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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 20, 2017 9:28:28 GMT 3
Onyango Oloo's Marxist-Leninist Reflections on the December 2017 ANC Conference
Following the proceedings of the historic 54th Conference of the African National Congress taking place in Nasrec around Soweto via live South African television in Durban in Kwa Zulu Natal, I could not help but be fascinated by the level of sheer energy and sense of occasion shown by the largely youthful, eager mostly Black, gender mixed ANC delegates who had gathered in this part of Gauteng to elect the top six leaders of the party that has ruled South Africa through the ANC-SACP-COSATU alliance since the revered Nelson Mandela became the country's first democratically elected President on April 27, 1994.
This gathering was taking place against the backdrop of the series of severe scandals bedevilling the corrupt and discredited Jacob Zuma regime mired as it was in controversies like state capture, Nkandla, the pre-election violence in Kwa Zulu Natal and the Kenyan style of buying of voters. Coming as it did after the dramatic downfall of Robert Mugabe in neighbouring Zimbabwe and the state terrorism which marred the fixed Kenyan polls, the showdowns in the streets of Togo as well as the global at UN rejection of the Trump dunce like racist announcement that the American imperialists were solidifying Israeli Zionist apartheid by shamelessly transferring their embassy from Tel Aviv to heavily contested Jerusalem, the ANC conference was an event followed around the world for its national, regional and international geo-political and socio-economic implications.
The fact that Wall Street,London, Berlin, Peking, Brussels, New Delhi,Seoul, Tokyo,Rio de Janiero,Lagos, Nairobi and other capitalist markets were keenly following Narec with cataclysmic upsurges in the value of the rand versus the dollar, the euro, the yen, the yuan, the pound, the frank and other major currencies, commodities, futures and crypto-currencies was a testimony to the financial and global significance of what was unfolding in one of the most powerful countries on the African continent.
The major battle at the ANC get together was a tense two way face off between two ideologically opposed forces in South Africa: the comprador, neo-colonial, imperialist backed apparatchiks fighting tooth and nail for the survival of the hugely unpopular Zuma clique contending against the progressives forces in the resurgent, militant, radicalized, youthful working class and marginalized voices represented by the South African Communists, the COSATU rank and file, veterans of Umkhonto we Sizwe and ageing remnants of the decades long anti-apartheid campaigns still smarting over the setbacks of the disastrous defeats which saw ANC strongholds like Johannesburg Pretoria, Port Elizabeth and other areas cede ground to the reactionary elements of the pro-bourgeois, main opposition party DA and the wishy-washy populist demagogues of Malema's EFF hordes.
In terms of putting names to faces, it was a straight up wrestling match between the president's ex wife Nkosani Dlamini Zuma and his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa, the respected trade unionist who was short changed in the vicious politics by the right wing Thabo Mbeki in the palace games to create an heir for the iconic Nelson Mandela way back in the early nineties. Ramaphosa, a militant leader of the mine workers who rose to head the giant COSATU trade union confederation and who played a key role in the political transition of South Africa had left off in a huff from the liberation scene to amass a huge personal fortune making him one of the richest Black South Africans until his reputation was sullied in the horrific massacre of mine workers in the police shootings at Marikana in 2012 because of his role as a board member of corporation which ordered the security operation on the miners. But despite this fact Cyril Ramaphosa became the overwhelming choice of democratic and progressive South Africans after he was elevated to serve as deputy and Jacob Zuma's heir apparent in the president's second and last term. But as the head of state got deeper and deeper into shady deals to do with the shadowy and corrupt Indian business tycoon family of the Guptas who cynically abused their state connections to illegally acquire South African citizenship and use ordinary tax payers money to stage lavish private weddings and use their economic clout to control entities like DSTV,ESKOM,SABCand a slew of other parastatals, the clamour against the once popular Zuma heated up and the masses looking up to his deputy as a potential replacement. This was the context leading up to the 2017 ANC Conference.
As Zuma schemed to have his more educated high profile ex-wife to replace him when he exited from the limelight,revolutionary forces smelled a stinking rodent even as there was more buzz among the chattering classes about the President's involvement in a series of rape, corruption and other illegal activities which had the ignominy of seeing Zuma dragged to court much to the delight of satirists and cartoonists like Shapiro and the ruthless neo-liberal press.
Even before the 2016 municipal elections, a section of the country was actually hankering for the return of the cerebral Thabo Mbeki who had been hounded out of office in Polokwane when it was clear he was the chief architect of neo-colonialism on what was dubbed by the SACP as the 1996 Class Project, a blatant attempt to use the South African state to introduce a version of neo-liberalism to the country to use the government to kow tow to serve American, NATO and related imperialist stratagems.
Soon the ANC was riven by factionalism and frankly, near tribal rivalries which led to the rise of a DA with a Black face and demagogic leadership of wannabe millionaires in Malema's outfit. The nadir of these developments was the disastrous show in the 2016 municipal elections which saw the ANC lose power in Cape Town, Johannesburg and other urban areas which were formerly under its sway. The infighting within the ANC did not help matters as the people close to the President made an attempt to isolate the ruling party from its traditional allies in the South African Communist Party and the giant COSATU trade union confederation. The ruling party started losing veterans like Terror Lekota, Bantu Holomisa, Tokyo Sexwale and others who broke off to form other parties. In the meantime, a section of South Africa's educated middle-class were attracted to the liberal subterfuges of the DA and the right wing lobby-an opposition which openly started scheming for regime change,dreaming of a decline in the ANC's iron tight right electoral majority dominance. It did not help matters when Jacob Zuma reduced himself to the tawdry palace politics by throwing out former allies who helped him climbed to state power like the General Secretary of the South African Commununist Party Dr. Blade Nzimande who was unceremoniously sacked as South Africa's Higher Education Minister even though most accounts had given him a better than passing mark in the handling of the country's fractious education policies. This move, coming only months before the 2017 elections and following the rejection by COSATU of Zuma attending their functions caused a further strain in the tripartite alliance between the Communists and the trade union federation even as the SACP publicly said that the party would transcend the ANC's factional internal wrangles. But they made a show of welcoming Cyril Ramaphosa to address their 14th Congress after Blade's deputy Solly Mapaisa publicly castigated Zuma in the wake of an attempt by some goons to assassinate Solly.
It seemed as if the die was cast. The SACP and COSATU, in their usual Marxist-Leninist zeal started organising behind the scenes with the Communists making an unprecedented move by sponsoring a party candidate to go against the ANC in a minor electoral contest. The fact that SACP thanks to South Africa's electoral system managed to get some councillors was a big scare to the ruling party and a signal towards a further fallout in the the 2019 elections.
But looking at the positive outcome of the ANC December 2017 elections, that split may no longer be necessary.
Looking at the announcement of the election of the ANC's Big Six, one must see it as a victory for the Communists and the progressives.
In the first place, SACP insiders had intimated to this Kenyan writer that the party was firmly in the Ramaphosa camp and seriously feared that a victory for the NDZ slate as leading to the further erosion of the ANC's prestige, respect and dominance in the coming years. So the decisive win of Ramaphosa was first and foremost a victory for the SACP. Gwede Mantashe, who "graduated" from the Secretary General to the ANC Chair is a former Chair of the SACP and he serves in the Central Committee. Nevertheless, the fact that Blade Nzimande was voted out of the NEC could be an indication of a right-ward shift in the broader ANC against the SACP.In consolation though, quite a bulk of those in the South African Party's Central Committee were re-elected into the current ANC National Executive Committee.
If there was a Kenyan style hint of electoral night controversy it had to do with the choice of the ANC Secretary General. There was a complaint of some missing delegates especially since the "defeat" of the person widely expected to ascend to that position, former KZN heavyweight Senzo Mchunu, a member of the SACP who was edged out of power in the province by reactionary pro Zuma forces. This is a development which led, first of all, to a delay in the announcement of the final tally as some people demanded a recount. According to a press report: "African National Congress members who backed Senzo Mchunu to become ANC secretary general are questioning the final voting tally. Mchunu, the former KwaZulu-Natal ANC chairperson, lost to Free State chair Ace Magashule by 24 votes on Monday night. The position of secretary general is seen as the engine of the party's Luthuli House headquarters.Magashule received 2 360 votes while Mchunu received 2 336. There were eight abstentions and four spoilt votes.Supporters said the numbers do not add up, as the EleXion agency announced that 4708 of 4776 delegates voted."What happened to 68 votes?" one supporter asked via a WhatsApp message."
Another talking point had to do with the relatively poor showing of women in the top six with the ANC Women's League staging a press conference to complain about this for an organisation which has pledge to eradicate sexism and patriarchy from the ANC. But some feminists outside the organisation have pointed out that in fact the Women's League just focused on Zuma's ex-spouse ignoring to campaign for Baleka Mbete, who apart from being the ANC Chair and the Parliamentary Speaker actually was South Africa Deputy Presidentat some point. They also say that the women's league did nothing to push Lindiwe Sisulu who was gunning for Deputy President even though she is a daughter of the great Walter Sisulu and a widow of the late Kenyan born Marxist Leninist Prof. ROK Ajulu, she is a personality in her own right having served the government in various senior positions including being Minister for Defence at one point and being elected to the ANC's National Executive for decades since South Africa gained independence in the nineties. These feminists criticising the Women's League point out that the body was more obsessed with what the ANC Women's League could wring out of Nkosana Dlamini rather than promoting powerful figures like Baleka Mbete and Lindiwe Sisulu for leadership in the ANC-thus finding the women's body hypocritical in making the claim of marginalisation. This feminist critique was repeated on a South African TV show when I heard one of the panelists refer sarcastically to the ANC Women's League approach as the "Premier League Strategy" perhaps a take from one of the planks in the Nkosi Sokizana Dlamini platform.
Overall, the December 2017 ANC Conference was a good thing for Africans fighting for democracy. For Kenyans especially, it is good to note that the person very likely to be one of the most powerful individuals in the world counts the man we call the People's President as a personal friend.
