Friday, September 27, 2013
on my own - a poem for Bantu Biko
how can Love be dead?
and how do we go on
keeping alive
this half life
in which we thrive
on borrowed time
still haunted by these pale ghosts
in this dry anonymous season
defying Nature's reason
why seasons come to pass
But
Biko is dead
and the amnesiac nation is still bleeding
Love has bled
and a people is still pleading
for a piece of the devils pie
mystified by the lie of the land, these pay-cheques
our proof that we are democracies rejects
these salted tears
and wasted years
Mandela's benevolent smile
our Taj Mahal
yet Love is not for mahala
where gold stalks platinum
down freedoms avenues
where patriarchs sell their daughters
for blood-sugar-sex-magik
i want to scream
to the plaintive melody of A Love Supreme
but the echo chambers of Biko's dying bellow
his deathly twitch
chokes my throat
and my song comes in sobs and blobs of blood
and instead i scream MARIKANA GOD DAMN!!!
knowing i am not a man on his own
but i am
a discarded god crossing the universe on a solitary boat
hoping to bestow a sun-shunning smile to the West
Nah Dead, Rasta Still deh deh!
there was blood on the floor
dread on the walls
the unquiet violence of our dreams
came with a finality
that made the sun shy away and the moon grow paler
it is finished
the world soon done!
judgeman soon come
and Mama Afrika restored
to Her pagan glory
but the Stepping Razor said no!
I don't want your Soon Come
because justice delayed
they say
is justice denied
and all the politricksters and their penguins have lied
where is Jah today?
when bullets rip through holy walls
gangsters own the keys to paradise.
Where is the king of kings today?
when we embed our babies in our secret shame,
when we torture our mothers
when this motherless system's to blame?
cosmic jokes and divine comedies
heavy hearts thud
like goat skin drums
or any black body hitting striking the mud.
another statistic of a world with no equal rights
nor jahstice
it's just us
and them
i and i still in doubt
and "me don't know how we and dem a go work it out"
all that jazz - a jazz poem by Menzi Maseko
I am reciting a jazz poem
over the heads of these shining bright youths
something about Milestones
Miles Ahead
of Maiden Voyages and Duke
nothing extra special
no hidden meanings
and no immortal truths
but the poem takes me over
and so i scat, rave and behave
as if i am ascending
like Coltrane
Ibrahim
or Mseleku
or like Taiwa Molelekwa
descending into tearless pain
like St John in his Africa Brass Suite
but what good is a song without a message?
and what's it all about anyway?
its jazz gone ultra-vox
like Herbie Hancock's robots in Rockit
issuing through my voice box
but why?
because jazz is elagant, pretty unpretty
political, suicidal
incidental
phenomenal and best of all
jazz rocks
and pushes your head out of that box
making us take notice
of nothingness
and the foolishness of trying to sell something
just hear it in Sipho Gumede's tune
Chickens Today, Feather Dusters Tomorrow
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
the more things change ...
Faith Without Works?
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” – Karl Marx, Theses on Fuerbach, 1845.
“The diversity of cultural identity in South Africa is replicated in the church, religion and theology. During the apartheid years the church was politically active in a number of ways.” – Hennie Kotze and Cindy Lee Steenkamp, Values and Democracy in South Africa: Comparing Elite and Public Values, 2009
When Has Politics Been Separated From Religion? Can we honestly say that democracy and the rule of law, independent courts and any form of institution for nation building have ever occurred without religious collusion? This has been the consistent question as I have been ‘rising’ as a political and spiritualised being.
As a Rastafarian there have been countless moments where the reasoning has turned into a heated debate and even into tedious arguments. You see, people come into a spiritual congregation from various walks of life, while others may have been committed to political struggles; others may have simply converted from a multitude of faiths, traditional practices or a blend of all the above. This obviously creates some difficulties and even barriers in inter-personal and even organisational communication.
It has been customary for Rastafari not to vote or be involved in any form of active politics, yet paradoxically this is a movement that began as a anti-imperialist, anti-colonial and even anti-church sect lead by a mystical and charismatic character known as Leonard Howell*. This eccentric yet very studious Jamaican man shocked everyone around him and even around the world when early in the 20th century he declared that a certain Black monarch was God Himself and that Black people had to refrain from paying any respects to the queen of England, the church and any representations of White Supremacy.
Howell was making an anti-oppression declaration that was not unique at that time but because of the special circumstances of the time and the peculiar Nature of his chosen Messiah made quite a huge impression on the downtrodden of Jamaica many of whom became his disciples. Even those who did not ‘leave Babylon’ and follow Howell up to the hills to pursue a life with less dependence on commercialism confessed that indeed, there was something powerful and enigmatic about him. None ever said that what he was affirming was untrue. It was not simply a religion; he was talking about a God on Earth.
We will not get too deeply into the evolution of Rastafari and the history of Emperor Haile Selassie I, the King of kings of Ethiopia here, but suffice to say that the impact of the Rastafarian way of life, cultural forms and intellectual contribution is extraordinary. Not since the rise of Marxism and socialism has there ever been a socio-spiritual movement that is as dynamic, misunderstood and even rejected as the Rastafarians. Yet if left to thrive it has to potential to solve so many of the social ills that seem to perplex the world.
