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June 2020 |
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SACP message on Youth Month |
Schreiner Jenny |
Youth must link with workers to fight Covid-19 and transform economy, says SACP GS DrBlade Nzimande
This is the SACP's Youth Month message at the YCLSA Virtual Rally, 20 June 2020
The immediate challenge facing the youth is the same as that facing the working-class. It is the challenges of overcoming the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, ensuring an economic turnaround through structural economic transformation, and advancing broader social transformation to rid our society of the crisis of social reproduction. This must be co-ordinated towards complete social emancipation, ensuring that we do not return to the crisis before the Covid-19 crisis.
Against gender-based violence
I want to use this opportunity, on behalf of the SACP, to strongly condemn acts of gender-based violence in our society. I convey the SACP's solidarity and sincere condolences to all the families that lost their loved ones as a result of the scourge of femicide. The police, the prosecution and the courts should leave no stone unturned. The perpetrators must be held to account, with maximum sentences. There must be justice for the victims of gender-based violence and the families that lost their loved ones as a result of the scourge of femicide.
One of the most important guides for any society in any part of the history of the evolution of the struggles for justice and equality, especially in relation to young people, can be captured thus: The youth of yesterday must always strive to build and guide the youth of today, and the youth today has a duty and obligation to learn from the experiences of its preceding generations. One lesson that the youth of today needs to learn is how street committees played a crucial role in confronting the scourge of gender-based violence, amongst others. In every street, and part of a village, communities know the women abusers.
The youth should mobilise to end the scourge of gender-based violence in our society. In particular, I want to reiterate the SACP's call for equality in the socialisation and treatment of children. The boy-child and the girl-child are equally important. There must be non-sexist attention to both in their upbringing. The way both the girl-child and boy-child are socialised should inculcate the values against unequal treatment and gender-based discrimination. This should form part of our national effort to eliminate gender-based violence at home, in the community, in institutions of culture and learning, at work and in the economy broadly, and in every societal activity, including in traditional and religious institutions.
The material conditions of the youth and the need for a revolutionary response
According to the February 2020 Quarterly Labour Force Survey released by Statistics South Africa, in terms of the official or narrow definition excluding discouraged work-seekers, in the last quarter of 2019:
- the unemployment rate for the youth aged 15 to 24 years was 58.1 per cent;
- the rates for young people aged 15 to 24 who were not in employment, education and training were 33.7 per cent for females and 30.7 per cent for males, amounting to an average of 32 per cent;
- the unemployment rate for the youth aged 24 to 34 years was 35.6 per cent;
- the rates for the larger youth category from 15 to 34 years who were not in employment, education and training were 43.9 per cent for females and 36.4 per for males, amounting to an average of 40.1 per cent.
- As the figures indicate, the rates of unemployment and young people not in employment, education and training were higher for females than males.
In terms of the expanded definition which includes discouraged work-seekers, in the fourth quarter of 2019:
- the unemployment rate for the youth aged 15 to 24 years was 69.5 per cent;
- the unemployment rate for the youth aged 24 to 34 years was 45.2 per cent
Capital's response to the impact of the Covid-19 crisis is worsening youth unemployment through retrenchments. Firstly, the retrenchments affect both the workers as parents and their dependents - who are mainly young people, inclusive of children. Secondly, retrenchments directly affect employed young people. We specifically mention capital as the motive force retrenching workers in its response to the impact of Covid-19 because in class terms it is a monopoly that controls our economy.
The SACP pledges its solidarity with the affected workers, without exception in terms sector. We call upon trade unions to set aside their differences, and to unite in pursuit of the common interests of the workers, and against economic exploitation and retrenchments. I want to take this opportunity, on behalf of the SACP, to reiterate our call on the trade union movement to convene a joint conference on the common interests of the workers and joint programme of action.
Capital is not holding back. Through its campaign for the state to cut support for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and to either fully or partly privatise SOEs, capital is pushing retrenchments also in the state sector as well. Monopoly-finance capital has increasingly gained power through financialisation processes, capital and financial markets and dealings. This is occurring in a global atmosphere dominated by imperialism, which exerts pressure on nation states to adopt policies against the will of the people, especially the working-class and poor, in favour of profit maximising and capital accumulation forces.
At present, neoliberal structural reforms are at the centre of the policies pushed by imperialist forces and imperialist-dominated institutions and organisations, including the Washington-based IMF and World Bank, and the Paris-based Club and OECD. This agenda also affects South Africa. The repeated calls for structural reforms which are neoliberal in content are a domestic manifestation of that agenda.
This is being driven by means including direct copy and paste. The neoliberal reforms include measures coalescing on weakening state participation in the economy and rolling back workers gains and deepening their exploitation in favour of profit maximising, capital accumulation interests. This will undoubtedly maintain and widen inequality, and goes against the Freedom Charter.
The youth needs to develop an understanding of the structural processes and forces underpinning its material conditions - such as inequality, unemployment, poverty, and exposure to alcohol, substance and drug abuse, criminality, gender-based violence and racism. Many of these and other consequences of the capitalist system are entirely blamed on government and often devoid of a deeper class analysis based on the materialist conception of history and dialectics. While undeniably the state has a role to play, it is itself anchored in class divisions and class balance of forces, and so is its role, including policy considerations and choices. The youth should appreciate that it is an integral part of the class-divided society. Rather than fashion its struggles in isolation of class struggle, the working-class youth, in particular, should anchor its struggles in the working-class struggle for complete liberation and social emancipation.
The Young Communist League has a crucial role to play in developing a youth elaboration of the working-class struggle and mobilising the youth in support of the working-class. After all, the effects and problems of the exploitative system of capitalism affect the working class youth and impact its future as adults.
Our liberation is far from complete. We are still a long way towards complete social emancipation. However, since 1994 our movement has made important advances and opened many opportunities for the youth, including in the sphere of education and skills development. The youth has also done its best to seize those opportunities. However, it has room for improvement and can do much better. The Young Communist League and the Progressive Youth Alliance are well-positioned to mobilise the youth against wasting time and the opportunities that the youth of 1976 did not have.
One of the struggles that the youth should take seriously is the working-class struggle to open the workplace as a training space. The youth should also take seriously the working-class struggle to develop national production through industrialisation by means of manufacturing expansion and diversification. The development of national production is very important for tackling unemployment and pioneering the universal right to work.
Industrialisation should include linking agricultural production with food security and building sustainable livelihood, and with agro-processing and manufacturing.
In the same manner, industrialisation and raising the levels of national production to take care of the material needs of the people, especially the working-class and its youth, should include the transformation of the mining sector to support manufacturing localisation and domestic beneficiation of our mineral resources. This should be one of the key pillars to rid our economy of the colonial features such as reliance on exports of raw materials and dependency on imports of finished products.
We emphasise structural economic transformation in this message because Covid-19 is a health, economic and social crisis, and cannot be overcome without simultaneously advancing structural economic transformation and the struggle against the interrelated crisis of social reproduction.
