Dogs Bark, Caravan Moves On

Today at 17h00 in the SACP Boardroom at the third floor of COSATU House, 1 Leyds Street Braamfontein, Cde George Raphela, National Organiser of the YCL, will open a Communist University discussion of the 2005 version of the SACP Constitution.

There are several points of interest. One is the famous Rule 6.4, which is the key that has unlocked mass democracy on a huge scale in South Africa. Another is the rights of members and the procedure of Provincial and National Congresses. There is supposed to be a Gauteng Provincial Congress on 24th and 25th March (i.e. next month) and the 12th SACP National Congress is scheduled for 11th to 15th July 2007. Another point of interest is the quorum rules.

There are some comrades in the Party, and outside it, who think it is fine to make up arbitrary new rules as they go along. These are the types of people Karima Brown calls “flunkies”, referring to ANC flunkies in the first article linked below. But there are also some flunkies in the SACP. Ebrahim Steyn, for example, objected to the CU post of 29th January where Zico Tamela was criticised for attacking COSATU in public print for not doing organising work when he himself had conspicuously neglected that same work while wearing his SACP hat. Steyn’s attack was backed up by his fellow-YCLer Bigboy Kekana. This was in last Sunday’s SACP Johannesburg Central Branch meeting.

These comrades, and Cde Tamela in particular, had previously insisted on the disclaimer that nowadays hangs over the Communist University, as you may have seen. But now Tamela accuses the CU of “getting around” the disclaimer! This piece of political lunacy would be laughable if Cde Tamela was not currently the Chairperson of the SACP Gauteng Province, an ANC PR Councillor in Johannesburg, and the International Secretary of COSATU affiliate SATAWU.

The demand last year for a disclaimer means that the Branch and the Province have disowned the CU and this is not a reversible situation. They have made their bed and they must lie in it. The Branch Executive Committee (BEC) will meet this evening at the same time that the CU is busy studying the Constitution. There will be sound and fury at the BEC but it will signify nothing. The disclaimer is there at their insistence and it will not be withdrawn. The SACP Constitution is also in place and it will not be re-written in any way until the 12th Congress in July, if at all.

Brown was commenting on the FNB demarche on crime that never was. She thinks, on balance, “the democratic space is not only there, but it is widening.” Well, fine, but the democratic space is only widened by effort, and as the above example shows, there are always plenty of flunkies around who want to close it down again. The struggle must be taken up again with each new day.

The Business Report led well yesterday with further material on the terrible Fidentia scandal, where it appears that the promoters of the company, who came from nowhere but were highly recommended, simply helped themselves to hundreds of millions of rands of money belonging to deceased mineworkers’ widows and orphans, and may well have shipped the money abroad. This is international monopoly finance capitalism. It is not a distant theory. It is a daily, predatory reality. See the linked item below from Tonny Mafu.

Finally, the imperialist war hysteria against Iran has spread to France. Diana Johnstone reports from there that whereas that country (together with South Africa, we recall) was one of the main opponents of the war on Iraq four years ago, now the French media and the main bourgeois political parties there are singing the same tune as their US counterparts (see the link). Johnstone puts this down to a shift in the allegiance of the very large Jewish population of France. But the foundation of belligerence against Iran or any other country that is outside the direct sphere of Imperial dominance is not ethnicity. It is only the same capitalist Imperialist driving force that has tortured the globe with warfare for more than a hundred years.

Click on these links:

Bank on patronage, not principle, Karima Brown, Business Day (812 words)

Fidentia sent funds offshore - FSB, Tonny Mafu, Business Report (525 words)

War frenzy in France against Iran, Diana Johnstone, Counterpunch (2454 words)

Build Democratic Structures Now

At the Communist University, we live and learn.

Linked below is the COSATU response to Christelle Terreblanche’s article on the Nairobi World Social Forum (WSF) as printed in the Sunday Independent, and followed by their Editor’s Note. The latter basically says that Christelle and the “Sindy” did not have information from COSATU and its affiliates in advance. Fair enough. No doubt COSATU could do more than it already does in this regard, even if it is probably the most transparent and media-friendly combine in the country, as well as by far the biggest.

The CU’s speculation that COSATU might have had more representation in Nairobi than South Africa’s other social movements put together turns out to be well wide of the mark, to say the least. We now know of more than 200 individuals in 60 or so SA organisations that took part in the WSF, many of them listed by name in the document linked below. If you want a report-back, you know where to go.

Also linked, and also from Nairobi, from Pambazuka News, an article by Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem contains the following great couple of lines, among many others:

“And this issue of dependence on foreign donors is not just because there are no resources. How come the nationalists freed this continent from the yoke of colonialism without writing proposals to any funder?”

