Rendition

Guantanamo is a part of Cuba stolen and occupied by the USA. In that place the US holds people and tortures them in defiance of all the rights that have been fought for and won over centuries, and in particular the right of “habeas corpus”. The USA refuses its victims the status of prisoner of war, but will also not submit to a civil court. They use particularly one-eyed, arrogant and cruel people to run camps for them, such as the Guantanamo base commander Rear Adm. Harry Harris. When three detainees committed suicide at Guantanamo last week, Harris called it an act of war by the poor dead tortured detainees against his grand self and his horrible imperial superiors. See the Reuters article linked below. The process by which people end up as non-persons in the US camps (the new “gulag archipelago”) around the world is known as “rendition”. The European part of the rendition flight network and its destinations can be glimpsed in the linked report from the London Guardian below. The scaly claws of rendition now seem to have reached down to Waterkloof air force base near Pretoria. In November a man called Khalid Mahmood Rashid was sent from there in a Gulf Stream jet, possibly to Mombasa, or possibly to Pakistan. A mordant, short description of what has happened was given by the Rashid family’s lawyer, Zehir Omar, in the hard-copy Mail and Guardian last Friday. Unfortunately it cannot yet be found on the Internet. The South African government’s “justice, crime prevention and security cluster” (actually the husband and wife team of Charles Nqakula and Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, Minister of Safety and Security and Minister of Home Affairs respectively, plus Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla, and Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils) issued a statement blaming Mr Omar, as follows: "Omar's unfounded and deleterious insinuations that our country can engage in abduction - and his unethical behaviour in handling this case - are not only harmful to community relations in our society, but they also have the effect of undermining the international standing of our country." For more from this statement see the News24 article linked below. The Mail and Guardian’s general article on the subject is also linked below. “Habeas corpus” refers to the power of courts to command the state to produce a person. It is one of the foundations of the law as we know it. It goes back at least 700 years. It means that governments are not allowed to “disappear” people, and must account for them when they are arrested. Before “habeas corpus” the “Magna Carta” in England established that the will of the king (i.e. the state) could be bound by law. A court could from then on make an order over the state, such as a “habeas corpus” order. On 18 September 2001 US President George W Bush signed a “Military Order” purporting to suspend the right of “habeas corpus” and to invent from nothing the category of “enemy combatant”, who is neither citizen nor prisoner of war – in effect, a non-person. This “Military Order” is certainly unconstitutional but the US people have not yet got up the courage to throw it out. Outside the US, the Bush policy has been to move people around secretly, often in Gulf Stream jets, so as to avoid the possibility of lawyers applying for “habeas corpus” in any fixed jurisdiction, and so to defeat the ends of justice. This is what they call “rendition”. The linked Sunday Independent article means that there is now going to be, in effect, a “habeas corpus” application to the international criminal court in The Hague, with the intention of compelling all concerned to produce the missing man at a specified place and time. If our government has a good explanation as to why they treated Mr Rashid in the way that they did, then they have been extremely slow to come up with it. In the leary worldwide climate generated by the US “renditions”, it does not look good at all. Click on these links: Three detainees kill themselves in Guantanamo, Reuters (645 words) European involvement in torture flights, The Guardian (1043 words) Rashid wanted to be deported, Omar to blame, News24 (461 words) Khalid Rashid, Government cover blown, Mail and Guardian (1025 words) Rashid hunt goes to the world court, Gordin, Naran, Sindy (716 words)

Journalism

Johannesburg’s “Star” newspaper seems to be going downmarket. But sometimes popular journalism is vivid journalism. The two linked reports below (one is from the photographer on the story) about the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg are extraordinary. This is a terrible situation that these reporters, Solly Maphumulo and Dumisani Sibeko have exposed. Diane Christian’s article from Counterpunch is about the grotesque exhibition of the head of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi after he and some others with him were killed by US bombs. Tony Karon is a South African-born journalist working in the USA. His linked article is on the relationship between politics and the World Cup, and celebrates the memory of CLR James among others. Click on these links: Place of worship now a den of iniquity, Solly Maphumulo, The Star (1184 words) We hate journalists, they expose us, Dumisani Sibeko, The Star (517 words) Sanitized Beheading, Zarqawi's Face, Diane Christian, Counterpunch (603 words) World Cup, Politics and War by Other Means, Tony Karon, Tomdispatch (3532 words)

