Elections 2024 – The ANC is no longer a liberation movement- they are bombing us with unemployment. Every day it is Gaza in South Africa
The 2024 ANC election Manifesto confirms that the ruling party has been fully transformed into a bourgeois movement. Nowhere is there even a reference to the Freedom Charter. No reference to houses for all, a 40 hour week, nor when unemployment and slave wages will be abolished. Nationalisation of the commanding heights? Nowhere to be seen. On many policy points they are very similar to the policies of the right-wing DA (Democratic Alliance). The transformation has been coming for some time now. On the 16th August 2012 the ANC government under Zuma perpetrated the Marikana massacre, shooting down 34 mineworkers in cold blood. The massacre occurred after Lonmin Director, Cyril Ramaphosa, had urged the state to take ‘concomitant action’ against the strikers who were only demanding a living wage of R12000 per month. Billionaire Ramaphosa soon became head of the ANC and President of the country.
The masses fought the apartheid regime to be free from slave capitalist relations. Today, 30 years later, the old apartheid group areas still exist. 60% of the youth are unemployed. The vast majority of the working class still earn poverty wages. The Journal of Southern African Studies reports that every year the imperialist class from the US and UK and elsewhere steals about R200bn of the wealth produced here. This is besides the trillion Rand in declared profits, much of which is carried offshore every year. This means that unemployment is artificial. That means that with the help of the ANC and the DA governments the imperialist is bombing us with unemployment. The health system , electricity , water , schools, housing are all being privatised. Here comes the ANC of 2024 that promises to help create 2000 more Ramaphosas. This is like the Marie Antoinette moment in France when she told the starving masses: ‘Give them cake!’. The ANC wants to give us more billionaires like Ramaphosa. This is the same capitalist nonsense as the DA that proposes making the bosses rich so the working class can get more crumbs.
Equating oppressor with the oppressed
Soon after the ICC (International Criminal Court) prosecutors announced they were applying for arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant (IDF head) and 3 leaders of Hamas (Sinwar, Deif and Haniya) the ANC Presidency issued a statement not only supporting the arrest of 2 of the Zionist leaders but also supporting the arrest of the Hamas leaders. Throughout the genocidal campaign by US imperialism and its Zionist allies against Palestinians, the ANC govt has been condemning the Hamas for the events of Oct 7th. The core allegations of beheaded babies, babies in ovens, mutilation, sexual assault have all been debunked months ago. But here is the ANC supporting the arrest of the political leadership of sections of the Palestinian liberation movement on fake charges. The ANC government breaks the fundamental rule of class struggle that we cannot equate the resistance of the oppressed with the violence of the oppressor. The Palestinians have the right to resist their oppression. The Palestinians are standing up against the combined might of US, UK, French, German and Japanese imperialism. We are unconditionally with the oppressed against the oppressor. This is a struggle for liberation and ending the capitalist dictatorship and replacing it with the fullest democracy of the masses, a workers’ democracy. Hamas is a sectarian movement and we don’t support it politically. But against the violence of the oppressor we defend Hamas and any Palestinian movement. Similarly as it was correct to defend the ANC before 1994 when the apartheid regime and imperialism attacked it, even though we never supported the politics of the ANC. We would never have supported the death penalty nor any court ruling nor any arrest by the apartheid regime against any ANC member nor any leaders. That the ANC supports the arrest of Hamas leaders shows that the ANC is nothing but a tool of imperialism, no longer a liberation movement. They have long flushed the Freedom Charter down the drain.
But the ANC supports Palestine?
Why did the ANC apply to the ICJ to make a case of genocide against Israel? On Saturday 11th November 2023 there was one of the biggest marches ever in the history of South Africa. More than 150 000 protestors came to Cape Town to protest against the genocide by the US imperialist proxy Israel. At the same time the electoral support for the ANC had dropped quite dramatically. It was the desperation of the ANC to get re-elected as well as the militant force of the masses that demanded action that led to the application at the ICJ (International Court of Justice of the United Nations). It was not because the ANC is pro-Palestinian. On the contrary the ANC has a long history of working with and protecting Zionism.
Here are some examples:
- In 1995 the ANC under the Presidency of Mandela signed an agreement with Israel to increase trade between the South Africa and the Zionist entity.