This is closely followed by the comrade’s hilarious listing of MONGOs, BONGOs, GONGOs and PONGOs. If you want to know what they all mean, please read this wonderful article, linked below.

It is the job of a Communist Party, with its mission to educate, organise and mobilise, to build the kind of popular, democratic, allied unity-in-action structures that can secure peace and social progress. The SACP has done a great job at national level with its Red October campaigns, for example. The YCL, too, has formed exemplary relationships with other progressive youth movements nationally.

But at provincial and city level, and at the international level of the African continent, the necessary structures are still rudimentary, or non-existent. Local Party and YCL members must not point fingers at others for this deficiency, or attack people who point it out to them.

The internationalism “franchise” is certainly being milked and manipulated big-time by the Imperialists. It provides acres of newspaper copy all over the world. The ringmasters of the show, of which the WSF is only a tiny part, can press buttons at any moment, producing uproar to order. When the purpose of the uproar has been served, the “issue” goes right back into the closet again.

The issue of Myanmar was certainly used in this way to create an uproar that would mask the invasion of Somalia by the US and Ethiopian military at Christmas time. Now Myanmar is back in the media closet, and Somalia with it. Except that South Africa’s Ambassador to Cuba, Thenjiwe Mtintso, has written an explanation for dummies of why this kind of manipulation must be opposed and confronted. See the link below.

If you still have doubts that games are being played at the UN to make up seem like down and white seem like black, please read the final linked item from Brian Cloughley of Counterpunch.

Click on these links:

Cosatu was in Nairobi, COSATU DGS Bheki Ntshalintshali, Sindy (644 words)

Who went from SA to WSF Nairobi, 2007 - an incomplete list. (lists)

MONGOs, GONGOs and BONGOs, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, Pambazuka (1245 words)

Myanmar vote critics missing UN aim, Thenjiwe Mtintso, Sindy (818 words)

Irony of Bush Indignation, Brian Cloughley, Counterpunch (1273 words)

Made Man

Today is the day of the first 2007 meeting of the SACP Johannesburg Central Branch. It is at 10h00 in SATAWU office, 13th floor, Old Mutual Building, 29 Kerk Street, between Loveday and Harrison.

Following the Thursday revelation of a huge and dodgy deal involving Saki Macozoma by Rob Rose on the front page of the Business Day, we speculated on the nature of such vast enrichments, and what their raison d’etre (their function within the system) might be. In passing we remarked on the book Executive Pay in South Africa - Who Gets What and Why, by Ann Crotty and Renée Bonorchis. Ms Bonorchis objected to what was written here about that book. She wrote:

‘I need to point out that Ann and I at no point in the book ever just 'put it down to greed'… We looked at the lack of independent directors, the lack of clear disclosure, the lack of shareholder activism, the growth of cronyism, the lack of transformation and much much more in order to try and explain growing levels of wealth in the top echelons of the corporate world.’

So the book was obtained and read. Indeed it is true that the word greed is not noticeable. So to that extent Ms Bonorchis must prevail. But let us look a little closer. Her statement shows the way. The book examines a number of “lacks”. Even the presence of cronyism appears not as an end, but as an enabling circumstance.

In other words the book is much stronger on the lack of restraint than on the nature of the force that needs restraining in the first place. Concerning that force, the last words of the main text are about as close as the authors get to a description, or a definition. They say:

“It would seem that in the vagaries of the human heart, there is no such thing as enough money and that pay, in a broader perspective, has little to do with true worth.”

It is quite easy to read “the vagaries of the human heart” to mean greed. Or not. In fact the statement itself is literally vague. To cover this, the authors have in the first part of the final chapter (Chapter 11) created a fantasy of the life of a male chief executive officer. They work out that the poor fellow probably needs a salary of at least R8 million just to get by. But then, because of “the vagaries of the human heart” he might want a lot more. This is how the book’s line of thought proceeds.

In South Africa at large the topic of who gets to be a real capitalist is quite widely discussed, and particularly in relation to Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). But in this book the difference between a chap who is getting and spending R8 million per year (or even more), and one who has actually joined the ranks of the people who personally possess real, “serious” capital, is ignored. Capital does not mean the possession of a mansion, or even of many mansions. It means the ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.

To compete or just to coexist with the big-scale owners of inherited wealth requires an enormous, sudden, and heroic accumulation. From reading the business pages of newspapers over time it is possible to see that a few people do graduate from the ranks of the merely salaried to the ranks of the true bourgeoisie. It is even possible to see this as a necessary part of the system. It is also possible to see the great advantage that attaches to inherited wealth.

