it means to be church. It erodes the
capacity and propensity of the church to
be a servant of God committed to working
for the wellbeing of Gods people who are
often just voting fodder for politicians.
It forfeits its mandate to speak truth
to power and be an agent for justice. It
undermines its ability to build the unity
of our nation, across political ideologies;
cultural identities and social classes.
Politicians are not wrong to court the
church. It is their business to gain political
power. It is their right to woo whomsoever
they can in this quest.
The challenge is internal. The
church must cease to be a servant to
power and return to being a servant of
the living Lord through being of service
to the people of God, especially the
powerless, marginalised and vulnerable.
And only then shall it begin to offer
the witness of the oneness of the body
of Christ as beacon to guide this, our
beloved country, to its promised land.
Te Reverend Desmond Lesejane
(writing in his personal capacity)
is executive director: Ecumenical
Services for Socio-Economic
Transformation (ESSET).
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Dear Amandla
I am a regular reader and am dismayed
at the lack of focus on health in what
otherwise is an excellent journal. Te
continuing and even deepening inequality
in South Africa can be seen through the
prism of health. Of course this is not
restricted to SA alone. Many countries
experience the same situation. Tis is
why the publication of the Global Health
Watch is an important publication which
your readers should be made aware of.
It serves as an alternative to the World
Health Organisations (WHO) reports.
At the World Health Assembly in
May 2003, the Peoples Health Movement,
together with other organisations,
discussed the need for civil society to
produce its own alternative World Health
Report. It was felt that the WHO reports
were inadequate; that there was no report
that monitored the performance of global
health institutions; and that the dominant
neo-liberal discourse in public health policy
also needed to be challenged by a more
people-centred approach that highlights
social justice. Te idea of an alternative
World Health Report since developed
into an initiative called the Global Health
Watch, the frst of which was launched on
20 July 2005 in Ecuador and London.
Te second edition of Global Health
Watch has just been released and was
launched in Cape Town on 12 November.
Te new edition says that unfair social
and economic policies combined with bad
politics are to blame for the poor state
of the health of millions of people in the
world. Te current outbreak of cholera in
Zimbabwe is a devastating confrmation
of this point. It makes stinging criticisms
of key global actors, including the World
Health Organisation, the World Bank and
the Gates Foundation. Te report calls
on governments to stop the Bank from
meddling in health politics.
Te report also provides examples
of civil society mobilisation across the
world for more equitable health care
and more health promotion, although
more is needed to bring about signifcant
improvements in health.
Te report reveals widespread unease
about the immense but unaccountable
power and infuence of the Gates
Foundation. It says that although the
Gates Foundation has injected vast sums
of money into global health, it operates
in an undemocratic way and reinforces a
medical-technical approach.
Among other issues, it highlights the
pressure exerted on the World Health
Organisation by powerful and vested
interests that would prefer WHOs
activities and programme to have a more
biomedical and less political focus.
In future issues of Amandla! please
focus on the growing crisis in our country
and elsewhere. We want to hear about
the struggles and movements that are
resisting the denial of health care through
privatisation and concentration of wealth.
Linda Mashingaidze
Dear Amandla!
A recent trip to attend the Africa Trade
Network Peoples Forum in Accra, Ghana,
highlighted the sobering prospect of the
implications of the EUs latest economic
ofensive in Africa and in the rest of its ex-
colonial territories that manifest in the form
of the Economic Partnership Agreements
(EPAs). Although the sometimes bewildering,
jargon-packed trade negotiations with
which our Ministers for Trade and Industry
busy themselves can seem as appealing as
the appearance of brussel sprouts at the
Christmas dinner table, it is imperative that
we are all made aware of the gravity these
negotiations hold for all of our futures. Te
EPAs are an EU trade agreement scheme
which aims to create free trade agreements
between the EU and the African, Caribbean
and Pacifc (ACP) group of countries.
EPAs are presented by the EU as a win-win
situation, but they would be disastrous for
our countries.
Our relatively weak and nascent
industries and service providers will in
efect be forced to compete with an infux
of powerful, mature and EU government
funded counterparts for a share of the
market within our own countries. EPAs
involve unequal terms whose fnal outcomes
will make EU governments and companies
richer while undermining eforts to tackle
poverty and facilitate development in
our countries. Moreover, having adopted
a divide and conquer strategy the EU is
attempting to create divisions within African
regional economic groupings in an efort
to forcibly impose the signing of the EPAs.
As well as having severe ramifcations for
our industrial, agricultural and commercial
sectors one of the most overlooked, but yet
potentially catastrophic, terms included as
part of the EPAs is the liberalisation of the
service sector. In Africa the service sector
is relatively small, but is showing signs of
growing in prominence and importance as
a source of national GDP. However, through
the EPAs the EU is hoping to gain free trade
access to the ACP service sector in order to
boost its own earnings.
A conditionality that the EU is
trying to force through its EPAs is the
removal of what it terms to be technical
obstacles in the ACP countries trade and
employment laws. Tis includes a push
to remove minimum wage requirements
for employees of foreign multinational
companies and service providers.
Furthermore, this will entail that foreign
companies can not be held accountable
to national laws. Service liberalisation is a
direct threat to the economic sovereignty
and independence of ACP countries.
Tere is an urgent need to broaden
the base of the anti-EPAs movement
beyond the confnes of the usual
NGO vocalists to a mass constituency.
Whether we are unemployed, a farm
worker, an informal retailer, a media
executive or a lawyer, the EPAs present
a critical set of dangers that we must all
stand together against and oppose.
Ra Tiedemann-Nkabinde
Health workers indentify with the demand for decent health care often for all.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
G
iven the global fnancial crisis
and the roles banks have played
in it we thought it appropriate
to share with our readers an
explanation of how banks work, which
was frst published in the British humour
magazine Punch on 3 April 1957:
What are banks for?
To make money.
For the customers?
For the banks.
Why doesnt bank advertising
mention this?
It would not be in good taste. But it is
mentioned by implication in reference
to reserves of $249,000,000,000 or
thereabouts. Tat is the money they
have made.
Out of the customers?
I suppose so.
They also mention Assets of
$500,000,000,000 or thereabouts
Have they made that too?
Not exactly. Tat is the money they
use to make money.
I see. And they keep it in a safe
somewhere?
Not at all. Tey lend it to customers.
Then they havent got it?
No.
Then how is it Assets?
Tey maintain that it would be if they
got it back.
But they must have some money in a
safe somewhere?
Yes, usually $500,000,000,000 or
thereabouts. Tis is called Liabilities.
But if theyve got it, how can they be
liable for it?
Because it isnt theirs.
Then why do they have it?
It has been lent to them by customers.
You mean customers lend banks
money?
In efect. Tey put money into their
accounts, so it is really lent to the
banks.
And what do the banks do with it?
Lend it to other customers.
But you said that money they lent to
other people was Assets?
Yes.
Then Assets and Liabilities must be
the same thing?
You cant really say that.
But youve just said it! If I put $100
into my account the bank is liable to
have to pay it back, so its Liabilities.
But they go and lend it to someone
else, and he is liable to have to pay
it back, so its Assets. Its the same
$100 isnt it?
Yes, but
Then it cancels out. It means, doesnt
it, that banks havent really any
money at all?
Teoretically
Never mind theoretically! And if
they havent any money, where
do they get their Reserves of
$249,000,000,000 or thereabouts??
I told you. Tat is the money they have
made.
How?
Well, when they lend your $100 to
someone they charge him interest.
How much?
It depends on the Bank Rate. Say fve
and a-half percent. Tats their proft.
Why isnt it my proft? Isnt it my
money?
Its the theory of banking practice that
When I lend them my $100 why dont
I charge them interest?
You do.
You dont say. How much?
It depends on the Bank Rate. Say a half
percent.
Grasping of me, rather?
But thats only if youre not going to
draw the money out again.
But of course Im going to draw the
money out again! If I hadnt wanted
to draw it out again I could have
buried it in the garden!
Tey wouldnt like you to draw it out
again.
Why not? If I keep it there you say its
a Liability. Wouldnt they be glad if I
reduced their Liabilities by removing
it?
No. Because if you remove it they
cant lend it to anyone else.
But if I wanted to remove it theyd
have to let me?
Certainly.
But suppose theyve already lent it to
another customer?
Ten theyll let you have some other
customers money.
But suppose he wants his too and
theyve already let me have it?
Youre being purposely obtuse.
I think Im being acute. What if
everyone wanted their money all at
once?
Its the theory of banking practice that
they never would.
So what banks bank on, is not having
to meet their commitments?
I wouldnt say that.
Naturally. Well, if theres nothing else
you think you can tell me?
Quite so. Now you can go of and
open a banking account!
Just one last question.
Of course.
Wouldnt I do better to go off and
open up a bank?
How
banks
work
NEWS BRIEFS
one can deny that Lembede Investments
Holdings has made fnancial contributions to
the League, and maintained the Porsche-and-
patio lifestyle of league members.
While the disbandment of these two
institutions should be welcomed, the future
of the National Youth Development Agency
looks very bleak. Te frst problem is the
lack of sufcient participation. Tere are
only two days of hearings in Cape Town
and nothing at provincial and regional
levels. Surprisingly, the Committee
maintains that the bill has no provincial
implications, despite the fact that the
countrys constitution establishes the
participatory nature of our democracy. As
matters stand, the majority of young people
are marginalised and demobilised. Tis is
clearly evident from their low turn-out in
previous national polls. Tey are frustrated
and disempowered by the same daily
realities of poverty, joblessness, HIV/AIDS,
crime, second-class education, low wages,
retrenchments and ghetto life. Te youth
know, but not in detail, how parliament
works, and speaking to parliament for
them is practically impossible. Political
organisations such as the Youth League have
weight while the rest of the youth feel that
parliament and government are too distant.
Another problem with the bill is
that the body it establishes, the National
O
n 17 and 18 November the Ad
Hoc Committee on National
Youth Development Agency
hosted public hearings at
Parliament in Cape Town. Tere are
major concerns regarding the involvement
and consultation of young people in
establishing this new Agency. Tis is
besides the great skepticism as to whether
it is likely to help address the major
problems afecting working-class youth.
Te decision to disband the National Youth
Commission and Umsobomvu Youth
Fund should be welcomed by many young
people and youth activists. Te ANC Youth
League, though the driving force behind
the existence of the youth commission, has
recently called for the dissolution of the
toothless and wasteful commission.
While the Youth Commission provided
fancy policies on youth development, it
did not have any resources and powers to
implement youth development programmes.
Te word policy thus became synonymous
with restrictions and bureaucracy since it
had no impact on the lives of youth. Similarly,
the Umsobomvu Youth Fund experienced
serious shortcomings since 2001 when it was
formed. Trough the Lembede Investments
Holding company the fund has enriched top
ANCYL members in deals with controversial
business personalities like Brett Kebble. No
Youth Development Agency, has no youth
involvement. Te bill talks about a board
of directors appointed by the President,
but nowhere does it talk about involving
youth organisations and structures! Like
many other institutions this Agency
puts youth in their place instead of
encouraging them and treating them like
adults. Te youth have heard about these
youth institutions mostly from their
parents but have limited knowledge of
what they do. Is it not the role of these
institutions to meet the youth instead
of the youth continually having to fnd
them? Young people need to be in charge
of youth agencies so that these agencies
develop a youth mindset. In order to
succeed, the National Youth Development
Agency would have to have young people,
whose youthful energy and language can
solve youth problems.
In addition, the new agency lacks
implementation powers and lacks the vision
of the 1996 National Youth Convention,
namely that the YDA would provide a
framework to urgently respond to high
youth unemployment. Great priority was
intended for national youth development
initiatives such as the Expanded Public
Works Programme. Instead, Section 6
(1) of the Agency Bill reads the Agency
must coordinate, monitor and evaluate the
implementation of the Integrated Youth
Development Strategy for South Africa .
Clearly there is no real change in the new
integrated development strategy introduced
by the Bill, only a merger of the youth
commission and the Youth Fund.
Tirty-nine per cent of South African
society is aged between 14 and 35 years,
and bears the brunt of the social crisis and
disintegration taking place in the poverty-
stricken townships, villages and farming
areas of South Africa.
As a substantial part of South African
society, youth must be usefully mobilised
even if massive resources are required.
Young people and youth organisations will
reject or be apathetic to the new National
Youth Development Agency if it is clearly
not what is needed.
Te needs of working-class youth
are enormous. Any further delay in
improving their living standards will result
in further social disintegration. As youth
get organised, they will increasingly have
to challenge the gross socio-economic
inequalities and unequal power relations in
this country. Society is failing the youth.
Anele Mbi is active in a range of community
organisations including the Youth & Right to
work Campaign.
GRASSROUTES
The politics of the National
Youth Development Agency Bill
By Anele Mbi
The ANCYL has been the driving force for the dissolution of the Youth Commission.
W
hy should a tiny country
that neighbours Senegal be
of interest and why should
a parliamentary election
matter? After all, this is the country of an
African liberation hero, Amilcar Cabral.
Cabral led African nationalist
movements in Guinea and the Cape
Verde islands and led Guinea Bissaus
independence movement. Agents of the
Portuguese colonial power assassinated
him in 1973, just months before Guinea
Bissau declared independence. Today the
country is a shadow of its former self.
Guinea Bissau heads to the polls
in mid-November, and more than 30
political parties are set to participate in
the parliamentary election. Four of the
parties are vying for more than 100 seats.
Te Guinea Bissau elections matter,
because if this country is not helped it
may be on a pathway to another civil
confict. Tis time confict could spill over
into neighbouring countries like Sierra
Leone and Liberia that have just emerged
from a decade of confict.
Guinea Bissau has made recent
headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Te tiny former Portuguese colony
has become a major hub for smugglers
trafcking Colombian cocaine to Europe
due to its poorly policed Atlantic shoreline
and widespread corruption in an ill-
resourced public administration.
Guinea Bissau, whose main exports
are cashew nuts and fsh, has a history
of military coups. Western donors
worry about Guinea Bissau becoming a
lawless narco-state, and hope a stable
government emerges with which they
can work to fght poverty and implement
security reforms.
In interviews with the UN ofce for
Drugs and Crime, UNODCs West Africa
head, Antonio Mazzatelli, the message
is clear the country is a soft target for
smugglers in part because of an under-
resourced policing service who are no
match for well-armed and powerful
international drug-smuggling networks
who have money, aircrafts and speed
boats. Mazzatelli points out that if Guinea
Bissau is not assisted in combating the
threat of the narcotics trade on its shores,
its stability may impact the security
situation of the entire region.
Malam Bacai Sanha ruled Guinea
Bissau after the military coup in the 1990s
and is passionate about his country. His
political hero is the father of his countrys
liberation, Amilcar Cabral. Sanha stepped
down after losing the presidential poll in
2005. He was beaten by the military ruler
Joao Bernardo Vieira who won 52% of a
run-of vote. In an interview with him,
Bacai Sanha expressed fears that drug
money could play a signifcant role in
party political campaigns in the run-up to
the countrys election. Te government
has no money to give to political parties
and, I fear, drug trafckers will ofer
dollars to political parties, he said.
Sanha wants the international
community, including regional bodies like
ECOWAS to help the country fght the
drug trafckers. However, this is easier said
than done with Guinea Bissaus emerging
drug economy ofering easy money for
those willing to help the trade in this
poverty-stricken nation. If you dont have
food on your table or cannot aford to send
your children to school, the allure of easy
money becomes an option. Guinea Bissaus
fragile stability and poor social welfare
infrastructure are allowing drug barons to
play the role of shadow state through its
ofer of drug jobs and money.
Te international community is
pinning its hopes on a peaceful election in
Guinea Bissau. However, as we have seen
this past year, an election is a beginning
and not a solution for many countries
developing a democratic system of rule or
emerging from the yolk of military rule.
What is needed is strong leadership, a
vision for the country, strong commitment
to clean up government and zero
tolerance of corruption. As seen in
Liberia, unless you have strong leadership
there will be little goodwill from the
international community.
Te parliamentary poll will probably
be declared free and fair, but will that
change the reality of the 1.6 million
inhabitants? I fear Columbian drug barons
will remain a feature in Guinea Bissau.
Crystal Ordison is the SABCs West African
correspondent and is based in Senegal.
AFRICAN IMAGES
Will drug money buy
Guinea Bissaus election?
By Crystal Ordison
Bissau, capital of this politically unstable country.
Amilcar Cabral was the revolutionary
leader of Guinea Bissau.
O
nce in ofce, will Obama
prove that his bellicose threats
against Iran and Pakistan were
just words spoken to lure in
a certain category of voter during the
election? Lets hope so. And lets hope
he isnt for a moment tempted to repeat
the exploits of George W. Bush. After
all, Obama had the dignity to oppose
the war in Iraq while the Republican
and Democratic parties cheered the
announcement of this bloodbath.
During his campaign, leadership was
the most frequently used word in Obamas
speeches.
As President, will he continue to
believe that his country was chosen to
save the world, a toxic idea that he shares
with almost all of his colleagues? Will he
continue to assert that the US is the leader
of the world and believe in its messianic
mission to command?
Lets hope that the current crisis,
which is shaking the imperial foundations,
will at least serve to provide the incoming
government with a healthy dose of realism
and humility.
Will Obama accept that racism is
permissible when practised against
countries that his country invades? Is
it not racism to meticulously tally the
deaths of the invaders of Iraq while
ignoring with Olympian arrogance the
far larger number of Iraqi dead? Isnt it
racist that the world has frst-, second-,
and third-class citizens and frst-,
second-, and third-class dead?
Obamas victory was universally
celebrated as a victory in the battle against
racism. Let us hope that from his frst acts
as President he accepts and lives up to this
beautiful responsibility.
Will the Obama Administration confrm
yet again that Democrat and Republican are
two names for the same party?
Let us hope that the will for change that
these elections has consecrated is more
than just a promise and a hope. May the
new Administration have the courage to
break with the tradition of the single party
disguised as two, and which at the hour of
truth behave almost identically while they
pretend to be fghting one another.
Will Obama make good on his
promise to close the sinister prison at
Guantanamo?
Let us hope so, and that he will end
the sinister blockade of Cuba.
Will Obama continue to believe that it is
a good idea to build a wall along the Mexican
border to keep Mexicans from crossing into
the US, while vast sums of money move
across without ever showing a passport?
During the campaign Obama
never candidly discussed the subject of
immigration. Let us hope that from today
on, no longer having to worry about
losing votes, he will be able and willing
to abandon this idea of the wall which
would be far longer and more shameful
than the Berlin Wall and indeed all walls
that violate peoples freedom of movement.
Once President, will Obama, who
supported the recent gift of $700 billion
to the banking industry, continue the
usual practice of privatising profts while
socialising losses?
I fear that he will, though I hope that
he wont.
Will Obama sign and abide by the Kyoto
agreement, or will he continue to allow the
biggest polluter on the planet to pollute with
impunity? Will he govern for people, or for
automobiles? Will he shift the devastating
course of a way of life in which the few steal
the destiny of the many?
I fear he wont, though I hope he will.
Will Obama, the frst black President
of the United States, realise the dream of
Martin Luther King, or the nightmare of
Condoleezza Rice?
Tis White House, which is now his
house, was built with the labour of black
slaves. Lets hope he never forgets that.
Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and
journalist, is author of Open Veins of Latin
America and Memories of Fire . Our columnist
Alejandro Bendana has asked that we
reprint this article which frst appeared in The
Progressive (http://www.progressive.org/mag/
galeano110708.html), representing his views
on the Obama victory in the US elections.
LATIN AMERICA CALLING
Hopes and fears
By Eduardo Galeano
President elect, Obama likely to disappoint all hoping for change in the USA and its policies.
E
xcuse me for starting with a
reference to Britain. I dont
mean to be parochial; its just
that in a fnancial crisis the City
of London, what it does and even what
it thinks, is of much more than local
signifcance. In a particularly acute way,
the behaviour of the City demonstrates
how important it is at this time for the
left to think through the issue of public
ownership of the banks and what new
democratic institutions of public fnance
would look like.
A week or so after Gordon Brown
unveiled a rescue package for the banks
(some of the most powerful inhabitants
of the City ) of around 400bn, providing
funds for their recapitalisation, plus
short-term loans and loan guarantees, we
read fnancial journalists reporting that
the City is alarmed by the governments
plans for public spending to counter the
recession. Te fear is that it will unduly
increase the public debt. Te cheek
of it! How can the thoughts of those
responsible for fnancial innovations
that have turned fnancial markets into
wreckers of the real economy rather
than its servants be taken seriously.
Te lesson, surely, of the fnancial
crisis is not to listen to the City but to
grasp this moment when it is wobbling on
its back foot to end its power. Regulation
is not enough, nor are the non-voting
(and temporary) shares which the British
government have taken as part of the
rescue package. Te extent to which
this fnancial crisis has upset the daily
lives and peace of mind of millions of
people demonstrates that fnance is too
important to leave to the fnanciers. As
17th-century philosopher Francis Bacon
put it: Money makes a good servant but
a bad master. Te banks should be the
servants of the public. Tis moment of
their collapse and their total dependence
on public authorities is the moment to
turn them into public utilities. In several
senses money is a distinctive kind of
public good. Money is human-made and
money of some sort is a feature of any
complex society. Money is as essential
to the infrastructure of society as a
natural resource like water or a physical
infrastructure like transport, and should
in ways appropriate to its public function,
as means of exchange, circulation and
investment, be as responsive to public and
individual need. My friends and comrades
on Socialist Register Leo Panitch and
Sam Gindin put the case well in Te
Current Crisis and Socialism in www.
socialistproject.org.
But then what? In Norway during
the years 1988 and 1992, the government
efectively brought the banks under
public ownership. When the banks were
restored to good health the government
frst sold them back to the private sector
and then used some of the proceeds to
establish a public social fund. What if
they remained public utilities? We know
the state on its own, as a single central
entity, cannot run the economy. We
cannot evoke public ownership and think
that is the end of the matter. How would
publicly owned fnancial markets work?
Both in the long run and in the medium
term while much of production is still
privately owned? Would it be a matter
of government lending conditionally
on ecological and social conditions.
Would it favour the growth of the social
economy and use public fnancial power
to exert pressure on the corporations to
convert to ecological products and forms
of production?
At the same time as we build up
pressure for governments to go beyond
propping up the banks and to become
their proprietors, we need therefore to
scale up the alternatives we have been
developing on the ground, as we resist
or struggle to survive. Take one example
that has been central to the alternatives
emphasised by the global justice and
Social Forum movements: participatory
budgeting. Wouldnt public banks hugely
open up the scope for popular control
over budgets, presently circumscribed
by the dependence of municipalities on
private fnancial markets (or on national
governments under pressure from these
markets)? Couldnt municipalities then be
one source of pressure to turn banks into
servants of the public?
Te need to scale up and link up
the huge range of alternatives that
have emerged over the past 30 years to
counter the Washington Consensus is the
challenge facing all of us who participate
directly or indirectly in the World Social
Forum in Belem, Brazil 2008.
Hilary Wainwright is Research Director
of the New Politics Programme at the
Transnational Institute and editor of Red
Pepper, a British new left magazine that
collaborates with Amandla! [www.tni.org,
www.redpepper.org and www.networked-
politics.info].
LEFT THINKING
If not capitalism,
what?
By Hilary Wainwright
Describing a particular struggle as
a turning point is almost clichd.
However, the current historical
moment surely refects a unique
convergence of a range of domestic
and international factors, which fts
this description.
COSATU and its allies have a particular
burden of responsibility to navigate this
complex and potentially treacherous
political terrain, while confdently
advancing coherent alternatives,
particularly around economic policy.
Taken as a whole, progressive forces
in South Africa are punching below
their weight, not building a broad-based
coalition of progressive formations,
intellectuals and networks who agree on
certain fundamentals (while retaining
certain areas of diference). Conversely,
conservative forces know no such barriers
and continue to mobilise in business,
within the state, across political parties
and in the movement itself.
COSATU strategies to address this
challenge include:
the jobs and poverty campaign , which
aims to build coalitions around key
economic concerns of workers and to
sharpen the need for fundamental shifts
in economic policy;
the 2015 programme, a political
intervention to assert working-class
hegemony in the Alliance, which has
played an important role in shifting the
balance of class forces in the ANC and
underpinned the Polokwane revolt in
December 2007; and
the Walking through the Doors project.
Te recently launched Walking through
the Doors project (the Project), was
devised by the COSATU CEC in the
wake of space opened by the Polokwane
grassroots revolt, to move from fghting
rearguard defensive battles to actively
using the strategic leverage of the labour
movement to establish and consolidate
important centres of working-class power
in society. Tis followed the recognition
that the labour movement, and progressive
forces at large, had not adequately used
its leverage to concretely secure, and
deepen, the formal legal, institutional and
policy gains it had already achieved, let
alone addressed the challenge of securing
fundamental shifts in key areas of policy
which had been the source of major
contestation for many years.
Importantly, the CEC recognised that
there are many progressive individuals,
institutions, and intellectuals in society
who are sympathetic to the views
of COSATU, but who have lacked a
vehicle to concretely support the labour
movement. On the one hand, COSATU
continues to strive to build coalitions
through the jobs and poverty campaigns,
and broader Alliance initiatives to
engage with civil society (including the
disappointing MDM conference in August
this year).
Further, the Project aims to harness
the support of progressive intellectuals
in developing joint strategies with the
COSATU leadership. In addition to a panel
of progressive economists which is fully
functioning1, reference groups are being set
up in phase 1 of the project on Retirement
Funds and Labour Market issues (with
further teams planned on industrial policy,
the public sector and social protection
issues, in the second phase). Te project is
also developing proposals to democratise
politics and governance.
Occupying the post-Polokwane
space means elaborating alternative
policies and advocating for them, as well
as devising coherent strategies to take
forward gains, whether at the level of the
workplace, the economy, or politically.
So, for example, the economists panel,
drawing on the international experience,
has begun to develop ideas on what a
developmental monetary policy and
fnancial regulatory regime should look
like, the use of diferent instruments to
manage infation, an approach to targeting
exchange rates (rather than infation
rates), the relationship of monetary policy
to industrial policy, and the use of capital
controls, etc.
Reference teams will also look at how
to assert workers leverage over retirement
funds, to democratise their management,
and to control investment decisions. We
aim to channel investments (e.g. into a
reconstruction bond) and to socialise
the use of these funds, or develop an
implementation strategy to use the gains
in labour legislation to promote fattening
of wage structures and hierarchies in
the workplace, and to begin to intrude
on traditional areas of management
prerogative.
Te Federation has set a three- to
fve-year timeframe to have measurable
and concrete results in the identifed
areas. Te response has been very
encouraging from those invited, locally
and internationally, to participate, though
limited resources and ambitious goals
make the challenges daunting.
Are current conditions favourable
to an assertive left project? Within
the Alliance there is a buoyancy and
confidence of the left, tempered with
the realisation that we face complex
challenges. Outside the Alliance,
the viewpoint tends to be far less
optimistic, with an inordinate focus on
the motives of particular personalities.
Nevertheless, few on the left credibly
argue that the terrain has not shifted
significantly post-Polokwane, or that
the current international economic
situation does not impact on prospects
for a successful left project.
Debates on the prospects for a left
agenda will not be settled in seminar
rooms. And it is hoped that in this new
situation, progressive individuals who
Political shifts and economic
alternatives post-Polokwane:
Walking through the doors
By Neil Coleman
POST-POLOKWANE
POLICY DEBATE
harbour serious reservations about its
prospects will be prepared to reassess the
situation.
It is understood that those with an
ideological antipathy to the Alliance
will continue to see formations in the
Alliance as being the primary problem.
Tis hostility has led to serious strategic
blunders with problematic consequences
for workers, such as left individuals
dabbling with obviously right-wing
projects such as the ANC breakaway.
So, what are the prospects for the left
under current conditions?
Post-Polokwane policy agenda
signifcant shifts were signalled at
Polokwane on a range of policy fronts.
COSATUS analysis is summarised
in a CEC document at www.cosatu.
org.za/press/2008/feb/press31.htm.
Tese shifts are consolidated in
resolutions of the Alliance Economics
Summit (see www.anc.org.za/show.
php?doc=ancdocs/pr/2008/pr1019a.
html). Tese represent signifcant
convergence in the Alliance, on the
need for a fundamentally diferent
growth path. Signifcant shifts have
been mapped out in some detail
on inter alia industrial policy, rural
development, social protection
and governance issues. While the
formulations on macro-economic
policy remain general, and highly
contested, there is no doubt that
delegates intended a major shift.
Nevertheless, conservatives in the
movement and the state continue to
undermine these shifts.