Today the Rasta faithful number among the millions and those who claim to love Jah Rastafari are uncountable. Yet there is also another stream that has been rising as the 21st century begins, those who have unlearned the pro-biblical foundations of this movement and prefer a new faculty of interpretation, one that locates the core of the movement within a pan-Africanist and anti-white supremacist paradigm. Here there are no Bibles or overt religiosity; just more affirmations towards a truly Independent and empowered Afurakan self.
While I could delve into in-depth and elaborate anthropological tales about the history of human civilisations, primordial forms of societal organisations and developments, what I aim to deal with here is the way the past remains ever relevant to the present and how we more often than not fail to learn from any of this. At least one can say that there are too few people who choose to see the signs and exercise the lessons that history teaches us.
History though can be unfaithful, especially when power and powerlessness are considered as aggregating factors. Power can be a form of dictatorship and those who possess it in whatever form it takes can sometimes wield it in ways that alter or affect the course of time either positively or negatively and more often than not it is the latter. Although it is said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, not all people who have possessed power have damaged the world, indeed some have given it a more human face, or at least made a great attempt to do so.
Religion has been known to possess many levels of power, and not just for those who adhere to it, cherish it and perpetuate it; the ones who may choose to ignore it, refuse it or disregard it can also suffer its consequences. Faith is actually an unstable and uncontrollable substance.
As human beings we essentially tend to bear each other’s weight even when we least realise it. Much of what we do has consequences on the lives of others and even upon the environment. One need not be conscious or unconscious of the effects of ones thoughts, words and actions – either way they still leave an impression on the world. This is where spirituality and power find each other battling for humanity’s very existence. But what about the person who has no care for neither power nor religion? I use the words spirituality and religious interchangeably here not because I think that they are the same thing, but to elaborate how psychology, mythology and human organizational culture are intertwined and any attempt to study or use them separately is a deviation, a delusion.
“Postmodernism suggests that major ideologies such as Marxist-Leninism were products of a period of modernization, and that in increasingly fragmented and pluralistic information age societies, the focus is on the individual rather than on alternative stratification (or ‘meta-narratives’) such as class, religion and ethnicity that might have universal application. The post-modernist school of thought argues that the focus should be on changing, rather than ameliorating or attempting to work through, the worst excesses of the world. The key villain in this formulation is the power relationship of the nation-state system supported by the neo-liberal/neo-realist orthodoxy, which the school seeks to deconstruct in the search for a more equitable formula for distribution of power and wealth.” – (Greg Mills – national director of the South African Institute of International Affairs - , Back To The Future? A Review of a Decade of International Relations Thinking, page 24, South Africa’s Foreign Policy 1994 – 2004 Apartheid Past, Renaissance Future, edited by Elizabeth Sidiropoulos)
Sometimes in order to build on a firm foundation, we have to destroy what is on it. We have level the field and we have to create new tools and innovate. Yet there is nothing stopping us from re-using some of the broken pieces to fashion our new construction. If we think that nothing is truly wasted, we can recycle, reuse without reinventing the same old building. When it comes to the basics of human survival, all we have is the ground beneath our feet, the water, and the air and then we have our stories. All of these are essential to how we live within a world of finite means. Our powers are infinite yet our resources are limited to time.
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” – Karl Marx, Theses on Fuerbach, 1845.
“The diversity of cultural identity in South Africa is replicated in the church, religion and theology. During the apartheid years the church was politically active in a number of ways.” – Hennie Kotze and Cindy Lee Steenkamp, Values and Democracy in South Africa: Comparing Elite and Public Values, 2009
When Has Politics Been Separated From Religion? Can we honestly say that democracy and the rule of law, independent courts and any form of institution for nation building have ever occurred without religious collusion? This has been the consistent question as I have been ‘rising’ as a political and spiritualised being.
As a Rastafarian there have been countless moments where the reasoning has turned into a heated debate and even into tedious arguments. You see, people come into a spiritual congregation from various walks of life, while others may have been committed to political struggles; others may have simply converted from a multitude of faiths, traditional practices or a blend of all the above. This obviously creates some difficulties and even barriers in inter-personal and even organisational communication.
It has been customary for Rastafari not to vote or be involved in any form of active politics, yet paradoxically this is a movement that began as a anti-imperialist, anti-colonial and even anti-church sect lead by a mystical and charismatic character known as Leonard Howell*. This eccentric yet very studious Jamaican man shocked everyone around him and even around the world when early in the 20th century he declared that a certain Black monarch was God Himself and that Black people had to refrain from paying any respects to the queen of England, the church and any representations of White Supremacy.
Howell was making an anti-oppression declaration that was not unique at that time but because of the special circumstances of the time and the peculiar Nature of his chosen Messiah made quite a huge impression on the downtrodden of Jamaica many of whom became his disciples. Even those who did not ‘leave Babylon’ and follow Howell up to the hills to pursue a life with less dependence on commercialism confessed that indeed, there was something powerful and enigmatic about him. None ever said that what he was affirming was untrue. It was not simply a religion; he was talking about a God on Earth.
