South African Election

[The Intransigent Faction]

'Do it for Mandela' plea masks divisive South African election

Poverty, joblessness and 20 years of broken promises dog turbulent townships, and the ruling ANC

By Margaret Evans, CBC News (http://www.cbc.ca/news/cbc-news-online-news-staff-list-1.1294364) Posted: May 06, 2014 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: May 06, 2014 4:26 PM ET

I met a young woman named Portia in a township not far from Pretoria this week. She lives in a blue tin shack on a fetid street where people dump their sewage in an open drain.

Bright purple flowers grow alongside a nearby pile of garbage next to a sign that says "no dumping."

Portia is one of the so-called "born frees," the generation getting so much attention ahead of Wednesday's election here in South Africa.

That's what they're calling those born after the end of white minority rule in South Africa, and now eligible to vote for the first time.

It is a constituency that will have no direct memory of apartheid, and so I asked Portia if she feels free. "No," she said. "I don't feel free. Especially here."

"Here" refers not just to the cramped shack she shares with her parents and siblings in Atteridgeville township, but also to the limited future it represents.

"Life here is not as easy as it should be," Portia says. "Sometimes you are scared to walk around even in the day."

There are, on average, 45 murders a day in South Africa, most committed in townships like this one. That rate is 19 times higher than it is in Canada.

Portia's situation — like those of so many other South Africans — is testament to the promises that remain unfulfilled 20 years after the liberation movement's African National Congress came to power under the leadership of Nelson Mandela in South Africa's first post-apartheid elections.

Wednesday's vote will be the first since Mandela's death in December, and the country still feels like it's in mourning, not just for Mandela, but for what many here see as a broken trust by the very party he once led.

'He's gone now'


During its 20-year tenure, the ANC has built millions of homes for South Africa's poor, and expanded access to running water and electricity.

But its failure to lift so many others out of poverty is its greatest indictment, according to critics, an arrow that becomes much sharper in the face of the ongoing corruption scandals that have led all the way to the door of President Jacob Zuma, running for a second term.

Earlier this year, South Africa's public protector, Thuli Madonsela, released a long awaited report into Zuma's state-funded renovations to his private Nkandla estate in KwaZulu-Natal.

She found that he had "benefited unduly" and ordered him to pay back some of the $23 million of taxpayers money used to install a swimming pool and amphitheater, among other questionable additions.

Meanwhile, South Africa's jobless rate is higher now than it was in 1994, and just under half of all young people are unemployed.

Many cite jobs as being their biggest election priority. Others say there is no point in voting in an election that will simply return the same indifferent politicians they accuse of lining their own pockets.

Only a third of that born-free generation of 19 and 20 year olds have actually registered to vote, a potential gift to the ANC, whose biggest supporters are the older generations who suffered most under apartheid.

In Atteridgeville, Portia says she will vote. But she also says she won't be swayed by loyalty to a party just because it was once led by Nelson Mandela.

"He's gone now. I will decide whose party I would vote for," she says. "Because people are not doing like he's doing. They are thinking for themselves and not for us."

Do it for Mandela


"Do it for Mandela" has been one of the ANC's rallying cries this election, a not so subtle attempt to exploit the Mandela memory, and to remind voters that the great man himself never broke with the party, unlike some other former liberation leaders who have left in disgust.

The former archbishop Desmond Tutu, often referred to as South Africa's moral compass, has said he won't vote for the ANC. Nor will another former ANC stalwart, Ronnie Kasrils, who has launched a campaign urging people to find another party or spoil their ballots.

Playing the Mandela card in these elections is a misguided strategy, suggests newspaper columnist and political analyst Justice Malala.

"I think the Mandela halo has moved on, and it's a real dirty battle between the various parties," he said in an interview at his Johannesburg home. "But I don't think that Nelson Mandela is … how shall I say … a tie breaker here. He has moved on and South Africa has moved on somewhat."

You hear that elsewhere, too. "Nelson Mandela fought for democracy, which means that you must choose whichever organization you vote for," a young man named Paul Ngubeni told me at a rally for the Democratic Alliance over the weekend. That doesn't mean you are betraying the liberation struggle, he said.

The DA has the largest support base in South Africa after the ANC, and is expected to garner more than 20 per cent of the vote on May 7, but it's struggled to shed its image as a "white" party.

Emotional ties to the ANC run deep because of its role in the freedom fight, no matter how great the current disaffection. Many South Africans feel torn when contemplating not voting for the ANC, which is still expected to win around 60 per cent of the vote.

But the DA's strategy has been to confront the "Do it for Mandela" message head on.

"Liberation movements change," says Mmusi Maimane, the DA's star candidate in Gautang province, which includes Johannesburg.

"Under Zuma it's become more corrupt, it's become more self-serving, it's become more crony in its approach … so our message has been 'how do you put the two names together?' To put Zuma next to Mandela I think it's an injustice."

Economic freedom fighters


Another party expected to take away some of the ANC's support is the Economic Freedom Fighters or EFF, launched by firebrand politician Julius Malema. His supporters wear red berets reminiscent of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

"We don't need a position where we have to vote for the sake of the history, we're voting for the sake of the future," a young woman named Tumisha Mashabela said at an EFF rally in Atteridgeville. "We really need a change."

Malema has often been accused of stirring racial tensions in South Africa, and has himself faced corruption charges.

But he is a populist and a political survivor, having formed his own party after being forced out as the ANC's youth leader. His economic freedom message would entail the nationalization of land and industry.

Justice Malala says the EFF shouldn't be written off. "I think they are a player in this election," he says, suggesting the EFF speaks to youth more powerfully than the ANC at the moment.

Not everyone, however, believes that today's young South Africans can make a big difference.

"Because we are desperate to live in a post-apartheid society, we project our best hopes onto the 'born free' generation," says author Eusebius McKaiser.

"But it's untested. I'm not convinced that the born frees have a new slate … they have inherited the prejudices, the identities, to put it more gently of their moms and dads."

Jay Naidoo, a key member of the struggle against apartheid when he was the head of one of the country's largest trade unions in the late 1980s, and later a minister in Mandela's first cabinet, fears there is potential for greater conflict in South Africa if the growing number of grievances in the country aren't addressed.

One of the ANC's most outspoken critics, he now says: "I have no doubt if I was young today I would be radical and angry."

Naidoo says South Africa doesn't need any more streets named after Mandela — and that the more fitting tribute would be to live by his ideals.

"We had this view that the government will deliver. It will deliver the jobs and the water and the electricity and the houses."

But, he says, in hoping for this, "we demobilized civil society. The very robustness and the engine of our struggle to freedom we made passive. People became bystanders."

Finding a way to inspire and engage not just South Africa's Portias but other disaffected groups will be a key to South Africa's future.

"I was four years old when we were evicted from our house because I was the wrong colour of skin," says Naidoo. "I spent my whole life believing I was inferior to white people.

"That restoration of human dignity has an incredibly powerful attraction to us that we hold deep in our hearts. But the next generation didn't grow up with that baggage. And they are our future."

Any thoughts? What will this mean for South Africa? Can the radical left slip through the cracks in the ANC?

[tachosomoza]

Fuck I hope they don't elect that race baiting idiot Malema.

He really isn't what South Africa needs right now.

[Hrafn]

Fuck I hope they don't elect that race baiting idiot Malema.

He really isn't what South Africa needs right now.

Don't you worry. Nobody but the rapist Zuma will ever be elected.

[VivalaCuarta]

The Internationalist
May 2014
Victory to the Platinum Miners!



Elections and Miners Strike:
South African Popular Front in Crisis



For a Black-Centered Workers Government!
For a Revolutionary Workers Party with a Trotskyist Program!