In one line, the youth should see the struggles to achieve the advances sought by the working class, including the all-important financial sector transformation, as its struggles.
Retrenchments at SABC
The SACP is deeply concerned that the SABC has served workers with notices of an intention to embark on retrenchments, and expresses working-class solidarity with the affected workers. The SACP has worked with organised workers, especially the Cosatu affiliate, the Communications Workers Union (CWU) in the media and communications sector in numerous situations in support of workers' struggles. The SACP will strengthen its ties with the CWU and deepen its work with the union at the SABC in defence of workers. It is concerning that the SABC has been recruiting, on the one hand, and is now pushing retrenchments, on the other. This does not make sense. The SABC must also come out publicly and confirm whether its recent recruits indeed comprise individuals who were given hefty packages. These practices are indications that there is still a governance and management problem at the SABC. It is therefore important to revitalise the Save our Public Broadcaster Campaign. The Young Communist League and the youth, in general, should join in the campaign, which should include tackling unfair labour practices.
The Young Communist League should develop a leading role among the youth in supporting trade union and worker struggles against retrenchments at the SABC and in other sectors of the economy.
Celebrating 100 years since the birth of Comrade Raymond Mhlaba! Vulindlela!
(12 February 1920 - 20 February 2005)
Jenny Schreiner
“Oom Ray” Mhlaba, a comrade who opened the way for our revolution in several ways, in the Defiance campaign, in the armed struggle, in the first democratic provincial government, earned the nickname of “Vulindlela” for his readiness to lead from the front.
Born on 12 February 1920 in Mazoka village in the then Fort Beaufort district of the Eastern Cape, Raymond Mphakamisi Mhlaba completed ten years of schooling, the last two at Healdtown Secondary School, before being forced to leave school for financial reasons.
He married his first wife, Joyce Meke, who was also from the Fort Beaufort area, in 1943. In their 17 years together, before her death in a car accident in 1960, they had three children Bukeka, Nomalungelo and Jongintshaba.
A Man of Action
After leaving school, Mhlaba started working at a laundry in Port Elizabeth in 1942. The horrendous conditions at the laundry converted him to a trade unionist. Comrade Mhlaba was a man of action who became politically active when he was fired from his job during a laundry workers' strike. Mhlaba chaired the Eastern Cape bus boycott action committee in 1949. He was chosen as the Port Elizabeth Defiance Campaign's volunteer-in-chief in 1952, and the campaign was launched in Port Elizabeth when he led a group of freedom song signing volunteers through the "Whites Only" entrance of the New Brighton Railway Station. This action earned him the Xhosa nickname "Vulindlela" or "he who opens the way." And it also earned him the honour to be in the first to be arrested for disobeying apartheid laws, and together with Govan Mbeki and Vuyisile Mini he spent three months in Rooi Hel ('Red Hell' or North End Prison, Port Elizabeth).
Building and leading organisations
His activism led him to join the SACP in 1943 and the ANC in 1944, remaining active in both organisations throughout his life. For Cde Mhlaba there was no contradiction in being active in both organisations since he fully understood the relationship between the contradictions of the national and the class questions in South Africa. His activist dedication resulted in comrades electing him to leadership roles and he served as District Secretary of the Communist Party until it was disbanded in 1950. He rose through the ranks of the ANC becoming the chairperson of the Port Elizabeth branch of the ANC from 1947 to 1953, and then was elected to the Cape Executive Committee in 1954. He was also active in the Council for Non-European Trade Unions.
Repression Could Not Stop This Giant!
In 1952, Cde Mhlaba was charged under the Suppression of Communism Act and was amongst those who received banning orders, prohibiting him from attending meetings and instructing him to report to New Brighton police one a week, with a notice to immediately resign from the ANC, from Swart, the Minister of Justice in 1953. The ANC Eastern Cape Executive Committee EC refused to accept his resignation and decided that he should defy the order and continue with his political work, but to do so under cover. So, he stopped attending meetings, but the branch secretary kept him up to date and individual members from the branch consulted him to seek his opinion or support on ANC activities, and to gain from his analysis of the political situation.
Cde Mhlaba, as with other comrades faced with banning orders, continued to wield their political pens, and Advance, a Party run newspaper, published their articles. For example, Cde Mhlaba wrote a letter of support for the candidature of Ray Alexander during Parliamentary and Provincial elections. “Oom Ray” and Cde Ray had worked together extensively in the trade union movement and the Communist Party, and he appealed to Africans of the Western Cape to use their limited votes to elect her based on the principles she stood for, including full equal rights for all citizens of South Africa.
Cde Mhlaba, despite banning orders, continued with his study group, run as part of the ANC political education classes, with a smaller number of people, training cadres who would then be able to run their own study groups of 10 people. As we today adjust to the Covid-19 lockdown, Cde Mhlaba quickly adjusted to this new style of political work because he had already begun operating underground as a communist.
The intense repressive laws and restrictions on cadres of the liberation movement led Cde Nelson Mandela to anticipate that the government would attempt to stop the ANC from organising mass actions, holding public meetings and issuing press statements. As a result, he proposed what became known as the M-Plan - a system in which branches were divided into cells based on a single street and headed by a Cell Steward.
The task of the steward was to know everything happening within the street, be it a funeral, an initiation ceremony or even a fight.
Cell Stewards then met as a zone of 7 streets, and Chief Stewards of 4 zones met as a ward led by a Prime Steward, feeding into the branch secretariat. In Port Elizabeth, the M-Plan was implemented from 1953, with Cde Mhlaba actively driving the zoning of New Brighton. The M-Plan enabled the Port Elizabeth ANC to operate more efficiently, and mass organisation continued throughout the 1950s. The M-Plan approach can be so relevant as we organise our communities to face and defeat the threefold crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, the crisis of social reproduction that faces working class and even middle class families with poverty, distress and food insecurity and the economic crisis. The Know Your Neighbourhood and Act campaign can best be taken forward by the M-Plan form of organising, although we do not face the repressive environment of the 1950s.
The Underground Communist Party
Communist Party members regrouped into the underground SACP were actively integrated into M-Plan structures. Cde Mhlaba explained that: "Almost each cell [of the M-Plan] in Port Elizabeth had Communist Party members. Party structures were set up and we conducted political education classes once a week. I was myself a member of the Central Committee. My duties were to feed our structures with the necessary information and later I organised the distribution of the Communist Party publications - pamphlets - The African Communist. I attended the national congresses which were held once a year in different secret venues."
SACTU (South African Congress of Trade Unions) activities in Port Elizabeth in the 1950s were distinguished by the disciplined and militant trade unionism and close relationships with the ANC and the Coloured People's Congress. And it was veteran trade unionists and political leaders such as Cde Mhlaba, who fed the younger trade union activists with political education. While under banning orders, Oom Ray would ask his cousin to organise a traditional ceremony, to brew traditional beer, to slaughter an animal, and he would then be on the programme as a family member, but use this platform to talk about trade unionism and organising workers.
