Cdes
The SACP must just change and become an official lobby group for ZUMA.
The only things we read or hear the SACP leadership saying or doing is
singing praises for Zuma.
Quoting VC <[email protected]>:
*
Umsebenzi Online
Umsebenzi Online, Volume 11, No. 10, 22 March 2012*
**
*_In this Issue_:*
* *The fundamental importance on the right to life and dignity:
Communists celebrating Human Rights month*
* *But So and So did it, why can't we do it!!*
* *Ravens and Vultures*
Umsebenzi hand
*_Red Alert_:*
*The fundamental importance on the right to life and dignity: *
/Communists celebrating Human Rights month/
*
Blade Nzimande, General Secretary*
The SACP this week joined millions of our people in celebrating
Human Rights Day. For centuries millions of our people stood up and
fought for the restoration of human dignity that colonialism and
apartheid had denied them. Many of them gave up their lives in this
struggle. Many, like the victims of the Sharpeville massacre, were
brutally attacked by the regime when all they did was to engage in
peaceful protest.
The SACP warmly welcomes the President' message to the nation on
this important day. In partiular we welcome the emphasis the
President put on socio-economic rights, which was the major focus of
his speech, outlining the many transformative interventions
government has made on this score. The President's speech is a
timely reminder that after all, for South Africans to enjoy full
human rights we need to escalate the assault on the class, racial
and gender inequalities underpinning our society.
In a hardly quoted judgement of the Constitutional Court in 1995,
often deliberately and conveniently ignored by the liberals,
concluded that
"The rights of life and dignity are the most important of all human
rights, and the source of all other rights. By committing ourselves
to a society founded on the recognition of human rights we are
required to value these two rights above all others".
Whilst all the rights enshrined in the constitution are important,
nevertheless our Constitutional Court has set the priorities right.
The right to life and dignity are words with no meaning to our
people when their daily experiences are that of grinding poverty,
unemployment and a growing gap between the ordinary people and the
rich. This is a violation of the rights to life and dignity. When
our health system is allowed to be driven by profit motives like the
DA and the like minded organisations want, this constitutes a
serious violation of human dignity and the right of life. Not only
is the DA opposed to measures to translate the 'right to life and
dignity' into a reality, but even support the genocidal violence and
oppression directed at the Palestinian people by the Israeli Zionist
government!
When our workers are in slave type relations with some labour
brokers, working hard but with no benefits like pension and paid
meagre wages, indeed there can be no dignity. The capitalists want
to extract as much value as possible out of the workers and when
they reach retirement age for instance, and thereafter it must be a
burden on the state to look after them. It is in this context that
the struggle against labour brokers must be understood, as a
fundamental human rights issue. The decent work agenda, which most
liberals oppose, is at the heart of the struggle for a right to life
and dignity.
When one examines what is prioritised by the liberal agenda is that
of checks and balances on government, and no such effort is put into
ensuring decent work, the struggle against privatisation and labour
brokers, provision of productive land to the majority of our people,
and the complete eradication of all forms of racism and patriarchy.
For the liberals these fundamental socio-economic rights are given
much less emphasis as their agenda is to use our institutions of
democracy to roll back whatever efforts the government is making to
elevate the right of dignity and to life. Instead the liberals
selectively use parts of the bill of rights, often to frustrate the
realisation of some of the fundamental socio-economic rights
contained in our Bill of Rights. That is why liberals, whilst
claiming to be 'democrats' and 'constitutionalists', would oppose
the National Health Insurance Scheme, affirmative action, skills
development initiatives, and a decent wage -- matters that are aimed
at giving effect to the rights to life and dignity. Dignity includes
fair remuneration for one's work, without a portion being stolen by
labour brokers.
The liberals have in essence perverted and vulgarised our bill of
rights, because they are capitalist bedfellows, and thus would not
emphasise rights relating to life and dignity, especially if these
stand on the way of capitalist profits. For them the rights that
matter are those that can be used as platforms to attack and
discredit government. Hence the DA is possibly spending millions of
rands to try and overturn, through the courts, the decision of the
NPA not to prosecute President Zuma. No such monies have been put to
use to protect the abuse daily faced by domestic and farm-workers.
