We Are Rising!
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Zabalaza ZabalazaM M A Journal of Southern African Revolutionary Anarchism No. 7 December 2006 “FROM EACH ACCORDING TO ABILITY, TO EACH ACCORDING TO NEED!” Around the World... ...WE ARE RISING! CHIAPAS 1994, OAXACA 2006!: A demonstrator stones the hated Mexican Federal Police who failed to reassert state con- trol over the city of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. The city is being run by community organisations including the ZACF's sis- ter organisation, the Indigenous Popular Council of Oaxaca - Ricardo Flores Magon (CIPO-RFM). What started out as a teacher's strike turned into a full-blown Magonista uprising against the “revolutionary” Oaxaca state government and for community self-management, a key anarchist demand. see www.anarkismo.net for more Inside... M The Zuma Case and COSATU M China and Africa M Community Struggles and Elections M Anarchism in Morocco M What about the ANC? M Learning from Latin America M Swaziland after the Bombings M 1976: 30 years on M Free the Mind M The Spanish Revolution anniversary M the USA and Africa M Hamba Kahle Abel Ramorope MMMMZABALAZA P AGE 2 SOUTHERN AFRICA After 10 years of GEAR: COSATU, the Zuma Trial and the Dead End of Alliance politics by Lucien van der Walt to 20% of the entire SA economy, although that spoke in the language of class strug- it employed only 1% of the workforce, while gle, there was nothing in the way of a class manufacturing and mining shrunk, with per- analysis of the realities of the situation. haps 1 million jobs lost in these sectors COSATU and the Party were ignored by plus agriculture. The electricity and water the ANC, and periodically insulted - except grid was expanded, but with cost recovery at election times, when their financial sup- applied, 10 million people suffered water port and influence were eagerly sought. cut-offs and 5 million were evicted. After elections, of course, it was business as usual, with South Africa’s particularly SAVING THE ANC’S SOUL vile brand of capitalism flourishing. By In this situation, COSATU and the SACP 2006, the economy was booming, reaching chose to try and save the unhappy mar- 5% growth, the number of families with riage with the ANC. Afraid of being isolat- more than $30 million each shot up four Mbeki ed from the seats of the mighty, flattered by times, but the income of the bottom 40% of the population fell by nearly half. South Africa’s transition, as we stated in pats on the head by ANC leaders, tempted Workers Solidarity in 1998, went sour a by job offers, and unable to break with an long time ago. Overthrowing apartheid almost religious loyalty to the ANC colours ZUMA AND COSATU was a tremendous victory, but not enough. - and a well-established tendency to uncrit- This situation has played out in the Jacob It was soon overshadowed by the ANC’s ically worship ANC leaders - union and Zuma controversy. Zuma, a leading ANC neo-liberal policies, which built on those Party policy makers spent fruitless years member, deputy president of South Africa, adopted in the last years of the apartheid trying to redeem the ANC. and head of the State-sponsored “Moral regime. Reinforcing this approach was the long- Regeneration Campaign,” was found to standing, and seriously flawed, view that have been involved in corruption around LOST IN TRANSIT South Africa must have a two-stage “revo- the arms deal. His associate, Durban busi- lution”: a “national democratic stage,” led nessman Shabir Shaik, was found guilty in As an increasingly multiracial ruling class by the ANC, to end racism, followed by a 2005, and Zuma himself now faces consolidated its position, the working class “socialist stage,” in a vague future. charges. retreated. This retreat was - and remains - “Intervening” in the ANC, “contesting” it, Mbeki, not a man to tolerate rivals in the fundamentally a question of politics and “saving” its soul: these were the terms used ANC, used the opportunity to oust Zuma strategy: COSATU and the SACP had no to justify this approach. The fact that the from office. Another bombshell followed, idea how to deal with the new situation. ANC was - and always had been - a capi- when Zuma was accused of raping a close Having spent years believing the ANC talist party that aimed to open up, as family friend who, it transpired, was HIV- would, like Moses, lead the people out of Nelson Mandela stated back in 1956, positive. bondage in Egypt, they now found them- “fresh fields for the development of a pros- Now, it was fairly clear that corruption was selves in a strange new country. Apartheid perous non-European bourgeois class,” not the main factor in Zuma’s dismissal. was gone, but slavery was not. The sup- was ignored. His replacement in