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http://www.anarkismo.net/features/southernafrica/english
All the latest news posted to Anarkismo's newswire.
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/32402
[South Africa] We are dying for foodAbahlali baseMjondolo2021-08-06T22:31:07+08:00enOn Thursday last week (29 July), Zamekile Shangase, a 33-year-old woman from Asiyindawo in Lamontville, was shot and killed outside her home by the police. Zamekile was the mother of two children aged 6 and 11. She was elected to a position on the local Abahlali council in 2018 and served on the council for a year.<br />
<br />
Zamekile was shot while the police were raiding the settlement as part of Operation Show Your Receipt. <br>Community struggles
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/32376
KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng are burningAbahlali baseMjondolo2021-07-14T20:56:49+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/jul2021/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_20210713saviolence.jpg" title="20210713saviolence.jpeg" alt="20210713saviolence.jpeg">... we need to build a just peace<BR>
Abahlali base Mjondolo has always warned that the anger of the poor can go in many directions. We have warned again and again that we are sitting on a ticking time bomb. We have warned for too long that people cannot continue to live in terrible poverty only to be ignored year after year. We have made it clear that people will not allow their humanity to be vandalised forever. For too long we have been explaining that we are ruled with violence and that the public often accept this by their silence.<br>Community struggles
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/32236
[Mozambique] A more complex reality in Cabo DelgadoJoseph Hanlon2021-03-31T21:13:32+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/mar2021/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_24march_mozambique_wires1440x960.jpg" title="24march_mozambique_wires1440x960.jpg" alt="24march_mozambique_wires1440x960.jpg">In the Mozambican province wracked by a violent insurgency, the convenient labelling of those rising up against the predatory elite paints a picture that is far from reality. <br>Indigenous struggles
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/32143
Movie Review: ‘A United Kingdom’ (2016)LAMA2021-01-14T18:27:18+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/jan2021/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_united_kingdom.jpg" title="united_kingdom.jpg" alt="united_kingdom.jpg">A review of a movie about a cross-cultural marriage with political implications.<br>Migration / racism
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31882
Serious Concern at Escalating State Xenophobia in South AfricaMqapheli Bonono2020-05-18T02:32:21+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/may2020/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_croppedabm.jpg" title="croppedabm.jpg" alt="croppedabm.jpg">Statement from Abahlali baseMjondolo on state xenophobia during the coronavirus lockdown in South Africa<BR>
Since its formation in 2005 Abahlali baseMjondolo, which now has more than 70 000 members in good standing in Durban, has opposed xenophobia and sought to build a politics rooted in democratically run land occupations open to all. During period waves of xenophobic violence, always incited and sanctioned to some degree by the state, the movement has taken direct action to 'shelter and defend' people under attack.<br>Migration / racism
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31681
The relevance of the ICU of Africa for modern day unions and liberation movementsWarren McGregor (ZACF)2019-12-12T14:58:35+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/dec2019/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_icumeetingjuly1929.jpg" title="ICU meeting July 1929, South Africa" alt="ICU meeting July 1929, South Africa">The history of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa (ICU), formed in South Africa in 1919, is replete with lessons for today's movements. The ICU, which also spread into neighbouring colonies like Basutoland (now Lesotho), Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Southwest Africa (now Namibia) was by far the largest protest movement and organisation of black African and Coloured people of its time. Influenced by a range of ideas, including revolutionary syndicalism, the ICU had both amazing strengths and spectacular failings. This piece explains.<br>History
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31540
Class struggle, the Left and power – Part 2Jonathan Payn2019-09-08T06:04:05+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/sep2019/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_power2.jpg" title="power2.jpeg" alt="power2.jpeg">ILRIG Workers' World News education series – Part 2<BR>
<a href=https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31469 title=https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31469>https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31469</a> 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.<br />
<p><br />
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.<br />
<br />
[<a href=https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31469 title=https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31469>https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31469</a>]<br>The Left
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31539
Should the Anti-Capitalists Contest Elections?Lucien van der Walt2019-09-08T05:38:07+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/sep2019/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_lucien.jpg" title="lucien.jpg" alt="lucien.jpg">This is a lightly edited transcription of a talk given by Prof. Lucien van der Walt on a panel on the eve of the 2019 national elections in South Africa: the International Labour Research and Information Group (ILRIG)/ Workers World Media Productions (WWMP) Public Forum, Isivivana Centre, Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa 25 April.<br>The Left
