cession and repression in South Africa
Almost a year after the release of Nelson Mandela, much of the optimism about progress towards Black majority rule has evaporated amid the state-backed carnage unleashed against the liberation movement in recent months, reports MIKE PEARSE. The "historic reforms" of De Klerk are beginning to look much more like the traditional patter of concession and repression meted out by previous South African regimes.
In fact, the original concessions occurred not through a direct upsurge of the mass movement but against a backdrop of economic crisis and a worsening balance of class forces.
The importance of Gorbachev's "new thinking" and the end of the Cold War also played a key role. The withdrawal of Soviet
Despite the momentous changes taking
place in South Africa/Azania in the last
year, only 300 delegates attended the
AGM of the Anti-Apartheid movement
at the end of 1990, far fewer than in pre-
vious years.
For the AAM, 1990 was a year in which
the movement stagnated, despite increased
expenditure and hiring of more staff. The na-
tional demonstration at the start of the year
was only a few thousand strong and there
have been precious few central campaigning
initiatives.
Instead the AAM has sought to use the
openings of the last year to move from cam-
paigning to international diplomacy. The
result has been a decline in support and finan-
cial crisis. The movement is rolling over its
debts on a month by month basis, at the same
time as alienating its local support groups by SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 30. February 1991
FEATURES
De Klerk wants black people divided on tribal lines material and financial backing increased the pressure on the ANC to find a settlement.
Equally the settlement of the Angolan conflict and the withdrawal of Cuban forces from the area strengthens South Africa's regional hegemony - as does the war of destabilisation which has driven some of the front-line states to the point of economic collapse.
With a big drop in the price of gold fuelling his own internal economic crisis at home. De Klerk was prepared to make some real concessions to attract foreign capital. The fact that new investment is again flowing into South Africa after a long lull suggests that the government has got what it wanted.
A year ago the Conference for a Democratic Future brought together supporters of Freedom Charter and Azanian tendencies in the liberation struggle for the first time in many years. Many present warned of the ANC of the dangers of entering negotiations from a Anti Apartheid movement at the Crossroads imposing on them an increased financial burden.
With Oliver Tambo hinting that the time is near when the campaign for sanctions could be ended, the AAM may soon find itself without a reason to exist. "Sanctions" has been its byword for decades - to the exclusion of direct links, trade union support, non-sectarian solidarity and a range of other approaches.
The 1990 AGM took place amid press reports of the imminent winding-up of the Movement. If the AAM is to remain relevant it must broaden out its solidarity to include support for all liberation movements - not just the ANC - and initiate the kind of grassroots trade union solidarity which proved so successful in the campaigns in support of the BTR workers and in defence of Moses Mayekise.
position of weakness. Some of their fears have now been confirmed.
Nelson Mandela' readiness to negotiate -he said there was no such thing as a non-negotiable issue - has been cruelly exploited by the regime. De Klerk's constitutional proposals have a cleverly democratic appearance, but fall a long way short of one person, one vote in a unitary state.
Based on a variant of the American system, the proposals advance a two-chamber set-up, one proportionally elected, the second being a "Senate" representing the different "ethnic groups" - including the whites -wherein each would have the power to veto laws made by the lower house.
Far from transferring power to the black majority, this arrangement aims to divide blacks on tribal lines and institutionalise the veto power of the whites.
Little progress has been made on dismantling other pillars of apartheid. Although the liberation organisations have been legalised, the attacks on them and, indiscriminately, on black people as a whole in recent months is itself a consequence of the deteriorating social and economic aspects of apartheid.
A recent issue of Vukani Basebenzi comments:
"At the heart of the brutality is the 'hostel/migrant labour system" which comprises the homelands policy of influx control, jobs and accommodation divided along racial 'ethnic' social and economic lines; less wages; unemployment, and lack of control over even basic means of existence. Squatting, overcrowded houses, lack of privacy, separated families, insanitary conditions all exacerbate the problem."
Mandela's response was to call on the state to protect black people. The problem is that it is precisely the state apparatus which is colluding in the brutality, arming the gangs and standing by while they go on the rampage.
An estimated one in five of the permanent members of the security forces are members of the racist Conservative Party or fascist AWB. To demand they profect blacks in these circumstances is to spread a dangerous il-
Page 27
Rebuild mass organisations from below
lusion. Instead the liberation movement should mobilise blacks to protect themselves.
It was frustration with the conciliatory policy of the ANC that led its own members to strongly criticise the leadership at its first conference in South Africa in 30 years. Despite hints from the returning President Oliver Tambo that sanctions might soon be dropped, the ANC rank and file rejected such a concession - and demanded that the executive step up its commitment to campaign on behalf of ANC prisoners on death row.
Elsewhere the long-term alliance between the ANC and the South African Communist Party seems to be coming under strain. The Eastem Cape branch of the ANC has passed a resolution stipulating that AN officers could not be members of the SACP.
The cadre of the SACP has historically occupied leading positions in the ANC. Both organisations are growing in the new conditions, the ANC on a mass basis, and the SACP benefitting from the influx of an important layer of trade union activists, notably NUMSA leader Moses Mayekiso.
