Download Issue #4 of the Newsletter of the Tokologo African Anarchist Collective

November 19, 2014February 9, 2015 / griffin36

Click above picture to download Issue #4 of Tokologo,
the Newsletter of the Tokologo African Anarchist Collective

The 1976 Struggle and the Emancipation of the Future: Developing of Self-determined and Self-motivated Youth despite Looming Fate by BONGANI MAPONYANE (TAAC, ZACF)
Our History of Struggle: the 1980s “Workerist-Populist” Debate Revisited – Compiled by WARREN MCGREGOR (TAAC, ZACF)
Bernard Sigamoney, Durban Indian revolutionary syndicalist by LUCIEN VAN DER WALT

INTERNATIONAL STRUGGLE’S

Build a Strong People: Latin American Lessons in Leadership by JONATHAN PAYN (ZACF)

EDITORIAL:
Election Circus: Zuma not the problem, the whole system is rotten

2014’s national and provincial election circus saw the ANC retain its big majority. Two opposition parties – DA and EFF – grew; the rest fell sharply. Over 13 million never voted, more than the total who voted for the ANC and far more that voted EFF (1 million) or DA (4 million). Four out of ten youth (18-29 year olds) did not even register.[1]

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CSAAWU: Plea for assistance

November 19, 2014November 19, 2014 / griffin36

Help keep CSAAWU’s doors open – An injury to one is an injury to all!

Dear Comrades,

We are writing to you out of solidarity for CSAAWU, a union based amongst farmworkers in South Africa with which we have relations. In 2012/3 South African farmworkers rebelled against the deplorable conditions in the sector – for which hundreds were dismissed and victimized. CSAAWU is one of the few unions that organises in this difficult and under-represented industry. In the aftermath of the rebellion it took a decision to take up the struggle, including by defending close to 100 workers in the labour court.

Unfortunately the union lost two of the cases and has been issued with cost orders in excess of R600 000 (US$ 53 500 or EUR 43 000). This is a very high amount in South Africa, one that is potentially fatally crippling for a smaller union like CSAAWU. (Anyone needing more information can have a look at this article)

We are therefore forwarding you their plea (see below) and hope that you will consider supporting their request for help. Please also considering forwarding this to sympathetic organisations and/or publishing it widely.

Red and Black regards,

The ZACF

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Don’t Vote! Organise!

April 17, 2014April 17, 2014 / Sifuna Zonke

by Soundz of the South (SOS)

In the build up to the 2014 elections, politicians – whether from the DA, ANC, EFF, or PAC – have been calling on us to vote. As part of this, they have promised to meet people’s needs, end poverty and serve communities when they are elected. The promises of all these politicians are lies.

Politicians don’t give a damn about workers and the poor; all they care about is their own power. They will tell us anything to get nice jobs in parliament. When politicians get into the state – whether at a municipal or national level – all they do is pass laws and put in place policies that benefit themselves and their rich friends. They protect their own interests and those of their allies in the form of the capitalists when they are in the state. Far from serving us; they wage a war on us. Continue reading →

An Egyptian anarchist on the current uprising

November 30, 2013November 30, 2013 / Sifuna Zonke

an interview by Mark Mason
ASR (Anarcho-syndicalist Review),no. 60, 2013

On July 3, 2013, President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt was removed from office, having been pushed out by the largest popular uprising in modern history. Tens of millions of Egyptians were in the streets marching throughout the country. To explore the fac tors contributing to the overthrow of Egypt’s first democratically elected president, I interviewed M. Saad, a long-time Egyptian activist, for ASR.

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Anarchists in Egypt, will the real Black Bloc please stand up?

November 21, 2013November 21, 2013 / Sifuna Zonke

Core members of Egypt’s Black Bloc hardly ever give interviews, adding to the mystery and confusion that surrounds the group. Your Middle East’s Goos Hofstee was able to get one such rare talk.

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Syria: The life and work of anarchist Omar Aziz, and his impact on self-organization in the Syrian revolution

August 26, 2013 / Sifuna Zonke

By Leila Shrooms for Tahrir-ICN

syria-sos-omar-aziz-homs-free-congregation-17-2-2013

Omar Aziz (fondly known by friends as Abu Kamal) was born in Damascus. He returned to Syria from exile in Saudi Arabia and the United States in the early days of the Syrian revolution. An intellectual, economist, anarchist, husband and father, at the age of 63, he committed himself to the revolutionary struggle. He worked together with local activists to collect humanitarian aid and distribute it to suburbs of Damascus that were under attack by the regime. Through his writing and activity he promoted local self-governance, horizontal organization, cooperation, solidarity and mutual aid as the means by which people could emancipate themselves from the tyranny of the state. Together with comrades, Aziz founded the first local committee in Barzeh, Damascus.The example spread across Syria and with it some of the most promising and lasting examples of non-hierarchical self organization to have emerged from the countries of the Arab Spring.

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Tahrir-ICN statement on events in Egypt

August 18, 2013July 20, 2014 / Sifuna Zonke

The events of the past couple of days are the latest step in a sequence of events by which the military can consolidate its hold on power, aim towards the death of the revolution and a return to a military/police state.

The authoritarian regime of the Muslim Brotherhood had to go. But what has replaced it is the true face of the military in Egypt – no less authoritarian, no less fascist and for sure more difficult to depose.

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The Egyptian streets are stronger than the polling booths

July 7, 2013July 7, 2013 / griffin36

Two and a half years after the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian streets have spoken again. Mohamed Morsi has been ousted after a one-year reign and four days of demonstrations on an unprecedented scale in the history of the country. The Egyptians have reminded the world that an election is not a blank cheque which leaves representatives free from all constraint. Real democracy involves control over those mandated by those giving the mandate and it would be nothing without the ability to remove those who betray their mandate. No constitution gives that power to the workers (except for some “recall referendums”, à la Chavez) – the ruling classes would be too afraid of the democratic spiral that could eventually be damaging to them. Unconcerned with constitutions, the law, the supposed “democratic legitimacy” of elections, the workers in Egypt have reclaimed their destiny through collective and revolutionary mobilization. Let our little Western bosses beware, and let workers around the world take note!