Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation (southern Africa) restructured

southern africa | anarchist movement | feature Wednesday March 02, 2005 23:45 by posted by nestor

Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation (ZACF) announced that it has been restructured on a more deliberately platformist basis. The restructuring was precipitated by recent membership losses and the need for a clearer focus as an organisation with a set of unitary objectives.

The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation (ZACF) wishes to announce that it has been restructured on a more deliberately platformist basis.

comp@s,

The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation (ZACF) wishes to announce that it has been restructured on a more deliberately platformist basis. The restructuring was precipitated by two factors:

a) recent membership losses (due to a number of issues like the disorganised state of the social movements within which we work, and the mobility of unemployed black youth); and
b) the need for a clearer focus as an organisation with a set of unitary objectives.

The new, slimline Federation is structured around three fronts, served by three member collectives, in areas where we have a proven capability:

1) PROPAGANDA FRONT (Zabalaza Books, ZB): printing, media, the Zabalaza journal, academia. Current achievements include the near-completion of "Black Flame", our 525-page new global history of revolutionary anarchism from 1864-2004, which looks like it will be published next year by AK Press, the writing of articles on the anarchist movement in the mainstream press, and the insertion of a course on anarchism into the political economy course at the Rand Afrikaans University.

2) DEFENSIVE FRONT (Anarchist Black Cross, ABC): prisoners, immigrants, Swaziland, Anti-Repression Network (ARN). Current achievements include the establishment of relations on the ground with the Swaziland Youth Congress (Swayoco) and the development of an analysis of the lack of democracy in Swaziland, where we are attempting to set up ARN cells, and frequent contacts with a network of some 200 self-declared political prisoners, many with a guerrilla background, who are devouring anarchist reading material.

3) SOCIAL FRONT (Black Action Group, BAG): Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), Phambili Motsoaledi Community Project (PMCP), Working Class Crisis Committee (WCCC), Wits university. Current achievements include the establishing of a 100-member-strong Motsoaledi Concerned Residents (MCR) structure in this squatter camp in Soweto, and the holding of Red & Black Forum workshops at Wits University, and for 70 WCCC members in Sebokeng, south of Soweto.

A SYNDICALIST FRONT will be opened later, when we have built up our membership, but for the moment all syndicalist work will be considered part of the SOCIAL FRONT and employed members are required to be active in their trade unions. Bikisha Media Collective (BMC), which many of you have known since it was formed from the ashes of the old Workers' Solidarity Federation (WSF) in 1999, is dissolved as a member collective, but will probably be transformed into an archive project under Zabalaza Books. The remnants of the Shesha Action Group (SAG), Dlamini, and Zabalaza Action Group (ZAG), Umlazi, have been integrated into the three remaining collectives.

This restructuring has meant a switch from a more organic towards a more deliberate form of collective-building (while retaining the continuity of old collectives like Zabalaza Books), but the normal rules of federation and association under the ZACF Constitution still apply. Thus we still have a federation of collectives, but each has a very defined set of tasks that is aimed at building the Federation and inserting our ideas into social struggles.

red & black regards
- michael schmidt
(zacf international secretary, southern africa)