It Was Not Easy But It Was Worth It

WHY WE LEFT THE ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS

“Sometimes - history needs a push.” Vladimir Ilich Lenin
By joining the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) we saw it as a medium to maximize radical politics and to bring the message of revolution to the people. To this end we hoped to raise radical consciousness so as to make revolution. We saw the EFF as a hopeful coalition of left forces with the potential for unity in action without abandoning the freedom to criticize any force(s) within the movement especially those represented in its leadership.
When EFF leadership subsequently began to corrupt the movements foundational principles, we urged them to stop! We demanded that they account to our people who voted for the EFF! The movements deviation from its foundational principles were clear in the following respects:
1. Constitution
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At the National People's Assembly (NPA) in December 2014, we witnessed in horror as the EFF constitution was violated. We saw how EFF leaders blatantly went against the provisions of the EFF Constitution so as to elect the leaders that Julius Malema wanted in all leadership positions, so that the EFF can be made to serve their selfish individual interests and that of white capital. We witnessed how Malema's wishes became the wishes of the people. We watched too how the voting choices of Malema served as an instruction to delegates on who they were compelled to vote for! This is how Malema ensured that only his loyalists were elected to the CCT.
2. Political Thought
The political line of the EFF, Marxism-Leninsm-Fanonism, which effectively locates the black liberation project at the core of EFF's liberation efforts has been completely liquidated by the EFF leadership. Leadership has since coming to parliament abandoned the EFF's political line and ideological perspectives. We have seen open attempts to appropriate radical Black Consciousness and Pan Africanism into bourgeois state power and to this end relegate the black liberation project to the periphery. This effectively indicates the containment of the liberation project within the anti black colonial project. Also there was a clear understanding that EFF will use parliament to fight for the people and not to enrich politicians! We understood that EFF will engage in elections and mass action at the same time and to this end EFF will lead a land repossession movement in the country. The point in this form of engagement was that people must not be made to wait for parliament and laws for people to get back, inter alia, their land! Our people have waited for 21 years already! However EFF is not using parliament for the reasons it had initially declared. With the core issue of agitation for EFF MP's being the limited demand that President Zuma must "PayBackTheMoney" spent on upgrades at Nkandla failing which he must step down, participation in parliament is a far cry from what EFF had intended it for. Besides, this demand suggests that the problem is President Zuma and not the ANC and hence feeds into the neo liberal agenda of reproducing the same anti black system under a new president.
3. Purges
We have witnessed how Fighters have been purged from the movement without any charges or proper procedures being followed. All Leaders and Fighters that question procedure in the EFF have been silenced. The movements intellectual capacity has been deliberately stunted by EFF leadership. Intellectuals who challenge leadership's compradoreial tendencies are isolated and purged. It is now a crime to challenge backward ideas in the EFF. EFF is no longer a politically dynamic movement.
4. Land
When we joined the EFF we did so with a clear appreciation and understanding that there shall be, amongst other non negotiable cardinal pillars, land expropriation without compensation and equitable distribution of this resource amongst our people.
When EFF first came to Parliament it condemned the apartheid land thieves. It also offered its 6 percent proportion of the national vote to the ANC to amend the constitution so as to realize "land expropriation without compensation”.
At the December 2014 EFF National Peoples Assembly we witnessed the beginning of EFF leader Julius Malema's deviation from cardinal pillar 1 when he diluted the land demand by calling for the occupation of “unoccupied land" only.
In April 2015 Malema met with the white leaders of the agricultural capitalist class in Stellenbosch and completely sold out the land principle of EFF, being the demand for land expropriation without compensation, and settled for expropriation of “non-productive land” only. He told these white agricultural leaders that as long as "it’s a productive farm, we don’t have to interfere with the production on that piece of land” and that when there is a part of the land“ which is not used for agriculture purposes, we would be having a problem. All we are saying is the land must be used. It must not lie idle.” In so selling out Malema destroyed the urgency of resolving the land question radically. This was not in line with what the EFF founding manifesto requires, that is, that all land shall be expropriated without compensation. It was also contrary to the EFF land policy which suggests that land is based on the anticolonial logic that all land in South Africa is stolen property.
5. Corruption
We have also seen how Cardinal pillar number 7 which speaks of an "open, accountable, corrupt free government and society without fear of victimisation by the state agencies" has been violated by those who consider EFF funds as being their personal funds. To this end when EFF members tried to hold EFF leaders accountable, they were victimized, called names and threatened. We have witnessed EFF leaders using all sorts of threats to instill fear in those who dare to challenge them!
6. Militia Gang
EFF has been turned into a militia gang and now operates as such. The movement has seen fighters being commanded and thugs being hired to deal with members who challenge leadership. There is a compradoreial leadership in place with all the bourgeois mechanisms in tact to keep them in power. They call upon members to use violence against those who dare to question them.
7. ANC Culture
The period starting from the NPA of December 2014 is marked by the rise of ANC aligned leadership within the EFF. In this period we witnessed and in fact experienced the full reactionary burden of the ANC culture, sponsored by the Malema leadership, that was taking root in the movement. This culture was evident in the way, for example, that: "ghost" branches were established throughout the movement; delegates were chosen to attend the NPA; candidates were chosen and published on preferred slates, and; draft positions on the important questions of "expropriation of land" and "nationalization of mines" were stripped of race theory for obvious settlement within the neo liberal agenda of the ANC. This culture of practice inspired by EFF leadership is not ideologically innocent and must be viewed in the context of leadership openly embracing the ideals of the Freedom Charter (FC). Also it is a means used by leadership to derail the movement permanently from the revolutionary path!
8. Freedom Charter
While the ANC has declared 2015 the year of the FC, EFF leadership has at the same time indicated its support of the document and has since the last EFF NPA given more weight to it than its own Founding Manifesto. In fact EFF held a huge celebration on 27 June 2015 to mark 60 years of the FC. To this end EFF's support of the FC has come to mean one thing only: supporting the ANC's neo liberal agenda! The FC is an anti black documented program of action that ultimately serves to maintain white monopoly capital via the agency of black comprador elements who serve as front office managers of that system! Land was stolen from blacks and the FC fails to make this point and consequently fails to frame the fundamental question as that of white racism which in turn needs black solidarity to create the revolutionary encounter capable of producing an anti racist socialist society. Without this revolutionary encounter we cannot arrive at an anti racist socialist society even if we all "work" the country.
9. Move On
The crisis in the EFF is very grave. Politically, the organization is dead! We now know that the EFF cannot realistically challenge the ANC's neo-colonialism and that there is every indication that it is the continuation of the ANC. Due to the above factors coupled with the fact that there is no platform within the EFF to engage in any meaningful ideological struggle against the backward and sell out tendencies of leadership we were constrained to conclude that if the movement cannot be used to realize the black liberation project, via the resolution of the land question and putting blacks first, then it is of no use to our people's cause.