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Building an African continent with and for the workers and
the poor
By Blade Nzimande, General Secretary
25 May is Africa Day. It is a day to celebrate all that is good about out
continent and its many achievements. However, most critically, this time around,
it should be a day on which we seriously reflect on progress made towards the
goals that the heroes and heroines of our continent have set for Africa national
liberation and genuine social emancipation of the millions of our people. It
is a challenge to advance the struggle to resolve the class, national and gender
contradictions in an interrelated manner, to free our continent from the shackles
of neo-colonialism and imperialism.
In 2002, perhaps more clearly than a decade ago, it is obvious that the current
dominant global trajectory has deepened rather than lessened the burden of
class exploitation, gender oppression, national inequalities and imperialist
domination. It is for this reason that the SACP firmly believes that we should
use this Africa day to recommit ourselves to rebuilding and strengthening the
social motive forces of our continent the workers and the poor the only
forces capable of leading and winning our protracted struggle.
The transformation of this continent to genuinely serve the interests of millions
of African people rests with the organisation of the workers, with the rural
masses and the burgeoning millions of urban poor. African workers, consciously
organised as a political force, and linked by a thousand threads to the wider
mass of urban and rural poor, are the critical engine to attain genuine transformation
of our continent. Not enough attention has been paid to the political organisation
and conscientisation of African workers in recent times
Workers, together with the peasants and urban and rural poor, led by the national
liberation movements, were central in our independence struggles. Workers have
the immense responsibility to continue to be the central force in the struggle
to defeat neo-colonialism and poverty in the continent, thus realising the
true liberation of our continent
The voice and organisational presence of workers and the poor is not being
adequately felt in the current debates that preoccupy the AU and other regional
blocs. The organised class presence of African workers is not adequately engaged
with the debates on the challenges of development, including the debates around
NEPAD.
Perhaps on this Africa Day we should earnestly resuscitate a debate on how
the left and all progressive organisations representing the workers, the peasants
and the poor should network, and generate further ideas on continental solidarity
and practical ways of strengthening the organisation of these layers as social
motive forces for national and continental transformation. The SACP is committed
and prepared to make its contribution to these tasks, to establish the appropriate
linkages with all progressive organisations representing the interests of the
workers and the poor on our continent.
To do the above it is important to start by briefly reflecting on some aspects
of the political economy of Africa today, and outline some of the key challenges
and tasks.
The post-colonial (and neo-colonial) African state
In the first edition of the African Communist the official journal of the
SACP published an article The New Africa Capitalist or Socialist?. This
was 1959, in the context of a quickening process of decolonisation. The article
stated:
Centuries of imperialist domination and robbery have left Africa backward
and undeveloped. The European powers, Britain, France, Portugal, Belgium, have
only been interested in taking as much wealth out of each country as quickly
as possible. At one time they captured millions of our people, and deported
them to Europe and America as slaves. Afterwards they enslaved Africans in
their own continent, through forced labour on European-owned plantations, farms
and mines, at starvation wages.
As a result of alien oppression and exploitation, Africa is the most backward
part of the world. The great masses of her people live in terrible poverty,
ignorance and disease. The first task of every African patriot is to liberate
our continent from alien domination, for without this there can be no progress.
But to win and keep true freedom we must also liberate Africa from backwardness.
Her countries must be able to stand on their own feet economically, here peoples
living, health and cultural standards must be rapidly advanced
Much as this was said some 45 years ago, unfortunately the conditions on our
continent have not changed in any significant way. It is true that almost all
African countries have now attained their independence, thus ending the era
of classical colonialism on the African continent. However, the continued economic
and imperialist subjugation of the African continent by the North has led to
the entrenchment of neo-colonialism and thus the continued imperialist exploitation
of the continent, not through direct political occupation, but through complex
economic subjugation and exploitation.
The main problem facing the post-colonial African state is that of having
political liberation but without economic and social emancipation. Revolutions
of political independence have not led to economic liberation. As the SACPs
11th Congress Programme argues, the state in most African countries is weak,
and therefore unable to play an effective developmental role. There is also
very little sustainable accumulation capable of grounding effective growth
and development, as a result of the weakness of the state and the subjugation
of the post-colonial nation-state to imperialism. Infrastructure is weakly
developed and skewed, because of decades of neo-colonialism, towards the interests
of transnational corporations and the former colonial powers.