Working Underground for the launch of the Armed Struggle
Cde Mhlaba went fully underground after the ANC was banned under the Unlawful Organisations Act in 1960. He attended the December 1960 SACP conference that took the decision to turn to armed struggle.
In 1961 the SACP mandated Cde Vella Pillay who was based in the UK, together with Cde Yusuf Dadoo to visit China and meet Mao Zedong to request assistance in the training of selected cadres in China to form an armed struggle unit. Cde Kotane said: “We have decided to send five or six comrades for training in China, one is already there, two I left in Dar-es-Salaam and two or three were still in South Africa.”
In October 1961, the Central Committee sent a coded message to Cde Mhlaba instructing him to leave for military training abroad. He travelled to Johannesburg, was collected from Park Station by Cde Rusty Bernstein, and taken to the Rivonia farm, where he met with Cde Mandela and was later joined by Cde Andrew Mlangeni. Cde Mhlaba assisted Cde Mandela in writing the Umkhonto constitution. Cde John Nkadimeng, another stalwart of the SACP, drove Cdes Mhlaba and Mlangeni to Lobatse. From there, they had to hire a private plane to Tanzania, from there to Ghana, the Soviet Union and, finally, to China, a journey that was not smooth, with security officers along the way threatening to send them home!
After arriving in China, the trainees were divided into two groups, one sent to Shen-Yon military academy, the other stationed in Nanjing. Cde Mhlaba described how "We all received a basic course in guerrilla warfare. We learnt how to manufacture indigenous weapons. We spent about ten months in Northern China and for the remaining two months we toured the South. We also met with Chinese women who had their own army and we learnt a few skills from these women. Our group spent almost a year before we came back to South Africa".
Cde Mhlaba was part of the group that was visited by Chairman Mao Zedong, who in addition to seeking the South Africans' opinions on Sino-Soviet issues, questioned them about class conditions in their region, about the terrain, and about the degree of military experience of opponents of the South African regime, Mao also urged the South African cadres not to blindly follow the experience of the Chinese Red Army. He argued that the experience of the FLN (Front for National Liberation) that was in opposition to French colonial rule in Algeria might be more relevant.
This personal contact with such a senior international Communist leader went undetected by the South African police, did not emerge at subsequent trials, and remained unknown outside a tiny circle until the present century. So secret was the Chinese training that even senior ANC officer-holders remained uninformed. On his way back from Nanjing to re-join his comrades in South Africa, Cde Mhlaba passed through Tanzania where he met Cde Oliver Tambo, leader of the ANC's external mission, soon to take over the effective leadership of the ANC as its internal structures crumbled in the face of government repression. Cde Tambo 'did not know about our military training in China', Mhlaba noted.
Cde Mhlaba had heard about the official launching of the MK from China. The initial MK High Command was made up of five members: Cdes Mandela (Commander In Chief), Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Mhlaba and Joe Slovo, all of whom had attended the December 1960 SACP conference where the decision to turn to the armed struggle had been taken. In an article in Dawn magazine in 1986 commemorating the 25th anniversary of the formation of MK, Cde Slovo also put Cde Mlangeni, also a senior SACP member, on the initial High Command. Cde Mhlaba returned to South Africa in 1962, becoming commander of the MK due to the arrest of Cde Mandela.
A month after his return, Cde Mhlaba was assigned to escort Cde Joe Modise, who was on the run from the police and had to leave the country in January 1963. Cde Mhlaba had to be back in the country by 1 July and following orders, he had to cross the border on the night of the 1st from Dar es Salaam. During the week of his return, while organising recruits for military training in Johannesburg, the Rivonia Raid took place.
Rivonia Arrests and Rivonia Trial
On 11 July 1963, the apartheid forces raided the SACP and MK underground headquarters in Rivonia, north of Johannesburg. Cde Mhlaba and 10 other ANC and SACP leaders including Cdes Ahmed Kathrada, Sisulu, Denis Goldberg, Bernstein, and Mbeki were arrested. Cde Mandela was already in prison. On 9 October 1963, the Rivonia Trialists were charged with high treason, sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government. Cde Mhlaba was charged with 193 acts of sabotage. On 12 June 1964, Cdes Mhlaba, Mandela and six other ANC leaders were sentenced to life imprisonment, and 6 were sent to Robben Island but Cde Goldberg was sent to the Whites-only Pretoria Central Prison.
During his time in Robben Island, Cde Mhlaba and other ANC members founded the ANC High Command or High Organ with Cde Mandela as its head. The committee educated and supported younger imprisoned members, formulated policies on day-to-day concerns, prisoners' complaints, and strikes, and enforced discipline within their isolation unit. Looking back at their time in Robben Island Cde Mandela said of Cde Mhlaba: “I got to know him as the peacemaker. He spent a lot of time urging fellow prisoners to forget their differences and unite so that conditions for prisoners could improve."
Cde Mhlaba served his term on Robben Island until his transfer to Pollsmoor Prison in 1982, where he received special permission to marry his common-law wife Dideka Heliso in 1986, with whom he had three children Mpilo, Nomawethu and Nikiwe.
Release from Prison
Cde Mhlaba, along with some of the other Rivonia trialists, was released on 15 October 1989 and he returned to Port Elizabeth just months before the unbanning of the ANC, SACP and other organisations. He became a member of the ANC's interim leadership group after the unbanning of the ANC and was Chairman of the SACP Interim Leadership Group at the re-launch as a political party after the unbanning. At the SACP 8th Congress in 1991, Cde Mhlaba was elected onto the Central Committee of the SACP. In the same year 1991 Cde Mhlaba was elected to the ANC's National Executive Committee and was re-elected in 1994. In 1991 Cde Mhlaba led an SACP delegation to the People's Republic of China (PRC) 30 years after he had gone to China for military training.
In May 1994 he became the first Premier of the Eastern Cape in our new democracy. Cde Mhlaba was elected unopposed as national chairman of the SACP at the 9th Congress in 1995. He helped to establish the house of traditional leaders.
In 1997 Cde Ray Mhlaba stepped down from Premier of the Eastern Cape in the face of challenges in the province and took up an Ambassadorial post in Uganda and Rwanda until he retired in 2001. He stepped down as Chairperson of the Party given that he was deployed outside of the country and the Deputy National Chairperson Cde Blade Nzimande acted as Chair until the next Congress. In April 2001 Cde Mhlaba released a book of his memoirs, narrated by him and researched and compiled by Thembeka Mafumadi. He was chairperson of a black economic empowerment consortium involved in the Coega port project.
In August 2002, after the 11th Congress, the SACP CC co-opted Cde Mhlaba on the Central Committee, along with veterans Cdes Brian Bunting and Nkadimeng, the same comrade who had driven Cde Mhlaba to the Lobatse border in 1961, and Cdes Esther Barsel, Mfengu Makhalima and Kay Moonsamy.
