An Investigation Into Appropriate Revolutionary Methods For Southern Afrika
“Regime and economic transitions have produced massive political, social and economic dislocations – some temporary and others long lasting in many parts of the world. Among the dislocations observed, the erosion of state capacity is arguably a defining characteristic of transition; as the examples of the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe; China and other countries in the developing world demonstrate...The central argument is that it is not the increase of state predation, but the emergence of decentralised predation that has been largely responsible for declining state capacity in transition countries.” - The Nation State In Transition: Rotten from Within: Decentralized Predation and Incapacitated State by Minxin Pei * (NB. Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in Newly Industrialized Countries by Stephen Haggard
20/08/2013
Southern Afrika has reached a critical point in its revolutionary evolution. From the time of the earliest anti-colonial, anti-imperialist to the anti-apartheid struggles, the people of the South have waged effective resistance against oppressive forces from without and even from within. The notion of whether we have been released from our shackles through some pacific negotiation is absurd to say the least and unhistorical.
The Black person in Southern Afrika has undergone some of the most insidious violence ever inflicted upon the body, mind and spirit of human beings. So bludgeoned and defeated has s/he been and for so long, that even her/his homeland begins to resemble an alien territory.
What has happened to the revolutionary spirit, the will to be free of the majority, do they perceive this partial socio-political kingdom as the destination or the liberation long fought for, or are we content with gradual and moderate freedoms?
Perhaps this is a question that is best aimed at policy makers, opinion makers and the vanguard of the ruling class.
But when one considers the dire situation that the poor and working class citizens find themselves in, it is difficult not to try and experiment with alternative or innovative ways of social organisation or even leadership.
When leaders have clearly shown that they do not view themselves as servants of the people, perhaps it is high time that they are reminded – by any means necessary.
The role of individuals and the means through which balances of power can be configured must be thoroughly investigated. The question of whether South Afrika is a becoming or is capable of becoming a developmental state is also quite pertinent.
In my previous essays I have often asked whether South Afrikans are ready for any kind of revolution; and the disquieting answer is that they are not.
How then can they expect to be anywhere near the standard definition of a developmental state when we are they are generally ill prepared to undertake radical changes in their thinking, their everyday actions and current world-view?
Of course one is merely generalising here; the fact of the matter is it has never been the work of the masses to lead in their own national re-evolution, that work is usually done by a few dedicated socio-political vanguard.
Now in order to identify that cadre of community, political and even working class hero some few basic criterion have to be established.
Since we are dealing with a society which still retains the reactionary hangups inherited from an era of repression, patriarchy and traditionalisms, we tread carefully though forcefully in defining the character of women and men required to carry the cherished visions of true liberation.
It is no secret that some of the young leaders that we currently see in the front-lines of our political sphere are no saints. But then again, who is who really expects angels to fight human battles?
Yet our moralising sentimentality driven society demands that such polite and all embracing individuals be the ones who guide us towards Mandela's land of infinite possibilities where race, creed and injustice is swept under the red carpet of martyrdom.
We Southern Afrikans seem to find it very difficult to forgive our youth yet we have no issues celebrating the efforts of our elderly heroes and heroines who sacrificed for our basic human rights.
The fact that they too have blood-money on their hands and estates seems irrelevant. We appear very keen to discipline the unruly and lascivious young leaders even though we agree that what they speak about is exactly what we Need. So the general population appears to be enjoying the fruits of our rainbow nationality and basking in the promised freedom, why agitate them with all this talk of revolution, ending the anti-black world and correct sounding political jargon?
Why not allow the people to find their own paths and pursue the various avenues of entrepreneurship and other forms of wealth creation that the free-market makes available?
Indeed why do we bother with trying to make a revolution when it is clear from looking at Egypt, Libya, Algeria and other shaken nations that this revolution business is dysfunctional?
Naysayers will tell you straight that revolutions are bad for business and they are good for nothing. Even people that have spend half their lives studying political systems, transitions and global trends appear to be in no hurry to make revolution, some even warning against any radical changes – opting for steady-state economics with or without Marxist theory.
This is all strange considering the fact that what the likes of Marx, Engels, Gramsci and many others after were simply asking for a world permeated with justice for all. A world that
had been curtailed by the greed and superimposed global hegemony of free-market capitalism. Sure their learned discourses were not fool-proof but what is? The fact that some of their own disciples used the very principles of scientific socialism and theories to impose their own subversive powers on weaker nations is proof that there is nothing new under the Sun. It is simply the proverbial story of Moses striking instead of touching the rock in the desert for life-giving water.