We will not get too deeply into the evolution of Rastafari and the history of Emperor Haile Selassie I, the King of kings of Ethiopia here, but suffice to say that the impact of the Rastafarian way of life, cultural forms and intellectual contribution is extraordinary. Not since the rise of Marxism and socialism has there ever been a socio-spiritual movement that is as dynamic, misunderstood and even rejected as the Rastafarians. Yet if left to thrive it has to potential to solve so many of the social ills that seem to perplex the world.
Today the Rasta faithful number among the millions and those who claim to love Jah Rastafari are uncountable. Yet there is also another stream that has been rising as the 21st century begins, those who have unlearned the pro-biblical foundations of this movement and prefer a new faculty of interpretation, one that locates the core of the movement within a pan-Africanist and anti-white supremacist paradigm. Here there are no Bibles or overt religiosity; just more affirmations towards a truly Independent and empowered Afurakan self.
While I could delve into in-depth and elaborate anthropological tales about the history of human civilisations, primordial forms of societal organisations and developments, what I aim to deal with here is the way the past remains ever relevant to the present and how we more often than not fail to learn from any of this. At least one can say that there are too few people who choose to see the signs and exercise the lessons that history teaches us.
History though can be unfaithful, especially when power and powerlessness are considered as aggregating factors. Power can be a form of dictatorship and those who possess it in whatever form it takes can sometimes wield it in ways that alter or affect the course of time either positively or negatively and more often than not it is the latter. Although it is said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, not all people who have possessed power have damaged the world, indeed some have given it a more human face, or at least made a great attempt to do so.
Religion has been known to possess many levels of power, and not just for those who adhere to it, cherish it and perpetuate it; the ones who may choose to ignore it, refuse it or disregard it can also suffer its consequences. Faith is actually an unstable and uncontrollable substance.
As human beings we essentially tend to bear each other’s weight even when we least realise it. Much of what we do has consequences on the lives of others and even upon the environment. One need not be conscious or unconscious of the effects of ones thoughts, words and actions – either way they still leave an impression on the world. This is where spirituality and power find each other battling for humanity’s very existence. But what about the person who has no care for neither power nor religion? I use the words spirituality and religious interchangeably here not because I think that they are the same thing, but to elaborate how psychology, mythology and human organizational culture are intertwined and any attempt to study or use them separately is a deviation, a delusion.
“Postmodernism suggests that major ideologies such as Marxist-Leninism were products of a period of modernization, and that in increasingly fragmented and pluralistic information age societies, the focus is on the individual rather than on alternative stratification (or ‘meta-narratives’) such as class, religion and ethnicity that might have universal application. The post-modernist school of thought argues that the focus should be on changing, rather than ameliorating or attempting to work through, the worst excesses of the world. The key villain in this formulation is the power relationship of the nation-state system supported by the neo-liberal/neo-realist orthodoxy, which the school seeks to deconstruct in the search for a more equitable formula for distribution of power and wealth.” – (Greg Mills – national director of the South African Institute of International Affairs - , Back To The Future? A Review of a Decade of International Relations Thinking, page 24, South Africa’s Foreign Policy 1994 – 2004 Apartheid Past, Renaissance Future, edited by Elizabeth Sidiropoulos)
Sometimes in order to build on a firm foundation, we have to destroy what is on it. We have level the field and we have to create new tools and innovate. Yet there is nothing stopping us from re-using some of the broken pieces to fashion our new construction. If we think that nothing is truly wasted, we can recycle, reuse without reinventing the same old building. When it comes to the basics of human survival, all we have is the ground beneath our feet, the water, and the air and then we have our stories. All of these are essential to how we live within a world of finite means. Our powers are infinite yet our resources are limited to time.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
For The Love of Change
Why Do I Love The Economic Freedom Fighters?
I have worked in various industries in South Africa including some overseas stints with the British Council program Global Xchange. I have been an entrepreneur, co-founding a Travel and Tourism company which still makes large profits although I have distanced myself from it; I have co-founded a successful brand and pan-African apparent company Urban Zulu and sold books and music via my company Broken Seeds Productions … I have worked within the Arts and Culture sector and I still do.
I have even worked as a Black Economic Empowerment consultant and marketer. I have been unemployed, self-employed – rich and poor. All of the above have taught me invaluable lessons about the nature of Work, and what it means to have a goal, a vision and a mission that benefits more than yourself.
I have been a social commentator, an environmentalist, a Pentecostal, a Rastafarian and even entertained some anarchist ideas. Although I have never joined a political party formally before I began associating myself with the September National Imbizo around 2011, and had been attending some Socialist Party of Azania rallies and meetings a few years before that. All of this was done in pursuit of the best way in which I could make a contribution in Transforming the lives of my people. What Steve Biko’s son Hlumelo calls The Great African Society, which is nothing more than a dream for now.
This transformational work requires personal and organisational discipline and excellence and that is something that one is striving to achieve. It is easier said than done.
When the EFF started many of my comrades had already begun speculating about whether or not we would ‘assist’ Julius Malema to make good of his rants about Nationalisation and other issues that he so boisterously keeps putting out to the mass media.
But how do we deal with such a cantankerous and volatile character? How do we reconcile our frustration and utter denouncement of the current regime which the young leader has been such a vocal advocate of with our Black Power Pan Afrikanism? Surely we would be committing political suicide if we began to fraternise with “Charterists” and suspected fraudsters and tax evaders.