The above realities have been a product of, and reinforce, a persistent and
stubborn process of parasitic capitalism. Because of low levels of accumulation
and redistribution, the primary form of breaking out of the poverty cycle is
that of seeking political office for purposes of personal accumulation. Therefore,
hold over the state apparatuses is, in many instances, the only means of accumulation;
thus battles by elites to grab state power. This has tended, in many African
countries, to lead to violent struggles over the control of the state apparatuses,
as the only means to access power and economic resources.
It is within this context that even modest progress that has been made over
the last decade or so towards multi-party democracy in many, formerly, one
party states has not led to substantive democratic regimes and peoples power.
Instead, multi-party democracy in many parts of the continent has been nothing
more than recycling of elites (controlling different political parties and
with ethnic and regionalist support bases), alternatively backed and abandoned
by imperialist dollars, depending on whether they are willing to play the role
of compradorial classes championing neo-liberal solutions.
This regression has been exacerbated by the collapse of the Soviet bloc of
countries that, at least, provided some opportunities for progressive African
governments to experiment with alternative paths of development beneficial
to the majority of the workers and the poor. Another important factor in many
African revolutions has been the weakening, if not downright repression, of
organisations and movements representing the interests of the workers and the
poor, both urban and rural.
The state of organisation of the workers and the poor on our continent
In most national liberation, and independence, struggles on the African continent,
the workers and the poor, as well as their political and mass organisations,
played an important role in the defeat of colonial powers. Many of the newly
independent countries in the 1960s and 70s drew heavily from the ranks of worker
organisations, and leaders from those representing the peasantry and the poor.
In many countries the incorporation of trade union and peasant leaders in government
structures enabled the influence of these forces to be exerted on government
policies, and in many instances leading to progressive policies.
However, given the overwhelming dominance of the colonial and imperial economy,
with complicity from sections of the local elite with the imperialist former
colonialists, the workers and the poor have been marginalized in the political
evolution of the post-colonial state. In many cases, the liberation movements,
once in power, expected loyalty from the workers and the poor, irrespective
of the policies and class orientation of these governments. In worst cases,
where organisations of the workers and the poor, including trade unions, legitimately
protested against neo-colonial and neo-liberal measures by the very governments
they helped to bring into power, they have been violently suppressed if not
smashed.
Nascent working class organisation has been largely weakened in many parts
of the continent as a result of the above realities, even within the context
of a resurgence of multi-party democratic dispensations. This has also been
reinforced by the reality of underdevelopment in most African countries. Most
African countries have also had very tiny, usually unorganised and weak working
class organisations, where the peasantry is numerically preponderant and largely
unorganised and incapable of leading post independence struggles for the benefit
of the overwhelming majority of the poor.
Possibilities and opportunities for creating an Africa of our own: With and
for Workers and the Poor of the continent
In these circumstances, the collapse of the Soviet bloc of countries and the
end of the Cold War have not led to any departure from the political economy
of neo-colonialism.
Some political leaders and intellectuals from the developing world, had postulated
that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end to the Cold War, would lead
to many positive developments in the developing world - benign globalisation.
Hence the insistence on the use of the phrase globalisation projected as
a neutral process that will reward those who willingly submit to its dictates
and punish those who seek to challenge or disconnect from it thus obscuring
the reality that the dominant trends within the current phase of globalisation
are dominated by an imperialism of the post Cold War era.
There is increasing awareness amongst the workers and the poor that the promise
of neo-liberalism is a lie to the peoples of Africa. The policies of privatisation,
liberalisation and the so-called free market have proved to be a wholesale
failure on the continent. These policies have instead served to consolidate
the very same elite that had benefited from neo-colonialism. Instead, globalisation
has deepened the poverty and inequalities of the colonial and neo-colonial
era. This is an important basis for beginning to forge a common consciousness
and build organisations of the workers and the poor on the continent.
Despite deepening poverty and is some regions famine, the spread of HIV/AIDS
and other diseases in our continent, and regions that are still caught in wars,
there are some positive developments that progressive forces need to exploit
to build a movement of the workers and the poor to rebuild our continent in
the interests of the overwhelming majority of the peoples.
The growth of anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist protests in recent years
in many parts of the world is a development that the workers and the poor of
Africa need to link up with. At the centre of these movements are issues that
affect the African people directly and with greater impact than anywhere else
in the world: plunder by transnationals, growing social inequalities, the role
of institutions like the World Bank and the IMF in growing global inequalities,
debts and wars. It is therefore important that progressive left formations
in our continent, not least the trade union movement, need to find ways to
engage with and be part of these developments. This provides opportunities
for placing the African continent at the centre of the struggles to build an
alternative economic global regime
The emergence of multiparty democracies in many parts of our continent provides
new spaces to build truly peoples movements articulating the aspirations of
the workers and the poor. Deformed and elite driven as many of our multi-party
democracies are, the challenge is how to use these spaces to forge unity of
the workers and the poor by creating broad based social and political movements
(including political parties of the workers and the poor).
