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Recent articles by Leroy Maisiri
Crisis within Crisis, Zimbabwe Feb 07 17 In the ANC’s battle of factions there are no superheroes Nov 05 16 Where to now, Zimbabwe? Beyond the “good” charismatic pastor. Sep 25 16 Worker-Student Alliances: Anarchist Approach Needed southern africa |
miscellaneous |
opinion / analysis
 Sunday October 30, 2016 01:39 by Leroy Maisiri - Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) zacf at riseup dot net
 First published in “South African Labour Bulletin”, volume 40, number 4, pp. 39-40 Recent worker-student alliances and activities are lacking in an anarchist/syndicalist approach which focuses on ‘people’s power’ and ‘worker control’. Such an approach is important for radical transformation, writes Leroy Maisiri.
Worker-Student Alliances: Anarchist Approach Neededby Leroy Maisiri, Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF)First published in “South African Labour Bulletin”, volume 40, number 4, pp. 39-40. After 20 years of neo-liberal democracy, South Africa has not truly begun the much-needed purge of race and class structural inequalities and constraints inherited from apartheid South Africa. Many university campuses across the country, since 2015, have been set alight by the actions of a non-compromising body of students. This political wildfire has moved from campus to campus, for a range of reasons: one thing remains central, that tomorrow’s future is shaped by today’s youth, restlessly tackling the structures and impediments that stand in their way. But what is missing however is a working-class focus and an anarchist/ syndicalist approach, a lesson well-taught by the “people’s power” and “workers’ control” initiatives in radical sector of the 1980s anti-apartheid movement. Bursaries and “decolonisation”Earlier in 2015, before and during academic registrations, the Tshwane University of Technology and Walter Sisulu University faced protests around student funding (Makoni, 2015), as did the University of the Witwatersrand, around problems in the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) (Bolowana & Pillay, 2015). At the University of Cape Town (UCT), by contrast, demands centred on racial justice, framed as “decolonisation,” with controversy around a Cecil John Rhodes statue tied to bigger transformation issues (News24, 2015). These struggles sparked protests and a weeks-long occupation of administration buildings at Rhodes University (Maisiri, 2015). Followed by the “open Stellenbosch” protests raised racism and language issues (Petersen, 2015). And most recently the rape protests.Learning from 1976, 1984But, as shown in the 1976 revolts, where black students led a fight against racism and exclusion, and the narrow opportunities to those from black working class homes (Maponyane, 2014), students have limited power. The 1976 revolt, and the big battles of the 1980s, showed the need to move from separate struggles, into involving the organised working class, to fight against all forms of oppression and a radical transformation of the whole society (The Worker-Tenant, 1984: 29). By “working class”, I mean the term as defined by anarchists: those who, not owning or controlling means of administration, coercion or production, work for those who control such means. This includes workers plus their families including the unemployed.Neo-liberalismIt also requires locating struggles against racial injustice in fights against neo-liberalism, Universities are increasingly turned into another arm of capitalistic accumulation, designed to exploit to take more than they give. Ever-rising fees make lecture theatres fortresses of privatised knowledge, entry being completely dependent on the class into which you are born, the education you can afford. Facilities are staffed by armies of precarious, contract and outsourced workers, struggling to survive and excluded from university education.The major victim of the neo-liberal restructuring of the university is the black working class, both working class students and campus workers. There is a direct capitalist and state attack on the working class, not clearly captured by “decolonisation” discourse. In “Class Rule Must Fall! More Statues, More Working Class” (Maisiri, 2015), I point out that universities play a leading role in the continued existence of class system, producing and reproducing privileged classes. Class struggle and classroomsTherefore, the campus space is an arena where the class system and class question must be confronted. The question then becomes: how?First, student protests must develop a strategy linked to the working class. But this, as in 1976 and 1983, must involve a much more accurate critique of the enemy. In the 1980s, this meant locating the fight against racist education in a fight against the apartheid state and racial-capitalism, including the peripheral Fordist system. This also means understanding the problems cannot be solved by symbolic changes, or changing the composition of elite classes – it requires removing the class system, and a new, libertarian, self-managed socialist order. This analysis must be carried over to the black-led state of the African National Congress (ANC), whose neo-liberal policies, capitalism and elite enrichment. In “Who Rules South Africa” (2013:4), [Lucien] van der Walt argues that the current state is in fact “an obstacle to the full [national and class] emancipation of the working class.” This state is protected by nationalist ideology, which denies the class question and which cannot – as clearly shown in twenty years – solve the social problems. This is quite evident in the way the ruling party pushed back the responsibility of free education back to the universities washing its hands clean of a problem, a problem that is structurally rooted in