Umsebenzi Online, Volume 15, No. 05, 14 February 2016
In this Issue, by Cde Blade Nzimande:
* Keynote presentation at the Mzala Nxumalo memorial lecture, Cape
Peninsula University of Technology
* People's education for people's power
Red Alert
Keynote presentation at the Mzala Nxumalo memorial lecture, Cape Peninsula
University of Technology
BY CDE BLADE NZIMANDE, 13 FEBRUARY 2016
CPUT's VC Dr Prins Nevhutalu; all alliance partner leaders present;
academics present; representatives of SASCO, the Young Communist League and
the ANC Youth League; comrades; ladies and gentlemen,
Revolutionary greetings!
Comrades, on Friday the 4th of December 2015 we marked a significant
milestone in the South African political, cultural and education calendar;
this in the form of the formal launch of the Mzala Nxumalo Centre for the
Study of South African Society in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal.
On that day I declared with pride that the date marked a significant
milestone in the historical, intellectual and scholarly development of a
democratic South Africa. I said that the launch of the Mzala Nxumalo Centre
was a revolutionary moment in that, apart from celebrating the life of a
dedicated cadre of the liberation movement, it also served to shine the
spotlight on a largely ignored and marginalised yet particularly significant
developmental aspect of our democracy - left-wing thought.
Exactly who is Mzala Nxumalo?
For most South Africans the name Mzala Nxumalo remains a total enigma. This
is unsurprising as Mzala was never a celebrity thinker nor a
self-aggrandizing personality. To his credit, notwithstanding his
outstanding intellect, Mzala remained a very self-effacing and unassuming
character - until he opened his mouth to speak or sat down to write on his
favourite subject, Marxist thought.
Mzala became a prominent theoretician and writer in the movement at the time
when most intellectual prowess both in the movement and in the left
formations in general was associated with the white left.
To be more precise, Jabulani Nobleman "Mzala" Nxumalo was an ANC and SACP
activist, soldier, intellectual and writer. He died at the young age of 35,
just as his intellectual activity was starting to flourish and reach
maturity.
Born in the small northern KZN town of Dundee in 1955, Mzala attended school
at Louwsburg (eNgoje), then Bethal College in Butterworth and later
matriculated at KwaDlangezwa high school. By all accounts, Mzala was a
brilliant student whose intellect stood out in all his classes. In 1972, at
15 years of age, Mzala was detained without trial for his role in a school
boycott. The following year he was arrested again and charged with public
violence for his part in student and worker strikes.
After completing his matric, he studied law at the University of Zululand,
oNgoye, where he became a passionate fighter against injustice and
hypocrisy. He was active in the South African Student Organisation (SASO).
His participation in the countrywide upsurge following the Soweto Uprisings
of June 1976 made him a marked man. The same year, along with a number other
comrades Mzala left South Africa to join the ranks of the people's army,
Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK).
Mzala was an avid reader. From the time he went into exile, he read
voraciously the literature that became available to him, particularly the
works of Marx, Lenin, as well as the political literature and history of the
ANC, the SACP and various writings of the movements' leading intellectuals.
In the Soviet Union, Mzala received training in politics and other
specialized subjects. As usual, he excelled in all the training courses that
he took. Mzala rose to important positions in the ranks of MK, later serving
in Swaziland and Angola and was part of the famous June 16 MK detachment.
While absorbed in the work of the underground, Mzala would make time to read
books on a wide variety of topics and engage in heated and controversial
debates. In the midst of his training and organizational responsibilities,
he was always intellectually active.
In 1979, Mzala was deployed to Lusaka, where he acted as coordinator of
commissariat structures. The following year, he was sent for advanced
ideological and political training in the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
In 1983, disguised as a reporter "Jabulani Dlamini", Mzala was deployed to
Swaziland where he worked for the Swaziland Observer but was detained by the
Swazi police. Following his release, he left Swaziland - returning in
December of the same year, with a new identity. This time he lived in the
Shiselweni district in the south of the country. He served as commissar for
the Natal rural machinery, a network that was later to become central in the
establishment of Operation Vulindlela.
