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Volume 13, No. 5, 06 February 2014 |
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Red Alert Zille vs De Lille, contradictions and hypocrisy |
By Cde Jeremy Cronin
In her mid-term review in November last year, the DA's city of Cape Town mayor, Patricia de Lille told the media her "biggest success was in creating 37,000 Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) jobs for people who were employed temporarily in various city projects." (Cape Times, November 21). Last week, DA leader Helen Zille announced her intention to lead a march on Luthuli House, the ANC's headquarters in Johannesburg.
Intriguingly, the purpose of the march, according to Zille's statement, is to "expose Jacob Zuma's [ANC election] manifesto promise of 6 million ‘work opportunities' as bogus." So what makes the promise bogus? "These are not real jobs", Zille tells us. "They are temporary public works placements that will do little to grow the economy and lift people out of poverty permanently and sustainably."
Clearly, the DA mayor and the DA premier are radically at odds here. The one sees her most important mayoral achievement as the provision of tens of thousands of temporary public works jobs. The other dismisses these projects in principle as "bogus". What accounts for the blatant contradiction?
Part of the explanation obviously has to do with Zille's pursuit of an attention-seeking election stunt, any pretext will do. If Julius Malema, plus body-guards, plus a handful of followers can go to Nkandla, why shouldn't Zille march on Luthuli House? I'll leave it to others to judge the wisdom of the proposed march. Many in the DA are clearly less than convinced of its merits. I do want to say that we should practise political tolerance in our democracy and, in any case, over-reaction from the ANC will simply play into the hands of those seeking attention.
What needs deeper examination is the glaring contradiction between De Lille's justifiable pride in achieving 37,000 EPWP work opportunities in Cape Town and Zille's haughty and discordant dismissal of these public employment programmes.
In the first place, Zille is less than honest when she claims that Zuma (she personalises the matter) is once more "misleading" South Africans. Nowhere in the ANC election manifesto is it claimed that the targeted 6 million EPWP "work opportunities" over the next five years will be formal sector jobs or that they will all be permanent.
With high unemployment endemic, even in many advanced economies, political commentator, Professor Steven Friedman was recently spot on when he debunked the illusion that only formal sector, waged employment should be regarded as "work". Millions of South Africans and billions around the world are excluded from waged work - this does not mean these billions are (or have to be) unproductive.
Zille's statement claims that public works programmes "will do little to grow the economy". This betrays a market fundamentalism. Implicit in this fundamentalism is that labour that is not a waged commodity does not perform "real work", and what it produces has little value. This is an assumption increasingly in question internationally. GDP statistics do not capture the economic contribution of volunteer work, for instance, or the unpaid home and child-care work loaded onto women. The huge value embedded in our natural ecosystems is also not reflected in GDP accounting. But the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources - through mining or over-fishing, for instance - is happily totted up in the positive growth column.
Clearly, we have to think about what is of economic and social value in different ways. Recent CSIR research estimates the Working for Water EPWP programme has contributed several hundred billion rands worth of value (unrecorded in our GDP statistics) through increasing water resources by removing invasive alien plants. The real value of our public employment programmes needs to be assessed in terms of social impact. What happens after a work opportunity to the participants? What is the impact on marginalised communities when community members help construct and maintain assets, or provide desperately needed services like home-based care, school feeding, early childhood caring or neighbourhood safety?
I think that we can do much better in terms of monitoring and evaluating these developmental impacts of the EPWP programme, as well as improving the synergies between them and other government and NGO initiatives - including adult training in community colleges, and cooperative and small and micro-business development.
Zille dismisses public employment programmes on the grounds that they will not "lift people out of poverty permanently and sustainably". This is akin to the all-or-nothing reasoning once advanced by the Pan Africanist Congress for boycotting the CODESA negotiations. The PAC secretary general of the time explained "there is no way negotiation can be regarded as a panacea for our social malaise. Therefore it will fail." Zille's rejectionism, based on a similar panacea yardstick ("permanently and sustainably" forever) is no better. Of course, public employment programmes on their own are not the total solution to unemployment or poverty. But they are making an important contribution to social development. How do we improve on their impact? How do we ensure better synergies with other job-creating and sustainable livelihood strategies?
