xenophobia in South Africa

"Xenophobia is part of life. We do not live easy here. We only survive," says Somali shopkeeper, Abdinasir Shaikh Aden. Aden was threatened with his life during the run-up to the Cup. He was chased away from his small grocery shop and told that foreigners would have no future in South Africa once the tourists and fans had gone home.

A dangerous combination of cramped living conditions and competition for jobs remains. The recession and deepening unemployment in South Africa is exacerbating the pressure on poor communities.Overcrowded and poverty-stricken areas are most at risk of a flare-up of tensions.

Liliane Mukangwa, who settled in South Africa with her husband and five children, moving back to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is not an option."It is hard for us as we have nowhere to go. We do not want to go home. It is too dangerous there." Mukangwa has been living in South Africa for eight years.She travels to her house every day during daylight hours accompanied by family and friends from the DRC. She is scared of travelling alone on public transport: "There is often tension on the trains."

South Africa is to start expelling Zimbabweans again, from 31 December, the government has announced. An estimated two million Zimbabweans are thought to be in South Africa. Human rights groups have condemned the South African government's decision. Zimbabwe exile groups fear that anyone forced to return could still face persecution.

ANC - Anti Working Class

"Black economic empowerment has been a disaster because it created this massive economic inequality; it created this class of idle rich who have tons of money but do nothing." Moeletsi Mbeki explained.

South Africa's large working class was under the misguided impression that the ANC was "the party of the people".

"The unions in this country do not understand the political economy of South Africa. They think that the ANC is the party of the people. The ANC is the party of the black middle class. The fact that the masses vote for it does not mean they control it. The policies of the ANC favour the black middle class and the established businesses. They do not favour the working class. You just have to look at the types of houses that the ANC government builds for ordinary South Africans," he said. "If you had a party that was a pro-working-class party, it would not have built these so-called RDP houses that are being built by the ANC government. The unions have all along been under the illusion that the ANC is the government of the working class, and [Zwelinzima] Vavi and them are now beginning to realise that this is not the case." Mbeki said the striking public-sector workers faced a special dilemma. "They think the ANC is their ally but at the same time they feel they are not getting any benefits out of this alliance. Therefore you are beginning to get a very acrimonious environment emerging between the public-sector unions and the government."

His comments came on the same day Vavi delivered his strongest condemnation yet of Zuma's government at a press conference in Johannesburg. The general secretary of Cosatu said that the alliance was "dysfunctional" as the strikes continued, slamming the corruption of the state.

Socialist Banner finds it a shame that Mbeki fails to understand that there is no such thing as a benevolent capitalism to replace the crony capitalism he criticises.

Orwell's South Africa

Some reent developoments in South Africa re-affirms that the State exists to be the mouth-piece of the capitalist class.In recent years South Africa's press has been increasingly occupied by the rise of the "tenderpreneurs" – a new, wealthy elite who use their political connections to benefit from state contracts through the largely discredited Black Economic Empowerment programme that was meant to improve the lot of disadvantaged blacks but has helped to create a new, narrow elite. A company headed by Jacob Zuma's 28-year-old son Duduzane was shown to have received more than £80m in shares from Arcelor-Mittal. The company said the stake in the South African arm of the steel giant was allocated for "strategic assistance" with meeting its BEE requirements. Other beneficiaries included the reported girlfriend of the deputy president and an "empowerment advisory counsel" to the President. ANC Youth League Julius Malema boasts about his lavish lifestyle and links to firms that have earned millions of pounds in state contracts.

The South African government has been accused of resorting to censorship policies reminiscent of the Apartheid era in a bid to silence its critics in the media. The ruling African National Congress is pushing a series of measures which would, opponents say, undermine freedom of speech, criminalise investigative reporting and threaten whistleblowers in the civil service with lengthy prison sentences. The Protection of Information Bill, currently before parliament, where the ANC holds a two-thirds majority, is part of two-pronged effort to bring the media under closer control. The second stage is a proposed Media Tribunal which would make South Africa's press – often accused by the government of being anti-ANC – answerable to parliament.The information bill would give the power to heads of government agencies to classify whole swathes of information on the grounds that it was in the "national interest". This would then make disclosure of related information a criminal offence punishable with up to 25 years in prison. Lawyers are concerned with the vague language employed in the current draft with the national interest defined in terms such as "the survival and security of the state". The country's leading legal body, the General Council of the Bar, said several provisions of the bill were "plainly contrary" to freedoms enshrined in its constitution.