While in Shiselweni, and out of his own initiative, Mzala crossed the border
into KwaZulu-Natal to set up an MK unit at Ngwavuma. In 1984 he was again
arrested by the Swazi police and deported to Tanzania where he worked for
Radio Freedom and the Amandla Cultural Group.
Throughout, Mzala had a reputation as an independent thinker, unafraid to
differ sharply with leaders or ordinary comrades while always remaining
fiercely loyal to the ANC and the SACP.
Mzala Nxumalo was also a prolific writer. The African Communist, Sechaba,
and Dawn all contain numerous articles of his contributions, published under
various pen names including Khumalo, Sisa Majola, Alex Mashinini and, of
course, Mzala.
If one looks at his articles over the years, one can trace his
philosophical, ideological and theoretical development. Much of his writing
focused on the national question and the unfolding revolutionary process in
South Africa. He also wrote and lectured extensively on the relationship
between the national and class struggle in South Africa. He asserted that
the aim of the South African revolution was to end inequality between the
nations; he believed this could only be achieved under socialism.
In 1977 Mzala was working on a simplified book on Marxism-Leninism in
isiZulu. The text seems, unfortunately, to have been lost but his interest
in making Marxist thought available to ordinary people remained. I worked
extensively and very closely with Mzala, and he in fact recruited me to the
SACP. In fact, when he recruited me to the SACP, one of the first tasks
Mzala gave me was to translate the SACP's 1989 programme, The Path to Power,
into isiZulu.
Mzala Nxumalo's major work was his book Gatsha Buthelezi, Chief with a
Double Agenda (Zed Books, 1988). This was a damning critique of the role
played by Buthelezi and Inkatha as junior partners and collaborators with
the apartheid regime.
In 1987, Mzala was deployed to Prague as the South African Communist Party
representative on the World Marxist Review, but his health began to falter,
and his stay in Prague only lasted two months. Unfortunately, he took ill
and left Prague for medical treatment in London in 1987. In London he
worked for the international committee of the SACP and enrolled to further
his studies. He registered for a doctoral degree at the University of Essex
and the Open University, researching issues around the national and class
question in the South African revolution. His premature death came before he
completed his thesis.
Mzala was probably the most prolific writer of the "Soweto generation", his
writings offering insight on the liberation struggle in South Africa and
revolutionary strategies against the apartheid state. He combined his
writing - which was both theoretical and polemical - with the life of a
practical, hard-working, revolutionary soldier and politician.
His life is an inspiration to young academics and intellectuals who are
committed to honest intellectual endeavour, rigorous research and
socio-political analysis that can contribute centrally to the total
liberation of South Africa - and indeed all countries.
Therefore nothing could be more appropriated than the establishment of a
Centre for research, reading and writing, and the promotion of debate and
dialogue on the issues that were close to his heart - which is exactly what
we are doing.
I am particularly happy about the resurging interest in Mzala Nxumalo and
his contribution as a theoretician of our struggle. The Mzala Nxumalo Centre
for the Study of South African Society in Pietermaritzburg is established
mainly to undertake research and analysis on various subjects in the South
African transition. The Centre is also to provide research training and
assistantship to students as well as to be a key left-wing think tank, both
on national and global issues. Mzala's 'national question' has been a
subject of engagement and research by both the Chris Hani Institute and
MISTRA. Proceedings from these engagements and colloquiums have will be
published in a book edition, edited by Prof Eddie Webster.
In retrospect, unfolding developments over the last year do highlight the
need to revisit and engage with Mzala's work and many others, in our
endeavor to decipher these and provide appropriate revolutionary direction.
First, the ongoing outbursts of racism and racial polarisation in South
Africa definitely require us to return to Mzala's theorisation of the
national question and the racialised nature of class formation in South
Africa.
Certainly, part of the persisting arrogance of a racist section of whites in
South Africa stems from a persisting position of class privilege. This
arrogance and a sense of impunity of racists reflect persisting levels of
race/class privilege of a white/rich class, at the expense of masses of
poor/black working class families. Revisiting Mzala's work will enable us to
interrogate the continued articulation of race/class dynamics in South
Africa, as well as advance the revolutionary project to undo this historical
misnomer. Persisting articulation of white/bourgeois privilege also provides
a further indictment to the failure of the neoliberal 1996 class project in
advancing the NDR and the eradication of racism and privilege thereof.