But our socialist instincts and reading of the revolutionary moment had us reasoning that we should take the bitter with the sweet and that anyone who champions our course for a Revolutionary Southern Afrika should be our mate no matter how imperfect they may seem.
The subsequent meetings that we had at the Afrikan Freedom Station with the EFF team was interesting to say the least. After discussing our mutual terms of engagement as SNI/EFF and the delegation of other social movements that we had met with to chart a way forward, it emerged that we had more similarities than differences and that our unity would serve us all. The fact is that there have been too many false starts and too much talk and not much effective action from the Left in SA politics.
While the Unions and other organisations that purport to seek a Socialist solution to our countries socio-economic woes keep selling workers, miners, farmers and unemployed people false promises; the imperialists and ineffectual elitist government and administrators continue to plunder our resources.
A change was bound to happen and sooner than later. Although it is still early to tell just how this youth led popular organisation will fare in the greater scheme of things; I am confident that the Economic Freedom Fight must be waged TODAY and that no other party is capable of ensuring that this is done sooner rather than later. 20 years of promises of a “Better Life For All” are enough. We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For. And I have selected just some key points from the Economic Freedom Fighters Founding Manifesto to emphasize my point: Do READ:
43. Food production, packaging, transportation, marketing, advertising, retail, and trade should constitute one of South Africa’s biggest economic sectors. With a growing global population, and the growing capacity of Africans to buy food, South Africa needs to produce agricultural output through provision of subsidies to small-scale farmers, and open packaging and retail opportunities for these farmers.
44. A structured state support and agricultural-protection mechanism should be applied to all food products, including beef and other meats’ production and processing. The same applies to fruit, maize, and other essential food items produced by small-scale farmers. To boost sustainable demand domestically, the South African government should pass legislation that all the food bought by government for hospitals, schools, prisons, and the like should be sourced from small-scale food producers.
This in itself will create sustainable economic activity, and inspire many young people to go into food production because there will be income and financial benefits to boost other economic activities out of it. The economy of food production needs well-structured protection mechanisms and subsidies in order to protect jobs and safeguard food security. Most developed and developing nations are doing the same.
45. With a clearly defined and well-structured mechanism, South Africa, which is, oddly, a net importer of food, can realise the development of the food economy in a manner that exceeds Brazil’s. This will add sustainable job creation, not the kind of short-term jobs created through infrastructure development. This will, of course, require land reform to be expedited and water supplies to be guaranteed for the sustainability of the this important sector of the economy.
2) Nationalisation of mines, banks and other strategic sectors of the economy.
46. Owing to the character of the South African economy and the aspirations of the people for economic freedom, state ownership and control of strategic sectors of the economy should be the foundation for sustainable economic transformation in South Africa. A supposition that the South African economy can be transformed to address the massive unemployment, poverty and inequality crisis without transfer of wealth from those who currently own it to the people as a whole is illusory.
The transfer of wealth from the minority should fundamentally focus on the commanding heights of the economy. This should include minerals, metals, banks, energy production, and telecommunications and retain the ownership of central transport and logistics modes such as Transnet, Sasol, Mittal Steel, Eskom, Telkom and all harbours and airports.
47. The ownership of mineral wealth should be considered through various means, prime being the expropriation of the current minerals-production processes in South Africa, and the commencement of extraction, processing and trade on new land. The ownership of minerals beneath the soil could in effect entail the discontinuation of total private ownership of production means in the production of mineral wealth in South Africa. The route towards total transfer of mineral wealth to the ownership of the people as a whole should include the creation of an efficient and impactful state-owned mining company. It will be efficient and impactful because a state-owned mining company should contribute to job creation, while being efficiently managed and administered in a manner that will raise the levels of public confidence in the capacity of the state to do business and contribute to economic development.
48. Nationalised mineral wealth will in effect constitute a very firm basis for the beneficiation of these products in both heavy and light industrial processes in South Africa, which could be left to industrial and manufacturing entrepreneurs, co-operatives and small and medium enterprises, so as to develop the productive forces of the South African economy, which is still reliant on the production of primary commodities. Instead of relying on neoliberal mechanisms to attract industrial and manufacturing investments to South Africa, such as a narrow fiscal stability, and decreased labour costs, the state, in the ownership of mineral wealth and metals, could provide incentives to reduce prices for the primary and raw commodities, which will be industrialised and beneficiated in South Africa.
49. Minerals and metals beneficiation will constitute a very firm, sustainable and labour-absorptive industrial process, which will feature both import-substituting and export-led industrialisation. Various other areas of an increased, sustainable and labour absorptive industrial process could be explored within a situation where the production of metals and minerals are nationalised for the benefit of all. Industrial and manufacturing entrepreneurs, co-operatives, and small and medium enterprises from outside and inside South Africa could then be allowed to industrialise the South African economy, with guaranteed rights, and regulated through transformation charters which will lead to skills transfer at all levels of corporations’ structures.
50. This process should conspicuously be coupled with an effective skills-development, training and education strategy, which will directly feed into a growing industrial and manufacturing process.