Crotty and Bonorchis do not even consider the transition from striving “piker” to serene “made person” as a relevant part of the answer to their question “Who gets what and why?”. This is a major weakness and a failure to recognise the compulsive driver of the capitalist system, which is the urge to be a capitalist. To earn money is not really to be free. But to have capital, in a capitalist system, is to be as free as you can be under capitalism. The name of the game is capital. This failure makes the book more like a titillating, ephemeral piece of gossip than the tremendous Shakespearean drama that it could have been, like a modern Macbeth, or a Julius Caesar.

Speaking of poets, below you will find a link to Ron Press’s excellent latest.

Click on this link:

A poem for reason, Ron Press (poem)

Widows And Orphans

When David Gleason was unfortunately fired a couple of years ago from the Business Day for supposedly putting too much politics into his copy, a young spiky-haired white kid was hired to take his place. This is Rob Rose, who has now come up with two huge financial scandal stories within a matter of days. One was the Macozoma – Liberty scandal, where the Liberty company had sold part of its business to Saki Macozoma and his friends, left them to enjoy the fruits of it for four years, and then bought it back for R297 million more than they sold it in the first place. The big shareholders forced this deal through over the objections of the minorities.

The story that Rose broke on Friday is even worse. It involves another “asset management” firm. This one is called Fidentia and it has just been put into curatorship by a court of law. These people were taking the clients’ investments and using them to buy, for example, a football team (Manning Rangers).

Most of the money (nearly R1.5 billion) Fidentia was in charge of came from the Living Hands Umbrella Trust, which was set up by the Mineworkers Provident Fund to pay money to families of people killed in mining accidents. That is to say, to the dead miners’ widows and orphans.

National Union of Mineworkers General Secretary Frans Baleni wrote last November in the Mail and Guardian that: “Between 1984 and 2005, more than 11,100 miners died underground in South Africa. While the overall number of deaths has been on a generally declining trend over the past two decades, the number of miners killed below ground has exceeded 200 each year since 2000.”

“If this is not a crime, then what is?”, Baleni asked.

Now it is a double crime. Money given in compensation for the awful slaughter on the mines has been stolen by crooks. The assets will have to be sold. Read the story in the two linked articles below.

SA Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad has availed himself of the letters columns of the Business Day to hit back at Karima Brown’s article of 30th January. He does a good job of defending his department but he does not say anything about the other source of foreign policy action in South Africa, which is the President’s office.

Click on these links:

Millions missing at Fidentia, Rob Rose, Business Day (497 words)

Buying spree masked Fidentia woes, Rob Rose, Business Day (720 words)

SA is no US proxy, Aziz Pahad, letter,Business Day (381 words)

None So Blind

The idea of sending flyers through the e-mail and printing them locally at the point of distribution is a good one. It becomes theoretically possible, without heavy expense and waste, to cover a town or a whole country in a matter of minutes. See the first item, which is a flyer for next Wednesday’s Communist University. The link will take you to a file download icon.

Further to the CU response to Christelle Terreblanche’s report in last Sunday’s Independent, in which we pointed out the absurdity of what ZicoTamela told her (and which he has not denied). COSATU has now dealt comprehensively with the main allegation if the report, which is that COSATU was “invisible” at the World Social Forum in Nairobi last week. There are none so blind as those who will not see. Check the linked item below.

It now appears that COSATU may well have had more representatives in Nairobi than the all the other South African social movements put together. Not only that, but COSATU’s historical and organisational involvement is far more substantial than that of any other SA social movement. All of these things are clear but they will not stop people repeating the same old lies in future, because the counterposition of the Trade Union movement against other popular forces in society is what they want to project. But newspapers should not be printing people’s wishful thoughts or taking the snide remarks of disappointed individuals at face value.

In the coverage of Somalia, the facts are not favourable to the Imperialists, and text sources have reflected this to a considerable extent. But the power of the US press-relations machine is so relentless, and the attraction of their message so seductive to those who would prefer to believe them, that these articles are almost invariably disfigured by paragraphs of unsubstantiated “boilerplate” about Al Qaeda and so forth.

In the case of the attached item, even the headline is affected. In what sense is the imposed gang tenuously placed in Mogadishu a “government”? This is a travesty of the truth. Yet in the article it is reported that this gang, which supposedly came from a “stronghold” in the town of Baidoa, has now had to impose a curfew in its very own stronghold. "Somalia is not a place where you will earn a salary - it is a place where you will die," said one man, addressing himself to the African Union. "The salary you are seeking will be used to transport your bodies."

"We will not be intimidated," said the US Deputy Secretary of State “for Africa”, Jendayi Fraser. Until a few months ago Fraser was the US Ambassador in leafy Pretoria, where she seems to have done a good job of annoying a lot of people. Her chances of making a name as “Fraser of Somalia” are exactly zero. It is a measure of the nature of the thing that in spite of all the spin-doctoring, boilerplate propaganda, and bluster from the representative of the supposed “superpower”, it is the gunman whose words are more believable, by far. History backs him up.