Cde Ray suffered a stroke on 19 July 2003, recovering quickly. In 2004, Cde Mhlaba was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer, and in December doctors discharged him from a private clinic saying there was nothing they could do for him. On 20 February 2005 he died in hospital. Cde Mhlaba was survived by his wife Dideka Heliso, three sons and five daughters.
Recognition in his life time
Cde Mhlaba is a stalwart of both the ANC and the SACP and a long activist of the trade union movement. His legacy was recognised with the Isitwalandwe award for his role in the liberation struggle in 1992, and the Moses Kotane Award for his contribution to the SACP in 2002. The Nkonkobe Local Municipality which includes Alice and Cde Mhlaba's hometown Fort Beaufort was renamed the Raymond Mhlaba Local Municipality and Andries Pretorius street, The R30 in Bloemfontein, was renamed after Raymond Mhlaba to honour him. There is an ANC branch named after him in the Nkangala region of Mpumalanga.
As we mark the centenary year of this giant of our revolution, let us continue to deepen organisation in working class communities and strengthen the trade union movement, and strive to raise the consciousness of the working class in this time when our slogan Socialism is the Future Build it Now has never been a more appropriate rallying cry!
Cde Schreiner is an SACP Politburo and Central Committee member and a former MK combatant, political prisoner, and government department Director-General
Cosatu's role in mobilising against Covid-19
By Sisa Njikelana
The current outbreak of Covid-19 has brought to the surface a number of known challenges as a reminder, but it also creates a window of opportunities to address such challenges using new tools and strategies as part of our transformation journey.
The changing role of the progressive labour movement is imperative during such episodes in our lives - a feature that also calls for bold union leadership! It is a leadership that should not only engage in fighting the Covid-19 outbreak but ought to ensure that workers interests are not only advanced but entrenched in the post-Covid-19 recovery initiatives. Without any doubt other social sectors are busy ensuring their interests are safeguarded after this pandemic.
The recent persistent public statements by various unions bear testimony to our lack of preparedness to tackle Covid-19 on the battlefield as compared to retreating into lockdown. The rejection of returning to school due to lack of readiness by government, the strong calls for PPE's at the workplace as workers are increasingly falling victim of infections, and which is unfortunately receiving lacklustre response, the emerging battles due to retrenchments, murky and doubtful business rescues for distressed companies are amongst a litany of growing number of incidents that call for more assertive leadership from all in Cosatu.
Given the ever-raging debate about how we transform our economy, this is another opportunity for Cosatu to support any initiative with added strength. Cosatu must build a formidable campaign out of this crisis - unfortunate as it may be - and propagate for an economic system that will be more resilient and capable, including reinvigorating the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) policy. This would include, inter alia, redirecting the economy to productive sectors rather than persistent financialisation that benefits a few.
Addressing the resilience of our economy is not a phenomenon that can be initiated in the middle of a crisis and we need therefore to rebuild the economy to ensure that it will bounce back every time it experiences distress. Mobilising for the alternative system cannot be viewed as an academic exercise since currently we are witnessing the caving in of capitalism to this current crisis notwithstanding incessant efforts to prop up the system.
A combination of fighting against Covid-19 with a focus on post-Covid-19 recovery initiatives, especially economic revitalisation, is non-negotiable. Covid-19 will eventually pass and leave us with untold socio-economic devastation, which is why we have to prepare for the aftermath whilst simultaneously battling the virus. Another combined thrust is that of revitalising the economy whilst integrating it with intensified struggle for workers - a combined campaign that must not be viewed as mutually exclusive.
Resurgence of international solidarity amongst workers, which has lamentably been on the decline, must be back in the arsenal that workers use for their welfare in such times of crisis. However, there is a dire need for strengthening the soft underbelly of trade unions and guarding against inward-looking tendencies within the labour movement and destructive trade union rivalry. Going beyond the paradigm of the federation's organisational confines and mobilising workers irrespective of affiliation, is a call that Cosatu must champion with the passion it deserves at this time.
With regards to public service, a case for a transformed public servant to buttress the transformation of the public service has to be championed. The public service has been challenged for being unproductive and definitely the Covid-19 outbreak can only serve to deteriorate the severely compromised productivity in the public service - hence the need for a creative approach of remoulding the current public servant into a transformed cadre that conducts himself or herself as patriot rather a conventional staff member.
This current juncture demands a more adaptive attitude and strategy by unions to inspire creativity in finding solutions by workers and not depending on being always directed by employers and government. That is why we need to explore indigenous methods and promote multi-pronged strategies which ought to include crafting new forms of crisis readiness.
Engagement with various stakeholders must unavoidably be more robust if Cosatu is convinced we are at war against Covid-19. This virus has displayed it lethal features by being borderless and classless. That is why building a stronger political, social and economic ally with various stakeholders beyond the labour movement by ensuring that organised civil society understands and supports workers on job losses is paramount.
Cosatu must play its role in nurturing relations within the Alliance more than before including the remobilisation of trade union veterans to provide support. Every resource at the disposal of the workers must be utilised for the advancement of their interests during such times of crisis.
We need to advance alternatives through intensive mobilisation by taking the battle against Covid-19 to the workplace and safeguard our health and welfare optimally whilst carrying out our daily duties.
Cosatu must join the fight against stigmatisation of workers and others who with Covid-19. Such degenerate behaviour serves to divide us, The disruptions of family lives due to job losses and deaths mean that Cosatu has to join forces with other social formations.
The “new” workplace for specific jobs categories is working from home. Intersectoral collaboration must be explored by unions before this creates unnecessary suspicions and avoidable tensions with those workers who unavoidably have to be at their usual workplaces. to perform their duties.
Efforts to search for alternative financial enablement, strengthening cooperatives to absorb those who have lost their job, campaigning for rescue efforts such as lay-off schemes, turnaround solutions including productivity improvements must be advanced. Workers ought to explore buying businesses that are closing down. Cosatu has to invest more in this.
Strengthening the role of shop stewards during such challenging times may also mean exploring new roles and skills which may include intensive monitoring and evaluation of anti-Covid-19 practices at the workplace.
Workers should campaign for skills enhancement in all its forms to ensure safe workplaces, job retention and therefore sustainability of the companies they are working in. Workers should enhance Occupational Health and Safety at the workplace, especially in companies that are lacking in implementation.
Samwu (South African Municipal Workers' Union) noted “with great concern that municipalities were never ready for lockdown level 5 and 4, there is therefore no reason for us to believe that they will be ready for a more relaxed level 3 which includes the return of all workers. Our members have been reporting to us the failure by municipalities to provide them with the necessary Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for them to be able to fully and safely execute their duties. Other municipalities have gone to an extent of requesting workers to buy their own PPEs, essentially subsidizing the operations of the employer.”
