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