Frank Furedi is a philosopher living in England who has spent time working out why liberals think the way they do. His essay on “Denial” from Spiked is good but too long. He could have said as much in a page. Here it is, anyway, linked below.

One can usually be quite sure that whatever cause is being displayed in the most agonising way in the general bourgeois media is certainly not the one where the crisis of capitalism and Imperialism is manifesting itself in most critically. In Nepal there has been a real National Democratic Revolution, similar to ours in many ways, good and bad. Right now they are in a stage corresponding to our CODESA, and the Imperialists are contriving a replay “IFP”-type scenario where atrocious murders are arranged in a bid to promote “ethnic strife” or “black-on-black” violence and so to obscure the class nature of the revolution. The article linked below reports the press conference of the Communist (which the journalist changes to “Maoist guerrilla”) leader Prachanda.

Click on these links:

CU Flyer for 7 February 2007 (Notice)

COSATU and the WSF (1094 words)

Somalia government starts implementing martial law, Sapa (524 words)

Denial, Frank Furedi, Spiked, (4413 words)

Indian fundamentalists abetting Nepal riots, Prachanda, RxPG (304 words)

Last Stage Of Imperialism

The Communist University stands corrected. Concerning what was written about the book Executive Pay in South Africa - Who Gets What and Why, by Ann Crotty and Renée Bonorchis, Ms Bonorchis writes:

‘I need to point out that Ann and I at no point in the book ever just 'put it down to greed'. The statement you have made is, I am afraid, a complete fabrication of what the book says and is trying to say. We looked at the lack of independent directors, the lack of clear disclosure, the lack of shareholder activism, the growth of cronyism, the lack of transformation and much much more in order to try and explain growing levels of wealth in the top echelons of the corporate world.’

In view of this challenge we had better not say a lot more about this until the book has been read more thoroughly. Meanwhile, there is a review of it here. The book does seem to be a success for the two authors, both of whom are excellent journalists writing for the Business Report and the Business Day respectively.

An article of Ann Crotty’s from yesterday’s Business Report is linked below. It is about “private equity”. What is that? The term refers to private companies as opposed to those whose shares are traded publicly in a Stock Exchange. Is this new? Not really. It is an old bourgeois tactic, one among many. It is enjoying a season of popularity, especially among capitalists with “serious money” to play with.

There is only a short distance between the fat world of the bourgeois deal-makers and that of the “Africa Command” and the Secretary of State “for Africa”, mentioned yesterday. Big-money capitalism is the ground from which Imperialism grows. In that connection, Jean Bricmont wrote the following in Counterpunch (see the full article below):

‘Westerners do not always appreciate the fact that the major event of the 20th century was neither the rise and fall of fascism, nor the history of communism, but decolonization.’

Bricmont’s new book, Humanitarian Imperialism, Using Human Rights to Sell War, will be published by Monthly Review Press in February 2007. Such a book could be a very good antidote to the Desmond Tutus of this world. He concludes his article by condemning:

‘…the ideological misrepresentations that have spread widely throughout the left during the period of imperial ideological reconstruction that followed the end of the Vietnam war, specially concerning the "right" to "humanitarian intervention."’

Peter Vale, in a splendidly brief letter to the Business Day, writes in similar spirit against South Africa’s perennial pundit of Imperialism (these days directly funded by the Oppenheimer interest through the Brenthurst Foundation) Greg Mills. The latter’s article “reads like a poorly written guide to installing a cupboard”, writes Vale. See the text of his letter, linked below.

The Communist University had a great kick-off yesterday evening, with SACP National Organiser Cde Solly Mapaila opening the first discussion of the year. Next week’s session will be on Wednesday, February 7th, when we will discuss the SACP Constitution (linked below). YCL National Organiser George Raphela will open. The outstanding feature of this constitution, different from other Communist Parties that we know of, is Rule 6.4. This is the rule that underpins the successful relationship between the Party and the mass movements in South Africa. In other words it is the blueprint for the relationship of unity in action that liberated this country in the past, and can continue to do so in the future.

Click on these links:

Private equity moves offstage, Ann Crotty, Business Report (954 words)

The Decisive Clash of Our Time, Jean Bricmont, Counterpunch (1726 words)

Time to say sorry, Peter Vale, Letters, Business Day (96 words)

2005, SACP, Constitution (5637 words)

Class Project

Today is the day of the first Communist University class of the year, to be held at the SACP boardroom, 3rd floor, COSATU House, 1 Leyds Street, corner Biccard, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, at 17h00. The topic is Lenin’s Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, and the SACP National Organiser, Solly Mapaila, will open the discussion. We may also consider the science and art of study and of writing, using Lenin’s text as an example of extreme reduction (sub-editing) and Tony Buzan’s ideas as a guide to how such brevity can be achieved. Is it mere technique, or is the pursuit of the concrete essence of things actually a profoundly political quest? You decide.