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Post by jakaswanga on Dec 20, 2017 23:36:50 GMT 3
THE ARROGANT DISMISSAL OF JULIUS MALEMA IS BEL PORTINGER'SEver since Oloo hid behind anonymous proboard algorithms to censor Ayanda Mabulu, I have been wondering if the trenchant Jukwaa administrator is part of the doomed Bell Portinger crowd, and a Gupta brother's pawn! jukwaa.proboards.com/thread/9546/warning-proboards-moderator-jakaswangaMore about that now defunct crowd later. I remember the Old Jukwaa Oloo. He principally stood out to death, to defend Miguna Miguna's freedom of expression. And he did this even as his rank and file of mostly Luo divas threw tempers never seen before --indeed so vile were the tempers, that they are only comparable to the day the goddess Hera threw such a one. The event was the discovery that the Paramount Zeus had fathered a son, Herakles, with a mpango wa kando of the wily hips. High Olympos nearly came down that day I tell ya! I remember correctly, that on the day Miguna turned against his thereto benefactor, Amollo Tinga, and went on to publish a (rumored) literary assassination work against the person of the deity, the foundations of Jukwaa knocked like the walls of Jerusalem when the Lord's trumped blew --(in aid of his people!) Howbeit when yours truly posted Ayanda Mabulu's works depicting, interpreting in cocky fashion, super-stud Zuma's various exploits to the cost of national aspirations, including his anal assault on a suspiciously complicit Mandela, Onyango Oloo hit the censor button like he were some Mutawa sentry ----Saudi religious police, confronted with a serious PLAYBOY article featuring the atheism of Fidel Castro in a sea of female legs wide apart, revealing whatever it is usually hidden between! Oloo's collapse from the principled defence of freedom of expression, to a renegade extension of algorithmic and mechanical narrow mindedness, has brought me to the verge of agreeing with Jukwaaist Kamale, that Oloo is a chameleon! He cherrypicks --and I might add he does so with the neurotic self-indulgence of a show-diva, which attires do adorn on any particular day on Jukwaa! On South African days, I declare him, very Bell Portinger. He is totally blind to the IMPLICATIONS of the insane, insatiable cannibalism Jacob Zuma has, with BLESSINGS from the ENCAPSULATED communist and capitulated union aristocracy, managed to visit upon South Africa's liberation struggle. Zuma's banal predatory regime is of course a logical evolution from Thabo Mbeki's (cerebral  ) collaborationist free-marketeering fundamentalism. QUESTION: --why did not COSATU and SACP put their feet down for young Ramaphosa in the Mandela succession!? Here is Oloo What is that for clinical insight into one of the greatest coups in the African continent!? -how a brilliant, militant and highly persuasive Union leader was purged from top of the premier liberation movement set to dominate Africa's biggest economy then at a PIVOTAL moment! You want to come again Oloo!? Now, Ramaphosa is a safe pair of hands, aint he!? Millitant TU turned bilionare murderer of poor workers! That is the kind man fit to sing praises of!? That is just every other African presidential thief I say! billionare murderer of a people entrusted to him! What does the word traitor mean? and then CLASS TRAITOR to ML's!? Yet it is Julius Malema Oloo dismisses without even the courtesy of a full form of Malema's EFF. Hmmm Choke! ECONOMIC FIGHT FOR LAND REFORMATIONWatching the parliamentary performance of that UNNAMABLE outfit, Oloo's scorn is ill intentioned and, honestly, historically odd. Here is an introduction to Julius Malema, before the EFF, which Oloo wouldn't dare name. --Economic Freedom Fight. LAND REFORM! Marxist Lennist comrade Robert Mugabe only remembered the significance of land reform in the liberation story, when he was a desperate old hog, his future to the hogs! My debating club is opening bets: The afro pessimists say: The ANC is just another KANU, MPLA, ZAPU-PF!A comprador gangster outfit! Give me Ayanda Mabulu's blasphemy any day! A clinical visitation of reality. No cobwebs in sight! I will be back!
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 22, 2017 10:44:57 GMT 3
Jakswanga:
Thanks for your incendiary comments.
I appreciate your remarks even as I DISAGREE with the gist of what you are saying.
First of all, regarding your fulmiminations on the offensive, pornographic cartoon depicting Zuma having anal intercourse with Nelson Mandela. Onyango Oloo has absolutely ZERO apologies for taking down your posting. Actually, the first time I even knew that you had put up the graphic is when I was contacted far away from Jukwaa-in Facebook of all places- by a reader who was extemely shocked at the low standards that I had allowed Jukwaaa to degenerate into. Then I came over here and saw a complaint from a Jukwaa member who informed me how embarrassed he was logging to the site at his home and be confronted with the offensive images with his children staring at the computer monitor by his side. Next, I got my first EVER warning from Proboards since I launched Jukwaa on August 2005 about your post- the owners of Proboards actually threatened to shut down Jukwaa. Apart from that, you Jakaswanga, as a vintage member of Jukwaa KNOWS what flies and whate does NOT on this site. Using the rather LIBERAL fig leaf excuse of "freedom of expression" did not and could not hold any water with me.
Secondly, Onyango Oloo is a Communist who uses Marxist-Leninist ideology to analyse events in Kenya, South Africa and the rest of the world. My piece came from my own observations of the 54th Conference of the ANC Conference that I am not going to repeat because after all it is the first posting on this thread.
Regarding Julius Malema and his Economic Freedom Fighters, I am convinced that they are NOT revolutionaries by any description. They are a bunch of populist opportunist demagogues who abuse pseudo-revoluntiary rhetoric to grab attention. If I were to expose the shady ties of Julius Malema you would be shocked.
Regarding Cyril Ramaphosa I stated quite clearly that he bore some responsibility for the Marikana massacre. But then, I have been following his otherwise consistent history as an activist, mine worker leader, COSATU representative and principled negotiator of South Africa's political transition from apartheid and I happen to agree with sober observers who maintain that Ramaphosa was actually the preferred heir apparent to Nelson Mandela until the crafty forces around Thabo Mbeki pulled a fast one on him. As a communist, Onyango Oloo saw nothing WRONG in Ramaphosa going to make his fortune in business.
As for the SACP, I count many in the leadership of the South African Communist Party as my personal friends. I happen to have attended the 14th Congress of the SACP earlier this year as an invited international delegate. I have followed their history since the 1980s and I am very familiar with all the neo-liberal,Trotskyist and other fulminations against the party. I have largely dismissed these arguments which are shared by my own colleagues in my former Kenyan party, the SDP.
Lastly, what I find MOST offensive is your accusation that I could be working with such a reactionary outfit as the discredited Bell Pottinger crowd or worse could be a spanner boy for the corrupt Gupta crowd. I don't think it deserves any further response.
Overall, I stand with what I said about the 54th ANC Conference which took place at Nasrec, South Africa from the 17th to the 20th 2017.
Happy holidays to you.
Sincerely,
Onyango Oloo
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 22, 2017 11:10:17 GMT 3
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 22, 2017 11:12:00 GMT 3
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Post by jakaswanga on Dec 22, 2017 22:59:48 GMT 3
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Post by jakaswanga on Dec 22, 2017 23:27:35 GMT 3
Here is the white knight Howbeit it was Cyril who chaired the commission which expelled Julius Mulema for bringing the ANC into disrepute!
Charcoal black and pitch dark black, who is your white knight now, O Africa!
One can just see Zuma's dick floating out of Mandela's mouth, all the way from the Holy Man's arse!
Oloo, I can do reality without a single cobweb in my mind! I been around Africa at the bottom! No illusion to hide under!
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 23, 2017 7:12:56 GMT 3
Jakaswanga, I am not here to hold any brief for Cyril Ramaphosa-being neither his Personal Assistant nor brief case carrier. The man, like all of us, is riddled with a host of internal contradictions-just like the late Nelson Mandela and our own Raila Odinga. He is the President of the African National Congress which is not, let me emphasize,a Marxist-Leninist formation but one of Africa's oldest national liberation movements full of nationalists, liberals, and yes, capitalists breathing side by side with the rank and file Communists, the militant trade unionists and the veterans of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC.
The task I set out to do was to celebrate the victory of the South African national democratic revolution in the light of the ZANU-PF military inspired toppling of Mugabe, the Sisi fascist fightback against the heroes and heroines of the Egyptian Spring and the horrors in Kenya of the fascist state terror against the valiant fighters pushing for social justice and emancipation in our country. Unlike you, I am not by any description a so called "Afro Pessimist" because I firmly believe that cynicism is a luxury we can ill afford.
As for Julius Malema and his bunch of noisy populists who mouth the nonsense of "Marxism-Fanonism" my initial dismissal still holds very firm.
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 7:17:57 GMT 3
Jeremy Cronin's critique of Julius Malema. This was back in 2009 when Cronin was still the Deputy Secretary General of the South African Communist Party.This article first appeared in the SACP online journal, Umsebenzi Online, November 25 2009 and Malema was still head of the ANC Youth League:
Nationalisation of the Mines... let's try that again
Well...it's not easy these days to have a robust but comradely discussion. The Sowetan of November 20 demonstrated this point graphically. On page four of last Friday's edition of the paper a brief single column story was head-lined "Cronin backs Malema". This story correctly quotes me agreeing with cde Malema that the Freedom Charter, in calling for the "wealth to be shared", was effectively demanding nationalisation as one important means for achieving this objective.
But turn the page of the very same issue of the Sowetan and there you will find a five-column story head-lined "You're no messiah - Malema attacks Cronin over nationalisation". Both stories are referring to exactly the same original intervention (see here) that I made in last week's Umsebenzi On-Line!
I don't blame the journalists involved. (But what were the senior editorial staff smoking on the Thursday night the edition went to the printers?) The confusion in the Sowetan reflects cde Malema's own misunderstanding of what I and many other alliance comrades have been trying to argue on the question of the nationalisation of the mines.
I have no interest in cde Malema's personalised diatribes (see article). They only serve to distract from what are important positive and constructive points that the ANCYL collective, at least, has been making on the topic of nationalisation. Let's rather focus on what I take to be the substantive matters that cde Malema imagines he is raising in his response to me.
Nationalisation vs. socialisation?
"Cde Jeremy Cronin", he writes, "takes issue with the fact that the ANCYL has called for the nationalisation of mines, instead of socialisation". He then quotes from SACP resolutions that call for the re-nationalisation of SASOL, for instance.
But I never said the SACP is opposed to, or doesn't ever use the word "nationalisation". What I did say is that fascist, apartheid and progressive states have all implemented nationalisation programmes. Even neo-liberal states have recently implemented massive "nationalisation" programmes. George W Bush jnr, for instance, took over the giant US mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the tune of $5.4 trillion dollars. This is a national debt with which ordinary US citizens will now be saddled for generations to come.
When we call for nationalisation we need to spell out what KIND of nationalisation we have in mind. We should closely examine whose CLASS interests nationalisation in any particular case serves. And that is why I think it is always useful to link nationalisation to socialisation.
The ANCYL's important July 15 framework document "ANCYL's Position on the Nationalisation of Mines" (which, I admit, I had not properly re-read before writing last week) makes the same basic point in different words: "Nationalisation is not a panacea for SA's developmental challenges, but it should in the manner we are proposing it, entail democratising the commanding heights of the economy, to ensure they are not just legally owned by the state, but that they are thoroughly democratised and controlled by the people" (see here).
I think that makes the point more clearly than I did. No disagreement.
Is the Freedom Charter calling for nationalisation?
In my original intervention, I spent some time AGREEING with cde Malema and the ANCYL on this point. Although the Charter doesn't literally use the word "nationalisation", it is patently obvious to anyone who knows the mid-1950s context in which it was adopted that the relevant clause had in mind that the mines, banks and other monopoly industries should be nationalised.
Drawing from the ANCYL framework document, cde Malema quotes both President Albert Luthuli (in 1956) and President OR Tambo (in 1969) making this fact absolutely clear. They are wonderful quotations from great leaders, and we should thank the ANCYL for reminding us of them.
Again, no disagreement.
Mineral beneficiation
It is here that I made my own misstep. I was trying to introduce a touch of polemical spice into what can sometimes be a dry topic. I suggested, more in jest than seriously, that cde Malema possibly thought of beneficiation largely in terms of bling. It was a silly comment, and I apologise. I had not realised that cde Malema had such a delicate skin.
But, again, let's not allow polemical flourishes (in this case my own) to obscure substantive issues. Cde Malema correctly asserts that: "Mining as a critical component of the South African economy should necessarily be used to expand and industrialise the South African economy in a more developmental [way], instead [of] a parasitic mechanism pursued by the current owners of mining activities in SA."
I agree. I also agree that the majority of our mineral production continues to be exported largely unprocessed and that this reproduces our semi-colonial economic status in the world economy. It also costs SA many potential jobs.
So where, then, if at all, do we actually begin to part ways?
Whose class interests?
