A review of a movie about a cross-cultural marriage with political implications. read full story / add a comment

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. read full story / add a comment

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. read full story / add a comment

Η Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa (Ένωση Βιομηχανικών και Εμπορικών Εργατών Αφρικής - ICU) ιδρύθηκε στο Κέιπ Τάουν το 1919. Το 1920 συγχωνεύθηκε με την επαναστατική συνδικαλιστική ένωση, Industrial Workers of Africa (Βιομηχανικοί Εργάτες της Αφρικής) και άλλα συνδικάτα. Μεγάλωσε ταχύτατα στη Νότια Αφρική μεταξύ της έγχρωμης και μαύρης εργατικής τάξης και των εκμισθωτών γης. Εξαπλώθηκε επίσης, τις δεκαετίες του 1920 και του 1930, σε γειτονικές χώρες. read full story / add a comment

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] read full story / add a comment

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. read full story / add a comment

Le compagnon Mandla Khoza ( "MK", somme ses amis et camarades le connaissaient) est décédé le vendredi 26 juillet 2019 dans sa ville natale de Siphofaneni, au Swaziland (Eswatini). Il souffrait depuis longtemps de diabète sucré. Il laisse quatre enfants. Il fut l’un des membres pionniers de la Fédération Anarchiste Communiste Zabalaza (ZACF) fondée en Afrique du Sud le 1er mai 2003. MK était engagé dans une révolution sociale qui placerait le pouvoir et la richesse entre les mains de la classe ouvrière, des paysans et des pauvres. Comme il le disait souvent: «Peu importe que vous changiez qui siège sur le trône: vous devez vous débarrasser du trône lui-même.» Cette notice nécrologique commémore sa vie de militant. [English] read full story / add a comment

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. [Français] read full story / add a comment

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.
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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] read full story / add a comment

Don't abandon the unions, or take sides in inter-union rivalries. Build a serious, organised, non-sectarian project of democratic reform and political discussion that spans the unions, including a rank-and-file movement that fosters debate, and opens the treasure-chest of union and left history and theory. Recover the politics of disconnecting from the state as raised by, for example, Occupy and the Rojava Revolution. Replace reliance on the state and parties with struggle, and destructive inter-union rivalry with a serious project of working class counter-power.
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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 Via Campesina, and linked to the Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra: 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. read full story / add a comment

This article, with the guidance of anarchism as a theory, provides a critical analysis of Zimbabwe and its current state, arguing against simple analysis and going beyond individual politics. The real, underlying problem is a society governed by a class system under the control of a predatory state that cannot survive a day without the exploitation of its people. It is essential to organize and educate the masses for a revolution they can claim as their own, against all forms of oppression and that builds on everyday struggles to improve the deplorable conditions of Zimbabwe. read full story / add a comment

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. read full story / add a comment

Entrevista con Warren McGregor, del Frente Anarquista Comunista Zabalaza (ZACF), Sudáfrica. Warren McGregor es un activista nacido en los municipios de color de Cape Flats, ahora vive en Johannesburgo, donde participa en la educación de la clase obrera y sindical.

¿Qué es el anarquismo? ¿Quién gobierna realmente Sudáfrica? ¿Debemos formar un "partido de los trabajadores"? ¿Cómo aborda el anarquismo la opresión racial y nacional? ¿Cómo podemos construir el contrapoder de la clase obrera? ¿Cuál es la situación de la izquierda? ¿Cómo vinculamos las luchas por las reformas con la transformación revolucionaria y el contrapoder? ¿De dónde viene el anarquismo y cuál es su historia en Sudáfrica? ¿Hacia dónde vamos ahora?
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Um apelo à unidade da esquerda socialista é amplamente ouvido em toda África do Sul, mas ele é frequentemente interpretado como um chamado à unidade da práxis (unidade no programa teórico e na ação). Isso muitas vezes é enquadrado como a transcendência de velhas divisões (estas vistas como antiquadas, sectárias ou descartadas como dogmáticas), e outras vezes como unidade a fim de agir (retoricamente posta como o oposto da teoria de gabinete). O que nós, anarquistas revolucionários, pensamos? English read full story / add a comment

Con oltre un secolo di ritardo la Germania si scusa per il genocidio commesso in Namibia contro le popolazioni indigene. A quando il turno dell'Italia per Libia, Etiopia, Jugoslavia...? read full story / add a comment

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.

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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.

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? read full story / add a comment

On the 1-2 November 2018, at St George Hotel and Convention Centre in Pretoria, the summit will
sign a vague and hollow declaration in support of the fight against gender-based violence, so that
the government and the parties involved can pretend that it is supported by all sections of South
African society, coming together to fight for women, LGBTIQ+ and children, when in reality the
scourge of gender based violence will remain unchanged. read full story / add a comment