And who said that in politics there are no miracles?
As the Rhythm and Blues singer crooned “Little miracles happen every day” - so it is within the rigid structure of political life; some things that some may believe should not happen actually do and history is made.
I will offer some examples of the unexpected and the uncanny and the unmeasurable later, but before we take our attention back to South Afrikan politics, please think on this:
“If one can apply the term bio-history to the pressures through which the movements of life and the processes of history interfere with one another, one would have to speak of bio-power to designate what brought life and its mechanisms into the realm of explicit calculations and made knowledge-power an agent of transformation of human life.” - Michel Foucault
Without labouring the point, let me just say what I mean by this quotation. Firstly I had written it another essay that I did not get to publish, in it I meant elaborate that humanity and nature are intertwined by the very fact of their co-creation, co-dependence and therefore indivisible Oneness.
Every human endeavour, every human struggle is clearly taking place within the natural realm, even that which is deemed by some as supernatural is nothing more than the ethereal manifestation of of natural phenomenon.
While there are those things that cannot yet be sufficiently explained through science, it is now public knowledge that there is such a thing as Intelligent Design. But that subject alone is one that put off many rational thinkers, especially the radically politicised – yet that does not mean that it has no place in politics.
If politics, economics and even religions are about human organisation and disorganisation then every conceivable theory is usable.
We live in interesting times and these are times where materialist competition has triumphed over any type of natural selection. Traditions and mores which were thought to stand the tests of time are gradually becoming obsolete and new ones are being established albeit on atypical and temporary foundations.
Still, certain archetypes persist and specific natural laws are applicable in almost every theory. The fact is that everything seeks to survive, to perpetuate itself, its species and its race. In this struggle for survival there are certain written and unwritten rules, these rules ensure that a semblance cosmic balance is maintained and that injustices are not left unchecked.
So the question is, whose work is it to maintain or organise that social, national and cosmic order? When all the theoretical frameworks have been tried and tested to no substantial benefit to nature and humanity, when all of recorded history reveals that mankind has been amiss in all its organisations and idealism?
What moment in history would proof to us that we have failed Adam, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Confucius, Ausar, Akhenaten, Marx, Hegel, Adam Smith, John Locke, Aristotle, Imhotep, Mother Teresa or Ma'at?
It is clear that just as Biko said, Black man is on his own. But how do we separate that desertion from the existential abandonment of the entire human race?
While we are aware and sure that our economic and social dispossession has come as a result of special kind of subjection, a peculiar type of hatred which is based on race, we also happen to find ourselves impoverished from within and without. From without we have been robbed of the basic means of our survival and our self sufficiency – the land we once possessed, or were we possessed by it?
From within we appear to have generally lost the very will to be completely liberated. Most of us black peoples have inherited what Marcus Garvey termed 'a disorganised spirit', which he said was the prerequisite for the fall of any nation and government. This disorganisation has obviously been craftily imposed upon us from without. The black personality has been subdued and replaced with a sham, a bamboozled and socially displaced caricature of a rootless entity.
Many among us are merely workers, servants and slaves to a system that does not even try to conceal its evil intentions. This system is bad enough for every other human being because it thrives on the desire of everyone to be free from want, whilst it paradoxically creates more superficial wants that end up superseding what can be called our natural needs. While capitalism is anti-people, anti-animal and anti-nature it is intensely anti-black. Thus black people are globally subjected to all types of nervous conditions.
In Southern Afrika as already mentioned, there have been many attempts to rid ourselves of the tyranny of imperialism. The problem is that the struggle has been left to a few people on the coalface; thus we have not had a mass revolution, we have not experienced a truly cataclysmic moment or stage wherein masses of people in every city rise up to declare what kind of society we seek.
There are many voices, organisation and figures which rise up and articulate what is known and accepted as true, and some even define the How of the much needed revolution – but then the majority of our people appear to simply just want to get by and not rock the boat, to not cut off the hand that seems to feed them.
Somehow we seem to have chosen reconciliation rather than justice and total economic freedom. The very notion of freedom or liberation appears questionable and vague.
So much can be said, so much can still be done and is being done. Yet freedom for many of us remains a dream. Let us close with the words of Sanusi of Takoradi, Ghana, one of Afrika's would be Healers:
“'We all have our dreams,' the man said.