In our push in the second phase of the transition, that is economic
transformation, works of Mzala and others will remain a useful resource in
our theorising of the current conjuncture.
Education
Education was one of the key areas of interest for Mzala, especially the
transformation of our educational system to resemble and nurture the values
of democracy, including the development and empowerment of the whole person
and of communities to define their own lives. Emanating from this frame of
conceptualising education as an avenue for deepening democracy, human
development and community engagement was a theme that developed in the
mid/late 1980s called "people's education for people's power."
Current developments, especially around university education - which
commenced as #Rhodesmustfall, then evolved to #decolonisationofuniversity or
#africanisationofunivesity, then later in the year into #feesmustfall, have
given us enough issues and points to ponder and apply our minds to. These
give us an opportunity to revisit the 1980s' popular phrase of 'people's
education for people's power', in the context of claims for a 'new'
theorisation asserted by proponents of the 'decolonisation' and
Africanisation of education mantra.
Does Ngugi wa Tiongo's literary inclined notion of decolonising the mind,
which has been borrowed and expanded on by another literary scholar (Achille
Mbembe), then concocted with pan-Africanist and BCM epithets, really
represent 'new' and revolutionary conceptualisation of university education?
Besides sloganeering, what is the substantially new and revolutionary
contribution of these claims that requires that we jettison the language of
transformation?
For instance, while university struggles respond to genuine problems at many
of our universities, these struggles have completely neglected other equally
significant players in post-matric education, for example TVET Colleges,
SETAs, community colleges and others.
In fact, within the university education sector alone most of the
developments and demands made do not even include challenges facing
Historically Disadvantaged Institutions, or HDIs. There is a need for a
balanced analysis, and we believe that Marxist-Leninist frame and ideas and
the articulation in the Freedom Charter best represent a starting point for
engaging with how we transform our education system in ways that address
systemic vestiges of race, class, gender and all other forms of societal
cleavages. The last thing we want is a university system that only
substitutes exclusive white privilege with exclusivist black privilege.
Neither do we need a hybrid of the two.
One of the pertinent challenges of struggles post-1994, especially in the
post post-2000 period, has been a widening gap between student struggles and
those of workers. In some of the cases these struggles have pitted one
against the other. Part of the challenge for forging alliances on campuses
between student and worker formations has been the inability of trade
unionism, for instance, to mobilise and organise university workers in
sectors characterised by increasing externalisation of work in the last 10
to 15 years. But this is a broader challenge facing the progressive trade
union movement in particular and trade unionism in general - the challenge
of organising casualised or outsourced sectors of the workforce.
For instance, at the end of 1995 NEHAWU organised almost all staff
components at universities besides academics, who were mostly organised in
academic staff associations later to become NTEWU. When universities began
externalising the so-called non-core services from 1996, resulting in
outsourcing and sub-contracting, NEHAWU lost almost all its members as
outsourced and subcontracted workers lost the employment security that had
enabled them to join trade unions.
Furthermore, externalisation changed the identity of workers in relation to
space/place of work. It also redefined what was meant by economic sectors,
and, consequently created new problems to sectoral organisation. Workers,
who used to constitute part of the university community by virtue of working
and operating at the university space daily, after externalisation were no
longer considered as being part of the university community. Even their
grievances were externalised. While many continued to work at the university
five (sometimes six) days a week, their employer relations were no longer
with the university, but with an outsourced subcontractor. Overtime, this
also changed relations between direct university workers and outsourced
workers on the one hand and, on the other, between workers in general and
students. An organising and solidarity distance opened up in particular
between outsourced workers and students.
Struggles for in-sourcing at several universities will thus open up
opportunities for progressive trade unionism, in particular NEHAWU, to
mobilise and organise these workers, as well as afford opportunities for the
PYA to re-establish alliances with worker formations on campuses.
