A South African ruling class brawl

March 31, 2017 / Sifuna Zonke

by Shawn Hattingh (ZACF)

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In the midst of gorging themselves through exploitation and corruption, competing factions of the flabby ruling class in South Africa (the ruling class being capitalists, politicians and top state officials) have once again stepped into the ring to take pieces out of one another.

In the one corner of the fight is the Zuma faction – comprised of sections of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) capitalists, top state officials, and politicians aligned to Zuma – while in the other corner is the Ramaphosa/Gordhan faction – comprised of sections of the ANC leadership such as Ramaphosa and Gordhan, white capital and the South African Communist Party (SACP). These factions have recently been standing toe to toe exchanging blows and in the process, metaphorical blood has been spilled: those of a few Cabinet Ministers, including Pravin Gordhan.

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Why Workers’ Education? Why trade unions and what’s next?

February 25, 2017 / Sifuna Zonke

by Lucien van der Walt (ZACF)

Published in “South African Labour Bulletin“, 40 (5): 46-48

In these grim times, both globally and locally, it is important to reaffirm the centrality of workers’ education, and the need for a strong working-class movement. Ordinary people have immense potential to change the world, and steer it in a more progressive direction than that promised by capitalists, populists and the political establishment, writes Lucien van der Walt.

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2017 South African Budget Speech: No Pravin, it was not progressive nor redistributive

February 25, 2017 / Sifuna Zonke

by Shawn Hattingh (ZACF)

First published at Pambazuka.org

Credit: Daily Maverick

On Wednesday, the Minister of Finance of South Africa stood up in the circus that passes itself off as a National Parliament and without any sense of irony what-so- ever declared that the South African state’s budget for 2017 was redistributive and progressive. If the Minister was to be believed, therefore, the budget was aimed at making a dent in the substantial class and racial inequalities that exist in the country. To back this up, supporters pointed out that the tax rate on top earners was raised marginally in the budget and people receiving dividends from shares would have to pay 5% more on these in tax. Despite this, one word could sum up the idea that the budget presented was redistributive and progressive: bullshit.

Rather the budget presented by Minister Pravin Gordhan was yet again another attack on the working class. What the budget did was to favour corporations at the expense of the poor. In doing so, it remained based on the neoliberal dogma that has defined South Africa’s post-apartheid politics. In other words, the budget was a vivid demonstration of how the state is an instrument and weapon of the ruling class that functions to benefit that class. This can be seen throughout the budget, including how the state plans to raise money and how it plans to spend it.

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Brazil: High school students show way forward for working class resistance

December 16, 2016 / Sifuna Zonke

by Jonathan Payn (ZACF)

Published in “Workers World News”, issue 102, December 2016

“Autonomy and struggle: students and workers decide!”

In September 2016 the Brazilian government published a Provisional Measure (MP 746) outlining a reform in secondary education that would have devastating consequences for the education system, disproportionately affecting majority-black working class students.

Students responded with direct action and occupied schools in the state of Paraná, with occupations soon spreading to at least six other states. One month later 600 high schools in Paraná alone had been occupied to protest the government’s attack on public education – which comes in the context of a broader attack on the working class through a Proposed Constitutional Amendment (PEC 241) that threatens to freeze public spending on health, education and social welfare until 2037.

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One Year after the 2015 Grahamstown Riots against Foreign Traders: Attacks Hurt Working Class and Poor, Only Capitalists and Politicians Benefit

December 16, 2016 / Sifuna Zonke

by Lucien van der Walt (ZACF)

*Text commissioned by Unemployed People’s Movement, Grahamstown, October 2015.
*Edited version: November 2016.

grahamstown-riots A year ago, starting 20 October 2015, around 75 small shops were looted, some burned down, in the eastern townships and downtown area of the small Eastern Cape university town of Grahamstown/ iRhini, South Africa. The attacks targeted Asian and African immigrants, many of them Muslim, and displaced 500 people. These riots were largely ignored by the media.