'And our trouble, too. How can I think I am doing the right thing when I am alone and there are so many I have run from?
Who is right at all? I know I have chosen something but it is not something I would have chosen if I had the power to choose truly. I am just sitting there and if you think I am happier than you driving out there, you just don't know how I feel inside. I had so much hope before … so much hope … All I remember clearly these days is that I have been walking along paths chosen for me before I had really decided, and it makes me feel the way I think impotent men feel. You can't tell me you feel the same way. You have this freedom, Teacher. You have your freedom.
It makes no difference. If we can't consume ourselves for something we believe in, freedom makes no difference at all.'”
Monday, December 16, 2013
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Charter Chatter
South Afrika Belongs ...
“B Khoi khoi
Song for the Sun Behind the Rain Clouds:
The fire darkens, the wood turns black.
The flame extinguishes misfortune upon us.
God sets out in search of the sun.
The rainbow sparkles in his hand,
The bow of the divine hunter.
He has heard the lamentations of his children.
He walks along the Milky Way, he collects the stars.” – ( Khoisan poem translated from oral form)
The unresolved and seemingly endlessly rhetorical debate between the Chartists/Charterists (those who rally behind the Freedom Charter*,a national visionary statement championed by the ruling party) and the so called Black bloc (represented variously by Pan Afrikanists, Black Consciousness adherents) appears to be approaching its probable end. This does not mean that the two divergent schools of thought have reached an amicable resolution. There still remains much division within the Black bloc, depending on any keen observers perspective, the political organisations that have represented this group from the Pan Africanist Congress, Azanian Peoples Organization to the Socialist Party of Azania* and various others have emerged from the apartheid past severely limited and to some observers, simply limiting.
While these organisations, their supporters and sympathisers clearly have valid points to make concerning the trajectory of the Southern Afrikan socio-political evolution, they are widely viewed as being rather myopic and desperately idealistic. This narrow-mindedness may be taken as a sign of their resolve or strict adherence to principles, yet it has not spared these organisations from serious stagnation. Throughout the post-1994 political spectrum, all the above mentioned parties have experienced destabilizing losses of suppor. The monumental rise of the African National Congress as the preeminent liberation movement in power has dealt these organisations an almost fatal blow. Any organisation wishing to unseat the dominant ANC simply has to win 75% of the votes, achieving the coveted more than 2 thirds majority.
The question then is how has the leadership and electorate of these groups learned from their 20 years of experience within the Government of National Unity and at the margins of it, do they merely continue to cry Freedom without pragmatic plans of action that are translatable to the vast majority of South Africans?
Have they tried various innovative ways to advance their programmes among the Black peoples of Southern Afrika? Are they seen to have made optimal use of the Information technology era? Have they really grown deeper or more obscure among the communities they claim to represent?
We shall revisit these questions later and suggest some carefully considered answers, as this is a complex matter than involves years of integration and disintegration, as the South Afrikan political landscape is a rapidly shifting one, with many unpredictable turns and twists, anyone attempting a critique of the victories and failures of others must do so with all due meticulousness. However there have been small but ideologically significant groups such as the September National Imbizo who have suspended no criticism in the dialogues about what constitutes real revolutionary action in the black world.
Although quite new, the SNI has made its mark in the political consciousness of those citizens eager for a new reality, especially those who are clear that white supremacy in all its various forms must be forcefully and tactically dismantled. The SNI also spares no sacred cows as its members have not minced their words regarding the inefficacy of many pan-Afrikanists strategies and/or lack thereof.
Many of the members of the SNI were members and some still remained members of the various Pan Afrikanist factions, yet this did not stop them from speaking frankly on social networks and through-out the assemblies and conferences organised by these respective movements. This in itself is a positive mark of the deepening of democratic principles among the mostly young political radicals. The value and efficacy of democracy itself is even questioned and grappled with in robust and sometimes uncomfortably confrontational debates and social engagements.
Engaging the Freedom Charter
While it would be laborious to attempt a thorough analysis and refutation of the Freedom Charter right now, it would be fair to say that the global socio-economic conditions post-1994 and especially post-September 11, 2001 necessitated a serious reconsideration of the documents basic suppositions.
