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South Africa: COSATU & Social Movements

category southern africa | the left | news report author Friday August 12, 2005 23:15author by Michael Schmidt (International secretary) - Zabalaza anarchist Communist Federation, southern africa) Report this post to the editors

COSATU has remained an ANC loyalist organisation - despite the 1-million job-losses under ANC rule but a survey by the human sciences research council shows that while 75% of COSATU members still consider themselves ANC loyalists - 25% of its 2-million members have lost confidence.

South Africa: COSATU & Social Movements


Recently, much debate has been generated in South Africa by the announcement by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) that it was launching a campaign against joblessness and poverty with a "united front" similar to the united democratic front that fought apartheid in the 1980s - and which was unilaterally disbanded by the now-ruling African National Congress (ANC) in 1990 because of its potential to pit the grassroots against the emerging ANC elite.

COSATU has remained an ANC loyalist organisation - despite the 1-million job-losses under ANC rule and the current rash of hundreds of thousands of mine, municipal and other workers out on strike. but it has recently made approaches to the Social Movements Indaba (SMI) with a view to joining hands on this campaign against joblessness and poverty (currently, some 40% of south africans are unemployed). the smi is an umbrella of new anti-neoliberal organisations - numbering some 200,000 supporters - founded in about 2000 by anti-apartheid veterans and socialist revolutionaries including anarchist-communists like ourselves.

For an in-depth report and our perspective on COSATU 's approach (we welcome rank-and-file collaboration between COSATU and the SMI, but say no to collaboration with the ruling elite), look at the article "the president from the skies vs the auntie who says 'no!'" in our journal "Zabalaza" (struggle), online at: http://www.zabalaza.net or a full version written for the centre for civil society at: http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?3,28,10,1472

Now, we read in "business day" that a survey by the human sciences research council shows that 75% of COSATU members still consider themselves ANC loyalists - meaning that 25% of its 2-million members, or 500,000 workers, have lost confidence in the ability of the neo-liberal elite to deliver "a better life for all" (the key ANC slogan) to the working class. the survey says that only 7% of those polled favoured cosatu breaking with the ANC and forming a "workers' party", an option favoured primarily by trotskyist militants within the SMI - but naturally opposed by ourselves as a tried-and-failed bourgeois approach to socialism as evidenced clearly by the betrayals of the workers' party (pt) government in Brazil currently.

Michael Schmidt (international secretary, zabalaza anarchist communist federation, southern africa)


Based on an email sent to the http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anarchy_africa list

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Even sitting on the government council at a local level puts a person on the other side of the line between oppressed and oppressor / exploiter and exploited and that is why we say that it is only when we fully control our communities and workplaces ourselves will we be able to provide decent food, clothing and housing for ourselves and our families

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The first part of this series stated that, despite various well-intentioned efforts by forces on the extra-Alliance and independent left over recent years to unite working class struggles in South Africa, these largely have and will continue to fail to resonate with the working class, help build unity in struggle and form the basis of a new movement because of the theoretical understandings of class and power – and their strategic implications – on which they are founded and which are prevalent on much of the left. This article will give a basic overview of these theoretical understandings of class and power and their strategic implications and limitations and why it is therefore necessary to refine and develop understandings of class and power more capable of responding to the context of the neoliberal restructuring of the working class in order to advance the class struggle in pursuit of socialism. [Part 1]

imageAfter the election dust settles: Class struggle, the Left and power Jun 25 by Jonathan Payn 0 comments

Twenty-five years into democracy the black working class majority in South Africa has not experienced any meaningful improvements in its conditions. The apartheid legacy of unequal education, healthcare and housing and the super-exploitation of black workers continues under the ANC and is perpetuated by the neoliberal policies it has imposed. The only force capable of changing this situation is the working class locally and internationally. Yet to do so, struggles need to come together, new forms of organisation appropriate to the context are needed; and they need both to be infused with a revolutionary progressive politics and to learn from the mistakes of the past. Outside the ANC alliance, there have indeed been many efforts to unite struggles – but these have largely failed to resonate with the working class in struggle and form the basis of a new movement. Nowhere is this more evident than with the newly-formed Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP) – which got less than 25 000 votes in the national elections, despite the fact that the union that conceived it, Numsa, claims nearly 400 000 members. [Part 2]

imageA Workers’ Party and Elections or Class Struggle? Feb 26 by Warren McGregor 0 comments

The question of state government elections and running a Workers or Socialist political party continues to be raised in the working class movement and the Left globally. As we may know, there was excitement about the rise of Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party in Britain, left political parties in certain parts of Europe and Latin America and, more recently, certain shifts to more centrist positions in the United States amongst a section of the Democratic Party calling themselves “Democratic Socialists”. In South Africa, many workers and some activists seem cautiously optimistic by NUMSA’s formation of the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party that will seek to participate in the 2019 general elections.

imageLeft unity, left cooperation or a working class front? Jul 21 by Warren McGregor 2 comments

A call for socialist Left unity is heard widely today in South Africa, but is usually taken as a call for unity of praxis (unity in theoretical programme and action). This is sometimes framed as transcending old divides (these seen as outdated, divisive or dismissed as dogmatic), and sometimes as unity in order to have action (rhetorically set up as the opposite of “arm chair” theory).

What do we as revolutionary anarchists think?

imageSouth African ‘Workerism’ in the 1980s: Learning from FOSATU’s Radical Unionism Dec 13 by Lucien van der Walt, with Sian Byrne and Nicole Ulrich* 0 comments

A lightly edited transcript of a presentation at a workshop hosted by the International Labour Research & Information Group (ILRIG) and the Orange Farm Human Rights Advice Centre in Drieziek extension 1, Orange Farm township, south of Soweto, South Africa, on 24 June 2017. It was attended by a hall full of community and worker activists, including veterans of the big rebellions of the 1980s.

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imageA South African Revolutionary Passes: Jabisile Selby Semela, 1958-2018 Aug 30 ZACF 0 comments

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In explaining our relationship to the DLF, we will here summarise our reservations, while explaining why they are outweighed by the genuine achievements of the CDL. The reservations cover three main areas: attitudes towards the state and elections; leadership structures; and the DLF programme and demands. (We are also less than enthusiastic about some new terms that have become popular in the CDL and DLF, such as “eco-socialism”; but this is largely a matter of language, which we will not discuss in detail here.)

textIn Solidarity with Cosatu and the Workers of the World May 16 ZACF 0 comments

The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) recognises that the crisis in Zimbabwe, ongoing xenophobic attacks and rising food prices are of great importance to the working class, both in South Africa and internationally. Resolving these crises in favour of the poor and working poor will require mass direct action and solidarity. [ Italiano]

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Right-wingers in the South African town of Potchefstroom removed street-signs with the names of liberation figures and replaced them with those of Boer leaders. But the Potch City Council attributed the actions to "racist anarchists".

textSWAZILAND: Rush hour for liberation movement Dec 07 Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation 0 comments

Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation statement on alleged armed struggle tendency of Swaziland pro-democracy movement.

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