APRIL 30 – South Africa heads to the polls May 7 in the most important election since the 1994 vote which marked the formal end of the apartheid system of white minority rule. Meanwhile, 70,000 platinum miners are in the fourth month of a bitter strike not only against the companies but also against the policies of the African National Congress (ANC) government which has backed the mine bosses to the hilt. The intersection of these two events could pose an explosive challenge to capitalist rule in the economic powerhouse of Africa: the non-white masses are gatvol (“fed up”) with the black capitalist regime which has kept them mired in poverty, while the corrupt rulers have no answers but bloody repression. Yet a key ingredient is lacking to provide a positive outcome to this crisis: revolutionary leadership.

South Africa’s ruling Tripartite Alliance – a “popular front” composed of the bourgeois nationalist ANC, the reformist South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) – is confronted by popular discontent fueled by workers’ strikes and “service delivery protests” in the townships against the degradation of public services. After two decades of ANC rule, the rage against growing inequality coupled with the emergence of “tenderpreneurs”, a layer of black bourgeois fattened by state subsidies spells big trouble for President Jacob Zuma’s party in the elections for the National Assembly and provincial legislatures. Although the ANC will undoubtedly win, it will likely suffer severe electoral losses.

Last year the Financial Times (17 February 2013) noted, “Every big government upheaval has been preceded by trouble at the mines.” This voice of London bankers referred back to the imperialist “scramble for Africa” and the search for gold and diamonds which has been central to South African history. The miners’ strikes of 1946 and 1987 rocked the white supremacist apartheid system. Today, the cold-blooded massacre of 34 platinum miners in Marikana on 16 August 2012 has galvanized opposition to the Tripartite Alliance. The National Union of Metalworkers (NUMSA), with 340,000 members the largest union in South Africa, denounced the ANC and SACP as nakedly pro-capitalist and came out against electoral support to the ANC (or any other political party) at a special congress in December.

Concurrently with the election campaign, the platinum miners are once again battling for their lives. In a hard-fought strike begun on January 23, tens of thousands of miners have confronted police attacks and intimidation, financial hardship and threats of layoffs in a fight for the demand of the 2012 strike: a minimum monthly wage of R12,500 (South African rands, equivalent to US$1,190). They have been up against not only the imperialist mining trusts – Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), Impala Platinum (Implats), and Lonmin – and the bourgeois state, but also the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), whose bureaucrats are literally mine owners, as well as the COSATU tops. On April 29, leaders of the striking Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) announced that strikers had turned down the owners’ latest “offer.”

Conditions in the mining industry are a glaring proof that vicious superexploitation of black labor remains the basis of South African capitalism, and that the installation of the ANC in government in 1994 was designed to prop up this system. A thin layer of blacks have been incorporated at the top, while those at the bottom do not earn enough to support a family even in the miserable conditions of South Africa’s shantytowns. Thus billionaire ex-NUM president and ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa – who owns 9% of Lonmin shares – has the means to purchase a prize bull for $2.3 million, while miners at Lonmin’s Marikana mine live in shacks and meet at Wonderkop stadium where “curls and curls of barbed wire line the entrance as if it were an animal enclosure” (Daily Maverick, 29 April).

With consummate cynicism, the ANC election manifesto announces the “first phase” of the “democratic transition” has been completed. Their mentors are the SACP, the high priests of the Menshevik-Stalinist theory of stages who excuse every crime with the mirage of ultimate “socialism.” According to the ANC, “our people’s dignity has been restored” in this first phase. Tell it to the Marikana miners, or the township residents gunned down by the police as they demand clean drinking water and housing! In mid-March, police and ANC officials shot at protesting schoolchildren at Bekkersdal in the Gauteng province around Johannesburg. Even The Citizen (a tabloid oriented to the black middle class) compared this to the 1976 Soweto uprising.

In the “second phase,” the ANC promises to “eradicate poverty” and reduce inequality by 2030. In the concrete, this amounts, not to real jobs but rather “work opportunities, many of long duration” and the like, meaning temporary jobs with low pay and no benefits. The SACP/ANC’s call for “radical socio-economic transformation” (not even a mention of “socialism,” of course) is a cruel joke, amounting to further capitalist immiseration.


Struggle Against Neo-Apartheid in the Mines


The platinum miners’ walkout is universally seen as a historic strike. Joseph Mathunjwa, the head of AMCU which is leading the action, called it a struggle against an “apartheid system of salaries.” Before the 2012 strikes, wages fluctuated between R4,000 and R5,000 per month. The mines are still heavily dependent on migrants from the Eastern Cape, Lesotho, Mozambique and elsewhere. All the workers killed in August 2012 were migrants, mainly from the former “Bantustan” of Transkei. Given this ethnic and national heterogeneity, communication among the workers is conducted by means of Fanagalo, a simplified form of Zulu plus some English and Afrikaan words. It was a great achievement of the 2012 strikes that these divisions could be overcome through common class struggle.

When the miners revolted against these conditions in 2012, they immediately ran up against the opposition of the NUM. During a protest march on their Marikana offices on 11 August 2012, NUM leaders and shop stewards emerged from the building and began shooting at the strikers, killing two. As one miner stated: “NUM shot its own people” (quoted in Peter Alexander, Thapelo Lekgowa, Botsang Mmope, Luke Sinwell and Bongani Xezwi, Marikana: A View from the Mountain Top and a Case to Answer [Auckland Park, 2012]). As for the August 16 massacre, an eight-page COSATU declaration on Marikana refers to the “tragedy” and “killings” but nothing about a massacre. Months later, the Farlam Commission of Inquiry, while still trying to scapegoat the strikers for violence, had to confirm the police responsibility.

The Commission uncovered evidence that the heads of the South African Police Service, working with Lonmin management, decided that August 16 was the day to “kill” the strike. Hundreds of police reinforcements were brought it to “disperse” the strikers’ supposedly illegal gathering (on public land). The authorities tried to corral miners with barbed wire, and when their intended victims starting marching back to their settlement, police vehicles chased them down and then special squads opened fire on them from a distance. Tellingly, in addition to the 16 cut down in the initial shooting spree, an equal number were tracked down and shot in the back at a second location in what amounted to a summary execution. And of course ex-NUM leader turned Lonmin boss Cyril Ramaphosa called for the slaughter.

There was also a deliberate targeting of miner militants. Today, Marikana strike leader Mgcineni “Mambush” Noki and organiser Steve Khululekile, both shot down that day in August 2012, are revered martyrs. In addition to the 34 killed, a least another 78 were wounded in the cold-blooded slaughter. The company and the government sought to drown the workers’ struggle in blood, but they did not succeed. The strikes spread from Marikana through the mines. In October 2012, Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) fired almost 13,000 miners. However, in the end workers won wage hikes, supposedly raising pay by up to 20%. But the mine bosses at Marikana reneged on the agreement. “They made fools of us after the Lonmin strike,” complained one shop steward (Mail & Guardian, 27 March).

As a new strike loomed, the mine owners brandished the threat of “restructuring” and mass lay-offs. But not because of weak demand: in July 2013 the CEO of Amplats, Mark Cutifani, announced that that he intended to increase the return on investment from 11% to 15% per year. In other words, they are not losing money, they just want to jack up profits. And keep in mind that just about everything officially reported by these companies is a lie – from the “transfer pricing” to false reports of worker housing to misreporting the number of workers with temporary contracts.

The strike had barely gotten under way when COSATU declared on January 29 that it was “concerned about safety at the mines.” Mind you, this did not refer to the brutal working hours and methods, COSATU denounced Impala management for “not providing security” to scabs. On March 11, COSATU called on “the employers and the South African Police Service to devise some safe way for the workers in the platinum mines to go back to work.” A moribund Workers’ Association Union (WAU) was revived to get miners back to work. But as one AMCU shop steward remarked, “There is no use in caving in because of hunger, because if we go back underground with these peanut wages, we will still suffer from hunger. It is better we starve once” (Mail & Guardian, 27 March).