Government's efforts to improve the dignity of our people in the
spheres of education and health for instance are continuously
opposed by a new liberal onslaught on many other progressive
governments programmes.
Dignity will have no meaning when a majority of our young people are
unemployed and unskilled. This is the context that must underpin our
engagements with the Green Paper on post-schooling education. Ours
is to create a system that will restore the dignity of millions of
young people who have effectively been told by the capitalist system
that they are not any good. This message of doom and despair has its
roots in the barbaric system of capitalism.
As we celebrate Human Rights Day and month, the celebrations must
act as a catalyst to our people to rise up, mobilise against the
machinations of capitalism, a system that in the overall knows no
human dignity and human rights. The nation must also stand up
against the few who are corrupt and are prepared to take short-cuts
to steal government tenders. Those who want to use their proximity
to political office to accumulate are doing a great disservice to
our people and to their dignity.
In commemoration of human rights week and month, the SACP commits to
continue to mobilise our people in pursuance of their rights and
giving meaning to the Freedom Charter and our Constitution. It is
important for the SACP to take up the President's message by seeking
to elevate the socio-economic rights as the core of our
constitutional priorities of the 'right to life and dignity'. The
liberals would never take up these issues as for them private
capital accumulation is of a higher order than these rights.
We dare not allow the selectivity of the liberals to define the
priorities in the struggle for human rights. As we have said,
liberals are political hypocrites whose mission is to protect the
interests of the, often, white elite. The SACP should in addition
take up matters relating to the necessity of expropriation of land,
most ill-gotten through colonial and apartheid theft, as an
important imperative contained in our constitution. In short, it is
only intensified working class struggles that will give concrete
meaning to the right of life and dignity and we must use our
constitution to the full to realise socio-economic rights, and
important requirement for the right to life and dignity.
**
*But So and So did it, why can't we do it!!*
**
*
Malesela Maleka, YCL SA NC and NWC member*
Last year, one had the pleasure of being part of two important SACP
cadreship development delegations to Cuba and China. The lessons and
experiences from both these exchanges were indeed very informative
and encouraging. Most of the discussions we had with the hosts are
now having greater meaning and significance in the context of some
of the developments taking place in our own country.
In Cuba, our three person delegation, after spending a week and half
in Cuba was missing home and all three of us had succumbed to flu.
In addition, our hosts had not given us documents we thought were
necessary for our subsequent engagements. In one meeting at the
Party School, one of the former Cuban ambassadors to South Africa
arrived on time to mediate what had a potential to become one of the
lowest points of our visit to Cuba.
Our last meeting after two weeks in Cuba was at the Communist Party
of Cuba Head office with the African division of the CPC
International Relations Department. We made it a point we will
record our dissatisfaction with our comrades about our inability to
go home with any documents to share with comrades at the SACP.
The Head of the African division asked us a question: what do you
want to do with the documents? We replied, to show our comrades what
Cuba is doing and to be able to reproduce such good interventions
back at home. Then afterwards a discussion ensued at the end of
which we arrived at the conclusion that we did not need documents
from Cuba, for Cuba existed in different conditions and realities
and thus it has shaped what it has shaped to suit the Cuban
situation, guided by Marxist-Leninist principles. It would be a
dangerous experiment for the South African revolution for the three
of us to think we can simply reproduce what Cuba has done. We were
embarrassed, but none of us said so.
The same three comrades were later on last year to form part of an
SACP delegation to China, this time a bit more wiser from our Cuban
experience, we took a rather well measured approach. Some members of
our delegation went on a huge ideological exchange with the Chinese
counterparts about the ideological correctness of certain things
that the CPC was doing. Again, to cut a long story short, one answer
emerged, the CPC had to undertake what it had to, guided by the
Marxist Leninist principles, within the realities of conditions of
China.
One line sums up our experiences, the dangers of dogma. More often
than not we say this but act differently. For the success of our
revolution and the struggle to build socialism we must be informed
sufficiently about our own South African realities. We must not
approach Marxist Leninist texts as a dogma. The dangers of dogma are
such that we can have revolutionary sounding goals and objectives
but pay little attention to concrete historical realities.
