Umsebenzi Online, Volume 14, No. 15, 23 April 2015
In this Issue:
* Condemn local xenophobic criminality outright and appreciate we’re
dealing with the local impact of a global reality
* The people of Africa, Asia and Venezuela are not alone: Stop
xenophobic criminality and imperialist aggression!
Red Alert
Condemn local xenophobic criminality outright and appreciate we’re dealing
with the local impact of a global reality
SA a global “deviant” misdirected, says Cronin
By Cde Jeremy Cronin
“South Africa is the shame of the continent and a deviant in the world”,
Ranjeni Munusamy wrote last week in the midst of our most recent outbreak of
xenophobic violence. Munusamy’s sense of shame was a common feature of many
voices on phone-in programmes and in the social media. This widespread
outpouring is, at least, a positive indication that, despite everything, a
great many South Africans haven’t lost their humanitarian bearings.
Even fractious, opposing political parties in a special parliamentary debate
were united in condemnation of the violence, if not in their diagnosis of
its underlying causes. Pieter Mulder of the FF+ said, mystically, an “evil
force” was stalking through SA. Julius Malema, despite his professed
Marxist-Fanonist radicalism, declined to attach any blame on the dangerous
rhetoric of the Zulu king. Instead he evoked a thoroughly feudal view of the
state worthy of that monarch. “The state”, Malema said, “being the elder for
the whole of society, becomes responsible for all the violence meted out
against our foreign nationals.” In short, blame daddy.
The most cynical explanation for the violence came from the Institute of
Race Relations. Asked on SABC who or what was to blame, Mienke Steytler
provided a categorical response: “People must blame government”. “Why?” the
interviewer asked. “Because government creates unemployment by failing to
implement a flexible labour market”, she replied.
Steytler was clearly unaware (or uncaring) that one of the immediate
triggers for the latest flare up (apart from royal hate-speech) was the
employment of desperate (that is flexible) foreign nationals as
strike-breakers in an industrial dispute in Isipingo just days before the
violence.
Gareth Van Onselen, writing in the Sunday Times, claims xenophobia is
insufficiently discussed in SA. He attributes this to the invisible
parameters placed on South African debate requiring, he says, matters of
culture to be beyond scrutiny in the name of “respect”. (Van Onselen clearly
means African culture, not neo-liberal culture, not the culture of the IMF).
He proceeds: “it is time for a look at the problems inherent to black
African nationalism as a political ideology. What is the long-term impact of
racial nationalism on identity and to what degree does it foster and
encourage an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality?”
Van Onselen’s breaking of an imagined taboo tells us less about xenophobia
in SA and more about white prejudices that in turn have spawned a reluctance
to use the term “xenophobia” in ANC circles. But the replacement term
“afrophobia” also misses the mark. It’s not just foreign nationals from
Africa (“our brothers and sisters”), but also Pakistani and Bangladeshi
traders who’ve been targeted.
Like all political ideologies, African nationalism, narrow or broad, creates
an “us” and a “them”. Our eminently liberal constitution itself establishes
us-citizens and them-non-citizens and this is where the nub of the current
issue lies. The 1994 democratic breakthrough brought citizenship rights to a
majority of South Africans who’d never enjoyed them before. But, for the
poor and marginalised, citizenship has not lived up to expectations.
Instead, democracy has also brought an incoming flood of millions of
desperate migrants, some legal many not. The majority are fleeing poverty,
civil war, economic and environmental collapse – much of which relates to
decades of structural adjustment programmes with Africa exporting more
capital to the developed West than received in aid or investment.
There is the terrible, face-to-face butchery we’ve seen on newspaper
front-pages with the poor bashing the poor on the grounds that “they” are
taking away “our” jobs, “our” trading opportunities, “our” citizenship
rights. Last week it resulted in thousands of displacements and seven deaths
(three of them South Africans). In the same week 400 refugees drowned in the
Mediterranean, over the weekend another 700. There’s the horror of
inter-personal violence and there’s structural violence, the market-driven
violence of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”. The invisibility of the latter
renders the beneficiaries of globalised, structural violence equally
invisible and seemingly blameless.