Unfortunately, the platinum miners have had to stand alone. NUMSA has been getting involved in the mining industry, organizing 1,800 workers at Amplats refineries, who struck separately in February and settled in March for wage increases of between 7.5 and 8.5% per year for the different categories of workers. Bloomberg News (4 April) quoted NUMSA national treasurer Mphumzi Maqungo saying of the miners strike that it was “a bad situation and we hope a solution will be found,” adding, “we support the struggle of workers irrespective of a union they are affiliated to.” Yet statements of solidarity are not enough. There should have been, and should be today, a mobilization of all of South African labor to defend the miners with solidarity strike action to bring South Africa to a standstill in support of the platinum strike.

This is all the more urgent as it is “increasingly obvious that the government are willing to wait out AMCU until it breaks,” according to a London market analyst (Bloomberg News, 30 April). The platinum miners strike is where the conflict between South African workers and the ANC government has come to a head. Yet instead of common workers action, the logic of bureaucratic infighting has prevailed. Even the National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU) has done nothing to support its AMCU affiliate. And although NUMSA president Andrew Chirwa had been invited to address an AMCU rally in Rustenburg on January 19 to offer solidarity, and was even on stage, he was suddenly banned from speaking by the AMCU tops.

The mine bosses have claimed that they have enough platinum stockpiled to wait out the strike, and market prices for the mineral have not budged. Yet the companies have declared “force majeure,” a legal term allowing them to suspend payments and deliveries because of circumstances beyond their control. This would imply that their stockpiles are not unlimited. In the face of the conglomerates’ hard-line refusal to grant the mine workers’ elementary demands, and now threats of closing mines in retaliation as the gold mines did following the 1987 strike, mine workers and their allies should occupy the installations and institute workers control, including opening the companies’ books, as part of a revolutionary mobilization for a workers and peasants government to expropriate South African capitalism.


WASP Backstabbing Against Miners Strike


While the AMCU has no strategy other than waiting out the mine owners and has made no attempt to mobilize working-class solidarity action, it is also clear that the mine bosses were speculating on rifts inside the union. AMCU tops have pushed aside the workers’ committees which led the 2012 strikes and generally behave like typical trade-union bureaucrats. This has disappointed a layer of former workers committee members and AMCU shop stewards who have been drawn around the Democratic Socialist Movement, the South African affiliate of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI). These social democrats, who were buried inside the ANC until 1996, have now launched a Workers and Socialist Party (WASP). On the eve of the strike, the WASP issued a series of defeatist statements undercutting the workers’ action.

After wild accusations from AMCU president Mathunjwa that dissidents were being “wined and dined by [South African President] Zuma”, five shop stewards (or former shop stewards) called a press conference under the aegis of the WASP on January 20 to lambaste the AMCU bureaucracy and corruption. According to press reports, some “were equivocal on their stance regarding the strike. Others, such as Impala’s [Vuyo] Maqanda, seemed somewhat opposed to it, while Amplats’ [Gaddafi] Mdoda said they would support the upcoming strike only if Mathunjwa met them around a negotiating table to iron out their differences and allowed workers to discuss a strategy for the strike” (Mail & Guardian, 21 January). This shameful backstabbing could only aid the companies.

The next day, WASP spokesperson Mametlwe Sebei accused Mathunjwa of “playing into the hands” of the ANC by calling a strike which could become “violent” (Mail & Guardian, 22 January). Sebei also raised worries about company stockpiles and about future lay-offs, giving credence to the bosses’ blackmailing tactics. On January 23 an official statement by the WASP appeared to disavow Sebei, saying “we are emphatically supporting the strike action which began in the platinum industry today.” It claimed to have been “misrepresented” by the media, although not directly misquoted, and that it was just raising “concerns”. “Misrepresented”? The Mail & Guardian has been notably sympathetic to the WASP, including over attempts to deport its deputy general secretary, Swedish-born Liv Shange.

All of the talk about AMCU “authoritarianism” and “concerns” about the union going into the strike “divided” evade the fact that the strike had already been decided, including by a vote at the January 19 rally. This all bears a striking resemblance to attacks by Thatcherites and Labour traitors on the National Union of Mineworkers and its president Arthur Scargill for having “undemocratically” decreed the British miners’ strike of 1984-85. The WASP says it is for “the election of representative strike/workers committees, regular mass meetings for open and democratic debates on the strategy to win R12 500 and to rally the entire working class behind the mineworkers’ cause.” Nice words, but empty. Rather than winning the strike, the WASP is more interested in distancing itself from the AMCU.

Its January 23 statement promised that “Workers and Socialist Party will be campaigning … in the whole trade union movement and throughout the country to raise support for the strike and its demands.” Really? So where is this promised support? Certainly not on the WASP website, which hasn’t had a single article or statement about the strike since January. No mention either in its election poster and two election leaflets, and only a dismissive remark in its election Manifesto about lack of “serious preparation for a campaign of action to win the R12 500 per month minimum wage notwithstanding the present platinum strike.” Well, “notwithstanding” its pseudo-support for the strike, as social-democratic electoral reformists, WASP has “weightier” matters to attend to, namely chasing after votes in the May 7 election.

“Notwithstanding” their socialist pretentions, the DSM/WASP campaign is directly counterposed to the “Theses on the Communist Parties and Parliamentarism” (1920) of the Communist International, which declared: “Election campaigns should not be carried out in the spirit of the hunt for the maximum number of parliamentary seats, but in the spirit of the revolutionary mobilization of the masses for the slogans of the proletarian revolution.... It is necessary to utilize all mass actions (strikes, demonstrations, ferment among the soldiers and sailors, etc.) that are taking place at the time, and to come into close touch with them.” Sound like the WASP campaign in South Africa today? Not hardly. Even its call for nationalization of the economy would let the apartheid criminals retain 10% of their plunder!

Moreover, its election Manifesto states: “WASP fights against police brutality, -corruption, -racism and sexism and for holding the police to account…. [W]e need to fight for democratic working class control over the police, also appealing to the sense of class solidarity among rank-and-file police officers.” This garbage, a hallmark of the CWI, is utterly anti-Marxist. There can be no “democratic working class control” over the police or any other part of the bourgeois state, and spreading illusions about a “sense of class solidarity” among the cops – the armed fist of the bourgeoisie – is a deadly delusion. The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) talks of “advancing the working-class struggle within the criminal justice system” – and then they carry out massacres like Sharpeville at Marikana and in the townships.


“ANC Reloaded” or Revolutionary Workers Party?


The nomination of Moses Mayekiso as the WASP lead candidate is certainly evocative. Mayekiso once represented the “workerist” tendency in the anti-apartheid struggle which was wary of what the bourgeois nationalist ANC held in store for the workers – with good reason, as history has shown. But whereas Leon Trotsky’s perspective of permanent revolution holds that in semi-colonial and late-developing capitalist countries like South Africa, even basic democratic tasks of the bourgeois revolution cannot be achieved short of proletarian revolution, the workerists had no overall political program counterposed to capitalism. As a result they were reduced to a pressure group on the ANC and were ultimately eaten alive by the ANC/SACP. Mayekiso himself ended up in the SACP.

Although the WASP campaign claims to be focused on the fight against corruption, this was not a hallmark of Mayekiso’s subsequent career. After helping break the Mercedes-Benz strikes as a NUMSA bureaucrat in 1990, he went into the South African National Civic Organization* (SANCO) which was supposed to empower the townships. He became head of Sanco Investment Holdings (SIH) which set up joint ventures privatizing municipal services, including with the British firm Biwater, which had close connections to Margaret Thatcher, for water supplies. The SIH collapsed when its money disappeared. Mayekiso then created the Congress of South African Non-Racial Civic Organisations Movement on behalf of the ANC to punish SANCO for supporting anti-privatization protests (and for failing to elect him president) in 2001.

In addition, there are accusations of bribery around an arms deal with Sweden. Since 2008, Mayekiso has been a leader of the “Congress of the People” (COPE), a pro-free market, explicitly anti-Marxist split from the ANC. But in the current trade-off, WASP gets press coverage for its candidates and Mayekiso gets a new “left” cover. The WASP does not merit support by class-conscious workers seeking to pose a revolutionary challenge to South African capital, to the black bourgeois ANC government which manages its affairs, to its SACP ideologues, and to the union bureaucracies which have climbed aboard the “gravy train.”