And (a final rhetorical question) aren't these the issues we should be debating thoughtfully, instead of embarking upon an ill-considered, attention-seeking march?
Cde Jeremy Cronin is SACP 1st Deputy General Secretary, the article was first published last week by the Cape Times ‘Left Turn'.
The DA-Ramphele: a union that never was, never lasted for a week
By Cde Thabo Thwala
"People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. Champions of reforms and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realise that every old institution, however barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is kept going by the forces of certain ruling classes."
Vladimir Lenin, The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism.
Capitalist forces in South Africa have been regrouping and rebranding themselves since the dawn of democracy in 1994. Through the so-called Democratic Alliance (DA), these forces which were highly respected and supported by the apartheid regime have managed to stay relevant in the eyes of some sections of the population and the mainstream media. In true capitalist fashion, the DA has continued to swallow other smaller parties, sometimes using the term "merger" to define such take overs if not acquisitions. In pursuance of such, it has not shied away from the working class in general, the black working class and poor in particular, in its campaigns, whilst its core white-rule and pro-business principles remains intact.
With the formation of Agang SA in 2013, which was nothing but another amalgamation of businesspersons especially at the top, the stage looked set, at least in the eyes and minds of the DA, together with other international imperialist forces, for a bitter rivalry and competition for capitalist resources and middle class votes. Agang SA intimidated the DA which hoped by fronting some black faces to its essentially racist agenda will win it sections of the black middle class or black votes. Here was a new capitalist agent this time led by a black middle class cum capitalist woman, sneaking in to steal the DA's thunder. The DA and its capitalist sponsors would never let that happen.
The capture of Agang SA leader Dr Mamphela Ramphele into the DA, followed by an immediate split finally revealed what had been said all along: that the DA and Agang SA are nothing but agents of capitalism and imperialism fighting for monopoly control over resources. The revelation of some London-based "people" who are reported to have forced the DA-Agang merger is a clear sign that these two organisations are controlled by imperialist forces. They are both not interested in representing workers' interests but to suppress them whilst at the same time using the working and middle classes as a campaign tool. At the end of the day it is in fact the working class that will remain casualties whilst the capitalists toast to a well-deserved victory over the same working class which supported them throughout. Let no one forget that the DA's agenda on the working class is mainly to make it easy to workers to be fired from work.
The DA has continuously refuted that it is using black people as its marketing faces. The Agang SA's less than a week marriage with them has exposed the DA. The day Dr Ramphele got incorporated into the DA it effectively meant that Agang SA had come to an abrupt end and she would be the new black face of the DA. This was confirmed by Helen Zille when announcing Ramphele as a candidate for a position the DA does not stand to win - the presidential candidate. "Race matters in SA politics", said Zille when announcing the capture at a press conference last week.
Without consultation whatsoever but driven by imperialist funder, members of Agang SA were expected to follow their rich shepherd, throw away their dull, green t-shirts, and join the DA. One need not remind everyone about what happened to the so-called Independent Democrats (ID) after the incorporation of Patricia De Lille into the DA some few years ago. The ID died instantly; it was led by Patricia De Lille, who sold out an ever vanishing Pan Africanist Congress.
On the other hand, the DA side, members of the DA also had to follow suit and accept the unelected Ramphele as their presidential candidate ahead of them. The likes of Lindiwe Mazibuko, if they have any brains beyond their skulls, should have realised that they, and other black people within the DA, are merely being used and can be replaced any time the imperialist forces feel it is to their interest.
Lenin's words remain true today. Disappointed Agang SA members were fooled by Dr Ramphele, and will continue to be fooled unless and until they form part of a tried, tested and reliable revolutionary movement as led by the ANC (African National Congress) in alliance with a vanguard party of the working class the SACP (SA Communist Party) and COSATU (Congress of SA Trade Unions) which will champion their interests instead of some fly-by-night parties. Poor, especially black people joined Agang SA under the illusion that Dr Ramphele was looking out for their interests.