A petition of writers whose work was banned under the Apartheid regime drafted by Gordimer, André Brink, Njabulo Ndebele, John Kani and Achmat Dangor explain that "We are threatened again, now with a gag over the word processor." The writers described the tribunal as the "descent of a shutter over the dialogue of the arts" and the creation of the "Word Police". Critics accuse the ANC of exhibiting a paranoid tendency in response to legitimate journalistic criticism of abuses of power.

NEW CAPITALISM

Socialist Banner read this article from Vince Musewe, an independent Zimbabwean economist based in South Africa.

He made these observations about Zimbabwe:

"In our naiveté in 1980 we assumed that once and for all the colonial master's hold on our economy and social life was now history and it was time to witness the rise and rise of a liberal and democratic social economy led by the new black generation who had been waiting in the wings for some time...However, we have seen the rise and rise of a black capitalist class whose behavior and interests mimic those of our colonial masters. We have seen the merging of the state and Zanu PF and a central command directing all social and economic activity to ensure that the party and the state remain as one."

And added these comments about South Africa:

"...the ANC-backed black capitalist class who in my view, as shown in Zimbabwe, are prone to behave in no way different to the very white capitalist class they seek to replace as they usurp economic control hiding under nationalisation or the misguided broad-based economic empowerment platform."

World Cup Losers

Socialist Banner makes no apologies for drawing attention yet again to the wasteful World Cup jamboree.
South Africa , a land of fabulous wealth, with 90% of the world’s known platinum reserves, 80% of its manganese, 70% of its chrome and 40% of its gold, as well as rich coal deposits. Plans to develop a satellite programme (in co-operation with India and Brazil). Ten stadiums newly built or upgraded at a cost of 15 billion rand. Rachael Zulu, a 43 year-old mother of two, says there is no way she could afford to buy a ticket to see the national side ''Bafana, Bafana'' play at any of the new stadiums. ''I don't know of anybody living here who is going to the World Cup; we are all poor .I don't know of anybody living here who is going to the World Cup; we are all poor,'' she says. In 2008 three-quarters of South Africans had incomes below 50,000 rand a year (83% were black ) – Only 0.6% of South Africans earned over 750,000 rand, (of whom three-quarters were white and 16% ,or about 30,000 individuals, black)
Rampant corruption and patronage throughout the public sector;
the world’s highest unemployment rate, with more than one in three out of work;
one in eight of the population infected with HIV/AIDS; public hospitals described as “death traps” by their own health minister;
80% of schools deemed dysfunctional;
terrible drug and alcohol abuse;
One in five teenagers aged 15-17 had tried to commit suicide
a crumbling infrastructure; lethal roads.
40% of the population still lives on less than $2 a day.
Although the world’s 24th-biggest economy, South Africa ranks 129th out of 182 on the UN’s Human Development Index (and 12th in Africa).

50 murders, 100 rapes, 330 armed robberies and 550 violent assaults are recorded every day. South Africa now has 300,000 private security guards, almost double the number of police. “We are scared to the point where we are no longer free.” Max Price, the vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, said after the murder in March of yet another member of the university’s staff: “We no longer trust strangers and we hate what we have become.”

The South African Freedom Day

South Africans mark Freedom Day on Tuesday and South Africa still has a lot to achieve before all South Africans are really free, the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Monday.

"We cannot ignore the 58 percent of South Africans who live in poverty, who cannot really benefit from political freedom as they face a daily struggle to survive," spokesman Patrick Craven said in a statement.He said massive inequality had made South Africa the most unequal society in the world."Such inequality mocks our struggle to build a free, fair and equitable society. Neither can we celebrate freedom when our society is scarred by such high levels of crime and corruption."