In competition with the WASP campaign, SACP veteran Ronnie Kasrils, who was founder and leader Umkonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the ANC’s armed wing, and former South African intelligence minister, has launched together with other ANC worthies the “Sidikiwe! Vukani! Vote ‘NO’” campaign. This campaign is in fact nothing more than an expression of frustration in the ANC and/or an attempt to pressure it into more “acceptable” policies. But the is true of the WASP calls for a campaign to recall Zuma over the “national embarrassment” of the extravagant expenditures on the president’s Nkandla residence. None of this represents a break from bourgeois electoral politics, and much less a move toward workers revolution.

The fact of the matter is that the bulk of the South African left is waiting for NUMSA. Its painfully late formal break with the ANC/SACP opens a lot of doors, but the union tops are not prepared to go through them. The Metalworkers organized a national protest strike against the Youth Employment Incentive Act (a mix of slave labor for youth and further giveaways to the “tenderpreneurs”) in March, but with mixed results. NUMSA has been more focused on reinstating ANC critic Zwelinzima Vavi as General Secretary of COSATU. Pro-government forces had suspended Vavi using charges of corruption and sexual harassment. While the WASP, among others, hailed a decision by the Johannesburg High Court reversing this as a victory, Vavi has now turned around and indicated he will be obliged to campaign for the ANC.

Is the break with the ANC going to be reduced to bureaucrat in-fighting arbitrated by the bourgeois state? NUMSA’s special congress last December made vague references to a “united front” – not the unity of the working class in revolutionary struggle proposed by the Communist Party in its initial period, but rather the United Democratic Front of the 1980s. The UDF was a popular front which subordinated working-class forces to the bourgeoisie, and which specifically served to bring workers’ militancy and township revolts in that period back under the control of the ANC. NUMSA also calls for a “Movement for Socialism” which could mean anything from a reformist workers party such as the Workers Party (PT) in Brazil –which has unleashed its own brand of capitalist austerity – to a bourgeois populist party like those in Venezuela and Bolivia.

The NUMSA bureaucrats remain wedded to the 1955 ANC Freedom Charter which promised liberation to all classes. As we have noted, its prescriptions for nationalization had nothing “socialist” about them: as Mandela wrote in his June 1956 article, “In Our Lifetime,” the goal of the Charter was “the development of a prosperous Non-European bourgeois class.” The ANC was thus clearly committed to capitalism well before it took office in 1994. And we now have that “prosperous Non-European bourgeois class” ruling South Africa on the backs of the impoverished non-white working masses.

Another variant of a return to the supposedly pure sources of the ANC is represented by populist demagogue Julius Malema and his Economic Freedom Fighters. With the consummate opportunism so often exhibited by the bourgeois opposition parties to the ANC, Malema has concluded a sort of non-aggression pact with the Zulu chauvinist, virulent anti-communist and anti-ANC ally of the apartheid regime Mangosuthu Buthelezi and his Inkatha party. Despite his often scathing critiques of ANC corruption (which he knows well from the inside), Malema’s immediate perspective can only be as a junior partner in a continuation of the neo-apartheid system, despite the WASP’s frantic attempts to form an electoral bloc with the EFF.

Genuine revolutionary Marxists warned in 1994 that a vote to the ANC was a trap chaining the working class to the bourgeoisie. So, too, would be a vote today to any component of the government (i.e., the SACP as well as the ANC) or any other variant of bourgeois nationalism like the EFF. As for the WASP, it is not even a deformed expression of a mass pro-working class, pro-socialist groundswell against the Tripartite Alliance, but rather a vehicle for peddling the CWI’s Labourite nostrums.

The struggle against neo-apartheid will continue, regardless of the results on May 7. It will be pursued in the mines and factories and townships. It must be a struggle against the Tripartite Alliance popular front and all forms of class collaboration. What it cries out for is forging a Leninist revolutionary workers party armed with a Trotskyist program linking the fight against neo-apartheid wage slavery in the mines and factories, for land, for “service delivery” and massive construction of high quality public housing in the townships, and against all forms of special oppression, to proletarian struggle to expropriate the capitalists, including in their lairs in the USA and Britain. This is the program of permanent revolution of the League for the Fourth International. ■

[bricolage]

This election is certainly different from the previous ones. NUMSA have broken with the ANC and have refused to support them, Abahlali baseMjondolo have called for a tactical vote for the DA in KwaZulu-Natal, the Mail & Guardian has called for tactical voting to limit the power of the ANC, the EFF will likely pick up a significant percentage of young voters, and there are no vote campaign seems to have got more prominent supporters than would have been expected. The ANC will almost certainly win election again but the majority will, from the looks of it, be definitely cut, strikes in the platinum belt will continue for sure, social movements (providing Abahlali and supporters can not be co-opted into the DA and ripped apart as a result) will persist. It is quite possible that by the time the next election rolls around NUMSA will have formed a labour party of sorts, but in the meantime what is clear is that a) the ANC can not count on support solely as a result of memories of Mandela and the struggle against apartheid, and that memories of corruption, of broken promises and of Marikana are just as strong and that b) new political identities are being regularly formed and conflict will persist. In my opinion South Africa will remain the class struggle capital of the world and what happens there will have a great impact on workers across the region and to some extent the world. Keep your eyes on it I say.

[RedWorker]

Fuck I hope they don't elect that race baiting idiot Malema.

Why? Please elaborate. And what does "race baiting" even mean? Does it mean that he brands himself as offering "liberation" to black people? And what's wrong with such a thing? White people still own 99% of everything in Africa even though the majority there are black, while the black people suffer from utter misery the white people in Africa live just great.

[Hrafn]

Why? Please elaborate. And what does "race baiting" even mean? Does it mean that he brands himself as offering "liberation" to black people? And what's wrong with such a thing? White people still own 99% of everything in Africa even though the majority there are black, while the black people suffer from utter misery the white people in Africa live just great.

The EFF is controversial for, among other things like sexism, displaying racism towards non-White ethnic groups, primarily Indians. One prominent EFF leader has in the past been involved in xenophobic attacks resulting in the deaths of one Tanzanian and one Zimbabwean. Etc. That's just the EFF, not Malema personally - he has far worse things to answer for than xenophobia.

[tachosomoza]

Why? Please elaborate. And what does "race baiting" even mean? Does it mean that he brands himself as offering "liberation" to black people? And what's wrong with such a thing? White people still own 99% of everything in Africa even though the majority there are black, while the black people suffer from utter misery the white people in Africa live just great.

No, it means that he thinks that south africa should only work for himself and people that look like him, screw the coloreds and everyone else who isn't "black" or in his ethnic group. He's a chauvinist asshole.

[RedWorker]

The EFF is controversial for, among other things like sexism, displaying racism towards non-White ethnic groups, primarily Indians. One prominent EFF leader has in the past been involved in xenophobic attacks resulting in the deaths of one Tanzanian and one Zimbabwean. Etc. That's just the EFF, not Malema personally - he has far worse things to answer for than xenophobia.

I don't know much about what is going on in South Africa, but sounds like burgeois propaganda to attempt to discredit a leftist party to me. As for sexism, the EFF claims that they want to "completely eliminate patriarchy". Can you please tell me your opinion on the program the EFF claims to support, ignoring any such incidents or speculation?


No, it means that he thinks that south africa should only work for himself and people that look like him, screw the coloreds and everyone else who isn't "black" or in his ethnic group. He's a chauvinist asshole.

Looks like burgeois propaganda/speculation.

[Hrafn]

Bougie propaganda this, bougie propaganda that. Yes, we all know that once a group says something, it is immediately true. It's not like anyone ever lies, or set goals they don't fullfill.

I have not read their program, but I assume it's all very good, relatively speaking. "Words are wind", and programmes matter little.