Yesterday’s post was described as “cryptic” by a friend and comrade belonging to another, bigger University. The pursuit of brevity is indeed not always successful. What was meant yesterday was that whereas the USA has established a military base in a small African country, Djibouti; and whereas the USA did also last month declare an arrogant “Africa Command” for the whole continent, and this month carried out aerial warfare from Djibouti against Somalia; yet Bishop Tutu and others have managed to help them create not one but two diversions in the shape of a liberal furore over Myanmar and Darfur. And some of our comrades have gone running after these red herrings. The Tutus of this world are like thieves who lead you running to a fire on the other side while their friends (such as US deputy Secretary of State “for Africa” Jendayi Fraser) rob and burgle your premises over here. Maybe that makes it clearer.

Karima Brown, writing in the Business Day yesterday did a good job of describing some aspects of these continuing problems. She writes that the SA government is far too willing to act as proxy for the USA, which is the God’s honest truth. See the link below.

John Perlman has resigned from the SABC. What now? Honest people are hard to find, and hard to replace. If you are reading this, the CU loves you, John. See the linked article below.

Which leaves us by elimination at the main article, which is from the front page of yesterday’s Business Day. It describes how Liberty, a finance house, sold part of its business to Saki Macozoma and his friends, let him have the fruits of it for four years, and then paid an extra R297 million to buy it back again. Minority shareholders objected to this transaction, but the institutional shareholders (sometimes absurdly described as representing the little guy, because they have their hands on your savings, insurance and pension) crushed the objectors and voted through the deal.

Briefly now, how does capitalism produce these situations? The force of the market is supposed to ensure that people do not get huge sums of money for little or nothing. Yet as Anne Crotty and Renée Bonorchis have shown in their new book on executive pay in South Africa, there appears to be no logical or discernable objective reason why capitalist business should tolerate the blatant, gouging enrichment of individuals to the tune of hundreds of millions of rands. Crotty and Bonorchis put it down to greed.

The Communist University offers a different explanation. Capitalism clearly requires the creation and subordination of a working proletariat. But it also requires the conscious creation of a bourgeois ruling class, and the maintenance of a strong polarity between these two main contending classes. This
is the on-going “class project” of capitalism, whether in 1996 or in any other year. It is not random greed that drives this project. It is cold, calculated bourgeois class politics, of which Macozoma, for one, is a master.

This class project is obscured to an extent by its conflation with Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). In the small space left here, let us simply note that for every new black billionaire there are dozens of new white ones. The creation of black billionaires does not significantly dilute the white character of the bourgeoisie - it only hides it. But this whole concrete phenomenon of enrichment is not mainly about race. It is about bourgeois class formation, or as we could also say, about the “succession” of the bourgeois class power.

Click on these links:

Lenin, 3 Sources and 3 Component parts of Marxism (1838 words)

Buzan, Use Your Head, Tweedie Conspectus (4174 words)

Government too willing to be US proxy, Karima Brown, B Day (824 words)

Perlman quits SABC after list furore, Ernest Mabuza, Business Day (405 words)

Shareholders attack Liberty Macozoma buy-back, Rob Rose, B Day (695 words)

Archbishop Americus

What with Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu touching down between the posts, cheered on by our good friends Tony Hall and Shafiur Rahman, it looks like the organised working class has not just been sold one dummy since Christmas-time. More like two or three. But never fear: the proletarian test of truth is inexhaustible.

Let us get one thing straight. This is a partisan University. It believes, with Paulo Freire, that the only good pedagogue is a partisan pedagogue. We make categorical judgements, and so must you. We refuse any obligation to present an exceptionalist liberal interpretation of the facts. Concrete analysis of concrete situations is what we do here, and that means class.

Class politics is what is universal. No other kind will do. This university does not think it o.k. to cobble up a new politics to fit each case. The invention of a “militarised forced-labour state” here and a “clan conflict” there and a “religious-tribal warfare” somewhere else does not wash with us. The Communist University is looking for the class roots of conflict. This is a rational humanist university and not an ad hoc, eclectic chronicler of whatever the latest political fad may be.

There will be no solutions to any of the conflicts in the world that do not pay the strictest attention to the political economy, meaning the disposition of class forces and their interactions, of whatever given place. Before you can say otherwise, you must disprove what Marx and Engels published in the Communist Manifesto in 1848, namely that the history of all societies is a history of class struggle, repeat class struggle, and not any other kind.