When I briefly described the seriously problematic features of the actual beneficiation that occurs currently with Eskom, Sasol, Arcelor Mittal and aluminium smelters, I WASN'T saying "we have already got beneficiation, so let's not worry about more beneficiation." I was making an entirely different point. It is a point that cde Malema seems, for whatever reason, not to want to grasp.
The SACP firmly supports the principle and objectives of broad based black economic empowerment. In fact, it was the Communist Party in 1929 that first pioneered the strategic perspective of black majority empowerment in SA. But the moment you disconnect a class analysis from a national (or, if you like, "race") analysis, then BEE inevitably starts to lose its broad-based Charterist character. If you disconnect a class analysis from a race analysis you run the danger of wittingly or unwittingly serving the interests of monopoly capital in SA and its comprador and parasitic allies - many of whom have been close to, or actually within our movement.
Take the case of the "Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act" (2002). During the parliamentary hearings on the Bill, COSATU and other progressive forces argued that commitment to downstream beneficiation should be made a mandatory requirement for any 30-year mining licence. However, the Department of Minerals and Energy and its then minister, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, resisted this amendment.
Many comrades had the distinct impression that key ministerial advisers (some of them now in COPE) were keen to use the legislation as leverage to force mining conglomerates to provide a slice of action to aspirant black share-holders. But they were less keen to "burden" the profit-maximising aspirations of incumbent mining corporations and their future partners with responsibilities for beneficiation.
As a result, the present Act is weak when it comes to requiring beneficiation. We now have a sad irony. The Chinese, for instance, are willing and keen to invest in manganese beneficiation manufacturing plants here in SA. But this possibility is compromised by the fact that many of our manganese deposits have been leased out for 30 years to the same old established mining conglomerates and their new "patriotic" bourgeois hangers-on.
This example raises a number of related issues. For instance, would a legislative amendment to the Act not be a more effective (and affordable) way to leverage developmental beneficiation, at least for any new licences? This is a practical question, not a desperate attempt to avoid nationalisation at any cost.
There are many other job-creating, down-stream possibilities where the use of democratic state power to leverage transformation out of the mining sector should be considered. For instance, some genuinely patriotic emerging black entrepreneurs have been asking me why we do not impose national shipping quotas on the mine monopoly sector. More than 90% by volume of all of our exports (mostly minerals) are by sea. Yet all of the shipping involved is foreign-owned, the crews are overwhelming non-South African, and the shipping lines pay taxes in other countries. SA's once relatively significant maritime sector is now down to one single registered ship. Meanwhile, the rest of our logistics network (roads, freight rail and ports) still dedicates billions of rands of public money to lowering the cost to doing business for the mining conglomerates and their new allies.
None of this means that we should simply rule out the question of nationalising the mines. And the SACP has never ruled this out. But it does mean that you don't necessarily need to nationalise mining operations to achieve major immediate transformational objectives.
The ANCYL's framework discussion document does a good job in defending the broad principles of the Freedom Charter against all kinds of reformist back-sliding. It does a good job of defending the principled right of a democratic state to nationalise the commanding heights of the economy to advance democratisation. But it remains vague when it comes to the actual detail of what mines should be nationalised, and how they should be nationalised. It doesn't address itself to the question of whether nationalisation would be the most strategic and sustainable use of massive public resources at this point in time.
Above all, the ANCYL's document is not able to allay suspicions about whose class interests would (perhaps unwittingly) be served by nationalising mines in the midst of the current recession.
As the still exploratory shipping example above should illustrate, the SACP has never argued that there cannot be shared, multi-class points of strategic patriotic convergence. Multi-class alliances are exactly what a national democratic revolution is about. But the possibility of convergence does not mean that each and every promotion of black-owned capital always advances national liberation. Such promotion (or bailing out) might result, in specific cases, in substantial broad based black economic DIS-empowerment.
The SACP certainly wants to pursue the discussion around the ownership and control of the economy with the ANCYL and with the rest of our alliance. Hopefully cde Malema in his busy schedule will find time to be part of this discussion some time before June next year.
Asikhulume!!
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 7:30:54 GMT 3
It has always NOT been hostility between the SACP and the EFF. Here for instance is Julius Malema talking about a threat to Solly Mapaila, Blade Nzimande's deputy in the Communist Party:
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 7:47:29 GMT 3
Interesting article on fascism in South Africa that touches on the Economic Freedom Fighters. It is by an academic, Professor Jane Duncan, who is a Professor of Journalism at the University of Johannesburg:
The Turn of the Fascist
By Jane Duncan · 17 Aug 2011
Jacob Zuma’s rise to power has unleashed a torrent of rash, boorish, misogynistic and inciteful speech from politicians and commentators. In this regard, the utterances of ANC Youth League’s Julius Malema and ex-columnist Eric Miyeni come to mind. Why has public discourse plumbed to such depths of late? How serious is the problem and what can be done about it?
In 2009, the South African Communist Party (SACP) warned against the emergence of what it described as a proto-fascist tendency in the ruling alliance, where elements were expressing views that, if left unchecked, could mature into fascism. Clearly, the party was referring to the Youth League under Malema’s leadership.
The SACP argued that while it lacked a coherent ideological outlook, this political tendency is driven by sections of the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) elite who are desperate to capture parts of the state to bail out BEE capital in the wake of the recession.
According to the SACP, this BEE tendency has been developing an axis of influence between themselves and marginalised, alienated and unemployed youths who are open to populist mobilisation.
The proto-fascist elements include an appeal to baser instincts such as male chauvinism, paramilitary solutions to social problems, racialised identity politics, and the turning of politics into ‘spectacle’ where followers become spectators of their leaders’ antics, rather than agents of emancipation.
Are the SACP's warnings an overreaction? Given the world history of fascism in the twentieth century, the term must not be debased by being used too lightly.
After 1945, a global consensus emerged that fascist movements had a unique potential for militarism, racism and barbarism, and that never again should such movements be allowed to grow unchallenged. So, it is important to understand the conditions in which authoritarian nationalist movements emerge and flourish. If traces of fascism are detected, then their significance must be understood and the tendencies checked.
Fascism is a form of ultra-nationalism, which opposes the degeneration of society and seeks to renew a nation’s political culture through a return to ‘traditional values’, imposed from above ostensibly for the greater good. Fascists reject legal and rational forms of politics in favour of charismatic politics. In mature fascist states, a small elite own and control the country’s wealth, and by extension, the government, through corporatist arrangements where business and the state are fused to achieve national objectives.
The fascism of the 1930’s, when this political tendency matured, was more than just a set of ideas; it was a solution to a specific set of historical problem. The recessionary crisis of capitalism in the 1920’s had destabilised European society and rulers could no longer afford to offer the reforms needed to rule by consent.
The crisis led to a wave of class struggle, which gave rise to strong working class organisations, and the ruling class became desperate to smash their power. According to Leon Trotsky, “At the moment that the ‘normal’ police and military resources of the bourgeois dictatorship, together with their parliamentary screens, no longer suffice to hold society in a state of equilibrium - the turn of the fascist regime arrives.”
But the ruling class’ social base was too puny to contain the might of organised workers; hence they sought alliances with three social groups that had been decimated by the recession. These were the shop owners and other petty bourgeois elements whose small businesses had collapsed en masse, the higher salaried individuals in the professional classes whose salaries had been eroded by inflation, and the poorest sections of society which had fallen out of the economic mainstream and whose interests were therefore not represented by the organised working class. These groups formed the social base of fascist movements.
In order to appeal to these disparate groups, fascists performed a sleight of hand by fusing opposing ideologies. They used anti-socialist rhetoric to distinguish themselves from the organised working class and to appeal to the petty bourgeoisie, and anti-capitalist rhetoric to appeal to the underclass.
When fascists captured the state, they intervened in all areas of life, contained the power of large industrial and financial complexes and created conditions for small businesses aligned to the fascists to thrive. They allayed the petty bourgeoisie’s concerns about socialist transformation, while attempting to deliver on electoral promises of full employment and national independence. This was done to ensure a controlled inclusion of the masses into the political system, in return for their acquiescence to fascist rule.
Fascist states usually exhibit common features, including the mobilisation of nationalist symbols and sentiments under a single charismatic leader, control of the judiciary and the media and the censorship of intellectuals, disdain for human rights, sexism and chauvinism, the promoting of individuals who are considered to be superior and the scapegoating of ‘others’ (like immigrants or gays), intensification of national security and ‘law and order’ concerns, and cronyism and corruption.
What distinguishes a classical fascist regime from a Bonapartist regime, which relies only on the repressive apparatuses of the state for its survival, is that the former is more intractable as it sinks its roots deeply into society.
How comparable are the conditions that gave rise to mature fascism in the 1930’s and current conjuncture? In South Africa, it is not coincidental that inflammatory speech intensified with the onset of the global recession in 2008. In the 1930’s the social groups that were most affected by the worsening climate, and their fascist proxies, used such speech as a call to arms.
The Youth League also makes use of well-established fascist techniques to shift populist movements to the right, such as demagoguery, scapegoating and conspiracism, and have shown hostility towards the communists and organised workers in the alliance. Pressures on media freedom and judicial independence are also apparent, and national security concerns are intensifying.
The Youth League has a charismatic leader in the form of Julius Malema. The League also uses left wing and right wing rhetoric to mobilise a similar conflagration of interests to the fascists in the 1930’s, which explains why they can shift seamlessly from calls for ‘economic liberation in our lifetime’ to outright misogyny against women.
In the same way that the petty bourgeoisie used the fascists to secure their interests against those of organised workers and big capital, there is also evidence emerging that BEE elements are using the Youth League in the same way. The payments to Malema in return for political influence, as revealed by the City Press newspaper, have parallels with fascist economics.
However, the petty bourgeois element that existed in the 1930’s does not exist to the same extent today, which makes the emergence of a mature fascist movement less likely. But South Africa does have a large and disaffected underclass.
On the upside, South Africa has strong democratic institutions. Be that as it may, when economies thrive, the most characteristic face of politics is liberal, but in recessionary times, fascist and warlike politics tend to dominate.
Furthermore, democracy is not the natural state of politics under capitalism. Ruling parties globally will opt for democracy only to the extent that reforms are possible, and the economic crisis has made them less possible. Furthermore, the rise of China as a global superpower makes the withering away of democracy globally more likely.
In terms of severity, the recent economic crisis has been likened to the 1920’s depression. The current crisis is far from over, and the world and South Africa are teetering on the brink of double-dip recession. The newly emerged middle class risks being put out of business in this economic climate.
Echoing the conduct of the petty bourgeoisie of the 1930’s, their response is to attempt to capture the state for their own interests, which is why the struggle for state tenders is intensifying.
On the other side of the class divide, the struggles of the organised working class in South Africa are intensifying, which will also threaten the tenderpreneurs.
Worryingly, many features of fascist politics are already apparent in some form in South Africa’s politics. Elements of mature fascism are especially apparent in Mpumalanga province, where the state and business have become intertwined and death squads assassinate corruption whistleblowers. It is not coincidental that assassinated whistleblowers have been either trade unionists or communists: historically, the avowed enemies of fascists.
In short, conditions do exist for the maturation of fascist politics. If this shift to the right enjoys popular support, as fascist movements tend to do in their early stages, then South Africa’s democratic institutions may not be robust enough to withstand this shift.
This is why the political organisation of the unemployed is so crucial to the future of South Africa. As Mazibuko Jara has pointed out, the current consensus in South Africa remains because the unemployed do not have an independent organised voice.