Today it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that they were merely being used. Dr Ramphele practically jettisoned them together with their green and dull t-shirts and moved to the DA for a position the DA knows very well they will not win. This exposed the right-wing liberal opportunism in which Dr Ramphele is embedded in. She will continue to try and use those who can easily be fooled among others but not least limited to the lumpen proletariat and vagabonds that Karl Marx talked about when he was analysing the class struggles in France in the 19th century. As embarrassing as it may seem, those who have awakened up must swallow their pride and go back home to the ANC.
In the final analysis, the working class must be warned that the attack on South Africa by capitalist forces, obviously funded by imperialists, will not stop. Such attacks will sometimes come in subtle ways such as the use of democracy, when the people are made to believe that some members of society, like Dr Ramphele, are merely exercising their democratic rights by joining the DA - and thanks to the split of the less than one week old DA-Ramphele's marriage that the truth is not hard to see.
As we have seen with the Ramphele case, the aim was to front a black face as a deeply racist agenda to consolidate the white and monopoly capital dominance that is ruling in the DA. This individual, touted as "changing South Africa's political landscape" and a "messiah", would then be used to attract black vote. South Africans cannot simply be fooled by colour - they vote for content and that is why they have voted for the ANC and will do so again. Zille missed the point! It is, however, important to be alive to the fact the imperialist "donors" will not let go of their agenda. The DA- Ramphele split is a minor hurdle after which they will attempt another route and explore new methods.
The working class must be ready all the time to combat racism, fronting, and imperialism whatever their manifestation at a given point in time.
Thabo Thwala, from Bothaville, is SACP Member writing in personal capacity
Unity of the workers and the working class: A precondition for complete national liberation and socialism
By Cde Tom Mhlanga
‘The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties. They have no interest separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole'
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Communist Manifesto
In this piece, I'm attempting to look at the current state of the South African Working Class, especially since the dawn of democracy. I'm also looking at the effects of the neo-liberal agenda and how it shaped South Africa's politics, in particular the influence of the Bretton Woods Institutions - International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as well as the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Over the years since the release of the former state president, Dr Nelson Mandela, the nature and character of our politics underwent a different process of change than before. People were anticipating a lot of positive change economically, socially and politically. Yes, the African National Congress (ANC) did a good work in changing the lives of the people for the better. A lot, however, still needs to be done to achieve the dream of a better life for all as enshrined at least in the Freedom Charter. But what has delayed this progress?
Many debates were held during the times of exiles on whether the post-apartheid state should be capitalist or socialist. But there was one common starting point used by both sides, that national domination is linked to capitalism. In the case of South Africa whites were and still are at helm of the commanding heights of the economy. One of the biggest arguments was the two-stage theory which claims that the ANC should lead the struggle for national liberation and the party the socialist revolution. Valid as both arguments may seem, it is important to note that South Africa was, and still is, a two-nation state characterised by the legacy of British colonialism and colonialism of the special type.
These debates have since lost momentum in the midst of capitalism entering its highest state and its endemic crisis as evidenced in the latest crisis that broke out in the USA in 2007-8 and unfolded to become a global economic crisis which brought many countries to their knees. It is high time we bring back the debates to reflect the character of the working class and its leadership.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) would in fact be in the forefront of these debates in playing out its vanguard role to the working class of South Africa. These debates are more relevant now than ever before especially in South Africa where workers are becoming more class conscious and there are confusing deviations which are masked as revolutionary agendas whereas they are absolutely not.
There is a big threat to the unity and cohesion of the working class and its leadership in South Africa as things stand. The biggest threats come from two angles, namely the global neo-liberal agenda and vulgar-Marxist if not utopian socialist sloganeering coming from the ranks of ultra-leftism, workerism, and confused fellows in the form of the leaders of EFF, NUMSA, AMCU and WASP and their naïve f not uncritical followers to mention but a few. The pseudo-Marxist and workerist elements rely on populism to woo and divide the working class in South Africa. The result of this is workers killing and substituting each other for the exploiters - the real enemy, and the high level of political intolerance within the working class. The organised working class at the moment is deeply fractured with some sections being misled by populist sloganeering and people who use the media for their selfish, unbridled personal ambitions and wealth accumulation on a private basis.