- In 2003 under the Mbeki Presidency the ANC signed an agreement with the Zionist entity not to expropriate any Israeli assets in the country
- Over the years several organisations and activists have pressed charges against SA citizens serving in the Zionist army. Not one of them have even been charged by the state despite there being a law outlawing mercenary action.
- There is an arms trade between SA and Israel
- Most of the diamonds from Anglo American gets exported to Israel and directly contributes $1bn every year to the Zionist arms industry. Even during the current genocide, the diamond exports continue
- SA exports coal to Israel to keep their power stations going, even during the genocide while power was cut to Gaza.
- The SA parliament voted for the closure of the Zionist embassy in SA. The ANC govt has refused to sign it off. The embassy still operates.
The whole basis of the ICJ application against the Zionist entity starts from recognition of the 2-state ‘solution’. At the very time that the genocidal apparatus that is Israel should be disbanded, the SA government rescues them by saying that not only must Israel continue to exist but the whole ending of the genocide is placed in the hands of the Zionist state. This is just as ridiculous as putting in the hands of Hitler the task of disbanding Nazism. We cannot place in the hands of Israel the task of ending the genocide against Palestinians. The entire application of SA was to guarantee a Bantustan status for Palestinians. We reject that.
The continued support by the ANC government to Israel gives encouragement to the Zionists to continue and strengthen their mass slaughter of Palestinians. They know that the feeble words of the SA government is just that, empty rhetoric. The Zionists and the ANC leaders probably have a good laugh about it when they meet.
The claim by the SA government that they will arrest the Zionists from SA who are part of the IDF is empty rhetoric. Hollow lies. There are thousands of killers from the old apartheid regime that were never charged. They did not even bother to apply for amnesty. Those who perpetrated the Marikana massacre are living luxury lives. All these killers post pictures from their holidays on foreign beaches while no one has dried the tears of the families of those killed by apartheid and recently by the ANC government at Marikana.
The criminal role of the ICJ and the ICC
The ICJ and the ICC are tools of imperialism for advancing their own interests. The ICJ could rule for a Ceasefire in Ukraine within a short time although scale of destruction there is far less than in Gaza. Despite all the overwhelming evidence of genocide and the daily brutal horrors, each time the ICJ gives the genocidal state more time to stop the genocide. This is like giving Hitler more time to stop Nazism. A completely false basis. It is also notable that the main right wing forces in Israel such as Cabinet members Ben-Gvir and Smotritch have not even been charged. This means they have been given the blessing by the ICJ to continue their campaign for the extermination of the Palestinians. The ICJ and ICC was never about stopping genocide but enabling genocide by imperialism anywhere in the world. By imperialism allowing their puppet regime in South Africa to lodge the application at the ICJ it has helped to control the narrative for their interests. The ICJ application was a tool to disarm the mass action in SA against the state and imperialist interests. Through the ICJ application the imperialist has succeeded, at least for a while to demobilise the masses in SA and around the globe. But this is only temporary as day day by the masses are starting to see through the real role of the ICJ and ICC.
The ICC was quick to issue warrants for Putin but nothing for Zelensky despite his army perpetrating heinous crimes against Ukrainian masses that opposed him. The imperialist world has a multi-billion campaign for arms for Ukraine, with sanctions against Russia. The imperialists are actively arming the Zionist entity to perpetrate the genocide against Palestinians. If anything the leaders of the US, UK, France, Germany and Japan should be charged with genocide. The SA state has helped them escape by keeping the focus on Israel and giving the Zionist entity the power to stop the genocide. From day 1 Israel was based on the extermination of the Palestinians. The ICJ has ruled that it is perfectly okay for Germany to sell arms to Israel in the middle of the genocide. We cannot depend on the ICJ and ICC. It only serves imperialist interests. We can only depend on the action of the masses against the imperialist states and against all capitalist states in the world.
All the parties move to the right
Not a single one of the parliamentary parties can be trusted. In the past 30 years how many times have these parliamentarians actually reported back and taken a mandate? How many of them rejected the huge salary that parliament pays? These huge salaries are indeed a bribe to comply with the capitalist corrupt system. Once elected they become arrogant and dictate to us. Remember that the apartheid regime was not brought down with a vote but with mass action. The basic working class principle is that any representative must be subject to instant recall from its mass constituency and should not earn more than the wage of an average skilled worker. Not a single parliamentary party stands on this principle.