Unity is sacrosanct
Finally, but very importantly, as we head towards local government
elections, it is vitally important that we keep in touch with the realities
on the ground. These realities are that the struggle of the working class is
currently in a very grave danger of being eroded even further than it has
been until now, especially here in the Western Cape. All around us we day-in
and day-out witness the emergence of reactionary forces intent on eroding,
and in fact to completely obliterate both our revolutionary gains and
movement.
In memory of Comrade Mzala, we must develop clarity of task in relation to
our current phase of the national democratic revolution - that is the
second, more radical phase of our project of social transformation.
The national question is not yet resolved, despite the massive progress we
have made since our democratic breakthrough in April 1994. We still have a
lot of work to do to towards completely resolving it and thus take forward
the revolutionary work of Mzala Nxumalo. Taking our cue from his
revolutionary example, this means that we must go back to the root and grasp
the matter from its foundations. That is where the changes we seek to
achieve must reach in order for us to uproot the problem in its entirety,
continue to build and properly guide the development of the new society that
we seek to achieve in the place of the old one.
There is no doubt that in order to address the national question we must
completely eliminate the legacy of the problems of racist national
oppression. But we must also address the problems of patriarchy. We must
deal with all forms of false consciousness and identity problems which were
created and exploited as part of the colonial and apartheid capitalist
strategy of divide and rule used to maximise profit for the ruling class.
The importance of dealing with class exploitation - the foundation upon
which national oppression and gender domination, but as well as other forms
of false consciousness were erected - cannot be overemphasised. We must deal
a decisive blow to all other measures such as patronage that were used to
manufacture consent from those who were privileged on the basis of race and
gender under the social ladder of apartheid advantages while those who were
forced on the lowest rung were systematically disadvantaged.
As we said at the Cosatu national congress last year, one of the greatest
achievements of the ANC since its founding in 1912 was that of uniting the
oppressed from different backgrounds. But as history teaches us, nothing is
permanent. The very same important achievement of unity can be rolled back
or undermined in various ways. Some of these have recently expressed
themselves or seek to rear their ugly head.
For example the geography of voting patterns shows that some of the
achievements we have made on building broad unity during our liberation
struggle pre-1994 leading to our democratic breakthrough have been weakened.
The post-1994 voting outcomes increasingly indicate that there is
reproduction underway of particular political dynamics that the apartheid
regime sought to achieve through its policies of racial segregation.
It cannot be denied that a trend indicating that there is a process whereby
"minority" communities across all classes and strata are politically being
turned against the ANC and the whole of the alliance has emerged. The forces
behind this agenda have been cementing and deepening it for their own
profit. However, it is important to also examine the totality of the
conditions that have made it possible for them to reproduce such
apartheid-type political divisions. This would require more time than we
have today, save to say the problem must be understood first and foremost in
its historical context through a thorough examination of both the objective
and subjective factors.
An extensive examination is therefore also required, of the consequences of
the apartheid social ladder and the political implications of the
perceptions that have been forged from the gradual collapse of certain
privileges of the past in the course of social transformation. On the other
hand, it is important to examine the way in which the conduct of things
within our own movement, and by extension in governance, has played into the
hands of the apartheid agenda that thrives on the mobilisation and
consolidation of the so-called minority fears.
In addition, it is important to reflect on the hyper competition that has
emerged for resources including opportunities in the form of jobs and
tenders associated with the state that is manifesting itself through a
destructive contest for positions within our movement. Especially the
problem is acute in certain provinces at the provincial, district and branch
levels. The political, ideological and organisational implications this has
are huge both for the ANC and the alliance. We must deal with this problems
and address its material basis in the challenges facing our economy.
>From all of the afore-mentioned challenges, it is important to underline
that where the ANC has previously lost elections, it is not just the ANC the
organisation that lost but the rest of our alliance and supporting
organisations. Such is the case with the Western Cape, Cape Town and other
areas, all with serious consequences. The rest of South Africa has for the
past 22 years been undergoing systemic decolonisation while the Western Cape
has been held back, for example.
It is very important to underline therefore that what happens in the ANC
electoral processes, including the selection of candidates, is not a matter
only for the ANC. Our alliance platform of the ANC-led electoral strategy
was established in the best interests of the unity of the primary motive
forces of our struggle. When something goes wrong in the ANC or its
electoral processes the entire alliance is affected and not just the ANC
alone.