Until this voice claims its rightful space in South Africa’s politics and in the media, then faux radicals like Malema and Miyeni will continue to infect the public space with their war talk. If the turn of the fascist has, in fact, arrived, then ignoring or censoring their voices is not the answer, as others will merely take their places. Fascist politics can be defeated only through an open political contest.
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 8:03:16 GMT 3
A September 2017 analysis on the Economic Freedom Fighters by Amil Umraw which appeared in the South African edition of HUFFPOST:
Why It's Time For The EFF To Grow Up
The Economic Freedom Fighters have a lot to celebrate on their fourth anniversary. They have grown at an unprecedented rate as an independent opposition since the party was formed when members- led by expelled ANC Youth League President Julius Malema- broke away from the ruling party in 2013.
But have Malema's red berets reached a plateau or is there more to come from the overall-wearing, pro-poor party who have thus far managed to agitate the country's political atmosphere?
It all began in 2012 when Malema, who was the ANC's Youth League president, was suspended from the party after being found guilty of undermining party leadership and sowing division through his criticism of President Jacob Zuma.
Malema's current second-in-charge, Floyd Shivambu-who was the league's spokesperson at the time-was also suspended on several charges, including accusing theANC of associating with imperialists.
'My blood is black, green and gold'
Malema, in his first press conference after his dismissal, said he would never start his own political party despite being kicked out of the ANC.
"My blood is black, green and gold. I will die in the ANC. I will stay and sleep here, outside the gate of the ANC. My umbilical cord was buried here in the ANC," he said.
Ironic.
It now seems his blood is all red, pumping with the sole intention of hitting back at the ANC and its president. The EFF's onslaught against Zuma started in Parliament, continued in the courts and ends on the streets.
Although the EFF is a small grouping in Parliament, their members have managed to outshine the Democratic Alliance in confronting the ANC, and at the same time, rally opposition parties to a common cause.
The EFF is notorious for constantly disrupting parliamentary proceedings, seemingly intent on getting thrown out of the house as a statement to their rebellion. This year, the party was most violently ejected from the house during Zuma's State of the Nation Address (which they have disrupted three years in a row) and have since boycotted Parliament when Zuma speaks.
But this year, the DA, who are most stringent on parliamentary rules, walked out behind the EFF.
Malema also spearheaded a campaign to the Constitution Court. It was a crafty, legal strategy which asked the Chief Justice and his panel to make declarations on the Speaker of Parliament, Baleka Mbete, and Zuma's conduct. It sought for the legal equivalent of asking the court to detail how it really feels about Zuma and Parliament.
Growing from strength to strength
On the streets, and in the communities, the EFF have denounced ANC policy and critiqued its service delivery. Most notably, this showed in the polls, with the ANC suffering a massive weakening during the 2016 local government elections, while the EFF have grown from strength to strength.
After it obtained 6% of the national vote in the general elections in 2014, the party went on to be the king maker that assisted the DA in snatching three metros: Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay.
The EFF managed this by campaigning grass roots policies which affect the disadvantaged and the youth directly. That is where their voting staple lies.
Unlike other breakaway parties like COPE, Agang SA and the UDM, the EFF is growing rather than deteriorating.
'Need to find their own space'
Political analysts Ralph Mathekga said smaller breakaway opposition parties identify with the ideology of their founding members, and the EFF has had such a significant influence on politics and Parliament, that it is disproportionate to their electoral strength.
"They need to find their own space and do something differently to grow," Mathekga said.
The University of Western Cape's Keith Gottschalk has shown a "genius" for grabbing headlines, and have run a spectacular campaign.
"The EFF have passed the first hurdle but they are not as yet a majority in any area. If you read their manifesto, and the incredible list of their demands, they propose to subsidize these from company tax. They may have reached the limit of their support," Gottschalk said.
He said the party's tactical working relationship with the DA is "surprising".
"The pair are on ideologically opposite sides of the spectrum but have a shared hatred of the ruling party. But the crunch time will come in the municipal budgets when it is decided where the money will go."
The challenge for the EFF will now be on the outcomes of a concrete legislative strategy, while continuing to hold the ANC to account.
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 8:28:44 GMT 3
Yet another critique of Malema's outfit. This appeared on February 19, 2015 and is by Eusenius McKaiser who is the author who wrote A Bantu In My Bathroom & Could I Vote DA? A Voter's Dilemma
Anatomy of the EFF’s troubles
Consumption politics, violence and ideological flaws have laid the foundation for the problems facing the EFF, writes Eusebius McKaiser.
A tellingly tense start
I have to confess I was sh*t scared on Tuesday when a few journalists ran back into the room, looking mightily upset. Something had happened outside. Or trouble was imminent. I had chosen to stay in the room where the press conference called by Economic Freedom Fighters MP Andile Mngxitama was to take place. The rest of the media pack wanted to see whether Mpho Ramakatsa, an EFF MP chairing this media briefing, was right, that in fact there were people bussed in to stop this press conference from taking place, and that these potential disrupters would try to prevent Mngxitama, and others, from entering the hotel.
One journalist walked briskly back inside, looking like she had just seen a ghost. She told me that someone seated in a car driving up the driveway into the hotel grounds - this being the car that was transporting Mngxitama - had brandished a gun as they were driving in, pointing it in the direction of the journalists, and anyone else around them. Later, Lucky Twala, another EFF MP, would admit that he had indeed waved a gun, determined to ensure that Mngxitama got into the venue. Twala was playing Robocop. This despite a very visible police presence outside the hotel, in addition to strict security clearance measures that invited media had to go through.
This startling behaviour set a tense tone for the first part of the press conference. I kept wondering whether, at any moment now, a few enraged members or supporters of the EFF might run into the building, and try beat up Mngxitama, or chase him down the streets of Sandton, in a re-run (pardon the pun) of scenes that had played out in Cape Town, where he had held an aborted version of this press conference a few days earlier.
Eventually, however, the press conference got under way. EFF MP Khanyisile Litchfield-Tshabalala read the main remarks that they jointly prepared, the entire press conference being billed as the launch of the SAVE THE SOUL OF EFF-initiative. Oh boy, were we in for colourful, and dramatic, claims about criminality on the part of EFF leadership, but also ideological and political critiques about the same alleged criminals.
Show us the evidence
Litchfield-Tshabalala made one spectacular claim after another. The EFF 4 claimed that the senior leaders of their party hired thugs to try and assassinate Mngxitama, and a hitman had allegedly been sought outside the country to come and kill Ramakatsa. The EFF leadership was also accused of looting the party coffers. And as if criminality wasn’t enough, Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu were also accused of being in cahoots with a faction of the African National Congress. They claimed that a meeting between Zuma and Malema was meant to take place in Maputo earlier this year, but Malema cancelled at the last minute. The aim of the EFF leadership was to sacrifice the parliamentary careers of EFF MPs they didn’t want any more, by asking the ANC to help getting them expelled from parliament; in return, allegedly, Malema would agree to not disrupt the president when he delivered his State of the Nation Address.
And it was claimed that Malema and Floyd alone know "details of how their constituency funding is spent…under great secrecy and intimation. No one dare ask how the money is used." Malema apparently even uses the party’s credit card for personal groceries of up to R10,000. What should one make of these dramatic, and rather damning, claims?
For now, there is really not much to make of these claims. The journalists were practically begging ‘show us the evidence!’ – imagine the joy of your editor when you got back to the newsroom!- with each successive question that was put to the EFF 4 but none of them could corroborate these claims with documents, visuals, audio clips, proven credit card histories, etc. No prima facie evidence, let alone evidence proving these claims beyond a shadow of a doubt.
This is rather curious. The essence of the claims was not new. They had been in the public space for several days, and so one would have thought that the EFF 4 would up the ante by putting tangible evidence in the public space, or inside the party within the relevant disciplinary structures. Little doubt this evidence-insensitivity is the result of a habit among politicians who call press conferences and then treat these like they are open mike sessions where you can perform lyrical run on sentences without offering evidence. Poetic license, I guess. It doesn’t help that the media treat the slam political poetry as copy. Perhaps next time the media pack should rather go spend time with communities underreported on, and maybe then all our politicians will appreciate the media real estate, by being more evidence-sensitive.
I had asked three specific questions to Mngxitama, and had to repeat the first two after they were not substantively addressed. If there was an attempt to assassinate you, can you share the evidence with us and have you laid charges? What documentary, photographic, or some other proof do you have that Malema and Zuma met in Maputo or were scheduled to do so while there? What are your reflections on the ideological roots, if there are any, of this internal EFF battle?
I was told, in effect, that the assassination attempt is sub judice, but that they know the person who tried to kill Mngxitama in Cape Town, and the EFF leaders behind him, and indeed, there would be a criminal investigation. The plan, we are told, was to stab Mngxitama to death. But no evidence was given as they would have to do in legal proceedings. In a similar vein, my Maputo question also went unanswered: first Mngxitama tried to make light of it, chuckling while asking me whether I really think it would be a co-incidence for Malema and Zuma to be in the same city, co-incidentally there to eat Mozambican prawns?! He was interrupted by Ramakatsa who said he would respond fully to the question, but he never did. Not even to present evidence that they were in Maputo on the same day.
So after all the gun toting drama, the secret late night call I got to attend this press conference at a quiet boutique hotel,including promises that a proverbial bomb would be dropped, we simply, in the end, got accusations already in the public domain, reiterated, and a few new ones added, but no proof. Until such evidence is provided, the rhetoric between EFF members can be labelled amateur verbal boxing, without a knock-out punch from anyone, in a timeless round of comic sparring.
But my last question, however, was, unsurprisingly, answered with great animation from Mngxitama; unsurprising because, whatever his weaknesses as a would be politician, he is (shem) essentially, as a friend put to me over dinner the other night, a really nice, harmless, sincere South African, with a fairly big brain, ideological convictions he is passionate about, and for which he is prepared to be unpopular.
Which raises the critical structural question about the EFF: Was there a fatal ideological design flaw right from the start?
Roots of an ideological battle
Mngxitama reflected aloud about my question on ideology. He claimed that yes, indeed, his motivation for this campaign to save the soul of the EFF reflects deep ideological fissures. As he put it, you cannot loot party funds, live beyond your means, be the face of consumption politics, but hope to dismantle white monopoly capital. That is a fatal contradiction that Malema and Shivambu are supposedly caught in. He argued that it is a knot that cannot be disentangled, for two reasons at least: one can’t focus effectively on the real enemy, which of course is white monopoly capital, while your attention is on looting and consuming; and the more intrinsic problem is that looting and consuming show scant regard for a pro-poor, radical economic and political agenda, making a philosophical mockery of talk about anti-black racism.
Whatever argumentation battles I have had with Mngxitama before, I have to say that I was listening attentively at this stage, looking him in the eye. He really meant every word, and it came from a sincere place. Or he is a drama graduate, unbeknownst to us. It was intellectually and politically a little cameo performance this, in a press conference otherwise obsessing about the immediate issues like disciplinary processes, why these guys are not in Cape Town to debate the president’s State of the Nation address, etc. But, upon reflection, one has to raise and explore some hard questions about Mngxitama’s ideological and political critique of his fellow EFF leadership.
First, the gun. Violence isn’t justified in politics. The attack on Mngxitama last Thursday in Cape Town indicts the leadership of the EFF for not engendering an internal political culture that is tolerant of differences, including tolerance of a member who goes outside the organisation to raise issues about the organisation. If such violence, and the disregard for the constitutional rights of others, are markers of EFF politics so early in the history of this young political party, then the leadership has to be roasted. What example have they set? What rules and habits have they inculcated in members? Clearly not ones soaked in the values of deliberative democracy. Mngxitama was spot on. This was like a mini-ANC outside the ANC.
