1 EDITORIAL: DEMOCRATIC STRUGGLES AND APARTHEID BARBARISM This issue is concerned with the continuing crisis and conflict in southern Africa, in particular with the emergency in South Africa which has lasted 20 months to date. The eighties have seen a massive intensification in the struggle against apartheid both internally and in the region. Within South Africa, popular opposition to the apartheid state now comes from an ever broader spectrum of society — black and white, marxist and Christian, proletarian and migrant. Even capital has begun to doubt that apartheid is the best guarantor of its profits and has sounded out what an alternative, democratic arrangement might demand of it. Thus businessmen, led by the head of Anglo-American, met with the ANC in Lusaka in 1986 while elements of the white intelligentsia flew to Dakar for more talks in 1987. Capital has not yet abandoned apartheid but it is beginning to hedge its bets. As Levin points out in this issue, whilst the apartheid state undoubtedly remains strong a decisive shift of momentum away from it has occurred in the last few years. Part of this shift reflects a steady erosion of apartheid as a means of legitimizing racial capitalism. It is not only the barons of business who seek assurances from the ANC. The state itself offers negotiations on condition that the struggle is first abandoned. Intellectuals write about ways to sponsor reforms. The regime's functionaries talk about the inevitable ending of apartheid and tinker on its margins. Western states and interests which underwrite apartheid are increasingly impatient for reforms. Indeed an array of Western companies have now sold out their South African holdings, a result both of the internal struggle and of international solidarity and pressure. What has shaken confidence above all is the seemingly unceasing protest against the apartheid state. This has taken place at all levels. Clergymen such as Tutu, Boesak and Beyers Naude have helped to destroy the ideological security blanket and religious sanction for racist domination both at home and abroad. Migrant workers have struggled to organise in the face of administrative pressures, the brutality of the police and the violence encountered from the agents of apartheid in the bantustans. In the towns, the opposition of workers, local communities, students and children, their manifest readiness to die rather than submit, has shaken the confidence of the regime beyond anything else. Faced with this, the 2 REVIEW OF AFRICAN POLITICAL ECONOMY grand design of 'cultural pluralism' is progressively abandoned as a justification, to be replaced by increasing levels of state brutality. While the current emergency has had a dramatic effect in abating the resistance of the townships, it has also destroyed for all time the state's assertion that unrest was only attributable to the activities of a small group of 'agitators and instigators'. The pattern and extent of the detentions adopted by the state is a recognition of the degree of support that organisations, mainly those affiliated to the UDF, enjoy within the townships. Up to thirty thousand detained without trial is powerful testament to this. Yet even such widespread detention has not destroyed opposition, as the residents have moved to more passive yet powerful forms of resistance — notably the ongoing rent boycotts, discussed in the contribution by Chaskalson, Jochelson and Seekings. Another myth that has been shattered is the argument that reform South African style is somehow an alternative to violence. Recent years have shown just how closely reform and repression march hand in hand. Having regained some form of 'law and order' in the townships, some of apartheids planners also see the limitations of the military solution. We can expect, therefore, new ploys and initiatives under the guise of reform. As Cobbett argues in his article, the state first needs to establish some stability at a local government level, before it attempts further initiatives in the higher tiers of government. The emergency reflects just as much a crisis of capitalism as it does a complete rejection of apartheid. It has propelled the African working class to the forefront of the struggle for democracy and justice. Precisely because of the symbiotic relationship between racism and capitalism, workers' demands necessarily go beyond the immediacy of the workplace and, precisely because it is the apparatus of apartheid which controls them on behalf of capital, their struggle is linked to that of the other victims of apartheid. It is thus not surprising that the independent trade unions and the interests of the black proletariat have become the leading force in the struggle, uniting and leading efforts of the communities from which they spring. Of major importance is the emergence of the new trade union federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which gathers working class forces into a powerful centre. Despite the state of emergency and being subject to sinister attack, including the bombing of union offices, the trade unions have undertaken a number of important battles. Victories have been won by CCAWUSA and SARHWU, whilst NUM members put up a tenacious struggle against the Chamber of Mines. By its nature this development raises key questions about the future character of the struggle for justice and democracy in South Africa, questions about its class composition which Levin's article addresses and which we hope will open further discussion on this matter. Years ago, Harold Wolpe questioned the ability of the African petty bourgoisie to sustain a commitment to the overthrow of apartheid; the role of apartheid's collaborators in the rent boycotts described by Chaskaslon et.al, the activities of apartheid's functionaries in the bantustans, and even the role of petty bourgeois critics of apartheid, added to the growing prominence of the working class, would appear to confirm his analysis and to make Levin's article timely. Certainly Carrim's report of the COSATU congress (see Briefings), indicates that union leaders are conscious of the role imposed on them. EDITORIAL 3 The prominence of the working class in opposition to the brutalities of the regime, gives it a special place in what is still a popular and national struggle, however. It is still a struggle which must be fought by a mass movement — not least for the obvious reason that the evil viciousness of apartheid increasingly unites the human race in opposition to it — and it is still recognised that such movements as the ANC, UDF, National Forum provide the political leadership of the struggle. Indeed, one of the milestones in 1987 was that the ANC celebrated its 75th anniversary. It is a vastly different organisation from the one that was formed in 1912 or, for that matter, the one that was banned and forced underground and into exile in 1960. Given its origins and the forces ranged against it, it can draw satisfaction from its very survival, but there is more on the positive side than that. For, despite the fact that it has been unable to organise and campaign legally in South Africa for 27 years, the ANC has become a major force shaping politics in South Africa today. Its leaders, in prison and in exile, have come to be regarded as national leaders, even among some groups hostile to the ANC. Its colours have become the national colours. Its principles, expressed through the Freedom Charter, have come to stand for a democratic alternative in South Africa. It is the white state which today represents barbarism; the principles of the Charter which represent decency and civilisation. That is cause for satisfaction for an organisation constantly repressed and forced underground. Yet satisfaction should be (and doubtless is) tempered by a sober assessment of the task in hand. After three-quarters of a century Africa's oldest democratic organisation is still far from power. While the evidence is clear that the majority of South Africans see the ANC as the leading organisation of the liberation struggle, it is also true that apartheid has acted to divide the population in serious ways — including making many of them non-citizens and co-opting some of them into the system. The working class itself is divided into black and white, urban and contract worker, township and shanty squatter, urban dweller and hostel migrant — a fact utilised by the state in places such as Crossroads and Soweto. The anti-apartheid struggle has thrown up numerous local and regional initiatives as people have organised themselves against the state's repression. Not all such initiatives derive from people sympathetic to or supporting the ANC. Even where they do, the need for decisions and judgements on the ground make it certain that local initiatives and autonomy will need to be exercised and defended. The universality of opposition to apartheid provides space for worker and priest, for men, women and children, for Charterists, Socialists and Africanists, for peasants and intellectuals and some elements of the middle class, for community organisations in town and for exiles marooned in the gulags of the labour reserves. All are making and will make a contribution to the struggle for democracy and justice. That contribution raises questions for the ANC about the relationship of such groups to it and to each other. Such questions are not easily answered from exile and there are no real precedents in other parts of Africa. There is a need, given the shift in momentum we mentioned, for the plurality of such views (and others) to be taken on board and given space in a free South Africa. Too often in the past African states have achieved independence taking over the repressive legislation of the former colonial regimes, preserving emergency powers, making accommodations with outside forces and locking up alternative indigenous voices.