CWI activist Liv Shange faces deportation from South Africa

[Tower of Bebel]

Johannesburg - Home Affairs is threatening to deport a Swedish radical amid a diplomatic row sparked by ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe accusing Swedes of fuelling the Marikana crisis...

http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/gwede-s-swedish-diplomatic-row-1.1536159#.UchlJZwXdEe

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Johannesburg - Home Affairs is threatening to deport a Swedish radical amid a diplomatic row sparked by ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe accusing Swedes of fuelling the Marikana crisis...

http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/gwede-s-swedish-diplomatic-row-1.1536159#.UchlJZwXdEe
Basically the CWI doing class work in South Africa (pun intended) and the fatcats are getting scared. Both awesome as an indication of the potential of the DSM/WASP and shitty for Shange.

[Tower of Bebel]

http://www.socialistsouthafrica.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=143%3Aanc-and-capitalists-responsible-for-unrest-in-the-mines

Reply to Mantashe’s attempt to scapegoat DSM
In his address to the gathering of professionals in the financial sector at Sandton on Tuesday 11th of June, Gwede Mantashe, the Secretary-General of the ANC, has in clear reference to the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) and WASP (Workers and Socialist Party) accused ‘foreign elements’ of foiling ‘anarchy’ in the mining industry. (http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/80e366804ff67d1da4e8e60b5d39e4bb/Mantashe-slams-foreigners-for-anarchy-in-mines-20131206)
by Mametlwe Sebei

First of all this attack is directed against mine workers fighting for a decent living in defence of their rights. Mantashe describes this legitimate struggle as 'anarchy'. Because he cannot discredit their demands, Mantashe needs a scapegoat to undermine working class struggle.

With his specific reference to Swedes and Irish people, he obviously refers to the DSM. The DSM is a home-grown political party, which began its life in the 1970s as the Marxist Workers Tendency of the ANC and was established by comrades from emerging trade union movement, and the struggles of the 1950s and 60s. The DSM Executive includes amongst others comrade Thami Dumezweni, a member of the Executive of the DSM, who is active in Flagstaff in the community struggle. He was drawn into the liberation struggle inspired by the Pondoland Uprisings in which his father was a leader, imprisoned for three years for his role.

The DSM is the only political party involved in the mining industry with a prominent full-time office bearer of Swedish origin, Comrade Liv Shange. The launch of WASP on the 21st March, 2013 was openly endorsed by the Socialist Party’s, Joe Higgins , a Member of the Irish Parliament, Joe Higgins from the Socialist Party (SP). The SP is a sister organisation of the DSM in Ireland and fellow affiliate of the Committee for a Workers International. It is more than reasonable to conclude that the reference to ‘foreigners fueling unrest in the mining industry’ can only mean the DSM and Workers and Socialist Party.

In doing so, Gwede Mantashe is merely joining a chorus of public abuses and the unrelenting campaign of misinformation which we have been subjected to since the beginning of the mineworkers strike. Recently, several of the most senior ANC leaders -- from Jacob Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa to ordinary cabinet ministers and NEC members have joined this chorus. Whilst members of the ‘free and unbiased’ media have been more than willing to peddle this factually baseless and malicious campaign of lies and systematic falsifications of the role of the DSM and WASP, they have invariably neglected their duty to ‘hear our side’ or to offer us the right to reply.

It is important however to set the record straight and clarify our role in the struggle of the mine-workers, communities and other sections of the working class as well as the organic and unbreakable links and solidarity we enjoy internationally.

Firstly, it is both factually baseless and malicious for ANC leaders to be arguing that the struggles of the mineworkers are fuelled by ‘foreign elements’. The struggles in the mines, communities and the revolt of the working class in general in this country is conditioned by the betrayals of the ANC itself and need no one to fuel them. The perpetuation of slavery in the mining industry, through the migrant labour system with its vices of poverty wages, long hours, high fatality rates and racism, is the main factor behind the revolt of the mineworkers and not the DSM or any other force for that matter. The same applies to community struggles; they are fuelled by poor delivery and corruption. In the final analysis the multiple crises confronting the country are rooted in the incapacity of the ANC to point an alternative way-out of the quagmire of capitalism.

