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Marxismvs. ANARCHISM

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Marxismvs. ANARCHISM 50e No. 646 ~X-623 24 May 1996 South Alrica: De .Klerk Goes, Reuters NeD-Apartheid Remains New constitution approved, De Klerk (above, left) exits "power sharing" government. Meanwhile, police fire rubber bullets at squatters in black township near Johannesburg (left). The South African "Government of Nelson Mandela's regime has unleashed sexual orientation, age, disability, reli­ and the ANC agreed on a trade-off, National Unity" abruptly came to an end the cops to shoot down striking workers gion," etc., the whole constitutional according to which the ANC would pub­ on May 9 when F.w. De Klerk resigned and sent eviction squads against squat­ structure is to enforce the rule of the licly support the [April 30] strike as long as deputy president and his National ters. As the needs of capital require, it white capitalist masters whose fabulous as Cosatu did not challenge it on ... the Party left the cabinet. This ends the for­ is prepared to launch frontal attacks wealth is extracted from the sweat and property clause and other unresolved mal "power sharing" arrangement, in on the powerful and combative union toil of black labor. constitutional clauses." Originally, the which the representatives of the former movement. It is already carrying out a De Klerk's Nats voted for the new ANC wanted to sidestep this question, apartheid regime and the former leaders poisonous campaign against immigrants charter in the interests of "stability," but but big business interests demanded lim­ of the black liberation struggle jointly fleeing the ravages of neocolonialism in in last-minute bitter wrangling they its on the government's ability to nation­ presided over a "post-apartheid" capi­ southern and central Africa. demanded greater protections of "prop­ alize property. So as the National Party, talist South Africa. Now the African What is necessary is a fight to split erty rights," a supposed "right" of the Democratic Party and ultraright Freedom National Congress (ANC)-the former the ANC/SACP/COSATU "tripartite alli­ bosses to lock out workers, and govern­ Front dug in their heels, a proviso was petty-bourgeois black nationalist move­ ance" which chains the proletariat to its ment funding of segregated ("Afrikaans inserted that "no one may be deprived ment which has been transformed into class enemies, and to forge a Bolshevik only") schools. The 1.6 million-member of property except in terms of law of a bourgeois ruling party-will alone workers party to lead the struggle for COSATU carried out a one-day general general application." administer the country on behalf of the socialist revolution to liberate all the strike on April 30, demanding the lock­ Randlords and the Johannesburg stock oppressed. The South African black pro­ out clause be removed from the con­ "Gravy Train" for ANC Tops, exchange. letariat has enormous power; it must stitution. While the New York Times Austerity for the Workers The "new South Africa" is neo-apart­ throw off the yoke of the nationalist pop­ (1 May) declared, "General Strike Fails While the township poor are growing heid: although the legal structure of rigid ular front and fight for power in its own in South Africa," the stay away closed increasingly disillusioned over the Man­ racial segregation and white supremacy name. Those who bibor must rule! down auto in Port Elizabeth, stopped the del a government's failure to keep its has been dismantled, the capitalist econ­ The National Party pulled out of the trains in Johannesburg and shut con­ promises, the ANC tops fully intend to omy is still based on brutal exploitation cabinet one day after the new South Afri­ struction sites. The weakest support for line their own pockets while they're of black labor by the white owners of can constitution was signed. The 140- the strike was in mining, reflecting the filling the bankers' coffers. In ANC jar­ the country's mines, factories and farms. page document drafted by the Constitu­ large number of miners recruited from gon, this is called "black capitalist While the ANC has taken over the gov­ tional Assembly enshrines a regime of Mozambique and Lesotho who have few empowerment." In the townships and the ernment ministries, the core of the state bourgeois parliamentarism and formal rights and hence little interest in striking factories they call it "climbing aboard apparatus, the officer corps of the army political equality, as opposed to the elab­ over constitutional issues. The April 30 the gravy train." And to the growing and the top commanders of the police orate apartheid code of "separateness," strike was successful in getting the anger of the black masses, for the tops force, is the same as before. ' with its infamous pass laws, bantustans lockout clause dumped from the consti­ of the ANC/SACP/COSATU alliance, Make no mistake: whether as part of and the Group Areas Act. However, a tution, but the Labor Relations Act, entering the government