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Volume 14, No. 20, 22 May 2015 |
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Red Alert Allister Sparks and Hendrik Verwoerd, Mondli Makhanya and Adolf Hitler, media-cum-opposition in the name of freedom but "freedom" |
By Alex Mashilo
Freedom only for the opposition and the supporters of opposition in a democratic transition which was brutally opposed by the supremacist minority that oppressed the majority is no freedom at all. It is the basic condition for the suppression of democratic majority rule, it is one of the elements concerned with the ultimate overthrow of the very democratic transformation which lies at the heart of the transition. Freedom must always be an equal right and freedom for all. Its effectiveness vanishes when it becomes an exclusive preserve for the like-minded who coalesce on opposition to a democratically elected majority government. From that moment on such a freedom becomes an anti-thesis of freedom, a farce, a condition for the repetition of the past history of the political dictatorship of the minority over the majority.
Rosa Luxemburg must be turning in her grave to see how I have inverted her thesis and turned it diametrically against its own face. Joe Slovo was right in ‘Has socialism failed?’ to point out that Luxemburg’s “words may not have been appropriate as policy (which is what Luxemburg argued for) in the special conditions of the phase immediately after the seizure of power [in Russia] in October 1917”. But the implication of the synthesis I developed as reflected above with the changes I necessarily made is that Slovo erred to suggest that “Luxemburg’s concept of freedom is surely incontrovertible once a society has achieved stability”.
In a class divided society such as South Africa where the economy remains under the dictatorship of the class minority, the capitalists – both domestic and foreign, stability is not possible because they continue to exploit the class majority, the workers. The diehard class minority has never changed. They are hostile to the democratically elected government in the same way as they were opposed to the liberation struggle notwithstanding their new methods of work and new partners in pursuit of their old opposition to the liberation movement.
As we have seen from other revolutions, instability in various forms can be imposed from outside. This is the situation in which Cuba has found itself for over half a century since its revolution in 1959. And there are many other examples involving externally driven regime changes, in the extreme through imperialist military campaigns. In a class divided society, and by this we are not referring just to a single country but society as a whole, real stability will only become possible when class exploitation and class distinctions have disappeared.
But then many institutions which are necessary under a class divided society will not be necessary in a classless society. Until then, class struggle will always take place. As Karl Marx and Frederick Engels state in the Communist Manifesto, class struggle, an outgrowth of a class divided society, is a constant and uninterrupted process, but at times it is hidden, while at other times it openly breaks out. This is what the ANC Strategy and Tactics document refers to when it recognises that the class struggle between capital and labour will at times become acute. It is mostly here where others refer to the process as instability.
Therefore Luxemburg’s thesis is unworthy of any credibility in the field of revolutionary theory. It is actually a deviation from the Marxist theory of the state as developed by Marx and Engels. This theory was enriched by Vladimir Lenin mainly in the State and Revolution and through the practical experiences of the Great October Socialist Revolution which took place in Russia in 1917, thus, thenceforth Marxist-Leninist theory of the state. Luxemburg’s deviation actually occurred in a polemic with Lenin on this and other issues concerning the state, party organisation and discipline.
Having laid down our theoretical intervention, let us now turn our focus in this thesis on the realities from which we have drawn our data for the conclusions we have reached.
Hypocrisy and sections of the media acting as the conduits of opposition
In January there was a big hullabaloo when Independent Group Executive Editor Karima Brown and Opinion and Analysis Group Editor Vukani Mde sported ANC T-shirts at its 103rd anniversary in Cape Town. There was a huge media uproar fermented against Brown and Mde but the Independent Group. This was driven through electronic media outlets and print publications controlled by competing media interests such as Naspers, the Politicsweb, the Mail & Guardian and so on.
In the last general election the Mail & Guardian called for voters not to vote for the ANC. The newspaper’s stance on Brown and Mde was therefore not unexpected, as the paper continues to advance its opposition to the ANC. Every week the Mail & Guardian carries one or more headline or story which leaves the reader with an impression that the ANC is either mess or is messing up and must be removed from its leading position in government.