Governance and the Alliance in
spite of resistance, another significant
shift recognises the Alliance as the
political centre, which needs to ensure
the accountability of government to
its mandate. An Alliance Political
Council will in future give overall
political direction.
Class formation and the ANC the
entrenchment of what, ironically,
Tabo Mbeki has called a comprador
bourgeoisie, within the ANC and the
state, has laid the basis for resistance
to the left shift post-Polokwane. We
continue to see the entrenched power of
capital within the state, and concerted
resistance by conservative technocrats,
particularly in Treasury. Tere are still
leaders with narrow BEE interests,
attempting to capture the ANC and
state procurement processes. Teir
attempts to undermine democratic
processes make it even more important
to assert principled working-class
leadership in the ANC.
Te right wing ANC breakaway the
political battle lines have been clearly
drawn with the breakaway of signifcant
elements of Mbekis conservative
project. While they have not yet
articulated policy positions, the motive
forces of the movement are from
black business, former government
leaders and middle-class professionals,
and are more likely to attract worker
support in minority communities. Tey
have already adopted a SACP- and
COSATU-bashing posture, threatening
to set up a rival federation. Attacking
the ANC from the right, this movement
may give strength to a pro-working-
class ANC policy orientation. To
distinguish itself to workers in the 2009
elections, the ANC will need to critique
the class basis of this movement, and
its pro-rich bias, something which
is already happening. COSATU has
labelled it a black DA.
International economic crisis this
is double-edged. Conservative
international orthodoxies have
been shattered, and an international
realignment is under way. Prescriptions
of the North for economic rectitude
now hold little water. Ratings agencies
downgrade SA, and markets punish us
for developments which are beyond our
control. It is impossible for our current
growth path to deliver, even on a limited
scale. Collapse in commodity prices,
slowed demand for our exports, and
our continued vulnerability to capital
POST-POLOKWANE
POLICY DEBATE
outfows, necessitate a new economic
strategy, and urgent measures to protect
ourselves from the crisis. Our monetary
policy is completely out of step with
international eforts to avoid full-blown
depression. Does this therefore give
greater space for policy manoeuvre?
Tis partly depends on political will,
and the preparedness to take bold
action (think Malaysia 1997/8). In the
short term, the signs are not good,
with Treasury and the Reserve Bank
continuing to bury their heads in the
sand. Importantly, the Alliance Summit
agreed to set up a task team, supported
by progressive economists, to consider
our response to the crisis and to
review the appropriateness of macro-
economic policies in the light of current
challenges. Tis creates signifcant space
to develop Alliance alternatives.
We have entered a period of contestation
par excellence. Te balance of forces in
the country will hinge decisively on the
ability of working-class forces to take the
lead politically, to assert their hegemony
in society and to show a range of other
class forces that they are proposing real
solutions to the most urgent problems of
society. Te working class needs to walk
through the doors it has opened!
Neil Coleman is a Strategies Coordinator in
the COSATU Secretariat.
1 For an indication of the issues being debated by the Panel
see the two-part series by Zwelinzima Vavi in the Mail &
Guardian at www.mg.co.za/article/2008-09-19-ten-steps-
to-a-new-economy.
COSATU demonstrate against high food prices as well as current economic policies.
The SACP and COSATU claim that
the ANC-SACP-COSATU alliance
economic policy summit that was
held mid-October was a further
shift to the left, consolidating left
ascendancy in the alliance since
the Polokwane breakthrough.
Such claims of shifts to the left
were also made following the
2002 Stellenbosch ANC National
Conference, the 2005 National
General Council of the ANC and
the June 2007 ANC National Policy
Conference. What is different about
the post-Polokwane shift?
Te ANC government that the October
summit hopes will hit the ground
running after next years elections will
face similar constraints and pressures
from capital that Mandela and Mbeki
succumbed to. Already, leading voices of
capital are using the global fnancial crisis
as a stick to beat back any progressive
shifts. Hear Iraj Abedian (Chief Executive
Ofcer of Pan African Capital Holding
and one of the key drafters of the 1996
neo-liberal Growth, Employment and
Redistribution macro-economic policy):
If you are left wing you should be quiet,
and not make too much noise Tey
have put on the menu policies which
have failed. Tat type of a policy shift
in the best of times is a problem. In
turbulent times it can harm economic
stability (quoted in Business Day, 14
November 2008). Abedians statement
is the most brazen that capital has been
to show its often hidden hand in playing
the violin. As Marx put it: If capital
remains the all-dominating economic
power, economic and political decision
making will necessarily operate within
the strict limits and conditions imposed
by it, no matter what one calls the society
and no matter which persons or forms
of organisation are nominally in control.
Te actual relations of labour at the
point of production must be changed;
it is there that the change must begin.
(Critique of the Gotha Programme)
What analysis of
capitalism?
Any discussion of structural change
must begin from an understanding of the
existing structure. What is the analysis of
the alliance of the changing nature of the
global and capitalist economic system,
and the forces and factors that drive it?
Without this, there can be no efective
strategy to challenge and defeat neo-
liberal policies, let alone capitalism. Te
October summit declared that the global
economic crisis will certainly impact on
South Africas economic growth prospects
and pose challenges for job creation
and development Te summit
viewed the global crisis as something
that will negatively impact upon
currency volatility, the current account
and infation. Missing here is using the
crisis as an opportunity to break with neo-
liberalism.
Importantly, the summit called
for fundamental micro-economic
interventions that transform the
structural character of our economy.
Such a transformation must challenge the
economys systemic features, these being:
dominant monopoly capital; reliance
on primary product exports; excessive
importing of capital goods; infrastructure,
energy and water policies biased to
mining; and cheap, now increasingly
feminised labour. Tese features remain
unchanged. Te summit did not ask hard
questions about the meaning, strategy and
struggles required towards this structural
transformation. Te best the summit
could ofer was that industrial policy
should promote a mixed economy with a
strong social economy, private sector and
public sector.
Meanwhile, neo-
liberalism lives on!
Te thrust of neo-liberal policy lives
on in actual government decisions. As
the Peoples Budget Coalition (PBC)
commented, the Medium-Term Budget
Policy Statement (MTBPS) released by the
Minister of Finance amounted to business
Are we set
for a capitalist
developmental state?
By Mazibuko K. Jara
P
h
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t
o
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T
h
e

B
i
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e
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P
i
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SACP members have mobilised for a Zuma presidency, but will he deliver?
POST-POLOKWANE
POLICY DEBATE
as usual, with no major shift in policy. Te
PBC also noted that the MTBPS contains
little clarity on how the macro-economic
framework or policies will create jobs.
Te overall Medium Term Expenditure
Framework (MTEF) does not permit rapid
changes in fscal targets. Government
continues with a counter-cyclical policy.
Tat means a very low defcit or even a
surplus when the economy is growing
well, and a higher defcit when the
economy is slowing down.
What would it take to
break with neo-liberalism?
If there is to be a break with neo-liberalism,
the October summit needed to make clear
policy decisions on exchange controls,
monetary policy, fscal policy and macro-
economic policy as a whole. Te summit
declaration merely refers to a constructive
engagement on macro-economic policy,
infation targeting, and the role of
monetary policy [to] prioritise the
creation of decent work.
Te summit resolved to set up a
task team to debate the Banks mandate
in addition to [its] mandate on price
stability. Tis does not challenge the
primacy of infation targeting nor question
the fundamental structure and orientation
of the Bank. Adding decent work to the
Banks mandate leaves its basic structure
and orientation intact and could mean a
job creation agenda that will not change
the infation targeting approach. Te
summit fell short on earlier debates in
the 1990s which strongly demanded
employment to be the primary mandate
of a Reserve Bank that would also be
accountable to a democratic parliament.
Te summits only reference to
exchange controls celebrates how South
Africas fnancial sector is cushioned
from the global fnancial crisis because of
remaining exchange control measures.
Tere does not seem to be an alliance
policy discussion on using exchange
controls and other speed bumps to
prevent the ease with which money fows
out of the country, linked to using capital
infows for developmental investment.
In resolving that trade policy must be
developmental, the summit missed an
opportunity to reverse trade liberalisation,
challenge the World Trade Organisation
and consider alternative fair trade options.
Tere is an obvious problem with
the October summits reference of policy
elaboration to alliance task teams and what
remains a neo-liberal state without a clear
break with GEAR macro-economic policy.
Tis also casts doubt on the SACPs and
COSATUs political will, strategy, capacity
and ability to lead social mobilisation to
secure a fundamental break with neo-
liberal policies. Of course, not stated in
the summit declaration is how capital will
be engaged by the alliance. As Abedians
statement above shows, capital is obviously
not going to rest: it will act on, and
through, the ANC and the state to ensure
policies in their favour.
An evolving capitalist
developmental state going
back to the Mbeki regime
The October alliance summit is a clear
signal that the 20092014 government
will continue with a capitalist state. To
what extent it will adorn itself with a
developmental garb will depend on
what social delivery will be possible
within the given economic framework
and present accumulation path. Such
a capitalist developmental state can
improve service delivery and create
jobs without putting forward an anti-
systemic policy framework. This was
what was attempted in the late stages of
the Mbeki regime.
Over a period of three to fve years
before the Polokwane conference there
were signifcant policy debates and shifts
within government and the Mbeki-led
ANC leadership towards the notion of
a developmental state. Mbekis central
project has been to build the conditions
for a sustained capitalist growth path as
a basis to address the legacy of inequality
and under-development. To be fair,
the October summit argued for a new
growth path [and] employment
creating investment. How far the alliance
debate will go to ensure that the punted
developmental state is not capitalist and
hemmed in by the underlying logic of
capitalist accumulation is less clear.
Building economic policy
alternatives from below
Aware of the above challenges, COSATU
announced its Walking through the
Doors Project after the October summit.
Tis project is intended to be COSATUs
strategy to challenge what Zwelinzima
Vavi (COSATU General Secretary)
referred to as ongoing pressure from
capital on Jacob Zuma. Teams of experts
will develop policies on economic
transformation, retirement funds,
the labour market, the public sector,
industrial policy and social protection.
Tis elite boardroom process still does
not build the social power, weight and
voice of workers and communities over
economic policy debates.
Key here is direct social mobilisation
to challenge capital and build capacity
for an anti-systemic economic
transformation programme. Clearly,
the left can no longer put all its eggs
in winning the soul of the ANC. Te
challenge is to build a social base to
contest existing power relations, deepen
democracy, challenge and transform
the capitalist state we have, and win
transformative economic and social
policies. No amount of alliance insider
trading will deliver such an outcome.
Mazibuko K. Jara is a member of the SACP
and part of Amandla Publishers.
References
ANC. 2008. Declaration of the ANC-SACP-COSATU
Economic Policy Summit. www.anc.org.za
Lebowitz, M. 2006. Build it now: Socialism for the twenty frst
century. Monthly Review Press (New York).
Marx, K. 1970. Critique of the Gotha Programme. In Marx-
Engels Selected Works, Volume 3, p. 13-30. Moscow: Progress
Publishers (Moscow). (original critique written in 1875).
William, M. 2008. Te Roots of Participatory Democracy:
Democratic Communists in South Africa and Kerala, India.
Palgrave Macmillan: Hampshire (England).
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General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi of COSATU warmly welcomes ANC President Jacob Zuma. Vavi has played a prominent role in
ensuring Zumas rise to the Presidency.
POST-POLOKWANE
POLICY DEBATE
O
ver the past few weeks
many commentators have
characterised the global
crisis as a crisis of the
global fnancial system.
Te interventions by leading governments
in the developed centres to solve this
crisis have been fore-grounded in public
discourse, in the main, to manage public
perception and ensure public confdence
in the fnancial system does not evaporate.
Many of these interventions, ranging
from bail-outs to nationalisations, have
been presented as important solutions to
save the global fnancial system. However,
in themselves these solutions appear
to have merit as confdence building
measures, but do not address what seems
like an intractable fnancial crisis.
Over the past few weeks
governments of the world have
pledged about $3.2 trillion (with the
US government merely pledging $700
billion) while the credit derivatives
Tere is a Democratic Left
response to the global crisis
By Vishwas Satgar
POST-POLOKWANE
POLICY DEBATE
market, which is at the heart of this
crisis, is estimated at $60 trillion dollars.
In all likelihood we are only seeing
the tip of the proverbial iceberg in terms
of the scale and depth of the crisis. If this
unravelling spirals out of control in itself
the crisis of the global fnancial system
has the potential to end capitalism. Simply
put, the end of fnancial intermediation
means the juggernaut of accumulation
collapses and capitalism dies.
Another stream of analysis has
gone beyond a narrow problem-solving
framework of trying to fx the global
fnancial system. Such an analytical frame
has connected the dots and points to a
deeper structural crisis. What started out
as a sub-prime housing market crash in
the USA is now a crisis that has reached
into the real economy. Talk of recession
and revisions in growth forecasts have all
captured this trend. Moreover, the worst-
case scenario predicted is that of another
Great Depression and probably worse
than what was experienced in the frst
part of the 20th century.
However, an old left response
to such a scenario would frame the
choices for humanity as: capitalism
or Sovietised socialism? Echoes of
the latter have come out of the ANC-
led Alliance economic policy summit
recently with neo-Stalinist populists
advocating a planning commission,
greater centralisation of decision
making around the Presidency and
a two-tier cabinet system. In short,
the old left response is bent on taking
South Africa from a market-led
development path under Mbeki to a
state-led one under Zuma. In political
economy terms this means introducing
a state capitalism and probably in their
misguided militancy unhinging South
Africa from globalising processes.
Ultimately driving us into a fortress
capitalism under the banner of
national liberation.
However, a new left approach to
the global crisis prompts us to think
about a new hypothesis to explain what
we are living through. Tis is a crisis of
civilisation, more specifcally a crisis
of market civilisation. Such a market
civilisation has been in the making for the
past three decades and is an unrealisable
market utopia. Such an insight and
critique was frst made by Karl Polanyi,
one of the 20th centurys most discerning
economic historians, in his important
book Te Great Transformation Te
Political and Economic Origins of Our
Time. Tis text was published in 1944,
coincidentally at the same time that the
chief ideologue of free market capitalism,
Friedrich Hayek, published his book Te
Road to Serfdom.
Polanyi cautioned against the
irrationality of a market utopia and the
danger it poses to human beings and
nature by studying its role in causing the
First World War, the rise of Fascism, the
frst Five Year Plan under Stalin and the
collapse in the inter-war years. However,
unlike in Polanyis time, the free-market
utopia of today has been imposed on
humanity through four key historical
structures: (i) super power dominance
by the USA post the Cold War; (ii)
liberalisation and deepening integration
of global production and fnancial
structures; (iii) the reconstitution of
states as internationalised competition
states and (iv) a world view that
privileges self-regulating markets and
individualism, commonly known as
neo-liberalism. In the context of the
civilisational crisis we are witnessing it
is unclear which of these props will be
sacrifced to save capitalism. Various
commentators, analysts and critical
voices are beginning to hint at a post-
neoliberal and post-US-dominated world
order. Tis is increasingly chiming with
talk within leading business magazines
about a new capitalism.
However, change in a post-capitalist
direction requires struggle and it requires
solutions from the new global democratic
left. It actually requires an alternative on
the scale of a civilisational alternative.
Today the new global democratic left
is not as back-footed as the old left was
after the collapse of Eastern Europe.
Elements of a civilisational alternative
have begun to emerge within theoretical
discourses and practical political
projects. From within the World Social
Forum process to national struggles
against neo-liberalism as in Latin
America, parts of Europe and India,
various elements of a civilisational
alternative are coming to the fore.
First, there is a need for a new global
regulatory regime to manage trade
and fnance structures. Such a regime
should not be built on the fawed Bretton
Woods system and the WTO but instead
requires new institutions in which power
relations are such that all countries have
an equal voice to determine the direction
of global development.
Second, given the crisis of neo-liberal
hegemony and attempts by the USA to
remake the world in the image of Anglo-
American capitalism, a new multi-polar
world order needs to be constituted around
regional development blocs in which the
needs of human beings and nature prevails.
Third, a new role for states is
needed, based on a recognition that the
role of states in national development
is not about fixing market failures but
that states have to embed markets
through regulatory and institutional
interventions in financial, labour and
land markets at a minimum.
Fourth, national economies have
to provide for a third space in which
alternative forms of production and
consumption can be organised through
cooperatives, social enterprises and
democratic collectives. Tis seems to be
happening in Canada, Brazil, Venezuela,
Argentina and Kerala, India.
Fifth, democracy has to be widened
beyond narrow electoralism to ensure
democratisation reaches into institutional
practices of the state, parliament, mass
mobilisation and participatory forms. In
short, a new conception of democracy
has to prevail in which all citizens can
ensure capital is accountable and the
people are empowered with the means to
control power.
Unfortunately, in the South African
context none of the political parties
represent such a democratic left
alternative. Te old left, which snatched
the liberation mantle at Polokwane, does
not have the political imagination, vision
nor alternatives.
Vishwas Satgar is the Executive Director of
the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Center
(COPAC). He is also a grass roots activist
involved in Democratic Left politics and is an
Amandla Collective member.
Unfortunately, in the
South African context
none of the political
parties represent
such a democratic
left alternative.
POST-POLOKWANE
POLICY DEBATE
The
biggest
rip-off
money
can buy
By Eric Toussaint
ECONOMY
T
he bailing-out of
private banks and
insurances companies
in SeptemberOctober
2008 amounts to a
strong political choice
that was anything but
unavoidable and that looms large on our
future at several decisive levels.
Te cost of the bail-out is entirely
supported by public instances, which
will lead to a steep increase in the public
debt. Te current capitalist crisis, which
will extend over several years, possibly
ten, will result in a reduction of revenues
for the governments while their liabilities
will rise with the debt to be paid back.
As a consequence, there will be strong
pressures to reduce social expenditures.
North American and European
governments replaced a rickety makeshift
scafolding of private debts with a
crushing assembling of public debts.
According to Barclays Bank, in 2009
the euro zone European governments
should issue new public debt securities
The
biggest
rip-off
money
can buy
By Eric Toussaint
to an amount of EUR 925 billion. Tis
is a staggering amount, which does not
include new treasury bonds issued by the
US, the UK, Japan, Canada, etc. Yet, until
recently, these same governments have
agreed that they had to reduce their public
debts. Traditional parties all approved of
this bailing-out policy that is intended
to help large shareholders under the
fallacious pretext that there was no other
solution to protect peoples savings and to
restore confdence in the credit system.
Such holy union means transferring
the bill to most of the population, who
will have to pay for the capitalists
misbehaviour in several ways: less public
services, fewer jobs, further decrease in
purchasing power, higher contribution
of patients to the cost of health care, of
parents to the cost of their childrens
education, less public investment and a
rise of indirect taxes.
How are bail-out operations currently
fnanced in North America and Europe?
Te State gives good money to the banks
and insurance companies on the verge of
bankruptcy, either as recapitalisation or
through the purchase of their toxic assets.
What do the bailed-out institutions do
with this money? Tey mainly buy safe
assets to replace the toxic ones in the
balance sheets. And what are the safest
assets on the current market? Public debt
securities issued by the governments of
industrialised countries (treasury bonds
issued in the US, in Germany, in France,
in Belgium, you name it).
Tis is called looping the loop. Te
States give out money to private fnancial
institutions. To support this move they
North American
and European
governments
replaced a rickety
makeshift scaffolding
of private debts
with a crushing
assembling of
public debts.
The meltdown of the global fnancial system and bailout of the banks are likely to re-ignite anti-capitalist forces.
ECONOMY
The IMF will take
advantage of the
present crisis to
grant more and
bigger loans
Interview of Eric Toussaint by
Radio France Internationale (RFI),
Monday 27 October 2008 on 13:00
radio news
RFI: Te IMF has decided to rescue many
European countries such as Iceland,
Ukraine, and today, Hungary, by granting
them important loans. Why these
particular countries, according to you?
Eric Toussaint (ET): First of all it has to be
clear that the IMF itself is going through a
crisis. It is in a severely weakened position.
Last year it had only one big client left:
Turkey. Just six or seven years earlier, the
IMF was providing loans totalling more
than $100 billion, whereas just before this
crisis, its portfolio of loans was right down
to $17 billion. Te IMF will take advantage
of the present crisis to grant more loans,
since its existence depends on the loans it
provides. Te IMF actually depends on the
interest paid by the borrowing countries to
remain in activity.
RFI: So the IMF will prefer lending to
countries which are more able to repay
their debts
ET: You have to be careful, though. Te
IMF will also ofer its services to southern
countries; theres no doubt about that.
Te IMF wants to regain power after
this recent period of weakness vis--vis
a number of southern countries. Over
the last few years many countries of Asia
and Latin America have repaid their
outstanding obligations early, which
means the IMF has lost the means of
putting pressure on these countries. It
is most probable that the IMF will ofer
loans to Africa, Latin America and Asia,
pretending that the poorer countries do
need its money because of this crisis.
However, you have to know that IMF
loans come with conditions attached
which require the countries to apply
specifc policies, policies which have
routinely had extremely harmful efects
throughout the past 20 years. Tese
policies have proved harmful because
the International Monetary Fund, along
with the World Bank, has imposed a
completely open market economy on the
southern countries. African countries
and more especially the population of the
issue treasury bonds to which these
same banks and insurance companies
subscribe, while remaining private (since
the States did not demand that the capital
they injected give them any right to make
decisions or even to be included in the
voting process) and deriving new profts
from lending out the money they have
just received from the States to these
same States while of course demanding
maximum return.
This huge swindle is carried out
under the law of silence. Omerta rules
among protagonists: political leaders,
crooked bankers, rogue insurers.
The major media will not provide
a full analysis of how the bail-out
operations are financed. They dwell
on details trees hiding the forest.
For instance, the big question raised in
the Belgian press about financing the
recapitalisation of Fortis, which is taken
over by BNP Paribas, runs as follows:
how much will a Fortis share be worth
in 2012 when the State intends to sell
those it bought? Nobody, of course,
can give a serious answer to such a
question but this does not prevent
newspapers from devoting whole
pages to it. This is called distraction:
the philosophy and mechanism of the
bail-out operation are not analysed. We
must hope that through the combined
effect of alternative media, citizens
organisations, trade union delegations,
and political parties of the radical left,
a growing proportion of the population
will see through and expose this large-
scale swindle. Yet it will not be easy to
counter such systematic disinformation.
With the deepening crisis a deep
sense of unease will develop into
political distrust of governments
that carried out such operations. If
the political game goes on without
any major change the current right-
wing governments will be replaced
by centre-left governments that will
further implement neo-liberal policies.
Similarly, right-wing governments
will replace the current social-liberal
governments. Each new government
will accuse the previous team of
mismanagement and of having drained
the public treasury, claiming that there
is no room for granting social demands.
But nothing is ever unavoidable in
politics. Another script is quite possible.
First we must reassert that there is
another way of guaranteeing citizens
savings and of restoring confidence
in the credit system. Savings would
be protected if the failing credit and
insurance institutions were nationalised.
This requires that the State, as it
acquires ownership, also takes over
their management. To prevent the
cost of the operation to be borne by
the large majority of the population
that has no responsibility in the crisis
whatsoever, public authorities must
turn to those who were responsible:
the amount necessary to bailout
financial institutions must be taken
from the assets of large shareholders
and executive officers. This is obviously
only possible if all the assets are taken
into account, not just the much reduced
portion involved in the bankrupt
financial companies.
Te State should also fle lawsuits
against shareholders and executive
ofcers who are responsible for the
fnancial catastrophe so as to get both
fnancial compensations (beyond the
cost of the bail-out) and prison sentences
if guilt is proven. Taxation should also
be applied to large fortunes in order
to fnance a solidarity funds for those
who are hit by the crisis, notably the
unemployed, and to create jobs in sectors
that are useful to society.
Many complementary measures
are needed: opening companies
ledgers, including to trade unions,
suppressing bank secrecy, prohibiting
tax havens starting with a prohibition
for any company to have any asset
in or transaction with a tax haven,
progressive taxation of transactions on
currencies or derivatives, monitoring
money exchange and capital fow, no
new measure aiming at deregulating/
liberalising markets and public services,
restoring quality public services Te
degradation of the economic situation will
bring back onto the agenda the transfer
manufacturing industries and private
services to the public sector as well as the
implementation of large-scale projects to
create jobs.
This would make it possible to
get out of the current crisis while
taking peoples interests into account.
We have to gather energies to create
a relation of comparative strength
that would be favourable to the
implementation of radical solutions
with social justice as priority.
Eric Toussaint is president of the Committee
for the Abolition of Third World Debt CADTM-
Belgium (www.cadtm.org), and author of The
World Bank: Critical Primer.
Translated by Christine Pagnoulle and Brian Hunt.
ECONOMY
African countries know that they have
been hit head-on by the food crisis.
In Africa, for most people, the main
concern these last months has not been the
fnancial crisis of the banks of Europe and
the United States, but rather the dramatic
rise of the food prices. Te policies dictated
by the IMF and the World Bank are directly
responsible for this rise (Id like to come
back to that later).
RFI: Are you, Eric Toussaint, trying to
say that the IMF is more fexible with
some countries than others? Regarding the
conditions?
ET: Yes, of course I am. In no way will it
impose the same conditions on Iceland or
on other European countries.
Allow me to point out that the IMF has
not demanded the Washington authorities
to take public budget consolidation
measures, whereas whenever it is dealing
with the governments of southern countries,
it invariably tries to impose the economic
measures it considers appropriate.
RFI: So, according to you, there is indeed a
double standard?
ET: Absolutely, there is no doubt about
it. Listen to this: there are 24 executive
directors at the IMF. Only two of them are
African. Tese two African administrators
each represent more than 20 countries.
When they vote, these two (together)
represent less than 5% of the vote. Te
United Stated alone has 17% of the vote.
France alone has a bit less than 5%. Tis
means that when France votes, it weighs
as much as all the African countries
together. So yes, of course there are
double standards. It is absolutely clear. It
has to be changed as quickly as possible.
Te situation is totally unacceptable and it
cannot go on any longer.
RFI: Do we need to reform aid to poorer
countries when we know that sometimes
the problem is that a country assisted
by the IMF is publicly branded as being
in difculty, which then makes eventual
lenders wary? Should we be more discrete
in our way of giving help to poorer
countries?
ET: Listen, personally I think that,
frst of all, it is essential to pay a
correct rate for goods imported from
countries considered as poor and to
stop recommending policies which are
harmful to their local producers. Tis is
what I wanted to say earlier regarding the
food crisis. Te International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank convinced
the African countries to reduce their
domestic food production whereas it
guaranteed them food sovereignty, food
security, especially in cereals. Te IMF
and the World Bank drove these countries
to increase their exportations of tea,
bananas, cocoa, etc. and to depend on
wheat and rice imported from Europe
and Asia to feed their own populations.
And now that these prices are literally
exploding, the African countries fnd
themselves with nothing, and the local
producers are not there any more to meet
the demand.
So my answer is that, rather than
talking about more generosity towards
these countries, and Im not at all convinced
about this so-called generosity, what African
countries need is more justice.
Translated by Jinane Prestat in collaboration with Elizabeth Anne.
The IMF and the World Bank have been signifcantly weakened and are now eying the current crisis as a means to recapture their role in the global economy.
ECONOMY
The split within the ANC is real. It
is the frst time the ANC has been
so thoroughly challenged. The
challenge exposes vulnerabilities
which have been hidden from
the public eye: hence the ANC is
running helter- skelter.
Tough they may dent the ANCs ego, this
does not mean that the splinter group
COPE will make a huge diference to
ordinary peoples lives
Neither should one be surprised
by the euphoria with which people are
receiving the new party in 2004 close to
11 million people did not vote as they had
lost faith in party politics.
When something new comes along it
is natural that curiosity is aroused. COPE
hopes to capitalise on these emotions in
the run-up to the 2009 elections.
Te arrival of the new party may well
lead to a wider distribution of votes across
many parties with no single party getting
a majority. We may enter a new era where
the state is controlled by coalitions rather
than a single party.
However, this is a fght for power
not values (despite the rhetoric to the
contrary). It is about getting back at the
Zuma camp. Te COPE Convention
of 12 November, as historic as it may
have been, was scant on policy and a
programme of action.
So, we still dont really know what
they stand for but we do know that their
support is from a disgruntled elite and a
new moneyed class that feel threatened
by the Zuma era and have to create a new
power base to maintain their privileges.
Tere is also the rapacious cornering
of disafected ANC branches across the
country, reminiscent of some sort of
opportunistic rebellion to rattle the ANCs
cage. It seems to be working. Te number
of foot-soldiers willing to do the new
partys bidding are increasing by the day.
Tey dont know, of course, whether they
are being cannon fodder for a good cause
or bad only time will tell.