He said there was a continued restructuring of the working class into a two-tier labour market.

"We suffer from the gross exploitation of workers, as capitalists seek new ways to enrich themselves at the expense of the working class and dodge around the labour laws." He explained that the first layer of workers enjoyed most of the rights contained in the constitution."They are covered by collective bargaining and enjoy better work security and better pay."

The second layer was of super-exploited workers without any rights or freedoms."For them, joining a union is a personal risk and upward job mobility is an illusion. It is a large and growing army of workers employed in low-paid, temporary, casualised jobs or employed through the enslaving labour broking system."

"The black working class, despite government provision of thousands of new houses, are still located far away from workplaces, forcing workers to spend a lot of the little wages they receive on ever-rising transport costs."

Workers bore the brunt of the recent capitalist crisis, caused by the greed of capital.In the first nine months of 2009 the country lost 959 000 jobs.

Craven said the only way for workers, their families and communities to win real and total freedom was for them to get organised in strong, fighting trade unions.And while Socialist Banner fully supports the efforts of the working class to unionize and resist the encroachments of capitalism , we need to heed the observations of Karl Marx and qualify the limits of trade unionism . Socialist Banner reminds the South African worker that only socialism will bring true emancipation from wage slavery and free the working class from capitalist exploitation.

"...the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system! "

Black Empowerment - or - Crony Capitalism

The Economist carries an article on South Africa's Post-Apartheid policy of “black economic empowerment” (BEE).

Instead of redistributing wealth and positions to the black majority, it has resulted mainly in “a few individuals benefiting a lot,” President Jacob Zuma says.The richest 4% of South Africans — a quarter of whom are black — now earn more than $80,000 a year, 100 times what most of their compatriots live on.

The idea of legislating for black economic empowerment was originally promoted by big white businessmen to ward off post-apartheid calls for nationalisation. If a few well-connected black people were given chunks of the action, big business would, they hoped, be left alone. In that sense, BEE has been a roaring success, as whites still own the bulk of the country’s wealth. Whites still hold three-quarters of senior jobs in private business whereas blacks have 12%, the exact reverse of their share in the working population. Among the 295 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), blacks account for just 4% of chief executive officers, 2% of chief financial officers and 15% of other senior posts. In non-executive ones, they do a bit better, accounting for just over a quarter of board chairmen and 36% of directors.

White apartheid

We read of Coronation Park, in Krugersdorp west of Johannesburg, a leafy former caravan site beside a water reservoir and a public picnic park frequented by middle-class families at weekends.Ringed by yellow-brown hills of earth dug up by generations of gold miners, the park was used by the British as a concentration camp for Afrikaners during the Anglo-Boer war at the start of the 20th century. Now it's home to some 400 white squatters living in cramped tents and caravans and sharing a single ablution block.. The local council cut electricity to the camp after failing to evict the white squatters. The council wanted to develop the area into a wide screen viewing area for soccer matches ahead of the soccer World Cup, which South Africa hosts in June and July.

At least 450,000 white South Africans, 10 percent of the total white population, live below the poverty line and 100,000 are struggling just to survive, according to civil organisations and largely white trade union Solidarity.

White poverty in South Africa is a politically sensitive subject that gets little attention, but it is not new.The weakest and least educated whites were protected by the civil service and state-owned industries operating as job-creation schemes, guaranteeing even the poorest whites a home and livelihood. But with that economic safety net now gone, South Africa's unskilled whites find themselves on the wrong side of history, gaining little sympathy from those who perceive them as having profited unfairly during the brutal apartheid years.Formerly comfortable Afrikaners recently forced to live on the fringes of society see themselves as victims of "reverse-apartheid". South African President Jacob Zuma visited a white squatter camp near the capital Pretoria last year ahead of his election, saying he was "shocked and surprised...The vast number in black poverty does not mean we must ignore white poverty."

Child poverty alongside "Youth" riches

A new OECD working paper on trends in poverty and income inequality in South Africa has found that more than half of all South Africans (54%) are poor but, among children below 10, as many as two out of three are poor. "This implies that among all poor South Africans, one in three is a child," said the OECD.