Fun With Letters

One subscriber was not pleased yesterday’s post. Therefore some clarification may be in order. The SACP does not support Jacob Zuma for President. Nor does it oppose him. The same applies to Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. The choice of one of these two or of another candidate is a matter for the ANC to decide, in the manner prescribed in its constitution. The Saturday Star today is trying to boost Terror Lekota for president. They have that right, but the ANC will decide who its candidate is. Yesterday’s remarks referred to the “Hollywood” days of the NPA/Scorpions. The term “Hollywood” was used boastfully by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s husband Mr Bulelani Ngcuka when he was the head of that notorious institution. It referred to the Scorpions’ technique of arresting a person in front of pre-arranged television news cameras, only to release the person later once he had been well and truly smeared. These and similar things happened many times. This is what was referred to by COSATU in its CEC report of 25 May, as follows: “the main concern of the CEC centres on signs that we may be drifting towards dictatorship. This appears in the use of state institutions in narrow factional fights. We see it in the use of sections of the media to assassinate the character of individuals through off-the-record briefings and the leaking of sensitive information in the hands of those charged to investigate crimes.” The problem of Ngcuka was not that he pursued Jacob Zuma in particular, but that he used a state institution, and frequently, on behalf of his faction. Under Ngcuka the NPA was being used to crush and eliminate people who might stand in the way of Ngcuka’s political ambitions, and those of his friends. What was being destroyed was more than any individual. It was democracy itself. Zuma bravely resisted, and is still resisting. Without him standing up to the bullying it is hard to imagine how the rot was going to stop. Which does not make this a “Zuma affair”, or guarantee that Zuma will be president. It is much more than that. It is a test of our ability to defend South Africa’s democracy from a well-disguised surprise attack, launched from right inside the state apparatus. The significance of the opinion poll that says that Jacob Zuma is expected to be the next President by 51% of the people, as opposed to a much smaller number for Mrs Ngcuka, is primarily that it shows that most of the people are not fooled by the ambitious anti-democratic manoeuvres of Mr and Mrs Ngcuka and their hidden friends. Ngcuka has not disappeared. This lawyer and sometime government official has quickly popped up again in the guise of a multi-millionaire haute bourgeois. How he made the transition is not clear. No doubt it was a variation of the “javelin” technique. As a big businessman now, Ngcuka is sometimes in the news, even if he hides behind his personal spokesperson. When these stories come out, we must pay attention as students of politics and as citizens of South Africa. Hence yesterday’s post. The first two linked items today are a little bit lighter in tone, for once. The letters columns of the papers are open to all, and sometimes they give rise to good-humoured exchanges (see first two linked items). Mark Malloch Brown is a Deputy General Secretary of the United Nations. He is a British citizen and somewhat liberal. Yet the inoffensive statement he made a few days ago caused the US “Mr Angry” at the United Nations, John Bolton, to go completely potty once again. See the link. Also from the USA, from Counterpunch, here is an article by the military theorist William Lind, who explains the “power of weakness” in military campaigns. See the link. Click on these links: Swarpofs unite, Roger Southall, HSRC, Business Day (207 words) The DA and the ghost of Joe Orton, Bryan Rostron, Business Day (917 words) Mark Malloch Brown, Deputy UN SG, Power and Super-Power (2615 words) The Power of Weakness, William Lind, Counterpunch (798 words)