Never have we seen such thunderous
opportunism prevail: most of the
opposition parties who are all clamouring
to be the best friend of the COPE have
come to recognise that they may well
mean they will be wiped out by the next
election. Tey are now interested in saving
themselves. But in this agglomeration of
odd-balls may be a false sense of unity
and camaraderie. Tere is no doubt they
all have one aim: bashing their enemy the
ANC in the next elections. Te aftermath
may produce something diferent. When
you pair unlikely bed-fellows and interests
on the basis of opportunism there are
always ruptures in the long-term.
However, sometimes a good thing
prevails for the wrong reason. What does
this mean for the possibility of realignment
of politics and democratic participation
in South Africa? And, should the left take
the opportunity to assert itself in the new
opening a time when the ANC and
COPE go at each other? Te left has always
existed in SA, but we are talking about an
authentic left. Not the left that was part of
the ANC broad church. Patrick Bond once
quipped that Mbeki talked left but walked
right Bond may have a point.
A grey area exists nobody is sure
who the left is anymore. Even the Zuma
camp, with its alliance of the SACP and
COSATU, claims to be left. We know they
are not.
Te real left has existed as separate
organisations and has produced diferent
campaigns and actions in the last 14 years,
challenging the new state and its policies.
Teir actions have been focused on attacking
the states adoption of a home-grown
version of the Washington Consensus, the
privatisation of some state assets, and the
enforcement of harsh measures against
communities who cannot aford to pay for
electricity, water and other services.
Tis left, which exposed the states
duplicity of helping the poor only to punish
them on the other side, is yet to congeal as
one non-amorphous group.
Tere is no single identity, nor are we
really sure that we agree on everything I
mean both ideas and strategy. Tere are
both pragmatists and people who have
uncompromising positions. Tere will be
diferences of ideas, approaches and ways
of working.
Left politics cant just be about
critique, banners and labels one stands
under this is too simplistic. In a complex
world new strategies have to be defned.
Te main focus now should be whose
interests one defends in the name of
democracy and party politics. What sort
of strategy and structures one needs to
pursue to generate the desired outcomes.
Te left has been critical of the
Washington Consensus and many of the
things it said have been proven right, but
what is the economic model for the post-
Washington Consensus? Here too one will
fnd diferent strands, diferent answers
for diferent situations.
Should the left
participate in
the elections?
By Saliem Fakir
This left, which
exposed the states
duplicity of helping
the poor only to
punish them on the
other side, is yet to
congeal as one non-
amorphous group.
ELECTIONS 2009
COVER FEATURE
Left participation in
party politics and the
quest for state power
A great opportunity awaits us in the
current political realignments that are
emerging. Tere is a place for a new
platform that can further the lefts ideas
and programmes of action in the economy
and political system. Tis may be the time
for a church for the real left.
Te question of acquiring state power
through a party political machinery is an
obvious issue to debate because it informs
whether to participate in an election
process or not.
Te left is still unsure about
participation. What are its implications?
What are its benefts for the left? How
will it change the loose alliance of like-
minded people?
Te quest for power will introduce a
diferent dynamic. It may require a diferent
operational culture to this happy association
of freefoating agents. I personally believe
that ideas have to exist in the real world if we
want to change this world. One avenue to
embed oneself in reality is through a party-
political machinery.
It is not the only way to engage and
should not displace other means of
engagement a mistake often made by
liberation movements who come to power.
When they do come into power they tend
to cannibalise all other social formations
that are creatures of the liberation process,
incorporating them within the party
political machinery, marginalising them or
wiping them out. In so doing, they soon kill
ideas and the organic energy that was key
to the success of the liberation struggle.
Te after-efect of this approach
is what we currently see happening to
the ANC today its own slow death.
By cannibalising social networks and
structures outside of the party to
centralise power, they eventually even
weaken the power base of the party.
Party politics should be one face or
channel for a multi-pronged attack at
the same problem. Te question is how
to build a party-political machinery
without losing social diversity, dynamics
and networks that are the source of its
power and energy. How does one create
a political party that is at the same time
a mass movement or maintains its mass
base and links?
Te answers to these raise questions
of how to proceed, what resources are
needed, who needs to be involved, its
mandate, constitution etc. All of this will
tell us whether we are ready to participate
in a future election. But unlike the COPE,
the real left will have to build a strong
grassroots base. Tis takes time, resources
and committed cadres.
Vying for state power is one avenue
for the left to exercise infuence over
the state machinery. It is a tactic worth
refecting on as the real left is beginning
to revive civic structures and seek a
better working relationship between
disparate groups to impact better on both
grassroots and national politics.
With the rupture in the ANCs total
hegemony it may be that the real lefts
time to consider power through the party
political mechanism has come. It may be
one of the few windows of opportunity left
in this current phase of democratic change.
Saliem Fakir is a Senior Lecturer at the
School of Public Management and Planning
and Associate Director of the Centre for
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies at
the University of Stellenbosch.
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The left has helped catalyse the new social movements. Can this energy gain an electoral presence?
ELECTIONS 2009
COVER FEATURE
E
lections are a time
when the question of
power is raised clearly
and in a political way
in front of the masses
of ordinary people.
Who is in charge? Who
has the power to change our lives for the
better? But for the left in South Africa
elections are a time for debate, division
and confusion. When the vote was
granted to all the people of South
Africa irrespective of race in 1994,
some left organisations decided to
boycott the elections (AZAPO),
others contested on an independent
left platform (WOSA), while the
overwhelming majority followed the
masses and voted ANC.
Since then matters have become
worse. Instead of resolution, the
debate gets more strident, bitter
and polarised with each successive
election. Some leftists argue that
the ANC is a bosses political party
so they will not vote for it. Others
insist that it is a working-class
bosses party so sometimes they
will vote for it critically, sometimes not.
Among those who wont vote ANC there
is always a debate about whether to vote
SOPA, to spoil the ballot (protest vote),
to boycott (no land no vote) or to form a
left election front to contest the elections.
Te majority of the left of course prefers
the certitude of loyalty and consistency, so
they always vote for the ANC.
With elections around the corner in
April 2009 the question of who is really
in power in South Africa is again being
asked. And again the left is divided on
what to do. Te diference today is that
the split in the ANC is sowing doubt
and confusion among those leftists who
yesterday were so certain that voting ANC
was the right thing to do because of the
strategic importance of the ANC-SACP-
COSATU alliance. Many were already
unhappy with developments around Zuma
(the personality cult, homophobia, no
change in economic policy, Malema, etc.)
but now they fnd themselves between a
rock and a hard place. Tey cannot bring
themselves to vote for Shilowa and Lekota
as both politicians were key members of
the Mbeki pro-capitalist ANC faction. But
the Zuma faction seems to have adopted
the attitude that if you are not with them
you are against them. Stories abound in
the left grapevine of how comrades are
being suspected of and being hounded
for being Shikota-ites with some even
under threat of losing their jobs and
organisational positions.
Te debates, accusations, claims
and counter-claims around the elections
have already started. But few are
asking the right questions, let alone
providing the correct answers. Te
big question is: who has the power?
Who is in charge? Te outcome of
the struggle between Mbeki and
Zuma for the presidency of the ANC
apparently did not settle the question.
Is it Zuma or Motlanthe? Will it be
the ANC or COPE (Shikota)? Te
truth is: the 2009 elections will not
decide the issue because the matter
has already been decided. Te true
rulers of South Africa are the bosses,
the capitalist class. All the major
parties that will fght it out in the
elections do not have any intention
let alone a programme to challenge
the power of capital.
It is this sad truth that motivated
the Operation Khanyisa Movement, an
electoral front that was formed by some
afliates of the Anti-Privatisation Forum
to contest in the 2006 local government
elections, and to call a national workshop
of leftists and grassroots community
organisations to discuss a common
How should the
left approach the
2009 elections?
ELECTIONS 2009
COVER FEATURE
Photo: The Bigger Picture
A left alternative will need to capture the imagination of militant Cosatu members
to have any electoral impact.
approach to the 2009 national elections.
About 15 organisations attended the
workshop on 27 September 2008. Present
were some APF afliates; Ecopeace, a
Durban-based green party; Workers
Party, a BC-oriented organisation linked
to some independent unions; Keep Left
and the Democratic Socialist Movement,
both left groups in the Trotskyist
tradition.
Te workshop considered the
international political situation and noted
the global economic meltdown. Capitalist
governments are using working-class
money to bail out big business; profts are
privatised and the debts are nationalised.
Tis lesson was not lost to millions of
ordinary people across the globe leading
to many questioning and even breaking
with the ideas of the free market. In South
Africa the workshop noted that none of
the mainstream parties, including the
ANC and COPE, are willing to challenge
the rule of proft. It was therefore
decided that what is needed during the
2009 election campaign is a voice and a
platform that will speak to and connect
with the daily struggles and campaigns
of the working class and the poor. Te
masses need to hear that there is another
road: an alternative to the capitalist path
chosen by all the major parties.
It is not good enough to call for a
boycott of the elections or a protest vote
Our message in the 2009 elections is contained
in the following six planks of our platform:
Public representatives must come from, live with and be controlled by those who 1.
elected them. MPs must get a salary equal to the average wage of a skilled worker and
be subject to the right of recall.
Nationalisation without compensation of the banks, mines, factories, corporations and 2.
big farms under workers control. Give land to the landless and food to the hungry. Use
the countrys wealth to address the root causes of poverty and inequality.
Free basic services for all. Enough water, electricity, decent housing, health care, 3.
good education, electronic communications and safe reliable transport for all. Pay the
unemployed an adequate living expenses allowance.
Permanent jobs and a living wage for all. Government must develop public works to 4.
meet the needs and improve the lives and living conditions of all.
Equal treatment, dignity and respect for all no matter their race, class, gender, age, 5.
belief, culture, sexual orientation or country of origin. Te right to strike, protest and
mobilise must be guaranteed without any limitations and conditions.
Care for the environment and the people. Stop pollution, deforestation, fossil carbon 6.
emissions, global warming and climate change. Develop and use renewable energy
sources. No to nuclear energy. Eradicate all dangers to nature and humans caused by
capitalist business development..
if we want to carry out the political tasks
that face the left. Te masses must be
challenged so that they can see more
clearly who the real rulers of the country
are. What is needed is a platform and a
political method that will help the left to
reach the millions and millions of ordinary
people including those who have lost hope
in the elections. Te message must also
reach those who are still looking to the
ANC through support for Jacob Zuma.
If we do our work correctly it is possible
that an ordinary ANC member will take
a demand from our platform to Zuma
and ask him: Msholozi, why doesnt the
ANC do this? He will have no choice but
to make promises he will never keep, or
he will give an answer that exposes his
support for capitalism, a system that is
based on the exploitation of labour.
Our election campaign aims to point
out the need to build an alternative power,
mass power built outside parliament that
can challenge the power of the bosses.
We cannot do this efectively by evading
or working around the problem of the
ANC-SACP-COSATU leaderships
relationship of class collaboration. Calling
for a boycott or protest vote can facilitate
evasion. We have to challenge the masses
by campaigning for them to vote against
and register their opposition to the ANCs
pro-capitalist, anti-working class and anti-
poor policies.
Te name of our electoral front is
the Socialist Green Coalition. Te name
represents the unity of the reds and the
greens. Te coalition consists of socialists
joined with people who promote the
beliefs and values of environmentalism in
addition to those of socialism. We believe
that these two positions belong together.
Te Socialist Green Coalitions frst
campaign will be mass and legal action
against the R500 000 deposit that is
demanded by the IEC to participate in
the election. Ten thousand signatures
pledging support should qualify a party
to run in the elections. Large amounts
of money force parties to fnd capitalist
sponsors: a form of discrimination against
anti-capitalist organisations.
The Socialist Green Coalition can be
contacted at electoral_coalition@yahoogroups.
com or fax 011-938 9907.
ELECTIONS 2009
COVER FEATURE
The coalition
consists of socialists
joined with people
who promote the
beliefs and values
of environmentalism
in addition to those
of socialism.
Photos: The Bigger Picture
The Socialist Green Coalition champions the demand for free
basic services for all, in their election platform.
The Congress of South African
Trade Unions (COSATU) believes
that the overwhelming majority
of South Africans will see through
the so-called National Convention
(Congress of the People COPE)
as being convened by a clique of
disgruntled former members of the
African National Congress (ANC),
unable to accept the results of a
democratic process.
For those who believe that it is a genuine
political movement with serious policies,
we outline below questions in a number
of areas on which we are convinced the
Convention (COPE) organisers have no
credible answers.
Tey have only one aim to divide
and disrupt the ANC and its allies, and
provide a launching pad to reinstate the
discredited agenda which was defeated
democratically at Polokwane last year.
Questions for our born-
again democrats
Polokwane rejected the suppression
of debate and the ridiculing, labelling and
bullying of political opponents as ultra
leftists and counter revolutionaries.
Tey revived the movements traditions
of service to the people, without any
expectation of material reward.
Te conveners of the National
Convention represent everything that the
delegates were protesting against. Teir
strategy is to turn the clock back, to try to
regain what they lost at Polokwane. Yet
they try to justify their decision by turning
reality on its head, claiming they want to:
Defend and strengthen democracy;
Defend the constitution and institutions
of democracy;
Ensure political tolerance;
Ensure the rule of law and equality of all
before the law;
Continue to work to entrench
non-racial, non-sexist, democratic,
prosperous and inclusive South Africa
imbibed with the implementation of
second-generation rights as enshrined
in the Bill of Rights.
Tis is hypocrisy of the highest order. Te
public record of these people reveals them
to have opposed in practice every one of
these principles. Tat is why COSATU
demands that they answer questions in
the following key areas.
Area 1: Organisational
democracy and
political tolerance
Leaders of this splinter have claimed
to be fghting against undemocratic
organisational practices, and promoting
political tolerance. But we ask:
Why have they refused to accept the
democratic process at the ANCs
National Conference in Polokwane?
Why were Terror Lekota and his
allies the most brutal enforcers of the
undemocratic practices of the former
ANC leadership, through the use of
patronage, politics of fear and labelling,
and abuse of state institutions?
In which ANC Conference, NGC, NEC
or branch was GEAR ever discussed
before being declared non-negotiable?
or branch was ASGI-SA discussed
before being publicly announced?
What kind of democracy is it when key
policies are imposed from above?
Is their real reason for refusing to fght
from within the ANC, against what they
claim are undemocratic practices post-
Polokwane because the membership
have democratically removed them
from positions of power?
Are they going to reintroduce this
undemocratic culture into the party
they plan to launch?
Area 2: Policy in
whose interests?
So far, Shikota et al have completely ducked
the question of what is the policy basis, if
any, for their disagreement with the ANC or
the Polokwane Resolutions, and why they
have not raised these diferences within the
ANC. We can only assume, based on their
track record and the elitist agenda they have
come to represent, that they will continue
to advance their pro-rich and anti-working-
class platform, which no doubt will be
dressed up in quasi-liberal DA-babble. So
we must question on economic policy:
Are you unhappy with the ANC
because it has decisively shifted away
from the 1996 pro-rich GEAR policies
and now wants to move government in
a pro-poor direction?
Why did you not object when the
RDP was abandoned in favour of the
neo-liberal GEAR strategy which led
to massive job losses, poverty and
widening inequalities, and left white
monopoly capital in the same dominant
position as under apartheid?
Why did you not oppose privatisation
of basic services, which led to
retrenchments, higher tarifs and
poorer service?
Will your party propose a return to the
1996 GEAR project which has created
such devastation in our country?
Area 3: Defence of the
Freedom Charter
Te Shikota group opportunistically claim
to support the Freedom Charter, because
they know how close it is to the hearts
of our people. Yet they are responsible
for consistently attempting to drive the
movement away from the ideals of the
Charter, and have argued that it is a historical
document no longer relevant to our times.
In fact, one of this groupings key ideologues
argued in an Alliance meeting in 2001 that
the Charter was outdated and should be
abandoned. Terefore they need to answer:
Why do they only talk about one clause
of the Charter All shall be Equal
before the Law which, as we show
below, they have violated, but remain
silent on the other clauses?
Is it because these other clauses are
against their class interests?
Why are they silent on key clauses
such as the people shall govern (which
requires respect for the outcome of
democratic processes), the people shall
share in the countrys wealth (not the
wealth shall be owned by a small elite),
the land shall be shared amongst those
who work it (not appropriated by a few
for game lodges and wine farms), and
that there shall be work and security
(not we shall pursue policies which lead
to mass unemployment and hunger)?
Area 4: The arms deal
and the SANDF
Two of the main movers in this group
are the former Minister of Defence and
COSATU questions the
born again democrats
ELECTIONS 2009
COVER FEATURE
his Deputy. Yet not once have they stood
up against the undemocratic imposition
of the arms deal on the country. On the
contrary they have defended it. Further,
they have been guilty of the perpetration of
undemocratic and authoritarian practices
in the SANDF. So we need to ask those
thinking of joining this new grouping if
they are happy being led by people:
who have defended the arms deal and
the chief driver of that deal, Tabo
Mbeki, in his prosecution of this deal, at
all costs;
who, as Ministers, told defence force
unions that they were prepared to issue
instructions for the army to fre live
bullets on workers during the 2007
public sector strike;
who refused to allow the unions in
the SANDF their democratic right to
afliate to COSATU;
who dismissed female SANDF members
who got pregnant whilst in service;
who, until ordered by a court to change
the policy, supported discrimination
against security force members living
with HIV/AIDS, and defed the court
when they ordered the SANDF to stop
its acts of discrimination against those
living with HIV and AIDS?
Will they support an independent judicial
commission of enquiry into the arms deal?
Area 5: Splitting the
labour movement
A number of key fgures in the Shikota
group historically come from the labour
movement. In the past they have solemnly
committed themselves to advance
a fundamental goal of labour the
unifcation of workers and the creation
of one federation in the country. Tey
undertook to do nothing which would
divide workers or undermine worker
unity. We therefore ask:
Why are they now irresponsibly
attempting to stoke division in the
labour movement, actively undermine
union structures and talking of setting
up a federation to oppose COSATU?
Is this because they need the electoral
muscle of workers and want to use
them as electoral fodder in setting up
their black DA?
Or is it to weaken workers in the
interests of their friends in business?
Have they now completely abandoned
any pretence of supporting the interests
of the workers and the poor?
Area 6: The
Constitution and 2nd
Generation Rights
Apparently bankrupt of any policies to
sell to the electorate, the Shikota group
now claim to want to support the 2nd
Generation Rights in the Constitution.
Perhaps they think this vague enough
to be safe, especially for their elite
constituency.
But when unpacked, these 2nd
generation, or socio-economic, rights
are the very rights which the labour
movement and our allies fought for
in the Constitution, and which the
economic policies of this group have
consistently frustrated. Rights to
health, water, housing, education, social
security, among others, have been
frustrated by the commodification and
privatisation of many of these areas. We
therefore ask:
Are they going to abandon the
economic policies they have promoted,
which have efectively denied many of
our people access to these basic rights?
Will they abandon their opposition to a
Basic Income Grant?
Will they agree that provision of these
services needs to be brought under
public ownership?
Area 7: Funding of
political parties
COSATU, IDASA and many civil society
formations have for many years argued
that the political parties should disclose
their sources of fnancial support. Te
Shikota grouping, formerly in charge of
the ANC, rejected this demand out of
hand. We ask today:
Who is bank-rolling the Shikota party?
Who has enabled them to aford to put
4 0005 000 people in the Sandton
Convention Centre?
When Shilowa declared recently that
money is not going to be a problem,
was he not perhaps relying on endless
fnancial resources from outside the
country?
What is the interest of those bank-
rolling the Shikota party?
Is it not their historic mission to defeat
the ANC and frustrate the NDR?
Edited from the COSATU statement, 31
October 2008.
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Lekota is seen as no democrat given his role as Chair of the ANC.
ELECTIONS 2009
COVER FEATURE
C
OSATUs statement
confronts the SA National
Convention with a number
of questions. Tese
questions are well merited
and expose many of the pretensions
of the born again democrats and
champions of the poor. Te problem is
that they apply to the current leadership
of the ANC no less than the leadership of
the National Convention to which they
are addressed. Tis assessment will be
demonstrated below.
That the ANC leadership is as
guilty of much the same charges as
the people COSATU attacks is most
disturbing. By pointing out these
contradictions are we being disloyal
to COSATU? Or, as we believe, are
we defending the best traditions of
our Federation and its commitment to
working-class politics?
A detailed, point-by-point analysis
of the entire 3 367 words of the 30
October Statement (henceforth the
Statement) is not required for present
purposes. Examining no more than
a few of the first questions from the
Statement is more than sufficient to
justify the proposition that the current
ANC leadership is tarred by the same
brush COSATU uses so effectively
against the ANC breakaways.
COSATUs statement
on Shikota yes, but
By Vuyo Sangweni
ELECTIONS 2009
COVER FEATURE
Consider no more the
following questions:
In which ANC Conference, NGC, NEC or
branch was GEAR ever discussed before
being declared non-negotiable?
A very good question especially
from COSATU, as the organised voice
of the class that has had to sufer
GEAR except for the fact that it
applies equally to the current ANC
leadership, beginning with the ANCs
current President and Vice President
and extending to all members of the
post-Polokwane NEC. Some SACP
leaders who are also members of the
current NEC did speak out against
GEAR and its undemocratic imposition
but never as members of the ANCs
NEC. Similarly, one is compelled to
ask (lest one is forced to answer the
charge of blatant blindness) which
current member of the current Cabinet,
beginning with the State President
and Deputy President, and extending
to all sitting ANC MPs, spoke out as
ANC leaders against the undemocratic
imposition of GEAR?
or branch was ASGI-SA discussed before
being publicly announced?
Once again, COSATU is to be
commended for the question. But this
question also condemns those in the
ANC COSATU is now presenting
as defenders of democracy and the
interests of the working class.
What kind of democracy is it when key
policies are imposed from above?
Another perfectly appropriate question,
except for the fact that its tarnishes the
entire leadership of the ANC and not only
those COSATU is now justly attacking.
Te second set of questions was put
very personally to Shikota, the double-
headed monster created out of Lekota
and Shilowa. Tese questions all relate to
claimed Post-Polokwane policy changes.
Is your unhappiness with the ANC,
because it has decisively shifted away from
the 1996 pro-rich GEAR policies and now
wants to move government in a pro-poor
direction?
Polokwane proclaimed the death of the
Scorpions. Government accepted its
Polokwane-assigned role of executioner
and the Scorpions now exist only as
history. None of this determination
is to be found in the Governments
implementation of the Polokwane
mandate to decisively shift away from
the pro-rich GEAR policies. Indeed,
even more pointedly because of
his higher position of the present
President of the ANC who was then
Deputy President of both the country
and the ANC.
Will your party propose a return to the
1996 GEAR project which has created such
devastation in our country?
Excuse us! What is this return to the
1996 GEAR project? Are we now being
expected to accept that the 1996 class
project has been abandoned? If so
when did this wonderful event happen
and, more importantly, where are the
revolutionary fruits of this radical
rupture? Indeed, unless COSATU
is saying that the abandonment of
IMF- and World Bank-approved
macroeconomic policies has happened
only since Polokwane, which would
only increase our incredulity, there
would have been no need to raise the
very issue of a fundamental change in
macroeconomic policy at Polokwane
because it would have already happened
and we would already have been reaping
its bountiful fruits.
We readily understand it is not easy
for COSATU to confront these harsh
questions. We acknowledge that addressing
these issues unavoidably involves a
challenge to the very essence of COSATUs
current strategy regarding the ANC. We
nonetheless say that the issues weve raised
cannot be ignored. To turn a blind eye
to them is to repeat the denialism that
allowed the 1996 class project to take root
and fourish. GEAR was self-evidently a
disaster for working people and would-be
working people. Tere was no need to
experience the agonising realities of GEAR
to know that neo-liberalism is a disaster for
everyone other than the rich. Many people
within the trade union movement knew
full well what GEAR was about. But silence
prevailed until GEAR realities forced the
silent to speak out. We need to learn from
this bitter lesson.
COSATUs uncritical position to
the current leadership of the ANC is
contradictory. Until we see a decisive policy
shift we should be saying of the ANC and
its splitters: A curse on both your houses.
COSATU must at the very least know that
they cannot make angels of the present ANC
leadership in order to cast some previous
ANC leaders as the devil. In the name of
loyalty are we expected to say nothing?
Vuyo Sangweni is a community media
activist from the Eastern Cape and works with
the Amandla Collective.
the opposite has been the case. Te
government has repeatedly and loudly
assured the rich both local and
foreign that they have nothing to
fear. Te Finance Minister the perfect
personifcation of the continuation of
the business-friendly brand recently
provided a budget that demonstrates
most concretely that its business as
usual for the post-Mbeki government.
Why did you not object when the RDP was
abandoned in favour of the neo-liberal
GEAR strategy which led to massive job
losses, poverty and widening inequalities,
and left white monopoly capital in
the same dominant position as under
apartheid?
Another spot-on question, except for
the implication that the colour of capital
determines the behaviour of monopoly
capitalists. But to ask this question only
of Shikota, rather than the entire ANC
leadership, is to disrespect workers
intelligence.
Why did you not oppose privatisation of
basic services, which led to retrenchments,
higher tarifs and poorer service?
Why, indeed? Bravo to COSATU for
exposing their hypocrisies. But this
same question has to be asked and
There was no need
to experience the
agonising realities of
GEAR to know that
neo-liberalism is a
disaster for everyone
other than the rich.
Photos: Anti-Privatisation Forum
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ELECTIONS 2009
COVER FEATURE
No profound and popular movement
in all history has taken place
without its share of flth, without
adventurers and rogues, without
boastful and noisy elements. A
ruling party inevitably attracts
careerists.
ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe
before the election of the ANCs National
Executive Committee at Polokwane in
December 2007.
Te split in the African National Congress
(ANC) may well reveal itself as a class split
between the haves and the have-nots.
COSATU has accused Mbhazima Shilowa
(a key organiser of the break-away group,
Te Congress of the People) as a whisky
swilling egotist, millionaire farm owner
whose ambitions have been classed as
elastic. Mosiuoa Lekota has been accused
of advancing the interests of the black
elite.
Tere is a well-known adage which
says people who live in glass houses
should not throw stones. Closer
examination of the new ANC NEC
reveals many similarities with the ANC
descriptions ascribed to the Shikotas
business elites with interests as far
reaching as the international arms trade,
uranium and platinum mining, the oil
and shipping trade, international fnance,
and most lucratively, the 2010 stadia
developments.
Te scale of the wealth of the ANC-
created oligarchs is in direct opposition
to the founding principles of the
Freedom Charter, the ANC and the class
position of the majority of its members,
and, in recent times, its party election
manifestos. Sixteen per cent of the post-
Polokwane NEC have been convicted of
post-apartheid crimes or are suspects
of criminal investigations or crimes. A
further 13% have the dark cloud of fraud
and corruption scandals hanging over
their heads, and 3% of their numbers
have had run-ins with the law. In total,
33% of the 88 members of the ANC NEC
have been involved in one scandal or
another involving fraud, corruption and
maladministration.
Tere are some for whom post-
apartheid South Africa has become a
veritable gold mine of wealth, literally.
Some NEC members are no longer
active in parliamentary politics, but their
connections to the corridors of power
have certainly allowed them a lifestyle
and access to wealth unheard of by many
South Africans. Below we profle some
members of the NEC, by no means the
wealthiest, whose lifestyles contrast with
the non-elitist pro-poor orientation
suggested by the attacks on Shikota.
Nomaindiya Mfeketo
(NEC member 27)
Te former mayor of Cape Town,
Nomaindiya Mfeketo, and her stellar
rise through the ranks has been dogged
by scandals of cronyism, corruption
and, in her business dealings, errors in
judgement. A forensic investigations unit
uncovered 340 allegations of fraud, theft,
corruption and maladministration in the
two years of Mfeketos administration in
the City of Cape Town. Between 2004
and 2005 this included the infamous sale
of prime coastal land to a consortium led
by Tokyo Sexwale, and a group of 17 black
empowerment companies, of which some
were directly owned by the ANC Youth
League or major donors to the Western
Cape Provincial ANC.
Mfeketos 2008 asset register listing
reports that she has a 26% stake in
Summer Days, a BEE partner of Western
Uranium which is a subsidiary of
Brinkley Mining. Brinkley Mining has
acquired sole ownership of fve farms in
the Beaufort West region. Each of the
farms have uranium prospects and have
an aggregated area totaling 42 000 ha.
Trough its BEE stake, Summer Days
has received 6.5 million Brinkley Shares
in recognition of the BEE partners
contribution to the process of applying for
and receiving prospecting rights.