The national poverty line of 515 rand a month, or about US$4 a day, which is used for national policy making. International comparisons of lower-income countries often use the World Bank poverty line which is US$2 a day. Under this lower line, the aggregate poverty rate in South Africa is 30% but if the standard OECD poverty line, which is below half the average income, the poverty rate is 26%.

The report, based on the most recent information on incomes available, for the year 2008, indicated that South Africa's levels of income inequality and income poverty did not decrease between 1993 and 2008. According to some estimates, aggregate inequality even slightly increased. Inequality between racial groups decreased, especially during the 1990s. This did, however, not lead to a decrease in the aggregate because inequality within population groups increased, especially among Africans.Rising inequality within the labour market - higher unemployment and greater wage inequality - lies behind the increased levels of inequality.

"Poverty has increased, especially in urban areas...Race-based redistribution may therefore become less effective over time relative to policies addressing increasing inequality within each racial group and especially within the African group."

While at the same time we read that Julius Malema , head of South Africa's ANC youth league , has been accused of making 130m rand (£11m or $17m) from state contracts since 2008.He reportedly used some of his earnings to buy two lavish homes and three luxury cars, including an Aston Martin.
Malema has always presented himself as someone who understands poverty, because his mother was a single parent who worked as a cleaning lady in rural Limpopo.

Black Diamonds of South Africa

Once again , Socialist Banner demonstrates for fundamental change to our lives it has to be the system that we change and not just only swapping our the rulers around .

We read the poor represented 72 percent of the population of South Africa in the last year of apartheid in 1993. It now stands at 70 percent.

According to the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, seven out of 10 South Africans are poor, if the upper poverty line of R949 per person per month is used.Using the lower poverty line of R515 a month, there were about 22 million poor people in South Africa in 1993 and this rose to 26 million in 2008.

The report, titled Recession and Recovery produced by the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation said social assistance grants over the past 15 years "has done little to reduce inequality". Last year South Africa overtook Brazil as the country with the biggest gap between rich and poor.

Agnes Ntnluli said: "Now we are free but we are not happy ... we have no jobs, we are hungry"

“Before [in the apartheid days] the pass laws were a problem. Then they would have bulldozed us away...now they just leave us here with nothing, just stinking toilets,” said Beauty Busisiwe Kubheka.

The new black middle class hang out in trendy coffee bars and restaurants. These “black diamonds” are the most visible sign of capitalism's progress.
“They are the new generation. They look down on us. We were just foot soldiers in the liberation struggle and have not really benefited... ” Benjamin Mabala said.

Azar Jammine, the Econometrix chief economist, notes that South Africa remained one of the most unequal societies in the world. Citing Bureau for Market Research figures,75 percent of South Africa's population earned less than R4,000 a month while 4 percent earned more than R60,000.
He believed that growing inequality - fuelled by the upper income earners regularly increasing their incomes by up to 50 percent a year - appeared to "have exacerbated the crime rate" as the destitute turned to crime to survive.

“I remember when Mandela came to Soweto after leaving prison to give a speech. The place was crazy. Everybody believed a new world was coming. Now, we are very much disappointed. They don’t meet our needs. When it rains the shack leaks. It is worse than before, though now they say we have freedom of expression” Mrs Kubheka said.

Just having the vote and an end of racist laws do not make people free.

A former Robben Island prisoner, Mzi Khumalo, took over a major company, JCI , and he was asked whether he would be sympathetic to the unions. "I have spoken to the unions at JCI and made it clear: we are here to run a business. I'm not for any of this brotherhood stuff." Guardian, 22 April 1999.

free access in Soweto

In Soweto more than half of the residents now get their power for free. They are helped in part by the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC) - a group of electricians who believe it is the people's right to have free power.The SECC pride themselves on maintaining safety standards at least as good as the power company.

"We are fighting for what the government said in 1994 [the first democratic elections].People shall have all the resources free of charge. Water, electricity, schooling and health. After we have voted for them they have changed...We are giving back what belongs to the people." says one of the crusading electricians .

