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TOKOLOGO AFRICAN ANARCHIST COLLECTIVE TOKOLOG Iissues S U E ##22 • Nnovembero V E M B E R 220130 1 3 • RR22 • Pphone:H O N E : 00727 2 33999 9 009129 1 2 N EWSLETTER OF THE TOKOLOGO AFRICAN ANARCHIST COLLECTIVE TOKOLOG IIssues s u e ##22 • NNovembero v e m b e r 220130 1 3 • RR22 • PPhone:h o n e : 00727 2 33999 9 009129 1 2 INSIDE: Stop Evictions, Stop the State, Defend the Working Class and Poor • Pre- Paid Electricity Meters or Power to the People? • Wake Up the Power of the Working Class and Poor • The Struggle at Kwa-Masisa Hostel in Sebokeng • Activists Demand End to Misappropriation of Funds and Wasteful Expenditure: Khutsong’s Corrupt Municipality • The Story of the Makhnovists and the Anarchist Revolution in the Ukraine, 1918- 1921 • Ukraine’s Revolution as Anarchist, Popular Class National Self- Determination and Decolonisation • The Story of the Korean Anarchists and the Anarchist Revolution in Manchuria, 1929-1931 • Who was Kim Joa-Jin, Korean Anarchist Revolutionary? • Korean Anarchist Revolu- tion: Decolonisation through Anarchism • TAAC Statement of Intent (isiXhosa/ SeTswana/English) Editorial Welcome to the second issue of Tokologo, produced by the Tokologo African Anarchist Collective. Why do we publish this? We publish it because our country is crying out for an alternative. And that alternative is anarchism, which stands for a free and democratic society, run from the grassroots, in communities and workplaces, and based on equality and freedom. In such a society, wealth like land and factories would be collectively owned; production would be directed to meeting basic needs and ensuring environmental sustainability. In such a society, everyone would have a say in all matters that aff ect them; poverty and deprivation would be abolished; hatred and competition would be replaced by cooperation and mutual aid by all peoples. Corruption, exploitation, police brutality, poverty, and unemployment wreak havoc on township communities, on families, on youth. Desperation provides grounds for hatred, by race, by nationality, by sex. Th e dreams of freedom of the1980s and 1990s have evaporated. Politicians make promises that they do not keep. Workers are killed when they demand higher wages. While Marikana comrades bury their dead, the super-rich spend millions on weddings and parties ... Th e black working class, in particular, fi nds itself held by the chains of capitalists and politicians, and weighed down by the national oppression of the apartheid past. But all working class and poor people, of whatever race, fi nd themselves in chains. Th e solution is to fi ght for something better, a new society. Th is means organising our working class movements to fi ght for a new society, And it means freeing our minds of confusion, by educating ourselves with the truth about what is wrong, and the truth about how to make things right. Tokologo aims to contribute to this project. If you agree with what we say, or want to know more, or want a workshop, why not contact us. Our email address is [email protected] or phone us on 072 399 0912. Stop Evictions, Stop the State, Defend the Working Class and Poor BByy PPITSOITSO MMOMPEOMPE Forced evictions are a violation of human rights that In many cases, the authorities do not bother to consult requires urgent global attention. In 2008 between 30 and the aff ected people in a meaningful or democratic 50 million people in 70 countries worldwide lived under way. Tens of thousands have been made homeless aft er constant threat of being forcibly evicted (according to the being forcibly evicted from their homes, without any International Alliance of Inhabitants). consultation or warning. Th ose that are most aff ected are working class people and Many residents are given little or no time to relocate – peasants living in poverty. It’s always the poor who are or even pack their belongings, which are then usually evicted. destroyed or confi scated during evictions. All over the world, states remove people from their So why should we trust the state if it is responsible homes, and destroy their livelihoods, without off ering for these forced evictions? We must trust in our own alternative accommodation or compensation, without struggles and resistance. We must wage anarchist class respecting safeguards for the victims as set out in struggle create a new and better world, building counter- international standards; and without observing the due power and counter-culture. process of the law that supposedly binds the state. 