What we are looking at today is revolutionaries being led down the garden path by liberals, who are themselves the more-or-less willing tools of Imperialists. And the Imperialists have not changed at all. We will soon see how liberal our sometime supporters really are. If universities cannot say such things as this one does, then who can? They have their outlets and they are using them, wall to wall. As always, their liberalism falls short when it comes to commmunists having any space at all.

Today we hear that John Perlman and Nikiwe Bikitsha are resigning from the SABC because they are under pressure from the likes of Snuki Zikalala for telling the truth on air. The Communist University hopes that John and Nikiwe will throw a massive party to allow tous-le-monde to show its support. The SABC is now a whited sepulchre.

So, dear Tony Hall, if you want to take part, then get your own blog back on the road! Your stuff on Somalia is not going to be published here. Archbishop Americus, go back to Yankee-land! Kader Arms-Sale, your Chapter 9 Youth Commission is never going to come near the power of the YCL, even if you pour billions of rands all over it. It is not going to fly. All the liberal “institutional arrangements” from Ward Committees right up to NEPAD are no better than sounding brass and tinkling cymbals so long as they are avoiding class politics, as they are designed to do. None of them will ever fly. All the fashionable liberal causes are bust, and their champions, the Bonos and the Richard Geres, are shown to be nothing but bibelots and mountebanks. Class struggle is our lot, whether we like it or not.

For a longer and more systematic presentation of the above position, do please read the incomparable Diana Johnstone taking apart first the International Criminal Court, then the World Trade Organisation, and then Imperialism itself, laying it all bare. Read it and see if you still want to run after all those liberal red herrings. See also the staunch, stalwart proletarian words of the Congress of the Communication Workers Union. See the link below, followed by two very strong articles from Sunday’s City Press, much too strong to be left out of the CU archive. And lastly, Comrade Ntando and friends will be at the Bassline on Valentine’s Day! What could be nicer than that?

Click on these links:

Do We Really Need an ICC?, Diana Johnstone, Counterpunch (2916 words)

Congress Declaration and new leadership, CWU Media Release (1233 words)

Farm evictions increase, Sama Yende, Ledwaba, City Press (834 words)

Make way for wild animals, Wonder Hlongwa, City Press (727 words)

Feb 14 Valentine evening with Ntando at Bassline, Jhb, R180 (flyer)

God Save Us From Our Friends

The article Christelle Terreblanche wrote about the World Social Forum in Nairobi is dreadful (see below). It begins with not one but two journalistic clichés in the very first line. It is a classic example of a journalist who does not have the story, writing it up as a mystery instead. Terreblanche failed to connect with COSATU Deputy General Secretary, Bheki Ntshalintshali, who was in Nairobi when she was there, or with COSATU Deputy International Relations Secretary, Mandla Rametsi, who was also there. These two comrades were involved in just about the only constructive thing to come out of the Nairobi WSF, which was its statement in relation to the World Cup to be held in South Africa in 2010 – that it must be a people’s world cup both in terms of jobs and in terms of sport.

But worse than all that is the short interview Terreblanche did with Zico Tamela, who is international secretary for SATAWU, and therefore a senior representative in the international field, of the federation of which his union is a member, namely COSATU. Comrade Tamela happens also to be a PR Councillor in Johannesburg, elected nearly a year ago. And until March 2007, when the Gauteng Province of the SACP is supposed to have an elective Congress, he is the Chairperson of that structure. He is also a member of the SACP Johannesburg Central Branch and a founder member of the Communist University back in 2003.

At the last meeting of the Johannesburg Central Branch Cde Tamela insisted that the Communist University should be carrying a disclaimer, following a decision of the SACP Gauteng Province, of which he is the chairperson. From that time on the electronic CU has carried the following disclaimer: The Communist University is not a constitutional structure of the SACP.

Cde Tamela disburdened himself with Terreblanche of the pungent but sanctimonious line: There is still little will on COSATU’s part. Tamela knows full well that the task of uniting mass organisations in a revolutionary class alliance belongs to the vanguard party. He knows that proposals have been put forward in his SACP branch for years concerning broad front organisation in Johannesburg, which he personally has ignored. One of these proposals is provided below. Others can be found in the minutes of the Branch.

Only the vanguard party has the theoretical basis to distinguish between a class alliance and a class collaboration. Tamela knows that if the vanguard party neglects this task, its place will be taken up by false prophets and Judas-goats, leading the working class and its genuine allies into a trap. He has personally neglected the task in the party, but now wants to point a finger at COSATU, where he also holds a senior position. It is useless to accuse the mass movement, if the party is not doing its work. It is disingenuous of Tamela to accuse the mass movement, when it is his own so-called will that is inadequate.

We may not say that Cde Tamela is not permitted to break ranks and criticise his comrades through the bourgeois mass media, even if we do not like it very much. And we must at least applaud him for not doing so anonymously. We don’t have to ask him for any disclaimer. But he must know that as it says in the bible, if you want to point out a speck in another’s eye, you had better take out the piece of stick that is in your own eye first.

