Friday February 06, 2009

Statement distributed by ZACF members and progressive students at the Wits University Orientation Week in response to the presence of the South African National Defence Force and attempts by it to recruit students to the military by offering to pay for their education.

Students and the ZACF condemn the presence of members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) Orientation Week, and the attempts by these war-mongering representatives of militarism to recruit students to join the armed forces. If the ill-disciplined behaviour of the SANDF troops stationed in Burundi with the African Union, or those that form part of the Monuc forces in the DRC is anything to go by, reports of which accuse SANDF members of raping teenage girls, then the SANDF should be the last one to be allowed into educational institutions to parade itself as role models for the youth and try to recruit them to its corrupt, violent and patriarchal ranks.

What is worse than the mere presence of the Defence Force in institutions of higher learning – despicable and reminiscent of apartheid as it is – is the fact that it is offering to pay for students university fees, in full, if they join the military. We condemn Wits’ invitation for SANDF to be on campus with the weak excuse that students would have the chance to get additional bursaries, instead of offering free education in the first place. It is clear that Wits is only concerned with making a profit out of its students at all costs, even if it means sending them off to possible death in the DRC or Darfur.

Continue reading →

Joint international anarchist communist statement on the situation in Israel/Palestine, signed by the Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (Italy), Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (South Africa), Common Cause (Ontario, Canada) and Members of Anarchists Against the Wall (Israel).

Hundreds of dead and thousands of injured, sacrificed on the altar of Zionist expansionism and fundamentalism. In Europe, the foreign ministers of every EU country talk about an “exaggerated”, though “legitimate”, reaction on the part of Israel, reversing the true situation with an operation that would make the most cynical illusionist feel proud by making the aggressor, the State of Israel, appear to be the victim.

They continue to pretend that they do not remember that Gaza – one of the most densely-populated regions with around one and a half million inhabitants, about half of whom are children – has been the object of a total embargo for years, an embargo which includes medicines and basic necessities and which is supported by the entire “civilized” western world, imposed by Israel and the West as a result of the Hamas election victory, thanks to the mixed electoral system of majority and proportional representation. Just as they pretend to forget that Hamas was once financed by Israel as a way of countering the PLO.

Continue reading →

1. The current crisis is typical of the crises that regularly appear in the capitalist economy. “Overproduction”, speculation and subsequent collapse are inherent to the system. (As Alexander Berkman and others have pointed out, what capitalist economists call overproduction is actually underconsumption: capitalism prevents large numbers of people from fulfilling their needs, and so undermines its own markets.)

2. Any solution to the crisis prepared by capitalists and governments will remain a solution within capitalism. It will not be a solution for the popular classes. Indeed, as in every crisis, the workers and the poor are paying – while financial capital is being bailed out with huge sums. This is likely to continue. No change within capitalism can resolve the problems of the popular classes; still less can such a solution be expected from individual politicians, such as Barack Obama. The most such politicians can do is play a part in offering the capitalists a way out, and perhaps in throwing the working class some crumbs.

Continue reading →

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. It has been aptly noted that, on the ground, in townships and poor communities across South Africa, people’s faith has been restored in the ‘new’ ANC, that their hope has been renewed that change can come through bourgeois parliaments and political parties, be it the ANC or Cope – or the DA, IFP, ID, UDM, ACDP or PAC. For some, the response to this is that we, the extra-Alliance left, must consolidate our forces and contest elections against these parties in order to provide an alternative to their rule. But where is the alternative in so doing?

Throughout our lives under capitalism, from the earliest age, we are disempowered; we are taught not to think or act for ourselves, not to empower ourselves. We are taught to rely and be dependent on our political and economic masters; if we have problems with crime in our communities, rather than practicing the tried and tested concept of popular justice, we are encouraged to go to the police; if we have a problem with a co-worker, rather than deal with it between ourselves, we are encouraged to go to our ‘superiors’, that they can resolve affairs on our behalf – perhaps resulting in disciplinary measures being meted out against us or our working class brother or sister; if we have complaints about service delivery we are told to appeal to our political masters. Never, but never are we encouraged to even attempt to resolve things for ourselves. For capitalism to work, for it to keep us exploited, oppressed and in subjugation, it must teach us not to believe in ourselves, neither as individuals nor as a class: the survival of capitalism depends on its breaking down of the collective self-confidence of the popular classes; on its making us dependent and unable or unwilling to think and act for ourselves. Capitalism survives by making the popular classes believe that we need it, that we rely on it for our survival; that without bosses and politicians we would not be able to survive. This is as true in the economic realm as in the political.