Currently Mfeketo is NEC Member
27. She holds the chair of the local
and provincial government portfolio
committees in the South African
parliament, and chairs the ANC
parliamentary caucus.
Nyami Booi (NEC
Additional member 41)
In 2004 Te Citizen reported that Nyami
Booi, then an ANC MP and member of
parliaments Safety and Security Portfolio
Committee, was investigated in a police
case of fraud. Te allegation: siphoning
of 10% commissions from donations
made to the Tabo Mbeki Crossroads
Education Trust Fund a fund set up
by Booi. Te commissions were made
without the knowledge of the donors
which included national cellphone
company, Vodacom. A yearly donation of
R2 million to the fund allegedly saw Booi
receive a R200 000 commission from a
donor he did not help secure.
Booi holds shares valued at about R1.6
million in Ukusa Investment Holdings,
Who are the
real new rich?
by Helga Jansen
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Baleka Mbete is now the Deputy President of the country
and chairperson of the ANC.
AMANDLA! INVESTIGATES
White Shark Ecoventures, Pan-African
Corporate Holdings and S Systems. Pan-
African Holdings focuses on investment
banking, fund management and project
fnance structuring. It lists the KwaZulu
Growth Fund and the North West
Growth Fund as subsidiaries. Te fund
will be capitalised by R1.7 billion of KZN
provincial government cofers over the
next three years. Mr Booi has a 25% stake
in Pan-African Holdings. In the 2008
Members Asset Register, the nominal
value and nature of his 25% stake has not
been declared.
Nyami Booi is NEC member 41 and
was appointed Chief Whip in the South
African parliament in October 2008.
Angie Motshekga (NEC
additional member 32)
Angie Motshekga is a member of the
Gauteng Provincial cabinet, serving as
MEC for Education. Her rise through
the ranks of the ANC has been not
been without scandal. In 2006, she
failed to declare all her business interest
to the Gauteng Legislature. One of
her interests, Kara Heritage Institute,
provided services to both the Gauteng
government administration and national
government. Two years previously, in
2004, Ms Motshekga was forced to
apologise to the Gauteng legislature
for recommending an empowerment
consortium involving her husband,
Mathole Motshekga (NEC member 53).
She has a range of interests in Letsatsi
Oil and Shipping, Kara Investment,
Vitomi, Pula Intertrading and Kagiso.
Except for Kara Investments, very little
information is available on any of the
other companies.
Motshekga is the newly elected
president of the ANC Womens League.
The Yengenis (NEC
members 21 and 31)
Te Yengenis have been dogged by
scandals, allegations and the eventual
conviction of Tony Yengeni. Te
Yengenis have a taste for the high life
and expensive cars. In 1998 Tony Yengeni
obtained an expensive luxury Mercedes
ML320 4x4 from Daimler Chrysler
Aerospace (Dasa) for which he received
a massive discount. In return he would
use his infuence as chairperson of
parliaments joint standing committee
on defence to prod the arms-acquisition
process in favour of Dasa. Te state
alleges that Woerfel (head of Dasa)
and Dasa sold Yengeni the luxury car
in October 1998 for R182 563 while the
actual retail price was R349 950. Lumka
Yengeni (ANC MP) was named as one of
four persons who benefted from the car
discount scheme.
Lumka Yengeni is an ANC MP,
member of the ANC NEC. Tony Yengeni
is a member of the ANCs National
Working Committee.
Defending the nation
Siphiwe Nyanda (NEC
additional member 22)
Retired General Siphiwe Nyanda is a
member of the NEC and the NWC and,
like Yengeni, a crucial supporter of Jacob
Zumas candidacy in the struggle for the
presidency of the ANC and South Africa.
Te now retired general is alleged to
have received a car from the Dasa car
scheme which is widely believed to be
part of a wider scandal of corruption
involving the arms deal. Te ANC has
vowed to investigate and Nyanda has
been appointed to an eight-member
committee of the ANCs NWC, charged
with conducting a secret, internal
ANC investigation into the arms deal
corruption case.
Nyanda stepped down as head of the
South African National Defence Force in
May 2005. He is CEO of Ngwane Defense,
an arms manufacturer with several
subsidiary companies that supply weapons
and military hardware to clients around the
world. Nyanda has been a vocal supporter
of Jacob Zumas bid to the presidency. Zuma
himself was compelled to resign as deputy
president over allegations that he took
bribes in return for protecting the interests
of French arms company Tompson-CSF/
Tales. Nyanda maintained interests in at
least fve private businesses, including a
security frm, while he was commander-in-
chief of the defence force.
NEC members 10 and
34 building profts
In 2007, the City Press newspaper
uncovered the gravy train of the World
Cup Soccer stadium construction. ANC
businessman Tokyo Sexwale (NEC
additional member 10) and former Eastern
Cape politician Enoch Godongwana
(NEC additional member 34) are among
those standing to beneft from the massive
stadium projects. Enoch Godongwana,
former ANC activist Mkhuseli Jack and
businessman Tembeleni Nodaba lead
Ibhayi Construction, which owns a third
of the Grinaker-LTA consortium. It is
building the 50 000-seater Nelson Mandela
Bay Stadium for R1.15 billion.
Te recurring themes of wealth of
the ANC elite, its NEC members and
deployed cadres in parliament is mining,
oil, arms and big development contracts.
With self-enrichment another recurring
theme among the ghosts of African
failures, can those in the ANC and the
Alliance more generally, who are opposed
to crony-capitalism, take this struggle up
in and outside of the Alliance? As the 2009
elections loom, many will be watching
to see if theirs is only a selective critique
ignoring the rot in their own camp.
Helga Jansen is a freelance journalist and
member of the Amandla! Collective.
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Nyanda maintained
interests in at
least fve private
businesses, including
a security frm, while
he was commander-
in-chief of the
defence force.
Tony and Lumka Yengeni are renowned for their love of expensive, cars, high fashion and taste for bling.
AMANDLA! INVESTIGATES
T
hree issues defne Tabo
Mbekis presidency:
AIDS, Zimbabwe and
the arms deal. He and
his cabinet colleagues
were repeatedly warned
that the arms deal was
fnancially reckless, but recklessly they
ignored the warnings.
Mbeki along with ministers Alec
Erwin, Ronnie Kasrils and Mosiuoa
Lekota is just its latest casualty.
Amongst the other ministers responsible
for the fasco, only Finance Minister
Trevor Manuel remains in ofce.
President Kgalema Motlanthe
would do well to refect that for ten
years leaders of civil society including
both retired Anglican archbishops
Desmond Tutu and Njongonkulu
Ndungane have repeatedly called
for a thorough and independent
judicial commission of inquiry.
With the collapse of the Soviet
Union and the end of the Cold
War, the world dreamed feetingly
of a peace dividend, and of a world
without war. Europes arms industry
faced bankruptcy so, despicably,
the war business was already busily
engaged in creating new causes of
confict. Post-apartheid South Africa
became one of the frst targets.
Massive military expenditures
by the apartheid government had
bankrupted the country and, ironically,
made possible its relatively peaceful
transition to democracy. As early as 1990
and in violation of the United Nations
arms embargo, prospective leaders of
the African National Congress (ANC),
including Joe Modise and Tokyo Sexwale,
were being wined and dined at the
Farnborough and Paris air shows.
European politicians flocked to
South Africa after 1994 to pay tribute
to Nelson Mandela and our new
democracy with one hand, and to peddle
weapons with the other. Even the royal
yacht Britannia doubled as a floating
British arms industry exhibition when
Queen Elizabeth visited Cape Town in
March 1995 to commemorate Human
Rights Day.
Te Defence White Paper of 1995
noted that the new government was not
fghting its own people, and that the
eradication of poverty required priority
before armaments in the allocation of
public resources. Just a glance at any
world map confrmed that there was no
conceivable foreign military threat to
South Africas security.
Lekota had declared in 1990 that since
post-apartheid South Africa would not be
fghting neighbouring countries, it would
have no need for an army. Similarly, Nelson
Mandela declared in March 1995 that never
again shall South Africa be the fountainhead
of confict in the region, or the source of
armaments to suppress communities or
spend our peoples resources to develop
weapons of mass destruction .
Such ideals soon fell prey to
massive lobbying by the armaments
industry in collusion with European
governments. A couple of weeks after
Queen Elizabeths visit, Prime Minister
John Major despatched a British
government delegation to South Africa
to lobby on behalf of British shipyards
and arms companies.
Te Spanish shipyard Bazan was
competing against British tenders.
Amazingly, the public was informed that
acquisition of three Spanish corvettes at
a cost of R1.7 billion would protect South
African fsh from Spanish poachers and,
in addition, would generate counter-trade
(ofsets) worth R4.8 billion to create
23 000 jobs.
In the event, neither the British nor
the Spanish won because Mbeki, then
deputy president, irregularly intervened
to pass the contracts to German shipyards
whose tenders had previously been
rejected as both too expensive and too
sophisticated. As became evident a few
years later, Germanys Chancellor Helmut
Kohl was deeply involved in corruption
associated with the German steel and
armaments industries.
Soon there were murmurings in
the corridors of Parliament that BAE
was bribing ANC politicians to support
purchases not just of corvettes, but also
of submarines and fghter aircraft. Te
ANCs chief whip, Tony Yengenis
new sartorial splendour prompted
allegations that he was a benefciary
from BAE of a 1 million frst success
fee. In December 1998 trade union
ofcials alerted me to a further R30
million allegedly being laundered via
two Swedish trade unions to bribe
more ANC politicians.
Through Campaign Against
Arms Trade (CAAT) in London,
I asked the British government
to investigate. The Secretary for
Trade and Industry appointed the
London Metropolitan Police to the
task. The eventual response was that it
was [then] not illegal in British law to
bribe foreigners, and so there was no
crime to investigate.
Tony Blairs Labour Party had come to
government in 1997 promising an ethical
foreign policy. Instead, within weeks,
it too was exerting massive pressures
on the South African government to
buy BAE Hawk and BAE/Saab Gripen
fghter aircraft that the South African air
force rejected as both too expensive and
unsuited to South Africas needs.
Te late Joe Modise whose notoriety
for corruption dated back to Umkhonto-
we-Sizwe (MK) and the Struggle was
prevailed upon to alter the tendering
criteria so that the fundamental matter of
cost was removed from consideration.
Arms deal the truth
will out sooner or later
By Terry Crawford-Browne
Tony Yengeni was one of the frst to fall victim of the irregularities
related to the arms deal.
NEWS ANALYSIS
Blairs lobbying on behalf of BAE
included a special trip to Cape Town
in January 1999 when arms deal
offsets were described as a Marshall
Plan. Blair even seconded a British
bureaucrat to ensure that South Africa
could maximise the offsets gains.
Why, commentators asked, dont poor
countries spend all their budgets on
armaments if offsets are so beneficial?
ANC intelligence operatives in
June 1999 alerted me to the scale of
the corruption around the arms deal.
Tey also advised that it extended
to oil deals, the taxi recapitalisation
process, toll roads, drivers licences,
the Cell C cellphone project, the
Coega development, diamond and
drug smuggling, weapons trafcking
and money laundering. Te common
denominator was kickbacks to the ANC
in return for political protection.
Te comprehensive afordability
study in August 1999 warned cabinet
ministers that the arms deal was a highly
risky proposition that could lead the
government into mounting economic,
fscal and fnancial difculties. Again, the
study was ignored.
A month later the Briefng to Patricia
de Lille, MP from concerned ANC MPs
really set the cat amongst the pigeons. It
named high-ranking ANC politicians and
ofcials, including Jacob Zuma, allegedly
receiving bribes. Te government, in a
state of frenzy, accused foreign embassies
of trying to destabilise the country
but, notably, was more interested in
identifying the whistleblowers than in
addressing the issues they raised.
In his book After Te Party, Andrew
Feinstein recounts how a senior member
of the ANC told him that the arms deal
secrets would never be exposed because
how do you think we funded the 1999
election? (Feinstein, Andrew: After
Te Party, Jonathan Ball Publishers,
Johannesburg, 2007, page 177.)
Zumas fnancial advisor Schabir
Shaik in June 2005 was convicted
of having colluded with the French
government-controlled Tomson CSF
to bribe Zuma in return for political
protection. Shaik was sentenced to 15
years imprisonment. Given the details
of corruption exposed during the trial,
Mbeki immediately dismissed Zuma as
deputy president.
Zuma had originally not been
charged with Shaik because of the
political sensitivity of the matter.
Mbeki now encouraged the National
Prosecuting Authority to charge
Zuma with corruption, fraud, money
laundering, racketeering and tax evasion.
It became increasingly evident however,
that Zuma was being scape-goated to
divert attention from the far greater
culpability of the ministers who presided
over the arms deal decisions.
The ANC, technically bankrupt
only a few years ago, in December 2007
at the Polokwane conference boasted
investments of R1.75 billion. It has
suddenly become one of the wealthiest
political parties anywhere in the world,
yet refuses to open its books to public
scrutiny under the spurious excuse that
it is a private organisation. Recognition
around the world of the malevolent
social and political consequences of
corruption has advanced dramatically
since 1998.
Under huge pressure, a British
minister fnally admitted in 2004 that
commissions (read: bribes) had been
paid to secure BAEs warplane contracts
with South Africa. She pleaded, quite
extraordinarily, that those bribes
had been within reasonable limits.
Researchers in Britain estimate those
reasonable bribes at about 112 million
or R1.8 billion.
Te Austrian home of one of BAEs
agents has recently been raided for
documents relating to BAE/Saab Gripen
fghter aircraft contracts. Even the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is now
detaining BAE executives for questioning
about why BAE with British governmental
assistance has laundered bribes through
the American banking system.
Te arms deal has severely
undermined South Africas constitutional
democracy. Given the current
international fnancial turmoil, President
Motlanthe must urgently restore our
governments credibility rather than think,
like his predecessor, that the arms deal
scandal can be brushed under a carpet.
It simply will not go away until it is
comprehensively addressed, and remedial
actions are taken.
Terry Crawford-Browne is a retired
international banker who represented the
Anglican Church during the 1996-1998
Defence Review, and is the author of Eye On
The Money.
The arms deal has
severely undermined
South Africas
constitutional
democracy.
Will Shabir Shaik be the last to be prosecuted for corruption in relation to the arms deal?
NEWS ANALYSIS
Denel: a
call for
responsible
closure
By Rob Thomson
NEWS ANALYSIS
D
uring apartheid, the South
African regime desperately
needed arms to suppress
resistance within the
country and to destabilise
neighbouring countries opposed to its
rule. To curb the Pretoria desperados,
the United Nations imposed an arms
embargo in 1963. Pretorias response
was the development of its own arms
production industry (now Denel) coupled
with a cloak-and-dagger sanctions-busting
procurement agency (now Armscor).
Tese two agencies have undergone
various splits and amalgamations, but
they share a history of involvement in an
underground arms industry supported by
unquestioning funding by the state. But
now both Armscor and Denel have been
recognised as problem organisations and
are currently undergoing reconsideration.
In 2005, Denel was in fnancial
difculty. Finance minister Trevor
Manuel granted it guarantees of R1.6
billion. In addition, he announced a
R2 billion lifeline during his budget
vote in February 2006, as a frst phase
recapitalisation of Denel to refocus the
business. Tis lifeline has since been
increased to R3.5 billion. In return, Johan
Liebenberg, then CEO of Denel, promised
a fx-it plan. But the fx-it plan meant
that Denel would need privileged access
to South African defence spending. In
other words, the state would continue
to subsidise Denel by buying from it at
uncompetitive prices. It also meant that
Denel would be gradually privatised,
and the state would lose control over the
arms industry. Tis tends to play into the
interests of BEE intermediaries (typically
not broad-based) that stand to gain from
further arms deals.
As shown in the graph, Denel
turnover remains in the doldrums, while
the cumulative losses borne by the state
to keep this monster afoat continue
to escalate. Since 1997 they have now
reached R6 billion. Te auditors continue
to question Denels ability to continue as a
going concern.
Te arms industry is notoriously
capital-intensive. Denel is no exception.
During the last fnancial year it employed
an average of less than 7 300 employees,
while its assets at the year-end exceeded
R5.1 billion. Tis means that, for every
employee, Denel required assets of
more than R700 000. For cost-efcient
employment, the state could deploy its
assets far more efectively than this.
Te South African fscus has wasted
far too much money on an unworkable
recovery plan for Denel. Payments
for recapitalisation have merely been
subsidies for a loss-making enterprise.
Furthermore, reports by Denel lack the
transparency that should be expected of
a state-owned enterprise. In particular,
details of the projected improvements
supposedly fowing from the recovery
plan have not been disclosed, nor have
details of sales of weapons.
Te arms industry is also notoriously
secretive. Undemocratic purchasers are
in it to maintain their oppression: they
dont want the world to know what they
are buying. Sellers are in it for a proft:
they dont want to be subject to scrutiny
regarding the human-rights records of
their purchasers. Intermediaries promote
the interests of both in return for bribes
cloaked as commission. One of the last
bastions of hope that South Africa would
take a responsible line on arms sales was
Now theres a bill
before parliament
that proposes
to increase the
secrecy surrounding
arms exports by
South Africa.
the National Conventional Arms Control
Act. Unfortunately, the responsible
Arms Control Committee has failed to
implement that Act. Tey have sold arms
to repressive regimes. Tey have granted
permits for arms to be transported
across South African soil to Zimbabwe.
Tey have failed to report on arms sales
approved. Now theres a bill before
parliament that proposes to increase
the secrecy surrounding arms exports
by South Africa. Increasingly, the public
will be kept in the dark. One of the major
proponents is Denel.
Subsidies to Denel (whether in the
form of recapitalisation or otherwise)
should now be discontinued and the afairs
of Denel and its subsidiaries and partners
be made transparent. Ceasefre has
requested the ANC to establish an ad hoc
committee to consider this proposal. No
reply has been received to that request.
Te truth is that, if this proposal were
to be implemented, and if the National
Conventional Arms Control Act were to
be properly implemented, the failure of
Denel would have to be accepted. South
Africa does not need an industry that will
continue to cause it embarrassment, that
will continue to drain its fnance, that
will waste resources on capital-intensive
production and that will undermine
the transparency that lies at the root of
democracy. While Ceasefre does not call
for action that will throw workers onto the
streets, it does call for action. What it calls
for is the responsible closure of Denel: not
a fx-it plan based on wishful thinking,
but a close-it-down plan based on a
recognition of its unsustainability.
Rob Thomson is a member of the Ceasefre
Campaign.
Denel Turnover

0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
Cumulative loss
R
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Turnover
2008 2006 2004 2002 2000 1998
NEWS ANALYSIS
The xenophobic crisis which
began with widespread attacks on
thousands of brothers and sisters
from the continent six months ago
is now a thing of the past in many
peoples minds.
But the reality is that about 2 000 people
remain in decommissioned camps in
diferent parts of the country, without
access to water, electricity, sanitation,
security, shelter or food.
Apart from that, people who were
displaced in May and who spent time
in the governments camps before
reintegrating, are still steadily being killed
of in xenophobic attacks.
Many other displaced people face
further quandaries: there are those who
have applied for repatriation because it
is too dangerous for them to reintegrate.
Tey are eligible for repatriation because
their home countries are not classifed as
war-torn. But the United Nations High
Commission on Refugees (UNHCR)
takes up to two years to process
these applications and insists that the
applicants move out of camps and back
to communities they want to avoid, while
they wait to be repatriated!
Another group has been hoodwinked
out of asylum status by Home Afairs
ofcials, who rushed around the camps
in October, interviewed asylum seekers
without translators being present, and in
a fawed process, turned down dozens of
applications for refugee status.
Tose residents are now unable
to leave the camps and look for
accommodation because they have no
paperwork and they cant go to landlords
and banks without documents.
And then there is a large group of
people from Eastern DRC, Somalia, and
even Darfur who have refugee status
and cant be deported but who dont
want to reintegrate. The UNHCR wont
allow them to apply for repatriation
because it says it is not permitted to
send people back to war-torn countries.
UNHCR protocol says that people
like this may apply for resettlement
in a third country. But local UNHCR
officials have allegedly told all camp
residents that resettlement is not being
offered in this case.
In summary, there are thousands
of people who face further xenophobic
attacks, eviction and police brutality
when government fnally closes the
camps down before the tourist season
starts, and who deserve a more organised
form of solidarity than the left has
ofered them so far.
Displaced
refugees need
solidarity:
Wheres the left?
By Anna Majavu
Displaced refugees of xenophobic violence can only depend on peoples solidarity now that the camps have closed.
NEWS ANALYSIS
In moving towards a united front for
next years elections, the left and social
movements must put militant anti-
xenophobia actions high up on the agenda.
Te past six months have seen new
and important organisations emerging
joint refugee leadership committees,
refugee self-defence committees and
groups of local students and community
workers named after the camps in
which they have been active, such as the
Youngsfeld Organisation.
Te Youngsfeld Organisation is
an interesting example of new types of
organisations that have emerged recently.
It was formed by students, activists
from the Treatment Action Campaign,
Ubuntu, and People against Suppression,
Oppression and Poverty (PASOP),
and people who lived near Youngsfeld
camp who found themselves doing daily
solidarity work.
Organisations like this, and the
loose networks of volunteers in the
other camps, have been quite pivotal in
working with and being led by refugee
leadership committees and in supporting
the displaced people, who were thrust
against their own will into disempowered
positions as camp residents.
Tey have forced government to
improve the standards of the camps,
including forcing the state to provide
nappies, baby formula and fruit for babies
and children which the state did not
bother to do for a long time.
Tey have also managed to mobilise
people like deputy speaker and former
deputy health minister Nozizwe
Madlala-Routledge to visit the camps
personally, and intervene against guards
who periodically and sadistically ban
journalists and deliveries of food and
other supplies.
In Cape Town, these groups have
formed an impressive partnership with
the Treatment Action Campaign, Aids
Law Project, and various public interest
law centres.
Te work done by these groups
creates immense space for the left to get
involved with new, very active people and
beneft from these groups fresh ideas.
It could also create the possibility
of a broader alliance between refugee
leadership, left and progressive groups,
displaced people facing eviction, and
social movements.
Te social movements played a pivotal
role when the attacks broke out.
In informal settlements organised
by Abahlali baseMjondolo in Durban,
the movement ensured that not one
xenophobic attack took place. Movement
activists also managed to stop a
xenophobic attack in a settlement not
afliated to ABM.
In Gugulethu, less than 10 activists
from the Anti-Eviction Campaign also
spent a few days rushing from one
xenophobic outburst to another, in some
cases physically blocking fellow residents
from attacking people and fooding
the township with posters calling on
residents not to harm our brothers and
sisters from Africa.
In Kanana and Katlehong, the Anti-
Privatisation Forum managed to defend
some shops under attack and mobilised to
get people to oppose groups of attackers.
Tey also sheltered people and even in
Alexandra, tried to protect people.
Te APF also led a coalition involved
in a 24-hour shut down Lindela campaign
blockading the centre, on 21 and 22
November.
Te work done by the organised left
groups was much more mundane (writing
pamphlets, holding meetings, one big
march here and one picket there).
Tis is part of the lefts general failure
to understand libertarian aspects of
activism, like direct action, which includes
being involved on the ground and helping
people meet their needs.
For the left, activism is about having
marches to government ofces and meetings.
Tis is a problem because rigid ways
of thinking mean that the left often
struggles to express solidarity with
grassroots peoples desire to control their
own lives, and ends up marginalising itself
as it has done in this case.
Te left also lost an important
opportunity to confront and pressurise
political parties ahead of next years
election. For example, in Cape Town,
the crisis has been handled by a joint
partnership of the DA, which controls
the city, and the ANC, which controls the
province. Despite their pretence at being
worlds apart, both parties work as one in
their dealings with the displaced people,
in the same way that they share a common
approach to poor, black, working-class
people in general.
Both parties employ the same type of
personnel in the form of Pieter Cronje of
the city and Hildegard Fast of the province
who, when interviewed, are utterly devoid
of any empathy towards the displaced
people, let alone any sense of justice,
and who give robot-like answers to all
questions asked.
Currently, both are applying jointly
for an eviction order against the 1 000
people remaining in Cape Towns two
decommissioned camps.
COSATU has not made much noise
about the DA/ANCs poor treatment
of the displaced people. In the Western
Cape, a group of Khayelitsha traders
known as the Zanokhanyo Association
issued letters ordering all Somali
shopkeepers out of the township. To their
credit, COSATU intervened strongly
and had the Zanokhanyo Association
withdraw its letters and all threats against
Somali people.
It remains to be seen whether they will
contest the DA/ANCs eviction of those
remaining in the camps. Given that they
are in an alliance with the ANC and are
heavily focused on getting ANC president
Jacob Zuma elected as president of the
country, it seems unlikely that they will
take any action.
Many of the people facing eviction
have said publicly that they want the
world to see them die of hunger in a
decommissioned camp, rather than
reintegrate into a township. Tis means
that once the DA/ANC alliance against
the displaced people moves to evict
them, there will be scenarios where
hundreds of people whose health is
already broken down by six months of
camp life in the Cape Town winter are
pushed out to camp on the side of the
highways next to the camps. Or where
hundreds of metro cops move against
the displaced people with force and
remove some of them for deportation, as
happened in Gauteng.
Te left needs to be in a position to
ofer solidarity when this happens.
Anna Majavu is a journalist with the
Sowetan and an activist in a number of social
movements.
For the left,
activism is about
having marches to
government offces
and meetings.
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NEWS ANALYSIS
T
he family is pivotal to the
maintenance of the neo-liberal
order, an order marked by an
intense individualism and a
privatisation of social relations. Among
working-class households there is a retreat
into the private sphere of the family/
household which involves an atomised
struggle for daily survival, rather than
collective mobilisation.
Te family-based household is the
site of the domestic labour which is
essential to the social reproduction of
labour power. It involves the performance
of various caring functions in society,
particularly the care of the very young
and the very old. Globally it is work that is
mainly done in the household through the
unpaid domestic labour of women. Black
working-class women are performing
most of the paid and unpaid domestic
labour in South Africa.
In 1919 Lenin pointed out that
despite all the laws emancipating
women, she continues to be a domestic
slave, because petty housework crushes,
strangles, stultifies and degrades her,
chains her to the kitchen and the
nursery. Hence Lenin argued strongly
for the socialisation of domestic labour,
to transform petty housekeeping
into a series of large-scale socialised
services: community kitchens, public
dining rooms, laundries, repair shops,
nurseries, kindergartens and so forth.
In most former communist countries
most of the basic conditions of social
reproduction were socialised. While
these are associated with failed economic
systems, there are aspects that can address
our crisis. It is time for progressive forces
to return to these demands.
The globalisation of
paid domestic work
Much has changed since Lenin wrote.
Domestic labour is increasingly
commoditised and globalised. Women
from the global South and European
post-socialist countries have been
recruited to service in an exploding
demand for domestic labour in the
United States, Canada, European
Union, Hong Kong and the Middle East.
Domestic workers have multiplied and
the predominantly female domestic
and day-care workers are increasingly
plugged into patterns of global labour
migration. It all involves work for low
wages under poor working conditions
Domestic work in
South Africa
Paid domestic work remains the single
largest category of womens employment
in South Africa. Approximately one
out of every fve employed women is
a domestic worker in a very gendered
and racialised occupation. Te ofcial
estimate for the paid domestic work
sector was 101 3000
During apartheid several full-time
live-in domestic workers in white homes
described themselves as slaves. Has this
changed? While domestic workers have
formal legal rights, national minimum
wages are still much below other sectors
(R1 066 per month in urban areas in
2007 and R865 in rural areas for a 45-
hour week). Tere is also a shift from
full-time live-in work to live-out and
part-time work. Domestic workers
remain a racialised and gendered cheap
labour force. Tey perform the cooking,
cleaning and childcare work that is
essential to social reproduction. Tese
women continue to work for long hours
and low wages and are subjected to
demeaning treatment.
The crisis of social
reproduction in
South Africa
Tese working-class women are also
responsible for the domestic labour
involved in social reproduction in their
own households. An analysis of their
everyday lives points to a crisis in social
reproduction. Tensions have accumulated
to the point where peoples capacity to
lead fulflling lives is threatened. Te
extent of the crisis is evident in rising
levels of poverty and social inequality,
the extent of gender-based violence, the
lack of access to adequate water, the HIV/
AIDS pandemic, the inadequacy of social
grants, and rising food and fuel prices.
African working-class women are the
worst afected, being responsible for the
administration of household consumption.
When food prices go up or pre-paid water
meters are installed, and incomes fall,
Is the family the
appropriate site for
social reproduction
in South Africa?