The Labour-Urban Federation document linked below demonstrates that Cde Tamela could hardly have been unaware of what has long been on the table proposing a popular broad-front alliance in Johannesburg. The document was first published on the electronic Communist University on April 7th 2006. At that stage the document was already in its fourth draft and had been widely distributed in hard copy, with no disclaimer asked for. Comrade Tamela was at that point the Chairperson of the SACP Johannesburg District.

The SACP Johannesburg Central Branch meets at 10h00 on Sunday, February 4th in the SATAWU offices, 13th floor, Old Mutual Building, 29 Kerk Street, between Loveday and Harrison streets. It looks like we will have plenty to talk about.

There is a peculiar odour to religious dispute, like the pervasive smell of boiled cabbage in a beautiful monastery. These sky-pilots are not nearly as nice as you would expect from their scriptures. Rev. Michael Lapsley is not a particularly nice man, as one imagines he himself might occasionally confess. In his article published in the Sunday Independent yesterday he could not manage to restrain himself from plugging his own biography. Nevertheless he did a great job (see the link below) of showing up the foot-washing ex-minister of apartheid law and apartheid order, Adriaan Vlok.

Vlok is obviously looking for a new career as an anti-communist preacher. In other words he is looking to do what has always done, but in new conditions, using new tactics. Frank Chikane is another God-bothering character. Reverend Frank, who is now the chief flunkey in the Presidential office in the old Union Buildings, was happy to oblige the reptile Vlok with a big free commercial by letting his feet be washed and then blabbing about it afterwards to the mass media.

Finally, Minister Ronnie Kasrils had words to say to the Brenthurst (Oppenheimer) Foundation about blacklistings and Muslims, but without mentioning renditions, and with a weak explanation of terrorism in history. Terror is what all armies use, especially Imperialist armies. Read it, anyway, via the link below.

Click on these links:

Cosatu must walk the talk, Christelle Terreblanche, Sunday Independent (705 words)

Johannesburg Labour-Urban Federation, Fourth Draft (1971 words)

Faith is an obstacle to healing, Michael Lapsley, Sunday Independent (1168 words)

Human rights must not be trampled, Ronnie Kasrils, Sunday Times (1288 words)

Tragedy

The roots of this tragedy go back to the early ’90s, when responsibility for arms procurement was handed to the then deputy president, Thabo Mbeki.

The above is what the Weekender editorial of yesterday had to say. And it is true. See the first item linked below. At least it has been announced that no South African troops will be sent to Somalia. That is a mercy, for the time being. But other troops may go, and then there will be big trouble. These troops will be doing the dirty business of Kenya and Ethiopia, whose narrow self-interests have contributed to the war in Somalia. Yet these two adjacent countries dare not leave their own troops in Somalia. And behind them stands the looming shadow of Imperialism, personified by the USA. Why should Nigerians, for example, fight Somalis for the sake of the Kenya, Ethiopia and the USA? This is going to be a big mess, whichever way you look at it.

From the same newspaper we hear of the death of David Rattray, shot and killed by robbers while coming to the aid of his wife. The robbers afterwards ran away without taking anything. Their gun was useless to them. It made them into murderers, and for nothing. This is a very sad case. Mr Rattray was a scholar and a gentleman. The death of such a person is a loss to the whole country, and not just to his family.

Rattray knew a lot about Isandlwana, the South African Dien Bien Phu, when colonial troops were beaten in full-scale formal battle. Like many military historians, Rattray had tender feelings for the men of both sides, and knew that war is a thing to be avoided.

The YCL press briefing scheduled for 11h00 today should make the country sit up and take notice, if their anno0uncement is anything to go by (see below). It looks like the YCL is determined to punch its considerable weight in 2007.

Click on these links:

Arms deal was opening act in Greek tragedy of ANC, Editorial, Weekender (703 words)

Battlefield icon Rattray slain in botched robbery, Tim Cohen, Weekender (562 words)

YCL National Committee press briefing, COSATU House today 11h00 (notice)

Gone Ballistic

In Davos, Switzerland, at an unelected, unmandated gathering of invited celebrities, President Thabo Mbeki is meeting Bill Gates, Tony Blair and Bono all at once, to discuss poverty. You could say that these are four rich men with this much in common: they all have a b (for boring) in their names. H for hypocrite might have been better. If they are against poverty, then why don’t they join the Communist Party?

They are not against poverty, unless we count their own possible poverty, their imagined future poverty, and their fear of poverty. What they really want is safety for their property. They are afraid that poor people will overwhelm them with violence and take away their property. Thabo Mbeki said as much in Davos. He was shown on SABC television saying it from there.