But the irony is that Twala, and Mngxitama, arrived at this presser with a damn gun! And both Twala and Litchfield-Tshabalala peppered their remarks with military history and references in talking about their own political biographies, including a lengthy ode to our liberation armies at the outset of the press conference, with no connection to the realpolitik of the day. Litchfield-Tshabalala even offered a serious apology for being late for this press conference, saying that as a military person she respects punctuality and therefore knows that her being late is unacceptable, and that she wants us to know she is genuinely sorry. She gets military precision, and respects it. In his turn, Twala was utterly unfazed by his admission that it was indeed him carrying a gun, that he had waved it, and that yes he could not distinguish media from a real threat (not that there were any), but that he owns the gun legally, and since Thursday has decided to keep it on it, because the political climate changed on that day.
This violent rhetoric, and preparedness to use violence in public (why else brandishing the gun so casually?), is precisely the exhibition of violent, muscular politics that Mngxitama found to be an ideological disappointment in Malema and Shivambu. Yet, here he was, part of a group that included MPs steeped in the language of violence, and the habits of violence, while lecturing Malema and Shivambu for not being better democrats.
Perhaps the less jarring criticism of Malema’s politics is the aesthetic complaint about the consumption habits of those who love expensive whiskeys in Sandton clubs, pricey labels beyond the reach of the poor, and top of the range cars. Mngxitama exclaimed at one stage – get the salt ready – that it was Malema and Mngxitama, and not him, who were friends with Kenny Kunene, the King of Bling. ‘I regard Louis Vuitton as ugly!’
As the EFF 4 put it, "A leader who takes money from imperialism and white monopoly capital…is a servant of the paymaster and uses the struggle to enrich himself. A leader who lives beyond his means is a compromised leader."
But this critique is limited, even if Mngxitama isn’t susceptible here to obvious hypocrisy. It’s not clear whether his distaste for these consumption patterns is rooted in sheer personal preference – some of us love sushi, others prefer pap; still others want it all! – or whether this is hard-hitting moral and political disgust. Mngxitama, like me, loves hanging out in bohemian Melville, here in Johannesburg, and Braamfontein, parts of the cityscape which, although not ostentatiously Sandtonian, certainly cannot be thought of the ultimate hangout spots for someone punting the politics of Thomas Sankara. Mngxitama is middle class, and while that is not a sin, it does mean relative wealth compared to the black majority living in the kinds of conditions that Mngxitama wishes Malema and Shivambu would take seriously enough, and conditions they should not spit on with their politics of consumption.
I’m certainly not implying Mngxitama should live in poverty as a marker of his commitment to pro-poor politics. I never bought that criticism of the lifestyles of Leftist politicians. The point is narrower: that there is a difference in scale and taste in the consumption patterns of Mngxitama and Malema, but I am not convinced that either politician escapes the aesthetics of consumption politics.
Speaking of Sankara, he is the only thinker who got more than a passing mention, as inspiration of the ideology of EFF, from the EFF 4. But this shows these guys aren’t fundamentally different to Malema et al. Sankara is a hero for some, but also simultaneously an anti-Christ for others. His politics, rooted in rhetorical commitment to eliminate poverty, implement public health policies that included vaccinating the population, emphasising and implementing progressive agrarian reform policies, and so on, are all fine and well. But he also became authoritarian in the pursuit of such noble social justice ideals. And so, while Sankara’s pissing on the neo-liberal policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and rejecting aid, speak to the kind of self-affirming pro-poor, anti-racist rhetoric Mngxitama raps about with the sincerity I observed earlier, Sankara also became renowned for clamping down on fundamental freedoms like a free and open media and public space, and his military roots as a leader determined his methods once he was in power. The very violence which Mngxitama ran away from in Cape Town was a key feature of Sankara’s rule. Is Sankara healthy inspiration for South African politics? I am not so sure.
This is precisely the depth of the design flaws of the EFF. One day you get Marx thrown at you; the next day it is Fanon; then it is Sankara or a bit of Lenin; who knows, maybe Shakespeare tomorrow? On some days, we just get a hyphenated bunching of these terms. It is a mix of confusion, and when it is not confusing, the names, once you dig into their political etymology and history, scare the living daylights out of a liberal democrat. Not because competing ideologies aren’t welcome in a pluralistic society but because the militarism of someone like Sankara makes the security cluster’s jamming device looks like a toy.
Ultimately, after a disciplinary process has been dragged out and the EFF 4 are either expelled or simply break away, the EFF mothership may or may not remain intact. I don’t think this rupture in the leadership, despite being rooted in an inadequate commitment to an ideological framework that is undermined by resource accumulation, means the end is in sight for the EFF just yet. They enjoy the gift of an ANC unable or unwilling, or both, to put an end to president Zuma’s tragicomic leadership, and they are not reducing the sins of incumbency quickly enough. So the kind of rhetoric we have just heard from Malema in the debate on the State of the Nation Address, that draws attention to the material inequities that prevail in our communities, will have some impact in the body politic for a while yet, while the bling lifestyles, linguistic violence, actual violence, and ideological insincerity continue unabated.
Perhaps the ultimate diss of Mngxitama is the fact that he knew this about Malema and his friends. He was one of their most damning critics as a pundit, before turning politician. What on earth made him think he could change them? Or that he was mistaken all along? The answer, I think, is this: Mngxitama was never cut out for the mechanics of politics. He is at his best outside of party politics, penning a venomous piece of commentary about all sources of power. He should return there, even if it means burning fewer calories sitting at a desk, than when you are running down a street chased by the watchdogs of your hypocritical political principals.
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 8:57:16 GMT 3
From the Daily Maverick,STEVEN BOYKEY SIDLEY wrote in November 17, 2017 a fascinating piece called
The hollowing out of Julius Malema
About 18 months ago I saw Julius Malema address a sceptical crowd at Daily Maverick’s The Gathering at Vodacom World. My previous exposure to Malema had been minimal, and I was impressed. Here was an astute and ambitious young politician skilfully deploying the fiery oratory of leadership in the service of his cause. As I wrote at the time, he was incisive, funny, authoritative, scary and quick on his feet at question time. But alas, I saw something else at the recent The Gathering at the Sandton Convention Centre.
Julius Malema was given prime closing position at 17:30 at Daily Maverick’s The Gathering, joined on stage by the inimitable Richard Poplak, who had apparently been specifically requested by the Economic Freedom Fighters. Malema arrives on stage dressed and body-sculpted more like a GQ model than a politician; clearly somebody has been hard at work on his image over the last 18 months.
His supporters, however (strategically clustered together in the large hall), continue with their now tired and embarrassing look-how-different-and-cool-we-are red and military hybrid outfit. It seems clear to me that this party’s vocal supporters are a long way from the greater respect they would accrue were they to dress like average citizens and proffer convincing arguments. Having seen this costume drama many times since it was first so effective, it now just looks silly. The cadres were active during previous speakers’ question times, mostly with inarticulate Bolshevik whatnot about ownership of production and distribution and exchange, and the general awfulness of whites.
Malema stepped up to the the podium to a pin-drop audience. And began his speech with uncharacteristic timidity, reeling off an exhausted list of the similar tired outrage that the audience had heard many times during the day, which can be summed up as – the ANC is rotten, it makes no difference who wins in December, the ANC is dead, people must go to jail, they’re history, let’s move on.
He then launched into an interesting commentary around how the rural voter sees politics as synonymous with the ANC, and how they always vote for the ANC, and how the country expresses the will of its voters. I expected a hammer-blow punchline as to how the EFF would break this cycle. None came, other than confusing waffle about “taking our brand to the branches” during the later Poplak interaction. He sidelined into a tangent about coalitions, which also fizzled without any insight. And conspicuously absent this year, any mention of the great and noble Venezuelan political system.
Malema’s voice and gestures grew more animated over the course of his address, but it was a victory of form over substance. There was simply nothing there. He made the audience laugh in describing how scared white people are of White Monopoly Capital accusations. He made the audience laugh in his bizarre invitation to Afrikaner women to join the EFF to break the shackles of Afrikaner patriarchy. He even jumped into the Trumpian fake news pot by declaring that the DA was responsible for the huge water problem in Sandton that day (they weren’t, they were fixing an ANC-neglected pipeline).
He repeated entertaining rubbish about how it would make no difference if the EFF scared away international investors because they were of no use to poor people anyway who only ever eat crumbs (surely, I think, by this stage in his career he might have consulted with real economists about how much smaller that crumb-pile would be without international investors, but apparently not). He became ever more entertaining as the depth of his delivered content became ever less so.
Explain your Mugabe flip-flop, Poplak asked. We’ve always loved Uncle Bob, and still do, he should just have left the dance floor earlier, he responded. Thereby spitting in the face of every Zimbabwean who had been celebrating on the streets that day. You’ve been strangely silent over the past year, Poplak observed. Yes, he answered, I am watching the ANC eat itself, I don’t want to interfere. Scarcely believable from a man for whom pubic relations and headline news is food and fuel.
Perhaps a more likely explanation: Malema has nothing new to say, and is stuck on exhausted revolutionary repeat phrases which are of diminishing interest to everyone, media included.
Unless this party matures, it will remain a sideshow. Entertaining, but a sideshow nevertheless.
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 9:07:27 GMT 3
And now here is how the prominent South African paper Mail and Guardian reported a few years ago about Julius Malema's purchase of a Runda-Karen (style to give Nairobi comparisons) mansion in Johannesburg:
Malema 'paid cash' for Sandton mansion
Staff Reporter 31 Jul 2011 10:13
African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema paid more than half the R3.6-million purchase price for a Sandton, Johannesburg, house in cash, City Press reported on Sunday.
Malema’s trust issues
In the wake of the ANC Youth League’s defiant response to corruption allegations concerning Julius Malema’s “secret” trust fund, we speak to M&G politics reporter Matuma Letsoalo for insight into what this scandal means for the youth league president’s future.
Malema has had the house demolished and now plans to build one costing millions more.
The previous owner, Ken Hollingsworth, told the paper Malema originally rented the house for R18 000 a month. He asked if he could improve the security, to which Hollingsworth agreed. In mid-2009 he indicated he wanted to buy the house and then paid a cash deposit of R360 000.
“He had an Absa bond for R1.5-million. The balance was paid in cash deposits into my account,” Hollingsworth was quoted as saying.
According to an unnamed actuary quoted in the report, Malema would need to earn R123 000 a month to support his lifestyle. His only official source of income however is his ANC salary, apparently about R50 000 a month.
Last week the paper reported Malema was using the Ratanang Family Trust to receive money from politicians, businessmen, mayors and others, allegedly in exchange for facilitating government contracts. The league’s officials have however denied this and said the trust was used to support charities.
I’ll see you in court
Last week Malema said he planned to sue City Press for defamation.
Speaking in Queenstown in the Eastern Cape, Malema reportedly warned that the name of the “ape” who was quoted in reports as saying he had paid R200 000 into the trust would be exposed by court action against the newspaper.
Malema said he wouldn’t have taken bribes “knowing that my enemies are out to destroy me”.
He said many business people had deposited money into the trust’s account because he had approached them to fund charitable causes.
He wouldn’t put the names of his son and grandmother on the trust fund if it was meant to carry out illegal activities.