By Jacklyn Cock
In most former
communist countries
most of the basic
conditions of social
reproduction were
socialised.
WOMEN & FEMINISM
women have to stretch limited resources
and do more unpaid work.
Rethinking social
reproduction in the
privatised sphere of
the family/household
Should social reproduction be an
individual matter, located in the privatised
sphere of the family-based household
where it inevitably falls on women?
Te household, the hidden abode of
reproduction, is shrouded in secrecy, part
of the private sphere and therefore not
susceptible to investigation or debate.
Family relations and divisions of labour
are regarded as part of a natural order,
and therefore not open to question. Te
extent of violence, power and labour in
the household is often unacknowledged.
For Lenin, a housewife was a domestic
slave. Lenin believed that womens unpaid
labour within the family/household was
a major obstacle to progress. Another
Marxist, Alexandra Kollontai, talked
about the necessity of introducing public
services of every kind that would free men
and women, especially women, from the
petty cares of everyday life involved in
social reproduction. Kollontai and Lenin
were both calling for the socialisation of
domestic labour.
How can the notion of socialised
domestic labour address the current
crisis, and mitigate the tensions
and struggles black working-class
women face? The reality is that, due
to the migrant labour system and
mass relocations, the family and the
household are not the same, though they
are closely linked. While South Africa
is noted for its support for a diversity of
family forms, specifically for polygamy
and same-sex marriage, there is still
a tendency to view the nuclear family
form as the most effective vehicle for
maintaining social stability. But there
are many powerful critiques of the
nuclear family as an anti-social unit
which monopolises the caring and
sharing which should be spread more
widely. For many feminists it is a small
and reactionary unit which blocks the
development of revolutionary solidarity,
and confines women. Albert Memmi
argued that the nuclear family also
distorted the personalities of men. He
will remain glued to that family which
offers him warmth and tenderness but
which simultaneously absorbs, clutches
and emasculates him the family
smothers him.
It follows that there is a need
to rethink the traditional sites of
social reproduction. Actual social
arrangements in South Africa, as in
most of the world, are far from the
nuclear family model of a single male
breadwinner and dependent wife and
children. Most poor households rely
on income and survival strategies from
several members rather than a single
breadwinner. Most rely on support
from a variety of sources, wages being
only one. At the same time working-
class women perform a double load of
the care work involved in both paid
and unpaid domestic labour. Care
work in all its aspects needs to be
recognised, legitimated and valued,
and the provision of care needs to be
seen as a matter of public policy for
developing countries.
Recent calls by South Africans
that child and elder-care needs to be
defamilialised resonate with the manifesto
of the Federation of South African Women
which included the demand for socialised
child care, as well as a minimum wage,
subsidised food and housing.
By looking beyond the family for
the work of care-giving, we can create
employment for more working and
caring citizens, and build social solidarity.
Furthermore, it would enable men and
women to share equally in the work that
these programmes create. Lenin criticised
the general passivity and backwardness
of many communist men on this issue.
He stressed that we must root out the old
slave-owners point of view, both in the
Party and among the masses. Tis rooting
out is an urgent task and should include
an honest discussion of how the private
sphere of the family/household relates to
the spirit of revolutionary solidarity and
collective struggle that we in South Africa
need to revive.
Some argue for going beyond the
family/household system and the social
democratic welfare state for more
collective forms of living together that
broaden the group of people sharing
the work of care; and ... democratic and
participatory forms of organising public
services that engage both care-workers and
those dependent on their care in mutual
governing relationships. In our context
examples of socialised domestic labour
are cooperative housing arrangements,
shopping schemes and bulk buying. It also
includes low-cost, high-quality laundry
services, childcare cooperatives, vegetables
gardens, shared transport arrangements,
and communal kitchens. Tese collective
arrangements build on existing township
traditions of burial societies and stokvels.
In the words of Lenin these
community kitchens, public dining
rooms, laundries and repair shops,
crches, kindergartens, childrens homes
and educational institutions would
relieve women from their old domestic
slavery, enabling them to give their
capabilities and inclinations full play.
Collective arrangements are also sites
of learning and re-learning relations of
sharing, support and solidarity, reviving
a spirit of sharing and solidarity rather
than consumerist individualism.
Jacklyn Cock, Department of Sociology,
University of the Witwatersrand.
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Domestic workers campaigning for basic worker rights to avoid slave like conditions.
WOMEN & FEMINISM
I
n South Africa, rural womens
economic position or
disposition is closely linked to
their relationship with land.
Most rural women do not own
land, an efect of a dominant
patriarchal culture that favours
men as landowners, as well
as that of apartheid, where
the majority of rural people
experienced land dispossession. Te
combined efects of patriarchy, slavery,
colonialism and apartheidcapitalism
have resulted in widespread landlessness
for the majority of black people,
and current land ownership still lies
predominantly in the hands of white
male farmers. Women make up more
than 64% of the rural population, but
yet, according to statistics, they are only
about 1% of landowners.
Te Western Cape Province,
internationally renowned for its
prestigious wine farms and deciduous
fruit, has the biggest concentration of
farm workers in South Africa. When a
closer look is taken regarding gender, race
and class dynamics on these farms, the
struggle of rural farm women for gender
and economic justice is revealed.
A woman who works on a farm is
most likely to have been born on that
farm. She is most likely black, with little
or no access to formal education. Te
agricultural labour force in South Africa is
characterised by a distinct gender division
of labour: farming is still perceived as
predominantly mens work, with womens
labour considered supplementary. As
such, the permanent workforce within
agriculture is predominantly male, with
women forming the largest percentage of
casual and seasonal labour.
In a research study conducted on
farm worker wages in the Western Cape,
we found that women seasonal workers
receive a minimum wage of between R48
and R60 per day. A seasonal workers
maximum monthly wage is R1 200,
without any incentives, bonus or benefts
guaranteed. Our study also found that
women farm workers spend their wages
mostly on their familys needs, such as
food and healthcare. One seasonal worker
who participated in this research said
that the hardest time for her is when the
season ends. Te worry she experiences at
this time was evident in her voice as she
explained her situation. As a single mother
with two school-going children, she feels
distressed when she is not able to put food
on the table or pay her childrens school
fees. Another farm worker said that even
though television has been available for
years, she has never in her life been able
to aford a television set because she earns
too little as a seasonal worker.
Economic and political changes in
the post-apartheid economy afected
agricultural workers in important ways.
As the ANC government propelled
the South African economy into the
global market and removed protective
tarifs for agriculture, farm production
had to become more competitive in
Women farm workers
growing and reaping hope
By Celeste Fortuin
Mobilising women farmworkers must be part of broader struggle for womens emancipation.
WOMEN & FEMINISM
an international market. To reduce
productive costs, farmers began moving
away from permanent labour towards
employing more causal, seasonal labour.
At the same time, new labour legislation,
such as the Labour Relations Act (1995),
Extension of Security of Tenure Act
(1997), and the Basic Conditions of
Employment Act (1997) extended the
rights of farm workers, and introduced
a legal framework to the relationship
between farmer and farm worker.
Although farm workers now have
recourse to unfair labour practices, the
backlash from farmers has been severe;
this backlash, combined with the impact
of globalisation on the South African
agricultural sector, has resulted in
increased work and personal insecurity
for farm workers within our current
democratic context.
Casualisation and feminisation of the
agricultural workforce appear to go hand
in hand, as women begin to make up the
bulk of the agricultural workforce. Te
increased feminisation of agricultural
labour has not resulted in substantive
gains for women workers: women farm
workers still form less than 50% of the
permanent workforce. As seasonal and
casual workers, womens access to benefts
such as sick and maternity leave, as well
as to minimum wages, is limited. Within
a global competitive economy, women,
as the bulk of the agricultural workforce,
are often found at the bottom end of the
global value chain as farmers shed jobs
frst in their aim to reduce production
costs. In a recent study on Decent Work,
farm worker Saartjie Claasen remarked:
I am very unhappy, because I work very
hard to make my boss wealthy, contribute
to make the country rich, but I still receive
low wages.
At a personal level, women farm
workers are still subjected to gender-based
violence and economic dependency on
their intimate male counterparts. With
the rise in HIV-infection in rural areas,
seasonal workers have limited access to
health benefts, and as they become too
ill to work, they face the threat of losing
both their work and their homes on the
farms. Tis is due to the fact that labour
and tenure rights are intimately connected
on farms, and although separated
legally, these evections are still practised
collectively by farmers. Housing contracts
with farm workers are most likely to be in
the name of the male worker, and should
men lose their jobs on farms, or become
too ill to work, they and their family are
likely to face eviction.
Organisations and campaigns have
been formed for and by women and
men living on farms to respond to
this insecurity. Women farm workers
experiences of personal and political
injustice take place in the geographic
isolation of a farm. Tey have limited or
no access to government-provided social
services mostly centred in neighbouring
towns. Building farm womens activism
and organisation has been identifed as a
strategy to address this isolation, where
women can come together to share similar
experiences and initiate joint campaigns
as a collective.
Although many NGOs and alliances
exist within the agricultural and land
sector of South Africa, there is not a
clearly pronounced gender or feminist
perspective in their service delivery and
campaigns. As such, farm womens needs
run the risk of being marginalised or not
identifed within broader development
agendas. In the Western Cape, a few
civil society organisations are playing a
leading role in fostering a specifc feminist
approach and, through their work and
campaigns, highlighting the situation of
women farm workers at both a personal
and political level. Te Women on
Farms Project (WFP), an NGO based
in Stellenbosch in the Western Cape,
has been providing capacity building,
awareness and empowerment training
to thousands of women farm workers in
and around the Western Cape since 1996.
As part of their objective to address the
landlessness and unemployment of rural
women, WFP is supporting women farm
workers to organise themselves and form
agricultural cooperatives. Te women are
given skills-building opportunities at both
a personal and technical level to equip
them to work land in a sustainable and
income-generating manner.
Te Western Cape has also seen
the formation of the frst women-led
agricultural trade union, Sikhula Sonke
(SS). Te union has over 3 800 members,
of which the majority is women. Its
constitution contains provisions to
ensure a majority of women farm
workers in the unions leadership. In a
predominantly male trade union sector,
SS is a concrete example of womens
ability to lead and organise on their own
behalf. SS is formulated in the context of
social movement unionism, and as such
the trade union seeks to address both
the social and labour issues confronting
women who live and work on farms.
Various campaigns around farm
worker rights have been launched by
organisations such as SS and WFP and
alliances such as the Alliance for Land
and Agrarian Reform (ALARM). Tese
campaigns focus on issues such as the
right to a living wage, protests against
farm evictions, the rights of seasonal
workers and campaigning for safer
working conditions on farms. WFP and
SS as well as the Centre for Rural Legal
Studies and Lawyers for Human Rights are
some of the main providers of education,
training and legal assistance to women
farm workers around labour rights in
particular as well as other human rights.
Working with women farm workers
to bring about fundamental change in
the quality of their life is a tough but
inspiring process. You become touched
and inspired by their courage in the midst
of unimaginable sufering. Today, 14 years
since the birth of democracy, farm women
in South Africa remain marginalised, and
their struggle for social and economic
justice continues.
Celeste Fortuin is a gender activist and this
article originally appeared in Moneta magazine,
published by the Alternative Bank ABS,
Switzerland.
Working with farm
women to bring
about fundamental
change in the
quality of their
life, is a tough, but
inspiring process.
As farmwomen as feminists
we need collective action to
challenge the discrimination
and injustice we experience
on farms. We believe that our
children can become doctors
anything they want to be and
it is our job to ensure that they
have a better future than us.If
this is not achieved, the cycle
of poverty will continue. In my
work, I am inspired by women
who went before me, farmwomen
who know what hardships are
like, but who have stood up for
themselves and their rights. Today
these farmwomen are leaders in
Sikhula Sonke, and are dedicating
their life to help women such
as themselves. (Wendy Pekeur,
General Secretary, SS)
WOMEN & FEMINISM
Amandla: Why is regional integration
important for overcoming inequality and
underdevelopment in South Africa and in
the region?
Rob Davies (RD): I think the first
point we need to make is that regions
already exist in Africa and in fact
were created by colonialism. The
southern African region has had a
socio-economic meaning since the 19th
century, built around the accumulation
process in the gold mining industry
in South Africa. The neighbouring
countries were drawn in primarily
as labour reserves. A cross-border
transport infrastructure was built from
the hub of accumulation and a customs
union was formed with Botswana,
Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland.
Since the 19th century this socio-
economic unit has been characterised
by relations of domination and
subordination. Many smaller countries
will continue to be primary producers
in the global economy and will only
beneft from industrialisation through a
programme of regionalism which is more
equitable and more all-encompassing than
the patterns of the past.
For South Africa a very signifcant part
of South Africas manufactured exports
go to Africa, and more particularly to
southern Africa. Te region therefore
is an important economic resource, but
the pattern of trade is very uneven and
unequal. And because of the relative
wealth of South Africa in relation to the
rest of the region, the consequences of
wars, natural disasters and the continued
reproduction of imbalances will be felt in
South Africa in the form of accelerated
migration. So we have a positive reason
for encouraging equitable regionalism.
Amandla: What will be the major
elements of a programme of equitable
regional integration?
RD: I think we need to separate
some of the concepts. We often talk
about regional integration, but in fact
theres two other terms which are
important: cooperation and the other
one is coordination. Strictly speaking,
regional integration is understood
as a process in which you move up
Jacob Viners ladders from free trade
area to customs union, to economic
union, through common markets the
process in the European Union. But
theres sectoral cooperation, which
would mean that countries would act
together to promote infrastructure,
development, industrial policies across
borders, etc. And that would also
involve the coordination of a range
of developmental policies. According
to the orthodox trade integration
paradigm you just climb up Viners
ladder from trade areas to customs
unions and into common markets,
removing regulatory barriers and tariffs
as the key process involved.
This approach is very widely
promulgated in the cannons of the
World Bank. In their language it is
referred to as open regionalism where
trade liberalisation is the stepping
stone towards integration into the
world economy.
Recent history of southern Africa
shows that the biggest barrier to
promoting intra-regional trade in
underdeveloped regions is not the
removal of tarifs and regulatory barriers
but underdeveloped production structure
and inadequate infrastructure.
Weve established a free trade area in
SADC, and removed duties of more than
97% of goods coming from the rest of the
region. But the pattern of trade is still
very unbalanced because other countries
do not have the capacity to produce
Regional cooperation
not free trade should
be SADCs agenda
Interview
with
Deputy
Minister
Rob
Davies
In their language it is
referred to as open
regionalism where
trade liberalisation
is the stepping
stone towards
integration into the
world economy.
Cartoon: Zapiro
REGIONAL INTEGRATION
FOCUS
commodities which would be sold on the
South African market.
An alternative paradigm exists
that is based on a more developmental
approach to regionalism. In this
paradigm there is a greater focus on
common industrial development and
infrastructure programmes. It is only
once significant advances in those areas
have been made that it becomes possible
to contemplate things like customs
unions which include common external
tariffs. These are the challenges that
confront the region. It is as if we have
put things together back-to-front.
SADC is pursuing a total free
trade area and a customs union to be
established by 2010. Such a customs
union would include a common external
tarif. Tis could have serious negative
consequences for the weaker economies
in the region. Even South Africa could
be negatively afected as such a process
would involve lowering tarifs on external
imports to countries outside the region.
South Africa argues that tarif policy
needs to be set by industrial policy. We
need to examine industry by industry
for what the appropriate level should be
taking into account the developmental
challenges we and the rest of the region
face. On the basis of evidence we must
set tarifs that actually create conditions
for industrial development. A common
external tarif of 5 to 10% would be
disaster for the motor, clothing industry,
and for many other industries. So there is
a vigorous debate taking place in SADC,
far from progressive forces and the
constituencies that would be afected; and
2010 is very close!
Amandla: Is there a convergence between
our National Industrial Policy Framework
and what other countries are doing?
RD: We are just beginning to discuss
in Southern African Customs Union,
SADC and in the AU Council of
African Ministers of Industry, what
industrialisation across Africa or a region
should look like. But its very much at the
conceptual stage.
In the SACU context we need to also
coordinate industrial activities which are
linked in value-adding production chains,
e.g. motor components from Botswana
for the assembly plants in SA. Once we
understand the kind of tarif structure we
want deriving from those processes we
can contemplate a common external tarif
applying across SADC.
Phillips want to establish compact
fuorescent light bulb production in
Lesotho, Tey need a tarif of 15% for
ten years to be viable and it must also
apply to imports to South Africa because
that factory is only viable if it produces
compact fuorescent light bulbs for the
whole of SACU, and eventually the whole
of SADC. Tat tarif has had to be set
with a process of investigation, realising
the signifcance of this industry, backing
that industry and applying that tarif in
the whole region. With a fat tarif of 5
to 10% Phillips wouldnt invest. You need
fexibilities to cover a project like that and
at the moment the WTO process is not
ofering us sufcient fexibilities
Amandla: Is it the logic of South African
capital to ensure the development of
productive capacities in other countries?
RD: No, I think its not going to happen
through market forces or the will of
capital. South African capital by and large
is happy to sell into other places. And it
usually is a purposeful efort by public
institutions to change that pattern. I think
that were not diferent here.

Amandla: Are the South African public
fnancial institutions like DBSA and IDC
making the efort?
RD: IDC has been quite involved in a
number of industrial projects in other
countries and initiated, for example, the
Mozal plant. But it must be the regional
organisation that drives regional priorities
and projects.
Amandla: To what extent are those
possibilities negated by existing
agreements South Africa has with the
EU, the SADC Free Trade Agreement and
existing WTO agreements?
RD: Te existing SADC trade protocol
and the existing FTA are not barriers
if and when an industrial policy
unfolds and we need to amend existing
agreements, then we must be willing to
do that. Te biggest challenge comes
with the new European Partnership
Agreements which the EU is trying to
negotiate with individual countries they
are prescriptive about crucial things like
trade diversifcation, export taxes for
benefciation. We have a potential division
within SACU because some members
have initialled the EPAs and we have not.
Ten of course theres the WTO
where our ranking under apartheid as
a developed country contributed to
the uneven development of the region.
Weve argued that in two respects
our obligations to WTO rules need
to be changed, namely South Africas
designation as a developed country and
as part of a customs union involving
least developed countries. However,
power relations in the WTO are the most
difcult to confront.
Amandla: What are the main factors
driving the processes of regional integration
presently? Are we jumping to the demands
of South African capital?
RD: I think its external factors. Te AU has
adopted an agenda of accelerated integration
and its set timetables for its sub-regions.
But the big new driver is the intense
competition between China and Europe
in Africa, hence the protection EU
wants through the EPAs. China comes
in with infrastructure programmes
that its prepared to finance quickly,
get off the ground; all with long-
term commitment but low levels of
conditionality. We are resisting EPA
clauses about most favoured nation,
which limit our capacity to diversify
our trade patterns away from Europe
towards China. We want the possibility
of negotiating agreements with
developmental perspective a big bone
of contention between us and the EU.
Amandla: Surely the food security is
one such issue that should be driving the
regional processes of that nature?
RD: Indeed. I have focused on industry,
but there should be real cooperation
to ensure food security and to develop
mining, energy and infrastructure in a
balanced an equitable way.
Rob Davies is the Deputy Minister of Trade
and Industry and is a member of the Central
Committee of the South African Communist Party.
Challenging WTO rules is the most diffcult when trying to
create space for regional co-operation.
FOCUS
A
nti-colonialist and anti-
imperialist opponents of
Europes exploitative role in
Africa have long stressed that
aid from European countries, individually
and collectively, reinforces African and
other countries dependence upon European
governments and susceptibility to their
manipulation. Te claims of European
partnership aid, including the preferential
trade access to former colonies in Africa,
the Caribbean and the Pacifc islands,
contrast with its actual efects.
From the mid-1970s, this
partnership aid took place largely
within the framework of the Lome
Convention between Europe and
some 72 ACP (Africa Caribbean and
Pacific) countries. There were European
programmes within Lome for African
and other countries external trade.
These included lower customs duties on
their exports into the European market.
They also included such apparently
supportive instruments as the STABEX
fund (providing a certain stability to
their commodity export prices) and
SYSMIN (strengthening their mineral
production and exports). However, what
all these measures actually did was to
underpin the role of these countries as
suppliers of raw materials to Europe,
and reinforce their export orientation
towards Europe and dependence on
it. Thus, Lome was an effective neo-
colonial instrument for the EU in Africa
and other such countries during the
1970s and into the 1980s.
However, during the 1980s
European companies began to face
growing competition from newly
industrialised countries (NICs)
in Asia, achieved largely through
their own state-led economic
strategies. European governments
characteristically came to the aid of
their corporations. Amongst other
measures, this entailed:
the liberation of capital through
fnancial deregulation;
the privatisation of large-scale state
enterprises and public services, and
their reallocation to corporations;
the reduction of corporate taxation and
hence state revenues and expenditures
at home but also overseas.
Tis latter meant, amongst other things,
reducing Overseas Development
Assistance (ODA) and starting to shrug
of the inherited burden of governmental
development support programmes
to African and other such countries,
through agreements such as Lome. Tese
countries were required, instead, to open
up their economies to allow market
forces full freedom to operate. Exploiting
these countries aid dependence and
external debts, IMF and World Bank
structural adjustment programmes
(SAPs) were used from the early 1980s to
impose international trade and investment
liberalisation and labour market and other
forms of deregulation on dozens of such
countries, with drastic economic, social
and environmental efects.
From the 1990s, however, the EU
and the US and the other more highly
industrialised countries adopted even
more aggressive neo-liberal globalisation
strategies. Tese were designed to:
open up all economies throughout the
world to their industrial and agricultural
exports;
secure the investment requirements and
global operations of their transnational
corporations and fnancial operators;
promote the international expansion of
their service companies.
Tese aims were pursued both through
the IMF/WB and the newly created
WTO from 1995. Tis expanded neo-
liberal ofensive included new multilateral
agreements, such as on Trade-Related
Intellectual Proper Rights (TRIPS) to
secure monopoly control over science and
technology and production processes by
Europes economic
partnership offensive
By Dot Keet
Members of the Southern African Peoples Solidarity Network demonstrate against EPAs.
FOCUS
European, North American, Japanese and
other developed country corporations.
At the same time, the major powers
continued to defend selected protections
and targeted supports to their own less
competitive sectors and companies.
Such blatant utilisation of the
WTO for their own interests, and the
growing evidence of the negative efects
of neo-liberal globalisation in lesser
developing countries, and upon more
vulnerable social sectors throughout the
world, were taken up in the increasingly
powerful world-wide actions by anti-
globalisation forces. Tese, in turn,
gradually encouraged greater developing
country resistance to the expanding role
and powers of the WTO. Te combined
opposition to the agendas of the EU and
the US was expressed most recently in the
blockage of the so-called Doha Round by
alliances of anti-WTO non-governmental
social forces, as they encouraged and
engaged with various alliances of
developing country governments.
In the meantime, however, faced
with such growing resistance, both the
EU and the US began to resort more
and more to bilateral (government to
government) and region-to-region
agreements. They did this in order
to avoid and outflank the combined
opposition they were facing in and
around the WTO and other multilateral
institutions. Instead, the US and the
EU are now pushing their trade and
related agreements through separate
negotiations with individual countries
and with smaller groupings of
developing countries. They are doing
this because as individual countries and
smaller groupings they are in a weaker
negotiating position than when they are
in the combined developing country
alliances in the WTO.
EU is now pursuing advanced
liberalisation demands (beyond
what they are demanding in WTO
negotiations) through its many FTAs
(free trade agreements) with many
governments. These include the
comprehensive bilateral FTA with
Chile, for example, and the bilateral
trade liberalisation agreement (known
as the TDCA) with South Africa. This,
too, is what the US is pursuing through
its TIDCA (Trade, Investment and
Development Cooperation Agreement)
with SACU (the Southern African
Customs Union, including South
Africa) and its Trade and Investment
Framework Agreement (TIFA) with the
East African Community. The trade of
these countries is heavily oriented to the
markets of the richest countries. This
feature is being used by governments
such as the US and the EU as a powerful
instrument to promote their own trade
and investment ambitions in these and
all other countries.
Such outfanking and divisive efects
are also evident in the EUs current
negotiation of region-to-region Economic
Partnership Agreements to replace Lome.
Tese negotiations are splitting apart
established regional groupings, such
as SADC and SACU, as their member
governments try to reach separate
agreements with the EU in order to hold
onto their trade access into the European
market and continued European aid.
However, the EUs strategic aim is not
only to reverse the earlier preferential
aid and trade relations with African
countries. It goes further in seeking to
invert those preferences in its own favour.
Te EU is demanding fuller access for its
industrial and agricultural exports into all
such countries. Tis will see reciprocal
tarif reductions by African countries as a
condition for their continued trade access
into the EU market. Such imbalanced
processes of tarif reduction and trade
liberalisation will on well-established
experience result in the increased
fow of highly competitive European
industrial goods into such countries, with
negative impacts on local companies
and increased job losses. Te increased
infow of subsidised European agricultural
products and processed foods will also
have damaging efects on less competitive
agricultural producers, with negative
efects on agricultural employment and
rural livelihoods.
And the EU is going very much
further by insisting that such EPAs
have also to include guarantees on the
movement of European investment
and other forms of capital fows into
and out of ACP countries. Te other
demand from the EU is the opening
up of the services sectors of such
countries and public contracts (known
as government procurement) to the
operations of European companies. Te
production and export of high-tech
capital equipment and pharmaceutical
products remain crucial sectors within
EU economies. But it is the complex
array of services that together now
comprise by far the greatest sector,
at some 65%, of Europes combined
GDP and more than 70% of European
employment. Tese services are fnancial,
legal, telecommunications, media (flm
and audio-visual), advertising, planning
and construction, transport, water and
sanitation and many others. Tese and
other new generation issues are basically
issues that the developing countries
have already rejected and blocked in
the WTO. Tese are actually the major
motivations of the EU in the EPAs and
other such FTAs.
But the most advanced and
contentious demand incorporated into the
EPA terms is that ACP countries wishing
to access the EU market and to continue
receiving European aid have to provide
the EU and their corporations with Most
Favoured Nation (MFN) treatment. Tis
means that any ACP country that signs a
trade and investment agreement with a
country other than the EU has to extend
the same rights and terms that are in
that agreement to the EU. Tis is a direct
assault on the right of governments to
develop their own trade diversifcation
and investment strategies and particularly
to negotiate independent SouthSouth
agreements with countries such as Brazil,
India and China, for example.
Tis is the major reason why South
Africa has roundly criticised and rejected
the EPAs. Te Namibian government,
too, has rejected the MFN and other
clauses constraining its policy rights, but
the three other members of SACU are
eagerly negotiating with the EU. Nigeria
and Senegal have also publicly rejected
the EPAs, and, like South Africa, are
coming under considerable pressure
from the EU. All in all, only 18 African
governments have agreed to enter into
interim EPA negotiations with the EU.
Te challenges to social movement forces
in these and other African countries are
to fnd ways to:
ensure that resistant governments do
not surrender to EU pressures;
get the weaker governments to stand
together with the stronger in resisting
the EUs EPA onslaught;
build mass campaigns to defnitively
stop EPAs!
Dot Keet is an associate researcher with
the Alternative Information and Development
Centre (AIDC) based in Cape Town.
This is the major
reason why South
Africa has roundly
criticised and
rejected the EPAs.
FOCUS
Globally 33 million people are living
with the HIV virus. Twenty-two
million or 67% live in Africa. What
are the power relationships behind
AIDS epidemics in southern Africa
and the dominant responses?
After 24 years of HIV education
and prevention campaigns we still
have high HIV prevalence and new
infection rates. An industry has
emerged around AIDS, yet it has
not addressed the primary causes of
HIV spread. Governments and AIDS
service organisations who depend
on donor funds often fail to critique
how the problem is framed in donor-
driven HIV/AIDS discourses.
Individualising and
medicalising the social
While the left dismisses AIDS as a health
issue, imperialism is opening up a new
frontier with armies of AIDS consultants
who control the debate and set the
parameters for our response. Because
knowledge of bio-medicine is seen as a
prerequisite for any knowledge useful
to the HIV/AIDS arena, the epidemic
has been medicalised, placed under the
control of health ofcials and presented
as a public health problem It is true that
there are bio-medical determinants of
HIV/AIDS that increase particularly
womens vulnerability to infection.
However, the reasons why HIV and
AIDS became epidemics in the last 25
years, although the HIV virus crossed the
species barrier more than 70 years ago,
are mainly socio-structural. Biomedical
research has certainly increased our
understanding of the virus and led to
great advances in the development of life-
prolonging drugs, but it cannot explain
why it has become an epidemic amongst
the poorest and one so difcult to stop.