And this is where Munusamy’s claim that SA is a global “deviant” is
misdirected. While it must never detract from our outright condemnation of
local xenophobic criminality, we need also to appreciate we’re dealing with
the local impact of a global reality. We must deal decisively with our own
challenges (rapid prosecution of perpetrators, for instance). But we also
need to locate these challenges in a wider context.
One billion migrants now cross national borders every year, and the number
is growing. There is a deep hypocrisy in the way in which global capitalism
handles migrancy. On the one hand, the most weaponised international border
in the world (the US-Mexico border) acts, like the Mediterranean, as a
deadly buffer to staunch but not block the migrancy flow. Weaponised borders
appease populist electorates at home, but little effort is devoted to
inspecting work-places. Meanwhile, the dangers of crossing, and the
difficulties of obtaining legal papers, serve to create a large pool of
right-less, desperate workers, a key mechanism for maintaining low-wage,
flexible labour markets for Californian fruit-growers, Walmart retailers,
and the hospitality and fast-food chains. In Guy Standing’s inimitable
phrase, migrants are “the light infantry of global capitalism.”
* Cde Jeremy Cronin is SACP 1st Deputy General Secretary. To the
courtesy of the Cape Times, Left Turn Column, 22 April 2015 which first
published this piece.
The people of Africa, Asia and Venezuela are not alone:
Stop xenophobic criminality and imperialist aggression!
“Solidarity is the way!” says Matlhako
By Cde Chris “Che” Matlhako
The South African Communist Party (SACP) on Sunday, 19th April joined
millions of progressives across the world to denunciate the March 9th
declaration of the President of the United States Barack Obama, declaring
Venezuela as an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security
and foreign policy of the United States". The rally to mark this important
event, was organised in the Linda Jabane District of the Party, Johannesburg
in Gauteng, and was significant in many ways.
The rally occurred at a time when some parts of the country are reeling from
violence directed at black foreign nationals from the African and Asian
continents. Part of overcoming these prejudices – race, gender, creed and
religion – and in their connection but equally important their material
basis which is the capitalist system class structure, exploitation and the
multiple crises it causes – is amongst others, to politically conscioutise
the working class and general populace about, and of the important fibre of
struggle: SOLIDARITY.
But above all – STOP violence now!
As a country and people who benefitted significantly from international
solidarity, it is expected that, we will have greater appreciation of the
effectiveness of this pillar of struggle, and reciprocate such for causes
that deserve it, and conform to our constitutional, and other values and
ethos – that have brought us to where we are as a nation and people today.
As the late President Samora Machel so eloquently put it;
"International solidarity is not an act of charity. It is an act of unity
between allies fighting on different terrains towards the same objective.
The foremost of these objectives is to aid the development of humanity to
the highest level possible."
The reality of the Bolivarian Project
It is in this context that the event to join millions across the globe in
solidarity with the people of Venezuela took such a key dimension in the
programme of action of the Party. We came to together to oppose the
sanctions the U.S. administration has placed on a number of Venezuelan
officials. We are calling for the immediate repeal of those sanctions and an
end of the U.S. Executive Order unjustly imposed on Venezuela by the Obama
administration.
The reality is that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela today is not at war
with any nation, nor does it have military bases outside of its borders. It
is the U.S. that has military bases outside of its orders throughout the
world and in many cases imposed on the people of other countries and
continents against their will.
In fact, and on the contrary, Venezuela is helping to mediate an end to the
war in Colombia. It has constantly championed peace in the region. On the
contrary, the U.S. is fermenting, sponsoring and making wars throughout the
world. It is the U.S. that is working with terrorist groupings some of which
have turned against it.
Under the leadership of the late Venezuelans President Hugo Chavez, and now
President Nicolas Maduro, Latin America has become a more unified and
independent political force.
Over a decade of the implementation of the Bolivarian Alliance for the
Peoples of Our America - Peoples Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), an integration
platform for the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, the region
has seen the most decisive break with unfair trade and related relations
with North American imperialism. ALBA-TCP puts emphasis on solidarity,
complementarity, justice and co-operation. This has historical and
fundamental role to the structural transformations and the relations system
necessary to achieve the integral development, required for sovereignty and
co-existence of the countries in that region as just nations. "Additionally,
it is a political, economic, and social alliance in defence of the
independence, self-determination and identity of the peoples comprising it";
says President Maduro.