The text below is a slightly revised revision of a briefing I was asked to write at the time for the local Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM). The UPM played a heroic role in opposing the attacks and assisting the displaced. The text’s general points remain relevant to the working class’s fight against prejudice and racism. And the riots of 2015 should not be forgotten.

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In the ANC’s battle of factions there are no superheroes

November 7, 2016 / Sifuna Zonke

by Shawn Hattingh (ZACF)

460_0___30_0_0_0_0_0_anclogoonwall The battle between Pravin Gordhan and Jacob Zuma has been presented along the lines of a superhero comic. Gordhan, the hero, is portrayed as the last defence against the rampaging villain, vile Zuma. And like all superhero tales Gordhan the good appears to be gaining the upper hand over Zuma the bad – especially since corruption charges have been dropped and the damning Public Protector’s report on state capture has been released.

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ZACF message to the Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU) on its 60th Anniversary

October 29, 2016 / Sifuna Zonke

14657291_327115447647655_716175401315126418_n We, militants of the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF), send you a big clenched fist salute and revolutionary internationalist greetings on this the historic occasion of the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU) – commemorating 60 years of struggle for freedom and socialism.

It has been a long and no doubt hard and bumpy road since 1956. We honour the many FAU militants who, like Alberto “Pocho” Mechoso, gave up their freedom and even their lives in the struggle for freedom and socialism. Yet, after all is said and done, you are celebrating another milestone, another anniversary. You continue to keep the red and black banner of class struggle anarchism alive and well on the Latin American continent – holding it up as an example for all to see.

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“Superintendent Officer Mthembu” – Spoken Word Poetry against Police Brutality

October 10, 2016October 10, 2016 / griffin36

Inspired by the Events of 28^th September 2016 –
Police Shooting on RU students.

“Superintendent Officer Mthembu”

by Leroy Maisiri (ZACF)

cops-rhodes If our pain was turned into an art museum the most popular exhibit would showcase portraits of the South African Police Service with our bodies on the floor as their footstools. Our silenced screams chock up the airways in our throats, our tracheas burst out and with both hands we grab the artery veins in an attempt to contain the bleeding, trying to redirect this blood, this life back into the cause and yes, bang, bang, bang; you keep shooting and yes bang, bang, bang, we keep running.

But please first allow me to start this poetic prose in Joza extension 7, the peripheral of the township itself almost excommunicated from the centre of Grahamstown. Somewhere unclearly mapped by angry ground stones who share their space with the kind of dust that does not easily settle well on the road, is what looks like an afterthought of an RDP house. In it is Superintendent Officer Mthembu. A child of the working class. Mthembu on his tea breaks always jokes about how he wanted to be a lawyer, most of his stories start with the words “and during the apartheid…” he would recall those memories so well, remembering quite clearly all the fights, the protests, the revolutionary climate that engrossed South Africa. His stories would also always end with “…if only I could afford the fees in ’94, I would have been a qualified lawyer like Madiba”.

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Inside the Zimbabwean Uprising

August 22, 2016 / griffin36

MC Biko, ZACF

Anti-Robert Mugabe protesters in Harare, Zimbabwe

A year and half ahead of the 2018 general elections, the poor and working people of Zimbabwe are up in arms against President Robert Gabriel Mugabe and his ZANU-PF regime which has been in power for 36 years. In the last 3 months Zimbabwe has been shaken by protest actions of workers, informal traders, commuter omnibus operators, and unemployed youths. These actions have occurred at a time when the country is experiencing a liquidity crisis and the ruling party structures are crumbling from within as liberation war veterans, once Mugabe’s staunch loyalists, break ranks from the regime. Meanwhile, the opposition political parties (a myriad of MDC splinter groups and two ZANU-PF splinter groups) are in talks to form a coalition party. The regime has since stepped up its repressive measures in a bid to squash dissent.

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