But then the public broadcaster, the SABC weighed in the fiasco through SAfm. “Independent” analysts and Editors from some of the above-mentioned media groups, including the Mail & Guardian, were assembled by the Forum@8 presented by Sakina Kamwendo. Surely those who set up the programme clearly understood where the Mail & Guardian stand. They were not disappointed. Brown and Mde were bashed to an extent that Brown had to call in to defend herself but not before she apologised that she underwent surgery, which inhibited her speech.
And the political party opposition, the DA acted by referring a complaint against Brown and Mde to the Press Ombudsman, who dismissed the “case”. The Press Ombudsman ruled that the institution could not judge Brown and Mde as the “behaviour” complained about was not followed by publication.
Hang on here?
This whole counter-movement against freedom of expression has been exposed for what it is. Rather than dealing with matters of principle, what we saw is a politics of opposition to the ANC and market competition in the media turning nasty.
Back in January 2014 when the DA announced its parliamentary lists, there were names left off from the public announcement by this “transparent” party. We were told that those names were “confidential candidates”. But the truth cannot be hidden permanently.
Unlike in the ANC where candidates are, in the main, democratically nominated and elected, the DA’s electoral lists are assembled from, at least, applications from what the then party leader Helen Zille said were “aspirant candidates”. It later turned out that practicing journalists, among them Brendon Boyle, now former Editor of the Daily Dispatch and Helga Van Staden, now former Municipal Reporter of Die Burger and former Crimes Reporter of the Herald, were part of the DA’s parliamentary lists.
During the hullabaloo on Brown and Mde, we were told that those DA-aligned journalists-cum-public representatives were objective in their work, because they were never seen wearing DA regalia. What a nonsense!
Again, it was as if those who criticised Brown and Mde for transparently exercising their freedom of expression without compromising their work were objective. This despite some of those critiques not only working for, but also supporting, media groups which adopted an opposition stance against the ANC, in particular, against revolutionary politics in general. As we have seen in the case of the Mail & Guardian, in a number of cases that stance has since moved from opposition to an anti-ANC stance “Anyone but the ANC” as campaigned for in one of the newspaper’s editorials in the eve of the general election held on 7 May 2014.
In fact many media groups which present themselves as fair and balanced are actually ideological mouthpieces of reactionary political ideologies such as conservatism and liberalism. Sadly, in South Africa such ideologies are historically interwoven with racism. Accordingly, opposition under the pretext of the so-called free market, to state intervention in the economy in the interests of the historically oppressed and the previously disadvantaged who remain continuously disadvantaged is actually against the democratically elected government viewed racially as the “black majority government”.
But let us be clearer. Not all the opposition, despite its various strands, is an outgrowth of domestic “original” conditions and competing interpretations on the solutions to the problems we face. Some sections of it are foreign controlled and funded. Therefore there is an opposition activity, both in the media and party political activities, which is part and parcel of Adam Smith’s “hidden hand” in its political activism – NOT his myth about such an inconceivable hand co-ordinating economic activity.
On we go.
Following the general election held on 7 May 2014, I led the ANCYL delegation to the offices of the Mail & Guardian after the league marched against the newspaper’s anti-ANC editorial stance. The Editor Angela Quintal and Deputy Editor Moshoeshoe Monare led the Mail & Guardian delegation. They argued that the newspaper was exercising its right to freedom of expression when it called for voters not to vote for the ANC. After discussing a number of issues the only agreement we reached with the Mail & Guardian at the meeting was to disagree. By the way, it is worth underlining that Monare was later to be one of the guests invited during that SAfm’s the Forum@8 programme mentioned above, where he criticised Brown and Mde.
According to the logic, pursued to its inner essence, freedom of expression is not a right but a privilege to be exercised by those who express opposition to the ANC or its Alliance partners. An extreme version of this logic was expressed on 10 May 2015 by Mondli Makhanya, the Editor at Large of the City Press, Naspers owned Media24 title. Naspers, a private media monopoly served as the mouthpiece of Afrikaner nationalism since 1915 and throughout the apartheid era, serving the Afrikaner broederbond very well.