[RedWorker]

"Matters little", "matters little". So here is one left-wing party which finally appears with a chance to gain power which claims to seek to want to liberate a country in which there is no progress for a long time and whose people have been exploited for years. They've been involved into one or two controversial incidents, later exploited by the burgeois media heavily to attempt to discredit them. So let's just spread that information instead of trying to see the whole picture, without even reading their words, rather trusting heavily publicized media about "controversial actions by certain people of that party". I would be wary of taking any such positions without seeing the full picture. Anything can be made to look bad or good, and I'm not gonna immediately trust the mainstream position on a left-wing party.

[tachosomoza]

I've watched their leader's speeches, that's how I know he's insane and will ruin ZA more than it already is ruined.

[The Intransigent Faction]

The EFF is controversial for, among other things like sexism, displaying racism towards non-White ethnic groups, primarily Indians. One prominent EFF leader has in the past been involved in xenophobic attacks resulting in the deaths of one Tanzanian and one Zimbabwean. Etc. That's just the EFF, not Malema personally - he has far worse things to answer for than xenophobia.

OK. that explains a lot...how disappointing. :(
I'm not challenging you, but do you have sources for these claims? I'd like to read them for myself.

In any case, it's over and the ANC won a significant victory. The EFF meanwhile got a small percentage of the votes, which may have to do with the low turnout among youth. Not that I was expecting differently...

[RedWorker]

OK. that explains a lot...how disappointing. :(

No, that explains exactly nothing at all. Any parties are routinely accused of "racism" and "sexism" by mainstream politicians to discredit them. Malema has "far worse things to answer for"? Ok, so he was convicted of hate speech for what, singing some anti-apartheid song that included the lyrics "shoot white people" or something. Big fucking deal after the black majority has been completely exploited by the white minority there for decades.


In any case, it's over and the ANC won a significant victory. Not that I was expecting differently...

The EFF had a good result - for the first elections it took part in it, about 6%.

[The Intransigent Faction]

No, that explains exactly nothing at all. Any parties are routinely accused of "racism" and "sexism" by mainstream politicians to discredit them.

Which is why I asked Hrafn to provide sources for those claims...jeez.

[RedWorker]

Income in South Africa by "racial group":

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/62524000/gif/_62524782_income_racial_grp_sa_464.gif


South Africa - 24th largest GDP (PPP) in the world yet 25% of South Africans live on less than US$1.25 a day. 90% of the poor are black even though 80% of South Africans are black. 70% of land is owned by white people (who make up about 9% of the population).

DID APARTHEID END?

[synthesis]

"Matters little", "matters little". So here is one left-wing party which finally appears with a chance to gain power which claims to seek to want to liberate a country in which there is no progress for a long time and whose people have been exploited for years. They've been involved into one or two controversial incidents, later exploited by the burgeois media heavily to attempt to discredit them. So let's just spread that information instead of trying to see the whole picture, without even reading their words, rather trusting heavily publicized media about "controversial actions by certain people of that party". I would be wary of taking any such positions without seeing the full picture. Anything can be made to look bad or good, and I'm not gonna immediately trust the mainstream position on a left-wing party.

Malema's sexism:



Now, the ANCYL of recent years has garnered a reputation for always being below the belt, of being utterly unable to debate with opponents in a rational and level-headed way and of almost always resorting to bullying and violence to achieve political goals. Even so, the wheels seem to fall off completely when confronted with a woman of differing opinion.

It repeatedly drove ANCYL leader Julius Malema (with Shivambu not far behind) to make his most outrageous comments, which inevitably landed him (and Shivambu) in hot water.

Just before the local government elections in 2011, Malema was confronted by journalists who wanted to know if he would accept the challenge to a debate by the erstwhile Democratic Alliance spokeswoman Lindiwe Mazibuko (http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/malema-dubs-da-s-mazibuko-a-tea-girl-1.1071797).

“I was never asked to debate Lindiwe... She's a nobody, she's a tea girl of the madam. I'm not debating with the service of the madam,” Malema snapped, the madam reference obviously aimed at DA leader Helen Zille.

And who can forget his infamous “monkey” comment aimed at Zille (http://www.citypress.co.za/SouthAfrica/News/Zille-dances-like-a-monkey-says-Malema-20110404), in the run-up to last year’s local elections?

“Have you ever seen an ugly woman in a blue dress dancing like a monkey because she is looking for votes?” he said at a rally in Polokwane, Limpopo.

And just to make sure that nobody would miss who the comments were aimed at, he mentioned the so-called “open toilet” saga which briefly plagued the Western Cape government, “Who built open toilets for coloured people in the Western Cape? It was not the ANC but the DA.”

In 2009, Malema insulted education minister Naledi Pandor at the Tshwane University of Technology, where the staff, students and management were locked in a protracted battle. Her intervention didn’t exactly meet Malema’s expectations, who leapt at the chance to make fun of her distinct speech.

“If we’ve got a minister who is spending too much time using (an) American accent without assisting our people, that is nonsense,” he said. “Let the minister use that fake American accent to address our problems and not to behave like a spoiled minister. We need a decisive minister.”

In an interview later, Malema revealed that the reason he apologised (http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/columnists/2012/02/16/malema-s-uphill-battle-to-save-his-career) for his comments about Pandor was because his grandmother and ANC president Jacob Zuma pressed him to do so.

No case of the ANCYL’s way with women beats Malema’s comments about the woman who accused Zuma of rape (http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/malema-in-hot-water-over-rape-claims-1.444435). The ANC president argued before the court that the sex was consensual, because of the accuser’s conduct the next morning.

Malema took that sentiment further, declaring: “Those who had a nice time will wait until the sun comes out, request breakfast and ask for taxi money. In the morning, that lady requested breakfast and taxi money,” he said at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology on 22 January 2009. “You can't ask for money from somebody who raped you,” he added.

The Sonke Gender Justice Network hauled Malema before the Equality Court (http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2010-03-15-it-is-now-official-julius-malema-is-hate-speaker-and-harasser-of-women) for those comments, where he was found guilty and ordered to apologise and pay R50,000 in damages to a non-government organisation that assists abused women. It took Malema 15 months (http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71654?oid=242583&sn=Detail&pid=71654) before he issued the required apology.

Shivambu’s apology too, accompanied by an explanation that is more of a denial than anything, smacks of the same kind of begrudging concession that Malema made in response to the ruling against him brought by Sonke. In the papers filed in answer to Du Plessis’s case, the suspended ANCYL spokesman initially denied that he had sent the SMSs, in what can only be characterised as a lie.Malema's hypocrisy:


A firebrand South African youth leader today threw a BBC journalist out of a press conference, accusing him of "white tendency" and calling him a "bastard", "bloody agent" and "small boy".

Julius Malema (http://www.theguardian.com/world/julius-malema), president of the youth wing of the African National Congress, exploded in rage when Jonah Fisher, a white Briton, interrupted him at the ANC's headquarters in Johannesburg.

The row began when Malema, who has just returned from Zimbabwe (http://www.theguardian.com/world/zimbabwe), praised Robert Mugabe (http://www.theguardian.com/world/robert-mugabe)'s Zanu-PF party and poured scorn on the "Mickey Mouse" opposition. He mocked exiles linked to the Movement for Democratic Change, led by Zimbabwe's prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, for using offices in Sandton, a wealthy suburb of Johannesburg.

"They can insult us here from air conditioned offices of Sandton," Malema told journalists at Luthuli House. "We are unshaken. They must stop shouting at us. They must go and fight for their battle in Zimbabwe and win … why are they speaking in Sandton and not Mashonaland or Matabeleland?"

As Malema went on, Fisher interjected: "You live in Sandton."

Evidently stung, Malema replied: "Let me tell you, this is a building of a revolutionary party and you know nothing about the revolution."

Fisher pressed: "So they're not welcome in Sandton but you are?"

Malema snapped: "Here you behave or else you jump."

This prompted laughter from Fisher and others.

"Don't laugh," Malema growled.

Fisher commented that the situation had become a "joke".