So with or without us, the working class will struggle. The task of revolutionaries does not and has never consisted in making the working class struggle. The working class struggles because their own conditions compels it to fight. The revolutionary mass movements which overthrew dictatorships in the Middle East and North Africa and which are now spreading through Greece, Turkey, Brazil and elsewhere are an instructive example of the unavoidable necessity for the masses to rise up against their own oppression and exploitation and to do so spontaneously.

The ANC having been elevated into power by popular struggles of the working class people against the apartheid regime is supposed to understand more than any, that it was not a merely a struggle against white minority rule, but a struggle emancipation form poverty, unemployment and social degradation. The betrayal of these popular aspirations and appalling conditions of life and work for the overwhelming majority of the people in this country is the objective factor behind the renewed struggles and resistance of the working class.

The role of DSM and WASP like those of every revolutionary working class party is to provide political support and to share the experience and lessons of workers struggles locally and internationally and together with workers, develop strategies and tactics to guide our actions today. Socialists from other countries are warmly welcomed at our meetings. We are proud that the DSM is part of the Committee for a Workers International, which is organized in over 40 countries and thus a world party of socialism.

The threatening, intimidating and xenophobic tone of the accusations that the ANC leadership is using in its campaign against the DSM and WASP are both worrying and a telling revelation of the character of the ANC. It is clear that these attacks are not just a case of scoring cheap political points but have a more sinister purpose: to both intimidate the DSM/WASP and also mobilise a backward xenophobic sentiment against us. It is clear that as the ANC is losing ground, it is also falling into the temptation of appealing more and more to reactionary sentiments within sections of society to prop-up its fading base of support in working class communities. This is extremely dangerous in a context where xenophobic sentiments and attacks are widespread. Both WASP and DSM make no apology for the role we are playing in co-ordinating the struggles of working class communities for delivery of services, job creation and decent living conditions, and to combat xenophobia, homophobia and other reactionary tendencies dividing working class communities. We call in particular, for solidarity between working class communities, workers and student struggles. These mobilisations are necessary building blocks for workers unity, working class power and the socialist transformation of society.

The ideas, perspectives and programme of genuine and revolutionary socialism or Marxism entail coordinating the struggles of the working class on a world-wide basis to overthrow the global system of capitalism. Working class solidarity and internationalism are an essential basis of any revolutionary proletarian and socialist organisation. This is supposed to be elementary knowledge for Gwede Mantashe, the former chairperson of the SACP, which still claims, in words, to be standing on the traditions of Marxism.

[Jolly Red Giant]

The fact that this scumbag Mantashe is a former head honcho of the SACP just demonstrates once again the utter degeneration of that party.

[Sentinel]

Thanks for posting this Rakunin, but imo it deserves a thread of it's own so I've split it from the WASP thread.

Here is an article, and a petition to sign in defense of Liv Shange, from WASP's homepage:




Liv Shange Defence Campaign

Mineworkers strike, DSM and WASP activist Liv Shange faces deportation

http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/liv-300x298.jpg (http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/liv.jpg)

Liv Shange, who is currently with her children on a family visit in Sweden, learned from an article in the Sunday Independent that her immigration status is under investigation. The authorities threaten a deportation order so that she can’t come back into the country. This is linked to the attempt of Gwede Mantashe to scapegoat the Democratic Socialist Movement DSM, one of the founding organisations of WASP, to which Liv Shange belongs, for the resistance in the mines. Mantashe said that foreigners from Sweden were behind what he described as “anarchy in Marikana”. His attack is part of a broader campaign against the mine workers ahead of the planned retrenchments and the wage negotiations. This campaign includes repression such as suspensions of trade-union activists in the mines.

http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Liv-KDCWest-300x199.jpg (http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Liv-KDCWest.jpg)

Comrade Liv has been resident in SA since January 2004, married to South African citizen since December 2004. She is a leading member of the DSM. She supported the miners strike in 2012 and founded among others the Workers and Socialist Party WASP in 2013. To debar her from returning to what is now her home, and separate her from her children who are all SA citizens and who need to return to school, would amount to a human rights abuse.