Te fact that there is donor money
obscures the political nature of HIV and
AIDS. In southern Africa high levels
of HIV and AIDS are linked to high
levels of social inequality. Some argue
that AIDS has become a metaphor for
inequalities. Te inequalities are refected
in who is HIV positive and who is not,
who lives, who dies. Vast inequalities
are also refected in the discussions on
HIV and AIDS, which individualise and
medicalise the social. AIDS is presented
as a behavioural problem and sexuality
as a rational choice made by autonomous
people. A lot of funds are spent on
repetitive behavioural surveys and
rather inefective ABC campaigns. Tese
campaigns ignore the way sexuality is
actually constructed in our society, and
the power diferentials that commonly
induce risky sexual practices, and
consequently the spread of HIV. In many
instances facilitators and peer educators in
behaviour change campaigns become HIV
positive themselves. Tis should indicate
that the problem lies much deeper.
Political Economy of AIDS
A Swaziland frm conducted a study
amongst its workers. Tose earning the
least had the highest infection rates while
workers in the highest income band had
the lowest prevalence rates. A study in
the Free State revealed that households
in areas afected by higher levels of
unemployment are more vulnerable to
HIV infection. Poor people also carry
the greatest burden of caring for the
sick, rather than the state and business
enterprises. AIDS-afected households
are more likely to be poor, and these
already poor households absorb up to
90% of caring responsibilities for the sick.
Increased expenditure on health depletes
savings, increases household debt and
increases school drop-out rates. Tere
is a cycle of poverty and vulnerability
that is reproduced generationally as
young people, particularly young women,
become infected. Tis is why we now have
high new infections rates, particularly
HIV/AIDS: A metaphor
for social inequalities
By Lucy Edwards
FOCUS
in the 1524-year age groups, and the
feminisation of AIDS.
Te relative wealth of men over
women creates power diferentials.
Many women lack control over their
own sexuality. Economic dependency,
poverty, sexual violence, rape and other
patriarchal sexual cultures (like polygamy,
wife lending, widow cleansing, dry sex
and leviratic marriage) diminish sexual
autonomy. Tis includes the right to say
no to sex, say no to promiscuity, or the
right to insist on protected sex. Young
women disproportionately account for
62% of youth who are infected. In the 15
24-year age group 75% of females are HIV
positive. Te peak age for HIV prevalence
among young women is around 25, 10 to
15 years younger than the peak age for
men, which indicates high levels of inter-
generational sex.
Poverty is coercive. Tere is no
freedom when young women take sugar
daddies to pay for school fees, toiletries
or food, no autonomy when adult women
accept male promiscuity or concurrent
sexual partners in order to buy bread,
uniforms or to get a roof over their heads.
Tere is no choice when women get raped
beaten or abandoned because they insist
that partners use condoms
HIV/AIDS and neo-
liberalism
While UNICEF, UNDP, UNAIDS, World
Health Organisation and United Nations
Population Fund all lament the devastation
AIDS is causing in Africa, other agencies
like the IMF and the World Bank pursue
policies that deepen poverty and equality.
Te 1970s marked the neo-liberal assaults
on any state-led development. Te World
Bank and IMF-led Economic Structural
Adjustment Programmes of the 1980s
1990s further intensifed poverty. It is
no accident that HIV and AIDS became
epidemics during this period. De Vogli and
Birbeck developed a causality framework
that shows the causal linkages between
World Bank-IMF policies and increased
vulnerability to HIV and AIDS.
Treatment access
Of the 2.1.million AIDS deaths in 2007, 1.6
million occurred in sub-Saharan Africa.
Tus far the interests of multi-national
pharmaceutical companies and the logic
of the market dominate access strategies.
Most treatment programmes in Africa are
only possible because of donor subsidies
to purchase drugs, often specifying the
expensive drugs from large established
pharmaceutical companies. Donor reliance
IMF
World
Bank
policies
Impacts on
vulnerable groups
and routes of
transmission
Countries where
impacts were
experienced
Pathway 1
Currency
devaluation and
the removal of
food subsidies
Increased prices, reduced
access to food, shelter and basic
commodities. Made women more
vulnerable to sexual abuse, sexual
exploitation, transactional sex and
unprotected sex
In Zambia 50% increase in maize prices.
In Zimbabwe 15% decrease in food
consumption in poor households. Nigeria
85% of women reduced meals from 3 to 2
times p/d. Kenya and Tanzania increase
in girls who engage in commercial sex
Pathway 2
Privatisation
Job losses, wage freezes, declines
in real wages, unemployment and
job insecurity
Ghana unemployment led to the adoption
of risky survival strategies. Reduced
purchasing power exposed women to
sexual harassment. In Zambia it resulted in
increased child labour
Pathway 3
Financial
and trade
liberalisation
Removal of agricultural subsidies,
increases in real interest rates,
reduced access to credit, declines
in rural subsistence farming,
migration, increased female
dependency on working males
In Zimbabwe migration and loss of
livelihoods led to an increase in the
number concurrent sexual partnerships.
South Africa both led to increased
commercial and unsafe sex
Pathway 4
User fee
charges in
health sector
Drop in STD clinic attendance,
reductions in STD and HIV
screening, use of reproductive
health services
In Uganda untreated STDs increased the
possibility of HIV infection due to high
co-infection rates
Pathway 5
User fees
charges in
education
sector
Girls from poor families were
often withdrawn from education,
reduced youths access to
education, missed opportunities
for HIV/AIDS education
Both boys and girls with low educational
levels are more prone to abuse and
harassment in work situations
has compromised the political autonomy
of both civil society organisations and
governments that beneft from this
philanthropy. Tose afected have little
control over the sustainability of ARV
supply. If donor funds dry up, it could lead
to drug resistance. High new infection rates
could mean that donors may not sustain
treatment access in the future. A recent
announcement of a funding shortfall for
ARV treatment in prisons in South Africa
highlights the problem.
Despite donor subsidies, there are
other social obstacles to treatment like
high transport costs to healthcare centres,
lack of food to take with the drugs and
even the lack of water (as a result of
privatisation and pre-paid meters) to cook
the food. We must confront the power
relations that leave life-saving therapies to
the dictates of the market and exclude the
poor. Redress would require fundamental
social transformation.
Conclusion
High HIV prevalence rates in sub-Saharan
Africa have resulted in a misconception
that AIDS is an African disease with black
victims. Tis racist sub-text underpins the
posters and television footage of AIDS and
Africa. However, parallel epidemiological
patterns in North America and India show
its spread is linked to class, gender and
racial inequalities. Post-colonial and post-
apartheid transitions in Africa have not
signifcantly altered the wealth ownership
and distribution patterns that produce
these inequalities.
When President Mbeki said that
you cannot address HIV spread without
addressing poverty, he was right, but
sabotaged the socio-structural argument by
questioning the bio-medical link between
HIV (the virus) and AIDS (the illness).
On the one hand Mbeki wanted to
move away from the racist narrative that
constructs AIDS as a black disease and
racist notions of Africa as a hotbed of all
conceivable pathologies. On the other
hand he wanted to absolve the state from
its responsibility to provide treatment to
people living with AIDS. Mbeki overlooked
the linkages between the bio-medical and
socio-structural, but more important, he
held out the begging bowl for NEPAD
donor funds when we should redistribute
Africas wealth more equally. He continues
to endorse neo-liberal economic policies
which exacerbate poverty and inequality,
key drivers of HIV spread.
Lucy Edwards is a lecturer in the Sociology
Department at the University of Namibia.
Linkages between HIV/AIDS vulnerability and IMF/World Bank Policies

FOCUS
N
amibias new Labour
Bill 2007 was
signed into law in
December 2007 and
was implemented
with efect from 1
November 2008. One
of its most interesting parts was Article
128, which led to heated debates and
even court action. Tis article states that
labour hire (i.e. the operations of labour
brokers) will be prohibited in the Republic
of Namibia: No person may, for reward,
employ any person with a view to making
that person available to a third party to
perform work for the third party.
Trade unions enthusiastically
welcomed this article, which paves
the way for the abolition of a labour
practice, which they regarded as
reminiscent of the colonial migrant
labour system. Employers, however,
opposed the clause and argued that
it would not only outlaw labour
hire but also other practices such as
outsourcing and sub-contracting. The
Namibia Employers Federation (NEF)
announced that it wanted the Labour
Bill halted and the amendment on
labour hire removed. Namibias largest
labour hire company, Africa Personnel
Services (APS), which originates from
South Africa, went a step further by
taking the Namibian parliament and
government to court. The company
claims that its constitutional right to do
business was violated by Article 128 of
the Labour Act.
What is labour hire?
Labour hire as a particular form of
outsourcing emerged in Namibia in
the late 1990s. Tis labour-only form
of outsourcing forms part of a global
trend towards more fexible forms of
employment, which are implemented by
employers in the pursuit of higher profts.
Labour-hire companies supply labour to
third parties (the client companies) with
whom they have a commercial contract.
Tis practice applies not only to workers
that are required for short periods but also
increasingly also to those who work on a
full-time and ongoing basis for the client
company.
Global trends
Global experiences have shown that
employers use labour-hire workers for a
variety of reasons. Tese include coping with
peaks in demand, reducing costs, avoiding
industrial relations problems, greater
fexibility, as well as avoiding retrenchment
procedures and trade unions. Labour-hire
workers on the other hand are faced with
job insecurity, low wages and substandard
working conditions, limited training
and skills development and low levels of
unionisation. In addition, labour-hire workers
are sometimes not sure who their actual
employer is: the labour-hire company or the
client company where they work.
Studies by Namibias Labour Resource
and Research Institute (LaRRI), have shown
that the countrys labour-hire practices
conform with global trends to a large extent.
Namibias labour-hire industry is dominated
by one large company, which originated
in South Africa and now operates across
Namibia. In addition, there are several
smaller labour-hire companies, most of
whom are limited to serving a few clients,
mostly in one particular town. Overall, at
least 10 labour hire companies are currently
operational in Namibia. Tey all supply
mostly unskilled and semi-skilled workers
to client companies in various industries,
including mining, fshing, and retail. Teir
clients include private companies but also
state-owned enterprises. Almost all labour-
hire companies retain a substantial part
(1555%) of workers hourly wage rates as
their fee.
Impact of labour hire
Client companies use labour-hire workers
to reduce the impact of strikes by
permanent workers, to achieve fexibility,
to cut costs, to avoid labour problems and
trade unions, to concentrate on their core
business and to replace unproductive
workers. Labour-hire workers are paid
signifcantly less than permanent workers
and they usually do not enjoy any benefts.
Many labour-hire workers sufer from
violations of the provisions of the Namibian
Labour Act. Although most are registered
with social security, many do not receive
any paid leave and not even severance pay
in case of retrenchment. Even if they have
worked for the same labour-hire company
and the same client company for several
years, they have no job security and are
employed on the basis of no work, no pay .
Teir employment contract with the labour-
hire company is terminated as soon as the
commercial contract between the labour
broker and its client ends.
Although the legal provisions on
employment termination apply (in theory)
to labour-hire companies as well, the
usual practice is to hire and fre workers
at will. Client companies can request the
removal of any labour-hire worker at any
time. Te labour-hire company will then
have to send a replacement. Labour hire
thus contributes to the commodifcation
of labour as an easily exchangeable and
replaceable commodity.
Te use of labour hire in Namibia is
not limited to peak periods and specifc
tasks only. Over the past few years,
labour hire has become an established
practice and in some instances permanent
workers were retrenched and replaced
by labour-hire workers. Labour hire thus
poses a threat to permanent workers,
especially in the lower skills categories.
It accentuates the division of labour into
core (permanent) and peripheral workers.
Employment creation?
Labour-hire employment is hardly a
springboard to permanent jobs. Although
a few labour-hire workers were taken over
Namibia bans
labour brokers
By Herbert Jauch
Some labour-hire
companies explicitly
prevent their workers
from taking up
employment at a
client company.
FOCUS
by client companies as permanent staf,
such practices are rather exceptional. Some
labour-hire companies explicitly prevent
their workers from taking up employment at
a client company. Te employment creation
efect of labour hire is limited, as almost all
jobs are created by the client companies.
Overall, just over 100 people are employed
as administrative and supervisory staf on a
permanent basis by labour-hire companies.
Most labour-hire companies describe
themselves as black economic empowerment
companies. While they may create business
opportunities and profts for a small group
of labour-hire owners and managers,
they contribute little to socio-economic
development and the creation of decent
work. Instead, they merely utilise widespread
unemployment to their own advantage.
Trade unions
Although several labour-hire workers
have joined trade unions, recognition
agreements between unions and client
companies usually cover permanent staf
only and exclude labour-hire workers.
In general, unions experience huge
challenges to organise labour-hire workers
and to represent them through collective
bargaining. Te insecurity of their jobs
coupled with potential shifts between
workplaces makes union organising
difcult. Some unions are even reluctant
to organise labour-hire workers, as they
do not want to recognise labour-hire
companies as their employers. Instead,
they want labour hire to be abolished.
Workers problems
Most labour-hire workers earn R36
per hour, but in some cases wages
can be as low as R2 per hour. Better
wages are the exception, such as skilled
artisans who can earn around R40
per hour, particularly if they work
at mining companies. Labour-hire
workers enjoy very few benefits and
most work 3746 hours per week. In
many cases overtime is not performed
on a voluntary basis as workers are
forced to work overtime by managers
and supervisors.
Tere is a clear sexual division of
labour with men being employed as
drivers, artisans, loss controllers and truck
assistants, while most women are employed
as shop assistants and operators. Even the
wages refect a gender bias, as most women
are concentrated in the lowest income
categories.
Te biggest problems experienced
by labour-hire workers are the lack of
benefts, low wages and job insecurity. Te
old Labour Act of 1992 had little impact
on their working conditions and failed to
grant them protection against abuses.
Solution?
Te perceived similarities between
the colonial migrant labour and post-
colonial labour hire, coupled with the
hardships experienced by labour hire
workers today, prompted Namibias
parliamentarians to outlaw labour hire.
One of the challenges to overcome in
this regard is that labour hire constitutes
only one form of outsourcing that
co-exists with other forms such as
cleaning and security sub-contractors.
Outlawing labour hire while allowing
other forms of outsourcing to continue
would probably result in labour-hire
companies re-constituting themselves as
service providers with little change in the
employment conditions of their workers.
Tus the new Labour Act should lead
to the restriction of outsourcing in all
its forms. Employers are expected to
rather employ their staf directly and to
shoulder some social responsibility for
their workers. Employers will still be able
to employ staf on a temporary basis (if
they cannot be employed permanently),
as the new Labour Bill 2007 contains no
restrictions in this regard.
Some labour-hire companies have
claimed that the abolition of labour hire
will lead to thousands of job losses, but
this argument is based on the assumption
that client companies will reduce their
operations and staf-levels if they cannot
use labour-hire workers any longer.
Tis is debatable. What is certain is that
labour-hire companies themselves are
not job creators and therefore contribute
very little to Namibias development.
Tey certainly undermine attempts
to create decent work. Te current
court case pits labour-hire companies
and the employers federation against
government and trade unions. Te
judges will have to decide if the right
of labour-hire companies to unfettered
profts is superior to workers rights to
protection against highly exploitative
labour practices. For activists in southern
Africa, the Namibian case presents an
opportunity to kick-start a campaign
against labour hire across the region.
Herbert Jauch works as senior researcher for
the Labour Resource and Research Institute
(LaRRI) in Namibia.
FOCUS
Think Egypt. Think again
In Egypt, severe restrictions on worker
and trade union rights are commonplace.
Where workers do have the right to form
trade unions there are limits to freedom of
association and collective action.
When considering our own trade
union history, activity, labour laws etc.,
the situation in Egypt would stir most
common sensibilities.
Despite ratifying the International
Labor Organizations Conventions 67
and 98 on freedom of association and
the right to organise, on the ground
the right to join and form trade unions
in Egypt is severely restricted. Once a
minimum of 50 workers in a factory
want a union, they are obliged to join
one of the 24 industrial unions afliated
to the Egyptian Trade Union Federation
(ETUF), which has close links to the
National Democratic Party (NDP),
the Egyptian ruling party. Both party
and federation prohibit independent,
democratic trade union practice. Trade
union elections are known to be riddled
with irregular practices. If candidates
are considered to be unsuitable, they are
threatened and their names are removed
from lists.
Te most recent ETUF Congress
saw the ruling NDP gain control of 22
out of 23 seats on the ETUF council,
with independent organisations and
civil society leadership claiming that
they were the worst ever elections
conducted throughout the history of the
Egyptian trade union movement. Workers
organising outside the ETUF are likely to
lose their jobs, and it is completely legal
for an employer to sack someone without
any given reason. Egyptian law also
prescribes that:
Trade unions are not permitted to
engage in any political activity.
Companies are required to comply with
set government standards in relation
to workers wages, working conditions,
working hours, pensions and other
social benefts, setting limitations on
collective bargaining.
Unions, technically, have the right to
strike in government pre-determined
non-strategic installations only if
agreed by a two thirds majority of the
ETUF executive leadership. A strike
notice period and the planned duration
of the strike is required once approved
by the ETUF. Te result is a near
inability to strike and all actual strikes
being illegal.
With restrictions on trade union activity and
control of the trade unions, the ruling party
and its allies ensures that their neo-liberal
agenda is implemented unhindered and
with the support of the union leadership
Nevertheless, independent organisations
do operate, and independent voices are
heard. Various organisations of the left
plan independent, parallel unions. Among
them are the Center for Trade Union and
Workers Services (CTUWS), the Socialist
Alliance, the Egyptian Communist Party,
and Workers for Change (an ofshoot of
the Kifaya movement for democracy). In
the past, government crackdowns may
have prevented this, but perhaps the recent
groundswell in collective worker actions
may have turned the tide?
Beyond bread and butter
Given this restrictive context, the strikes
and broad based popular uprisings since
2004 are signifcant: trade union rights
maybe restricted, but the working class
cannot be shut out or shut up. Tese have
been among the longest and strongest
series of worker protests and the most
substantial broad based pro-democracy
protests in decades.
While many of these actions have
been centred around wages and benefts,
they have morphed into more explicit
political issues and concerns, specifcally
in protest to privatisation, but more
broadly in relation to neo-liberal economic
reform under the NDP. According to
one academic, some [Egyptian] workers
have begun to connect their thin wallets
with broader political and economic
circumstances the entrenchment
of autocracy, widespread government
incompetence and corruption, the regimes
subservience to the United States, high
unemployment and the painfully obvious
gap between rich and poor.
Tey also took place in the context
of broader political disquiet that began in
2004 a spate of anti-Hosni Mubarak
Mass strikes
and the workers
movement
in Egypt
Egypt in brief
Independence:
28 February 1922 from the United
Kingdom (UK)
Population:
75.5 million (2007)
Currency:
Egyptian pound (EGP), 1 EGP = $5.67
(2007)
Ruling party:
National Democratic Party (NDP)
Main opposition:
Te Muslim Brotherhood (technically
illegal)
President:
Muhammad Hosni Mubarak, currently
serving ffth consecutive term
(succeeded Anwar Sadat in 1981)
Main exports:
Petroleum, petroleum products and
cotton
GNI per capita:
US$1.250
Life expectancy:
69 years (men), 74 years (women)
People below poverty line:
40%
Unemployment rate:
9.1% (2007)
Infation rate:
12.3% (2008)
National minimum wage:
35 EGP ($6) monthly (since 1984)
Demand for 1200 EGP ($212)
ILO Core Conventions Ratifed:
29 - 87 - 98 - 100 - 105 - 111 - 138 - 182
Offcial trade union federation:
Te Egyptian Trade Union Federation
(ETUF), with 24 industrial union
afliates
Trade union rights:
Te right to form and join trade unions
is heavily curtailed by law
(Sources: UN, ILO, ITUC, World
Bank)
EYE ON AFRICA
protests, centring on opposition to a ffth
term of ofce and grooming of his son to
take over the Presidency.
Te wave of strikes are however not
only important in resisting government
policies, but also in challenging the
government controlled ETUF. In order
to stem the tide, the government has
been compelled to grant concessions,
refecting the regimes vulnerability and
strengthening workers resolve.
The strike wave
In 2006, workers at the Misr Spinning
and Weaving facility in Mahalla al-Kubra
embarked on a series of wildcat strikes
in opposition to the privatisation of the
textile industry. Tey feared losing the
job security and benefts granted them
through the 1960s nationalisation. In
December 2006 Mahalla workers, the
majority of whom were women, went
on strike following the governments
thwarting of a promised infation linked
bonus. Attempts to break the strike failed,
triggering a wave of strikes across the
country. During January to March 2007,
the success of the Mahalla strikers spurred
workers in more than ten textile mills
to demand the same victories as those
received by the Mahalla strikers.
In September 2007 Mahalla workers
went on strike once again to ensure
that the agreements reached at the last
strike were implemented, demanding the
sacking of corrupt trade union ofcials
and calling for an increase in the national
minimum wage. Despite its illegality,
workers joined, actions grew. While
initially centred in the textile industry, the
strikes spread to construction workers,
auto workers, railway engineers, bakers,
oil workers, garbage collectors and a
host of others. Even white collar workers
joined the fray. Te liberal Egyptian daily,
al-Misri al-Yawm, reported a total of 222
strikes, demonstrations and protests in
2006 and 580 in 2007. And in the frst
week of January 2008, the labour-friendly
website, Workers and Trade Union Watch,
tallied another 27 collective actions. What
began as a small local dispute in Mahalla
set the scene for ongoing hostilities
between the state and workers on rights,
independent and democratic trade
unions, a living wage, and improved living
standards for all.
Privatisation in Egypt
During the 1950s and 1960s, under
its model of Arab Socialism, the state
nationalised most large industries,
guaranteed full employment, free
education and health care, and
subsidised basic foods. Following its
defeat by Israel in the 1967 war, the
government shifted course. Under US
pressure, in the 1970s Egypt undertook
an open-door investment policy to
facilitate its reintegration into the
world economy. In 1991 the Egyptian
government, with the endorsement of
the ETUF, accepted the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank
consensus on structural adjustment
programmes. Privatisation began along
with the phasing out of state subsidies.
Over the past 20 years, the Egyptian
economy has gone from being
dominated by a public sector that
accounted for 70% of its operations to
having an 80% private-sector economy.
Focus shifts to food prices
Collective action continued into 2008, with
workers this time protesting against price
increases and bread shortages. According
to the United Nations World Food
Programme, average household expenditure
in Egypt on basic foodstufs and services had
risen by 50% since January 2008. Opposition
groups in Egypt called for a General
strike on the 6 April 2008. According to
one observer, Te general strike call was
ambitious and unrealistic, but it signaled a
big shift, as many inside the opposition have
not had faith in working class struggles till
now. Despite widespread popular support,
the call produced mixed results. Te state
issued threats and said the strike was illegal.
On the day of the strike Egyptians woke to
a heavy security force and police presence
across their country.
Aluta continua
Without doubt these strikes and popular
uprisings across Egypt have hugely
transformed the Egyptian opposition
movement, demonstrating that Egyptian
workers, and women workers in particular,
are fed-up and a powerful social force
when they organise collectively. Space has
been created for forging new alliances. Te
Muslim Brotherhood, with thousands of
worker members, played a minimal role in
the strike movement, creating the space for
a possible secular opposition party. And the
launch of a new, independent and democratic
trade union federation appears all the more
possible. While it appears as if the Egyptians
have quietened down for now, the neo-liberal
project continues, people remain angry,
demands remain unmet. For Egyptians, as for
the working class the world over, it can only
mean one thing: aluta continua.
The strikes of Egyptian workers provoked solidarity actions in Beirut where people demonstrated outside the Egyptian embassy.
EYE ON AFRICA
A
nation held its breath on
November 4, Election
Day. After the last two
presidential elections
were wrought with voter
suppression and fraud, no one wanted
to take anything for granted. Before
midnight, the nation exhaled. Barack
Obama was declared President. For one
night, a nation often divided seemed
to agree on one thing: this was historic
victory, and it belonged to all of us.
It is undeniable that the election of the
frst black president of the United States,
a white settler imperial nation that has
been built on the backs of black, Latino
and Asian people, is profoundly signifcant
for people of colour in this country and
around the world. Te outpouring of pride
and joy is undeniable. For people of colour
born in the United States, citizenship and
nationality are not always the same thing.
In this regard, the election of a black
candidate as president signifes more than
just a shift in the balance of power
But what are we to make of Obamas
victory? Te Obama administration will
be far better than the Bush regime. Tere
will be more space to move a progressive
agenda in 2009 than there was in 2005.
But Obama is no saviour, no socialist in
Democratic Party clothing. His policies
are progressive at best, and centre on
many issues. He is already appointing
a staf and cabinet which incorporates
more of the centre-right forces on
the Democratic Party than its more
progressive voices. He will do no more for
our communities than left and progressive
movements force him to do. All of these
critiques are true.
But if the left stops at critique,
seeing Obama as nothing more than a
Democratic Party hack with darker skin,
we will have missed one of the most
fundamental political opportunities of our
time. Te main issue that we need to be
debating is not Obamas policies. It is the
political impact of his campaign, what it
revealed about politics in this country and
what we need to do now.
Te left in the United States has
been in a difcult place since the decline
of mass social movements in the 1970s.
Much of the left turned inwards on each
other and largely became alienated from
mass politics. To be left came to mean
having a critique of capitalism more than
it meant building a movement to change
it. Over the course of the last decade,
social movements in the United States
have been slowly rebuilding, fghting on
issues of racial, gender and economic
justice. Left activists have played an
important role in helping to build and
cohere these movements, but they are
not left movements. More than 15 000
people from grassroots organisations
rooted in working-class communities of
colour and activists from a range of social
justice movements came together in July
2007 for the United States Social Forum,
giving its participants the frst real sense
of movement this country has seen in
decades. But in terms of public dialogue
and mass mobilisations this country has
seen nothing on the scale of the Obama
campaign since the 1960s. His campaign
exposed the self-limiting myths of the
left in the United States and, in doing
so, levelled a challenge to us to step out
of critique and to step back into mass
political engagement.
Te Obama campaign was able to tap
into and expand a previously unrecognised
level of anger, hope and energy among
millions of ordinary people in this country.
Tese are the same millions whom the
left and progressive movements in the
United States have failed to organise or,
worse, written of as hopelessly reactionary.
Before the election had even ended, Marisa
Franco, an organiser who has worked to
build the power of domestic workers in San
Francisco and New York City, said Tis
presidential election has engaged more
people across class, racial, gender and age
lines than any other in recent memory.
Tere is a spirit of political engagement
among the general population of this
nation that people on the Left dream about.
Regardless of who comes out on top, the
Obama campaign is a winning campaign. It
has been able to seize the moment and kick
open an opportunity for power.
Te Obama campaign literally expanded
the realm of what was possible. Te left
would do well to take note since, if we want
to win socialism in the 21st century, we are
certainly going to have to move beyond
what is considered possible today.
But how did Obama accomplish that?
He recognised the political moment: that
people were tired of the war, frustrated
with the impacts of the economic crisis
and looking for an alternative to typical
Washington politics. But instead of leaving
people to play out the standard US default
to hate-mongering, racism and narrow
nationalism, he connected to people and
authentically engaged questions of race,
economics and foreign policy. He moved
people, including the white working class
whom many on the US left have long
dismissed. He demonstrated that in the
long run it might actually be possible for
Stepping up to
the challenge:
left politics in the Obama era
By Harmony Goldberg
Barack Obama
refused to play by
the Democratic Party
rules that said that
he should mobilise
the black community
in support of the
white-dominated
party return for
a certain limited
level of power.
INTERNATIONAL
progressive forces to break sections of the
white middle class and the white working
class of from a reactionary agenda,
appealing to their material interests to
challenge their alignment with the imperial
racial order.
Barack Obama refused to play by the
Democratic Party rules that said that he
should mobilise the black community in
support of the white-dominated party
return for a certain limited level of power.
Receiving little support even from the
established black leaders in the party who
had initially backed Clintons candidacy
because of political obligations, Obama
built a campaign rooted in grassroots
organising that was able to mobilise
more people than any other political
campaign in recent history. In making
that decision he broke open a diferent
glass ceiling. And he didnt stop there.
He broke the Democratic Party out of its
failing strategy of playing to the centre.
He fought for and won states that
hadnt voted Democrat since the Civil
Rights movement. Although mainstream
electoral politics are not the standard
terrain of the left, we need to recognise
the impact that these transitions will have
on the political culture of the United
States and, therefore, on our work.
