Profit versus People

Failure to stamp the authority of working class women in… (the Progressive Women’s Movement)… can only lead to the hijacking of this movement by elitist and BEE-type interests, thus reproducing and exacerbating the very widening class inequalities in broader South African society. A women’s movement can only be said to be progressive if it prioritises addressing the interests of working and poor women. So says the SACP in a long e-mail statement, which is not on the SACP web site. The most recent press statement on that site is dated December 2005. From the Sunday Times web site, here (linked below) is SACP GS Dr. Blade Nzimande’s powerful article, published in hard copy on Sunday. Jeremy Gordin in the Sunday Independent gently reminds its readers that the trial of Jacob Zuma is about a human being, as the judge seems to have found it necessary to point out to prosecution attorneys such as Wim Trengove. This investigation has gone on for six years already. Charles Dickens wrote of a fictional case (“Jarndyce v. Jarndyce”) which went on for longer. But is that the kind of record South Africa wants to break? Prof. Devan Pillay is one of the contributors to “Trade Unions and Democracy”, a book edited by his colleague Prof. Sakhela Buhlungu. This book is criticised by somebody called Dominic Tweedie, a person not completely unknown to the Communist University, in the linked letter to the Sunday Times (Business Section) below. Prof. Pillay has joined with some North European bedfellows to form a well-heeled rival to the Communist University called the Global Labour University (GLU). This other University believes that there is something called “the state” that is separate from society but can be linked with society actors in bed. In fact the state can hop from one bed to another, so as to satisfy many actors. Read about this in the linked document and especially the downloadable PDF file linked within it. The bed-hopping state is explained there as clearly as it possibly can be. GLU is calling for papers to be presented during a three-day workshop at Wits University starting on April Fool’s Day, 2007. A paper based on Lenin’s The State, or better still, State and Revolution would obviously be very useful to these holy innocents. Would Devan and the funders (FES et cetera) accept it? Who can tell at this stage? NUM has settled with Kumba. See the linked statement below. In Swaziland, the struggle continues. Police shoot and wound demonstrators. See the linked articles (two in one) from the Times of Swaziland. Click on these links: Policies have put profit before people, Blade Nzimande, Sunday Times (822 words) Status quo versus human being, Jeremy Gordin, Sunday Independent (1539 words) COSATU stands up for the unemployed, Tweedie, Sunday Times (437 words) Labour and the Challenges of Development, GLU, Devan Pillay (Notice and download) NUM calls the Kumba strike off (314 words) Comrade shot by police, Mduduzi Magagula, Times of Swaziland (711 words)