Samwu, supported by Cosatu and having mobilised other unions in local government sector, should campaign for diversion of the current unspent municipal funds to secure PPE's. Nehawu and other public sector unions within Cosatu should also campaign for this. Lack of funds cannot be a deterrent to access PPE's to protect the lives of public sector workers, their families as well as the public whom they are serving on daily basis.
Recently Cosatu said that about Eskom that its “approach is based upon a social compact, where all parties from government to labour, business and society make a contribution and where necessary, a sacrifice for the sake of the national interest.” This statement highlights the need to champion national interests which should not compromise workers' interests.
Cosatu must also ensure that workers have an upper hand in the battle against Covid-19 at the workplace in preparation for bigger battles such as the devastating effects of this pandemic. Strengthening the confidence of the workers at this juncture is so crucial. Cosatu's mobilisation strategy ought to go beyond ensuring that workers simply follow compliance as directed by government. Workers must embrace the rationale for current hygienic and other safety measures for the sake of their health and socio-economic prosperity.
Whilst Cosatu has always played a crucial leadership role in the South African society, the intensification of its role has never been more needed especially to advance the interests of the workers and defend their hard-earned gains.
Cde Sisa Njikelana is a former General Secretary of the South African Allied Workers Union, underground ANC member,an SACP member, former MP and chair of the South African Independent Power Producers Associatio
Who is Meant to be Organising Foreign National Workers?
Benson Ngqentsu
In the historic workers' month, the Minister of Employment and Labour was reported in the Sowetan of 8 May 2020 as having unveiled plans to limit the hiring of foreign nationals in certain sectors of the economy through legislative measures. According to the report, this may include sectoral targets or quotas for foreign nationals. It is said that this is not new and happens across the world. This stance cannot be left unchallenged as the move deepens divisions between workers from South Africa and foreign nationals from the rest of the Southern African region.
The move is ahistorical and bent on cutting corners. The responsibility for this lies on the shoulders of the labour movement in the country and the Southern African region as a whole. The neglect by the labour movement to organise foreign national workers from the Southern African region is suicidal. It defeats the basic principles of worker unity and betrays the hard-won democratic gains of trade unionism in the democratic South Africa.
The evolution of labour practices in South Africa
The labour movement must recognise the evolution of labour practices in South Africa, particularly the introduction of the migrant worker system. This evolutionary phase is best expressed in the “Road to South African Freedom”, which observed that “Dominating the all-White parliament, the representatives of the wealthy Boer farmers and the imperialist mine-owners joined in an unholy alliance to squeeze the last drop of cheap labour out of the African people. The state developed the contract system of migrant labour, separating the wage-earner from his family, so that the employer would not have to pay for the maintenance of the worker's wife and children. The democratic, co-operative basis of tribal society was broken down, and the entire African people turned into a rightless community of impoverished peasants and underpaid forced labourers in White-controlled farms, mines and factories”.
History teaches us that it is not the first time that a South African government introduces job reservations. The colonial government did it in the 1900s. Thus in September 1918, the Chamber of Mines was able to sign an agreement with the then organised section of White workers that 'no position filled by a White worker should be given to an African or Coloured worker”. In essence, the state legislation and subsequently the agreement with the Chamber of Mines was deepening oppression on the basis of nationality.
It is this reemergence of history albeit in a different form that Karl Marx warns us of; a history that repeats itself, first as tragedy, and second as farce. This must always guide the working class in responding to the tyranny of capitalism and its inhuman methods of operation. This is particularly important as the red flags of modern day slavery appear to be strong, post the 1994 democratic breakthrough.
As Vietor and Comin observed in the paper South Africa (A): Stuck in the Middle, the South African economy changed forever after the discovery of gold. This change was due to the manipulation of the economy by the British colonialists which used South Africa's natural resources as an accumulation vehicle for their colonial interests. In Terreblanche's book “Lost in Transformation”, Fine argues that this resulted in the concentration of the South African economy by the mineral and energy complex and financial oligopolies. Hence, much of the SADC region remains the labour reservoir for South African monopoly capital. However, the exploitation of foreign national workers in contemporary South Africa has expanded to other sectors like hospitality, agriculture and security industries, to mention but a few.
Today foreign national workers from our neighboring countries are neo-liberal instruments to lower labour costs by displacing local workers. In some instances, greedy capitalists salvage out of the undocumented workers by stripping them of their constitutionally guaranteed rights, for profit maximisation. These workers are paid at extremely low rates, not to self-sustain, but to merely survive in a foreign world.
What further compounds the problem is the fragmentation of workers in the workplace, which has led to the dwindling of solidarity amongst workers. Firstly, in a single workplace, workers are employed by different employers and, accordingly, whether they are sub-contracted, core, casualised or labour broker workers, have different conditions of employment. The second reality is that, those workers may not be organised into a trade union, the only vehicle capable of uniting workers at a point of production. And thirdly, there is no class solidarity at the workplace between the foreign nationals and local workers. So, the historic and programmatic slogan of South Africa's labour federation COSATU that 'an injury to one is an injury to all' is no longer a living reality in this mayhem of a divided labour force. Today an injury to local workers, inflicted by employers, has become an opportunity for foreign national workers, because employers recruit them as scab and cheap labour.
Unite and organise
The question must be asked,“What is to be done”? To begin with, we must enlighten those with no appreciation of the historical background of the labour system in the African continent. It is this historic relation between labour and capital, a chain that still connects our present to the past, which the labour movement must understand and untangle. All must understand that the migration of workers from one country to another in Southern Africa cannot be blamed on the poor workers of Malawi, Zimbabwe, Lesotho or other countries. The capitalist colonial system is responsible for the make-up of our African borders and the broader current state of affairs. So, blaming foreign national workers or their leaders is divisive and reactionary and a reflection of ideological shallowness, indicative of either or both reformism (not addressing the class aspect of the problem) and opportunism (exploiting the problem for personal or other advantage).
Since the upsurge of violence against foreign nationals, some, including senior government leaders, have consistently blamed, in the most unscientific manner, the absence of legislation to regulate the employment of foreign nationals. Such thinking is utterly wrong. It is misleading and in fact, represents a deeply reactionary, right-wing school of thought. All, including the right wing opportunists, must know and appreciate that the challenges facing the SADC region and the broader African continent are structural and systemic. No amount of legislation will serve as a silver bullet to alleviate the pain of the structural and systematic capitalist offensive against the working class. The root of the problem must be addressed.
The issue here is capitalism. The labour movement must play its revolutionary role to confront the modern slavery of the foreign national workers by South Africa's capital. Working class leaders must embrace the rallying call of Karl Marx, “Workers of the world, UNITE! You have nothing to lose but your chains.” History teaches us that South Africa's major unions, such as the National Union of Mineworkers, were built by workers, some of which were foreign migrant workers. So, the secret of workers, across the globe, is unity - a strong, independent and fighting labour movement guided by the vanguard Party capable of championing the interests of the workers. Workers across race, gender and nationality must close ranks and confront their only real enemy, the evil system of capitalism.
Benson Ngqentsu is the SACP Western Cape Provincial Secretary and a former trade union organiser.