“How many leaders and public figures have got trusts and community trusts? In South Africa there is not what we call secret trusts, there is nothing like that,” he said, objecting to the description of a “secret trust” in the report.
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 9:17:16 GMT 3
And in a further twist to the Sandton mansion saga, South African.com reported that:
Malema sells Sandton mansion for R5.9 million to pay off tax debts
Expelled ANC Youth League President Julius Malema's house has been auctioned for a jaw-dropping R5.9 million to pay off his tax debts.
By Editorial Team - 2013-05-10
The Sandton home of ex-ANC Youth league President Julius Malema was auctioned for an astounding R5.9-million last Thursday to pay off the R16 million he owes the South African Revenue Service.
Malema brought the property in 2009 for R3.6-million. The three storey mansion now stands half built and is rumoured to have a cigar lounge, a wine cellar, a coffee bar, a home cinema, a pool, a spa bath and space for a lift.
Bizarrely, the house is also said to have a ‘song room’ although it has not yet been fitted with windows, plumbing or furnishings.
The mansion was brought by South African businessman Norman Tloubatla, who sped off in a white Porsche after the auction without commenting.
Big Spender
In order to enter into the auction, bidders needed to pay a refundable registration fee of R100,000. The auction house — Bidders Choice — was reportedly hoping for R2.5 to R3 million for the mansion, which they described as ‘proper style, high tech and very modern.’
In February this year Malema’s household items were auctioned at around R54,000 — one fifth of the value of his Breitling watch which did not appear at the auction.
The Sunday Sun reported that buyers were disappointed when they saw which of Malema’s household items were up for auction. The R31,000 worth of Louis Vuitton clothes he reportedly owns did not make it to the auction, and neither did the Italian designer clothes he brought for R291,000 last January.
Sad to see him go
The Sunday Sun interviewed some of Malema’s former neighbours, who said that he was kind, considerate and ‘led a quiet life’. Chantal Mackenzie recalled a time when she was invited to his house-warming party and he apologised to all the neighbours in advance for the noise. “That was a really great party,” she said.
Not everyone was so fond of Malema though. Boy Mamabolo, who purchased a mirror for R300 at the household auction, said he was promised the mirror by Malema in 2009 but Malema changed his mind and decided to keep it for himself.
Malema told the City Press Newspaper last weekend that he decided to take on cabbage farming rather than politics because former friends and allies, like Mamabolo, have started to treat him like he has ‘leprosy.’
Debt
In March his Limpopo farm, worth around R4 million, was seized by the Asset Forfeiture Unit. The National Prosecuting Authority said that the farm was acquired through the proceeds of corruption, theft, money laundering and fraud.
In January, Malema’s Sandton and Polokwane homes were seized.
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 9:26:50 GMT 3
Who bought the Sandton house?
Eyewitness reported that:
MYSTERIOUS MILLIONAIRE BUYS MALEMA'S HOUSE
Sars scores as unknown millionaire buys Malema’s Sandton house for R5.9m during an auction.
JOHANNESBURG - Little is known about the millionaire businessman who outbid everyone to become the new owner of Julius Malema's Sandton home.
The half-built house went under the hammer on Thursday for R5.9 million to help the expelled African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) leader cover his tax bill of R16 million.
Malema owes the South African Revenue Service (Sars) R16 million as a result of unpaid taxes, penalties and interest.
Sars started investigating Malema's tax affairs in 2011 after it was revealed that he was linked to companies which had obtained lucrative contracts from the Limpopo provincial government.
The former ANC Youth League leader is also facing a R52 million fraud and racketeering case in Limpopo.
The state alleged millions of rands were paid into Malema's Ratanang Family Trust as kickbacks for tenders awarded on Limpopo road projects.
MYSTERIOUS NEW OWNER
Norman Tloubatla of Magnified Signs is now the owner of the 948 square-metre double storey home.
It was expected to sell between R2 and R3.5 million, but after a bidding war it ended up in Tloubatla's hands at R5.9 million.
The new owner refused to comment to the media, speeding off in his white Porsche.
The house has 4 bedrooms, a cigar lounge and an underground parking garage.
MALEMA ON THE BURNER
Malema lost several of his possessions including his Limpopo farm due to the large tax bill owed to Sars.
Meanwhile, Malema has also lost most of his friends since his legal woes began.
In September, Malema and his co-accused Lesiba Gwangwa and Kagisho Dichabe were arrested on charges of corruption, fraud and money laundering.
The three men were released on R10,000 bail each.
In March, the court appointed two curators to take over his estate and manage his assets.
It further allowed the curators to dispose of Malema's assets by means of auctions and to pay the proceeds to Sars.
The curators intended launching an application to have Malema declared in contempt of court, but last minute negotiations had halted the matter.
Despite his expulsion from the party, he remains vocal of his criticism of President Jacob Zuma.
Malema, once a Zuma supporter, now believes the President is not the right man to lead the ruling party.
He has attacked Zuma's lifestyle a number of times over the past few months.
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 18:13:10 GMT 3
www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=6499SACP Free State response on the EFF allegations concerning Metsimaholo 13 December 2017 SACP Free State Province response to reckless and dishonest statement by the Economic Freedom Fighters The South African Communist Party (SACP) does not always like to respond to childish propaganda spread against the Party. In this specific instance the SACP found it necessary to provide clarity in response to the infantile disorder displayed by the EFF and its attention seeking attacks directed at the SACP. The SACP dismisses the allegations levelled against it by the EFF in its statement released on Tuesday, 12 December 2017 The only honest part of the statement of EFF is that "The EFF had approached the SACP to agree on forming a red government". At no point, has the SACP at any level approached any political party in forming a coalition other than going back to our communities in Metsimaholo to report back and receive a mandate after the 29 November elections. The SACP is a seasoned political party and is not afraid of engagements with any organisation, hence we never closed our doors to engage anyone, including allowing the EFF to engage with us on what kind of municipality can be agreed upon in the best interest of the struggling workers and poor communities of Metsimaholo. FACTS: 1. On approaching SACP, on four occasions, the EFF spoke of the "first red government" between the SACP and the EFF in Metsimaholo. 2. The SACP categorically told the EFF that the SACP will not align with the DA as the SACP's historical mission to emancipate the working class from capitalist exploitation is incompatible with the opposite agenda represented by the DA. 3. The SACP made it clear to the EFF about the kind of municipality, quality of services to the people, and the respect and development of workers our Party wants to see in Metsimaholo. 4. The EFF committed the following errors: The EFF spoke on behalf of the DA and expressed blue disagreements about SACP`s participation with regard to the position of Speaker in the "first red government" in Metsimaholo. This confirmed three things; firstly that the DA and the EFF are handled from a common control centre elsewhere; secondly that the DA has an upper hand over the EFF; thirdly that the EFF has been formally subordinated to the DA where the two established a coalition in favour of leadership by the DA with the EFF playing the role of its voting fodder. In the imagination of the EFF the SACP should agree to be reduced to a voting fodder of the EFF-DA axis depending on what the DA and their handlers say. As the SACP, we are seriously disappointed at how the EFF leadership conducted itself by issuing a statement that distorts the facts around the disagreement. The SACP vehemently rejected the poisoned chalice and the co-option it was offered under the EFF-DA axis. As to when the forthcoming ANC national conference will start and end has no bearing whatsoever on the democratic revolutionary duty of the SACP to go back to communities and consult with the people who voted for the Party on the latest developments regarding the challenges facing the formation of Metsimaholo local government following the 29 November elections. The SACP has taken a decision not to endorse a preferred name for ANC president. As a matter of principle the SACP discussed and openly communicated overall good leadership qualities that the ANC needs in the context of a reconfigured alliance and as a leader of our republic at present. It is no secret that the SACP has called for a leadership committed to genuinely fighting corruption, ending state capture and radically reducing inequality, unemployment, poverty and social insecurity. At no point, will the SACP take a reckless move to get involved into ANC factions that are tearing it apart on a daily basis. These are the factions that the SACP continues to condemn and we cannot be part of them. It is no secret that the ANC has ultimately approached the SACP, not the other way around, to speak about a coalition, in the same way the SACP allowed the EFF to engage with it. The SACP will remain loyal to the communities that approached the Party to stand for the 29 November elections in Metsimaholo and will strengthen and deepen the ties through ongoing democratic consensus-seeking consultation and respect for mandate! It is in the best interest of Metsimaholo communities to have a functional municipality. The SACP will be the last to support a process to strain people and workers of Metsimaholo to go to an unnecessary re-run
ISSUED BY THE SACP FREE STATE PROVINCE
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 18:27:48 GMT 3
mg.co.za/article/2017-04-04-the-effs-wrecking-ball-politics-is-fascist-rather-than-leftOpinion The EFF’s wrecking ball politics is fascist rather than left Vishwas Satgar 05 Apr 2017 00:00 who is an academic at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is also a member of the convening committee of the South African University Staff Network and a partner of the National Education Crisis Forum that hosted the Higher Education Convention.DEMOCRACY Student politics is fractious and complicated by its populist character — whoever steps in front leads the crowd. I came face to face with this reality twice in the past few months: first in a church at a University of the Witwatersrand peace meeting in October and, more recently, at the Higher Education Convention, cohosted by the National Education Crisis Forum. The peace meeting was disrupted by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). At the convention, students and workers wanted recognition for their struggles and the convention was one way to affirm that and ensure the powerful were listening. The convention ended in an EFF-led brawl and with students turning on each other. Months of organisation and preparation for an inclusive platform for constituency-based policy dialogue were destabilised. The alternative to dialogue is too ghastly to contemplate: violent student protest and deepening state-led “securitisation” at universities and, more broadly, societal struggles. Universities will not survive in this context and South Africa’s tenuous democracy will plunge further into crisis. Student formations are generally extensions of political formations. This complicates the dynamics in student politics and in #FeesMustFall protests. Who is really leading? The EFF is an interesting example in this regard, given its militaristic and hierarchical form of organisation. For the EFF, delegitimising the ANC at all costs means the worse things get, the better for the party in any social arena. Deepening crisis through disruption is a political strategy. From Parliament to universities, the EFF’s mode of often violent disruptive engagement is becoming central to its political practice and this is also diffusing as a societal norm. This means the EFF, in the context of the Higher Education Convention, was not willing to rise above its narrow partisan interests and place the interests of the country first. Solutions to take the country forward are not important but short-term political calculation to upstage the ANC state is all that matters — even in a context in which the main protagonist of social dialogue is not even the ANC state. This is not oppositional politics but the politics of wrecking everything because collective societal solutions don’t matter. It also means this short-term strategy will, intentionally and unintentionally, unleash forces that will also clash with the EFF down the road. It is breeding politics that will come back to harm it, assuming it is successful in growing in electoral terms. But perpetual violent disruption as a mode of politics also means politics bereft of an understanding of what is essential for a democracy to work. South Africa’s transformative constitutionalism, like all modern democracies, requires all contending political forces to accept certain rights and procedural standards in the political game. A crucial assumption at work in this political framework is the idea that political difference is acceptable and should not become antagonistic. The EFF does not respect political difference and is antagonistic to all political forces that do not agree with it. It is not just unSouth African, as some have suggested, but is also deeply undemocratic. Competitive political escalation for the EFF means: accept its way or face violence. Does this make the EFF fascist? Liberal journalists, some academics and even the South African Communist Party have declared the EFF fascist. The notion of fascism is a slippery concept to define. As an appellation it has multiple meanings, both historically and comparatively. Liberal scholars usually work with a typology of key characteristics to define fascism such as: charismatic leadership, racism, ultra-nationalism, paramilitarism, violence (actual or threatened), anti-parliamentarianism, anti-constitutionalism and anti-Semitism. This is helpful to a