Greetings son of the soil, Thanks for the article as is interesting and challenging to all who seek to build a strong and mass-based PAC. This piece is more relevant to the PAC than to the South African Capitalist Party. The PAC in its current state has no touch what so ever with the masses and the disadvantaged classes of our people. The PAC has a serious challenge of cleansing itself of self-inflicted ills such as,leadership blunders,disunity, factionalism,weak structures and non availability of a Programme of Action;rebuilding itself to be a strong party that can constest for state power,restructure itself to be a mass-bassed party that attracts support from workers,peasents,youth, unemployed and the rural poor and reposition itself to be able to articulate and address the real pressing issues of our people.
The PAC at its present state has no relations what so ever with civil society organisations that articulate the day to day needs and aspirations of our people. In the book "Some Essential Features of Nkrumaism",Nkrumah emphasises the importance of the party and also identify the key sectirs and sections of society that need to be mobilised to be able to make significant impact in the socio-economic and political arena in the country and to take over state power. Without PAC identify and working with unions,CBO's,Youth structures,Co-opts,womens structures,and other stuctures of the oppressed and dispossed we won't make any significant impact in society. The task is still too much for progressive forces,lets take lessons from this piece and start the march towards state power. Yours for a classless society Kwame Ndebele PAYCO Secretary General > Ma-Afrika > > What can we who want to build the party and make it an effective political force learn from this? > > SACP losing link to grassroots > ________________________________ > > <javascript:chgImg(-1)> Image of <javascript:chgImg(1)> > > > VISION FOR DEVELOPMENT: In South Africa, the South African Communist Party's relation to State power is mediated through the ANC. Picture: JACKIE CLAUSEN > > > 2009/10/13 > > > THERE has been a great deal of recent scholarship celebrating the arrival of new politics based on global social movements (eg De Sousa Santos, 2007; Holloway, 2002). > > The old political party model of the twentieth century has been > discredited for its failures to achieve robust, democratic, socialist alternatives. Indeed, the twentieth-century political party model is replete with tales of failed experiments, resulting in authoritarianism and low economic growth. > > Dismissing political parties as anachronistic forms of organising, however, represents a failure to understand the continued importance of political parties in shaping the contours of political and economic development. > > Political parties are fundamental in achieving patterns of democratic and egalitarian development for two primary reasons. One has to do with the State and the other with civil society. > > The importance of political parties is directly related to the continued relevance of the State. As many scholars have shown, efficacious developmental States are crucial actors in developing countries in achieving economic and social development (Evans, 1995; Kohli, 2004; Chang, 2004). States, however, are not simply populated by lone > individuals. Political parties are crucial actors in shaping the policies and strategies of developmental States. As crucial actors in State institutions, political parties are, thus, the vehicle through which different groups access State power and thus influence the direction of development. A sine qua non condition of generative politics are efficacious political parties with access to sites of State power in order to build new institutions. > > In Kerala, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI) took advantage of its access to State power by initiating a democratic decentralisation campaign that devolved financial and decision-making authority to lower tiers of government and extended democratic institutions in civil society. Central to these efforts was the creation of new institutional spaces for ordinary citizens' involvement in both the polity and economy. > > The CPI used the State to deepen and extend democratic State > institutions on behalf of subaltern classes. > > In South Africa, the South African Communist Party's (SACP) relation to State power is mediated through the ANC, which has pursued a particular vision of development. While the ANC-led State has implemented many progressive policies and legislation to deepen democratic institutions in society, many of these have withered with increasing pressure to show quantitative results in service delivery. Nevertheless, the SACP's experience highlights the importance of political parties as actors in State institutions. Indeed, the ANC has been the vehicle through which capital has been able to assert its interest in the State and influence SA's post-apartheid political and economic development. > > In addition to political parties' relevance with regard to States, they are also crucial actors in civil society. Civil society is an arena of voluntary associational activity in which ordinary citizens link up with various organisations around a range of interests and identities. There is no primacy given to class in civil society. Yet, class is central to a counter- hegemonic generative politics. > > How, then, does civil society become organised around the centrality of class? > > Political parties - especially political parties linked to subaltern classes - are a crucial player in infusing civil society with a class project by organising the myriad associations around the centrality of subaltern class interests. > > The CPI developed extensive linkages to civil society over the course of the twentieth century by mobilising disparate rural and urban economic groups into highly efficacious agrarian and industrial working classes. Its organising efforts have infused civil society with the centrality of subaltern class interests. > > One of the many positive effects of this is the difficulty religious fundamentalist groups have had in penetrating Kerala's civil society. Unlike many places in India that have been torn apart by communal violence, Kerala's religious diversity has not degenerated into communal violence. The centrality of subaltern class interests in civil society has also forced the Congress Party to speak to issues relevant to subaltern classes. Thus, politics in Kerala are far to the Left of politics in the rest of India. Moreover, the deep connection between the party and civil society not only ensures that the CPI remains loyal to the interests of subaltern classes, it also empowers the CPI to use the State to initiate its counter- hegemonic generative project. Party-civil society synergy thus helped push politics in Kerala in radically new directions. > > In SA, the SACP has not focused on developing its links with civil society, but rather has channelled its energies in the direction of inter-alliance politics. As a result, the SACP has not consistently advanced the interests of subaltern classes, nor has it challenged the diminishing salience of subaltern class interests in civil society, which had developed in the 1980s social movement unionism. > > In contrast, the SACP's history shows its strong links to civil society in the 1940s and 1950s helped radicalise the liberation movement and reform the anti-apartheid struggle into a liberation struggle in which economic and political freedom were seen as two sides of the same coin. > > The SACP's recent failure to deepen its relations with civil society and organise the panoply of interests around the centrality of subaltern class interests helps account for its relative impotence in pursuing a counter-hegemonic generative politics. > > In Kerala, the CPI 's moorings in subaltern classes within an electoral environment of high contestation produced the conditions for > counter-hegemonic generative politics. In SA, the SACP's reliance on the ANC, and the ANC's rapprochement with sectors of capital within an electoral field of low contestation, led to a hegemonic generative politics that subordinates civil society to the State and economy. > > The divergent experiences of the CPI and SACP suggest institutional and vibrant connections between political parties and subaltern classes are essential for a democratic, egalitarian politics. Their experiences also suggest a new type of political party is needed, one that is capable of developing synergies with civil society. > > l Michelle Williams is a senior lecturer at the department of sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand. Her book The Roots of > Participatory Democracy: Democratic Communists in South Africa and Kerala, India is published by Palgrave and available from bookstores nationwide. It will be available on the evening of the Dialogue (see advertisement) at the discounted price of R200. > > > > > > ----------------------------------------- This email was sent using SquirrelMail. "Webmail for nuts!" http://squirrelmail.org/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Sending your posting to [email protected] Unsubscribe by sending an email to [email protected] You can also visit http://groups.google.com/group/payco Visit our website at www.mayihlome.wordpress.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