The plan of the EFF is to build roads , create security guard jobs and cleaning services . Then they want to show to the capitalist what good ja’baas they are by creating Special Economic Zones which is nothing but slave camps where labour laws don’t apply. The MK party wants to bring back the death penalty and loosen the laws on money laundering. Seriously ! The apartheid regime killed a number of our activists but here is the MK party wanting to deal with their opponents. The ANC, EFF and MK Party want to bring in nuclear power. The debt from this enslave our youth for generations to come. Nuclear projects are long and costly and there is no safe space to store the waste which is radioactive for tens of thousands of years.
Why are there so many new parties? Imperialism realises that the traditional parties in South Africa have been so discredited that they need new parties to fool the masses once more. The uprising in July 2021 where 500 shopping malls were burnt showed that a revolt against the system was brewing. To curb revolution and to maintain its control, imperialism is now funding several more capitalist parties that aim to divide and fragment the working class as well as tie the masses to parliament once again.
We are not going to examine all of the parties. Just have a glimpse of some of them:
The National Coloured Congress (NCC) is a racist party that bases itself on an apartheid racial group. The coloniser created this group to divide the working class. The working class in Mitchell’s Plain and Khayelitsha suffer the same levels of unemployment and crisis in housing and poverty wages. Unity of the entire working class is necessary to overcome the capitalist relations and imperialist domination. This requires an international struggle. The NCC plays on the genuine grievances of the masses to fight for a slice of the capitalist crumbs. In essence the NCC leaders want to mobilise a section of the working class to put a handful of representatives into parliament. Imperialism will enjoy that worker fights worker while they steal the wealth of the country. We reject the NCC and any other capitalist party.
The Patriotic Alliance is a pro-zionist organisation whose grand plan for housing is to dish out building materials to people instead of decent houses. This is just another form of the imperialist structural adjustment program that both the ANC and DA subscribe to. They want the criminal records of gangsters scrapped so that they too have a pathway to get into parliament- really a gangster’s paradise! The PA want to introduce forced labour of prisoners. This is bringing back the colonial policy of slavery. We reject this. They also support fracking that will destroy the Karoo water basin. They support reducing labour rights in the workplace. They want to introduce the old apartheid practice of linking increases to performance rather than what workers win every year. They want to reward the reactionary farmers if they train black farmers. Their central policy is more access to tenders and shares by big companies. In other words their leaders also want to become rich.
It is concerning that the EFF, MK and PA all want to introduce military service. This is part of a world trend to start to create paramilitaries and to militarise the youth as a new force to suppress the working class.
We need a working class party that bases itself on mass action, not a parliamentary party.
The long struggle to establish a workers party of the Bolshevik type in South Africa
The attempts to form a revolutionary worker’s party goes back to the 1920s in South Africa. The CPSA started with a program for Socialist revolution but was stalinised and eventually played the main counter- working class role by holding back the working class from fighting for the seizure of power in the 1980s. Despite the strength of the SACP at the time, the Numsa workers still adopted a resolution in 1993 calling for the breaking of the alliance with the ANC and SACP and for the formation of a workers party. Unfortunately this was defeated in Cosatu. Over the past 100 years there were numerous efforts to build an independent workers party anew.
The 1990 strike and workers occupation of the Mercedes Benz plant in East London was a key point in our struggle. The ANC and SACP turned their backs on the workers who launched a political strike against the imperialists and the apartheid regime. The workers went on strike when they discovered a section of their plant was being used to manufacture military vehicles for the apartheid regime. They occupied the factory for a number of days. To the alliance, the workers could only launch stayaways not take over the means of production. That was the alliance politics all along- to take a stake in the management of the country for imperialism, not the overthrow of capitalist relations and the establishment of Socialism.
By 1995 Numsa workers launched the one of the first national strikes on economic demands but challenging the credentials of the ANC-NP unity government at the same time.
The 2000s saw the rise of social movements on housing and basic services. This was a further challenge to the ruling ANC-SACP-Cosatu alliance leadership that imperialism depended upon for a new form of control over the masses. Apartheid, slave capitalist relations had been replaced after 1994 by the rule of the tripartite alliance, both pre- and post 1994 in service of imperialism.