Mbeki is with Trevor Manuel and Mandisi Mpahlwa. These gentlemen are equally as unmandated in Davos, but just as perfectly representative of the polite aspirant bourgeoisie of South Africa, who are little more than the useful idiots of the real monopoly bourgeoisie.

The true face of monopoly capital in our continent is the US Africa Command (see the linked article by Charles Cobb). Has President Mbeki said anything against it? No he has not. President Mbeki thinks he can ride the Imperialist tiger without being eaten when he gets off its back. Unfortunately not only will he be eaten but so will many others. What awaits is a Faustian hell (see the image above).

Victor Mallet makes a couple of obvious mistakes in his article (below) occasioned by the destruction of a satellite in space by the People’s Republic of China. The first mistake, in the very first line, is that the Chinese rocket that brought down the satellite was a ballistic missile. It was not. A ballistic missile is one that is aimed, not guided, and which follows a trajectory similar to an artillery shell, back to a target on the ground. No, this was a guided missile.

A bigger mistake is the stress by Mallet on geopolitics. There is no such thing as geopolitics. There is only class politics. Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism and at the same time, therefore, the most geographically extensive form of class politics. The Chinese are superior in strategy and tactics to the USA because more of them understand class politics. But have the Chinese also made a Faustian bargain with the Imperialist devil? This is the great unknown question of our time.

You may like to read the evidence listed by South African Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad in a very long statement, much of which is devoted to China, made in Pretoria this week and published on the web site of the Department of Foreign Affairs. As usual on the Communist University the URL is given at the end of the document.

The Communist University has its first gathering next Wednesday in the SACP boardroom on the third floor of COSATU House, 1 Leyds Street, Braamfontein. SACP National Organiser Solly Mapaila will open the discussion on The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism by Lenin, which is a masterpiece of summarising. In addition, as we always do at the beginning of the year, we will reflect a little on the nature of study itself, using in this case the summary by Dominic Tweedie of Use Your Head, by Tony Buzan. More material on the theory and practice of teaching and learning can be found in the CU section on Critical Pedagogy.

Click on these links:

Pentagon hunkers down in Africa, Charles Cobb, Mail and Guardian (1123 words)

Genius behind the China satellite kill, Victor Mallet, Business Day (897 words)

Briefing by Deputy Minister Aziz Pahad, 24 January 2007 (9661 words)

Buzan, Use Your Head, Tweedie Conspectus (4174 words)

Lenin, 3 Sources and 3 Component parts of Marxism (1838 words)

Dictatorship of the Proletariat

The Swaziland Solidarity Network is to have its long-awaited AGM on Sunday, February 4th. The timing is to be synchronised with the Johannesburg Central SACP Branch meeting, which is a longstanding arrangement, and the first of the year, to be held at 10h00 on that day. Further details of these two important meetings will be passed on when they become clearer.

The fourth day portion of the COSATU 9th Congress film is now fully available on the Internet. This is the part where you can see the debate on the resolution on the NDR and Socialism, plus the election of the new office bearers, and the finale, including an interview with PUDEMO President Mario Masuku.

You can play Day 4 of the COSATU 9th Congress film by clicking http://www.domza.net/C9Day4.wmv or alternatively the backup duplicate of it, which is at http://www.domza.net/C9Day4a.wmv.

The COSATU Press Release of yesterday on the subject of the recent ANC Lekgotla contains the text of same resolution. It calls, among other things, for a dictatorship of the proletariat in South Africa. This is the resolution that the renegade Jabu Moloketi was brought to the platform to attack, by ANC President Thabo Mbeki, who also attacked it. But COSATU does not get its policies handed down to it by ANC bigwigs. It is an independent member of a free alliance. See the statement linked below.

The COSATU statement on Myanmar issued yesterday is given below. It condemns Myanmar. The sudden concern for Myanmar is not precipitated by any new event, but only by a US resolution to the Security Council of the United Nations. Meanwhile real, sudden, new war on the ground right here in Africa, in Somalia, is pushed to the background. At least we can note with pride that the SACP has called for all US troops to leave Africa at once. In the Mail and Guardian today there is an article about the presumptuous, arrogant, colonial US Africa Command, announced on December 13th, 2006, five days after the Mbeki visit to Washington. How can they have an Africa Command plotting violence to our continent? This is no better than what the mythical Al Qaeda is supposed to be doing. Away with them! Yankee, Go Home!

The YCL has issued a joint statement with the Gauteng Liquor Board which is of interest. See the link below.

Click on these links:

The ANC Lekgotla, COSATU Media Release (2348 words)

COSATU condemns Myanmar regime, COSATU Media Release (795 words)

Joint Statement of YCL and Gauteng Liquor Board (327 words)