Scrutinised thoroughly, Makhaya suggests that freedom of expression is only freedom of expression if it is not exercised by the ANC or its Alliance partners or supporters but by those opposed to, or even insulting the ANC or its leaders (as we have seen in the case of Brett Murray’s “Spear painting”). Unsurprisingly, Makhanya’s intervention entitled “Is speech in SA free?” says absolutely NOTHING about the first newspaper banning in government in a democratic South Africa.
Is it because the ban was imposed by the DA, a party opposed to the ANC?
The same political attitude was advanced by a guest on a radio programme who was asked why South Africa’s ranking on free press was recently revised downward (This is a subjective political decision by the way). He profiled all manner of accusations against the ANC. He never discussed the implications and the impact of the post-apartheid ban on a newspaper in government.
In its banning order, the Helen Zille DA-led provincial government prohibited all Western Cape departments from subscribing to the Cape Times. But the “unbiased” Makhanya, who claims to be concerned about media censoring, also failed in his piece to appreciate that action constitutes a concrete form of expression, and that it is not precluded from the right of freedom of expression. As Marx said in ‘Theses on Feuerbach’, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it”. Of course Mkhanya’s logic thought and thus argument got it wrong in the extreme. By the way protest action is protected in our country’s constitution under political rights and the ANC and its Alliance partners reserve their right to exercise it.
What we have seen in the media is that many of the self-proclaimed champions of freedom of expression are given monopoly space in the media as columnists, “analysts”, editor at large, etc. They say all manner of things about other organisations, institutions, government and people, who they criticise negatively without simultaneously being given an equal opportunity to exercise their right of reply. The ANC and its alliance partners have been on the receiving end of this operation both under apartheid and now post-1994.
It is in this context that the only views profiled as the so-called independent views are those in opposition or anti-ANC and its Alliance partners. This has even found its way in the academia, which is a disaster to education!
If a need has arisen to review the press code, we above point to one of the areas that must not be left out to give effect to the equal right of those who feel negatively affected by comments made about them in the media to respond with equal space granted to them.
By the way the opposition and the anti-ANC, anti-communist and anti-Alliance media content that now seeks to monopolise freedom of expression is not new. In many instances it is a continuation of the same old stance adopted under colonial oppression and apartheid by those media houses which were opposed to our struggle for liberation and social emancipation. That a similar politics is now advanced through the employment of black employees does not alter its essential character and the fundamental forces it benefits materially, politically and otherwise.
What about some of the latest developments?
A plot to orchestrate the downfall of Eastern Cape Premier Phumulo Masualle through embedded journalism allegedly leaked from one of the media houses where it was hatched. This is where some of the DA public representatives used to work as journalists. Who knows how many future DA “confidential candidates” remained behind, or continue their operations throughout the media? The question, however, goes high up.
An undisputed newspaper report last year stated that the DA was the only party that called the owner seeking to influence editorial content and coverage in that title’s media group. The move was reportedly rejected, and the DA was referred to proper procedures.
But then who knows how many owners accepted or willingly push the line that was rejected from the DA?
In its statement dealing with the alleged plot to manufacture the downfall of Masualle, the SACP in the Eastern Cape on 18 May 2015 expressed concern that the Daily Dispatch “has for a long time behaved as a newsletter of the opposition, in particular the DA as the leader of the anti-majoritarian offensive and the shop steward of those in control of the economy of our country, who remain dominantly white”.
Allister Sparks and Hendrik Verwoerd?
Sparks, the former Editor of the Rand Daily Mail recently addressed a DA conference in Port Elizabeth. Much of the criticism dealt with his appalling utterances saying apartheid dictator, Hendrik Verwoerd was a “smart politician”. He listed WHITE ONLY names of people who he said were smart politicians. Outgoing DA leader Helen Zille unsurprisingly backed Sparks.
But what was a journalist who is forced upon the readers as an independent analyst and columnist doing at a podium of a political party conference in session when he glorified a man who presided over a crime against humanity, apartheid as a smart politician?
