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Volume 15, No. 22, 30 June 2016 |
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Red Alert The International landscape, trends, dynamics and complexities: Quo Vadis the European Union? |
By Chris Matlhako and Walter Mothapo
Having navigated the international landscape so far, with all the tools and instruments we have applied, nothing could have prepared us enough for a “Brexit bombshell”. Often we underestimate the extent of the International Capitalist Crisis and Eurozone dynamics in particular. But as depicted in the introductory intervention “International political landscape: Trends, dynamics and complexities” (http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=5397) published by the Umsebenzi Online (Volume 15, No. 20, 9 June 2016) using OR Tambo’s dictum of a “Fox-trot dance of one leg forward one leg backward”; the West is indeed in trouble as it is unable to lead itself and therefore cannot lead the world.
Brexit was precipitated by the fact that the West is not spared from the ongoing 2008 capitalist world system crisis and capitalist ills such as inequality, uneven development, and joblessness, a lack of access to food, quality healthcare and affordable housing to an ordinary person in the street. The working class everywhere is the first to be squeezed and to feel the pinch of any economic turbulence and downturn as they are already in the margins of the dominant capitalist economy.
There are many possibilities implications, in the context, to the Brexit’s future. Brexit could be “suicidal” as it would take the British of all strata out of a bigger ‘bread basket and bargaining chamber’. Already major EU powers have threatened that Brexit means a complete exit from the “benefits” of the basket and chamber. The flipside is that Britain can use its national sovereignty to re-negotiate comprehensive bilateral economic relations, including new trade agreements, to move on outside of the EU while re-negotiating with it. The ultimate decisive factor in this regard is whether the threat by major EU powers that Brexit means a complete exit from the EU also implies that EU countries can completely do without market access, trade and investment in Britain. This is highly unlikely. However, the balance between the two flipsides is likely to be a determining factor that cannot be ignored when looking at future developments around Brexit.
Amidst such disgruntlement by the working class, fertile grounds are laid by right-wing fundamentalists for narrow nationalistic-cum-chauvinistic sentiments that border on racism and xenophobia, all in the name of protecting national economies. Donald Trump perhaps is the most visible “poster-boy” of such a movement; hence he labelled Brexit a “splendid thing” as he felt exonerated in his ultra-conservative U.S. presidential campaign. Exacerbating matters is that Britain’s pull-out of the European Union after forty three years has also inspired other Western powers such as France, Spain and the Netherlands, as well as Nordic governments, to follow suit; and such a move may severely harm the entire Union which symbolises contemporary “Western Civilisation”. The European Union Council president Donald Tusk had no option but to retort that “Britain leaving the EU could trigger the end of Western Civilisation”.
Russia, which could be a tranquilizing and balancing force in Europe and the Middle East due to its historical role in East-West politics and geo-political significance, is crippled by its own internal economic problems and political intricacies. The ‘Kremlin’ finds itself contested between the oligarchs and top bureaucrats. The bureaucrats are pushing for foreign policy independence of Russia from the U.S. whereas the oligarchs flirt with the West to preserve their economic privileges and dominance. But the complexity is that both of these role players are in alignment as Russia’s ruling class. The only nuance and distinction among them is who exerts more political control?
This dilemma led to Russian parliamentarian and intellectual Vyacheslav (Slava) Tetekin to paint a synopsis in an article entitled “Russia Quo Vadis”; that “The class interests of the ruling elite push President Putin one way. The historic interests of Russia powerfully pull him another way. He will have to make a choice”. Suffice to point out that due to its current role in Ukraine and Syria, the Kremlin’s tranquilizing effect on the Western hegemonic influence cannot be taken for granted, hence the retaliatory economic sanctions by the EU.
What is to be done?
Reverting back to the initial question as posed in the first article of the Series “International political landscape: Trends, dynamics and complexities” (http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=5397), we can borrow from cde Alex Mashilo’s timely intervention. In his article entitled : “The question of method and theory: Framing a useful analysis of the character of the international context and balance of forces towards universal emancipation” (http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=5397) Cde Mashilo asserts that “the importance for the working class to wage and intensify class struggle, in this instance nationally in very country, cannot be (over-)emphasised. By national or nationally, also referred to as domestic or domestically, included are places- the local or community level, the regional or district level connecting together the associated localities, and the provincial level in case of provinces similarly connecting together associated regions or districts. This involves, in particular, welding together the struggles grounded in each one of these places into national struggle including the international aspect. The processes of this struggle take place in all important sites of social activity and power, in production and exchange, in ideas arts and culture, in and outside of the state etcetera”.
Succinctly put, an advance towards internationalism begins with the working class reasserting itself by laying the building blocks of socialism at all levels of societal development.