office, Phumzile posed Moses now looked a lot like Mlambo-Nguka, was almost immediately Pharaoh, but COSATU and the SACP involved in a scandal. She used a Falcon remained part of the Tripartite Alliance. BEE-llionaires The fact that the major debate within the 900 executive jet of the SA Air Force to take her husband, children and friends on a ALL GEARed UP ruling ANC after 1994 was on how to link neo-liberalism to Black Economic holiday to the United Arab Emirates. It was The miserable conditions in the townships Empowerment (BEE) - the deliberate cre- also clear that Mbeki, an autocrat of the continued, mass unemployment - which ation of the “non-European bourgeois first water, was more than happy to use the started in the 1970s - continued to grow, class” - was ignored. The fact that the ANC judiciary and the State intelligence services and neo-liberalism accelerated. 30% of had struck a deal with TELKOM was privatised in 1996 and a fur- the apartheid-era ruling ther 20% was listed in 2003, and ESKOM class, and had now and the SA Post Office were commer- joined it, was ignored. cialised. While the GATT (now the World COSATU and SACP Trade Organisation) required tariff protec- positions moved from the tion on telecommunications to fall to 20%, naïve (the idea that the the government set itself the target of zero ANC would drop neo-lib- protection, and also opened up other con- eralism if only it would let trols over trade and capital movements. COSATU provide good These approaches were consolidated in advice) to the paranoid the 1996 Growth, Employment and (there was a conspiracy Redistribution Strategy (GEAR), but did not against “transforma- start with it. tion”). For organisations The unproductive financial sector shot up MMMMZABALAZA P AGE 3 SOUTHERN AFRICA to resolve internal disputes in the ANC. to change it, the union and the Party placed and a “symbiotic relationship between the their hopes in Zuma. Zuma had never leading echelons of the state and emerging COSATU’S POSITION uttered a word against GEAR, against cap- black capital.” There was also nothing surprising in the italism or against neo-liberalism but he had However, there is nothing surprising fact that Zuma used every trick in the book one good point: he was not Mbeki, and it about the COSATU and SACP position. to whip up support at the rape trial, ranging was hoped that he might be a new Moses Bound to the ANC by fear, flattery and a from crude Zulu nationalist appeals to a to lead the people. After all, according to failed strategy - the two-stage theory that legal team that effectively put his accuser COSATU and SACP thinking, there must the ANC will open the door to socialism - on trial. Mobilisations outside the court- always be a great leader: the masses need and blinded by its traditional devotion to house drew in a wide range of groups, with to be led. Congress and its leaders, the two organi- many reactionary features, ranging from The “support for Cde Jacob Zuma,” Blade sations remain in a dead end. The fact that slogans like “Burn the Bitch” to placards Nzimande of the SACP recently told the many of their leaders are only too eager to saying “No Woman for President.” NUM, exposed popular opposition to the join the ANC leadership at the capitalist A whole cult was built up around Zuma. crises of corruption, factionalism and per- feast does not help either. In this situation, The Friends of Jacob Zuma stated: “We, sonal careerism” in the ANC, “crises” that support for Zuma is certainly tragic but the people, will ensure that this man of were “inherent in trying to build a leading almost inevitable. honour, who dedicated his life to liberating cadre based on capitalist values and the Support for Zuma allows the ANC to us, will finally have the right to defend him- symbiotic relationship between the leading remain sacred and untouchable, and the self.” One protestor carried a cross, with a echelons of the state and emerging black politics of relying on a saviour untouched. Zuma picture, claiming that this “man of capital.” The Party Youth League grandly A hard look at the nature of the transition honour” was being persecuted “just like” stated that “Our defence and support for can be avoided, and a serious struggle another “man of honour,” Jesus Christ. Jacob Zuma is the defence of the constitu- against capitalism postponed, yet again. This seems ridiculous, but it was typical of tion.” All problems could be blamed on Mbeki the Zuma mobilisations. Meanwhile, speaking of the upcoming and his faction: Zuma has been discovered What was most surprising - at least at first Zuma corruption trial, Zweli Vavi of to represent the shining soul of the ANC; glance - was COSATU’s almost uncritical COSATU called for Zuma to be reinstated Mbeki became Satan overnight.