2 Pre-Paid Electricity Meters or Power to the People? BByy PPITSOITSO MMOMPEOMPE In 2000 the South African government announced its policy to aff ord the vouchers and as a result, their homes are left was to provide “free basic services.” Th e free basic electricity unlit. In addition, the unit cost of electricity is higher for policy was released in 2003 and claimed that it would ensure those using a pre paid meter in working class areas. When that a “basic supply” of electricity is made available free of the free power runs out, households buy more power. Th e charge to poor households. higher rates then pay back the state and ESKOM for the “free” power. In practice, the amount provided in the “basic supply” is very limited, and soon runs out. Th e policy further states Free electricity is better than no electricity, and the state that poor households generally have a lower demand for would not have even considered it without the mass protests electricity, and so their needs can be adequately met by around electricity from the late 1990s. restricting the current drawn from their supply to about 20 Amperes. So, the free electricity also cannot support most But there are serious problems in the policy. However appliances. this will not be addressed by the ruling class as it does not increase profi t and control. Further, the same policy states that indigent homes applying for free basic electricity have to be fi tted with pre-paid meters And let us remember that ESKOM is nationalized: it is fi rst. stat-owned. Evidently nationalisation does not benefi t the working class, as certain politicians say. It is not an Th e irony is that people have to buy a voucher to activate alternative to privatisation. Th ese are both anti-working the free basic allowance. How can electricity be “free” if you class, and obstacles to genuine freedom. We must fi ght for have to buy it? collectivisation, including placing ESKOM under democratic working class control, including self-management Th e imposition of a pre paid meter system continues inequality in access to energy. Poor people are oft en unable Wake Up the Power of the Working Class and Poor BByy LLUCIENUCIEN VVANAN DDERER WWALTALT Our country is in a mess. Hunger, poverty, exploitation and Th e national question, our deep divisions of race and injustice stalk the land. nationality, remains unsolved: politicians, black and white, make the situation worse in order to get votes. Th e working class and poor face, at every step, the high walls of injustice, the chains of unemployment, and the bullets We see the African National Congress (ANC), a party that and batons of the police. embodied for so many working class people, so many hopes, breaking those people and tarnishing those hopes. We see Confl icts shake the country, and hopes that shone in 1994 ANC politicians buying votes, stealing money, running a are fading, rusting under the waters of greed, oppression, broken school system, and grinding down the working and and inequality; those hopes seem like a dream that fades poor people. when you awake to a grim reality. 3 We see breakaway factions from the ANC making the same It cannot go on like this. false promises, but their record speaks for itself: in offi ce, they were exactly the same. We see the big opposition It is time to wake up the power of the working class and poor parties, like the Democratic Alliance (DA): more promises, so we can break the chains, break the illusions, break the more lies, and all with a terrible record in offi ce. cycle of misery. While millions are unemployed, those with jobs work endless Th is means going back to basics, and building the power of hours, sweating, bleeding, faces lined with exhaustion. Big the working class and poor, through mass organisations, capitalist corporations like Lonmin squeeze the blood out political education, and a real understanding: the shining of the working class; big government companies like Eskom light of anarchism and syndicalism. drive down wages, and force up prices. To quote from the Industrial Workers of Africa, the Who killed the workers at Marikana? Th e police? And who revolutionary syndicalist union our predecessors founded sent the police? in 1917 in Johannesburg, and the fi rst African black trade union in the country: Th e ANC government and its close friends, the army and police generals, and the big capitalist corporations. While you were asleep, the mills of the rich man were grinding your sweat, for nothing. Little breakaway ANCs claim to be diff erent, and even give themselves new names , but they aim only at getting back Wake up! Open your ears. Th e sun has arisen and the into the circle of the rich and powerful, riding the suff ering day is breaking. of the masses back to high paid offi ce, tenders and mansions in the wealthiest suburbs. The Struggle at Kwa-Masisa Hostel in Sebokeng BByy SSIYABULELAIYABULELA HHULUULU In September 2002, residents of Kwa-Masisa Hostel in Sebokeng faced evictions by the so-called new and private owners. Th ey resisted and won. But since then, the hostel has been abandoned to its fate. Today the struggle for secure tenure, decent conditions and control continues.
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