Keep It Political

The Communist University meets tonight at 17h00 at the Women’s Jail, 1 Kotze Street, Constitution Hill to discuss “Gramsci, Freire, Organic Intellectuals and Critical Pedagogy” by Gustavo Fischman and Peter McLaren. The title is actually much longer than this. It is shortened for convenience. There are people in the SACP, such as the current Gauteng Provincial Secretary, whose view of political education, as the CU understands it, is that old texts should not be used, only newly-written material. The CU uses both. One reason is that the older material is often clearer and describes events which are more easily comparable to our present experience. This can be shown by a comparison between this week’s CU text and the one set down for discussion next week, “On the Southern Question”, by Antonio Gramsci. Reading the original Gramsci is a lot easier than reading a twenty-first century intellectual, even if it was Vishwas Satgar himself, writing about Gramsci and attempting to “explain” him to us. See the link below. Tomorrow SACP General Secretary Dr Blade Nzimande will address a Red October Launching Rally in Dr Yusuf Dadoo District (Khutsong Stadium, 10h00) and later attend the fundraising dinner of the Gauteng Province (Emperor’s Palace, 18h30). This, also, should present us with a nice contrast. In the first case the masses, without money. In the second case money (we hope), but far from the masses. Communists are not usually at home in the palaces of emperors. Let us hope that tomorrow will be a temporary exception, and that a good time will be had by all. If that happens, it will be because people have managed for the time being to suppress their urge to take offence. This is not an easy task for some people. For example, Karima Brown’s short article on the alliance in yesterday’s Business Day, linked below, was unobtrusively tucked in between an advertisement and the “gutter”, down at the bottom left-hand side of page three. Yet somebody’s ego was offended by it, to the extent that the mighty ANC had to issue a full statement rebutting the “wrong impression” that the issue of the President’s notes for his bad-tempered “political overview” at last weekend’s NEC was the work of Smuts Ngonyama. The ANC statement insists on implicating ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe. But this is only achieved by means of another “wrong impression”. The statement omits to mention that the “political overview” had already been leaked long before it was issued to the media in hard copy. Somebody is trying to “cover his ass” here while claiming to “clarify any misunderstanding or confusion”. That somebody is not Cde Kgalema Motlanthe. Work it out for yourself. People who excuse themselves, accuse themselves. War is the continuation of politics by violent means. The working class does not want war, but only politics. So for us the study of war is not for the purpose of learning to use violence, but rather to learn some politics from the supercharged political dynamics of a war situation. The article below details how “Hezbollah scored a decisive and complete victory in its war with Israel”. The way this was done was political. The Israelis, on the other hand, “failed to articulate clear political goals in the aftermath of the conflict or sketch out a political exit strategy should the (military) offensive fail”. It is political considerations that are finally decisive. The lesson is that war has to be avoided. It is simply an unnecessarily hard road to a destination that can be reached by different means. In all cases the political work is what has to be done. The linked document is the first of two, with the next one showing how the Israelis lost the ground war. The law, too, is amenable to the same kind of logical or scientific treatment and Mervyn Bennun does a very good job in the article from yesterday’s Business Day linked below. It finishes up with a call to action to clean up the NPA. Let us hope that the abomination of summary “asset forfeiture” is also removed in the same sweep-out. What Max du Preez wants to sweep out is the communists and the organised working class. This man doesn’t know if he is Arthur or Martha, Oom or Dominee. His personal agonies are too dull (see the link). He should take his previous advice and retire to “cultivate his garden”. Click on these links: 1926 Gramsci Some aspects of the southern question (9675 words) Alliance tries to limit fallout, Karima Brown, Business Day (270 words) ANC claims wrong interpretation, ANC Press Release (259 words) How Hezbollah Defeated Israel, Crooke and Perry, Counterpunch (3031 words) NPA out of order, Mervyn Bennun, Business Day (2614 words) The madness of Max du Preez, The Star (860 words)