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31514
“The soldier has fallen”: Mandla Khoza, ZACF anarchist-communist and Swaziland activist, 22 May 1974-26 July 2019ZACF2019-08-22T07:30:46+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/aug2019/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_mk2crop1.jpg" title="Mandla Khoza (“MK”), 1974-2019: ZACF anarchist-communist, militant in South Africa and Swaziland (Eswatini)" alt="Mandla Khoza (“MK”), 1974-2019: ZACF anarchist-communist, militant in South Africa and Swaziland (Eswatini)"><em> </em>Comrade Mandla Khoza (or "MK," as his friends and comrades knew him) passed away on Friday 26 July in his home town of Siphofaneni, Swaziland (Eswatini). He had long suffered from sugar diabetes. He leaves behind four children. One of the pioneering members of the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation (ZACF) founded in South Africa on May Day 2003, MK was committed to a social revolution that would place power and wealth in the hands of the working class, the peasants and the poor. As he would often say: “It doesn’t matter if you change who sits on the throne: you have to get rid of the throne itself.” This obituary commemorates his life as a militant.<br />
[<a href=https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31519 title=https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31519>https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31519</a>]<br>Anarchist movement
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31487
Moving from Crisis in South Africa's Municipalities to Building Counter-PowerBongani Maponyane2019-07-19T22:09:06+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/jul2019/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_a.jpg" title="a.jpg" alt="a.jpg">Across South Africa, municipalities are in crisis. They are under-funded, anti-working class, anti-poor and anti-township, and riddled with corruption by elites. The working class is oppressed by the state - as well as the private bosses - and we say "Enough is Enough!" We need to build an alternative: organs of counter-power, which can demand changes and lay the foundations for a deep redistribution of wealth and power to the mass of the people: the working class and poor. <br />
<br>Community struggles
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31469
After the election dust settles: Class struggle, the Left and powerJonathan Payn2019-06-25T22:09:34+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/jun2019/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_power2.jpg" title="power2.jpeg" alt="power2.jpeg">ILRIG Workers' World News education series – Part 1<BR>
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.<br />
<p><br />
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.<br />
<p><br />
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.<br />
<br />
[<a href=https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31540 title=https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31540>https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31540</a>]<br>The Left
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31370
A ZACF Anarchist in the Landless People’s Movement, South AfricaLekhetho Mtetwa2019-04-06T00:57:17+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/apr2019/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_lek1be1554494422267.jpg" title="Lekhetho Mtetwa" alt="Lekhetho Mtetwa">Interview with Lekhetho Mtetwa<BR>
Lekhetho Mtetwa, a member of the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) discusses his role in the Landless People’s Movement (LPM), formed in South Africa in 2001. While the LPM was affiliated to <em>Via Campesina</em>, and linked to the Landless Workers Movement (<em>Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra</em>: MST), its activities centred on urban squatter communities, rather than farm occupations or organising alternative agrarian systems. Then-living in a squatter camp in Protea South, Soweto, Mtetwa served as the local secretary; by 2013, this was the key LPM branch. Several attempts were made by political parties to capture Protea South LPM, using patronage and promises, leading to the eventual implosion of the branch. Mtetwa provides an essential analysis of the rise and fall of the LPM, and the role that anarchists can play in such social movements.<br>Community struggles
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31312
A Workers’ Party and Elections or Class Struggle?Warren McGregor2019-02-26T17:32:21+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/feb2019/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_hammer_sickle.jpg" title="hammer_sickle.png" alt="hammer_sickle.png">The Question of State Power and the Anarchists’ Answer<BR>
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.<br>The Left
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31223
South Africa’s polluting giants: it’s about profits and classShawn Hattingh2018-12-07T19:20:06+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/dec2018/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_pollution.jpg" title="pollution.jpg" alt="pollution.jpg">When it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, South Africa falls within the 15 biggest polluters in the world. But there is also a class dimension when it comes to pinning down which sections of society are responsible for air pollution – the major polluters in South Africa are the ruling class (capitalists, politicians and top state bureaucrats) and their state and corporations (including state corporations), continuing an economy based on cheap black labour, mining and externalising costs. State-backed”empowerment” firms — for Afrikaners from 1948, and blacks from 1994 — are deeply involved.<br />
<br />
<br>Environment
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31202