Unprincipled media voices did not border to look at this question. Of course Sparks’s utterances were not made at an ANC National Conference but that of the opposition.
Beware of hypocritical voices in the media and politically motivated complaints to the Press Ombudsman coalescing on opposition to our country’s liberation movement and masked in the name of media independence!
Beware of a counter-revolution in the making in all its manifestations!
Mashilo is SACP Spokesperson, and writes in his capacity as a Professional Revolutionary.
We welcome the Cuban Five who will visit South Africa from 25 June to 5 July 2015
By Phaatse Justice Piitso
Last Sunday 17 May 2015 ANC Secretary General Comrade Gwede Mantashe made an announcement about the coming visit by the Five Cuban heroes to our country from 25 June to 5 July 2015. Let us take this opportunity to thank the ANC-led Alliance, under the leadership of President Jacob Zuma, for hosting the five heroes our international struggle for a humanity free from all forms of oppression, exploitation and domination.
The democratic people of our country, the continent and the whole world welcome the decision by the Alliance to host these heroic sons of the international working class struggles and solidarity. The Five Cuban heroes are a living testimony that through solidarity and internationalism, humanity can triumph over adversity and storm the heavens.
The working class and the entire of the world progressive movement welcome the great descendants from the homeland of Jose Antonio Aponte, a free slave of an African descent. Inspired by the revolution in Haiti, he led a rebellion in Cuba called the conspiracy of 1812, whose its mission was to overthrow Spanish colonialism and abolish slavery.
After a series of skirmishes with the Spanish colonial masters, Jose Antonio Aponte together with his fellow combatants were arrested and later executed by a military tribunal before the eyes of many of the citizens of Havana. But this was not just the end but the beginning of protracted struggles for the independence of the Cuban people from imperialism and colonialism.
The democratic people of our country and the world welcome the great descendants from the homeland of the warrior slave woman Carlota. A true hero of the struggle of the international proletariat movement, a warrior slave woman from Angola, an extraordinary revolutionary leader, who led one of the most successful slave rebellions in Cuba during the year 1843.
As a consequence of her indomitable acts of bravery, she paid the highest price when she was tied to several horses that were forced to run in opposing directions, badly tortured, broken apart and disfigured, and without mercy shot to death by the Spaniards colonial masters.
As a gesture of appreciation for the epic acts of indestructible common struggles and bonds of solidarity and brotherhood between Cuba and the African continent, the military operation by the Cuban revolution between the years 1975 and 1990 on our soil, was coded by the name Operation Carlotta.
We welcome the descendants from the homeland of Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, the father of the Cuban nation, the grandson of the Spanish colonialists, the first revolutionary in the history of the Cuban war for independence to release his own slaves. The first slave master to invite his own slaves to take the forefront trenches of the struggle for the independence of Cuba and the abolition of the system of slavery.
We welcome the great descendants from the homeland of Mariana Grajales, the mother of the Cuban nation, a great warrior woman who took her entire family, all her sons and daughters, to join the war against Spanish colonialism.
Our people welcome the great descendants from the homeland of the Apostolic Jose Marti, the Cuban national hero, a great warrior who declared slavery to be the world greatest sorrow. A revolutionary leader who declared the Island of Cuba the motherland of humanity.
Cuba is a country which has for over centuries suffered immensely double tragedies of holocaust. The tragedies of extermination of millions of the aboriginal community and the mass murder of millions of slaves from the African continent by Spanish colonial masters.
This is what defines the great Island of Jose Marti, a motherland of humanity. An epic nation with a great sense of patriotism, heroism, anti-imperialism and unwavering values to the principles of internationalism.
We welcome home the great descendants from the homeland of our Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro, our revolutionary guerrilla fighter who led the first ever historic military defeat of US imperialism in the American hemisphere. A revolutionary leader to construct the first successful socialist revolution at the “backyard” of the American empire.
The descendants from the homeland of the Commander-in-Chief who led the biggest military operation on the African continent, Operation Carlota. It was during this operation that courageous men and women from Cuba, together with our liberation movement defeated the vicious Apartheid system during the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola.
