From 25th to 27th January 2013, ELAOPA returned to the city of its birth to commemorate ten years of the difficult but necessary journey to building people’s power in Latin America. It seeks to “maintain its independence in the face of political parties, the state and its governments, NGOs, companies and all those that, with authoritarian structures distant from our realities, come to tell us what we have to do.” ... read full story / add a comment

Failures of democracy have been a big part of the history of the DLF. We in the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) have had to raise such challenges several times (see “DLF structure: concerns and proposals” by ZACF). We have long been troubled by the lack of proper democratic structures, by a leadership that consists far more of middle-class intellectuals than of grassroots militants, and by a programme that seems to be determined in advance by the academic and NGO interests of these intellectuals instead of by the immediate needs of the workers and the poor. ... read full story / add a comment

It was recently reported by various newspapers that ‘a “notorious gang of anarchists” with links to cash heists is attempting to destabilise the Gauteng ANC’. Newspaper articles [*] quoted ANC provincial secretary David Makhura as saying that an ANC investigation would ‘expose the hidden hand of business people who are fuelling and financing activities that seek to disrupt the functioning of the ANC’. The claims came after a group of disgruntled party members allegedly held an unofficial parallel election to decide the party’s Tshwane leader. According to Makhura the parallel gathering ‘was organised by a notorious gang of anarchists, most of whom have disciplinary cases’. ... read full story / add a comment

The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front, or ZACF – Zabalaza meaning ‘struggle’ in isiZulu and isiXhosa – is a specific anarchist political organisation based in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is a unitary organisation – or federation of individuals, as opposed to a federation of collectives – whereby membership is on an individual basis, by invitation only. This is because we have seen – through our own experience, as well as that of global anarchism historically – that we can accomplish more as an organisation, and be more effective, when our members share a certain level of theoretical and strategic unity, and collective responsibility.
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Across South America there is a growing movement – assuming different forms and characteristics, but with similar origins, demands and objectives – that, despite it being located at a strategically important intersection between two critical social issues – class struggle and ecology – seems to me to have received little attention in South African academic and activist circles. And this is true despite the fact that the social and economic conditions that gave rise to this movement prevail in South Africa, as they did – and continue to – in many South American countries. Perhaps this is due to the fact that this movement concerns people largely marginalised by industrial society and so-called ‘brown’ ecological issues – such as the pollution and contamination of rivers and dams surrounding poor communities, most acutely effecting the workers and poor – as opposed to the much more sanitary ‘green’ ecological issues – such as conservation and animal welfare – often associated, in South Africa at least, with liberal white activists from the middle and upper classes [1]. This is the movement of the catadores, as they are known in Brazil, and clasificadores in Uruguay; the recyclable waste pickers and sorters who, similarly to South Africa, constitute a growing informal sector in the industrial production cycle. This includes all people – not formally employed by public or private waste management services – who collect, transport, classify and sell recyclable waste for a living – or ‘work with scrap’ – thus “reducing demand for natural resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions” [2]. A category of work which, according to the World Bank, is performed by 15 million people globally – or one percent of the world population [3] – and has become increasingly common in South Africa in recent years. ... read full story / add a comment

The promise of safe, reliable and affordable public transport comes as welcome news for the majority of working class and poor South Africans and immigrants to the country. The segregated town planning left behind by the system of racialised capitalism known as apartheid has meant that the majority of the population – also those who can least afford it – are often the ones who have the furthest to travel to work, schools, hospitals and so on.

This article looks at the Bus Rapid Transit system, what BRT really is, how our so-called leaders plan to implement it – since, as usual, there has been very little popular involvement – and whether our leaders, or BRT, can serve the needs of the poor and working class ... read full story / add a comment

This article argues that active abstention is the only strategic and tactical approach to the 2009 South African elections which is consistent with revolutionary anti-capitalist politics. It was written for a forthcoming issue of Khanya: A Journal for Activists, which will present a range of different approaches that social movements may take in response to the 2009 elections. ... read full story / add a comment