Power corrupts the left in South Africa
southern africa |
the left |
news report
Friday August 19, 2005 22:26 by Zabalaza - ZACF
PHANSI NOHULUMENI, PHANSI OR DOWN WITH GOVERNMENT!
Even sitting on the government council at a local level puts a person on the other side of the line between oppressed and oppressor / exploiter and exploited and that is why we say that it is only when we fully control our communities and workplaces ourselves will we be able to provide decent food, clothing and housing for ourselves and our families
PHANSI NOHULUMENI, PHANSI OR DOWN WITH GOVERNMENT!
For any person who has hung around anarchists long enough, you must
of heard us ranting on about how "parliament is not a means of
stuggle" because "people who get their asses into parliament and all
the money and power start to only worry about getting more money and
power" or "society is run from the board rooms of the giant companies
who control the economy and NOT by a bunch of liars sitting
comfortably in Parliament" etc. etc. These people feed us a whole
bunch of lies to get themselves elected and then for the next couple
of years sit comfortably and do nothing about anything of relevance
to us (except maybe how to get more money or labour out of us). Emma
Goldman speaking about her time in Russia during the revolution had
this to say about the "revolutionary government" of the Bolsheviks:
"Government, whatever its form or pretences, is a dead weight that
paralyses the free spirit and activities of the masses."
Well, being the highly skilled investigative reporters that we
are, we came across this delightful little quote from the mayor of
Msunduzi (Pietermaritzburg) Local Council R.F. Haswell when he was
installed as mayor on the 23 February 1995. It goes some way in
proving our point. Speaking about two of his newly-elected partners
in crime, he said:
"The irony that a trade unionist, who was so effective
against the municipality in the past, now occupies the position of
Chairperson of the Human Resources Committee, cannot go unnoticed.
Likewise, that we have, as one of the two alternating co-chairpersons
of the Executive Committee, a Councillor who previously exposed some
of the iniquities of our rates system, also represents a remarkable
turnaround. Thus, in commending and welcoming Councillors Frans
Ntshangase and Omar Latiff, I look forward to seeing them deal with
strikes, and setting the rates, respectively."
So these scabs have gone from being fighters of and for our class
to fighting strikes and screwing us out of the small amount of money
we may be lucky enough to have. In other words they have become
defenders of those with the money, privilege and power. Even sitting
on the government council at a local level puts a person on the other
side of the line between oppressed and oppressor / exploiter and
exploited and that is why we say that it is only when we fully
control our communities and workplaces ourselves will we be able to
provide decent food, clothing and housing for ourselves and our
families; good education that is not brainwashing; free health care,
water and electricity for all; transportation etc. - government can
play no role in this.
So, our struggle should not just be outside of the political
parties but against the parties - it should an ANTI-political
struggle. We should seek to replace all government with
freely-elected councils in our workplaces and communities which are
elected by those who work in the workplace or live in the community;
councils that are instantly recallable; which work to strict mandates
and who's members are rotated on a regular basis to stop bureaucracy
catching up.
As the saying goes:
Name one thing government does that we, the people, cannot do
ourselves!
from Zabalaza: A Journal of Southern African Revolutionary Anarchism
#5 - May 2004
This page can be viewed in
English Italiano Deutsch