Importantly for this process to happen, the South African liberation movement and the state should mobilise massive support of the working class, some sections of the middle class and established industrial entrepreneurs and corporations behind a consolidated national economic-developmental plan, which will address the social challenges characteristic of South African society. This is one revolution that requires support from various sections of South African society and should be understood within such a context.
51. Certainly, the nationalisation of minerals and metals might ignite international condemnation by global imperialists, institutionalised in the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and, notably, the World Trade Organisation. A broader mass movement should be mobilised in South Africa in defence of these massive economic reforms, because they constitute the core of our economic emancipation programme. Mass campaigns on what nationalisation (people and state ownership and control) of minerals, metals and other strategic sectors of the economy will entail should be conducted to garner support from the people as a whole.
52. The benefits of nationalising strategic sectors of the economy will include, but not be limited to, the following realities: a. An increased fiscus for, and therefore more resources for, education, housing, healthcare, infrastructure development, safety and security and sustainable livelihoods for our people.
b. More jobs for our people because state-owned and controlled mines will increase the local beneficiation and industrialisation of mineral resources. This will, in turn, reduce the high levels of poverty consequent of joblessness.
c. More equitable spatial development because state-owned and controlled mines will invest in areas where mining is happening.
d. Better salaries and working conditions in mines because state-owned mines will increase the mining wage and improve compliance with occupational health and safety standards.
e. Greater levels of economic and political sovereignty, as the state will be in control and ownership of strategic sectors of the economy, which produce mineral resources needed around the world.
53. It is important to highlight that, as part of this programme, the transfer of wealth to the ownership of the people as a whole is not limited to mines only, but should necessarily extend to monopoly industries. The creation of a State Bank and the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank constitute an immediate task and essential to the development of the South African economy, as it can be progressively positioned to improve the existence of state-owned development finance institutions, in order to finance new industries. The State Bank will also provide enterprise finance, housing finance and vehicle finance for all South Africans in a manner that promotes development, not the narrow pursuit of profits.
54. The EFF-led government will establish a State Bank, which should be accompanied by the transformation of the financial sector as a whole, particularly banking and insurance industry practices and norms. Finance capital dominates the world economy and carries with it the potential to undermine all efforts to build a better life for all people. Vigilance and greater state participation in the financial sector is therefore a vital component of efforts to build a sustainable and better life for all the people of South Africa.
55. The EFF will limit foreign ownership of strategic and monopoly sectors, where the state does not exert full ownership, in order to protect South Africa’s sovereignty and to limit the repatriation of profits, so that these can be used for the further development of our people.
3) Building state and government capacity, which will lead to the abolishment of tenders.
56. For a successful state that seeks to drive real economic and industrial development and provide better services, an inspired, skilled, and well-compensated public service is required. The public service should be strengthened for a sustainable transformation of the economy. The ethos of such a state should be developmental and very strong and, hence, consistent with anti-corruption measures. This is emphasised because the task of fundamental economic
57. This should, essentially, be a state that has the capacity to marshal all progressive social forces in society, particularly the working class, towards developmental objectives. The state should build internal capacity to construct and maintain infrastructure such as roads, railways and dams and basic services such as schools, houses, hospitals and recreational facilities. The state’s dependence on tenders has massive political implications and often reduces the quality of work provided because of corruption and the corruptibility of the whole tendering system. In addition, the reliance on tenders limits the capacity of the state to directly industrialise the country by deliberately building value chains through direct state procurement.
58. The state’s capacity to perform these functions will entail that the public service and its servants be properly maintained, serviced and adequately remunerated at all levels. At the centre of a strong developmental state should be a motivated, inspired and well-remunerated public service that shares in the developmental vision of the country. These interventions should be coupled with an increased capacity to aggressively fight corruption and criminality within the state.
The fight against corruption should not be a side issue, but a fundamental component of the state apparatus in order to increase public confidence in the state. In this context, the EFF will place a premium on strengthening the revolutionary trade union movement in the public sector, which should establish a practical and immediate bridge through which the working class exercises its power over the state apparatus.
59. A strong developmental state should necessarily have political power and technical capacity to give developmental mandates to state-owned enterprises (SOE) and private corporations. SOE and private sector compliance with the state’s developmental targets should not be voluntary, but a mandatory, crucial factor around which the state should be able to use a carrot-and-stick system to enforce.
It can never be correct that the state operates only with the “hope” that the still colonial and foreign-owned, and thus unpatriotic, private sector, in particular, will voluntarily underwrite the developmental agenda and pursue the agenda of job creation, poverty reduction and sustainable development with the same vigour that should define government.
60. As concrete steps forward, which the state should initiate, establish and give strategic and financial support to, are the following:
a. A state housing-construction company. b. A state roads-construction company. c. A state cement company.
d. A state pharmaceutical company. e. A state-owned mining company. f. A state food-stocking company (to regulate prices of basic foodstuffs and guarantee food security for all).
61. These state companies will be buttressed by state ownership of critical parts of the value chains in which these companies operate, e.g. petrochemicals (Sasol), steel (Arcelor-Mittal), etc, so that they produce essential inputs into the economy on a non-profit-maximisation basis.