Leaders and Bandits

The Communist University convenes this evening at 17h00 at the Women’s Jail, 1 Kotze Street, Constitution Hill, to discuss credit bureau blacklisting and the SACP’s campaign for a credit amnesty. Comrade Nkosiphendule Kolisile, Secretary of SACP Yusuf Dadoo District, YCL National Committee Member and YCL National Working Committee Member, will open the discussion. Next week Friday is June 16th and the CU will not, repeat not, meet on that day. On Sunday, May 18th the Johannesburg Central Branch is going to meet and will debate a motion on the “State Power” discussion document. Therefore this week is a good time to read it again. Our next CU session will be on June 23rd, when we will discuss excerpts from Lenin’s “What is to be Done?”. COSATU has not hesitated to denounce the wanton economic vandalism of the Reserve Bank’s interest rate increase, announced yesterday by its governor, Tito Mboweni. See link below. In response to loose journalism in the Citizen newspaper yesterday, the Young Communist League has announced that it unequivocally supports the Alliance of the SACP, COSATU and the ANC in the current phase of the National Democratic Revolution. See the link below. Bulelani Ngcuka, former chief Scorpion, who once persecuted ANC Deputy President Jacob Zuma and many other innocents, but released Mark Thatcher, must be the only businessman who never speaks except through a full-time spokesperson, Sipho Ngwema. This time it has to do with Ngcika’s resignation as chairman of Amabubesi Investments. Perhaps this is so as to appear to distance himself (although he keeps his shares) from the embarrassing Amabubesi mission statement which says: “Most businesses interface with the government at all levels, either for business or to influence strategic thinking. Our association with decision-makers at the highest level enables us to influence strategic decisions in our country.” Mr Ngcuka’s wife is the current Deputy President of the country, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. She was appointed following Jacob Zuma’s removal from his position in the wake of Mr Nguka’s leaks, briefings, public smearing and prosecutions of Zuma when Ngcuka was head of the NPA/Scorpions. As much as Nguka’s business manoeuvres may seem complex and obscure, yet the overall picture is all too clear. Distancing and spokespersoning are not going to succeed in hiding this scandalous picture, even if most of the media plays along (for the moment). See the linked document. An opinion poll yesterday found that 51% of South Africans believe that Jacob Zuma is most likely to be South Africa’s next President. 51% is not 100%, but it is still a winning score. The Progressive Women’s Movement, daughter of the ANC Women’s League, is having a meeting today in the larney Sandton Hilton, where it will launch a “concept document and proposed constitution” for this organisation of “political parties, women in business, unions, faith-based organisation and non-governmental organisations”. See the linked notice. Umrabulo 25 is the latest issue of the theoretical political journal of the ANC, published yesterday. It contains a (linked) discussion document on the leadership succession, specifically that of the President. Meanwhile Xolela Mangcu in the Business Day has some kind words to say about the SACP and COSATU for once in his life. See link below. Click on these links: COSATU condemns interest-rate hike (247 words) YCL statement on Citizen article of 8 June 2006 (190 words) Bulelani Ngcuka goes it alone, Roy Cokayne, Business Report (504 words) Meeting of the Progressive Women's Movement, ANCWL (notice) Addressing challenges of leadership, Umrabulo 25, May 2006 (5751 words) Nongqause comparison shirks analysis, Xolela Mangcu, Business Day (782 words)

Fault Line

Tomorrow’s session of the Communist University will discuss credit bureau blacklisting and the SACP’s campaign for a credit amnesty. Comrade Nkosiphendule Kolisile, Secretary of SACP Yusuf Dadoo District, YCL National Committee Member and YCL National Working Committee Member, will open the discussion. There should have been a reminder posted here yesterday for the YCL’s Wednesday class. The CU apologises for the omission! The next YCL class will be next Wednesday, 14 June, at 17h00 in the SATAWU office, 13th floor, Old Mutual Building, 29 Kerk Street, between Harrison and Loveday. The topic will be the famous March, 1850 Address given by Karl Marx to the Central Committee of the Communist League (see link below). The latest Umsebenzi Online carries a major (linked below) piece of political writing by SACP GS Dr Blade Nzimande, a contribution to and clarification of the “State Power” discussion initiated by the current Bua Komanisi document. It contains an illuminating passage on the black middle class in general, including the fact that the trading section of the South African middle class has shrunk considerably in recent years (during in the very period when official “SMME” promotion has been at its height). It also includes the full text of yesterday’s Business Day article. The shorter version of this article that was printed is also linked below. The Sowetan is also beginning to take the current debates more seriously and with a deeper understanding of what is at stake. See the linked editorial below. Our Johannesburg Central Branch comrade Hope Mankwana Papo, who is also a Gauteng MPL and a member of the SACP Gauteng Provincial Executive Committee has had a letter published in The Star about the necessity for a revival of mass popular organisation. See the link below. Lastly, from Helena Cobban, the US peace activist and journalist for the Christian Science Monitor, an article on the open reassessment by a senior US military figure of the war in Iraq. See link. Click on these links: Umsebenzi Online, Vol 5, No. 57, 07 June 2006, Class the Fault Line (3987 words) What SACP paper said, and did not say, Business Day (829 words) Masses appeal, Editorial, Sowetan (876 words) Mobilise at local level for stronger state, Hope Papo, The Star (721 words) US field commanders understand their failure, Helena Cobban (737 words) Marx, Address to the Communist League, March 1850 (4120 words)