Now recently we have witnessed a rise in what one can call a
dogmatic criticism of the SACP on two grounds. Firstly, the position
of the SACP in relation to participation in government, often
conflated with the state, and secondly the SACP's attitude to refuse
to approach matters to be simplistically and undialectically reduced
to a YES or NO on critical policy debates. It cannot be correct that
the left allows policy debates to be conducted in this fashion.
Nationalisation (or what at least from the left ought to be a debate
about what the SACP calls socialisation of the economy), you are
either with us or with the imperialists. Toll- gates (or what at
least ought to be a debate about public transport), you are either
with us or with the sell outs. The New Growth Path -- you are either
with us or with the "new GEAR".
This style of debate and approach to vex questions confronting
society is not only dangerous but at best un-Marxist in the name of
Marxism and the struggle for Socialism. Whilst such "left" critics
pretend as if they engage the SACP from a scientific perspectives,
they are in fact informed by, often seriously flawed, if not
opportunistic, ideological standpoint. There is however, an
important issue being raised that we must all constantly be
conscious of, the possibility of co-option of left leaders once they
serve in parliament, cabinet and other organs of the state. But does
this danger necessitate a principle of non-participation? I am
certain this debate will not be resolved easily, but will have to be
resolved by applying our dialectical materialism properly, not by
shouting slogans.
In any case, in any capitalist society, people in leadership
positions are always faced with the dangers of co-option. This does
not only apply to government leaders, but trade union and other
leaders (including in sports if the shenanigans at Cricket South
Africa are anything to go by). To only pose this danger in relation
to those in government is often a mask to hide accumulation
tendencies by leaders in other spheres of society, either directly
themselves or through spouses and family members. Therefore the
issue of co-option and corruption cannot be associated only with
those serving in government or the state. So do a number of
so-called 'civil society' leaders have been found with their fingers
on the till. The struggle against corruption or co-option must be
waged on all fronts.
In relation to the issue of the state and participation of the left
in government, it would be important that as we approach both the
congresses of the SACP and COSATU, we start to debate much more
forcefully the question of the balances of forces domestically and
internationally. A collective understanding of these issues would
help us approach the tasks and challenges facing the Zuma led
government. This must be based on concrete analysis of the concrete
situation, not merely on revolutionary sounding slogans. To simply
imagine that this people we so loved have suddenly changed since
Polokwane or since they got into government is to be over simplistic
and blind to class forces in society and will not guide us to
correctly resolve the crisis facing our country. Instead, what this
will do is to entrench a leadership change culture simply because
once we have taken decisions, progressive like we characterised the
Polokwane ones, we leave it to the collective of the leaders we
elected and we expect them to implement our wishes. The opponent is
no longer our class enemy but our own product. Thus in such a
situation opposing class interest are left in-tact whilst internally
we are busy butchering each other. In addition, especially for the
working class, we need to define our own roles and responsibilities,
rather than to become professional critics; often in order to become
media heroes.
The (twin and) flip side of the problem outlined above, was the
attitude of those unseated in Polokwane, who adopted a conservative
economic and political posture, on the grounds that the
international balance of forces had changed and therefore
unfavourable. Because of this, we were told, it was impossible to
implement certain thorough-going measures. We consistently argued
that this was incorrect. We must be careful not to relapse into that
situation as well.
In his famous piece 'Why Revolutionaries need Marxism', Dialego had
this to say: "Those who imagine that all revolutionaries need to do
is /act, /forget that action on its own is not enough."
So, without entering into a slogan throwing exercise, I would argue
that the left in South Africa must properly debate the question of
the situation existing when the Zuma administration assumed office
and in that context what is it that the government could have
possibly achieved. What is the goal of the Zuma led government in
introducing measures like the National Health Insurance (NHI), the
New Growth Path (NGP), the Industrial Policy action Plan and others.
Is it just to give Capitalism a face lift or is the intention to
build possibilities of being able to break away from the
semi-colonial path on which our economy is locked?
Secondly, in relation to the institutional and political structures
that we have inherited, is there commitment to break with the past
or are we simply deploying cadres to run the state institutions to
entrench the capitalist sway over society? It is commonly agreed,
dogmatism aside, that we can use inherited state apparatus and
transform that apparatus into a revolutionary tool in the hands of
progressives. This is the crux and are we doing so? There are
several other factors that have to be considered in assessing
whether the socialist left continues to participate in parliament
and cabinet. In a class divided society if we leave these important
terrains of struggle, who do we really leave these to?