Malema then erupted, asking for a security guard to eject Fisher and telling him: "If you're not going to behave, you're [sic] going to call security to take you out. This is not a newsroom, this is a revolutionary house and you don't come here with that tendency.

"Don't come here with that white tendency. Not here. You can do it somewhere else. Not here. If you've got a tendency of undermining blacks, even where you work, you are in the wrong place. Here you are in the wrong place."

Fisher responded: "That's rubbish. That's absolute rubbish."

Malema continued: "You can go out. Rubbish is what you have covered in that trouser. That is rubbish. You are a small boy, you can't do anything."

Collecting his dictaphone and walking out, Fisher said: "I didn't come here to be insulted."

Malema bellowed after him: "Go out. Go out. Bastard! Go out. You bloody agent!"

Later, asked to explain why he had ejected the BBC journalist, Malema said: "This is Luthuli House. This is the headquarters of a revolutionary party which has liberated the people of South Africa (http://www.theguardian.com/world/africa). It's not a playground. Here you come, you restrain yourself, you behave in a manner that is befitting of being the headquarters of the African National Congress. It's not a beer hall here.

"You don't howl here. Especially when we speak, you behave like you are in an American press conference? It's not America. It's Africa. You must behave in an African way. You are in Rome, you do what the Romans do … if you feel offended by the removal of this gentleman, you are most welcome to walk."

The opposition Democratic Alliance said the incident proved that Malema was "South Africa (http://www.theguardian.com/world/southafrica)'s Mugabe".

Mpowele Swathe, shadow minister of rural development, said: "Malema's hysterical, conspiracy theory-laden attack on the BBC is painfully reminiscent of the frequent claims by Mugabe that he is the victim of 'malicious propaganda by external forces'.

"His actions, in throwing the journalist out of the press conference, are no different to Mugabe's censorship of the press in Zimbabwe, and his banning of outlets like the BBC from reporting there."

Malema announced that he would heed the ANC's call for restraint and stop singing the apartheid era song that has the words "Shoot the Boer", an incitement seen by some people as causing the recent murder of the white supremacist Eugene Terre'Blanche.Malema's corruption:


At a news conference on Tuesday, Malema dismissed another report of his imminent arrest as nothing but rumour generated by leaders of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), from which he was expelled for indiscipline earlier this year.

However, he has been under investigation by the police’s elite Hawks detective division for alleged corruption relating to the award of government contracts in his native Limpopo province.

The political stakes have also been raised in the last six weeks, with Malema using the Aug. 16 police shooting of 34 striking miners at Lonmin's Marikana mine to try to relaunch his political career and remove Zuma from the leadership at internal ANC election in December.

In an update to its online article, City Press quoted Malema as saying: “not heard anything. I think if there is such a thing, I will be open about it.”

Hawks mum

The Hawks would not confirm a news report on Friday that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of expelled ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema.

"The Hawks don't issue warrants, so we don't comment on that," said spokesman McIntosh Polela.

Asked if the unit was planning to arrest Malema, he said: "Even if we were planning to arrest him, we won't tell you."

Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa's spokesman, Zweli Mnisi, referred queries to provincial police.

Gauteng police spokesman, Brigadier Neville Malila, said he knew nothing about an arrest warrant for Malema.

The National Prosecuting Authority said the SA Revenue Service had applied for a warrant.

"I'm not aware of that. Sars applied for that warrant, so they are in a better place to comment on that," said spokesman Vuyisile Calaza.

"At this stage, we know nothing about the warrant or his arrest. No docket has been brought to us."

Sars spokesman Adrian Lackay said: "Sars does not issue warrants. If warrants are issued, it would be by the SA Police Service."

Justice department spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga could not immediately be reached for comment.

Malema willing to go to jail

Earlier this week, Malema told reporters in Johannesburg that he knew an "illegal warrant" would be issued for his arrest.

"If we are illegally arrested tomorrow, we would have been arrested by [president] Jacob Zuma," Malema said at the time.

He said he was willing and ready to go to jail, and was not intimidated.

"I have nothing to hide... I only have my convictions. Nothing will stop me from fighting for economic freedom, not even my death... We are unshaken."

Malema said he had it "on good authority" that there were instructions "to get rid of some us..."

At the time, presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said: "The presidency is aware that this person is prone to making wildly unsubstantiated and unwarranted claims and statements, and we do not wish to dignify them."

Suspended ANCYL spokesman Floyd Shivambu could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.

Could be found guilty of incitement

Former University of South Africa criminal law lecturer Carel Snyman concluded that Malema did not have a valid defence to the charges of incitement with regards to his speech to miners.

Snyman was commissioned by trade union Solidarity to compile an expert view on the matter.

The union earlier filed criminal charges of incitement to violence and intimidation against Malema, following comments he made to striking mine workers urging them to make the mines "ungovernable".

Solidarity deputy general secretary Dirk Hermann said on Friday that Snyman had found Malema did not have a valid defence.

"It is... immaterial whether or not the mine workers had in any way been influenced by Malema's utterances," he said in a statement.

"Incitement to commit any crime is punishable. The definition of incitement does not distinguish between successful and unsuccessful incitement."

Hermann said the report had been given to the Hawks to assist in their investigation of the charges against Malema.

(It was these charges that led him to sing the "Kill the Boer" song at a rally defending himself, which is where the "race-baiting" comes in - well, one of many places.)

Honestly, this whole post, research, typing, copy-pasting and all took me about fifteen minutes. There's a lot more dirt on him on Wikipedia if you'd care to look.

[Hrafn]

Since people insist, I'll post some sources later today regarding the EFF. Thank, synthesis, for doing he same regarding Malema himself.

[Ainu Itak]

I don't know much about what is going on in South Africa, but sounds like burgeois propaganda to attempt to discredit a leftist party to me. As for sexism, the EFF claims that they want to "completely eliminate patriarchy". Can you please tell me your opinion on the program the EFF claims to support, ignoring any such incidents or speculation?



Looks like burgeois propaganda/speculation.

*RedWorker hears something about an organisation he supports doing something that he dislikes*

Redworker: "WELL LOOKS LIKE THAT'S JUST BOURGEOIS PROPAGANDA."

[Ainu Itak]

South Africa - 24th largest GDP (PPP) in the world yet 25% of South Africans live on less than US$1.25 a day. 90% of the poor are black even though 80% of South Africans are black. 70% of land is owned by white people (who make up about 9% of the population).

DID APARTHEID END?

Why the hell are you bringing up something that everyone on here already knows with absolutely no connection to what the current argument was about? How does this excuse Malema and the EFF from being a bunch of ultra-chauvinist arseholes? If your original point (that these accusations are 'bourgeois propaganda') has been rendered moot, then concede instead of changing the damn subject.

[RedWorker]

I genuinely didn't understand how Malema was sexist there, though I'm not a native English speaker, so maybe there's something I'm missing or some idiom that I don't understand in that statement - if somebody could explain, that'd be great. The only thing I see there is Malema claiming that nobody was actually raped. Is that sexist by itself? Maybe if it was being done from misogyny, which I doubt. Perhaps Malema thought that accusing Zuma of rape was politically motivated.

[Tim Cornelis]

I genuinely didn't understand how Malema was sexist there, though I'm not a native English speaker, so maybe there's something I'm missing or some idiom that I don't understand in that statement - if somebody could explain, that'd be great. The only thing I see there is Malema claiming that nobody was actually raped. Is that sexist by itself? Maybe if it was being done from misogyny, which I doubt. Perhaps Malema thought that accusing Zuma of rape was politically motivated.

He denied it was rape because she asked for money. Much sexism isn't explicit but is expressed via subtext. These types of comments are quite typical of that.


"Matters little", "matters little". So here is one left-wing party which finally appears with a chance to gain power.

Leftist parties come into power all the time. You claim to be a "libertarian Marxist" yet you sympathise with this authoritarian populist pseudo-Stalinist party. Malema will turn South Africa into Zimbabwe no doubt -- probably, the WWP and PSL regard this as a compliment.