As a national vision, it may appear admirable and convincing at first glance and indeed many of its “recommendations” have been incorporated into the South African constitution and can be found in condensed form in the Bill of Rights. For all its egalitarianism, the Freedom Charter suffers from at least one basic and fundamental flaw and that is it makes everyone seem Equal under unequal conditions and circumstances. Within a world overly determined by the super-imposition of whiteness and anti-blackness, the Charter appears to insult the intelligence and sovereignty of Black people, especially those who fought against colonialism and slavery even way before apartheid was instituted.
To say suggest that -
“All apartheid laws and practices shall be set aside. The People Shall Share in the Country’s Wealth!
The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, Shall be restored to the people;
The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole.” – sounds like a most hollow contradiction considering the fact that this happens to be a land occupied by foreign aggressors who spared no cruelty in order to exploit the Native inhabitants of everything.
One would have to be utterly naive and unhinged to consider a statement like this:
“Restrictions to land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger” Seriously.
With just this in mind, and the latest developments in the political climate of Southern Afrika, one has only to look at how the ANC has totally abandoned their own vision statement to appreciate just how desperately an innovative and more radical approach has to be enforced.
Now, South Afrikans have generally been pacified by the whole Mandela Miracle simulation, so much so that many still somehow believe that the ruling elite has their interests at heart. Yet even through this state of nervous conditioning, the numerous “service delivery” strikes and mass actions in the country are a clear sign that the centre is no longer holding.
Out of this mire of corruption, administrative bundling and almost total socio-political chaos, emerges a mass movement such as the Economic Freedom Fighters.
In spite of the merits and demerits of its leaders and what people may say about its ambiguous uses of the Freedom Charter as one of its rallying calls, the EFF is a force that cannot be ignored and in my view, it can only deepen its work despite the Freedom Charter, in fact I think that the Charter is subdued in the presence of the EFF’s other more pertinent demands. NB: ( This is how the September National Imbizo analyses the significance of the EFF )
“Whilst the EFF clarion call shows a clear break with the ANC is has some important weaknesses and silences. We will now deal with some of these. The critique provided by the EFF of the ANC shows some affinity with the politics that has emerged since 1994 and this is demonstrated by the tendency to blaming individual ANC leaders instead of understanding that the problem is not who is the leader of the ANC; the problem is the ANC itself! The ANC manages an anti black state, and that is the fundamental problem. We have already characterised the EFF as part of the continuum of radical nationalism. From here, black movements need to be clear that although radical nationalism ala Chavez, Mugabe and now EFF are progressive and must be defended, however, it does not by itself satisfy our vision for liberation.
Tactically, it means the black movements must support radical nationalism, without being seduced by its progressive albeit limited agenda; we must press on with its demands and struggle for a Sankarist future. We must enter into an ideological struggle with radical nationalism in a common front like politics.
Right now our enemy is not radical nationalism but the ANC which defends white capital and white supremacy. Therefore any formation fighting the ANC from a black nationalism point of view, makes such a fighter formation tactically an ally of the SNI. That’s why EFF is objectively an ally but the DA, Agang and most oppositions parties not. This is because they are not driven by Black Nationalism in their opposition to the ANC.
Because the drafters of the EFF clarion call accept 1994 as a point of “political liberation”, they see the current struggle as one which is purely “economic”. This shows a conceptual weakness and distortion created by accepting the false premise that 1994 signified a rupture with the colonial and apartheid past. From the perspective of the SNI and most black radical movements such as Blackwash, “94 changed fokol!” Therefore, for us the struggle is still for the totality of liberation of blacks: political, economic, social, cultural and spiritual. There is no separating political liberation from economic liberation; there is no real democracy outside the totality of liberation.
To the extent that the EFF emphases one element, albeit fundamental, this is progressive, but to the extent that it accepts 1994 as a watershed, it’s reactionary. The underlying product of this is race denialism or silence on the race question. From a black perspective the condition of the black majority is the determining factor and the basis for judgment of progress. The state of the black majority is evidence enough to dispel notions of political liberation. Political liberation must not be understood in the narrow sense of extension of the franchise, outside of the transformed state.
All Marxists know for instance that bourgeois democracy is a lie and oppressive, despite its game of regular elections and declaration of equality for all. We are driven solely by the black condition and from there we call for BLACKS FIRST!
A related silence precisely because of the lack of social critique of the post 1994 state and politics is the gender question. These silences need to be accentuated into a loud noise that must foreground the new politics we must struggle for. Patriarchy is the enemy of black liberation and central to the construction of life over-determined by White Supremacy!