Te fact that a black candidate could
inspire such a multi-racial groundswell
of popular support by leading with an
economic agenda and a vision for a better
world means that we can build a massive
multi-racial socialist movement in this
country led by people of colour and that
if we fght for people we actually have a
chance to win fundamental change. I think
that many people on the US left have
forgotten that victory is actually possible.
Another concern of the left is
that we will now sit back and wait for
Obama to save us and that we will
silence our critiques. But there is a
widespread recognition among the left
and progressives that if our movements
dont start pushing hard now the Obama
administration will drift to the centre-
right. And, unlike the silencing of the
left under Clinton in the 1990s, Obamas
victory speech called on people to organise
themselves, to take independent action and
not to wait for him to make things happen.
Are we in danger of turning Obama
into the same kind of messianic fgure
that Mandela played in South Africa and
letting him lead us down the road to neo-
liberalism? Nelson Mandela came to power
as a representative of a burgeoning social
movement and, in many ways, diverted that
movement into a neo-liberal programme;
Barack Obamas campaign emerged in the
context where there was no mass movement
to be co-opted. Indeed, he created political
engagement and momentum where there
had been none before. If we do not push
ourselves to take advantage of these new
political opportunities, it will be a betrayal of
historic proportions.
What does it look like to seize this
opportunity? On the one hand, at this
moment, the left in the United States is
still small and marginal. Although our
numbers have been growing over the
past ten years, we lack strategic visions
and viable revolutionary organisations to
cohere our work. On the other hand, the
political climate is ripe.
In order to take our work to another
level we must:
convene strategic dialogues across the
country amongst the revolutionary left
and in mass movements to identify
the key priorities for our work in the
coming period;
catch up with the social momentum
that Obama was able to build. Although
we may not currently have the capacity
to play national leadership roles, these
are transformative times. Engagement
in mass politics in this period is likely to
build our capacity exponentially;
build massive mobilisations on the
issues that brought him to power:
health care, the economy, foreclosures
and ending the war. Rather than just
seeing our role as critiquing Obama as
an individual or lobbying from within
the administration, we should primarily
work to build the power of ordinary
people to intervene on these issues. Te
most efective way to push Obamas
policies to the left will be to push the
mass politics of this country to the left;
engage in serious dialogue about the
need for a stronger, explicitly left
infrastructure.
Te Obama campaign reminded us that
there is an endless well of hope and anger
among millions of ordinary people in this
country. It is up to us to take that to the
next level.
Harmony Goldberg is an educator
and organiser working with various social
movements in New York. She is completing
a PhD in cultural anthropology at the City
University of New York.
Will Obamas change we can believe in equal very little change at all? The selection of his cabinet gives no cause for optimism.
INTERNATIONAL
I
n the so-called backyard of
the United States of Americas
imperial power, winds of change
have been blowing for a few years.
Tese have changed its landscape,
with the advent of leftist and
progressive governments in a
majority of South American
countries (a change that is also taking
place in Central America and Mexico).
Tese winds of change often confront
or distance themselves but, mostly, they
signify for the frst time in history the
taking of autonomous positions with
regards to Washingtons edicts. It should
therefore be no surprise that regional
integration has become one of the main
shared themes.
Te canvas on which this new
paradigm is being painted is a
fundamental shift: following the return
to power of constitutional regimes in the
eighties, leftist forces have accepted that
the struggle for democracy constitutes a
strategic battleground in order to extend
rights and to bring to the fore active social
subjects committed to the construction
of a new society. Tis being said, each
country has its own particular dynamics
whose rhythm and reach difer. Respective
governments therefore present diferent
outlooks with regards to the policies
and objectives they set for themselves.
Parallels can nonetheless be drawn,
regionally defned in two blocks: the
Southern Cone and the Andean region.
Indeed, in the Southern Cone, the
military dictatorships in place between
the 1970s and early 1980s made bloody
attempts to eliminate what they called
the internal enemy. Today, the parties
and movements of the left, whether
institutional or insurrectional, are the
survivors of these collectives. As a
result of politico-electoral success since
Latin America:
change is blowing
in the wind
By Osvaldo Len
Indigenous struggles have been at the forefront of the come back of the left in Latin America.
INTERNATIONAL
the return to democratic play, they
now form the governments of these
countries. Te best illustration of these
processes is Brazil, where Inacio Lula da
Silva is President when he once was an
emblematic union leader who illustrated
himself in the struggle against the military
dictatorship and was a key factor in the
formation of the Labor Party (Partido de
los Trabajadores).
In the Andean region, we fnd two
strong allies of Washington (Colombia
and Peru) but also the governments
with the most radical positions:
Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador. Te
accumulation of social struggles in these
countries precipitated an institutional
debacle provoked by the excesses of
nepotism, corruption, fraud and a
long list of similar ills, and amplifed
by sweeping privatisation measures
implemented by each successive neo-
liberal government. In Bolivia and
Ecuador, social movements are the main
protagonists of the fall of governments of
this nature and allowed for the conditions
that precipitated the aforementioned
political shift. Venezuela presents a slight
variation, the irruption of a progressive
military sector headed by the current
President, Colonel Hugo Chvez Fras.
He came to the political fore through a
military uprising that was defeated at the
time but which, in retrospect, paved the
way for a new era in the history
of Venezuela.
In both cases, this phenomenon
unique to South America owes a lot to
the failure of neo-liberal policies whose
efect worsened the social problems they
had promised to resolve but also to the
autonomy that these countries acquired
with respect to Washington. Te clearest
expression of this new situation is the
synchronicity displayed by the peoples
and governments of the region to counter
the strategic design of the empire to
cement its control in the new century:
the FTZA (Free Trade Zone of the
Americas). Te formation of UNASUR
(Union of South American Nations) is
part of the same phenomenon and has
already created a unique precedent last
September when, disregarding the White
House, its representatives unanimously
backed the Bolivian democratic process
led by Evo Morales.
In the Southern Cone, the electoral
changes mark a pendulum swing in
government management; by no means a
marked rupture to initiate a new post neo-
liberal phase. Rather, as a means to ensure
governability, they have maintained a
neo-liberal scheme albeit incorporating
social policies aimed at paying attention
to the marginalised and reducing poverty
(thereby deactivating social struggles).
Tis can be seen as an innovative variation
of assistancialism even if it displays the
same traditional co-opting mechanisms.
For this reason, social gains have been
seriously afected.
The situation appears very different
in Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador. In
these countries the impulse of the social
forces that brought about change led to
the adoption of new constitutions which
guarantee the extension of rights and
the participation of citizens at the same
time that they restrict policies of a neo-
liberal stamp. It is worth emphasising
that both in Bolivia and in Ecuador
one of the key factors of change lies in
the irruption and the protagonist role
played by the indigenous movement.
So much so that Evo Morales attained
the presidency in Bolivia, the first-ever
elected President of indigenous descent.
Though in Ecuador the strength of
the indigenous resistance (which was
fundamental in blocking the free trade
agreement with the USA) was dissolved
in the electoral process, it is no less
certain that many of its positions have
been rescued in the new constitution.
In these three countries, as if
attempting to establish a common
denominator, it has become commonplace
to hear governments talk of a socialism
of the 21st century as a way to demarcate
themselves from the errors and
aberrations of real socialism but without
really defning what would be its new
tenets. Declarations by the Ecuadorian
President Rafael Correa, in reference
to this topic, recently established four
components: rescue the role of the State,
assert the importance and the priority of
planning, defending the rights of workers,
and social equality.
Within these processes, the traditional
left-wing parties have practically been
buried by the obvious divorce with the
multiple social expressions that blossomed
in the struggle against neo-liberal policies,
by remaining ring-fenced to the unionist
space and retreating to increasingly
corporatist positions. By the same token,
their appeals for orthodoxy are no more
than part of a ritual with no political efect
as the current wave favours the logic of
movements who, among its premises,
recognise unity in diversity.
Osvaldo Len, Ecuadorian journalist, is
director of the webzine Latin America in
Motion of the ALAI (Latin American Agency for
Information).
Fidel Castro has given confdence for Chavez anti-
imperialist and socialist rhetoric.
INTERNATIONAL
I
n June 2007, the French
Revolutionary Communist
League (LCR) launched an
appeal for the formation of
a New Anti-Capitalist Party
(NPA). In June 2008, one
thousand delegates met in Paris
to give a nation-scale dimension to a
process which started from the bottom.
At the beginning of November 2008,
delegates from some 400 committees
gathered again to discuss three
documents: programmatic references,
political orientation, and statutes and
functioning of the NPA. Around 10 000
activists are presently engaged in the
founding process of the NPA three
times more than the total membership
of the LCR.
So far, so good. What is striking
is how fast this overall process is
proceeding. It obviously answers
a political need. Tis need, this
opportunity, has been felt for some
time already, but in the last ten years all
previous attempts to build a qualitatively
broader anti-capitalist party in France
failed. To overcome these failures, the
LCR decided to try something new. What
then is new in this new initiative?
An important political opening existed
after the victory in 2005 of the no in the
referendum on the draft European (neo-
liberal and militaristic) Constitution. A
powerful aspiration for political unity in the
left of the left was then expressed but
failed after two years of intense negotiations
involving a range of currents going from the
Communist Party to the LCR.
Tis last attempt ended in bitterness
and harsh polemics between the
components of this two-year process. In
considering strategy for the building of
this new party the following realities have
to be taken into account.
Te old political and TU labour
movement no longer has the potential to
rejuvenate a radical left. Te social roots
of the Socialist Party (SP) have changed
and its social-liberal orientation expresses
the depth of its integration into bourgeois
society. Te CP has never truly addressed
the issue of its Stalinist past and now fnds
itself electorally and institutionally hostage
to the SP: for years now it has been in
crisis and it is unfortunately a crisis
without dynamism Te three main
TU confederations (CGT, CFDT, FO) are
too bureaucratised. Tis does not mean
that individuals (even large numbers) or
local activist teams from the old labour
movement wont join the NPA or another
radical left party indeed, quite a number
are! But it means that, unlike what we
hoped in the 1970s1980s, it will not be
enough to restructure the traditional
labour movement. It has to be remoulded
in a broader way which is something
much more complex!
Te new TU (Solidaires ) and social
movements have a much greater radical
potential. Many of their activists are
reacting positively to the call for the NPA.
Some members of their leaderships did
engage in the attempts to built, in 2005
2007, political unity in the left of the
left. But the relationship between social
movements and political parties remains
very uneasy in France. Te independence
of TU and mass organisations is today a
very sensitive issue and mostly for good
reason, given past experiences! Radical
parties such as the NPA have to show in a
consistent way their usefulness and their
readiness to keep respectful relationships
with mass organisations for new mutual
dynamics to shape in the future.
Tere are many reasons explaining why
the 20052006 attempts to build unity
around common electoral candidatures
ended in fragmentation. But there is one
major political issue which has to be kept
in mind here: the relationships with the
Socialist Party, electoral alliances and
governmental participation.
Tis is a key issue in a number of
countries where electoral blocs and
governmental participation has been or
will be a concrete choice for the radical
left: Brazil, West-Bengal, Italy, Germany,
Portugal, Te Netherlands In France,
the electoral system is very undemocratic:
to have any chance of being elected to
Parliament, one needs the backing of the
SP (on the left) which is not given for
free. Weakened, the CP needs all the more
to negotiate an agreement with the SP to
save its electoral positions. Tose who
want to ally with the CP have to accept
it. But for the LCR (and others), the task
of the day is to strengthen a radical left
pole able to incarnate an alternative in the
left to social-liberalism which implies a
total independence from the SP. Tat has
been and remains a major political line of
demarcation.
Late 2006, the LCR seemed very
isolated within the left of the left. Early
2007, for the presidential election,
Marie-George Bufet ran for the CP,
Olivier Besancenot for the LCR and Jos
Bov for some other components of the
left of the left. Besancenots campaign
was politically very dynamic and he got
more than 4% of the votes. Tere were no
France: Toward the
foundation of a New
Anti-capitalist Party
By Pierre Rousset
After two years of
intense debates
on orientation,
the presidential
election was a real
political test for the
left of the left.
INTERNATIONAL
such dynamics in Bufets campaign, and
she got less than 2% (a historically low
fgure for the CP!). Bovs campaign was
politically confused and had little impact.
In spite of his own personal notoriety, he
hardly got more than 1%.
After two years of intense debates on
orientation, the presidential election was a
real political test for the left of the left. It
gave new responsibilities to the LCR.
The new responsibilities
of the LCR
With the success of its political initiative
and electoral campaign, the LCR found
itself at the centre stage of the left of
the left. Te question was thus: what to
do with this success? Te LCR had the
responsibility to take an initiative quickly,
for the existing momentum not to be lost
(as happened in the past).
In mid-2007, even after the political
test of the elections, there was no
possibility to reach an agreement with
other signifcant organisations for
launching a new anti-capitalist party.
With no top-bottom unity call possible,
the LCR decided to impulse a bottom-
up process something which it never
envisaged before. Everyone ready to
participate in the creation of a new
anti-capitalist party clearly independent
from the SP was invited to join local
committees for the NPA. Te network
of committees would constitute the
foundation of the new party.
One reason explaining why the was
able to take the initiative of launching the
NPA is often overlooked. Its leadership
has been renewed. Today, all the historical
fgures of the LCR have stepped down
from the polit-bureau (but remain active!),
and the national leadership is now mostly
composed of 30- or 40-year-old cadres.
Tis seems not to be the case for most
other organisations. It is a very important
issue because of the radical change of
political generation, which occurred since
the 1990s.
On one hand, the LCR renewed its
membership and cadre network. On the
other, the LCR remains an organisation
framed by its origins the 1960s1970s
experience. So it both can and must
impulse the creation of a new party,
rooted in the present generation outlook.
The NPA as a NEW party
For the LCR, the aim is not only to
build a bigger, stronger party bur also
to help the creation of a truly new
one. There has been a radical change
of period, with the disintegration of
USSR and with capitalist globalisation.
And there has been a radical shift in
generation: present-day activists do not
have the same references and the same
background of historical experiences
as the 1968 ones. The combination of
the two radical changes (period and
generation) has deep consequences in
the way politics is lived.
For sure, it is important to keep
alive the political experience of the past
decades, the many lessons of the past
century (imperialism, Stalinism ). How
then to build anew without losing our
past? By passing the legacy of the LCR
on a new party. By bringing into this new
party the best of other revolutionary
traditions of the past century from
various Marxist or libertarian traditions
to feminist and eco-socialist movements.
By giving to the new party the social
roots of trained mass cadres, while
broadening its social implantation with
the recent experience of the Global
Justice Movement and the wave of
resistances in popular suburbs, among
migrants, etc. By allowing also the new
party to speak the political language of
the present generation.
Unfortunately, the LCR is presently
the only big (everything is relative)
component of the left of the left
engaged in the NPA process. The other
concerned political groups are much
smaller. The danger then was that the
LCR would remain the party within
the party after the foundation of the
NPA. To avoid that, drastic decisions
were taken. LCR members are usually
in minority in steering bodies of the
de facto existing NPA. And the LCR
should dissolve itself days before the
founding congress of the NPA. The
NPA has to become a political and
social melting pot, to shape its own
identity. It is presently easy to reach
political agreements within the NPA
process and there is nothing as divisive
today as the nature of USSR (to take
an example) was for the left of the left
in the 1970s. But there are strategic
issues with few concrete answers
(how to disarm the bourgeoisie?).
The NPA will have to consolidate its
programmatic foundations through its
own experience. It will take time. The
road ahead is unknown.
Pierre Rousset has been a member of the
LCR since its founding in the late 1960s and is
a member of Europe Solidaire Sans Frontiers
(ESSF). He edits their website http://www.
europe-solidaire.org.
INTERNATIONAL
South Africas long liberation
struggle produced a generation
of torch bearers. Billy Nair was
one such person. He passed away
on 23 October 2008, after more
than 50 years of commitment and
selfess service to the oppressed and
exploited masses. As a committed
revolutionary he was present and
involved in the defning moments
of our struggle. He lived non-racial
politics and wove this thread
into the fabric of his everyday
revolutionary work: from his early
days of organising workers through
the Dairy Workers Union in the
mid-forties, to his involvement and
eventual leadership role in the Youth
Wing of the Natal Indian Congress
and eventually the youngest elected
Executive Committee member of the
NIC in 1952.
In the militant ffties, he pulled this
thread through in his involvement in
the Defance Campaign in 1952, the
regroupment of the SACP in 1953 after
its banning in 1950, into the formation
and a leadership role in the SA Congress
of Trade Unions, mass mobilising for
the Congress of the People in 1955 at
which the Freedom Charter was adopted.
His non-racial class politics made him
a Treason Trialist in 1956, a founding
member of Umhkonto weSizwe and
joint Commander of the Natal regional
command, imprisoned him for 20 years
on Robben Island for sabotage, pulled him
into the ranks of the UDF after his release
and made him an operative in Operation
Vula. With the unbanning of the ANC
he was elected onto its NEC in 1991
and retired as a Member of Parliament
in 2004. Tis brief chronology gives a
glimpse of a life of uncompromising
commitment to a politically liberated and
economically transformed South Africa.
Billy Nair was a hero of the working
class and of all South Africans (whether
card carrying members of the ANC-led
Alliance or not). He left us at a time when
the ANC-led Alliance is breeding its own
enemies from within its own ranks. It is a
time when the moral authority to provide
leadership has disappeared and when
principled leadership has degenerated into
populism. Billy Nair and his generation
practised a politics contrary to what we
have; it was literally the opposite.
I shall not forget two experiences
of Billy Nair that taught me something
important. Te frst happened ten years
ago when I approached Billy Nair with a
proposal to travel to diferent countries
in the world to interview key activists,
leaders and Marxist thinkers about the
challenges facing socialism and the task
of socialist renewal. As an old Marxist-
Leninist, in the best sense, he was nothing
but encouragement. He knew that
renewing the socialist project was critical
for a left politics and gave his unstinting
support. I knew he may not agree with
all the ideas we discovered, but he was
open to learn from this experiences. Tis
gave the comrade and I who went on this
journey a great deal of confdence.
A second experience, which has marked
me in many ways, was his advice to me
after I was humiliated and racially attacked
during a Central Committee meeting of the
SACP in 2006. In his gentle tone he said:
Boetie, dont fght them. He never made a
sophisticated argument against the leaders
of the SACP and neither did he support the
position I was taking against the populism
and divisive nature of the SACPs politics.
Instead he left me with a wisdom, grounded
in his decades of political experience, which
assisted me with making a decision to
step down in 2007 as Gauteng secretary
of the SACP. Tis was a difcult decision
given that the Gauteng province was the
most strategic province for the SACP with
at least 50% of COSATUs membership.
His advice helped me surrender almost 18
years of formal commitment I made to the
SACP. His advice amounted to one thing:
you cannot fght division with division. So,
I walked away from the factional politics of
the SACP.
However, despite whats going on
in our country, South Africans should
not forget Billy Nair and his generation.
We should not surrender their legacies.
We should be guided by their example
and their aspirations. In his words: I am
convinced that the future lies in socialism.
Te wealth of this country and not just
the material wealth must belong to the
people as a whole. Until that happens the
struggle has to continue.
Vishwas Satgar was the Gauteng Secretary
of the SACP. He is a grass-roots activist
involved in Democratic Left politics.
Hamba kahle
Comrade Billy Nair
By Vishwas Satgar
In his gentle tone
he said: Boetie,
dont fght them.
OBITUARIES
A
s your oldest board member, I
want to share my past experiences
with the late Miriam Makeba.
Journalists throughout the world have
acknowledged her musical artistry, her
political commitment to the struggle of
her people. I and others can attest to her
warm personal relations with her friends
and family, including her daughter Bongi,
who died in 1985. At the time of her
daughters death, Miriam could not aford
a cofn. Te pain of that experience was
horrifc, but Miriam bore it with stoic inner
strength, like everything else in her life.
I was a producer of pop music when
I met Miriam. In fact, it was through
my managerial relationship with Chad
Mitchell of the Chad Mitchell Trio that
we became social friends. From that
connection, Miriam asked if I would
manage her. However, it became obvious
through negotiation that the distance
would not permit me to do a good job.
Miriam understood why I turned down
her ofer and she and I shared a warm
friendship nonetheless.
Another distinct memory I have of
Miriams warm and caring nature was
when my frst wife was hurt in a serious
car accident. Miriam spent a day and a
half at the hospital until it was clear that
Franoise would survive. A comforting
act to say the least, especially since on
the day of the accident, Miriam and her
W
as Miriam Makeba
(19322008) making
political statements with
her songs and protests
against apartheid South Africa? She
says she wasnt. I say she defnitely was.
When I met the young Miriam in New
York City in mid-1967, I, like others,
quickly learnt about her infamous
message of exile, and was made to feel
the hurt of apartheid oppression she sang
about. As America desegregated, South
Africa was segregating. As Miriams
songs about apartheid resonated
with young Americans active in the
civil rights movement of the 1960s,
Americas black leaders were being shut
up and South Africans were running
underground as their state reduced
personal freedoms. Her international
voice heightened freedom causes in the
1960s. Her marriage to US Black Power
activist and freedom revolutionary
Stokely Carmichael, aka Kwame Ture,
backlashed: her contracts and popularity
in America were drained; yet, her fame
was being made as a rebel against an
oppressive government! Tey self-exiled
to another African home, in Guinea,
where she obtained citizenship and an
ambassadorship representing Guinea
at the United Nations as a political
appointee. Her political persuasion had
artistic consequences.
Miriam just wanted to convey the
truth. In 2000, she explained: Everybody
now admits that apartheid was wrong,
and all I did was tell the people who
wanted to know where I come from
how we lived in South Africa. And if my
truth then becomes political, I cant do
anything about that. Tirty-seven years
earlier, Makeba had appeared before the
UN Special Committee on Apartheid to
call for an international boycott of South
Africa. Her passport was revoked. But
her music continued to highlight the
machinations of the apartheid era.
She did not base her politics on a
message of revenge or hatred, but rather
on advocacy for human rights and fairness.
How ftting that her quick death took place
on 10 November 2008 while performing
in a little Italian town, singing to honour
six Ghanaian immigrants murdered in a
presumed mafa-infuenced drug deal.
Tribute to Miriam
Makeba (19322008)
By Carol Martin
husband at the time, Hugh Masekela, were
supposed to have dinner with us. Instead,
she sat beside me in a rocking chair in my
wifes hospital room saying very little, but
speaking volumes about her kindness with
her presence.
Miriam married Stokely Carmichael
in 1968 during the height of the Black
Consciousness movement. I knew Stokely
through my participation and support
of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee. When white members
were expelled from the organisation,
I sent Stokely a letter telling him that
I disagreed with that discriminatory
act, but sent him a check for $500
anyway. I wrote that I felt such an act
of exclusion was as counterproductive
to the struggle for equality as Jim Crow,
but that I understood. I received no
response. Nevertheless, Franoise and I
Weve lost a
loyal friend
By Frank Fried
heeded Miriams invitation and travelled
to Scarsdale, New York to attend their
wedding reception. Along with Miriams
drummer, we were the only whites out of
200 guests present. Stokely ignored us,
making it clear that he was uncomfortable
with our presence. Miriam, however, did
more than acknowledge our friendship;
she made us feel welcome in an
atmosphere where cries for Black Power
flled the hall.
Miriam was primarily an artist who
was forced into the political struggles of
her people by her dignity and her artistic
ability that refused to surrender to the
indignities of apartheid. Trough it all she
remained strong, yet warm and caring.
In the end, those of us who knew her,
just like South Africa, have lost much
more than a fghting voice for justice and
equality. Weve lost a loyal friend.
OBITUARIES
The Internationale
Director: Peter Miller
Pete Seeger introduces this short but
inspiring documentary tracing the history
of this old song and its relevance today.
It shows how the song became popular
alongside working-class struggles all
over the world and was translated and
sung by millions in diferent languages.
Particularly good is the modern-day
eforts to update the song for a new
audience. A must-see.
Leila Khaled Hijacker
Director: Lina Makboul
Sympathetic Swedish made film on this
iconic figure of the Palestinian struggle
in the 1970s. It gives a good account
of the series of events that led to that
famous hijacking which turned Khaled
into a folk hero for some and hate figure
for others.
Huey Newton
Director: Spike Lee
Huey Newton was one of the founding
members of the Black Panthers. Spike
Lee uses a combination of archival
footage and docudrama to tell the
story of a talented but deeply fawed
personality who died tragically in
the drug wars in LA in 1989. Highly
recommended.
Ernst Mandel: A Life
for the Revolution
Director: Chris den Hond
Ernst Mandel was one of the last
innovative Marxist thinkers of the
second half of the 20th century. Tis
documentary looks back at Mandels life
and the 60 years of struggles from the
Spanish civil war to the fall of the Berlin
wall with segments on Algeria, Che
Guevara, Vietnam and the all the major
struggles of the past century.
Who Killed the
Electric Car?
Director: Chris Paine
For all those who ever wondered about
the alternatives to the energy crisis
and ecological devastation. Narrated
by Martin Sheen, this engrossing flm
looks at how a car EV1 that ran solely on
electricity was on the brink of changing
of driving in America perhaps even the
world. So why was it discontinued? Tis
flm ties to unravel the mysterious demise
of a vehicle that could have saved the
environment and our dangerous reliance
on foreign oil. Highly recommended
Which Side Are You On?
Ken Loach and His Films
Author: Anthony Hayward
Ken Loach remains one of the only
directors working in Britain today who
has consistently remained committed
to bringing social and political issues
to the screen. He has built a reputation
stretching 40 years that ofer a
sympathetic and yet unpatronising view
of the lives of British working class. Tis
book is the frst detailed portrait of this
social-realist flmmaker of electrifying
movies like Land & Freedom, KES,
Ladybird, and many more. Hayward
shows the way in which Loachs
socialist politics have driven his work
throughout his long career going back
to the 1960s. Loach fell out of favour
during Tatcherism and was the target
of censorship during that period. His
unconventional casting methods, often
using non-professional actors as he did
in his Spanish civil war classic Land &
Freedom, became a distinctive feature
of his work. His gritty, bleak dramas
often tackled controversial issues, always
focusing on the underdog, showing life as
it really was lived by many people. Loach
himself has often said that A movie isnt a
political movement At best it can add it
voice to public outrage.
Pitch Invasion: Adidas,
Puma and the making
of modern sport
Author Barbara Smit
Sport is big business and these two
shoe multi-nationals are two of biggest
global brands, paying stars, clubs
and competitions to wear their label,
dominating pitches and magazine pages.
Te book unlaces the story of how sport
became so full of money. And how the
rivalry between these two brands turned
sport into an industry. Tis book should
be read alongside Naomi Kleins No Logo.
Richi$tan: A Journey
Through the 21st Century
Wealth Boom and the
Lives of the New Rich
Author: Robert Frank
You will fnd no Marxist analysis here;
nevertheless, the book provides an interesting
look behind the glitz of the nouveau riche and
its impact on the world. Te infuence wielded
by the newly wealthy goes far beyond their
earning power the book reveals how the
new gilded age is afecting wider society. It is
the story of the Haves in the age of excess.
Lancelot Hogben:
Scientifc Humanism: An
Unauthorised Autobiography
Author: Lancelot Hogben
An interesting account of this early,
vigorous, opponent of Eugenics and
Racial Science. Hogben briefy held a
post as professor of Zoology at UCT in
the 1920s. He was also a champion and
popular author of books making scientifc
and mathematical ideas accessible for
the wider public. Trough his writing
and speeches he opposed much of
the reactionary, racial thinking widely
accepted in his day. A good glimpse at a
world and a scientifc community that
led to the later human tragedy of the
Holocaust.
In brief: flm &
book reviews
By Andre Marais
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LEFT-STYLE
Histories of the Hanged:
Britains Dirty War
in Kenya and the
end of the Empire
Author: David Anderson
T
he literature on colonialism
and decolonisation in Kenya is
extensive, rich and especially
fascinating to those engaged
with the history of South Africa, for
the historical parallels are many, the
diferences signifcant. Retrospectively,
we may choose to highlight the various
commonalities of settler colonialism the
violence of colonial intrusion, the seizure
of land for whites and the creation of
native reserves, the imposition of racial
despotism and, ultimately, the historical
fragility of white minority rule. But the
diferences are also as important, chief of
which was the relative disproportion of
white to black, with the white minority
in Kenya considerably smaller and less
independent than that which came
to South Africa. Indeed, there was no
original intention to make Kenya a
settler colony, for this only came about
because the British authorities wanted
to make the Uganda Railway pay by
attracting European farmers to work the
land alongside it, pay taxes and to use
it for exporting revenue-earning cash
crops. Alongside that, Kenya was also
designedly socially exclusive, reputedly
for the ofcer class while the NCOs (and
lesser European breeds) were channelled
to the Rhodesias. Hence the reputation of
Kenyan whites as inhabiting the Happy
Valley for the huntin, shootin, fshin and
fuckin set which reached its apogee in
the 1930s.