Pushing back the impact of Covid-19 and hunger in Khayelitsha
Monde Nqulwana
The country is currently grappling with the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the world is being forced into an unprecedented state of uncertainty and unpredictability.
I serve as a councillor in Khayelitsha -ward 89 - in the third biggest township in the country with high levels of unemployment, particularly among youth and women. Khayelitsha consists of 13 wards. On average, 30 percent of 12 of the wards are comprised of informal settlements, hence the need for poverty alleviation or a 'social relief of distress rapid plan' during this novel coronavirus pandemic. Currently Khayelitsha has over 94,000 beneficiaries of social grants, with over 62,000 child support grants and approximately 15,000 old age grants.
Food security for the majority of the community has been at an all-time low. In this regard, the response of the Western Cape Provincial Government to the pandemic, particularly in poor African townships, was not only unscientific but also an attempt at 'gaslighting' black people in particular, for narrow party-political expediency.
The announcement of our country's lockdown, compelling South Africans to stay home and only being allowed to go out to buy essential goods and food, increased the need of many poor people for food parcels as a relief. The commitment by government to provide food parcels to the unemployed and distressed people during this novel pandemic through SASSA, was initially welcomed whole-heartedly. As we started helping indigent people to submit their details for verification, as per the criterion set by SASSA, the process revealed itself as being too bureaucratic (over-concerned with procedure at the expense of efficiency or common sense).
SASSA commenced distribution from April 15 till May 23, providing 1,985 food parcels to approximately 9,925(5 per household) people for the entire Khayelitsha. Not only was there a whole month without any movement by SASSA to feed the poor, needy communities, but the support given was a far cry from the 130,000 people that were eligible for aid. Councillors were compelled to find other ways to assist our communities.
If the word food parcel was an application-based commercial asset, it would be just below the Zoom App as it became a buzzword for different people, for many reasons. This was mainly because of the incapacity of SASSA to deliver on its mandate; corrupt practises as some councillors in some parts of the country were found redirecting or looting what was meant for poor people; and the continuous demand for food relief as people were put out of work by the lockdown.
As part of the comprehensive local strategy to reduce the impact of Covid-19 on the livelihoods of the people of Khayelitsha, I, assisted by ward committees and Community Development Workers (CDWs), mobilised all stakeholders and relevant sectors within Khayelitsha to facilitate a seamless and corrupt-free food parcel distribution process. To this end, the programme entailed a careful, but cumbersome process of identifying indigent households and a detailed action plan for the equitable distribution of food parcels across all the 13 wards of Khayelitsha. Considering the huge demand which amounted to approximately 26,000 eligible households, we had to be meticulous in our planning and coordination.
As new cases of coronavirus infections continue to rise, with Khayelitsha being a hotspot, the socio-economic conditions under which people continue to live serve as a painful reminder of the legacy of apartheid's skewed spatial planning and the discriminatory laws that defined the racist character of that discredited regime. Accordingly, the response to this public health emergency requires a coordinated effort through a multi-pronged sectoral approach that would minimise the risks of further infections. Central to our efforts to overcome and eventually defeat this invisible enemy is mass mobilisation, harnessing scarce skills within our community, exercising personal hygiene and observing the basic prevention measures like wearing face masks and social distancing.
While the outbreak of the coronavirus has exposed the deep-seated socioeconomic inequalities in society and the vulnerability of the capitalist system, it also provided us with an opportunity to advance and deepen the struggle for the total emancipation of the poor and the working class masses of the Western Cape. We must remain vigilant - never before, since the end of the Cold War, has the need to deepen and intensify the struggle for socialism been so necessary - thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic.
* Cde Nqulwana is a SACP PEC member and ward Councillor in Cape Town
The re-emergence of ethnocentrism and its effects on the revolution
Tinyiko Ntini
“Discover the truth through practice, and again through practice, verify and develop the truth. Start from perpetual knowledge and actively develop it into rational knowledge; then start from rational knowledge and actively guide revolutionary practice to change both the subjective and the objective world. This form repeats itself in endless cycles, and with each cycle the content of practice and knowledge rises to a higher level. Such is the whole of the dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge, and as such is the dialectical-materialist theory of the unity of knowing and doing”. Mao Tse Tung.
For centuries, most African countries were flung together by former colonial powers out of diverse ethnic, religious and regional communities, making them among the most diverse nations on earth. The colonial powers exploited these differences to play off communities against each other and so reinforce their control over them. Many countries in the continent are still trapped in the demon of tribalism, religion and regionalism. These bad elements are traced from the former colonisers over centuries in our continent.
It is encouraging that most countries that have applied the theory of knowing and doing, appreciating the bad effects of tribalism, religion and regionalism, and have since developed mechanisms to deal with them. For instance, Tanzania has recorded great improvement in managing and dealing with these demons and the immediate efforts had seen the country getting united behind common objectives against the bad elements. This also applies also to the situation of Angola, Cape Verde, Ghana, Mauritius, Namibia and South Africa, amomg others. Revolutionaries must acknowledge these challenges that persist and the movement must act swiftly against such tendencies.
The post-democratic breakthrough in South Africa has not been easy, in particular in reversing the legacy of the past. That is why pre-democracy features are still visible 26 years since after 1994. Among others, the principle and vision of a non-sexist, non-racial, united and prosperous country in appreciating our diversity remains a challenge due to some what can be termed 'compromises' of Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa).
The provincialisation of our country, which creates a sort of federalism, has contributed to ethnic divisions - for example, Eastern Cape for Xhosas and KwaZulu-Natal for Zulus. Some of the provinces are organised in the same way the colonial powers managed to divide us and this even affects service delivery.
To address the interrelated contradictions of class, race and gender, we need a new revolution with activists ready to dismantle the old order regardless of who is part of it. It's important to find a committed and radical zeal among the revolutionary activists to build consciousness amongst our people inclusive about so-called revolutionaries who are held bent on thriving through divisions.
It is shameful for revolutionaries to play into the hands of the demon of ethnocentrism. One's ideas are now informed by which tribe one comes from or area of residence. At a political level, we fall into the trap of discussing leadership questions in an ethnocentric approach.
It diminishes inclusive nationalism and patriotism. It is reckless in that it open doors for enemies of the revolution who dont sleep at night in their efforts to instigate ethnic and regional friction between the people, thereby reversing our hard-earned liberation struggle.
Given the negative role apartheid and colonialism played in our country, it is highly disappointing to see some senior comrades mobilising for relevance and sympathy towards conferences along tribal and regional lines. Tribalism and regionalism are dangerous in our society and unacceptable in a revolutionary movement, especially a a Marxist-Leninist organisation.
At certain times in the revolutionary struggle, the difficulties outweigh the favourable conditions and constitute the principal aspect of the contradictions and the favourable conditions constitute the secondary aspects.