The EFF is silent on the characterisation of the post 1994 state, and pays undue focus on the “subjective” forces now concentrated in the “Zuma-ANC”. Black movements must insist that central to a new future is the question of the state. The current state has been built for white supremacy; established since 1652 with the arrival of white settlers. For real progress to happen, this state form has to be obliterated by any means necessary.
The central point of struggle must be for the realization of a Sankarist state form. Having arrived at that determination, then the forms of struggle open to our people must not be limited to using existing spaces such as parliament. In fact parliamentarianism is a poison that is best described as “parliamentary creationism”.
The politics of limiting change to elections and not using parliament to expose the hypocrisy of bourgeoisie democracy and as a space to fuel and legitimize the struggles of the people outside parliament, must be rejected.
The EFF call undermines or even discounts mass insurrection as a key tool of liberation as it positions parliament as the arena for change. The fact that the ANC would use the state to fight and repress an Egypt like moment should not discount such mass process, but rather should provide a challenge to think through ways to overcome such a revolutionary difficulty.
Building of a mass radical politics outside parliament are key for the realization of the vision of total change. Parliament is just one arena of battle and not a decisive one at this juncture. We don’t expect revolutionaries to be politicians, but must use politics to end politics! The two lines of struggle must be developed, legal (parliament) and illegal (mass action, defiance and insurrection). For instance, we shall not wait for the state to legislate for “expropriation of land without compensation.
The Problem of Racism:
During a 1995 interview with a colleague from the Pan African Movement USA, Dr John Henrik Clarke gives a clear description of what it takes to overcome the problem of racism.
“JAHANNES: What is your definition of racism?
CLARKE: Race is a myth because nature created no races. Racism is a derogatory manifestation of this myth and the concept that people by virtue of race are better than other people.
JAHANNES: Du Bois said the problem of the 20th century was the problem of race? Is there the potential for man to overcome racism in the 21 century?
CLARKE: Du Bois actually said the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the colour line. I extend his comment by saying that the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the culture line and the political line. We can overcome the problem of race by becoming enough to ignore racists or isolate them.”
This description could be seen as an elucidation of what Dr Chinweizu calls Black Power Pan Afrikanism. Now this is clearly at odds with what the South Afrikan government calls for. The government of national unity, mottos such as Unity In Diversity and social cohesion become less prioritised as the people who have been victims of close to 400 years of white rule assert their rightful place on the land of their forebears.
So what are the socio-economic repercussions of such a radical shift of consciousness and political action?
TBC
MM
“B Khoi khoi
Song for the Sun Behind the Rain Clouds:
The fire darkens, the wood turns black.
The flame extinguishes misfortune upon us.
God sets out in search of the sun.
The rainbow sparkles in his hand,
The bow of the divine hunter.
He has heard the lamentations of his children.
He walks along the Milky Way, he collects the stars.” – ( Khoisan poem translated from oral form)
The unresolved and seemingly endlessly rhetorical debate between the Chartists/Charterists (those who rally behind the Freedom Charter*,a national visionary statement championed by the ruling party) and the so called Black bloc (represented variously by Pan Afrikanists, Black Consciousness adherents) appears to be approaching its probable end. This does not mean that the two divergent schools of thought have reached an amicable resolution. There still remains much division within the Black bloc, depending on any keen observers perspective, the political organisations that have represented this group from the Pan Africanist Congress, Azanian Peoples Organization to the Socialist Party of Azania* and various others have emerged from the apartheid past severely limited and to some observers, simply limiting.
While these organisations, their supporters and sympathisers clearly have valid points to make concerning the trajectory of the Southern Afrikan socio-political evolution, they are widely viewed as being rather myopic and desperately idealistic. This narrow-mindedness may be taken as a sign of their resolve or strict adherence to principles, yet it has not spared these organisations from serious stagnation. Throughout the post-1994 political spectrum, all the above mentioned parties have experienced destabilizing losses of suppor. The monumental rise of the African National Congress as the preeminent liberation movement in power has dealt these organisations an almost fatal blow. Any organisation wishing to unseat the dominant ANC simply has to win 75% of the votes, achieving the coveted more than 2 thirds majority.
The question then is how has the leadership and electorate of these groups learned from their 20 years of experience within the Government of National Unity and at the margins of it, do they merely continue to cry Freedom without pragmatic plans of action that are translatable to the vast majority of South Africans?
