South Africa and the changing possibilities for the Left

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The demise of COSATU, the failure of the “NUMSA moment” and the emergence of a new movement 

https://www.pambazuka.org/democracy-governance/south-africa-and-changing-possibilities-left

With the claims that a new trade union federation will be launched in March 2017, it is appropriate to draw up a balance sheet of the labour movement in South Africa, and ask whether the optimism of many that a new Left force is going to be unleashed is justified. Or whether the possibilities for a force of revolutionary working class politics lie elsewhere.

With the claims that a new trade union federation will be launched in March 2017, it is appropriate to draw up a balance sheet of the labour movement in South Africa, and ask whether the optimism of many that a new Left force is going to be unleashed is justified. Or whether the possibilities for a force of revolutionary working class politics lie elsewhere.

The period framed by the Marikana massacre of August 2012 and the December 2013 Special Congress of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) – a congress in which the union formally broke with the African National Congress’ (ANC) Tripartite Alliance – was one in which, so it seemed, a political rupture occurred. Marikana represented the end of the old anti-apartheid movement and NUMSA’s political break seemed to prefigure the rise of a Left project anchored on the largest trade union in South Africa. NUMSA’s resolutions of a United Front, a Movement for Socialism and even the possibilities of a Workers’ Party seemed to promise so much that its political break was dubbed “the NUMSA Moment”- signaling a new politics, much like the 1973 Durban strikes. Its aftermath was dubbed the “Durban Moment” as it appeared to be a break with a left politics defined by the then ANC’s political mix of national liberation based on liberal constitutionalism and guerilla warfare and the South African Communist Party’s (SACP) sanctification of this under the two-stage “National Democratic Revolution” 

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Women’s cooperatives: A glimpse into Rojava’s economic model

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This article was first published here http://www.kurdishquestion.com/article/3809

Zahra Shexo bends over her sewing machine and meticulously, but expertly allows the course material to run through her fingers and under the pointed needle of the machine. The sound of over a dozen women’s laughter and conversation intermixes with the repetitive mechanical sounds of the sewing machines in the large room. The sewing room is a Kaleidoscope of different coloured materials, samples, threads and other necessary sewing items. Zahra is the current administrator of the textile cooperative Amargi in Kobane city.

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A New Vision or a New Reformism?

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This article was first published here http://www.anarkismo.net/article/29199

There is a new approach on the U.S. Left, which rejects both capitalism and state socialism. In several ways it resembles anarchism. It has been promoted by The Next System Project, and has been critiqued recently by Sam Gindin--who makes some insightful comments, but also demonstrates limitations. 

A new approach has been developing on the U.S. Left. It is neither liberal nor socialist as conventionally understood. It reacts against the failures of capitalism and wants to do away with capitalism as it currently exists. But it is also aware of the terrible failings of state socialism, either of social democratic governments or of the “Communist” totalitarian regimes (which were really state capitalist). Variants of this new approach bear some resemblance to historical anarchism, as well as differences. Conferences have been held, such as a series organized by The Next System Project. (I attended one such conference on March 10—12, 2016, in New York City.) Already counter-responses have been generated, such as by Gindin (2016). 

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FeesMustFall and the road ahead

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Vice chancellors, students from the South African Union of students (SAUS – the council representing all the Student Representative Councils) and various other political organisations and a number of “experts” and “researchers” opened the Commission of Inquiry into Higher Education and Training (the Fees Commission) almost a year after the protests that brought it into being had come into fruition.

The self-evident lack of urgency of the state is perhaps only matched by the attitude and posture of vice chancellors, particularly from elite campuses, who appear more concerned with telling us what they think is not possible and unstrategic than actually finding ways to walk alongside students whose interests they claim to be working on behalf of.

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