Most of comrades will never survive a day in a decisive, iron- disciplined organisation like the Communist Party of China. There are exchanges with them from time to time which are meant for our comrades to learn lessons to implement.
As part of defining our generational mission, all forms of backward tendencies must be confronted without fear, favour or prejudice. A process of self-introspection and thereafter cultivation of corrections will help in mitigating these challenges. To forget about our immediate gains and speak against the re-emergence of ethnocentrism in our ranks will bring back a renewed hope not only to our membership but society at large that we are ready to learn and are ready to govern.
Inspired by Lenin, we say: yes, unity is a great thing and a great slogan. However we are not ready to unite with everyone who preaches unity without practising it. We say, yes, to unity with progressive forces who are willing to confront all tendencies and we say no to disruptors of peace.
e say, yes to those who want to build a strong, revolutionary organisation and no to liquidationists. We say, yes to nation-builders and no to ethno-centrists!
Cde Ntini is National Secretary of the Young Communist League of South Africa.
Black lives should matter: Towards an intersectional approach
Precious Banda
News of the painful killing of George Floyd by the racist American police touched every corner of the world. Media reports and social media shared the rage we all felt, we all united behind the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. Black people from different countries demonstrated their anger. In some countries they even went as far as destroying symbols of racism which included the statues of former colonial leaders and slave traders who presided over oppression and the displacement of Black people across the world. Social media in Africa was not left behind, political organisations condemned the killing of George Floyd.
South Africa had just lost Collins Khosa who had died at the hands of soldiers. He was from Alexandra in Gauteng, one of the many townships in South Africa that monumentally represent the historical and existing class inequalities that characterise South Africa. Black people elsewhere have a similar past of oppression and subjugation. I wondered why here in South Africa there was so much outrage and protests for George Floyd and so little for Collins Khosa. Both were Black men condemned by racism and police/army brutality because of the colour of their skins. But why did we not get equally angry for Collins as we did for George? This was an indictment on us as Black people with our inherited prejudiced classism also perpetuated by ourselves. If Black lives Matter, George Floyd matters as much as Collins Khosa's.
The conversation on Black lives in Africa and in South Africa is very relevant and if channelled properly, it could address self-hate by Blacks and also Black on Black violence. Though Black on Black violence has historical connotations as a weapon used by a minority racist regime to polarise and defeat the unity of the Black majority , it has continued even where we govern in a democracy. This is evident by the rife tribalism that we experience daily. Tribalism is worse in political circles. For as long as we continue to perpetuate tribalism politically, economically, professionally or in any other structural and systematic ways, we have no moral standing to proclaim Black lives matter.
South Africa has successfully built a bad name for itself in Africa for being known to look down on other Africans. This perception is cemented by the continuous xenophobic attacks that are usually spin doctored and called all sorts of names to justify them. It is in fact not only xenophobia but also racist and Afrophobic . It is inflicted on only Black foreign nationals. The white foreigner who invests in big corporate spaces and stays in suburbia never experiences the kind of Xenophobia Black Africans experience in South Africa. With the past xenophobic attacks and the stigmatisation and criminalisation of African foreign nationals, my conscience revolts when I attempt to proudly say #BlackLivesMatter. If Black lives really matter, Afrophobia has to fall.
Again this year, we learnt of how racism manifests in our ally, China. Black people who are in China receive the harshest treatment. We saw videos of Blacks in China calling for help. News reports showed how Blacks had been discriminated during the lockdown and were dehumanised without attention from Chinese authorities. Political formations in South Africa wrote statements to the Chinese government imploring it to address the discrimination of Blacks and Africans in particular. The rage was managed because China is our “progressive” friend in the fight against imperialism by the West led by America. But China itself has been like America in Africa undermining the sovereignty of African countries with its vicious capitalistic debt policies that see it take over state owned enterprises in Africa threatening state security and sovereignty of countries like Zambia. This is because China has been able to give these African states foreign aid at slightly better terms than the Bretton Wood institutions only to act like all imperialist countries when these poor failing African countries cannot pay the debt. If Black lives matter, we must be able to tell the Chinese the truth and to freely condemn their communist capitalism which is hidden in the name of a progressive country whom we share trenches with in the struggle against the historical imperialist states.
While we were busy with lectures and programmes on “Black lives matter” and our fight against racism, we received the news of the killing of Naledi Pangindawo from Mossel Bay. Naledi was slain allegedly by her boyfriend. We also received news of the killing of the eight-months pregnant Tshegofatso Pule who was stabbed and hanged, also allegedly by her boyfriend. There was also Mikateko Vukeya from Giyani who was allegedly burnt with spirit by her boyfriend, she is currently recovering, though her face and body will never be the same.
So, during the lockdown in South Africa, women have been raped and violated. Women and children die at the hands of men every day. Whenever there is outrage for the killing of women and children, we stand alone as women, especially young women. The men don't sufficiently stand with us when we call for #WomenLivesMatter. Black men want us to commend them when they call for #BlackLivesMatter yet they always turn a blind eye to #WomenLivesMatter. As a Black woman, my life matters as much as a Black man's. I call on all progressive men to get angry whenever a woman is killed at the hands of a man. I call on them to openly and unashamedly condemn and fight other men who kill and violate women. For Black lives to matter, women's lives must matter!
Black lives will really matter the day we give the displaced majority back their land. It will matter the day we change the structure of the economy in the interests of the poor majority. It will matter the day we develop the skills of the majority and decolonise education. Black lives will matter when we change the social position of the poor majority. Black lives will matter when we commit to fight poverty, inequality and unemployment. Black lives will matter when the people are treated with dignity. And when hunger and homelessness are fought. Black lives will matter when we fight corruption and we don't steal from the people. Indeed, Black lives matter.
* Cde Banda is the National Convenor of the ANCWL Young Women's Desk and a Member of the YCLSA National Committee and ANC National Youth Task team
Great crises always deliver great solutions
Chris Matlhako
'Great crises always deliver great solutions' is the title of a speech delivered by the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro in September 1998, at the South African Parliament. Fidel Castro had been invited by President Nelson Mandela and provided with a rare opportunity to address the joint sitting of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces.
In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic imposed all-round crisis, invoking the thoughts and ideas propounded by Castro then, provides for an opportunity to thoroughly engage the possible solutions and actions required to respond to the crisis. The reflections by Fidel Castro at the time, seem to be prophetic in so many ways, as we live through the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has ravaged the globe since its emergence late last year. There's a relationship between what Castro asserted at the time and the dire consequences propelled by the advent of the novel corona Covid-19 pandemic.
The pandemic has led to a shutdown of global production and created (and continues) a generalised belief, that because of the crisis, the post Covid-19 world will (and should) be markedly different. Depending on the balance of forces, global neoliberal capitalism might be reasserted in a differentiated way; or the majority of the world population - the poor and marginalised - will impose their will on global affairs more significantly.