62. Within this context, the state will employ engineers, quantity surveyors, project managers, and builders for sustainable tasks. Their responsibilities will include the construction of houses, roads, bridges, sports facilities, dams, sewerage systems and more. These should be subjected to strict standards of quality assurance to ensure that, at all times, state-constructed entities are of good quality. State-owned companies will not be driven by principles of profit maximisation, but by the need to provide cheap and affordable services to the people and the economy at large.
4) Free quality education, healthcare, houses, and sanitation.
63. Education: Education will be free up to undergraduate level and all pupils and students will be provided with adequate learning and teacher-support materials. For successful and sustainable economic development and growth, South Africa requires a concerted focus on the attainment of skills, education and expertise in various fields. The attainment of skills should necessarily respond to the massive skills shortages that define existent industries, but the education system should also be positioned to assist with new industrial developments.
The approach to realising this noble objective should include, but not be limited to, the alignment of skills to industrial sectors, the expansion of post-secondary education and training, the transformation of higher education and training and the introduction of a new scholarship system that will provide educational and training opportunities to South African youth studying outside the country so that they can return after learning more than would have been possible within South Africa’s borders.
64. The alignment of skills to industrial sectors should be done in a manner similar to the approach adopted by developed economies, but in a more focused and properly resourced model that would necessarily include the establishment of focus universities. South Africa should establish and resource sector-focused institutions of higher learning. The EFF will encourage tertiary institutions to expand and deepen their qualitative focus in terms of course offerings and research, with a view to create centres of excellence across the tertiary education spectrum.
Skills, education and expertise are an important feature of sustainable industrial and economic development for any economy.
The South African government, in collaboration with industrial and manufacturing investors and practitioners, should put in place industry-linked training authorities, which will train, particularly, young people for various responsibilities in new industries and factories. Various sectors, including minerals beneficiation and industrialisation (eg diamond cutting and polishing) are highly labour-absorptive sectors and a training agency should be established for this sector to supply labour to this particular sector.”
I have worked in various industries in South Africa including some overseas stints with the British Council program Global Xchange. I have been an entrepreneur, co-founding a Travel and Tourism company which still makes large profits although I have distanced myself from it; I have co-founded a successful brand and pan-African apparent company Urban Zulu and sold books and music via my company Broken Seeds Productions … I have worked within the Arts and Culture sector and I still do.
I have even worked as a Black Economic Empowerment consultant and marketer. I have been unemployed, self-employed – rich and poor. All of the above have taught me invaluable lessons about the nature of Work, and what it means to have a goal, a vision and a mission that benefits more than yourself.
I have been a social commentator, an environmentalist, a Pentecostal, a Rastafarian and even entertained some anarchist ideas. Although I have never joined a political party formally before I began associating myself with the September National Imbizo around 2011, and had been attending some Socialist Party of Azania rallies and meetings a few years before that. All of this was done in pursuit of the best way in which I could make a contribution in Transforming the lives of my people. What Steve Biko’s son Hlumelo calls The Great African Society, which is nothing more than a dream for now.
This transformational work requires personal and organisational discipline and excellence and that is something that one is striving to achieve. It is easier said than done.
When the EFF started many of my comrades had already begun speculating about whether or not we would ‘assist’ Julius Malema to make good of his rants about Nationalisation and other issues that he so boisterously keeps putting out to the mass media.
But how do we deal with such a cantankerous and volatile character? How do we reconcile our frustration and utter denouncement of the current regime which the young leader has been such a vocal advocate of with our Black Power Pan Afrikanism? Surely we would be committing political suicide if we began to fraternise with “Charterists” and suspected fraudsters and tax evaders.
But our socialist instincts and reading of the revolutionary moment had us reasoning that we should take the bitter with the sweet and that anyone who champions our course for a Revolutionary Southern Afrika should be our mate no matter how imperfect they may seem.
The subsequent meetings that we had at the Afrikan Freedom Station with the EFF team was interesting to say the least. After discussing our mutual terms of engagement as SNI/EFF and the delegation of other social movements that we had met with to chart a way forward, it emerged that we had more similarities than differences and that our unity would serve us all. The fact is that there have been too many false starts and too much talk and not much effective action from the Left in SA politics.
While the Unions and other organisations that purport to seek a Socialist solution to our countries socio-economic woes keep selling workers, miners, farmers and unemployed people false promises; the imperialists and ineffectual elitist government and administrators continue to plunder our resources.
A change was bound to happen and sooner than later. Although it is still early to tell just how this youth led popular organisation will fare in the greater scheme of things; I am confident that the Economic Freedom Fight must be waged TODAY and that no other party is capable of ensuring that this is done sooner rather than later. 20 years of promises of a “Better Life For All” are enough. We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For. And I have selected just some key points from the Economic Freedom Fighters Founding Manifesto to emphasize my point: Do READ:
43. Food production, packaging, transportation, marketing, advertising, retail, and trade should constitute one of South Africa’s biggest economic sectors. With a growing global population, and the growing capacity of Africans to buy food, South Africa needs to produce agricultural output through provision of subsidies to small-scale farmers, and open packaging and retail opportunities for these farmers.
44. A structured state support and agricultural-protection mechanism should be applied to all food products, including beef and other meats’ production and processing. The same applies to fruit, maize, and other essential food items produced by small-scale farmers. To boost sustainable demand domestically, the South African government should pass legislation that all the food bought by government for hospitals, schools, prisons, and the like should be sourced from small-scale food producers.