The battle was a turning point in the history of the struggle for the liberation of our continent from imperialism and colonial oppression and exploitation. A decisive battle which ushered in the independence of Namibia and our country South Africa.
Our people welcome home the descendants from the homeland of President Raul Castro, the Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party, a heroic rebel leader from the Moncada rebellion, a heroic rebel leader of the Sierra-Maestra mountains.
We will always be inspired by his courageous words of wisdom to humanity, when he said during the first congress of MPLA in Angola in 1977: "the day our presence here is no longer necessary, only the people of Angola will be able to issue that order. And when the Cubans here for that purpose withdraw from Angola, we will take with us neither oil, nor diamonds, nor coffee, no anything else, all that we will take with us in the indestructible friendship of this great people, and the remains of our dead".
Later in the year 1989, during an emotional ceremony held in Havana, the Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro had this to say: "at this very same moment, simultaneously in every corner of the country from which they came, the remains of all of the internationalists who fell in the fulfilment of their noble and glorious mission are being laid to rest"
Who are the Cuban Five heroes?
We welcome Comrades Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez. The democratic people of our continent and our country love you!
The Cuban Five heroes were arrested in Miami, Florida, in 1988, whilst on a mission to infiltrate terrorist organisations who were planning acts of sabotage against the Cuban revolution in the USA. The Cuban Five alerted the US authorities about the activities of the terrorists groups operating on their sovereign soil.
But instead of arresting the terrorists groups, the US administration decided on the contrary, to arrest the five heroes who were the direct whistle-blowers. Consistent with its hostile attitude towards the Cuban Revolution, they were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage against the US administration.
Without any evidence to prove their involvement in the alleged activities, to commit espionage or conspiracy to murder, or any act to put the lives of the American people in danger, they were given lengthy prison sentences.
Rene Gonzalez served the full length of his sentence and was released in 2012, but was only allowed to travel to Cuba in 2013. Fernando Gonzalez also served his full sentence and was released in 2014.
After direct talks between the US and the Cuban governments facilitated by Pope Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino and Antonio Guerrero were later released from prison.
Cde Ramon Labañino and Antonio Guerrero would have served their full sentences until 2024 and 2017, respectfully. Gerardo Hernandez would have died in prison as a consequence of his two consecutive life sentences.
The decision by the ANC-led Alliance to host the Cuban Five heroes in South Africa is consistence with the traditions of the struggles of the world progressive movement to emancipate humanity from the bondage of imperialism and neo-colonialism. This gesture is part of the contribution of the people of our country to the noble course of human solidarity and internationalism.
Over the century of our struggles, our movement has proven itself to be part of the world revolutionary movement. We are a national liberation movement rooted in the traditions of solidarity and internationalism.
Therefore our campaign for the release of our heroes and the end of the US led economic blockade against Cuba is part of our overall efforts to consolidate the unity of working class struggles across the world. Our campaign represents the unity of working class struggles against the system of imperialism and neo-colonialism.
The release of the Cuban Five from the deep canals of US jails signifies the victory of the struggles of human solidarity and internationalism. The victory represents the unity of the vanguard struggles of the international working class movement.
The campaign for the release of the Cuban Five heroes has been a testimony that solidarity and internationalism remain the best arsenals of the struggles of the working class. It is a testimony that the unity of our common struggle against imperialism is a necessary precondition for the success of our solidarity and internationalism.
But, at the same time the revolutionary movement must be worried of the diminishing acts of solidarity in the present day political situation.
The present modern world of capitalism is cultivating individualism and narrow nationalism amongst and within nation states.
It is therefore important that we draw lessons and experiences from revolutions and individual leaders throughout history and how they contributed to the struggles for the liberation of humanity through solidarity and internationalism. This has over the years proven that freedom and dignity are the true products of solidarity and internationalism.