has been their a "power sharing" coalition or on its own, host of "sunset clauses" entrenches white . passed last year, already legalizes that ticket to the "Blue Train" to individual the ANC-backed up by the South Afri­ domination in the state apparatus until weapon of the bourgeoisie. enrichment. can Communist Party (SACP) and the 1999. And despite elaborate prohibitions The question of "property rights" As the ANC concentrates govern­ Congress of South African Trade Unions of discrimination on the grounds of was one of the most contentious issues. mental power around Deputy President (COSATU)-is a front for racist capital­ "race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital The Johannesburg Mail and Guardian Thabo Mbeki, a "respectable moderate," ist rule. In its two years in government, status, ethnic or social origin, colour, (3 May) reports "speculation that Cosatu other possible contenders for successor to Mandela are being crassly bought off. Pallo Jordan, a reputed ANC left-winger recently ousted from the cabinet, has now been brought back to head the min­ N~~~,... MARXISMvs. istry of tourism, where he will broker resort construction and airline megadeals o ANARCHISM in this boom industry. Reconstruction ,.r) o and Development Programme minister ..... Jay Naidoo, the former COSATU chief, 00 PartS had his ministry abolished, but was rec­ ~ I'­ ompensed with the telecommunications N The Syndicalists LI"\ ministry, where he will preside over the N t"'" 1l\()ii)TldAL privatization of Telkom and awarding V <~CU"Cil_ ,... continued on page 2 jected to strip searches by company South Africa ... police, there is no "beauty" in this arrangement. Hundreds of thousands of (continued from page 1) anti-apartheid fighters did not face the cellular phone franchises. And last week jails, the guns and "hippo" armored cars ANC secretary general Cyril Ramaphosa of the racist bosses to put a few ANC announced his retirement from parlia­ tops on the "gravy train." ment to go into private business. With the "honeymoon" of the Govern­ The personal odyssey of Cyril Rama­ ment of National Unity over, the repre­ phosa from Johannesburg human-rights sentatives of South African and interna­ lawyer to mine union leader to govern­ tional capital are targeting the workers ment power broker to black capitalist inovement, as they have done every­ tells a lot about the "new South Africa." where from the U.S. to West Europe and From the beginning, Ramaphosa was the Latin America. The Randlords are clam­ protege of Anglo American mining mag­ oring for a massive cut in the cost of nate Harry Oppenheimer, who engi­ South African labor, which means a full­ neered Ramaphosa's installation as head scale assault on the powerful and com­ of the National Union of Mineworkers bative union movement. During the anti­ (NUM). Ramaphosa will now head "New apartheid struggle, the black unions Africa Investments Limited" (NAIL), came to center stage, and their militant which owns The Sowetan, South Africa's fight did. much to bring about the re­ biggest circulation black newspaper, and placement of direct white-supremacist is set to pick up another industrial and rule by the ANC regime. It also won media group being offered for sale by some of the higher wages among "Third Reuters Anglo American. The London Financial World" countries. At the same time, the South Africa's main union federation, COSATU, staged one-day national strike Times (16 April) quotes Ramaphosa say­ huge apartheid wage gap between whites April 30, demanding dropping of constitutional clause giving bosses "right" to lock out workers. ing, "The beauty of this is that the unions and blacks-six to one in manufacturing are coming together with black busi­ and even greater in mining-remains. geoisie is gearing up to take a sjambok Worker, April 1996). But the ANC is ness to play an important role." For Now, in the name of the "national to South African labor, which is bound today a capitalist party administering a black miners living in fenced-in hostels, interest," and following the dictates of and gagged politically by the ANC/ capitalist state: for Mandela, Mbeki & separated from their families, daily sub- the world capitalist market, the bour- COSATU/SACP alliance that directly Co. the capitalist constitution is no subordinates labor to the capitalist state, "compromise" but the codification of the centrally through the SACP-dominated class rule they represent. union bureaucracy. The key task is to The struggle against popular-frontism The IWW and the Fight for a break the working class from·this nation­ must go hand in hand with forging Revolutionary Workers Party alist popular front and build a Bolshevik a revolutionary workers party fighting workers party. for the cause of all the exploited and Anarcho-syndicalism has gained increas- the oppressed, from the homeless in the ing attention among radicalizing youth in For a Revolutionary Workers squatter camps, to triply oppressed black West Europe in recent years.
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