degree, but runs into analytical problems given that context-specific conditions and dynamics shape fascist forces. In the first half of the 20th century it was easy to discern national variations of either Italian fascism or Nazi totalitarianism. Today, fascism is mutating and manifesting in a complex matrix of national and global material conditions. It has arrived dressed in pinstriped suits or sometimes as a suicide bomber. This brings us back to the question: Are those wearing red berets under the EFF banner fascists? Is the main contribution the EFF has made to South African politics merely to draw more taut the line between those for democratic transformation and those against? An EFF student from the University of Johannesburg takes part in a #FeesMustFall protest last year. (Delwyn Versamy, M&G) The EFF is a contradictory formation and on its current trajectory it is not a visionary nation builder, nor a programmatic force for change, nor a democratic political opposition. Although at some moments it looks good in relation to the kleptocratic Jacob Zuma regime, we should not assume that it is better. The EFF expresses serious ambiguities in its ideological make-up: constitutional/anti-constitutional, Marxist-Leninist/stakeholder capitalist, male chauvinist/yet appealing to some women, decolonising/yet willing to accept support from white capital. The EFF, like historical fascism, draws its ideas from across the political spectrum. As a result, what it stands for in terms of values, beliefs and ideology is unclear. It makes it up as it goes through the theatre of national politics, expedient political manoeuvring and through its authoritarian populist inventiveness. The EFF received just over a million votes in the previous elections. Does this mean that those who vote for it believe in its mercurial, shallow and makeshift belief system? Are these the citizens who buy into the spectacle of authoritarian populist politics? An electoral outcome is difficult to decipher. There are always different degrees of support for any political party. This ranges from hardcore support and sympathisers to swing voters. In the last election, the EFF certainly picked up a significant anti-ANC vote and it also found traction in sections of the black middle class and the unemployed poor. The EFF could not build on this momentum of national support and win a local government election outright. Instead it emerged from the elections as a coalition partner to the neoliberal Democratic Alliance in most big metros. Moreover, given its disposition to violent disruption and its inability to provide a way forward on national challenges, it is likely that its electoral support has peaked. The next national election will be telling and will really be surprising if South Africans vote for a party that merely offers fiery rhetoric, intolerance and violence. But this still leaves red on EFF T-shirts, berets and paraphernalia. What does this mean? For some the red dimension of EFF identity makes it left, coupled with a militant dose of rhetoric, such as evoking the big N word — nationalisation. Nationalisation has always been about state capitalism and nothing more. The EFF has successfully claimed a space to the left of the ANC and has projected itself as a left force, picking up on residual anti-establishment sentiment. Yet its antics in Parliament of representing workers with overalls and hard hats smacks of hypocrisy. Whereas most workers earn less than R3 000 a month, an EFF MP earns more than R1-million a year or more than R80 000 a month. It pays to act exploited in the EFF script. But the EFF should not believe that workers are not watching or are unaware of the social distance. Moreover, the EFF has not united left forces of the working class, the left intelligentsia or more generally left social movements. Nor has it provided a serious analysis of contemporary capitalism to guide its interventions. The EFF, in claiming to be left, has undermined the prospects of the left in South Africa. It is contributing to the defeat of the left. The EFF is not a left force by any stretch of the imagination despite its own declarations, the colour red in its identity and simplistic media representations of it as a left party. An EFF in power will not take South Africa to the left; it does not have what it takes. An EFF-led South Africa will probably mean most South Africans will think the Zuma days were wonderful. There is no straight line from Malema to the United States’ Donald Trump, to France’s far-right Marine Le Pen or even the fundamentalist group al-Shabab. The EFF is not fascist in the 20th-century sense, but is certainly expressing elements of a 21st-century fascism in its role in South African politics. It is pioneering an original fascism in the South African context. As it fights the ANC and other progressive social forces violently, it is also delegitimising democratic processes and forms of dialogue. Unlike the ANC, the EFF claims to be left yet it is politically and ideologically certainly not left. Anti-capitalist ideology is meaningless in the EFF understanding of the world and thus it is not a serious left-orientated force. The interests it seeks to aggregate are disparate and not representative of the working class as a whole. Its disdain for hard-won democratic values, constitutional principles and practices makes it nothing less than an antidemocratic pariah. South Africans need to choose carefully where they stand in relation to the EFF. The national dialogue to resolve the higher education crisis will continue in coming months, with or without the EFF. Student formations also have to reflect on their commitment to disciplined, inclusive and respectful democratic dialogue to find policy solutions. Vishwas Satgar is an academic at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is also a member of the convening committee of the South African University Staff Network and a partner of the National Education Crisis Forum that hosted the Higher Education Convention.
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 18:30:50 GMT 3
SACP slates 'proto-fascist' EFF
BY SAPA - 09 March 2015 - 12:13
Taking about disruption to President Jacob Zuma's state-of-the-nation address on February 12, SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said it was important "to counter proto-fascist anarchy".
The EFF were escorted out of the House after insisting that Zuma answer questions regarding security upgrades to his private home in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal.
Nzimande said: "[This] cheap populism isn't taking us anywhere".
"In Parliament, rules must be applied firmly."
He was speaking at a media briefing in Johannesburg following the SACP central committee meeting.
"Here in South Africa... we are not confronting any remotely serious regime-changing agenda.
"But let's keep also keep a careful watch over any early signs of such an agenda through corrective and self-corrective measures."
Nzimande accused the Democratic Alliance and some media of tacitly supporting the EFF, and said that the institution of Parliament needed to be protected against anarchy.
"Parliament and our other legislatures need to be defended as important spaces in which the executive can be held to account, but also in which democratic majorities can carry forward their electoral mandates in making legislation and developing policy."
The central committee also called for unity within the Congress of SA Trade Unions, but Nzimande would not venture an opinion on whether the federation's general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi should face disciplinary measures.
On Thursday, Cosatu said Vavi had been implicated in a forensic report into alleged impropriety in the sale of Cosatu's old head office and purchase of a new one.
Vavi boycotted last week's Cosatu central executive committee, after some affiliates announced they would stay away until the National Union of Metalworkers of SA was reinstated as a Cosatu member.
Nzimande said the SACP respected the independence of Cosatu.
"It's a matter that has to be dealt with by Cosatu."
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 18:32:43 GMT 3
The EFF and the five characteristics of fascism
Phatse Justice Piitso | 28 September 2014. Phatse Justice Piitso is the former Ambassador to the republic of Cuba and the former provincial secretary of the SACP writing this article on his personal capacity.
Justice Piitso says the Fighters represent the most ideologically and politically backward tendency since the demise of the Hitler and Mussolini regimes
The EFF has become a political architecture of the highest forms and expressions of a fascist movement.
Antonio Gramsci, the world renowned philosopher, says the following about fascism"
fascism is a movement which the bourgeoisie thought should be a simple instrument of reaction in its hands, but once called upon and unleashed is worse than the devil, no longer allowing itself to be controlled.
Fascism is a phenomenal feature of modern capitalism of sparking civil wars to keep domination of its exploitation. Fascism is a phenomenon that always raises its ugly head during times of worse stages of capitalist crisis".
The rise of fascism in the present epoch of our modern democracy is not just a thread to our country, but to the Southern African region, our continent, the world and the whole of the future of humanity. Fascism was never revolutionary and therefore the EFF is never to be revolutionary.
Vladimir Lenin argues that national arrogance, racism, hooliganism, anarchy, tribalism and religious intolerance are the main characteristic features of fascist chauvinism. Fascism is an unreasonable and exaggerated sense of patriotism and pride in ones own country, with corresponding contempt towards the authority and other nations.
What are the general characteristic values of a fascist movement
A. It always assume itself a posture of being a movement of young people determined to undermine the authority, creating a mayhem of disrespect to others especially the older generations.
B. A seedbed of the highest forms of disorder, exaltation of force, strength, violence: slogans, symbols, costumes, insignias and military fatigue.
C. Theoretical bankruptcy, ahistorical world outlook, glorification of the past historical events, and the past is always seen as a source of inspiration to the present.
D. It always assume the most revolutionary posture more than the revolution itself. Flaborous behavior, excessively provoked as if the revolution is indebted to them.
E. The Commander in Chief, the cult of a leader. The Commander in Chief is the embodiment of the nation, of its will, and of the state. He must be obyed without question. The leader is the alpha and the omega, the blind followers have absolute discipline, sacrifice and blind obedience.
F. The worse enemy of the struggle of the working class, upon seizure of state power it always connive with monopoly capital to consolidate its class interests. Widespread persecution, killings and worst forms of exploitation and oppression of the working class.
Over the ages of our history, human societies have always asked themselves the question why such hogwash movements, are able to embellish themselves, as the most revolutionary representatives of the wishes and aspirations of the majority of our people. Why are they able to occupy the political centre stage as the most revolutionary presidium than the revolution itself?.
Our people have to open their watchful eyes to the pandemonium of the Economic Freedom Fighters which seeks to turn our country into an arena of hooliganism and anarchy. The EFF has become a political architecture of the highest forms and expressions of a fascist movement.
The movement represents the most ideologically and politically backward tendency ever in history since the demise of fascist dictatorship in Germany and Italy. In our modern times democracy we cannot allow our national democratic revolution to be an emulation of Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini.
What we need is to learn and teach others that the rise of fascism always correspond with the crisis of the capitalist mode of production. Therefore the realm of our society is to reflect deeply about the sharpening contradictions within the capitalist economic relations and how they manifest themselves in our own concrete material conditions.
History proves that fascism has always promised workers a living wage, but through its arrogance deteriorated their living standards into painful torments of starvation and underdevelopment. It has always transform the working class into pariahs of the capitalist society.
The episode of anarchy and hooliganism within the corridors of our legislative chamber is reverberating the revolutionary words of our leader, the late President of the Republic of Mozambique Cde Samora Machel when he said "after independence we took off our guns and exchanged our uniform for suits and ties, we made mistakes. We looked elegant but the bourgeoisie had the guns".
The events taking place at our legislative chamber is a living testimony that the historic enemy of our people has unleashed all its artilleries to ambush our national democratic revolution. Counter revolution seeks to undermine our legislative chamber as a theatre of our struggles for socio economic transformation of society.
Our task is to expose the common acts of hypocrisy by the Democratic Alliance and the EFF. Both serve the interests of monopoly capital to undermine the struggle for the total liberation of the people of our country.
The foundations of our democratic republic are anchored on the true history and genesis of the struggle of the people of our country against imperialism and Apartheid colonialism. Our constitution remains to be a catalogue of the best ethos humanity across the globe seeks to represent.
The past twenty years of our democracy have proven that the motive forces of our national democratic revolution are the bedrock of our struggle for socio economic transformation. Our people have indeed become the custodians of the struggle of our future generations to come.
The outcomes of our recent national general elections was indeed a testimony that the overwhelming majority of the people of our country have confidence in the African National Congress. Our people have indeed given our movement an overwhelming mandate to lead our struggle for the construction of our ideal national democratic society.
We congratulate the heroic people of our country for remaining true to the traditions and culture of our national liberation movement. Our people are the fortress of our struggle for the achievement of the objectives of our national democratic revolution.