The establishment of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the
Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Bolivarian
Alliance of the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA) has all helped to accelerate
the process of integration and the resolution of conflicts among the states.
Evidence of this is the fact that the entire region, including Colombia, the
U.S.’s closest ally in South America, have rejected the despotic U.S.
Executive Order.
Moreover, to those who know the realities of Venezuela’s democratic system,
it is evident that the U.S. administrations’ stance is both dangerous and
provocative. While politics in Venezuela is polarised and economic
disruption caused primarily by the falling price of oil has made life
difficult, we see nothing that could conceivably be described as an
“extraordinary threat” either to the people of Venezuela or to the U.S.
To set the record straight, the Venezuelan government is democratically
elected. Presidents Chavez and Maduro were both elected in what former U.S.
President Jimmy Carter declared to be one of the best electoral processes in
the world. While important sections of the Venezuela opposition have come
out against the Executive Order (demonstrating just how unpopular it is), we
are concerned that hard-line and anti-democratic forces in the country will
interpret the U.S. declarations as a green light to continue committing acts
of anti-government violence. Sanctions, blockades and armed aggressions are
no substitute for genuine dialogue. History has shown – as the Obama
administration itself admitted last December 17th with regard to Cuba –
those ineffective measures only succeed in causing harm to innocent people.
We are calling on Obama: “Rescind your Executive Order NOW!”
We call on you to stop interfering in Venezuela’s domestic affairs and cease
making reckless public statements regarding Venezuela’s democratic
processes.
Most of all, we encourage you to demonstrate to Latin America that the U.S.
is capable of establishing relations based on the principles of peace and
with respect for their sovereignty.
A brief history of U.S-Latin America and the Caribbean relations
Since the demise of the viceroyalties of the Rio de la Plata and others,
Latin America has been on a march to define a trajectory of development that
is indigenous to it. The U.S-Latin America and the Caribbean relations have
been fraught with conflict and the domineering posture of Washington over
many decades. The U.S. has historically characterised the region as its
"backyard".
Cuba
A small country of about 11million inhabitants has been able to maintain a
policy of resistance for over half a century. It has engaged in a trial of
strength with the U.S., whose leaders were unable either to topple the Cuban
President Fidel Castro, eliminate him, or modify the direction taken by the
Cuban revolution. Cuba is a country that has sustained an outstanding number
of victims of violence (almost 3,500 and 2,000 permanently handicapped) and
that has the most suffered from acts of terrorism over the past 40 years.
The U.S. "plan" until recently, when is agreed to sit down and talk to Cuba,
included a "classified annex" (similar to what it seeks to do in Venezuela
now); "for reasons of national security" to ensure its "effective
implementation". Numerous plots ranging from assassination against leading
figures of the Cuban Revolution to attempts to strangulate the economy
through the sabotage of the important economic sectors, tourism one of them,
and the fermentation of internal destabilisation have but dismally failed to
achieve their desired outcomes. The U.S. has engaged in these and other
strategies across the continent with varying degrees, particularly during
the period of the Cold War.
Covert Actions
As far as U.S. "covert action" is concerned, the legacy of Latin America
offers numerous examples from the Chile of Salvador Allende to the Nicaragua
of the Sandinistas.
Let us not be naive! Indubitably, this is a question of "covert war"!
Despite U.S. recent actions with regard to Cuba and the outcomes of the
Summit of the Americas, the remorselessness U.S. and some 600 acts of
aggression, Cuba has never responded with violence.
Latin America's situation is wholly unprecedented!
The military coup under different pretexts (and we are reminded of the
attempted coup in 2002 against President Hugo Chavez), or direct
intervention by the U.S. (the Honduras against Manuel Zelaya 2009), would
quickly have aborted any plan for economic and social reform, even if
supported by a majority of the electorate. We are reminded that
democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, Joao Goulart in Brazil,
Juan Bosch in Dominican Republic and Salvador Allende in Chile, to name the
most noteworthy, were ousted in 1954, 1964, 1965 and 1973 respectively, by
military coups orchestrated by the U.S. to prevent egalitarian
transformation. The transformation would have adversely affected U.S.
interests – it being the era of the Cold War (1947 - 1989) and could have
led to a modification of alliances that Washington would not have tolerated.