The settlers, of course, had by this
time long been lobbying the Colonial
Office for Kenya to be officially declared
a White Mans country, a decision
which would have overturned the
official pronouncement made in 1923
that in Kenya, the interests of Africans
would ultimately be paramount.
Yes, the White Highlands in Kenya,
once cleared of its surplus African
population, may have seemed to the
settlers like an African version of the
Home Counties, but the thinking of
Empire was much more strategic: Kenya
provided access to the sea through the
port of Mombasa, and served as the
focal point for the governing of British
East Africa as a whole. Economically,
without mineral resources, until
in later years it became a centre of
manufacturing, it was something of a
liability. Thus although there was little
conscious suggestion before 1939 of any
idea of a forthcoming end of empire,
there was official resistance to the idea
that Kenya could be forever white. All
this was to change with the Second
World War and the succeeding Cold
War. Britain emerged bankrupt from
the first. The early years of the second,
involving the UK in war in Korea and
counter-insurgency operations in
Malaya, helped clarify the expense of
hanging on to formal Empire in a rapidly
changing context of rivalry between the
US and the Soviet Union.
Tis magnifcent book by David
Anderson, one of the foremost historians
of Kenya, on Britains response to
Mau Mau, the armed struggle against
colonialism waged by a stream of
principally Kikuyu Kenyan nationalists
during the early and mid-1950s, is set in
that context historically.
In a short and belated review, there
can be no attempt to do this major work
justice. Suffice to say it makes a major
contribution to our understanding of
how Britain deliberately structured
Kenyas neo-colonial independence,
notably by systematically cultivating a
stratum of loyalists amongst the African
population, based particularly upon
chiefs and amongst Christians, while
those who were most active in Mau Mau
tended to be those from backgrounds
amongst the most landless, the most
exploited and the most dispossessed.
As Anderson, with others, stresses,
Mau Mau for all its anti-colonial
underpinnings, rapidly became a
peculiarly brutal civil war. Yet what
comes through, above all, in Andersons
B
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account, is the marked ambiguity about
the British response to their Mau Mau
opponents. On the one hand, they were
regarded as having succumbed to an
evil primitivism, entered into by oathing
which was regarded as an offence to
both Christianity and civilisation.
Only by recantation of the oath could
offenders hope to return to the path to
modernity and salvation (a route which
often took them via the Home Guard
which the authorities established to
protect loyalist communities). On the
other hand, while at one level Mau Mau
fighters were regarded as psychiatrically
disturbed, the British responded with a
ruthlessness that overturned established
concepts and practices of British
justice. Indeed, this is where Andersons
book title comes from, for his principal
methodology was to go painstakingly
through the records of the trials of those
arrested for Mau Mau activities. In brief,
emergency laws were introduced which,
for instance, decreed capital punishment
as the penalty for any African caught
in possession of an unauthorised gun.
Acting judges were sworn in to expedite
justice, their assessments usually
heavily dependent upon the accuracy
and honesty of African interpreters.
The prison population swelled from
an average of just more than 4 700 in
1938 to between nearly 18 000 and 1 100
between 1954- and 1956 (at the height
of the struggle) alongside the detention
of between 40 and 50 000 suspected
Mau Mau sympathisers in camps during
the same period. Overall, the British
hanged 1 090 Kikuyu for Mau Mau
offences during the period October
1952 to March 1958 after trials which
were summary, and which were swiftly
followed by the noose.
It is a commonplace now that,
although Mau Mau was suppressed
expeditiously, the fnancial and political
costs of fghting an African nationalist
war went down poorly in Whitehall, and
proved critical in persuading the British
to quit their African colonies. Anderson
tells this familiar story, which involves
careful analysis of the highly ambiguous
political role played by Jomo Kenyatta,
with confdence and understanding born
of years of study of Kenya. Yet he adds
so much that is new: a restrained and
deeply sympathetic understanding of
loyalist communities; a deeper history
of the Lari massacre (the peculiarly
brutal murder of a loyalist headman
and his family in March 1953 which the
author relates to a land dispossession 20
years previously); insight into how Mau
Mau intersected with Kikiyu migrant
structures and compounds in a rapidly
growing Nairobi; and the strategies and
tactics pursued by Mau Mau fghters
who withdrew to the forested areas
of the Aberdares and Mount Elgon.
But Andersons treatment is never
celebratory, much more a sensitive
refection upon the human tragedy of
Mau Mau, and the pain and trauma it
inficted upon Kenyan society, leaving
wounds unhealed to this day. South
African readers will therefore react with
deep sympathy to his concluding chapter
which deals with the complex issue of
memorialising Mau Mau, respecting
the African dead on both sides of the
war and using such memories to bridge
divisions in contemporary Kenyas still
confict-torn society.
Review by Roger Southall,
Department of Sociology, University
of the Witwatersrand
The Roots of Participatory
Democracy: Democratic
Communists in South
Africa and Kerala, India
Author: Michelle Williams
M
ichelle Williamss book
Te Roots of Participatory
Democracy: Democratic
Communists in South
Africa and Kerala, India is an important
contribution to a necessary debate on
what strategies the left political parties in
the Tird World can explore, build and
implement in the terrain of capitalism.
Te book provides a comparative analysis
between the South African Communist
Party (SACP) and the (Marxist)
Communist Party of India (CPIM).
In her comparison, Williams fnds
a striking similarity between how both
parties survived the collapse of the
Soviet Union and used the crisis to
develop a strategic socialist perspective
and vision of a participatory socialist
democracy that goes beyond capitalism.
Such a vision is meant to challenge
capitalism whilst also ensuring that
ordinary peoples needs are met through
a developmental state and on the basis
of self-organisation. In the process, both
parties asked themselves fundamental
questions about the nature and content
of their understandings of socialism.
In her analysis, both the SACP and the
CPIM built their new strikingly similar
visions around four pillars: deepening
and extending democracy (through a
synergistic relationship with the state in
order to increase the decision-making
authority of ordinary citizens), a new
developmental state, the subordination
of the economy, and the willingness to
experiment with building anti-systemic
accumulation logics within the interstices
of capitalism. For its part, the SACP
argued that the left must fght against
neo-liberalism, whilst also posing
concrete programmes to address the
needs of the majority. Tis is a story
largely unknown and misunderstood by
the broad South African left and other
progressive forces. Te SACPs own
failure to implement its own programme
has not helped.
Williams suggests that in both the
SACP and the CPIM visions of socialism
that could be reached through either
revolution or reforms were abandoned
and were replaced with visions of a
continuous and undefned process
of transformation that progressively
eliminates oppression and
exploitation. Socialism, in other words,
requires a long transition consisting
of many phases and multiple forms
grounded in local conditions. In her
view, this was an exercise by both parties
moving away from a state-centred
understanding of socialism based on
the Soviet experience to a society-
centred vision of socialism that found
its moorings in radical democracy. Tis
may sound like heresy to those who hold
a maximalist and statist view of what
socialism is about. But in my view, the
move away from a statist socialism is
innovative and far more democratic.
Beyond the similarities, Williams
points to fundamental differences
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LEFT-STYLE
between the SACP and the CPIM.
The formidable and well-organised
CPIM was able to implement its vision.
Whilst the SACP recognised the need
for renewal and the importance of
transformative politics, there was a
disjuncture between its campaigns
and activities and its proclamations
of society-led development. In her
analysis, this was because the SACP was
initially controlled by a statist faction
which gave way to a trade union faction,
both of which did not give space to
a grassroots faction, which she sees
as more capable of elaborating the
SACP vision in practice. The statist
and trade union factions emphasise
state-led industrial development and
enlist mass mobilisation which places
the leaders at the head and the masses
as mobilised supporters of decisions
already taken at the top level. Whilst
supporting the leading role of the
state and the importance of industrial
development, the grassroots faction
is also concerned with deepening and
extending democracy and the power of
ordinary people over both the state and
the economy. In the case of the CPIM,
the grassroots faction was strong on
the basis of a long history and continued
practices of popular mobilisation
enlisting participatory organising (as
different from mere mass mobilisation
in support of a cause with a limited
time-span) that empowered subalterns
with information, political tools,
self-organisation and effective spaces
for popular participation in decision
making and implementation. Further,
whilst in political power in the Kerala
state government, the CPIM was not
absorbed by a capitalist state. It went
about a serious programme to transform
the state through the decentralisation
of planning, control of funds and
implementation to local self-government
institutions in which subalterns were
empowered to drive processes, decisions
and implementation. This does not
mean that the CPIM has achieved
socialism. But it has contributed to high
levels of popular participation, human
development and an economy not
dominated by capitalism.
My main disappointments with
the book are the authors use of the
widely used term civil society and
her generosity towards the SACP. For
example, she does not really probe the
stated SACP claims such as building
industrial units which by and large do
not exist across the country. She uses
civil society to refer to popular social
power over the state and the economy.
Tis is not enough, given that the
concept is contested and can potentially
include non-political and non-economic
actors who are willing to operate within
the capitalist system. Te author also
fails to challenge the visions of both
parties of how their new strategies
and visions envisage the ultimate
defeat of capitalism. Tis may sound
instrumentalist and deterministic but this
is an important question which requires
open consideration.
Te book closes an important gap
in existing literature: how democratic
socialist alternatives can be rejuvenated
and pursued in the global south outside
of Latin America. By closing this gap,
the book also challenges the pessimism
that many social movement activists
and associated academics hold towards
political parties. In her view, left political
parties are important in shaping the
contours of political and economic
development. I cannot agree with her
more. Te challenge is elsewhere: can
the South African left rebuild itself
into such a formidable political force
capable of engendering a new counter-
hegemonic politics casting aside old
dogmas? How to build a social force that
is capable of combining anti-capitalist
struggles with participatory participation
aimed at transformation of social and
economic conditions of revolutionary
subjects? Given the failure of the SACP
to implement its own strategy, can we
have a strategic new left pole in South
Africa that is able to continuously and
consistently build such a social force?
Tis is the key challenge posed by
Williamss exciting book.
Review by Mazibuko K. Jara
Grounding Globalization:
Labour in the Age
of Insecurity
Authors: Edward Webster, Rob
Lambert and Andries Bezuidenhout
I
n recent years there has been a
plethora of books about globalisation
marked by high levels of generality
and abstraction. Tis book is diferent
in several ways.
Firstly, it is written in a lively and
accessible style, and while theoretically
informed, it is empirically rooted
in peoples everyday experiences in
three very diferent places: Ezakheni
(South Africa), Orange (Australia) and
Changwon (Korea). Te result makes for
fascinating reading.
Secondly, the three authors are leading
public intellectuals whose intention is to
deepen our understanding of the world
in order to change it. Tey write in the
tradition of Richard Turner, the academic
banned and later assassinated in 1978 by
the Durban security police.
Drawing on this tradition they
expose the neo-liberal strategy of
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LEFT-STYLE
manufacturing insecurity. Their central
argument is that the insecurity in the
reconfiguration of the employment
relationship through the growing
flexibility and casualisation of
work, outsourcing, downsizing and
retrenchments, not only produces
a disorganised working class, but
also impacts negatively on workers
households and the communities
of which they are part. Through
comprehensive and comparative
research they enter the hidden abode
of reproduction and show how, under
the impact of global competition,
managers are displacing confrontation,
antagonism and disorder into the family,
the household and the community. This
generates intra-household tensions,
various forms of abuse, and domestic
violence what the authors term a
crisis of social reproduction.
This analysis is innovative in several
ways, particularly in the authors
geographical reach and focus on the
experience of workers as a totality
in these different social spaces rather
than the conventional concern only
with the employment relationship.
They demonstrate that in all three
societies market despotism operates to
make insecurity the defining feature of
workers lives.
This is dangerous. Insecurity
may lead to fascism, as the authors
theoretical compass, Karl Polanyi,
warned. In an insight that is relevant
to the recent wave of xenophobic
violence, Webster et al write, The
danger is that individuals respond to
this insecurity in authoritarian ways
and draw new boundaries between
insiders and outsiders.
Increasingly around the world the
afuent are doing so quite literally by
withdrawing into social enclaves such
as gated communities and golf estates.
While the book focuses on the insecurity
that is rooted in the lack of permanent,
well-paid jobs, one of the paradoxes of
corporate globalisation is that there is an
inverse correlation between the amount of
wealth held by individuals and their sense
of personal security (Bakker & Gill, 2003).
Factors such as social crime and climate
change will intensify this insecurity.
Nevertheless, Grounding
Globalisation is a hopeful book. Te
authors detect a shift away from the
market fundamentalism that is at the core
of neo-liberalism. A potential counter-
movement would involve constructing
alliances between labour, gender,
environmental and other progressive
social movements. It involves going
beyond critique of the existing unstable
and unjust social order to engage in what
Richard Turner called utopian thinking,
the exploration of realistic alternatives.
Tis is a task we can pursue together
through the pages of Amandla!
Review by Jacklyn Cock
The Cape Jazz Collection
Compiled by Colin Miller
T
he Cape Jazz Collection,
compiled by Colin Miller
and published by jazz.co.za
and supported by the South
African-Norwegian Education and
Music Programme (MMINO), is an
ambitious oral history collection of
39 jazz originals written between
1978 and 2001 by 24 South African
composers. The transcriptions are
housed in the District Six Museum
Sound Archives in Cape Town, and
are now available to youth projects,
professional musicians, and music
educators who seek to learn and
protect a rich musical heritage.
Tis 61-page collection, launched
recently at the University of Cape
Town School of Music, is dedicated to
one of the authors favourite mentors,
saxophonist Jimmy Adams (19292006).
Colin acknowledges how the Western
Cape Oral History Project trained him
in oral history research methods. His list
of interviewees is long, encompassing
both late and living innovators of Cape
music ranging from the social historian/
musician Vincent Kolbe to Darius
Brubeck to George Werner, the latter
who edited the musical scores.
A handy page of the songs
discography, listed by composer, shows
the album title, year, and label of the
transcribed songs. At the top of the
list is Errol Dyers with four songs,
followed by McCoy Mrubata, Hilton
Schilder, Tony Schilder, and the Winston
Mankunku Ngozi/Mike Perry duo, each
with three songs.
Tis compilation seeks to answer,
through notated transcripts, what
constitutes Cape Jazz. Is it music
of the people, the coloured people?
Is it township music infuenced by
marabi and mbaqanga, made popular
by Abdullah Ibrahim? If a coloured
invention, as claimed by mentor Jimmy
Adams, then how has African music (i.e.
from neighbouring black communities)
infuenced Cape Jazz?
Te author distinguishes in his
narration between the two parallel jazz
traditions that evolved in Cape Town
from the 1940s onwards: the American
big band dance music, and the local
marabi and kwela, or vastrap and klopse
rhythms that identify indigenous jazz. A
useful page of drum patterns exemplifes
these rhythms, including goemma
brushes, mbaqanga rim shots, and a
tango with brushes on snare. Langarm,
according to saxophonist Robbie Jansen,
is a raggy and loose version by poor
people of the more formal ballroom
dance style.
P
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W
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b
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g
,

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,

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w
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REVIEWS
LEFT-STYLE
In this years fnal edition, the Better
Read than Brain Dead Collective
takes a look at some of the top
movies of the year.
Te year 2008 started like 2007 and 2006
with the long-running courtroom drama
Teres a Zulu in the Soup, starring Jacob
Zuma. It ended with Total Recall featuring
Tabo Mbeki (although he couldnt recall
having done anything to warrant his
sacking and subsequent starring role in
Home Alone).
Te James Bond movie franchise
was overshadowed by the Home Bond
disaster movie in which banks collapsed,
stock markets crashed and millions of
people lost their homes in a food of debt.
Tis gave rise to a remake of Superman,
featuring an unlikely hero Barack Obama,
cast in the unrealistic role of saving
America from itself, and the rest world
from America. A sequel to American
Gangster starring any Republican has been
put on hold.
High School Musical struck a false
note when it featured Julius Malemas
matric results. Julius was not ofered a
role in Te Graduate, but hes keen on the
lead in the Shrek sequel to play everyones
favourite ogre.
Alec Loose Bolt Erwin, Essop
Sledgehammer Pahad and a few others
thought they would be recognised as A
Few Good Men when they resigned in
sympathy with Mbeki. Instead, it was
revealed that rather than serving the
people and the countrys constitution,
they had been starring in All the
Presidents Poodles.
Never Say Never will open on 16
December when a new party is launched
in contradiction of the popular view that
the ruling party would never split. Despite
having been key DA-bashers when they
were part of the ruling party, the leaders
of COPE have announced that they will
consider aligning themselves with the DA
to gain power. Another reason Never (to)
Say Never in politics.
Meanwhile, all over the country
people were making their own versions of
the Grapes of Wrath as the cost of living
shot up, jobs were lost, crime spiralled
and the Governor of the Reserve Bank
gave himself an increase in a movie called
I am Legend.
No Country for Old Men featured
South African men whose life expectancy
dropped to 49 this year, one more year
than for women. Tanks to beetroot,
garlic and the African Potato, weve had
a food of Orphan Annie spin-ofs like
Orphan Tandeka cares for her Tree
Siblings and Orphan Sipho and his
Grandmother go shopping on her Old Age
Grant.
Johnny Depp declined a role in
Pirates of Somalia because it is too
dangerous, while many Somalians have
asked to be repatriated to Somalia
because it has become too dangerous for
them in South Africa.
Te rise of the SA Communist Party in
the tripartite alliance has led to a remake
of Reds starring Nzimande who also
featured in Blade Runner, a long-running
movie about back stabbing and purges.
At the end of the 2007, the Polokwane
Film Studio decided to make Tere Will be
Blood, and this resulted in the closure of
the Scorpions.
Geraldine Fraser auditioned for Little
Miss Sunshine, but instead, she and Jabu
were awarded lead roles in Bonnie and
Clyde, a slash-and-burn movie about
union bashing.
Miami Vice has made an approach
to Jackie Selebi to star in its next series
but hes already committed to Blood
Diamonds.
With elections looming in early 2009,
expect a glut of new movies coming
soon to a rally near you!
BETTER READ THAN
BRAIN DEAD
Te author drew much inspiration
and knowledge from Vincent Kolbe who
talks about the Cape melting pot of
music facilitated by the historical infux
of sounds from such port cities as Rio de
Janeiro and New Orleans sounds for
dancing, and organ and chant sounds
from the churches. Growing up in District
Six, he heard the Malay choir practicing
Roosa next door, African migrants
singing Xhosa hymns, and the Eoan
Group singing opera in church. Its all
about movement and dance, imitation
and living it, the author quotes. Cape Jazz
became the vehicle for cultural activism,
expressed in some political tones (with
United Democratic Front anti-apartheid
rallies in 1983) and freedom cries about
forced removals. It would have been
interesting to read more about the
composers involvements during these
politically tense periods, rather than
points about album releases which can be
read in the Biography section.
Te book includes songs from music
innovators who weathered the apartheid
era, such as Winston Mankunku, Basil
Coetzee and Robbie Jansen. Others more
widely known internationally, such as
Abdullah Ibrahim and Chris McGregor,
are noted as originators of the Cape jazz
motif. Several paragraphs focus on the
Schilder family achievements, and how
subsequent protgs merged traditional
goemma music with contemporary jazz
improvisation and rock beats. While
interesting, more could have been
narrated explaining how this goemma
notation infuenced, rather than was
absorbed by, contemporary rhythms.
But the purpose of this book is to
notate the songs themselves, so that all
from the teenagers of the Little Giants
to the less-read older musicians can
appreciate, perform, and protect archival-
worthy originals which convey the rich
history and evolution of the Capes
jazz. Tis is a fne beginning, and very
applicable to the new jazz curriculum
in schools Arts and Culture syllabus.
Perhaps a CD of the songs rhythms
could explain the uniqueness of Cape
Jazz sounds to the children and youth in
a proper learning environment. Te next
volume, however, should highlight the
original works of South Africas notable
female jazz artists who have been growing
Cape Jazz post-2001. Tat list is long, too.
Review by Carol Martin, board
member of the South African
Association for Jazz Education (SAJE)
and a development educator living in
Cape Town.
ADVICE
LEFT-STYLE
/&3425'',% /&3425'',%
ORGANIZE OR STARVE:
Celebrating TCOEs
25th anniversary
l was |u 1983 |a !CCE, w|ose o|||us ||e |u |e |u|a| owu
o K|u w||||ars !owu, was o|ra||, ouuded as a ua|oua|
co||ec|.e |a ocused ou access aud uu|.e|sa| |||s o
educa|ou as a s|ae, o| o|au|.|u |e poo| o c|a||eue
|e apa||e|d s,ser. !oda, |e o|au|.a|ou ra|u ocus
|s o eucou|ae aud suppo| |e se|o|au|sa|ou aud se|
- ac|.|, arous sra||sca|e a|re|s, |aud|ess poo| peop|e,
s|e|s, woreu's aud sra|| p|oduce| |oups |u o|de| o eusu|e
|a |e .o|ce o |e |u|a| poo| |s |ea|d w|||u |e co|||do|s
o powe|. !|e |ssues o |u|a| po.e|,, |aud|essuess, ood
so.e|e|u,, susa|uab|e |aud use aud |u|a| o.e|uauce |a.e
becore |e |e, a|eas o |e o|au|.a|ou's wo||.
!CCE |as |u |eceu ,ea|s ac|||aed |e ere|euce o a
uurbe| o popu|a|, |oca| o|au|.a|ous.
Vawubu,e Laud R||s fo|ur (wese|u Cape), Coasa| L|u|s
(No||e|u aud wese|u Cape), l||s|.we Lara fara, Ru|a|
leop|e's Vo.ereu, '|,a.a||a Laud R||s fo|ur (Ease|u
Cape), aud Vopau| 0|s||c fa|re|s uu|ou (L|rpopo). !|ese
o|au|.a|ous w||| jo|u !CCE |u lo| E||.abe| ou |e
4| 7| 0ecerbe| 2008 o ce|eb|ae |e 25| auu|.e|sa|,
o |e !|us o| Corruu|, Cu|eac| aud Educa|ou (!CCE).
uude| |e bauue| "C|au|se o| 'a|.e" w|e|e we w||| debae
|e |u|a| poo|'s s|u|e o| access o |aud aud ||.e|||oods |u
|e coue o uuequa| |aud owue|s||p aud a||ed |aud |eo|r
aud |e cu||eu ood, ue| aud |oba| ecouor|c c||ses.
la||c|paus w||| ec|aue epe||euces aud d|scuss |ssues
|e|a|u o |e rouopo||.a|ou o ood p|oduc|ou aud
d|s||bu|ou, a|oue|s aud CVCs, |e p||.a|.a|ou o uau|a|
|esou|ces as we|| as s|a|e successes, c|a||eues aud
s|ae|es ou bu||d|u |u|a| ro.ereus oda,.
for further information on the conference,
pIease contact 1C0L at 021-685-3033 or
emaiI: nozuko@tcoe.org.za
42534&/2#/--5.)49/542%!#(!.$%$5#!4)/.
36 Durban Road. Mowbray, Cape Town P 0 Box 323 /thlone 7760
Telephone: (021) 685 3033 Facsimile: (021) 685 3087 Email: ino@tcoe.org.za 4#/%
!||s pae |s spouso|ed b, |e
Rosa Luerbu| fouuda|ou
TCOE amandla3.indd 1 11/26/08 5:51:58 AM
ORGANISE OR STARVE:
Celebrating TCOEs
25th anniversary
It was in 1983 that TCOE, whose origins lie in the
rural town of King Williams Town, was formally
founded as a national collective that focused on
access and universal rights to education as a
strategy for organising the poor to challenge the
apartheid system. Today the organisations main
focus is to encourage and support the organisation
and self-activity amongst small-scale farmers,
landless poor people, fshers, womens and small
producer groups in order to ensure that the voice
of the rural poor is heard within the corridors of
power. The issues of rural poverty, landlessness,
food sovereignty, sustainable land use and rural
governance have become the key areas of the
organisations work.
TCOE has in recent years facilitated the
emergence of a number of popular, local
organisations: Mawubuye Land Rights Forum
(Western Cape), Coastal Links (Northern and
Western Cape), Ilisizwe Lama Fama, Rural Peoples
Movement, Siyazakha Land Rights Forum (Eastern
Cape), and Mopani District Farmers Union (Limpopo).
These organisations will join TCOE in Port Elizabeth
on 4 7 December 2008 to celebrate the 25th
anniversary of the Trust for Community Outreach and
Education (TCOE). Under the banner Organise or
Starve the TCOE will debate the rural poors struggle
for access to land and livelihoods in the context
of unequal land ownership and failed land reform
and the current food, fuel and global economic
crises. Participants will exchange experiences and
discuss issues relating to the monopolisation of food
production and distribution; agro-fuels and GMOs;
the privatisation of natural resources as well as share
successes, challenges and strategies on building
rural movements today.
For further information on the TCOE, please contact
us at 021 685 3033 or email: nozuko@tcoe.org.za.
Editorial Advisory Board
SOUTH AFRICA: Aswell Banda, Patrick Bond,
Dennis Brutus, Yunus Carrim, Jacklyn Cock, Jeremy
Cronin, Ashwin Desai, Farid Esack, David Fig, Pregs
Govender, Stephen Greenberg, Jonathan Grossman,
William Gumede, Adam Habib, Ferial Haffajee, Pat
Horn, Dot Keet, Leslie London, Willie Madisha, Hein
Marais, Fatima Meer, Darlene Miller, Sipho Mthathi,
Phumzile Mthethwa, Andrew Nash, Trevor Ngwane,
Lungisile Ntsebeza, Peter John Pearson, Tebogo
Phadu, Devan Pillay, Vishwas Satgar, David Sanders,
Christelle Terreblanche, Salim Vally, Mike Van Graan.
INTERNATIONAL: Gilbert Achcar (Lebanon/Britain),
Asghar Adelzadeh (Iran / USA), Alejandro Bendana
(Nicaragua), Camille Chalmers (Haiti), Noam Chomsky
(USA), Mike Davis (USA), Nawal El Saadawi (Egypt),
Ben Fine (Britain), Bill Fletcher (USA), Gillian Hart
(USA), Arndt Hopfmann (Germany), Claudia Katz
(Argentina), Joel Kovel (USA), Michael Lowy (Brazil/
France), John Saul (Canada), Helena Sheehan
(Ireland), Issa Shivji (Tanzania), Hillary Wainwright
(Britain), Suzi Weissman (USA), Ed Sadlowski (USA)
Editorial Collective
CAPE TOWN: Donna Andrews, Brian Ashley, Terry
Bell, Sheila Barsel, Jamie Claassen, Roger Etkind,
Prakashnee Govender, Mazibuko Jara, Helga
Jansen, Sidney Kgara, Hamied Mahate, Andre
Marais, Feroza Phillips; Jeff Rudin, Mark Weinberg.
JOHANNESBURG: Jacklyn Cock, Harry Letsebe,
Hein Marais, Phumzile Mthethwa, Devan Pillay, Tengo
Tengela, Vishwas Satgar, Ibrahim Steyn. MEMBERS
AT LARGE: Frank Fried (USA), Richard Kuper (Britain)
Amandla! Online
Visit www.amandla.org.za and check out our
special focuses on Xenophobia, the Food
Crisis and Zimbabwe. To post material on
the Amandla! website contact Athini Melane at
athini@amandla.org.za.
Amandla Projects
AMANDLA FORUMS: Amandla! runs a series
of discussion forums on topical issues in Cape
Town and Johannesburg. To find out about
upcoming forums, or to suggest a forum topic
contact Feroza Phillips at feroza@amandla.org.za.
EMERGING WRITERS WORKSHOP: Amandla!
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writing skills of activists. To learn more about the
Emerging Writers Workshop contact Brian Ashley
at brian@amandla.org.za
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When Ive passed on
Miriam Makeba
Live At Berns Salonger, Stockholm, Sweden, 1966
Wretched is the man who is born
Who in every way
He will live on promises
Till his dying day
Freedom from life
Is the only reward for me
Thats why I sing
High on the mountain side
Thats where my soul shall bide
No marking for my grave
When Ive passed on
Deep in my slumber land
Far from the sins of man
No heartache will I know
When Ive passed on
When my trials are over
And Im stripped of all my wares
Ill be free from all
My mortal and worldly care
When all is said and done
Wholl share the prize of one?
Whose heart will weep and mourn?
When Ive passed on
When Ive passed on
Miriam Makeba
(19322008)

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