Socialist Banner advocates that free access should be available for all a person's needs , food clothing and shelter .

world cup blues

We read that SOUTH AFRICA'S 2010 World Cup looms in less than a year now at a cost to the host government and FIFA, world football's governing body, of at least £4 billion. When the month-long football fest is over, South Africans will be left with 10 magnificent state-of-the-art stadiums.
Stephen Maseko lives in a corrugated iron and mud shack without electricity, running water or a toilet in the shadow of Mbombela Stadium. He knows his home will be demolished before the stadium hosts the first of its four World Cup matches. "I find it difficult to feel proud that we are hosting this World Cup," he said. "To tell you the truth, I do not have time to think about football. My worries are greater."
The 46,000-seat, billion-rand (£74 million) Mbombela Stadium, bristling with 21st-century technology and supported by 18 giant pylons resembling giraffes, was built on 118 hectares of ancestral land from which the Matsafeni, a Swazi tribal clan, were forcibly removed and offered compensation of just one rand, or 7 pence sterling (raised to 8.7m rand, or £655,000, after a series of prolonged court cases).
Pretoria high court judge Ntendeya Mavundla told Mbombela's African National Congress-dominated council that its treatment of the Matsafeni was not much different from that of "colonialists who usurped land from naïve Africans in return for shiny buttons and mirrors."
When the ANC speaker of the Mbombela Council, 44-year-old Jimmy Mohlala, blew the whistle on a 40m rand (£3m) scam between his fellow ANC councillors and the stadium's commercial developers, senior ANC politicians demanded his resignation.
Mohlala refused to step down and was subsequently shot dead by masked gunmen at his home. His assassins have not been caught and police have not investigated the fraud.

Some 70,000 labourers working on the 2010 stadiums, and other World Cup infrastructure such as the new futuristic railway system with British-built engines and carriages, between Johannesburg Airport and the city centre, went on strike last month for better wages. Some labourers on 2010 projects were earning as little as 800 rand (£60) a month. Mildred Mpundu, a single mother of four, was earning 2000 rand (£150) a month with overtime as a labourer at Johannesburg's Soccer City, where the opening and final World Cup matches will be held. Mildred said she could only give her family meat on Sundays, and she added: "People will come to the stadium and think it is very nice. They won't even know that the people who built it can't afford to go inside."
Union official Lesiba Seshoga, who oversaw negotiations at Cape Town's Green Point, Durban's Moses Madhiba and Port Elizabeth's Nelson Mandela stadiums, said:"These workers are not going to benefit from the World Cup in that none of them will be able to afford to watch a game."

Andile Mngxitama, a columnist for the mass circulation Sowetan daily newspaper, said he fears the 2010 World Cup will turn South Africa into a big fun park, with foreign visitors enjoying levels of comfort, safety and security that ordinary people can only dream of. "When the tournament is over," Mngxitama continued, "we will be sitting with major world-class stadiums in a country that can't feed or educate its people. The truth is we don't need the World Cup. Politicians and their connections need it."

Better Under Apartheid???

From our SPGB blog :-

"My life was better during apartheid," says Vincent Ntswayi, who held a steady job in Johannesburg during white rule but has only been intermittently employed since. "Freedom turned out to be just a word. Real freedom, real power, that comes from money — and I haven't got any money."

Let us be clear: Socialists were pleased to see the demise of apartheid in South Africa but warned at the time that capitalism with its attendant 'problems' including bad housing, inadequate health care, cheap schooling, unemployment, poor transport, police brutality, and pollution would continue.
But, later this month - some 19 years after the release of Mandela - workers will have the opportunity to vote in South Africa's parliamentary and presidential elections. The result is already known: they won, we lost.
Mass murderer Mbeki is no longer seeking to represent the capitalist class and is likely to be replaced in this role by Zuma, whose alleged background in corruption, fraud, money laundering and racketeering should serve him and those he represents well. The equally odious and corrupt 'Mother of the Nation' Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, is almost certain to be elected too.