This in itself will create sustainable economic activity, and inspire many young people to go into food production because there will be income and financial benefits to boost other economic activities out of it. The economy of food production needs well-structured protection mechanisms and subsidies in order to protect jobs and safeguard food security. Most developed and developing nations are doing the same.
45. With a clearly defined and well-structured mechanism, South Africa, which is, oddly, a net importer of food, can realise the development of the food economy in a manner that exceeds Brazil’s. This will add sustainable job creation, not the kind of short-term jobs created through infrastructure development. This will, of course, require land reform to be expedited and water supplies to be guaranteed for the sustainability of the this important sector of the economy.
2) Nationalisation of mines, banks and other strategic sectors of the economy.
46. Owing to the character of the South African economy and the aspirations of the people for economic freedom, state ownership and control of strategic sectors of the economy should be the foundation for sustainable economic transformation in South Africa. A supposition that the South African economy can be transformed to address the massive unemployment, poverty and inequality crisis without transfer of wealth from those who currently own it to the people as a whole is illusory.
The transfer of wealth from the minority should fundamentally focus on the commanding heights of the economy. This should include minerals, metals, banks, energy production, and telecommunications and retain the ownership of central transport and logistics modes such as Transnet, Sasol, Mittal Steel, Eskom, Telkom and all harbours and airports.
47. The ownership of mineral wealth should be considered through various means, prime being the expropriation of the current minerals-production processes in South Africa, and the commencement of extraction, processing and trade on new land. The ownership of minerals beneath the soil could in effect entail the discontinuation of total private ownership of production means in the production of mineral wealth in South Africa. The route towards total transfer of mineral wealth to the ownership of the people as a whole should include the creation of an efficient and impactful state-owned mining company. It will be efficient and impactful because a state-owned mining company should contribute to job creation, while being efficiently managed and administered in a manner that will raise the levels of public confidence in the capacity of the state to do business and contribute to economic development.
48. Nationalised mineral wealth will in effect constitute a very firm basis for the beneficiation of these products in both heavy and light industrial processes in South Africa, which could be left to industrial and manufacturing entrepreneurs, co-operatives and small and medium enterprises, so as to develop the productive forces of the South African economy, which is still reliant on the production of primary commodities. Instead of relying on neoliberal mechanisms to attract industrial and manufacturing investments to South Africa, such as a narrow fiscal stability, and decreased labour costs, the state, in the ownership of mineral wealth and metals, could provide incentives to reduce prices for the primary and raw commodities, which will be industrialised and beneficiated in South Africa.
49. Minerals and metals beneficiation will constitute a very firm, sustainable and labour-absorptive industrial process, which will feature both import-substituting and export-led industrialisation. Various other areas of an increased, sustainable and labour absorptive industrial process could be explored within a situation where the production of metals and minerals are nationalised for the benefit of all. Industrial and manufacturing entrepreneurs, co-operatives, and small and medium enterprises from outside and inside South Africa could then be allowed to industrialise the South African economy, with guaranteed rights, and regulated through transformation charters which will lead to skills transfer at all levels of corporations’ structures.
50. This process should conspicuously be coupled with an effective skills-development, training and education strategy, which will directly feed into a growing industrial and manufacturing process.
Importantly for this process to happen, the South African liberation movement and the state should mobilise massive support of the working class, some sections of the middle class and established industrial entrepreneurs and corporations behind a consolidated national economic-developmental plan, which will address the social challenges characteristic of South African society. This is one revolution that requires support from various sections of South African society and should be understood within such a context.
51. Certainly, the nationalisation of minerals and metals might ignite international condemnation by global imperialists, institutionalised in the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and, notably, the World Trade Organisation. A broader mass movement should be mobilised in South Africa in defence of these massive economic reforms, because they constitute the core of our economic emancipation programme. Mass campaigns on what nationalisation (people and state ownership and control) of minerals, metals and other strategic sectors of the economy will entail should be conducted to garner support from the people as a whole.
52. The benefits of nationalising strategic sectors of the economy will include, but not be limited to, the following realities: a. An increased fiscus for, and therefore more resources for, education, housing, healthcare, infrastructure development, safety and security and sustainable livelihoods for our people.
b. More jobs for our people because state-owned and controlled mines will increase the local beneficiation and industrialisation of mineral resources. This will, in turn, reduce the high levels of poverty consequent of joblessness.
c. More equitable spatial development because state-owned and controlled mines will invest in areas where mining is happening.
d. Better salaries and working conditions in mines because state-owned mines will increase the mining wage and improve compliance with occupational health and safety standards.
e. Greater levels of economic and political sovereignty, as the state will be in control and ownership of strategic sectors of the economy, which produce mineral resources needed around the world.
53. It is important to highlight that, as part of this programme, the transfer of wealth to the ownership of the people as a whole is not limited to mines only, but should necessarily extend to monopoly industries. The creation of a State Bank and the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank constitute an immediate task and essential to the development of the South African economy, as it can be progressively positioned to improve the existence of state-owned development finance institutions, in order to finance new industries. The State Bank will also provide enterprise finance, housing finance and vehicle finance for all South Africans in a manner that promotes development, not the narrow pursuit of profits.