War and Relative Peace

The press and the radio media have been trying hard to cook up splits where there are no splits. COSATU’s Gauteng Province lays some of these attempts to rest with a firm statement (linked below) and takes the opportunity of confirming that the anti-Gautrain campaign is on track, unlike the boondoggle express itself. COSATU national meanwhile notes its vindication in the matter of other phantom splits alleged in the ANC (see link) as well as police incontinence with pump-action firearms and Sasol’s latest safety failure, one in a long line of such “accidents”. Some of the most literate, direct and shocking writing about the daily, actually-existing atrocity that is the US war-making organisation comes from the USA itself. Both Diane Christian and Chris Floyd are from there. See the two articles linked below. It is easy to think that the horror has become less. It hasn’t. It is getting worse all the time. As much as we have problems, they are not of this order. The US warmongers must never be permitted to do their dirty business on African soil. Swaziland has only 92000 workers out of a population of 1.1 million. What can one say? This bald fact speaks for itself. See the link below. DTSACCO meets on July 1st. See linked notice. Click on these links: COSATU Gauteng statement on CEC and Gautrain (374 words) COSATU on ANC, police violence, and Sasol explosion (342 words) Negatives, Diane Christian, Counterpunch (986 words) Lesson Plan, Chris Floyd, Moscow Times (946 words) Swaziland has only 92000 workers, Swazi Observer May 31 (395 words) DTSACCO Members Meeting 1 July 2006 (notice)

Statements, True and False

The ANC had to contradict its own National Chairperson (Mosiua Lekota). COSATU pointed out that it was just this kind of allegation that gave substance to its charges of two weeks ago. See the first two linked items. The NUM has seen fit to have a meeting and subsequent press conference with the South African Conference of Churches. See link. As well as those things for which the late Comrade Uriah Maleka is honoured in the ANC statement linked below, he was also a leader of SACTU, the South African Congress of Trade Unions, forerunner of COSATU. May he rest in peace. Ayatollah Khamene’i is “Supreme Jurisprudent” of Iran. He is a powerful speaker and here he speaks the truth about Imperialism. The speech was given on Sunday, June 4. Click on these links: ANC statement, no such decision against Dep Pres Jacob Zuma (279 words) COSATU, Contradictory statements on Jacob Zuma a serious crisis (386 words) NUM and SACC make peace and issue statement (331 words) ANC statement on the death of Uriah Maleka (161 words) Ayatollah Khamenei Speaks on Iranian TV against US threats (2194 words)

Free Development of Each and All

The Communist University wikispace web site “amadlandawonye” is where our old and new material is archived. It is the broad field or college in which we are able to hold our conversation with each other as well as with our revolutionary ancestors, and where necessary and useful things are close at hand. From November of last year up to now, it has clocked up 207075 total “views”, making it the fourth most viewed public wikispace in the world, out of a total of 4295. The diagram linked below was done in December 2006 when the CU system settled into the current pattern. The “Blogger” blog feeds the “Google” group with an e-mail linked to documents previously archived on the “Wikispace” web site. The number of people receiving these daily e-mails is now over 800. It works very well indeed. Apart from the PC and the Internet connection, it is all free. It is something (like language itself) that could be described as an “element of communism”. It is a materialisation of Karl Marx’s phrase at the end of the second part of the “Manifesto” about “a vast association of the whole nation in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” In free creation as individuals we make a human society. It all started with a few members of Johannesburg meeting as a study circle in June, 2003; firstly Zico Tamela and Makhi Ndabeni, then Dominic Tweedie and others. Then we discovered the Marxists Internet Archive and began to download short texts for distribution each week for discussion the next week, on a worked-out schedule. That led to the collection of these same texts on floppy disks, and then the first attempt (Christmas 2003) to build an archive spanning from the genesis of Marx’s oeuvre in the mid 1840s, through to the death of Engels 50 years later and the appearance of Lenin as a writer in 1894, and then from the death of Lenin in 1924 to the present day. There are overlaps but this 50-30-80 outline did help to catalogue the whole 160+-year period in an accessible way, and create a core base from which further expeditions become more possible. It soon became a hit in the form of the Communist University CD. From the works came a set of short texts, classified in another way, and then the drafting of “courses”, some occasional and others generic. (These short texts and courses eventually became the basis for the amadlandawonye web site). At the same time an e-mail distribution list was building, first from the participants in the study circle and the branch, and then by word of mouth and of mouse. The list started as a way of announcing discussions of the study circle and distributing the reading in advance. Soon it started to carry other notices and articles and became a de facto newsletter, going out from a gmail address. The limit of the gmail is 500 messages per day, but even at the level of 100 messages it already becomes cumbersome and difficult to manage. The CU grew too big for that and it had to find another way. Hence the system described above and in the diagram, invented and launched with the help of Nhlanhla Mabaso and Shafiur Rahman. Now it has become somewhat well-equipped, so that, for example, in a few days yesterday’s list of links could be built up from collected archives and known resources. The 26 items amount to a book-length set of texts that give an organic view of a 100-year history of tactical struggles around the class and national questions in South Africa, and yielding an understanding of the relationship between these struggles. These now make a good and ready source of reading for the “State Power” discussion. There is no other medium that allows such speed of assembling and publishing work like this. The free development of each only becomes the free development of all when all are freely developing. The working class needs two, three, many CUs and other such inventions to make it free. Let’s hope this short explanation can encourage more people to start such things. Wikispaces are especially good because they are designed for collective and co-operative working (as opposed to the single “webmaster”). Every SACP and ANC branch could have one, and every COSATU shop steward’s committee, and students, and international solidarity organisations. What they are all bound to discover is that there is no separation between the material and the medium, or between the political and the technical, or between the teacher and the taught, or between theory and practice. Not if you are a communist, there isn’t. Click on this link: Communist University Diagram (Word file download)