Thus the rich will stay rich and the poor stay poor in the land of rape and money.

he who pays the piper calls the tune

The new ANC government in South Africa agreed to spend a controversial £1.6bn buying fleets of Hawk and Gripen warplanes. Critics said the country, beset by unemployment and HIV/Aids, could not afford it. The Hawks, rejected by the military, cost twice as much as Italian equivalents. But the then South African defence minister Joe Modise and a key official, Chippy Shaik, insisted on the purchase.

Leaked evidence from South African police and the British Serious Fraud Office quotes a BAE agent recommending "financially incentivising" politicians.

A lengthy affidavit from the SFO in London accuses BAE of "covert" behaviour and of withholding information. SFO principal investigator Gary Murphy says in the affidavit, sworn on October 9: "I believe that BAE have sought to conceal from the SFO the involvement of [Joe Modise aide] Fana Hlongwane." BAE is also alleged to have drawn up an untruthful "line" about Hlongwane for its press office in 2003. A seized document says that if asked if BAE had ever had any relationship with Hlongwane, it was to say: "No, never - we knew him only as a member of the minister's entourage." It is alleged that in fact, the company was paying him millions of pounds, through a variety of secret routes.

In all , More than £100m was secretly paid by the arms company BAE to sell warplanes to South Africa according to the Guardian

Politics of Poverty

It has come to pass that many countries in Africa that have adopted the 50 percent plus one presidential vote (Constitutions) are being engulfed in political instabilities whenever the political opposition fails to win an outright majority. We saw this happening in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Presidential elections in Africa are conducted under corrupt means—vast amounts of tax payers’ money are wasted in order to dupe the voters. Political hooligans and thugs are employed to woo the voters. Ethnic and tribal loyalties are manipulated during general elections.

The judiciary and electoral commissions cannot be trusted enough (transparent) by the political opposition and the Western election observers. The infighting, tensions anddivisions inside the ANC may only help to highlight the gullibility of politicaltransparency in South Africa. The judiciary feels that Jacob Zumu must face seriouscriminal offences, whereas the ANC supporters and COSATU believe the judiciary is playing games.

The recent outbreaks of xenophobia attacks against foreigners is not a surprise to theWSM—indigenous blacks in South Africa are living under difficult times.Unemployment and urban poverty are on the increase in South Africa.

It is a fact that South Africa is a relatively developed country, but it is surprising tonote that indigenous blacks are experiencing the vicissitudes of urban poverty and squalor.

Economic development brings with it unforeseen social and economic problems.Economic and social reforms are everywhere failing to bridge the gap between the rich and poor. Social uprisings, student riots and ethnic protests have come to epitomise the character of political consciousness in less developed countries.

It is quite evident that the dilemma of land distribution (indiginisation) is so rife in Africa where globalisation has entailed the massive exploitation of idle natural resources (oil and mineral reserves). The recent increase in oil and food prices combined with the so-called “credit crunch” has led many African countries to experiment with the production of biofuels. The production of wheat and sugar cane to make biofuels will be a death sentence in Africa in the sense that it will mean sacrificing the lives of innocent poor workers and peasants who are already experiencing hunger and poverty. Nobody can deny the fact that global warming is taking place in Africa, but what is difficult to accept is whether African political statesmen have the ability and ingenuity to weight the scientific arguments being propounded to arrest the effect of global warming on economic development as such.

The dilemma of income inequality is generally greater in Africa compared with western Europe. Extreme poverty engenders widespread hunger, malnutrition, lack of clean water, death from preventable diseases, inadequate shelter, illiteracy and other less obvious inequalities. The poor have no bargaining power—they have no importance among foreign governments and corporations. A world of free access for all and common ownership is the only way to eliminate poverty.

K. MULENGA, Zambia

Black and White Unite

The head of South Africa's governing African National Congress, Jacob Zuma, has said he is shocked and embarrassed about white poverty in the country. Mr Zuma was speaking after visiting the Bethlehem township near the capital, Pretoria, where white families live without running water or electricity.
A new report by the charity, which helps poor white communities, says more than 130,000 white people in South Africa are homeless. South Africa's Helping Hand says the number of homeless white people has increased by 58% since 2002.