Thirdly in relation to the so called question of Nationalisation,
what is the collective response of the left to the call by the
political programme of the SACP; that of socialising the means of
production? Lenin has provided several interventions that help us to
differentiate between transferring ownership to the state and
socialising ownership.
The challenge is not merely that of transferring legal ownership of
the means of production to the hands of the state. The key issue is
how do workers participate in the production process and how does
that process meet social needs instead of a private motive. In other
words we must give a socialist interpretation of the freedom charter
clause that the people shall share in the country's wealth and
ownership being transferred to the people */as a whole/*. How do we
change relations of production over and above the ownership
question. To raise this question is not to be anti-nationalisation,
but is to approach the nationalisation issue from a correct left
angle. State Capitalism is not our ultimate goal.
Similarly, merely deracialising the economic role players without
breaking away from the semi-colonial growth path is not an option.
Breaking away from the colonial character of the economy bequeathed
on us by the colonial master and increasingly building worker
control in an economic system that produces for the common need
without depleting our natural resources are key tasks we must
approach with elegant militancy.
In the end the critical question is how does the working class take
responsibility for the very same government it elected and endorsed?
Taking responsibility does not suggest there should be no criticism.
At the same constructive criticism is very different from lamenting.
This is where a proper debate should be located. Otherwise all we do
is posturing, often at the expense of building on the advances made
by government, on the many fronts the working class has fought. The
lessons from China and Cuba is that we must answer these questions
informed by, and informing, the concrete realities in our country,
not through some abstract ideological blueprint.
**
*Ravens and Vultures*
**
**
*by Emir Sader*
Did you notice that there are people who say they are of the Left
but who seem to only criticize people of the Left? Never against the
Right, whatever it does. They specialize in pouring gasoline on any
little fire within the Left.
They never recognize victories, conquests, advances. They only make
predictions of defeats, treasons, turns to the Right, whose sin will
be always denounced as responsibility of the Left. They revel in
defeats, the bigger the better, for they are others' fault, no
matter that common people are the ones who pay the price.
They are great at preparing balance sheets of defeats, but they
never can propose alternatives and never succeed in leading any
process. They are always critics. A species of vultures, feeding
only on carrion. Ravens, who always foretell catastrophes.
That someone says he is of the Left doesn't mean he gets respect,
unless he is up for the struggle against the Right. In this
department they just lie low, lurking to attack the Left, for not
being radical enough, not defeating the Right radically and
definitively. They themselves are not capable of making a dent in
the power of the Right, nor are they centrally preoccupied with
this. What matters to them above all is all the "treasons" of the
Left.
In serious situations like Bolivia today, for example, they ratchet
up rancor at Evo Morales and his leadership, just as they took the
same stance against Lula in Brazil. All of them "betrayed,"
including Hugo Chávez, Rafael Correa, Pepe Mujica, the Kirchners,
Fernando Lugo, Mauricio Funes - only they are pure. Except that
people don't believe it, so they never manage to organize popular
movements with strong grassroots participation, they don't lead any
process, they can't tell you a single case where their ideas led to
victories and advances.
They don't appreciate the agrarian reform, the nationalization of
mines, the Constituent Assembly put into practice by Evo. They don't
support sovereign foreign policy measures of Brazil: recognition of
Palestine, mediation with Iran, support for Cuba. Only
denunciations, because their universe is not the general struggle of
people, but the limited universe of the Left. They don't push
forward mass struggles, only ideological struggles. They don't build
political power to advance the Left, they try to always divide it.
Conflicts on the Left, in the popular camp, must be discussed and
treated as conflicts among tendencies of the Left, be they more
moderate or more radical, without issuing excommunications that
throw others out of the camp of the Left. This attitude is the first
step toward bundling other tendencies of the Left with the Right and
taking equal distance from both.
_*Emir Sader* <http://twitter.com/#%21/emirsader>_ is a Brazilian
sociologist. The text above is a partial translation of his article
_*"Corvos e urubus"* <http://bit.ly/oHLpR7>_ (30 September 2011).
Translation by _*Yoshie Furuhashi*
<http://twitter.com/#%21/mrzine_notes>_. _*En español*
<http://alainet.org/active/49900>_.
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