State Power Document, Augmented

The wikispace Communist University web site has statistics for each page viewed. The “State Power” SACP CC discussion document has been viewed 571 times to date. A new feature has been added to the page, so that you can jump straight to the Foreword, Part 1 and Part 2, and to the list of links to related words now included at the bottom of the page. See below for the full list of (now 25) documents. These documents show that from its earliest beginnings in the form of the International Socialist League, and even before being admitted to the Commmunist International in 1921, the CPSA and later the SACP did its political business in negotiation with other organisations and always with a view to constructing a class alliance that would achieve permanent gains for the working class. The involvement in the top leadership of the ICU existed long before the Comintern imposed the “Black Republic” slogan in 1928. From this time on the SACP’s ties to the ANC became ever stronger and particularly after Moses Kotane’s 1934 “Cradock Letter”. In the 1940s the unity of the Transvaal and Natal Indian Congresses in action with the ANC in the 1946 Miners’ Strike expressed itself in the Three Doctors’ Pact in 1947 and again in the Defiance Campaign of 1952. The Congress of the People extended this principle of alliance to all sections of the population. In the early 1960s Party cadres worked to build a South African United Front even including the PAC, and in 1976 there was the similar episode of the “Gang of 8”. Always the “National Question” was the basis both of unity and of tension leading to splits. In this connection see the last item, from today's ANC President, Tahbo Mbeki. In the late 1990s the present discussion was partly prefigured by the ANC discussion document called “State, Property Relations and Social Transformation” prefigured the present debate, with Cdes Nzimande and Cronin issuing a critique during the discussion calling for real transformation, and not a balancing act between capital and poverty. Some, but not all, of the items linked below are mentioned in the State Power document. Click on these links: 1852, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, Marx, extracts, (10719 Words) 1917, No Labour Movement without the Black Proletariat, ISL (826 words) 1919, The State, Lenin (7209 words) 1926, On expulsion of Communists from the ICU, CPSA (815 words) 1928, Comintern resolution on The South African Question - Black Republic, 6CCI (3115 words) 1933, Caesarism, Gramsci (2117 words) 1934, The Cradock Letter, Moses Kotane, (944 words) 1946, The African Miners Strike, Naicker (3894 words) 1947, Three Doctors Pact, Xuma, Naicker, Dadoo (380 words) 1952, Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign, Henry Nxumalo, Drum (616 words) 1955, Call to the Congress of the People, ANC (1316 words) 1955, The Freedom Charter, ANC (1239 words) 1962, Why the United Front Failed, Disruptive Role of the PAC, Dadoo (1020 words) 1962, SACP, The Road to South African Freedom (18552 words) 1969, ANC, Strategy and Tactics (5879 words) 1975, Bunting, Moses Kotane Chapter 2, The National Question (13844 words) 1976, Enemy Hidden Under the Same Colour, SACP CC (8941 words) 1977, The Way Forward from Soweto, SACP CC (7537 words) 1979, The Green Book, ANC (10658 words) 1988, SA Working Class and the NDR, Slovo (14985) 1988, Has Socialism Failed?, Slovo (10611) 1997, Transformation, not a Balancing Act, Nzimande and Cronin (3264 words) 1998, State, Property Relations, Social Transformation, ANC (8488 words) 2005, The People Shall Govern, Cronin (13435 words) 2006, Committed to build a new nation, Thabo Mbeki, ANC Today (2553 words)