The trade union Solidarity, whose membership is mainly white said "For a long time whites have been seen as rich and and blacks poor... Talking about white poverty has been seen as politically incorrect. The emergence of this scourge has left everyone looking for answers."

Well the answer has always been socialism . Not the ANC version of what they believed socialism is and what they then jettisoned but the socialism which means "the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex."

The hate and distrust that exists in society today is a direct result of the nature of societies past and present. A society in which we must compete to survive, in which our jobs are threatened by other workers, in which we do not feel secure, is fertile breeding ground for racism, sexism, nationalism and all the other hatreds that abound.

Even today, while this hatred is sometimes used to pit one worker against another, it appears that overall, these hatreds are being rooted out and made socially unacceptable. This is particularly noticeable in countries like South Africa where there is a shortage of white workers, and black workers must be brought into previously "white" workplaces without the major disruption that is caused by overt racism.

No society can meet our human needs as long as there are different classes of people. Every person has abilities that differentiate them from others, but we are all equal in our humanity. We all have strengths and weaknesses. What we need is a society that allows us to use our strengths, and that accepts and accommodates our weaknesses.

Socialism will be a society geared to meeting human needs, and the need to be accepted for what we are is probably the most basic of human needs. When the breeding ground for these hatreds has disappeared, people will naturally be able to eradicate them with all the other negative leftovers of capitalism.

a better life for all

"We don't have houses, we don't have jobs, we don't have anything," said Cyril Mthembu, a 42-year-old unemployed father of three who has lived in Alexandra for 28 years. "So, we are fighting over the little we have."

When apartheid ended in 1994, Mbeki's African National Congress estimated it needed 3 million homes. Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu told parliament earlier this year 2.6 million homes had been built since 1994. But with population growth, migration to the cities and other factors, the housing backlog stands at 2.1 million.Sisulu's department has said it needs to double the rate at which it is delivering homes if it is to reach the goal of ensuring all South Africans — native and newly arrived — have adequate housing by 2024. But the department acknowledges it lacks technical and management skills and that it has been plagued by supply shortages and poor construction.

The frustration among poor blacks has played out in attacks against foreigners, who often end up in squatter camps in Alexandra and elsewhere. South Africa draws immigrants from war-torn Somalia, from Zimbabwe with its political and economic chaos and from Nigeria, where corruption and military rule have blocked growth.The anger has also led to riots over the lack of electricity and running water, and complaints that the houses the government has managed to build are shoddy.

In South Africa, most blacks are the product of an apartheid system meant to ensure they did not gain the skills to compete with whites, with black schools under-equipped and staffed with teachers who in some cases had not finished school themselves. The post-apartheid government has not done enough to reverse that legacy, Gelb , an economist at Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand, said.

"What people are looking for is not a handout, but something that points the way to the future," Gelb said.

Mbeki is credited with spurring growth in South Africa with free market policies, but the boom has yet to trickle down. Unemployment is more than 20 percent, and now a downturn due in part to rising global food and fuel prices — and a dire electricity shortage resulting from poor government planning — will make it even harder to deliver.After several years of growth of about 5 percent, the International Monetary Fund predicts growth this year for South Africa at just 3.8 percent, and cautions even that may be too optimistic.

The "better life for all" the African National Congress promised during the campaign for South Africa's first all-race election 14 years ago was the same promise that capitalism all over the world promises in its attempts to delude workers - a promise rarely fulfilled and invariably broken .

Poverty knows no colour

"The problem of white poverty is a silent problem..." Flip Buys, general secretary of Solidarity said "...but it's not politically correct to talk about white poverty. We must break the silence, because poverty knows no color."

About 9 percent of South Africa's 48 million people are white. Solidarity, a union whose base is among white workers, estimates about 13 percent of working-class whites — some 247,000 people — earn less than 1,600 rand (about $200) a month.