The reactionary role of the SRWP leadership
The 2012 Marikana strike against Lonmin and against the NUM, Cosatu, ANC and Cosatu marked a key break of the masses from the ruling alliance. It was a political strike against the system of continued wage slavery relations. It reflected the sentiment in the working class, with the SWOP (Sociology of Work Program) survey showing that 60% of Cosatu shopstewards supporting a new workers party. Vavi and the Numsa leaders suppressed the survey and it was not given to the 2012 Cosatu Congress delegates. Numsa leaders were forced by members to convene its special Congress in 2013 but the leaders deliberately delayed the formation of the party by 6 years. In the meantime the EFF, a fragment of the ANC youth stepped into the vacuum. The Wasp made a heroic attempt to form a workers party after Marikana but through various factors the party did not get off the ground in a mass sense. Even when the SRWP was formed in 2019 it was sabotaged from within by the Numsa leaders who kept the militants in limbo, resulting in the demoralisation of many of them.
We made a mistake by putting our trust in Numsa leaders to create an environment for the real building of a revolutionary workers party. However, from the start the structures were bureaucratic and suppressed workers voices. The Numsa leaders tied the party to a billionaire funder who has close ties with the Chinese regime. Thus from the start the grip of imperialism that directs the Chinese semi-colony has strangled the Left who chose to enter and work within. Other members of the Left decided not to join. Having started with a network of thousands of activists around the country the stranglehold of the Numsa leaders in effect killed off the party by suppressing all activity. Many activists left; some even joined other parties. It seems that the aim of the Numsa leaders was to pacify and neutralise the radical base of the union with talk of revolution. In this they played an important support role for imperialism to help curb and neutralise a key section of the revolutionary Left in the working class, centrally in Numsa itself. However parties set up by unions land up being reformist not revolutionary. By contrast, in the 1980s it was the revolutionary underground that built the unions. Numsa leaders of the SRWP made sure that no revolutionary workers party was going to be built. In this way, they played a major role in the service of imperialism by neutralising the revolutionary threat from within. The implosion of the SRWP went hand in hand with the suppression of independent voices in Numsa. A wave of Numsa members, top and lower order leaders and activists were suspended and suppressed. Even Saftu has been crippled from within by the Numsa leaders- such is their commitment to save the imperialist from the revolutionary trends within the working class. By forming a supposed revolutionary party (in reality an empty shell) the Numsa leaders ensured that no revolutonary party was formed. Numsa leaders help neutralise the revolutionary wave of the Marikana uprising. The #feesmustfall and farmworkers strikes were seen as separate issues and not as part of the same revolt against the capitalist rule in South Africa.
Recently the Numsa leaders, who also spoke on behalf of the SRWP, even called for workers to decide on their own who to vote for, while listing parties not to vote for. They leave it open for workers to vote for the very ANC of the Marikana massacre. The Numsa leaders are even going to have a bilateral talks with the ANC. What happened to the Numsa moment? Wha happened to the Marikana moment? The Numsa leaders have betrayed the workers who died at Marikana. They have betrayed the revolutionary spirit of the Numsa members after the Marikana massacre. They betrayed the entire working class that in 2012 was crying out for a new workers party to be formed. We clearly cannot be in the same political organisation as these Numsa leaders. We call on the members of the SRWP to denounce this betrayal and to carry forward the project of building the revolutionary party outside of the ranks of the SRWP. We need a new workers party.
As WIVL we accept blame too for having stayed in the SRWP for so long. There are thousands of radical grassroots activists that are still on their own, now disorganised. The revolutionary potential is not lost. They can still be united and organised anew.
The way forward- time to break from both the ANC and the DA
The heroic youth from Palestine and the courageous youth from the USA shows us that our dreams don’t fit in ballot boxes. We have to organise on a global scale to unite the working class. We need a new international working class party to defeat imperialism and their capitalist parties on local soil.
We call on the militant youth and workers around the world to start the process, to start discussions, set up activist groups. Let us build a new workers party. A party of class struggle to combat the capitalist class and imperialist on all levels locally, regionally and internationally. It is only mass action of the working class that can end the genocide against the Palestinians, the Congolese, the Sudanese, the Rohingya and many others. We need a program of mass action against the SA state. At the same time we need a program of mass action against imperialism. This is the way to end the current and future genocides.
Workers and youth of the world unite; we have nothing to lose but our chains; we have a world to win. Forward to Socialism!
Issued by Workers International Vanguard League (South Africa)
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