Liv Shange Defence Campaign

An injury to Liv is an injury to all!



We, the undersigned, demand:

Liv Shange must be allowed to return to South Africa.
Liv Shange be issued with a spousal visa and allowed to apply for permanent residence.
Stop repression against trade-union, community and political activists!


Link (http://workerssocialistparty.co.za/campaigns/liv-shange-defence-campaign/) (follow the link to find and fill in the petition)

[Tower of Bebel]

Socialists accuse state of crackdown (http://mg.co.za/article/2013-07-12-00-socialists-accuse-state-of-crackdown)

"Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) executive member Liv Shange's visa woes – which may see her barred from re-entering South Africa – are part of a "wider onslaught on democratic rights" and could be linked to attempts to salvage the faltering peace deal in the mining sector, she said this week from Luleå in Sweden."

"The DSM has been actively organising mineworkers disillusioned with the National Union of Mineworkers for years – long before the Marikana massacre occurred last year. Its members advised several of the strike committees during the wave of post-Marikana strikes."

...

http://cdn.mg.co.za/crop/content/images/2013/07/11/Liv_Shange_8113.jpg/676x380/

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Socialists accuse state of crackdown (http://mg.co.za/article/2013-07-12-00-socialists-accuse-state-of-crackdown)
'Political analyst Richard Pithouse said: "The thing that strikes me about the Liv thing and other similar events is the tendency to ascribe the dissident agency of people who are poor and black to malicious white influence. Colonialism and apartheid did exactly the same."'

Too fucking true. For all the great work that the DSM have been doing to help organise in South Africa, it's the working classes as a whole who are the ones with the anger and frustration. The bourgeoisie can't help but reduce things down into bourgeois predjudices.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Liv Shange is due to return to South Africa at 13h20 on Sunday 14th July, 2013 together with her three children. The South African Embassy in Sweden has invited her to apply afresh for a spousal visa. This appears to aid and abet the false claim by the Department of Home Affairs that they have no record of her spousal visa, despite the fact it was first issued to her as long ago as 2007 and re-issued in 2009. The SA embassy further argues that as it is holiday time in Sweden, the application will take up to three weeks. Liv has no choice but to return to the country as the children have to return to school on the 15th July. Apart from the possible consequences of the children not being able to resume their schooling on time, the financial implications of not being able to travel on the date their ticket are booked, are significant. Liv Shange has not committed any crime and all complications at the side of the Department of Home Affairs are there fault.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Article on Liv Shange from the Daily Maverick

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-07-09-loved-by-the-miners-attacked-by-the-anc-who-really-is-liv-shange/#.UeKIU6yeVj0

[Jolly Red Giant]

Liv Shange has arrived back in South Africa.

Before the weekend the Dept of Home Affairs offered a compromise where the said that Liv could reapply for her spousal visa and return to South Africa when it was granted. The campaign to grant Live re-admission to South Africa and Liv arrived at OR Tambo airport as scheduled on Sunday in defiance of an order from the ANC government. Dozens of members of the Workers and Socialist Party were at the airport for her arrival and the authorities did an about turn and allowed he to re-enter the country on a temporary three month visitor's permit while she applies for a spousal visa. Members of the Amplats mine workers committee hoisted her up on their shoulders and led her out of the airport.

Speaking to those who had supported her at the airport she thanked the campaign of WASP and international solidarity for forcing the ANC government to back down. The attack on Liv Shange was not an isolated act. There is a low intensity civil war going on in the mines including suspension of shop stewards, harassment of trade union activists and court proceedings against trade unions. Additionally the expulsion of the Tlokwe ANC Councillors who ousted a corrupt major shows how the ANC government deals with political opponents inside and outside the ANC. This defeat of the repression against Liv Shange is a victory for everybody facing repression in the country.

Article from the Times about Liv Shange's return to South Africa -

http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2013/07/15/shange-back-to-fight-for-the-workers

[Tower of Bebel]

http://youtu.be/2jINphfKf9I (http://youtu.be/2jINphfKf9I)