Sobre el montaje judicial en contra de los soldados Yeison Orlando Castañeda Rojas (de la vereda El Cauchal), Wilmer Javier Pérez Parra (de la vereda Las Juntas), Isidro Alape Reyes (de la vereda Aguas Claras) y Bilman Useche Pava (de la vereda Las Juntas), presos sin condena desde Septiembre del 2011. Este atropello es parte de los abusos que se están viviendo en el Sur del Tolima en el marco de la militarizació del territorio. Este artículo había sido preparado a fines de Octubre pero desde entonces estábamos a la espera de que se anunciara una nueva audiencia. Hasta la fecha, no hay audiencia y la fiscalía sigue dilatando el proceso. read full story / add a comment

Una vez más nos encontramos "Construyendo Caminos de Solidaridad y Autogestión". Para esta oportunidad y como actividad de cierre, desde el Grupo Estudiantil Anarquista queremos invitarles a la Feria Libertaria: ¡Yo no olvido el año viejo! read full story / add a comment

Δεν είναι η πρώτη φορά που ένα συνδικάτο οικοδόμων, προκαλεί το ενδιαφέρον των εργαζομένων, όχι με την αγωνιστική του στάση απέναντι στα συσωρρευμένα προβλήματα της πλατιάς βάσης του κλάδου, αλλά λόγω… παρατυπιών στην εκλογική διαδικασία. Αυτή τη φορά την παράσταση έκλεψε το συνδικάτο του νομού Τρικάλων. read full story / add a comment

Mandela, the ANC and the 1994 Breakthrough: Anarchist / syndicalist reflections on national liberation and South Africa’s transition
Shawn Hattingh and Lucien van der Walt

The destruction of the apartheid state form, with its odious policies of coercion and racism, was a major triumph for the working class in South Africa and elsewhere, showing that ordinary people can challenge and defeat systems that seem quite unbreakable. Mandela did play a heroic role, but was also the first to admit that “It is not the kings and generals that make history but the masses of the people, the workers, the peasants, the doctors, the clergy." And indeed, it was the black working class, above all, that through struggle tore down many features of apartheid by the late 1980s, such as the pass law system, the Group Areas Act and numerous other odious laws and policies.

The 1994 transition in South Africa was a political revolution, a break with the apartheid and colonial periods of state-sanctioned white supremacy, a “massive advance” in the conditions of the majority. It introduced a new state, based on non-racialism, in which South Africa was to be a multi-racial, multi-cultural but unified country, founded on human rights; welfare and social policy and legislation was transformed; capitalism was kept in place, but despite this, there were very massive and very real changes, political and material, that made qualitative differences in the daily lives of millions of black and working class people. And for millions, it is precisely the association of Mandela with that victory and with those changes that makes him so emotionally powerful.

Yet at the same time, Mandela’s policies and politics had important limitations that must be faced if the current quandary of South Africa, nearly 20 years later, is to be understood. Mandela never sold out: he was committed to a reformed capitalism, and a parliamentary democracy, and unified South Africa based on equal civil and political rights, a project in which black capitalists and black state elites would loom large. These goals have been achieved, but bring with them numerous problems that must be faced up if the final liberation – including national liberation – of South Africa’s working class is to be achieved.

The 1994 breakthrough was a major victory, but it was not the final one, for a final one requires a radical change in society, towards a libertarian and socialist order based on participatory democracy, human needs rather than profit and power, and social and economic justice, and attention to issues of culture and the psychological impact of apartheid.

As long as the basic legacy of apartheid remains, in education, incomes, housing and other spheres, and as long as the working class of all races is excluded from basic power and wealth by a black and white ruling class, so long will the national question – the deep racial / national divisions in South Africa, and the reality of ongoing racial/ national oppression for the black, Coloured and Indian working class – remain unresolved. And so long will it continue to generate antagonisms and conflicts, the breeding ground for rightwing populist demagogy, xenophobia and crime. By contrast, a powerful black elite, centred on the state and with a growing corporate presence, has achieved its national liberation.
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