Our victory during the national general elections was indeed a confirmation that the veins and blood streams of the vast majority of our people are still decorated with the black, green and gold colours of our glorious national liberation movement. It was indicative that the ANC still carries the wishes and the aspirations of the great majority of the people of our country.
The ANC remains the only political formation capable of taking forward our struggle for the achievement of the better life to all our people.
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 18:39:13 GMT 3
EFF'S RELATIONSHIP WITH DA IS 'MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE'
Clement Manyathela | 2 months ago
JOHANNESBURG - While Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has described his party’s relationship with the Democratic Alliance (DA) as a marriage of convenience, he’s accused the opposition party of representing what he calls “the apartheid Israel”.
While addressing supporters outside the Israeli embassy in Pretoria on Thursday, Malema said the EFF voting with the DA doesn’t mean the red berets support the party.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane came under heavy criticism from various quarters for his visit to Israel in 2016, while the opposition said it supports the grievances of the people of Palestine.
EWN Reporter
✔
@ewnreporter
#EFFMarch Malema "we need to say to the embassy of Israel, we are not friends of people who derive pleasure from people's suffering"
12:26 PM - Nov 2, 2017
Malema says his party doesn't support the DA's ideologies.
“Our vote with the DA does not mean we support their ideological orientation. It’s a marriage of convenience because DA represents apartheid Israel in South Africa.”
He says his party is passing time with the DA.
“It’s like a person you date after breaking up with your genuine girlfriend. DA is a rebound.”
Malema says the only reason his party is cooperating with the DA is because it's waiting to meet its real lover.
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 24, 2017 18:44:05 GMT 3
foreignpolicy.com/2014/09/09/does-south-africa-have-a-fascism-problem/ARGUMENT
Does South Africa Have a Fascism Problem?An ascendant populist movement is shining a light on government corruption. In response, the ruling ANC is resorting to slurs to remind voters that it is the party of the people. BY MARTIN PLAUT | SEPTEMBER 9, 2014, 2:05 PM On August 21, the South African Parliament dissolved into shambles. From the benches, members of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a recently formed opposition party, chanted, "Pay back the money! Pay back the money!" The EFF, which has branded itself as a populist alternative to the ruling African National Congress (ANC), was attempting to get a straight answer from President Jacob Zuma, leader of the ANC, about when he would repay a portion of the 246 million rand ($23 million) that had been spent upgrading his private residence. The money was supposed to improve security at his home in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Yet an independent report had found that public expenditures were used to build a swimming pool, a cattle enclosure, and an amphitheater. As the lawmakers continued to chant, halting the parliamentary proceedings, the live television feed of the event was cut and journalists were ordered out of the chamber. Security was eventually called to remove the members of the EFF. In the end, though, force was not sent into the chamber and parliamentary democracy limped on. In the wake of the confrontation, the general secretary of the ANC made a bold claim: Gwede Mantashe, speaking to a Johannesburg radio station, accused the ascendant EFF and its leader, Julius Malema, of being "fascists." Mantashe warned his listeners that the state had to be vigilant or that it would be in danger of being overthrown. Mantashe warned his listeners that the state had to be vigilant or that it would be in danger of being overthrown. Forged in the fires of the struggle against apartheid, the ANC aligned those who opposed the vile, racist regime. Blacks, whites, Indians, and "coloreds" — a label in South Africa for individuals of mixed ethnic heritage — came together to face an apartheid enemy the ANC labeled "fascist." Today, while the ANC remains entrenched in power, its claim to being the party of the people is increasingly questionable. Many senior ANC leaders are mired in allegations of corruption, and the party has been accused, by the EFF and others, of showing disregard for the nation’s poor. In response, the ANC is resorting to fearmongering, as opposed to genuine policy reform. A key goal of this reaction is to contain the EFF. It’s not so much that the new party represents a real threat to the ANC’s immediate political power. (The ANC retains a significant majority in parliament.) Rather, for the first time, the long-time ruling party can feel a chink in its armor — and a road map to the unraveling of its core constituencies. The leader of the EFF, Julius Malema, was once a dependable member of the ANC. He led the party’s youth wing until differences with Zuma resulted in his expulsion in February 2012. At first it appeared that Malema would soon be forgotten, the fate of many who have been expelled by or split from the ANC. Yet nearly a year and a half after his discharge, Malema announced the establishment of a new opposition party. Drawing support from youth, who have been frustrated by the ANC’s leadership, and some significant radical academics, the EFF officially launched in October 2013. The party’s call for "economic freedom" has resonated. During apartheid, the white minority controlled most of the country’s money and resources. Despite some modest attempts at economic redistribution under ANC stewardship, most wealth still lies in white hands. South Africa remains among the most unequal societies in the world. Though a narrow black elite has emerged around the ANC, buttressed by a wider black middle class, many South Africans still remain as poor as they were before Nelson Mandela’s presidency. In general elections this May, Malema stood on a plainly populist platform. He called for massive wage increases for all workers and the nationalization of South Africa’s lucrative mines as well as large sections of agriculture. The promises may have been unworkable, but they drew considerable support. EFF candidates won more than 1 million votes, some 6.35 percent of the electorate. Malema’s party now has 25 members of parliament. Malema has cleverly exploited the frustrations of the impoverished electorate. Dressed in their trademark red overalls, topped with red berets or hard hats, EFF members took their seats at the opening of the new parliament on May 21. "We primarily represent the interests of the working class and the poor in South Africa," the party’s spokesman, Floyd Shivambu, told journalists as they arrived, "and we want to assure them that indeed Parliament is a space where they can find expression."
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 25, 2017 16:51:06 GMT 3
On the alliance between the supposedly "left wing" Economic Freedom Fighters and the the neo-liberal DA:
Coalition Politics: A common enemy, a divided future
DAVID REIERSGORD SOUTH AFRICA 14 JUN 2017 11:14 (SOUTH AFRICA)
IIn Parliament on President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation Address, Wednesday, 18 June 2014.Picture: GCIS/SAPA
When the African National Congress – much to their arrogant surprise – lost significant ground in the 2016 municipal elections, coalition politics quickly gained traction as a suitable alternative and sign of South Africa’s healthy democracy. While specific coalitions were formed between a variety of actors over the common enemy of the ANC, the future of coalition politics nevertheless remains divided, and seems unlikely to last long after the potential defeat of the ANC. By DAVID REIERSGORD.
Last week, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Julius Malema, claimed his party would pull out of key coalition governments it had established with the Democratic Alliance (DA) in metropolitan areas like Johannesburg and Tshwane, if the DA failed to remove Helen Zille as the Premier of the Western Cape over her tone-deaf tweet from March regarding the value of colonialism.
Since then, amid widespread criticism, Zille has apologised and retained her position as premier, prompting the EFF to remind us that they owe the DA nothing with regards to coalitions. The fallout related to Zille’s tweet provides us with a window into the broader difficulties coalitions might face ahead of, and potentially beyond, the 2019 general elections when more pressing issues emerge.
While a coalition between the DA and EFF in particular is a useful tactic to potentially overtake the ANC in the 2019 national election, it doesn’t seem like a useful political strategy – especially if one contemplates what the major challenges of unemployment, crime and inequality, among others related to an economy in recession, South Africa might well be facing in three (during the next municipal election) and seven years (during the next general election).
Although the DA and EFF share a common goal in defeating the ANC, they have diverging ideas and positions about what to do once that enemy has been defeated.
In theory, the concept of coalition politics demonstrates a plurality of constituents working together towards a greater ideal. This practice has been the case in the European Union, where the majority of governments are run as coalitions. Moreover, coalitions help to maintain standards of accountability that might otherwise be overlooked by parties interested in preservation before governing effectively. Some in the DA, like its party leader Mmusi Maimane and Chief Whip John Steenhuisen, have echoed these sentiments, and promoted the value of coalition politics in South Africa ahead of the 2019 national election, arguing that it’s the only method to usurp the ANC.
However, in South Africa, the practice of coalition governments is more difficult, because of the overtly partisan orientation of municipal governments that gives rise to structures of patronage and thus corruption. Although a useful political tactic for parties like the DA and EFF, the idea of coalitions requires more scrutiny; as a political strategy it’s seductive at best, and foolish at worst.
On the one hand, coalition politics is a seductive tactic, because it reflects multiple threads of South Africa’s diverse national fabric coming together in a compromise aimed at reaching a set of common political goals. We want to believe that coalitions speak to a variety of issues with a unified voice – something that is desperately lacking in the South African public discourse. In addition, there is a belief that coalition politics helps parties hold themselves and one another accountable, because parties have to work together rather than against one another.
True to the nature of seduction, though, coalitions might seem more attractive than they truly are. The needs of people vary significantly in South Africa, to such an extent that we can’t forsake effective governance in order to achieve accountability, despite how important it is.
On the other hand, coalition politics are foolish as a political strategy, because they’re only underpinned by the common goal of defeating Zuma in particular, and the ANC in general. As such, there is a lack of stability embedded within the premise of coalitions, as various actors manoeuvre for control and therefore power, which takes place against the backdrop of a South African society that demands and needs consistent government and a functioning bureaucracy.
According to Section 152(1) of the Constitution, the priorities of local government are “to provide democratic and accountable government for local communities; to ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner; to promote social and economic development; to promote a safe and healthy environment, and to encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in the matters of local government”.
Moreover, Section 153(a) states that a municipality needs to “structure and manage its administration and budgeting and planning process to give priority to the basic needs of the community, and to promote the social and economic development of the community” (emphasis added).
In light of the responsibilities of local government mapped out in the Constitution, the durability of coalition politics becomes more questionable. Considering the dramatically different agendas, as well as the radically different symbolism of the DA and EFF, it’s tough to envision consistent consensus with regards to local governance if and when Zuma and the ANC are removed from power. Due to the partisan shape of municipalities, competition between these parties could emerge as a significant hurdle to overcome.
Moreover, if coalition politics are the future for a post-ANC South Africa, then the challenges will be to ensure that promoting accountability doesn’t overtake the need to socially and economically develop communities in need, and that partisan politics – that give rise to corruption – aren’t replicated. In light of these challenges, it might prove to be difficult to mobilise all of the stakeholders, such as civil society and the private sector, which is one of the key challenges of good governance according to the State of South African Cities Report 2016.
Indeed, the lifespan of current coalitions is tenuous. If Helen Zille’s tweets can cause leading coalition partners to question their viability, like the EFF has done, what will transpire when more substantive issues, such as rising unemployment for instance, require consensus? This is not to make a point about the fracas over Zille’s tweets – quite the contrary. What the EFF’s response to Zille’s tweets reveals is how fragile these coalitions have always been, as well as the stakes of governance in the most unequal society on earth.
If we assume the ANC will lose the 2019 general elections, which seems unlikely considering that almost 70% of South Africans believe opposition parties should co-operate with, rather than criticise, the ruling party, the sustainability of coalition politics should be under close observation. Instead of planning for a tactical future of coalitions, opposition parties like the DA and EFF should continue to work on consistently presenting voters with solid alternative strategies counter to the corrosive ANC. The immediate needs of the vast majority of South Africans can’t afford for opposition parties to jostle back-and-forth in a game of political tic-tac-toe. DM
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Dec 25, 2017 16:53:35 GMT 3
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) collaborationist free-marketeering fundamentalism.
among South Africa's poorest citizens was one of the primary reasons for the demands for better pay and strikes that led to the Marikana mine massacre in August 2012, when police officers killed 34 protesting miners.
were built—all under Ramaphosa’s direct responsibility.