Have they tried various innovative ways to advance their programmes among the Black peoples of Southern Afrika? Are they seen to have made optimal use of the Information technology era? Have they really grown deeper or more obscure among the communities they claim to represent?
We shall revisit these questions later and suggest some carefully considered answers, as this is a complex matter than involves years of integration and disintegration, as the South Afrikan political landscape is a rapidly shifting one, with many unpredictable turns and twists, anyone attempting a critique of the victories and failures of others must do so with all due meticulousness. However there have been small but ideologically significant groups such as the September National Imbizo who have suspended no criticism in the dialogues about what constitutes real revolutionary action in the black world.
Although quite new, the SNI has made its mark in the political consciousness of those citizens eager for a new reality, especially those who are clear that white supremacy in all its various forms must be forcefully and tactically dismantled. The SNI also spares no sacred cows as its members have not minced their words regarding the inefficacy of many pan-Afrikanists strategies and/or lack thereof.
Many of the members of the SNI were members and some still remained members of the various Pan Afrikanist factions, yet this did not stop them from speaking frankly on social networks and through-out the assemblies and conferences organised by these respective movements. This in itself is a positive mark of the deepening of democratic principles among the mostly young political radicals. The value and efficacy of democracy itself is even questioned and grappled with in robust and sometimes uncomfortably confrontational debates and social engagements.
Engaging the Freedom Charter
While it would be laborious to attempt a thorough analysis and refutation of the Freedom Charter right now, it would be fair to say that the global socio-economic conditions post-1994 and especially post-September 11, 2001 necessitated a serious reconsideration of the documents basic suppositions.
As a national vision, it may appear admirable and convincing at first glance and indeed many of its “recommendations” have been incorporated into the South African constitution and can be found in condensed form in the Bill of Rights. For all its egalitarianism, the Freedom Charter suffers from at least one basic and fundamental flaw and that is it makes everyone seem Equal under unequal conditions and circumstances. Within a world overly determined by the super-imposition of whiteness and anti-blackness, the Charter appears to insult the intelligence and sovereignty of Black people, especially those who fought against colonialism and slavery even way before apartheid was instituted.
To say suggest that -
“All apartheid laws and practices shall be set aside. The People Shall Share in the Country’s Wealth!
The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, Shall be restored to the people;
The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole.” – sounds like a most hollow contradiction considering the fact that this happens to be a land occupied by foreign aggressors who spared no cruelty in order to exploit the Native inhabitants of everything.
One would have to be utterly naive and unhinged to consider a statement like this:
“Restrictions to land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger” Seriously.
With just this in mind, and the latest developments in the political climate of Southern Afrika, one has only to look at how the ANC has totally abandoned their own vision statement to appreciate just how desperately an innovative and more radical approach has to be enforced.
Now, South Afrikans have generally been pacified by the whole Mandela Miracle simulation, so much so that many still somehow believe that the ruling elite has their interests at heart. Yet even through this state of nervous conditioning, the numerous “service delivery” strikes and mass actions in the country are a clear sign that the centre is no longer holding.
Out of this mire of corruption, administrative bundling and almost total socio-political chaos, emerges a mass movement such as the Economic Freedom Fighters.
In spite of the merits and demerits of its leaders and what people may say about its ambiguous uses of the Freedom Charter as one of its rallying calls, the EFF is a force that cannot be ignored and in my view, it can only deepen its work despite the Freedom Charter, in fact I think that the Charter is subdued in the presence of the EFF’s other more pertinent demands. NB: ( This is how the September National Imbizo analyses the significance of the EFF )
“Whilst the EFF clarion call shows a clear break with the ANC is has some important weaknesses and silences. We will now deal with some of these. The critique provided by the EFF of the ANC shows some affinity with the politics that has emerged since 1994 and this is demonstrated by the tendency to blaming individual ANC leaders instead of understanding that the problem is not who is the leader of the ANC; the problem is the ANC itself! The ANC manages an anti black state, and that is the fundamental problem. We have already characterised the EFF as part of the continuum of radical nationalism. From here, black movements need to be clear that although radical nationalism ala Chavez, Mugabe and now EFF are progressive and must be defended, however, it does not by itself satisfy our vision for liberation.
Tactically, it means the black movements must support radical nationalism, without being seduced by its progressive albeit limited agenda; we must press on with its demands and struggle for a Sankarist future. We must enter into an ideological struggle with radical nationalism in a common front like politics.
