Tokologo Newsletter

No Illusions: 2016 Elections no Solution for the Masses

/ Sifuna Zonke

by Warren McGregor (TAAC, ZACF)

Published in “Tokologo: Newsletter of the Tokologo African Anarchist Collective”, numbers 5/6, November 2015

vote_nobodyMany in the working class hope the 2016 local government elections will prove a turning point. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) won the 2014 elections easily, but its grip is weakening. The ANC-allied Congress of SA Trade Unions (COSATU) has split, the radical metal union NUMSA expelled. The ANC could even lose control of at least one of giant “metro” municipality in 2016, possibly greater Johannesburg or Nelson Mandela Bay – probably to the moderate Democratic Alliance (DA), not the ANC breakaway, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

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Anarchism and the Continuing Struggle for Women’s Freedom

/ Sifuna Zonke

by Bongani Maponyane (TAAC, ZACF)

Published in “Tokologo: Newsletter of the Tokologo African Anarchist Collective”, numbers 5/6, November 2015

womens libAs anarchist-communists, we oppose sexism whenever and wherever it exists, although we also realise that class position differentiates the experience of sexism. We salute all the woman freedom fighters, and the older generation of women, many our mothers, who bear the scars of the gruesome battles in which they stood firm, fighting the oppression imposed on the African native by colonial conquest.

There were hard times in the apartheid era, where black women were abused, raped and oppressed: the state did nothing to stop this, but aided it, as the state was part of the system of oppression. History shows that dispossession and systematic dehumanization for the purposes of exploitation and domination were undertaken through the uncontrolled and coercive mayhem of the South African state.

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Build a Strong People: Latin American Lessons in Leadership

/ griffin36

Resistência Popular logoby Jonathan Payn (ZACF)

As working class activists, we should share experiences with – and learn from – working class struggles in other places. The ruling class organises worldwide to exploit and dominate our class. So we need to organise resistance to defend our interests everywhere. And we can only benefit from arming ourselves with lessons from different working class movements.

An important example of working class resistance from which we, in South Africa, can draw inspiration is the Brazilian Resistência Popular (Popular Resistance). This organises with unions, student and neighbourhood movements, and it promotes mobilisation and organisation based on grassroots democracy, direct struggle, and solidarity across the broad working class. It exists in various cities, and stresses the importance of people organising themselves, from the bottom up, outside of the parliamentary system, and against the economic and political elites.

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Bernard Sigamoney, Durban Indian revolutionary syndicalist

/ griffin36

Bernard Sigamoney

 

by Lucien van der Walt

A global movement, the anarchist and syndicalist tradition has influenced people from all walks of life. A notable figure was Bernard L.E. Sigamoney, born in 1888. The grandson of indentured Indian labourers, who arrived in South Africa in the 1870s, he became a school teacher with a working class outlook.

A hundred years ago saw the First World War (1914-1918) sear the globe: almost 40 million died. South Africa, as part of the British Empire, sent troops and workers to battles in Africa and Europe.

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Our History of Struggle: the 1980s “Workerist-Populist” Debate Revisited

/ griffin36

FOSATU LogoCompiled by WARREN MCGREGOR (TAAC, ZACF)

Workshop contributors: Lucky, Pitso, Bongani, Siyabulela,
Nonzukiso, Nonzwakazi, Mzwandile

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Today the terms “populism” and “workerism” are widely thrown about in South African political circles. Often, these terms and others (“syndicalism,” “ultra-left,” “counter-revolutionary,” “anti-majoritarian” …) have no meaning: they are just labels used to silence critics. SA Communist Party (SACP) leaders do this often. But in the 1980s, “populism” and “workerism” referred to two rival positions battling for the soul of the militant unions.

These debates, thirty years on, remain very relevant: let us revisit them, and learn. Today’s radical National Union of Metalworkers of SA (NUMSA) was part of the “workerist” camp, while its key rival, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was identified with “populism.” The early battles over the direction of the Congress of SA Trade Unions (COSATU) still echo today, although there is no longer a clear “workerist” camp.

FOSATU founding congress

FOSATU was launched on 14 and 15 April 1979 at Hammanskraap. Workers’ democracy and control were the core tenets upon which FOSATU was founded.

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The 1976 Struggle and the Emancipation of the Future: Developing Self-determined and Self-motivated Youth despite Looming Fate

/ griffin36
Hector Pieterson (1964 - June 16, 1976)

Hector Pieterson (1964 – June 16, 1976). Killed at age 12 when the police opened fire on protesting students. 16 June stands as a symbol of resistance to the brutality of the apartheid government.

by Bongani Maponyane (TAAC, ZACF)

The massacre of South African school children in 1976 continues to be remembered and to influence us today. It showed the brutality of the apartheid state and it left scars still felt by people today.

In the period 1970-75 the number of black schoolchildren in the state system increased by 160%. However, the Bantu Education system and economic crisis meant already low apartheid expenditure could not meet the increasing need.

This was also the time of Steve Bantu Biko, a key intellectual influence through the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). The rising black trade union movement provided another source of inspiration after the defeats of the 1960s.

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Traitor to the Working Class Majority: Cyril Ramaphosa

/ griffin36

Traitor to the Working Class Majority: Cyril Ramaphosaby Siyabulela Hulu-Hulu (TAAC, ZACF)

It is said we live in a democratic country; but, believe me it is for the chosen few. Current Deputy President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, was once widely considered a hero of the working class. Today he is a hypocrite and traitor to us, the majority.

From 1994, when his career as a trade unionist ended and his career as a capitalist and state politician began, he has enriched himself at the expense of workers – he is a billionaire by the toil of our mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters.

Ramaphosa played a major role in the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and in the negotiations leading to the 1994 breakthrough. He became African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general in 1991 and ANC deputy president in 2012 – the ally of President Jacob Zuma.

In the years between, his business empire has grown massively. His interests now include a big stake in the Lonmin platinum mines; he is implicated in the 2012 Marikana Massacre of striking miners near Rustenburg. As a result, he had to testify at the Farlam Commission in Centurion, Tshwane, which recently ended.

This makes me wonder what kind of democracy and equality he was fighting for. He was a hero of the anti-apartheid struggle, but is now a villain of the parliamentary democratic period. He is covered with an indelible and negative stigma amongst the majority of South Africans.

But one may not be surprised: even his leader and ally, Jacob Zuma, runs the state with filthy hands, part of the large group of corrupt state officials and capitalists that loots our country.

In conclusion, all these so-called leaders are wolves in sheep’s clothing. And all that glitters, dear readers, is not gold! Parliament, rather than being a solution, is a place where the wolves come out to feast. This system of hierarchical rule always changes those people who join it. It is up to us, the working class majority – employed and unemployed – to change the system. Anarchism shows us the way.