[RedWorker]

He denied it was rape because she asked for money. Much sexism isn't explicit but is expressed via subtext. These types of comments are quite typical of that.

Still didn't understand. Please explain further. Do you mean that it was some sort of joke about prostitution or something?


Leftist parties come into power all the time. You claim to be a "libertarian Marxist" yet you sympathise with this authoritarian populist pseudo-Stalinist party. Malema will turn South Africa into Zimbabwe no doubt -- probably, the WWP and PSL regard this as a compliment.

It seems that you are forgetting the fact that "populist" is a word used exclusively by reactionaries to accuse anyone who does politics that actually favor people instead of a bunch of corporations. I don't see how it's "authoritarian" or "Stalinist".

[Tim Cornelis]

Still didn't understand. Please explain further. Do you mean that it was some sort of joke about prostitution or something?

No, Malema is claiming you can't act 'normally', 'friendly', or 'casually' if you have been raped, and she acted as such as she apparently did not flee, slept over, and asked for cab money. If you're raped, you have to be crying your eyes out hysterically, otherwise no rape has taken place -- is his suggestion. This is a very limited definition of rape.

Reminds me of this:


Rumney draws two conclusions from his review of literature. First, the police continue to misapply the "no-crime" or "unfounding" criteria. Studies by Kelly et al. (2005), Lea et al. (2003), HMCPSI/HMIC (2002), Harris and Grace (1999), Smith (1989), and others found that police decisions to no-crime were frequently dubious and based entirely on the officer's personal judgement. Rumney notes that some officers seem to "have fixed views and expectations about how genuine rape victims should react to their victimization." He adds that "qualitative research also suggests that some officers continue to exhibit an unjustified scepticism of rape complainants, while others interpret such things as lack of evidence or complaint withdrawal as 'proof' of a false allegation."
Rumney's second conclusion is that it is impossible to "discern with any degree of certainty the actual rate of false allegations" due to the fact that many of the studies of false allegations have adopted unreliable or untested research methodologies. He argues, for instance, that in addition to their small sample size the studies by Maclean (1979) and Stewart (1981) used questionable criteria to judge an allegation to be false. MacLean deemed reports "false" if, for instance, the victim did not appear "dishevelled" and Stewart, in one instance, considered a case disproved, stating that "it was totally impossible to have removed her extremely tight undergarments from her extremely large body against her will".[11]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape

In the more subtly sexist narrative, rape has to fall within this stereotypical image of a man hiding in the bushes and violently raping a woman who actively resists for it to be considered rape. (In the more overt sexist narrative, it's the fault of the woman).


It seems that you are forgetting the fact that "populist" is a word used exclusively by reactionaries to accuse anyone who does politics that actually favor people instead of a bunch of corporations. I don't see how it's "authoritarian" or "Stalinist".

No, populism is cheap sloganeering without substance.

As for it being Stalinist:


The EFF draws inspiration from the broad Marxist-Leninist tradition and Fanonian schools of thought in their analyses of the state, imperialism, culture and class contradictions in every society.
http://effighters.org.za/documents/declaration/

As for its authoritarianism, I inferred this from its demagogic head: Malema, as well as the party's style: berets and uniforms. Which, I suppose, may not reflect whether it's authoritarian or not.

[Hrafn]

Since people insist, I'll post some sources later today regarding the EFF. Thank, synthesis, for doing he same regarding Malema himself.

I previously mentioned discrimination towards Indians and other ethnic groups in South Africa. In this article (http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/1899) from January 29 2014 by the South African Civil Society Information Service. There are some very interesting quotes from the EFF manifesto, for example separating the African working class from the Asian working class and ascribing some fun stuff to them.

Here (http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/eff-s-kzn-man-has-criminal-past-1.1663164#.Uy0Y3vmSzY4), from March 18 2014, IOL News describes the deadly, xenophobic attacks committed by Vusi Khoza, the party's candidate for Premier of KwaZulu-Natal.

As for sexism, here's some assorted stuff. Here (http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/siphokazimagadla/2013/11/06/eff-and-the-return-of-the-warrior-citizen/) is a November 6 2013 critique of the party's militarism from a presumably liberal feminist standpoint, by Siphokazi Magadla at Thought Leader. This (http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-11-05-remembering-thomas-sankara-the-effs-muse/#.U25uc_mSzhc) November 5 2013 Daily Maverick article by Rebecca Davis comments on the supposed legacy of Thomas Sankara - a devout feminist - in the EFF, and brings up some prior examples of sexist behaviour. In this (http://feministssa.com/2013/11/28/elections-analysis-the-economic-freedom-fighters-2/) post from November 28 2013 at FeministsSA.com, Sanja Bornman analyzes the lack of gender parity in the EFF's structures and the poor behaviour record of EFF members, among other things. Again, probably a liberal feminist viewpoint regarding for example economic questions, but still worthwhile to listen to. The list of articles goes on.

[RedWorker]

In the more subtly sexist narrative, rape has to fall within this stereotypical image of a man hiding in the bushes and violently raping a woman who actively resists for it to be considered rape. (In the more overt sexist narrative, it's the fault of the woman).

Oh, I see. That's not good at all. Still, I believe that Malema's comments have come more from anger that the rape case could have been used to politically disqualify Zuma than any actual misogyny.


No, populism is cheap sloganeering without substance.

And how is there "no substance"? They have a programme as well developed as that of any other party.


As for it being Stalinist:

You take advantage of the fact that Stalin is tied to totalitarianism, militarism, mass murder, whatever to attack something. Additionally, even though they claim to be Marxist-Leninist, I doubt that they truly follow standard Marxist-Leninist politics but rather something else, perhaps closer to what Chavez did in Venezuela.

[Hrafn]

RedWorker, why don't you understand that programmes mean nothing?

[Tim Cornelis]

Oh, I see. That's not good at all. Still, I believe that Malema's comments have come more from anger that the rape case could have been used to politically disqualify Zuma than any actual misogyny.

Regardless of whether Malema was angry about that, his suggestions about rape are sexist. And even on skepticism toward women's claims of rape befalls the suspicion of sexism as this is a common sexist myth: the idea that self-reported rape victims are generally lying.


And how is there "no substance"? They have a programme as well developed as that of any other party.

So do many populist parties.


You take advantage of the fact that Stalin is tied to totalitarianism, militarism, mass murder, whatever to attack something.

What do you mean "I take advantage of"? The EFF claims to base itself on Marxism-Leninism, which is synonymous with Stalinism. So I call them as such.


Additionally, even though they claim to be Marxist-Leninist, I doubt that they truly follow standard Marxist-Leninist politics but rather something else, perhaps closer to what Chavez did in Venezuela.

That's why I said pseudo-Stalinist.

[RedWorker]

RedWorker, why don't you understand that programmes mean nothing?

There's only two ways to guess what a party which never has been in power plans to do. Either pure speculation or reading their programme.


So do many populist parties.

So where is the "no substance"?

[Hrafn]

Or, you know, actual practice.

[Red Commissar]

According to this article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_general_election,_2014), results are as follows

-ANC: 62.15%, for 249 seats
-DA: 22.23%, for 89 seats
-EFF: 6.35%, for 25 seats

The remaining seats are divided up among smaller parties. Turnout at 73.5%.

ANC captured all of the provincial legislatures except for Western Cape (where Cape Town is), where the DA came out on top there.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Malema's sexism:

Malema's hypocrisy:

Malema's corruption:



(It was these charges that led him to sing the "Kill the Boer" song at a rally defending himself, which is where the "race-baiting" comes in - well, one of many places.)

Honestly, this whole post, research, typing, copy-pasting and all took me about fifteen minutes. There's a lot more dirt on him on Wikipedia if you'd care to look.

Thanks! But no, fuck Wikipedia.

[synthesis]

The only thing I see there is Malema claiming that nobody was actually raped. Is that sexist by itself? Maybe if it was being done from misogyny, which I doubt. Perhaps Malema thought that accusing Zuma of rape was politically motivated.