It is therefore important to place emphasis on the fact that the ANC is not
just a leader only of its members. As it correctly states in its Strategy
and Tactics document, the ANC is the organisational leader of our national
liberation movement. It is important at this point to emphasise that in its
Strategy and Tactics document the ANC defines our national liberation
movement not just as itself alone but as an array of forces organised to
achieve political freedom. This has taken the form of the alliance, the mass
democratic movement and other sectoral forces, led by the ANC, says the ANC
Strategy and Tactics document. It is this national liberation movement,
encompassing all the primary motive forces of the national democratic
revolution that overthrew the apartheid regime and laid the foundations for
the development of democracy and the advancement of social transformation in
our country.
Any departure from this dialectic of unity of purpose will cause serious
problems in the current phase of our struggle. Immediately ANC electoral
processes are not handled in a proper manner, but are seen or allowed to be
handled as if they were an exclusive preserve of the ANC in isolation from
the alliance, such problems will entrench to the peril of the rest of our
alliance and revolution. It is very important for ANC electoral processes to
be understood in their proper context as not just ANC but alliance
processes, led by the ANC. The alliance must therefore be reflected both in
the execution of this processes and in its outcomes. We must unite!!
This is not the time for division. It is the time for unity; for without
unity the resolution of the national question, which Comrade Mzala paid
close attention to, will be postponed for a long time to come.
This is the time for all progressive forces to set aside their differences
and unite under the banner of our alliance as led by the ANC and fight to
reclaim all lost ground, including Cape Town, and ultimately the Western
Cape.
The resolution of the national question requires that we deal decisively
with and uproot the legacy of the internal dimension of colonialism of a
special type in its entirety and new manifestations. And this is not the
only task we are facing. We still have a formidable task to deal decisively
with the legacy of the external dimension of colonialism, continuing
imperialist domination and guarantee our democratic national sovereignty.
Without this it will be difficult to achieve radical economic transformation
- the central task of the second radical phase of our democratic transition
towards completely resolving the national question. It is inconceivable that
we will sail successfully in the troubled waters of the formidable external
dimension of the problem we seek to resolve if we fail to deal with the
internal dimension.
We must fight to overcome all forms of divisive strategies and tactics that
are being used to weaken the alliance and its components. We need to all go
out and organise to bring about unity within the alliance, while bringing in
new recruits to strengthen our struggle. Only by doing this will we be able
to return this province to the decolonised fold in order to march forward
together as one, as we engage in the second radical phase of our democratic
transition.
I thank you.
* Dr Blade Nzimande is SACP General Secretary, ANC NEC member and
Minister of Higher Education and Training
People's education for people's power
Mzala Nxumalo Memorial Lecture, Cape Peninsula University of Technology:
Additional Notes during discussion: Heavily indebted working class and lower
middle class households
BY CDE BLADE NZIMANDE, 13 FEBRUARY 2016
The #Fees must fall campaign (its internal contradictions and contradictory
character notwithstanding) is also not disconnected from the broader class
struggles in, and the capitalist nature of, the South African society.
Co-incidentally, the almost simultaneous struggles of the working class over
their pension funds and the current student struggles over access to higher
education, capture a deeper reality that is facing South Africa's working
class and lower middle classes.
South Africa's working class and the lower middle classes are deeply
indebted largely as a result of the absence, or inadequacy, of a social
wage, especially for the working class. It was to this matter for instance
that the Taylor Commission focused its attention upon, thus proposing a
comprehensive social security net.
The core of the working class (including nurses, teachers, police, factory
workers, etc.) does not benefit from the 'RDP' housing subsidy of
government. At the same time a large section of the working class and lower
middle class strata do not qualify for housing bonds from the private banks.
Even those who have access to such bonds are currently experiencing massive
bank repossessions and evictions. This has reached the same levels as during
the height of Group Areas Act evictions under apartheid!
Similarly, the same class strata do not benefit and often fall through the
cracks from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) meant to
assist students from needy families. The majority of children from the
working class come from families that are above the NSFAS criteria, and yet
cannot afford to finance especially university education.