In that period, as declassified documents recently show, the U.S. government
was actively directing operations, such as "Operation Condor" which saw the
disappearance, displacement and death of almost 600,000 people in the
region. "Operation Condor" (Plan Condor) was a campaign of political
repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and
assassinations of opponents, officially implemented in 1975 by right-wing
dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America, with tacit support of
Washington. The programme was intended to eradicate communist or Soviet
influence and ideas, and suppress active or potential opposition movements
against the participating governments and stop the Cuban "experiment" from
spreading across the continent.
However, Latin American states have broken the back of U.S imperialism in
the recent period and it is ailing!
In the first place, a major factor has been the failure in most Latin
America of sometimes 'radical neoliberal experiments' since the 1970s. In
several countries such policies resulted in shameless pillage, massive
impoverishment of the middle and working classes, destruction of entire
sectors of national industry, and finally widespread social upheaval. In
Bolivia, in Ecuador, in Peru and in Argentina, veritable civil insurrections
succeeded in toppling presidents who, although democratically elected, had
once, in office, considered that they had a blank cheque for the duration of
their mandate to act as they pleased, and in some instances to ignore the
programme they had offered to the electorate.
Over the past period a cycle of advanced forces in Latin America and the
Caribbean have emerged. This cycle of victories of left-wing forces has not
ended and has it were put the U.S. under enormous pressure. The U.S. has
lost its "backyard" and is unhappy about it.
The Washington Consensus was authoritarian and overbearing form on the
countries of region. The application of this neoliberal line deepened and
aggravated especially national, economic and social impasses faced by the
Latin American and Caribbean continent. Class inequality, social exclusion,
economic dependence and political submission increased, spreading the lack
of hope among the people. The period, characterised by U.S. backed
dictatorships reached its peak in the 1990s, caused a profound regressive
and cumulative effect on the continent.
New victories and especially new possibilities of consolidation of national
governments led by the left are in the agenda. This has had a great impact
on the unfolding process in the region – an alternative to development model
underpinned by social justice. And the 'strides made towards this new
development model have yielded a network of relations in which the exchange
of ideas and experiences has become increasingly prolific and mutually
advantageous', says the São Paulo Forum.
Another key goal has been the debate about regional integration, the
evolution of the relations between countries, and the various mechanisms
created to deepen these relations.
Summit of the Americas
At the recently concluded VII Summit of the Americas, the left governments
of the region came face to face with their nemesis – the U.S. The VII Summit
has been widely hailed as a victory for left-leaning and progressive forces
in the region, particularly Venezuela and Cuba. The summit was marked by the
historic presence of Cuba whose president Raul Castro addressed his
counterparts and held face to face talks with Barack Obama – the first Cuban
leader to do so since the socialist nation's U.S-imposed expulsion from the
Organisation of American States (OAS) in 1962.
However, the much anticipated rapprochement between the two nations was
largely upstaged by regional leaders' near uniform rejection of President
Obama's March 9 Executive Order labelling Venezuela a "national security
threat", which has been condemned by Cuba and all other 32 nations of the
CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) and other regional
bodies. While positively noting the steps taken by Obama to re-establish
bilateral ties with Cuba, Castro nonetheless criticised the U.S. president
for his aggressive measures against Venezuela.
"The regional response has been overwhelming, rejecting the Executive Order
and calling for its repeal. Our peoples will never accept more tutelage, nor
intervention" said President Rafael Correa of Ecuador. U.S. President Barack
Obama failed to stay for the speeches of Christina Fernandez and Nicolas
Maduro, leaving the plenum early in order to reportedly meet with his
Colombian counterpart, Manuel Santos.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and its people are not alone!
* Cde Chris “Che” Matlhako is SACP Central Committee and Politburo
Member, Full Time Secretary for International Relations
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