Export of Monopoly Finance Capital

The Johannesburg Communist University decided to dedicated next week’s (9 June) session to a study and discussion of the question of credit blacklisting and the popular demand raised by the SACP for a Credit Amnesty. This will be at the Women’s Jail, 1 Kotze Street, Constitution Hill, at 17h00 next Friday. Today in Randfontein the Yusuf Dadoo District of the SACP is organising a march in support of this campaign. See linked notice. Mr Fitzgerald, the Chairman of Reuters, is a white Irishman who wears his glasses on the end of his nose and looks out over them like the bossy woman in the TV show, “Weakest Link”. His message is similar to hers. Reuters is a business intelligence and analyst organisation, sorting sheep from goats for the information of capitalist investors. Fitzgerald is no doubt an “old Africa hand” but his name is Niall, and not “Nile”. Even so he appears to have been admitted without any questions asked to the new “Native Club”. With the former (neo-liberalising) president of Tanzania Benjamin Mkapa he has been made co-chairman of the “African Investment Climate Facility”. This body will do for international monopoly finance capital what state-monopoly capitalism does in individual countries. It will integrate the state with the capitalist system. See the link below. The Native Clubbers of this world, like their PAC forerunners of the late 1950s, prefer one “foreign ideology” (imperialist capitalism) over another (communism). Actually, as in the case of Mr Fitzgerald, it turns out that for these Africanists, normal ideas of foreignness don’t apply at all. Anyone can be a Native. His face needn’t fit, but his politics must. ANC President Thabo Mbeki has found time among the events of the last two weeks to write a 2553-word letter (something that would take most people at least one whole day) to say that the ANC is not rudderless, but is steering towards nationalism. This is that same strange nationalism which prefers a “facility” (easement) for foreign capital, over the National Democratic Revolution. The latter used to be our unifying purpose. Now the words are not mentioned, and especially not the word “revolution”. Only the ANC’s reduction of the concept of the NDR to the class-struggle-free static formula: “united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa” is mentioned. See the linked document. Meanwhile COSATU’s economist Neva Makgetla shows what the result of this pretence of service to two masters. The imperial capitalist masters get all the service they want, while the nominal master so democracy get practically nothing. See linked article. Click on these links: SACP West Rand march for credit amnesty today, 10h30 (notice) Imperial capitalism to be made easier, Ayanda Shezi, Business Day (522 words) Committed to build a new nation, Thabo Mbeki, ANC Today (2553 words) SA inequalities persist despite growth, Makgetla, Business Day (726 words)

A Class For Itself

Johannesburg’s Communist University convenes today at 17h00 at the Women’s Jail, 1 Kotze Street, Constitution Hill, to discuss Kwame Nkrumah’s short paper given in 1967 to a conference in Cairo and called “African Socialism Revisited”. This paper is very relevant at the present moment. Next week we will reconvene at the same time and place. This (9 June) session was reserved for discussion of a topic to be handed down from the SACP Gauteng Provincial political school, but once again this has not happened according to the plan. Therefore we must also discuss today what we are going to do at next week’s session. Both the SACP and COSATU have responded to the extraordinary situation of the Cabinet’s rejection of their statements of last week (following the SACP Central Committee meeting and launch of the CC discussion document, and the subsequent COSATU Central Executive Committee meeting). This is in spite of the ANC National Executive Committee meeting in between. See the linked documents below. The government is not supposed to reject what the democracy is telling it. It is not supposed to second-guess alliance structures. It is supposed to listen. Mittal Steel has announced 800 intended retrenchments; COSATU is protesting. Meanwhile 480 FAWU members are on strike at the Kraft factory in Elandsfontein on the East Rand, half way between Johannesburg and the Johannesburg International Airport. See the linked bulletins from COSATU and FAWU. SADTU is a militant and class-conscious union, second in size only to the NUM. The release following SADTU’s National Executive Committee meeting sharply and clearly articulates many of the issues facing the working class as a whole in South Africa. See the linked statement. The working class, with class-conscious leadership, moves from being an actually-existing “class in itself” to being a class that is actively “for itself”, and self-consciously so. The SACP is the vanguard party of the working class. Any Communist University must study what the working class is doing, and any communist formation must seek ways to assist the working class in struggle. Study these documents! Click on these links: SACP response to Cabinet comments on CC discussion document (323 words) COSATU on Cabinet Statement re CEC observations (450 words) COSATU, 800 steel retrenchments, commitment to action (216 words) 480 FAWU members on strike at Kraft, Elandsfontein, East Rand (432 words) SADTU NEC Press Release and Resolutions May 2006 (1145 words)

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)