The working class and lower middle classes also suffer from the costs of the
absence of safe, reliable and affordable public transport. Many workers
spend up to 40% of their monthly income on (unsafe and unreliable) public
transport.
The absence of an affordable and quality health care system, for instance a
National Health Insurance, further places additional burden on these
families, thus erodes their income. A huge percentage of working class and
middle class families rely exclusively on the expensive private health care
system through their (inadequate and yet very costly) medical aid schemes.
On top of the above expenses, many workers and middle class professionals
have to look after unemployed or aged family members ("the black tax"),
which puts further strain on wage and salary earnings.
All the above are manifestations of the legacy of colonialism of a special
type, a variant of bourgeois rule that had been based, and continues to be
based, on deep levels of the black working class that suffer from a heavy
burden of this legacy.
Given the above, it is therefore also very important to understand student
struggles from the standpoint of the failure of capitalism to finance
(especially higher) education for the working class and the poor. For
example, the next possible bubble in the United States after the housing
bubble of 2008, is that of student debt, currently estimated at about $1.2
trillion US dollars.
Arising out of the misery of the 2008 capitalist crash, many families and
young people took loans for education with the hope that as the US picks up
from the 2008 crash they will be able to get better jobs. The creation of
better jobs is taking a long time, thus exacerbating student indebtedness
and inability to pay.
Without by any means abandoning the struggle for free higher education for
the working class and poor who cannot afford, it is however important to
understand that what we may be dealing with here is the state being asked to
bail out capitalism from its crisis, including its failure to fund (higher)
education for student from families that cannot afford.
For all these reasons it is important that we intensify our financial sector
campaign together with the struggle for a comprehensive social security net.
Much more importantly is for Cosatu to earnestly take up the campaign of
where and how workers' pension and provident funds are invested.
People's education for people's power
The ANC 2016 January 8th statement appropriately declares the year 2016 as
the year of advancing people's power. This call is the most appropriate
especially coming in the wake of student struggles in higher education, the
deepening social distress in working class communities, as well as being the
year of the local government elections. Indeed the many challenges we face
call for the mobilisation of people's power, with the working class at the
centre. It is therefore important for the SACP and the working class as a
whole to ensure that this does not become just a slogan, but a reality
In fact the very corporate capture of the state that the SACP has strongly
come out against can only truly be reversed and defeated through the
mobilisation of people's power.
In our analyses of the student struggles at our last Central Committee in
2015 we noted a number of positive aspects of this campaign, amongst which
was its potential to politicise many students for the first time, as well as
putting pressure on our movement to implement its own resolutions.
However there are many negative aspects and other lessons to be learnt out
of these struggles. For example whilst internet based mobilisation is can be
powerful weapon, but the internet cannot provide leadership to such mass
struggles as shown by the collapse and defeat of a number of promising Arab
Spring struggles in North Africa and the Middle East
The 2015 student struggles have taken place against the background of a
weakened ANC/SACP presence in our campuses, lack of unity and cohesion in
the Progressive Youth Alliance, as well as the absence of concrete
articulation of the perspectives of our movement on education, especially
the concept of 'people's education for people's power' and its further
elaboration after two decades of our democracy.
The participation and support to the student struggles by some of our own
comrades have more been about advancing their narrow factionalist interests
to attack the SACP and the working class rather than a principled support
for genuine student struggles and the transformation of higher education.
Therefore there has been very little theoretical and strategic guidance
given to our student formations along the lines of our strategic
perspectives of people's education for people's power.
It is absolutely essential for the SACP to play a leading role in the
concrete elaboration of our perspectives in order to guide these struggles
ideologically along the lines of driving the second, more radical phase of
our transition, with the broader perspectives of the national democratic
revolution.
It is also absolutely imperative that we strengthen Young Communist League
structures in our university and college campuses as well as building strong
SACP structures in these campuses and strengthen the Progressive Youth
Alliance.
It is important also for the SACP to extend and invite SASCO leadership and
cadres to its joint political schools, especially those with NEHAWU and
SADTU.
* Dr Blade Nzimande is SACP General Secretary, ANC NEC member and
Minister of Higher Education and Training
Umsebenzi Online is an online voice of the South African working class, now
publishing at least once per week
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