54. The EFF-led government will establish a State Bank, which should be accompanied by the transformation of the financial sector as a whole, particularly banking and insurance industry practices and norms. Finance capital dominates the world economy and carries with it the potential to undermine all efforts to build a better life for all people. Vigilance and greater state participation in the financial sector is therefore a vital component of efforts to build a sustainable and better life for all the people of South Africa.
55. The EFF will limit foreign ownership of strategic and monopoly sectors, where the state does not exert full ownership, in order to protect South Africa’s sovereignty and to limit the repatriation of profits, so that these can be used for the further development of our people.
3) Building state and government capacity, which will lead to the abolishment of tenders.
56. For a successful state that seeks to drive real economic and industrial development and provide better services, an inspired, skilled, and well-compensated public service is required. The public service should be strengthened for a sustainable transformation of the economy. The ethos of such a state should be developmental and very strong and, hence, consistent with anti-corruption measures. This is emphasised because the task of fundamental economic
57. This should, essentially, be a state that has the capacity to marshal all progressive social forces in society, particularly the working class, towards developmental objectives. The state should build internal capacity to construct and maintain infrastructure such as roads, railways and dams and basic services such as schools, houses, hospitals and recreational facilities. The state’s dependence on tenders has massive political implications and often reduces the quality of work provided because of corruption and the corruptibility of the whole tendering system. In addition, the reliance on tenders limits the capacity of the state to directly industrialise the country by deliberately building value chains through direct state procurement.
58. The state’s capacity to perform these functions will entail that the public service and its servants be properly maintained, serviced and adequately remunerated at all levels. At the centre of a strong developmental state should be a motivated, inspired and well-remunerated public service that shares in the developmental vision of the country. These interventions should be coupled with an increased capacity to aggressively fight corruption and criminality within the state.
The fight against corruption should not be a side issue, but a fundamental component of the state apparatus in order to increase public confidence in the state. In this context, the EFF will place a premium on strengthening the revolutionary trade union movement in the public sector, which should establish a practical and immediate bridge through which the working class exercises its power over the state apparatus.
59. A strong developmental state should necessarily have political power and technical capacity to give developmental mandates to state-owned enterprises (SOE) and private corporations. SOE and private sector compliance with the state’s developmental targets should not be voluntary, but a mandatory, crucial factor around which the state should be able to use a carrot-and-stick system to enforce.
It can never be correct that the state operates only with the “hope” that the still colonial and foreign-owned, and thus unpatriotic, private sector, in particular, will voluntarily underwrite the developmental agenda and pursue the agenda of job creation, poverty reduction and sustainable development with the same vigour that should define government.
60. As concrete steps forward, which the state should initiate, establish and give strategic and financial support to, are the following:
a. A state housing-construction company. b. A state roads-construction company. c. A state cement company.
d. A state pharmaceutical company. e. A state-owned mining company. f. A state food-stocking company (to regulate prices of basic foodstuffs and guarantee food security for all).
61. These state companies will be buttressed by state ownership of critical parts of the value chains in which these companies operate, e.g. petrochemicals (Sasol), steel (Arcelor-Mittal), etc, so that they produce essential inputs into the economy on a non-profit-maximisation basis.
62. Within this context, the state will employ engineers, quantity surveyors, project managers, and builders for sustainable tasks. Their responsibilities will include the construction of houses, roads, bridges, sports facilities, dams, sewerage systems and more. These should be subjected to strict standards of quality assurance to ensure that, at all times, state-constructed entities are of good quality. State-owned companies will not be driven by principles of profit maximisation, but by the need to provide cheap and affordable services to the people and the economy at large.
4) Free quality education, healthcare, houses, and sanitation.
63. Education: Education will be free up to undergraduate level and all pupils and students will be provided with adequate learning and teacher-support materials. For successful and sustainable economic development and growth, South Africa requires a concerted focus on the attainment of skills, education and expertise in various fields. The attainment of skills should necessarily respond to the massive skills shortages that define existent industries, but the education system should also be positioned to assist with new industrial developments.
The approach to realising this noble objective should include, but not be limited to, the alignment of skills to industrial sectors, the expansion of post-secondary education and training, the transformation of higher education and training and the introduction of a new scholarship system that will provide educational and training opportunities to South African youth studying outside the country so that they can return after learning more than would have been possible within South Africa’s borders.
64. The alignment of skills to industrial sectors should be done in a manner similar to the approach adopted by developed economies, but in a more focused and properly resourced model that would necessarily include the establishment of focus universities. South Africa should establish and resource sector-focused institutions of higher learning. The EFF will encourage tertiary institutions to expand and deepen their qualitative focus in terms of course offerings and research, with a view to create centres of excellence across the tertiary education spectrum.
Skills, education and expertise are an important feature of sustainable industrial and economic development for any economy.
The South African government, in collaboration with industrial and manufacturing investors and practitioners, should put in place industry-linked training authorities, which will train, particularly, young people for various responsibilities in new industries and factories. Various sectors, including minerals beneficiation and industrialisation (eg diamond cutting and polishing) are highly labour-absorptive sectors and a training agency should be established for this sector to supply labour to this particular sector.”
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