Neo Liberal policies. Working class names, symbolsRenaming universities after nationalists is problematic, as nationalism has helped take us into the current crisis, and as nationalists have a “pro-capitalist, pro-statist political agenda”, (Maisiri, 2015). Rather this paper argues for a left/working class iconography: in placing the working class at the forefront to forge a new path, and moving off the nationalist dead-end, let us make working class symbols and ideas and struggles central to transformation.ConclusionAgitate for a “workers’ and peoples’ scientific university,” not a capitalist or nationalist one. It is not enough to protest about fees and statues and curricula unless we fight the framework defended by a state that sends black working class police men to kill black miners. We must take from the play book of the 1980’s and organise for a worker student alliance. The universities seem to be taking their ques from old regimes relying on police and interdicts. We must then push back against all forms of oppression, a worker student alliance against outsourcing, privatisation of education and against the bureaucratic hand that stretches all the way back to the shoulders of the state.BIBLIOGRAPHY Bolowana, A & Pillay, G. (21 Jan, 2015). “Wits Students Threaten Protest Action over NFSAS Funds”. SABC News. Maisiri, L. (2015). “Class Rule Must Fall! More Statues, More Working Class”. Zabalaza: A Journal of Southern African Revolutionary Anarchism, number 14. Makoni, M. (12 February 2015). “Students Run Riot at Campuses over Funding”. University World News. Maponyane, B. (2014). “The 1976 Struggle and the Emancipation of the Future”. Tokologo: Newsletter of the Tokologo African Anarchist Collective”, number 4. News24. (19 March 2015). “UCT Students to Protest Over Racial Transformation”. Petersen, T. (27 July 2015). “Students Protest in Stellenbosch over Language”. News24. Worker-Tenant, The. (1984). “Student Struggle in Perspective”. Number 3. Van der Walt, L. (2013). “Who Rules South Africa? An Anarchist/Syndicalist Analysis of the ANC, the Post-Apartheid Elite Pact and the Political Implications”. Zabalaza: A Journal of Southern African Revolutionary Anarchism, number 13.
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Once again we, the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF), have to defend our political tradition from bourgeois politicians, this time on both sides of the ANC split, and explain to them what exactly is meant by a term that they throw about without actually knowing its meaning.
South Africa is said to have one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. It enshrines the rights of every person, of every background, from workers and immigrants to women and homosexuals. As such you would think that, especially for people from oppressed groups, South Africa would be a safe haven.
Bribery and extortion of the piblic police and other officials is to fund the Zimbabwean state. The regime destroyed any healthy form of industry and severely cut itself from its financial feeding source. Now they have employed police, city council and Zimra to become state fund-raisers ticketing for almost everything a citizen is supposed to receive from the state but the state cannot provide.
The battle between Pravin Gordhan and Jacob Zuma has been presented along the lines of a superhero comic. Gordhan, the hero, is portrayed as the last defence against the rampaging villain, vile Zuma. And like all superhero tales Gordhan the good appears to be gaining the upper hand over Zuma the bad – especially since corruption charges have been dropped and the damning Public Protector’s report on state capture has been released.
Across the political spectrum, individuals and organisations have been expressing their disgust and shock that a faction – indeed a single family, the Guptas – have ‘captured’ the state. Consequently, there have been calls for state ‘capture’ to be ended though firing Zuma.
Many in the working class hope the 2016 local government elections will prove a turning point. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) won the 2014 elections easily, but its grip is weakening. The ANC-allied Congress of SA Trade Unions (COSATU) has split, the radical metal union NUMSA expelled. The ANC could even lose control of at least one of giant "metro" municipality in 2016, possibly greater Johannesburg or Nelson Mandela Bay - probably to the moderate Democratic Alliance (DA), not the ANC breakaway, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
NOTE: Heritage Day is a post-apartheid South African national holiday; unlike most, it has no clear link to major struggles in the past, although there are efforts to position it as a more “political” day. The talk below was given by Lucien van der Walt at an event organised by Sakhaluntu Cultural Group in Grahamstown, for black youth. Thank you all for coming. Thank you, chair, for the invitation. Thank you, organisers, for the event today. Today looks like a great day, a great day to look forward. But before we look forward, we must look back as well. Unless you know where you come from, you will never know where you can go. more >>
Once again we, the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF), have to defend our political tradition from bourgeois politicians, this time on both sides of the ANC split, and explain to them what exactly is meant by a term that they throw about without actually knowing its meaning.
South Africa is said to have one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. It enshrines the rights of every person, of every background, from workers and immigrants to women and homosexuals. As such you would think that, especially for people from oppressed groups, South Africa would be a safe haven. |
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