Democracy, Class and State

British Conservative Party leader David Cameron has visited Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg and made a statement repudiating the policies of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in relation to South Africa (she called Mandela a “terrorist”). See the linked item from the London Observer. In response Peter Hain is quoted as saying: 'For those of us in the struggle - a bitter struggle, a life-and-death struggle - the Tories were the enemy as much as Pretoria”. Is this true? Let us see. Hain, born and bred in Johannesburg, was prominent in Britain’s Young Liberals in the 1960s and 1970s, and as such, rejected the democracy and the discipline of the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM). So it is possible that he is simply ignorant of the fact that from the very beginning of the AAM in the 1950s, the movement took great care to try to win Conservatives (“Tories”) to its ranks. One founding member was the Tory Lord Altrincham, and Christabel Gurney records that this man was used at nearly every meeting in the early days, precisely to make the non-sectarian point that Hain has never grasped. The Anti-Apartheid Movement was a democratic mass boycott movement of ordinary British people. Nothing is more ordinary in Britain than the Tory Party. Hain can speak for himself and his undisciplined adventurist group of show-offs. Most of the AAM were very keen to get Tories on board. One supporter was Fulham MP Martin Stevens. Another was an MP called Hugh Dykes. Both Conservatives - and there were others who played a role. Lord Barber, a former Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) was a member (together with Olusegun Obasanjo and Shridath Ramphal) of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group (EPG), which met Nelson Mandela in prison in 1986. Hain is now a member of the British Labour Party government. He is Northern Ireland Secretary. In other words he is as near as he could get in 2006 to being a British colonial governor. So it is perhaps natural that he should try to keep any Tories off the struggle turf that made him famous. He is wrong, of course, and Nelson Mandela was right to meet the Tory leader. The Tory leader was also right to reject Thatcher, so much of whose philosophy has since been embraced by the so-called Labour Party of Hain and Blair (most especially her war-mongering Imperial policies). According to the City Press, supporters of Thabo Mbeki’s campaign for the ANC Presidency in 2007 are busy going around the country trying to procure advancement for their faction and to get what amount to oaths of loyalty (like Jomo Kenyatta used to do). The City Press report (linked below) says that the success of this campaign is mixed. The ANC Parliamentary caucus refused. A branch in Port Elizabeth, on the other hand, enthusiastically embraced not only Mbeki but also Nosimo Balindlela. Also linked today is a brief report of the three-day session of the National Committee of the Young Communist League (YCL) of South Africa, from their spokesperson, the talented Castro Ngobese. The Second National Congress of the YCL takes place from 14th to 17th December 2006, in Durban. Click on these links: Cameron, We got it wrong on apartheid, Ned Temko, The Observer (1034 words) Mbeki loyalty plan flops, Mpumelelo Mkhabela, City Press (919 words) Intensify campaign v unemployment and monopoly, YCLNC (1621 words)