The imperialist agenda in South Africa, as in many other parts of the world, is to weaken the revolutionary movement through among others organisational fragmentations while bankrolling neo-liberal organisations such as the DA and Agang SA. The ultimate objective for this agenda is to reduce and liquidate the influence and electoral support of revolutionary forces, particularly leading formations in national liberation movements which do not embrace the so-called free market. Once this is achieved, it is hoped, there will come a point where the revolutionary movement does not win elections with sufficient majority to form a government or completely loses elections. At this time imperialism directly takes over politically by exerting influence on a politics of coalitions. It is important to note that both the right-wing opportunism and left-wing adventurism, while attacking the alliance, have coalitions firmly placed in their agenda.
It is important to note that since the struggle for liberation in South Africa and other African countries, Bretton Woods Institutions and the WTO never lost interest. From these institutions poor African countries have been subjected to a lot of structural adjustment programmes and the so-called free market based restructuring with its liberalisation and deregulation agendas to feed imperialist interest against the wishes and aspirations of the people. As a result, policies such as privatisation and results such as unemployment, poverty and high levels of inequality have firmly taken root within and across borders in favour of the rich.
South Africa, as one of the leading economies in Africa has been of much interest to the trans-national state-like institutions. The evidence of this is how they seek to influence our politics, media, academic institutions and liberal parties such as the DA, Agang SA, COPE and many others who are hell bent to see the ANC destroyed and losing power. Their biggest fear is the close relations between the ANC and the Communist Party and also the trade union federation COSATU. The alliance is seen as a stumbling block for profit maximisation and private capital accumulation. Particularly the blame is placed at the door steps of the ANC's alliance partners the Communist and COSATU. The two angles of the threats identified above, both right-wing opportunism and left-wing adventurism have also coalesced around attacking the alliance and are dedicated at disintegrating it in order to defeat the ANC.
In South Africa the media has also been used as the weapon to attack and have the alliance dismantled. Sensationalised news to discredit the governing party - the ANC - and the government, biased reporting in favour of opposition parties, the DA in particular and all of those attacking the alliance and its independent formations is a clear indication that Marx and Engels were correct in their Communist Manifesto finding that ‘the ideas of society will, in every epoch, be the ideas of the ruling class'. Recently the media has been hallucinating about the division in COSATU and the broader alliance and about the ANC losing power. This is nothing but part of the neo-liberal agenda that seeks to influence the masses to lose confidence in the ANC led alliance. Rather than being objective, this agenda in the media is firmly part of a politics of opposition.
Marx and Angels remind us in the Communist Manifesto that ‘The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties. They have no interest separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole'. Now one question needs to be asked. Whose class interests are the pseudo-Marxists, workerists and left-wing adventurists benefiting? It is important to note that it Marx and Engels who calls on ‘The workers of all countries, to unite!' In whose interests is the agenda to divide and form new organisations? The workers and the working class should stand up and realise that adventurist sloganeering is not going to serve their interests, a divided alliance will never benefit them and only the party with a clear revolutionary theory is their true political home, the SACP.
“WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BY YOUR CHAIN”
Cde Tom Mhlanga is a BA student at Wits. He is writing in his own personal capacity.
The role of a vanguard in the revolution
By Cde Bhekithemba Mbatha
“Role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory”, Vladimir Lenin, What is to be done?
From its inceptions the South African Communist Party (SACP) can be best described as a vanguard of the working class and the poor. This is clearly evident on the revolutionary character of the Party. The Party played a significant role in defeating the Apartheid era together with its alliance partners the African National Congress (ANC) and the progressive trade union movement now Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). The Communist Party also provided leadership and guidance in the formation of the democratic breakthrough, attained in 1994.
