The Old Firm

Once upon a time Julian Ogilvie-Thompson, then head of Anglo-American, used to make statements as if he was a prince or a cardinal. Before him Gavin Relly did the same and before him Harry Oppenheimer. These were big-time crooks pretending to be uncles of the nation. Now it takes a whole roomful of business stiffs (see link) to attempt the same effect. The deceptive odour of bourgeois sanctity hangs heavy over the Cape Town gathering of business people and government officials, some almost straight from the ANC NEC last weekend, with each group stroking and reassuring the other. It is this cosy relationship between business and government that our SACP GS Blade Nzimande said, in his speech to last month’s COSATU-led general strike for jobs and against poverty, must be disrupted. “The task of the working class is to disrupt the emerging alliance between some of our cadres in the state and private capitalist interests”, he said. Steven Friedman is sometimes the mouthpiece of the state-capitalist fraction of the bourgeoisie. But yesterday he condescended to note that the SACP and COSATU had something principled to say, which he had not noticed before. Better late than never. See the link below. Roxanne Dunbar doesn’t like affirmative action because as a partisan of the US oppressed she sees it as a component of reaction. Affirmative action theory came to South Africa from the USA, undigested and unexamined, in the early 1990s. It did not come from the ANC heritage or from any revolutionary literature or concrete example. For Roxanne Dunbar affirmative action theory is part of a deceptive, liberal, reformist package that she rejects. See link. Click on these links: Big business throws weight behind Mbeki, Linda Ensor, Business Day (531 words) ANC pain offers democracy an opportunity, Friedman, B Day (847 words) Comforting Lies of the Colonizers, Roxanne Dunbar, Counterpunch (1124 words)