Building black working class counter-power against state, capital and national oppressionWarren McGregor2018-11-13T19:11:21+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/nov2018/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_warren.jpg" title="warren.jpg" alt="warren.jpg">Interviewing Warren McGregor, ZACF, South Africa<BR>
Interview with Warren McGregor of the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF), South Africa. Warren McGregor is an activist born in the Coloured townships of the Cape Flats, now resident in Johannesburg, where he is involved in working class and union education. <br />
<br />
What is anarchism? Who really rules South Africa? Should we form a "workers party"? How does anarchism address racial and national oppression? How can we build working class counter-power? What is the state of the left? How do we link fights for reforms to revolutionary transformation and counter-power? Where does anarchism come from and what is its history in South Africa? Where to now?<br>Anarchist movement
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31185
[South Africa] Health Care Forum calls on working class women to boycott the National Gender SummitGauteng Community Health Care Forum2018-10-27T08:34:13+08:00enWhy the Gauteng Community Health Care Forum will not attend the National Gender Summit<BR>
On the 1-2 November 2018, at St George Hotel and Convention Centre in Pretoria, the summit will<br />
sign a vague and hollow declaration in support of the fight against gender-based violence, so that<br />
the government and the parties involved can pretend that it is supported by all sections of South<br />
African society, coming together to fight for women, LGBTIQ+ and children, when in reality the<br />
scourge of gender based violence will remain unchanged.<br>Gender
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31119
A South African Revolutionary Passes: Jabisile Selby Semela, 1958-2018ZACF2018-08-30T08:14:29+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/aug2018/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_selbysemela.jpg" title="Selby Semela, 1958-2018" alt="Selby Semela, 1958-2018">Selby Semela, a leading figure in the 1976 revolt against apartheid, political exile, and author (with Sam Thompson and Norman Abraham), of “<a href=https://zabalaza.net/2018/08/28/reflections-on-the-black-consciousness-movement-and-the-south-african-revolution/ title=https://zabalaza.net/2018/08/28/reflections-on-the-black-consciousness-movement-and-the-south-african-revolution/>https://zabalaza.net/2018/08/28/reflections-on-the-black-consciousness-movement-and-the-south-african-revolution/</a>”, passed away on Wednesday, 22 August, 2018, aged but 60 years.<br>The Left
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31107
[South Africa] Renewed appeal for Solidarity with the Boiketlong 4Solidarity with the Boiketlong 42018-08-15T07:09:47+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/aug2018/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_boiketlong4.jpg" title="boiketlong4.jpg" alt="boiketlong4.jpg">On the 21st April 2015 the Magistrates Court in Sebokeng sentenced 4 community activists from Boiketlong, to a total of 16 years in prison. The activists are: Dinah Makhetha, Sipho Mangane, Dan Molefe and Pulane Mahlangu. Key witnesses could not even identify the 4 but the courts sought to use the apartheid law of ‘doctrine of common purpose’ to jail them. They were found not guilty of ‘public violence’ but guilty of ‘assault, arson and malicious damage to property’.<br />
<br />
Pulane Mahlangu has run away and no one knows where she is or if she is in good health. Either way, she cannot come home.<br />
<br />
Dan Molefe died of stress-related illness in December 2017.<br />
<br />
Although released for a short period while the appeal process was underway, both Dinah and Sipho are back in prison as they lost the first level of Appeal. The magistrate is prepared to consider shortening the sentence but not the sentence itself. The appeal process remains underway.<br />
<br />
There is now an opportunity for a mediated process that may assist in a process of early release. There is an urgent need to cover the costs of mediation which we estimate could come to about R40 000. Appeals have been made to the community to raise funds as well to the broader movement.<br>Repression / prisoners
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31102
Tearing racism up from its capitalist roots: An African anarchist-communist approachBongani Maponyane2018-08-10T22:21:37+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/aug2018/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_correll_voa_21535371w.jpg" title="correll_voa_21535371w.jpg" alt="correll_voa_21535371w.jpg">Racism has been a curse in South Africa, and remains embedded in the society. But how scientific are racist ideas? Where do they come from? And how can we fight racism and create a truly equal and fair society? What do we as revolutionary anarchists think?<br />
<br />
Racial conflict, inequality, and hatred are not natural, but fed and reared by capitalism and the state. To really change the system, we need a massive programme of upgrading education, health, housing and services; an end to the racist heap labour system; a challenge to the ideological control that splits the working class; and a radical redistribution of wealth and power to the working class and poor –which in South Africa, means primarily the black working class and poor –as part of a social revolution.<br>Migration / racism
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31076
Left unity, left cooperation or a working class front?Warren McGregor2018-07-21T05:45:08+08:00en<img align="left" src="http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/jul2018/100_75_1_1_5_0_0_0_0_0_uf.jpg" title="uf.jpg" alt="uf.jpg">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). <br />
<br />
What do we as revolutionary anarchists think?<br>The Left