The formation of the African Union last year, on a platform of peace, end
to wars and coups, and growth and development has assisted in at least highlighting
the question of economic transformation and peace on our continent. Much as
this has been a process led primarily by governments, organisations of the
left, of the workers and the poor need to engage with AU processes as part
of building a progressive momentum.
The AU has adopted NEPAD as its economic programme. We are aware that there
are debates and suspicions from a number of progressive organisations about
this programme. As the SACP we do indeed welcome critical debate and engagements
on such developments and programmes. We agree that there are indeed gaps in
NEPAD, particularly the absence of engagement with organisations, voices of
the workers and the poor and weaknesses in relation to gender. However the
view of the SACP is that NEPAD has assisted in placing the question of growth
and development and the eradication of poverty at the centre of major continental
bodies and governments. There are therefore two challenges in this regard.
The first is that we need systematic and extensive debate and engagements,
not just throw-away and casual commentaries, on spaces that could be created
for the left through NEPAD. Secondly, that we must of course critique the programme
with the view of seeking to bring to bear the perspectives and weight of the
workers and the poor of our continent. As the SACP we do not believe that it
is correct to simply write it off as a begging bowl in front of imperialism
nor as a new self-imposed structural adjustment programme, as some left critiques
have done. The challenge is engagement and to seek effective representation
and participation of left progressive forces on the ground! The SACP programme
puts the challenge thus:
Notwithstanding its weaknesses and potential dangers, the NEPAD initiative
has squarely placed the underdevelopment challenge on our national and (hopefully
continental) agenda. Overcoming Africas crisis of underdevelopment is a huge
challenge. As a Party of communists, who are South African and African, the
SACP will actively engage with, support and help to consolidate the NEPAD initiative
with and for the workers and the poor
Another key and immediate challenge for the workers and the poor of our continent
is to harness emerging progressive mass movements, including womens movements,
peasant organisations, towards intensifying struggles for eradication of poverty,
fighting the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and a movement for peace and democracy. To
this end particular attention will have to be paid to using continental and
regional platforms as means to get together and for purposes of mass mobilisation.
There are a number of these platforms that we need to use.
The most important platform is that provided for by continental and regional
trade union councils. We need to ask ourselves the question of how these are
used to strengthen not just worker organisations, but to forge links with peasant
and other movements of the poor in our respective countries. Another important
platform, we would argue is the proposed Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
- a civil society arm of the African Union. It would be a mistake for the left,
progressive mass organisations and the trade union movement to boycott or adopt
an ambiguous stance towards this body. We should seek to ensure that progressive
NGOs, trade unions and other mass formations should network and populate this
body right from its inception, and seek to use it in the same way as we do
with, for instance, some UN gatherings like the World Conference on Sustainable
Development. Workers and their trade unions in the African continent are well
placed as they already have continental and regional trade union bodies.
In addition, an effort should be undertaken to create such economic and social
councils at regional levels. For instance at gatherings of the Southern African
Development Community we should have such councils sitting concurrently, as
critical platforms for engagements, debates and networking by progressive forces.
Another key platform is that of the World Social Forum, as a place to build
a truly progressive African Social Forum representing the aspirations of the
workers and the poor.
A fundamental challenge, in which trade unions on the continent are well placed
to play an important role, is that of solidarity struggles around common problems.
Our continent is faced with the problem of continuing plunder of its mineral
and energy resources by a group of transnational corporations, the violation
of workers and trade union rights, privatisation of key state resources and
continued erosion of democracy and rolling back of some of the gains from the
liberation and independence struggles. It is time that workers seriously engage
to share these experiences and undertake solidarity actions.
Perhaps, most importantly, is the need for left political parties to strengthen
party-to-party relations across the continent, bilaterally, regionally. In
the end it is our belief that any meaningful effort towards genuine social
emancipation and lasting democracy on our continent can only be led by political
movements and parties that genuinely represent the interests of the workers,
the peasants and the poor.
What is it that should bind us together? Whilst efforts should be deepened
to create broad based peoples movements representing the widest range of forces
on the continent, at the heart of this should be the class interests of the
workers, the peasants and the poor, with the ultimate goal of socialism. It
is only socialism that will bring lasting solutions to the problems facing
our continent. Hence the importance of deepening working class solidarity continentally
and across the globe.
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