Oh, I see. That's not good at all. Still, I believe that Malema's comments have come more from anger that the rape case could have been used to politically disqualify Zuma than any actual misogyny.

I was living in South Africa at the time of the accusations and literally everyone knew he did it. He barely even denied it. Malema knew very well what he was getting himself into. (If the rape wasn't bad enough, it came out very quickly that Zuma knew the woman was HIV-positive when he raped her, and he said publicly that he didn't wear a condom because he took a shower afterwards, as if you take a shower afterwards then you won't get HIV. So because the then-vice president said it, at least a couple people thought there must be something to it.)

There are a fair amount of people in South Africa now drawing parallels between historical fascism and the rise of the EFF, linking it to the failure of the left to provide alternatives. The ANC is shit and the DA is to the right of them. Malema calling his organization "economic freedom fighters" is analogous to Hitler adding the word "socialist" to the name of his party.

[Prometeo liberado]

If Joe Slovo were alive today he'd line up every single person on the SACP CC and take 'em out with one bullet. Seeing as they've become absolutely mindless.

[RedWorker]

There are a fair amount of people in South Africa now drawing parallels between historical fascism and the rise of the EFF, linking it to the failure of the left to provide alternatives. The ANC is shit and the DA is to the right of them. Malema calling his organization "economic freedom fighters" is analogous to Hitler adding the word "socialist" to the name of his party.

I think that's bullshit. There are people drawing parallels between fascism and left-wing parties everywhere, and all politicians are being compared to Hitler all around the world. Please explain exactly how Malema will implement something related to fascism.

[synthesis]

I think that's bullshit.

Okay, based on what, exactly?


There are people drawing parallels between fascism and left-wing parties everywhere, and all politicians are being compared to Hitler all around the world.

I think there's a difference between "comparing someone to Hitler" and noting some perceived parallels between the historical movements behind them, but if that's what you took from it I guess you're stuck with that.


Please explain exactly how Malema will implement something related to fascism.

...notice how I was very careful not to say that Malema would "implement something related to fascism," or that he should be properly considered a fascist in the historical sense of the word. The point is that he is exploiting the failure of the left to further the interests of the working class for personal gain. I'm not going to try to whip up one of those checklists people come up with that determines whether something is fascist or not, but he does blame a lot of South Africa's woes on the Indian population and his organization is very militaristic with a strong personality.

I actually think an analysis of Malema as straightforward fascism is missing something - namely a real class analysis - in that the EFF does seem to have a strong base in the black working class, whereas the NSDAP's appeal to the German working class was in large part a myth, as it was most strongly rooted in the Protestant petite-bourgeoisie of the time. The latter was based on the failure of proletarian revolutions, but it was not based in the proletariat, as liberal narratives of history often suggest. In any case, whether the EFF can even be considered "leftist" is a source of disagreement in South Africa, which is really something you something you should think on if you are indeed coming into this without any knowledge of modern South African politics.

[Hrafn]

Thanks! But no, fuck Wikipedia.

The thing is, all those things on Wikipedia are sourced.

[karlbrosky]

If Joe Slovo were alive today he'd line up every single person on the SACP CC and take 'em out with one bullet. Seeing as they've become absolutely mindless.

Funny you mention that. I was very surprised that the CWI-sponsored WASP didn't do better - they only got around 8,000 votes. A comrade of mine suggested it was because their program was economist and did not speak to democratic demands. I think that's apt, but the failure of the SACP leadership to articulate an independent class position lead to many workers shrugging their shoulders and voting (perhaps with some resignation) for the ANC / Tripartite Alliance.

[The Intransigent Faction]

The thing is, all those things on Wikipedia are sourced.

Then I'd rather be directed to the primary sources, and you provided some others. Again, fuck Wikipedia.
In any case, more on topic, still hoping against hope that there won't be more Marikanas... :(

[Hrafn]

Step one: Go to Wikipedia.
Step two: Find a claim.
Step three: Click on the clam's footnote.
Step four: Be redirected to exactly the same pages as I posted.

[bricolage]

So on the Malema and sexism front. It's obviously to anyone who even does a quick google search on it that Zuma is a rapist and that he pretty much admitted it, in a country where sexual violence is a rampant as it is in South Africa for anyone to try and provide any justification for it is disgusting. You can dismiss that as bourgeois propaganda sure, but it's not. And I think if you admit that 'I don't know much about what is going on in South Africa' then you shouldn't go around making such bold claims of bourgeois propaganda.

On the wider point of the EFF, I think the comparisons to fascism are slightly off and I agree with the class analysis given by synthesis. The EFF does have its base in the black working class and Malema seems to represent a double edged idea, on one hand class anger as seen in calls to say nationalise the mines (which we should remember is just a bourgeois nationalist proposal not some kind of radical leftist one) but also in class envy and aspirationalism which is why he can show up in fancy cars and new loafers and get cheered in effective slums. The rise of the EFF is probably the most interesting point in this election and speaks to some kind of disillusionment with the ANC but I think if NUMSA does form a party for the next election that will be an even greater shift. The case of COPE however also indicates a potential time-limited thing for 'left' electoral parties.

But I would urge people to pay attention to strikes, militant demonstrations and social movements in South Africa in the next four years and not just switch off until the next election and make more ill-informed points. If your understanding of politics is just based on election results then what are you really doing?

[The Intransigent Faction]

But I would urge people to pay attention to strikes, militant demonstrations and social movements in South Africa in the next four years and not just switch off until the next election and make more ill-informed points. If your understanding of politics is just based on election results then what are you really doing?

Absolutely. It's not that we should embrace electoralism or base our understanding of South African politics on electoral results any more than we should do so for other countries. It just seemed worth paying attention to for its implications about the state of support for the ANC.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Step one: Go to Wikipedia.
Step two: Find a claim.
Step three: Click on the clam's footnote.
Step four: Be redirected to exactly the same pages as I posted.

Let me simplify that for you:

Step One: Find a consistently reliable source.
Step Two: Read cited information.

In other words, that makes Wikipedia at best frivolous as a source and at worst prone to abuse to which the original sources are not prone. Thanks again for the info nonetheless.

[SensibleLuxemburgist]

Despite not being South African, I would have voted for the Workers and Socialist Party. As of now, they look to me as a rational party in a sea of irrational, bourgeois, corrupt parties.

[ckaihatsu]

I found it interesting that in a recent socialist-oriented position piece (that I posted -- links are below), COSATU is criticized for being part of the Tripartite Alliance, yet is still given confidence by NUMSA:





But it’s the policies implemented by the various ANC governments that are responsible for the current situation: these governments all accepted the dictates of the so-called “Kempton Park” Accords. This agreement, signed in 1994, preserved the status of property rights as it existed at the time of the political downfall of Apartheid. In other words, this agreement maintained the economic and social domination of the white minority, which in South Africa carried out the capitalist domination.

The ANC received the unyielding support from the leadership of the South African Communist Party. With the backing of the SACP, the ANC has been able to maintain its control over the main trade union confederation: COSATU.




The CC [of NUMSA] confirmed that COSATU remains our fighting weapon and we must struggle to reclaim it as an independent, militant fighting federation. We shall not be leaving the federation and together with the other 8 affiliates we have served court papers to compel the COSATU president to convene the Special National Congress.


Dossier on the recent South Africa Elections

http://socialistorganizer.org/dossier-on-the-recent-south-africa-elections/


NUMSA Rupture Could Mark New Start for Socialist Politics in South Africa

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2752722&postcount=8

[bricolage]

NUMSA got effectively kicked out of COSATU because they said they would recruit across sectors and, more importantly, said they wouldn't support the ANC in the election. When they talk about reclaiming COSATU they mean in terms of splitting it from the ANC and it becoming a grassroots working class movement - hence it would be completely different from its current form. I think they know this is unlikely to happen but are using it as a point to show up current COSATU leadership. Much more likely is that NUMSA will form a 'labour party' of its own for the next time the elections roll around - that will really split the ANC base.