The vanguard role of the Party in the democratic dispensation cannot be ignored. The Communist Party has championed the interest of the working class and the poor in the struggle for national liberation, gender emancipation and socialism. The Party continues to play a pivotal role in educating, organising and mobilising the working class. Who can forget the role played by the Party in the implementation of Mzansi Account? Mzansi account is a low income transactional bank account that is made accessible and affordable to all classes and social strata, in particular the working class and the poor.
The Msanzi account is located in a broader campaign by the Party to achieve an overhaul transformation of the financial sector and its relationship to the rest of economic production, exchange, distribution and consumption. In particular the Party's financial sector transformation campaign hits at the nerve centre of the system of imperialist and neoliberal capitalism. Finance capital has achieved dominance on almost all economic activities to the extent much of the productive sector is financialised and restructured on a constant basis in line with the quick-quick short-termism prevailing in the finance and capital markets. The number of productive sector players who have repositioned towards accumulation through involvement in financial sector activities and products has been on the rise. Investments in the productive sector have dwindled, in our case followed by a de-industrialisation trend. Consumption has been taken over and directed by the financial sector through credit and debt. There is no doubt that of the capitalist ruling class finance capital has become the core. Its rule has penetrated into the household through credit and debt as part of the new instruments of oppression, exploitation and of a class rule.
The struggle to tackle the financial sector is by its very essence a class struggle with direct focus on the ruling class and its dominate section. This is completely different from the political deviation of what is actually a counter-revolution led by workerists, populists and adventurists and left-wing opportunits who mistake the ANC, SACP, Cosatu and our entire revolutionary alliance for the enemy. Instead of working for maximum unity this political deviation is championing disunity and calls on workers to abandon the ANC and our revolutionary alliance. This is not the road of vanguard cadres to take.
The Communist Party is primarily guided by the principles laid down by great revolutionary thinkers and vanguard cadres ever such as Karl Marx, Friedich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. These principles have been enhanced by many other great revolutionaries internationally and in South Africa such as Moses Kotane, Joe Slovo, Ruth First and Chris Hani.
The main aim of the SACP is to end the system of capitalist exploitation. Vanguard cadres recognise that this is a gigantic task and that a revolution never moves in a straight line or a smooth surface and that one thing is fundamental. Work to achieve the ultimate decisive transition through a complete revolution must simultaneously take place with work to achieve the immediate aims and enforce the momentary interests of the working class and therefore revolutionary reforms are a necessity; vanguard cadres are revolutionaries by profession, they live and work for the revolution, they never cease at any moment to advocate and propagate for a revolution at every opportunity, and they are the most advanced and resolution in exposing the class basis of the problems and challenges facing the working class and the poor; maximum unity of the workers and the working class is priority number one, without it the prospects of the revolution will be dealt a blow; and revolutionary discipline based the principle of democratic centralism is fundamental to unity and cohesion, it is therefore a prerequisite to vanguard cadres.
There are some who think that to be a vanguard is to be an opposition to the ANC and the revolutionary alliance. This is a mistaken belief. Vanguard cadres, the communists, as Marx and Engels state in the Communist Manifesto, do not set themselves apart, separate and in opposition to revolutionary movements that are constituted by the working class.
While being part of the alliance with the ANC and becoming a party of governance, the Communist Party has continued to put forward its views and perspectives as an independent formation. This is evidenced in the Party's perspectives on the National Development Plan, among others, where the Party called for an institutionalised state planning commission to replace the existing National Planning Commission going forward. The Party also called for the economic chapter of the National Development Plan developed by the commission to be revised, and along with it all other economic policy assumptions in the plan based on that chapter.
The Communist Party is not an island. The Party understands that a revolution requires the leadership of a vanguard inextricably coupled with and buttressed by constant mobilisation, organisation and education of the masses to build and develop revolutionary consciousness and to take the work of the revolution forward. The ANC as the leading formation of our national liberation and mass democratic movement is critical. Similarly, the other mass formations within this movement such as progressive trade union and civic movements, youth and student formations, progressive women's movements, and so on, are critical. Vanguard cadres cannot distance themselves from this movement and became a separate or loose groupings of individuals.
Aluta Continua!
By Cde Bhekithemba Mbatha, a final year BA student at Wits University