This is no different for South Africa. Over two and half decades into the democratic dispensation, amidst the deferred dreams of the majority, the crisis engendered by the global pandemic far exceeds the issue of health. Beyond the chaos and uncertainty of the present, the question is whether a new social model and political order is possible in the near future.
The politics of pandemics
There is convergence with assertions made by Castro and Cuba's superior medical prowess, which has become, the seeming source of hope for the entire globe. Its medical brigades have been deployed in almost all of the countries ravaged by the virus, including for the first time since the post-1959 revolutionary Cuba, in Europe.
In addition to the efficacy of the Cuban primary healthcare focus, its bio-pharmaceutical advancement has enabled it to offer treatment regimens, some of which are not available in the United States and Canada. A key component of the protocols being used on the island and in the medical missions is Cuba's Interferon Alfa 2B Recombinant (IFNrec). While IFNrec is not a panacea, preliminary reports are promising, pointing to IFNrec's efficacy (combined with other drugs) in treating Covid-19. In the recently published extensive medical handbook by Zhejiang University School of Medicine in China on how to treat Covid-19, IFNrec is a crucial component of the anti-viral treatment to combat the coronavirus. It's also used as a preventative measure to protect healthcare workers from contagion. At least 45 countries have sought to use IFNrec for confronting the Covid-19 pandemic.
Castro's reflections on HIV/AIDS also applies to the current Covid-19 pandemic in that, if not managed correctly, treatment will be very costly. "The awful HIV is expanding in geometric proportions. When I say that the whole nations of Africa are at risk of disappearing, it is not an overstatement, and you know it. Each infected person would have to pay $10 000 a year in medication only to survive, while the health budgets can hardly allocate $10 to spend on each person's health. At present prices, $250 billion would have to be invested each year, in Africa, only to fight AIDS. Owing to this, 9 out of every 10 persons dying from AIDS in the world die, in Africa."
Economic impact
The Covid-19 pandemic has spread rapidly around the world, striking almost every country, causing lockdowns and quarantines, and therefore having an immense - and continued - impact on social and economic life. Even as the virus seems to have been contained in many parts of the world, the return of this strain and of the other thousands of strains of the coronavirus should be anticipated. This global pandemic, like the outbreak of cholera in 1832 and the flu in 1918, will return in cycles.
The real and devastating CoronaShock, is the rising unemployment, precariousness, and all-round distress in many sectors and fractions of our population, as the loss of incomes, breakdown of infrastructure and hopelessness carry the day with devastating consequences.
Naomi Klein says: "A state of shock is not just when something bad happens. It's what happens to us when we lose our narrative ... when we lose our story ... become disoriented. What keeps us oriented and out of shock is our history. So, a period of crisis like the one we are in is a very good time to think about history. To think about continuities ... to think about roots. It's a good time to place ourselves in a longer human story of struggle."
Country after country has gone into various forms and lengths of lockdowns as the virus has infected more and more people and killed thousands. As a result of the quarantines and isolation orders, economic activity has shuddered to a near halt. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) released a report which suggested that 25 million jobs will be lost due to the CoronaShock, and that workers will lose about $3.4 trillion in income by the end of the year. It could get worse, as businesses and corporations are taking advantage of CoronaShock to restructure their operations to become more 'efficient' with less employees.
A consequence of long-term unemployment and underemployment, as well as of uncertainty in the oil market, is that the global growth rate will likely splutter down to around 1%, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) suggests; even this is predicated upon Chinese growth which - though dented - is expected to increase as the Covid-19 seems to have been managed within the country's borders. Stock markets from Hang Seng to Wall Street saw significant losses, their already inflated value collapsing. In South Africa, with its high levels of racialised inequality, unemployment and poverty, the consequences for the poor and marginalised in particular, are dire.
Though huge sums of money have poured into the system, 'it becomes very clear that the problem was not illiquidity in financial markets, which was one of the causes of the 2008-09 financial crisis, but a concatenation of events: the lack of certainty about the coronavirus, the rapid decline in oil prices, and the long-term problems of unemployment and underemployment', argues the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research. The money raised is supposed to deal with the CoronaShock, but how it will be spent is precisely the issue at hand. There is a habit in a capitalist society to throw money at banks and at large corporations. Experience shows us, however, that these entities seldom use this money to meet key goals related to our predicament: to provide relief for the general public - including the provision of income and jobs - and to provide a long-term solution to social inequality.
Is a new world order possible?
The global pandemic shows us the clear destructive tendencies of capitalism in its neoliberal phase. This conjuncture, with the slowdown of economic activity and the turbulence in the stock markets, has turned neoliberal capitalist leaders and multilateral institutions into Keynesians - be they Angela Merkel (Germany) and Emmanuel Macron (France) or the World Bank and the IMF. Each of them opened windows at their central banks and in their finance ministries to pour money into the private sector (and to expand state programmes).
The emergence of the novel coronavirus and the crisis that it has caused, reveal the decay of capitalist civilisation. Perhaps the world will not be the same after the pandemic has been contained. The eroded neoliberal state can either be supplanted by a state structure that favours the neo-fascist project, or by one that builds public institutions and public action that put the needs of the people over profit. This is a formidable choice. There is anxiety in sections of the neoliberal bloc that whatever policies of a social nature are put in place on an emergency basis during the CoronaShock might become hard to undo; it will take more than inertia to ensure that any gains made in this period remain in place when the immediate crisis is over. The ANC-ruling Alliance has to seriously contemplate and appreciate this fact, if it hopes to remain true to its historic mission and those who sacrificed so much for our freedom and democracy.
Fidel Castro suggested then that Nelson Mandela's democratic South Africa, 'was the perhaps best hope for human dignity. "The contradictions between hopes, possibilities and priorities is not only a South African domestic affair, but something that is being debated, and that will still continue to be debated, amongst the honest theoreticians of many countries", he said.
"Can the world contemplate this catastrophe with indifference? Can mankind, with its amazing scientific advances, confront this situation or not? Why go on talking to us about macroeconomic indexes and other eternal lies, prescriptions and more of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organisation (WTO), about the miraculous virtues of the blind market laws and wonders of neoliberal globalisation? Why is it that these realities are not taken for what they are? Why not seek other formulas and admit that man is able to organise his life and his destiny in a more rational and humane manner?"
In our efforts to develop solutions for a post-Covid-19 democratised and transformed South Africa, our leaders and country should, if genuinely interested in rolling back the legacy of the apartheid, neoliberalism, manifesting in the deepening racial-class and gender fissures, critically consider the advice Castro provided in his speech at parliament. The problems of our country require steadfast leadership, democracy, and empathy towards the excluded majority and the fundamental transformation of the socio-economic relations that currently define the tapestry of our nation. The 'silver lining' as it were in this crisis, is the real possibility of reimagining a more just and equitable society for all our people. "Let South Africa become a model of a more just humane future world. If you can achieve it, all of us will be able to."
* Cde Chris Matlhako is the Second Deputy General Secretary of the SACP,
Editor-in-chief
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Deputy editors-in-chief
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