People We Know

The Communist University meets this afternoon at 17h00 in the Women’s Jail, 1 Kotze Street, Constitution Hill to discuss the COSATU 9th Congress held last week in Midrand. For the purposes of that discussion we can use comrades’ own first-hand reports and also the Congress Final Declaration, linked below. Next week we will discuss James Heartfield’s “Death of the Subject Explained”. One common illusion of bourgeois society is that human beings are basically anonymous. In this view, an individual might rise up from the status of “unknown” to the status of “famous”, “well-known”, or even “celebrity”, only to sink later back into “obscurity”. To be a nothing in the world is treated as the normal, or as they say in computer jargon, the default situation. There is nothing natural or scientific about this cruel and inhuman, hierarchical way of thinking. There is nothing other than our memories that stands in the way of all human beings knowing all other human beings in a personal way (and as Tony Buzan reminds us, there is practically no limit to what a human being can remember). Linked below are four texts from people we know – including three YCLers. The first is from James Tweedie, of the British YCL, on his journey to Venezuela for the 10th Congress of the Venezuelan YCL, together with his YCL comrade Ben Chacko, who wrote the second report, on that Congress itself. Next is the letter of Communist University stalwart Kimani Ndingu, from yesterday’s Johannesburg Star, writing about an encounter with xenophobia in Braamfontein, near where we meet each week. Finally, Floyd Shivambu, mainstay of the Wits YCL and its political education work, has a letter in todays’s Johannesburg Business Day. The bourgeoisie does not open doors for us. We open doors for ourselves. Viva the Young Communists, Viva! Click on these links: Final Declaration of the 9th COSATU National Congress (2733 words) Venezuela - Solidarity in Struggle, James Tweedie, YCLUK (1106 words) Juventud Comunista de Venezuela 10th Congress, B Chacko, YCLUK (1109 words) Insulted in my own country by policemen, Kimani Ndungu, The Star (454 words) Broad input, Nyiko Floyd Shivambu, Business Day (314 words)