Bethlehem , a collection of wooden shacks on the outskirts of the capital , has no electricity, running water or sewer service, and the people there eke out a meager living by selling vegetables they grow near their shacks.Such squalor was common for blacks under apartheid, and the vast majority of South African blacks still struggle to get by. But, while it is rarely discussed, white poverty is not new — Zuma told the Bethlehem residents he knew poor whites growing up in a working-class family in Durban.

Jackie Nel, a 53-year-old former government clerk who has been living in the settlement for a year, said there isn't any difference between black and white poverty.
"The whole of South Africa is struggling. The prices of food, petrol, kerosene are too high. Can't they (government officials) bring them down a little?" Nel , said.
Susie van Niekerk, a 73-year-old retired nurse who uses a wheelchair and has been living in Bethlehem since September, said she sometimes feels the plight of whites is ignored. But, she said, the government needs to do more "not only for white people, but for black people, too."

Solidarity

South African mine workers are starting a one-day strike in protest at poor safety in the country's mines. About 240,000 workers are to take part in the 24-hour stoppage, the first countrywide strike by miners. About 40,000 workers are expected to join a protest march in Johannesburg .

"Workers are saying enough is enough. Safety is needed now," said Erick Gcilitshana, the health and safety head of the National Union of Mineworkers, which is organising the strike.

"Our safety records both as a company and a country leave much to be desired." Harmony Gold mine executive Patrice Motsepe has said

More than 180 workers have been killed this year in the country's mines, with another two dying in recent days, slightly fewer than 200 deaths in 2006. In October, more than 3,000 miners were trapped a mile underground at a Harmony Gold mine.

South Africa's Business Day newspaper, in an opinion piece, said mine supervisors "remain hostile to the introduction of new safety values into a traditionally conservative environment."

Yet the average miner still earns only $US500 per month. Fourteen years after the end of white rule, miners are still the poorest paid workers of the industrial sector.

The Market NOT Needs

Heavily armed police officers in trucks then moved in and as tensions escalated officers fired rubber bullets and stun grenades to try to disperse hundreds of residents refusing to move from their shacks near South Africa's capital , according to the BBC .

The residents of Diepsloot near Pretoria say they would prefer better houses and clean water where they already live. In recent months, the country has been hit by a number of such demonstrations over a lack of new homes and services. The residents in Diepsloot, like in several other black townships across the country, are deeply unhappy with their living conditions.

An estimated 7.5 million lack access to adequate housing .

Elsewhere

Thousands of the poorest residents in Cape Town, South Africa, are facing eviction from an informal settlement to make way for a government housing project , according to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs .

About 20,000 residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement near Langa, a township about 15km from Cape Town along the N2, the main access road to and from the airport, are opposing their forced removal to Delft, about 20km northeast of the city, because they say it would reduce their standard of living further and make it difficult and more expensive to travel to the city for work.

"In May of last year we were all told we had to move to Delft because the government was going to build us affordable houses where our shacks were. But these new houses will be bonded and rented houses and people must earn between R3,500 (US$500) and R7,000 (US$1,000) per month to qualify to get a home. Most people who live in Joe Slovo earn less than R1,500 (US$214) per month, so they are automatically excluded: they are evicting the poorest people in society as part of their plans to eradicate informal settlements and waiting lists [for low-cost housing]," explained the co-ordinator of Joe Slovo's anti-eviction task team, Mzwanele Zulu

Members of the Joe Slovo anti-eviction task team believe the real reason behind the government's about-turn on providing the poor with affordable housing is the booming property market. Cape Town's property prices are among the highest in the country because the city is an international tourist destination, which has resulted in an influx of foreign investors paying high prices for housing, often well beyond what most South Africans can afford. The land occupied by some of the city's informal settlements has become extremely valuable in recent times and, rather than make it available to the country's poorest residents, politicians and the private sector want to cash in on its potential, said anti-eviction task team co-ordinator Zulu.

"The bonded houses in the N2 Gateway project will cost between R150,000 (US$21,500) and R250,000 (US$35,700) and private sector banks will make loans available to people who can afford the repayments - which is not the residents of Joe Slovo."