It may seem ironic that the SACP is one of the few communist parties actually thriving rather than undergoing a deep crisis, particularly as it was for long one of the most unreconstructed Stalinist parties in the world. But it has begun a remarkable volteface since the change of thinking in Moscow. Just over a year ago SACP General Secretary Joe Slovo published Has Socialism Failed?, the CP's altempt to come to terms with its Stalinist origins and practices.
Has Socialism Failed? obviously implies something of a re-think on the CP's policies and methods, which genuine socialists can use to widen the debate. But at 20 pages it is
The following article is reprinted from VUKANI BASEBENZI, the paper of the Workers Organisation for Socialist Action The wave of violence on the Reef has resulted in the disruption of the main organisations of the working class, particularly within the trade union movement. The calls for peace (from all quarters), while welcome, do not address the underlying causes of the violence.
The calls for the formation of self-defence committees, while correct, tail behind the spontaneous actions of the people on the ground. These self defence committees must quickly become responsible to democratic, non-sectarian street or area committees if we are to avoid their degeneration into anarchy or instruments of political control.
The mass killings and reign of terror are only possible under the objective conditions Page 28
FEATURES grossly superficial and has been subjected to withering criticism by Baruch Hirson in the July edition of Searchlight South Africa for its willingness to skirt around many of the key issues raised by the legacy of Stalinism.
Considerable scepticism over the readiness of the SACP to change its spots has been expressed by others too. Pallo Jordan, ANC information officer, sparked off widespread discussion by his sharp criticism of the SACP in a number of jourals, most recently, Monitor:
"Comrade Slovo maintains that the SACP has long ago turned its back on Stalinism. This may well by true for him and a few other individuals. But as a consequence of the Stalinist language which the SACP carried with it over the years, there is a spirit of extreme intolerance which is manifested regularly in the pages of its publications... What is sad is what many communist parties, including the SACP have done by identifying socialism and communism so narrowly with the authoritarian systems in Eastern Europe; they have discredited socialism. I, and many other socialists, feel very strongly about this.
*...In 1968, the suppression of the Prague spring was greeted enthusiastically by the SACP. They need not have done this. There were other instances - they applauded what Jaruzelski did to Solidarity in Poland, including martial law. This is completely foreign to the marxist tradition."
The ability of the SACP honestly to reexamine its past will be a yardstick of its capacity to broaden its political approach and appeal to the working class. In any event, the SACP's strategy of operating a division of labour with the ANC remains constant. With Mandela reiterating he is "not a socialist", it becomes even more critical for the SACP to created by the apartheid capitalist system - the hostel system separating city dwellers from those from the countryside, the homelands system which promotes a tribal/ethnic consciousness, the brutalising effect of poverty, powerlessness and overcrowding in the townships.
These conditions, coupled with a history of political intolerance and sectarianism, provide the fertile ground. But it is the deliberate provocation which leads to the cycle of attack and counterattack. The many reports of specific incidents indicate that the finger can be pointed at Inkatha, elements within the state structures and the right wing.
The mass destruction of homes, the attacks on the trains, the shooting and bombing at taxi ranks, the killing of whole families by silent faceless brutes amount to a massive attack on the self-confidence of the masses, mass structures are unable to function, trade unions -which are the most disciplined, democratic and cohesive mass organisations - are unable
draw advanced workers into the ANC's camp.
Real socialist ideas are inevitably in the minority at this moment, particularly in view of the dangers in organising in some parts of the country. Last year an openly socialist organisation, the Workers" Organisation for Socialist Action, was founded on a national basis, bringing together a number of important individuals and organisations, notably the Cape Action league.
Despite the difficult conditions, which include witchhunts and physical attacks on its members, WOSA produces a monthly socialist newspaper, Vukani Basebenzi. The key demand it currently it advances is for a sovereign constituent assembly.
In the words of a recent article:
"The leaders of the ANC have no moral or political right to enter into compromises on behalf of all the oppressed people in this country. They have themselves made it clear that no matter how popular the organisation is, it is not the only representative voice of the oppressed and exploited majority of the people of South Africa. This is a fundamental issue. No amount of wishful thinking or manipulation of the media can alter the fact that there are three or four other significant currents that run in the broad river of the national liberation movement. It is for this reason that the Workers" Organisation for Socialist Action insists that the only way in which a new constitution can be drawn up for South Africa/Azania is by a Constituent Assembly based on one person, one vote, and on proportional representation (where every single vote has an equal value). No other mechanism can give legitimacy to a new constitution". to hold quorate meetings. NUMSA, the major industrial union in the country, had to call off a national strike ballot during the height of the wave of violence.
The wave of violence amounts to an offensive on the part of the state and its agencies aimed at weakening the working class movement and shifting the balance of forces in its favour. The potential damage to the liberation struggle cannot be overestimated.
As the strike reports on our pages show, organised workers, over a wide front, are still willing to take on the bosses and the state, in the face of intimidation and an economic recession. The working class is still able to fight and win battles.
But if we are to counter the long term effects of the wave of violence, it is the duty of every political and mass organisation to rebuild working class organisations from below, on the basis of non-sectarianism, unity and democracy.
Rebuild the mass organisations! SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 30. February 1991
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