In perorating this present intervention; we urge all the left movements and revolutionaries around the world to emulate a shining example of Cuba’s involvement in Africa. Cuba, a tiny island of hardly 11.5 million people became so heavily involved in almost all regions of Africa, in both military and humanitarian aspects, without pursuing political aggrandisement or seeking economic reward. This selflessness continues to happen amidst Cuba’s own resilience of more than 50 years battle against the mountainous and devastating US Economic Blockade!
Cde Chris Matlhako is SACP Central Committee member and Secretary for International Affairs. Cde Walter Mothapo serves as a member of the Party’s sub-committee on International Affairs.
Quest for full education: SADTU is pushing for curriculum changes to reflect the liberation struggle
By Mugwena Maluleke
The South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) is not only a working-class trade union, but it is also a professional association of revolutionary teachers who remember the rich history of this country, and who are strongly determined to pass on their knowledge to all our young compatriots.
SADTU is affiliated to COSATU and is allied with the ANC, the SACP and the South African National Civic Association (SANCO).
SADTU was established in 1990, in the presence of Nelson Mandela, following a directive of the ANC, under teacher Oliver Tambo, given in the late 1980s during the preparation of the famous Harare Declaration.
1950: Sacrifice for unity
As a trade union, on June 26th of each year, SADTU recalls the great stayaway of June 26, 1950, called by the ANC and united structures of the day, to demand freedom of speech and association and most particularly to protest at the banning of the Communist Party of South Africa, the predecessor of the SACP, in May of that year.
The June 26, 1950, stayaway was a follow-up to the May Day 1950 stayaway that had ended in the massacre of 18 militants by the apartheid police in Alexandra and on the East Rand in the evening of that day.
There have been many massacres in South Africa. As SADTU, we would wish to remember all of them and remember every single martyr who died for revolutionary unity in South Africa.
1952: Defiance of unjust laws
We remember June 26 of 1952. The great Defiance Campaign started on that day. Still against the banning of our communist allies, but it was now also against the pass laws and all of the odious apartheid legislation of the racist National Party government.
One of those laws was the hated Bantu Education Act, which came into force in 1953.
Not only was the Bantu Education Act racist, but it was a scheme for racialised labour power, which was the essence of apartheid.
The Defiance Campaign was hard, but the liberation movement grew in the next two years as never before. It became a giant in those years. Chief Luthuli called this effect “courage rising with danger”.
1955: The Freedom Charter
On June 26 1955, the Freedom Charter was passed at the Congress of the People in Kliptown in the south of Johannesburg.
As the democratic teachers, we have special reason to celebrate the Freedom Charter, which says, among other things, that “Teachers shall have all the rights of other citizens.”
Teachers have the right to organise and the right to strike. No one should ever try to tell teachers or principals which union to belong to.
As revolutionary professionals we celebrate the Freedom Charter for defining, once and for all, what education really is: “The aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace.”
This statement of the Freedom Charter means that the aim of education is to bring up children to be mature adults, and at the same time, citizens of the country that is their own. In short, it declares people’s education for people’s power.
This is in direct contrast to the fake “Democratic” and fake “Alliance” DA political party of reaction, which only wants labour power to exploit, and nothing else.
The DA has not changed its ideas much, since the Bantu Education Act of 1953. Its means may have changed, slightly, but its aims have not change at all.
History of the liberation struggle
After 1955 and until 1994, June 26 was celebrated by the majority of South Africans, disenfranchised as they were, as National Freedom Day.
Now, we have a different Freedom Day, in commemoration of the first democratic election on April 27, 1994, but we do not wish to forget June the 26th.
We will never forget it. The lessons of the struggle for freedom should never be put behind us. It is this struggle that created in us South Africans a common knowledge of what is right and what is wrong.
We as SADTU demand the teaching of the full, partisan history of the South African liberation struggle in our schools, now and forever.
Loving our culture, we demand the teaching of children in their home language.
Hating Bantu education, we demand a full education and not a second-rate education, for all, whether it be in maths and science, or in the humanities, or in music, dance and drama.
The South African Democratic Teachers Union is still on a mission. It refuses utilitarian education.
Once again, we refuse a substitute for education that consists of markers, tests and rote learners.
Elections
The South African liberation struggle is not ended. It is still a work in progress.
We deplore the thought of allowing the successors of the National Party, the DA, to govern even a single municipality. The DA represents a return to the past.
The DA is reactionary and counter-revolutionary. All statements to the contrary by the DA are false.
The acid test is this: the DA will never agree to the teaching of true liberation struggle history in schools.
Hence, we wish to press this demand for the teaching of full liberation struggle history in schools, because it exposes the DA and its fellow-travellers within government for the reactionaries they are.
In the eternal spirit of June 26 and the immortal Freedom Charter, SADTU wholeheartedly supports the ANC, in all wards and municipalities, in the coming municipal elections.
Cde Mugwena Maluleke is SADTU general secretary and SACP Central Committee member. An edited version of this piece was first carried by The New Age on 24 June 2016
Umsebenzi Online is an online voice of the South African working class