Few years after the victory of the slave revolution in Haiti, one of the greatest revolutionaries in the history of the struggles of mankind, Simon Bolivar, the father of the Latin American war of independence, went to Haiti to ask for material resources to free his homeland from Spanish imperialism and colonialism. The President of the new independent Republic of Haiti, Alexandre Petion, agreed to his request, but on condition that he would declare Latin America a homeland free from slavery.
On his return home, he decided to free the slaves from the plantations of his own family and declared the freedom of all slaves in Latin America. Slave owners and some of his own generals who were fighting side by side with him in the trenches against Spanish colonialism turned against him.
But through his commitment to the cause of the struggle for the liberation of his own homeland, through the common struggle of the people of the region, Spanish colonialism was defeated in the whole of Latin America.
Another warrior slave internationalist, General Maximo Gomez, an African slave from Haiti, inspired by the victory of his people against Napoleon Bonaparte, joined the struggles with the people of Cuba against Spanish colonial masters.
General Gomez taught the Cubans how to use machete as a weapon against the superior Spanish artillery. He spent almost thirty years of his life in solidarity, fighting side by side for the independence of the Cuban nation.
Commander Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an illustrious revolutionary leader of our epoch, a leader of the world working class movement, remains to be an embodiment of the common struggle of the people of the world.
After his motorcycle travel through Latin America, Che was for the first time exposed to the horrific poor living conditions of the people in the region. This experience fostered his conviction to fight the cruelty of the system of imperialism and colonialism.
Inspired by the expedition of the Cuban revolutionaries Fidel and Raul Castro to free the Cuban nation from the hands of the tyranny, Che joined the Cuban rebel movement which was in exile in Mexico. He left his own native country, his family and his own medical profession to join the Granma expedition of the revolutionary rebel army that landed in the Sierra-Maestra Mountains, where they led an insurrection that saw the demise of the US-backed repressive regime of dictator Batista.
In the early 1960s Che led a group of Cuban revolutionaries in a trip to foster relationships with the African liberation movements. The tour covered various countries of our continent such as Egypt, Algeria, Guinea Bissau, Ghana, Congo Brazzaville and Benin.
Few months after Castro sent two contingents of Cuban combatants to our continent, the first which landed in one Congo Leopoldville (Kinshasa) was led by Che himself and the second one which landed in Congo Brazzaville was led by Jorge Risquet.
In Kinshasa the contingent of Che fought alongside the Lumumba guerrilla fighters and in Congo Brazzaville the contingent of Risguet fought alongside the revolutionary movement of Massemba Debat.
According to Che, a revolutionary leader must combine an impassioned spirit with a cold mind and make painful decisions without flinching. He says "a revolutionary leader must act out of love. Revolutionaries must idealise their love for the people, for the most hallowed causes, and make it one and indivisible. Revolutionary leaders must have a large dose of humanity, a large dose of a sense of justice and truth to avoid falling into dogmatic extremes, into cold scholasticism, into isolation from the masses."
In the Communist Manifesto Karl Marx and Frederick Engels say "communists are the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class of every country, a section which pushes forward all others, on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat, the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletariat movement".
Marx further says "One of the greatest characteristics of the Communists is that they have a strong subjective desire to transform the world, display their subjectivity as far as possible with respect for objective reality, and never show themselves helpless in the face of objective reality".
The five Cuban heroes are a symbol of courage to the people of the whole world. We are inspired by their extraordinary acts of human solidarity.
The world needs more than one million cadres of the calibre of the Cuban Five heroes to liberate humanity from the bondage of imperialism and neo-colonialism. They are indeed the great leaders of our tomorrow.
The Cuban Five heroes are the children of the world liberation movement. They are the children of the world progressive movement. We, the democratic people, love them!
Solidarity and internationalism of the Cuban revolution to the people of the world has been immeasurable. The Cuban revolution is indeed a school of solidarity and internationalism.
Piitso is former Provincial Secretary of the SACP in Limpopo and South African Ambassador to Cuba. He writes in his personal capacity.
Umsebenzi Online is the online voice of the South African working class. The views expressed in Umsebenzi Online are those of the authors, unless otherwise indicated.