Right now our enemy is not radical nationalism but the ANC which defends white capital and white supremacy. Therefore any formation fighting the ANC from a black nationalism point of view, makes such a fighter formation tactically an ally of the SNI. That’s why EFF is objectively an ally but the DA, Agang and most oppositions parties not. This is because they are not driven by Black Nationalism in their opposition to the ANC.
Because the drafters of the EFF clarion call accept 1994 as a point of “political liberation”, they see the current struggle as one which is purely “economic”. This shows a conceptual weakness and distortion created by accepting the false premise that 1994 signified a rupture with the colonial and apartheid past. From the perspective of the SNI and most black radical movements such as Blackwash, “94 changed fokol!” Therefore, for us the struggle is still for the totality of liberation of blacks: political, economic, social, cultural and spiritual. There is no separating political liberation from economic liberation; there is no real democracy outside the totality of liberation.
To the extent that the EFF emphases one element, albeit fundamental, this is progressive, but to the extent that it accepts 1994 as a watershed, it’s reactionary. The underlying product of this is race denialism or silence on the race question. From a black perspective the condition of the black majority is the determining factor and the basis for judgment of progress. The state of the black majority is evidence enough to dispel notions of political liberation. Political liberation must not be understood in the narrow sense of extension of the franchise, outside of the transformed state.
All Marxists know for instance that bourgeois democracy is a lie and oppressive, despite its game of regular elections and declaration of equality for all. We are driven solely by the black condition and from there we call for BLACKS FIRST!
A related silence precisely because of the lack of social critique of the post 1994 state and politics is the gender question. These silences need to be accentuated into a loud noise that must foreground the new politics we must struggle for. Patriarchy is the enemy of black liberation and central to the construction of life over-determined by White Supremacy!
The EFF is silent on the characterisation of the post 1994 state, and pays undue focus on the “subjective” forces now concentrated in the “Zuma-ANC”. Black movements must insist that central to a new future is the question of the state. The current state has been built for white supremacy; established since 1652 with the arrival of white settlers. For real progress to happen, this state form has to be obliterated by any means necessary.
The central point of struggle must be for the realization of a Sankarist state form. Having arrived at that determination, then the forms of struggle open to our people must not be limited to using existing spaces such as parliament. In fact parliamentarianism is a poison that is best described as “parliamentary creationism”.
The politics of limiting change to elections and not using parliament to expose the hypocrisy of bourgeoisie democracy and as a space to fuel and legitimize the struggles of the people outside parliament, must be rejected.
The EFF call undermines or even discounts mass insurrection as a key tool of liberation as it positions parliament as the arena for change. The fact that the ANC would use the state to fight and repress an Egypt like moment should not discount such mass process, but rather should provide a challenge to think through ways to overcome such a revolutionary difficulty.
Building of a mass radical politics outside parliament are key for the realization of the vision of total change. Parliament is just one arena of battle and not a decisive one at this juncture. We don’t expect revolutionaries to be politicians, but must use politics to end politics! The two lines of struggle must be developed, legal (parliament) and illegal (mass action, defiance and insurrection). For instance, we shall not wait for the state to legislate for “expropriation of land without compensation.
The Problem of Racism:
During a 1995 interview with a colleague from the Pan African Movement USA, Dr John Henrik Clarke gives a clear description of what it takes to overcome the problem of racism.
“JAHANNES: What is your definition of racism?
CLARKE: Race is a myth because nature created no races. Racism is a derogatory manifestation of this myth and the concept that people by virtue of race are better than other people.
JAHANNES: Du Bois said the problem of the 20th century was the problem of race? Is there the potential for man to overcome racism in the 21 century?
CLARKE: Du Bois actually said the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the colour line. I extend his comment by saying that the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the culture line and the political line. We can overcome the problem of race by becoming enough to ignore racists or isolate them.”
This description could be seen as an elucidation of what Dr Chinweizu calls Black Power Pan Afrikanism. Now this is clearly at odds with what the South Afrikan government calls for. The government of national unity, mottos such as Unity In Diversity and social cohesion become less prioritised as the people who have been victims of close to 400 years of white rule assert their rightful place on the land of their forebears.
So what are the socio-economic repercussions of such a radical shift of consciousness and political action?
TBC
MM
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Liberation Time Mculo: Lets Get Free
Liberation Time Mculo: Lets Get Free: Sizophum’eLokishini – Getting Out of the Location A RE-Introduction to Pan Africanism and Black Consciousness for Wellbeing ...
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