Continue reading →

As you will no doubt already know the cold-blooded killing of Alexandros-Andreas Grigoropoulos, a 15 years old high school student, by the Greek police in Athens sparked off days of ongoing riots across Greece, leading to occupations of universities and high schools, attacks on police stations and government buildings and strengthened a preexisting call for a general strike today. The Greek embassies in London and Berlin were occupied by anarchists, and there have been numerous pickets and solidarity actions abroad.

Although the country’s 10 000 strong anarchist movement is involved, and has been since the start, it is important to emphasise that this is much deeper and more broad-based than the anarchist movement, or even the Greek left – what is really significant in this struggle is that everyone who is and was thrown in the dustbin of Greek society by the government, the state and any other institutions are all out on the streets together; youth, unemployed, social “minorities”, gypsies, migrants without papers etc.

Continue reading →

We, the ZACF, support wholeheartedly the APF and Kliptown residents demands (see statement below) and their action to occupy houses which by right should be theirs. It is ironic that Kliptown, being the site where the Freedom Charter (1955) was collectively developed, is the very place where these rights are being denied, despite the fact that the ANC still claims to support and struggle for the principles of the Freedom Charter in its so called National Democratic Revolution. Perhaps we should remind them that the Freedom Charter, available on their website, states:

…There Shall be Houses, Security and Comfort!

Continue reading →

Landless Peoples Movement (LPM), Shack-Dwellers’ Movement (Abahlali baseMjondolo)
& Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF), South Africa

Joint Statement on Workers Party (PT), Brazil, Campaign to Criminalise the
Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST), Brazil

7 August 2008

To the poor of the world, to all people of good will who work for progressive change.

We, the landless and homeless people and associated activists of South Africa, decry the secret campaign by the so-called Workers’ Party (PT) government of the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul to criminalise, outlaw and otherwise illegitimately harass our landless comrades of the MST.

Continue reading →

by Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front
Tuesday, Aug 5 2008

The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) expresses its solidarity with the rank and file workers of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), as their national campaign of rolling mass action against the electricity crisis culminates in a national strike and stayaway throughout the country on Wednesday, 6th August.

Mass action on one issue…

We share Cosatu’s concern that Eskom’s 27.5% increase in electricity prices (which can be increased still further by municipalities) as allowed by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa, to help fund Eskom’s R343-billion expansion plans, will be felt most heavily by the poor and working poor. This increase in tariff will put thousands more jobs at risk as, already confronted by large increases in fuel prices and interest rates, companies will try to maintain their profit margins by retrenching workers, and may even be forced to close operations.

Continue reading →

The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front wishes to express its heartfelt solidarity with Mr Jerome Daniels and Mr Ridwaan Isaacs – two Delft Anti-Eviction Campaign members who, on Wednesday 2nd July, were sentenced to 12 months in prison for their political and social activism.

The two – one of whom was not even present in the community when the incident in question took place – maintained their innocence in the face of charges of malicious damage to property; although it is clear that what was really on trial was their role as community activists in the Delft-Symphony Way settlement. The testimony of one Mrs Evelyn Mokoena, who was speaking in defence of the accused, was repeatedly interrupted when the magistrate questioned the defendants about their involvement in the Anti-Eviction Campaign, a grassroots and autonomous social movement.

In passing his verdict Magistrate Van Graan said that he was holding Mr Daniels and Mr Isaacs responsible for the actions of their community; which dismantled the tent of one of its residents after a person the owner, Elmory Isaacs, allowed to stay in her tent threatened other community residents with violence. She acknowledged, however, that when the evicted occupants of the Delft Symphony N2 Gateway homes began their pavement encampment they agreed – as a community – to remove anyone who threatened or used violence against other community members. When it became evident that it was the community as a whole which took the decision to dismantle Ms Isaacs’ tent the magistrate said “I can’t understand under what circumstances does the community take a decision? […] Is this what is happening in this country? Is this thing justifiable?”.

Continue reading →

Joaquin has been known to us for some years now as a voice of militancy and reason in the Los Angeles area, working with Cop-Watch LA, Anarchist People of Color, and Revolutionary Autonomous Communities. His arrest at the end of June on a felony charge of possession of a concealed weapon – a legally-purchased firearm kept in the boot of his car while he was driving it – appears to be concocted by members of the Los Angeles Police Department who have come under the uncomfortable community scrutiny of Cop-Watch Los Angeles.

Continue reading →