With one eye on the ground and the other fixed on the objective, lets remind ourselves of our Black Radical Movements Response to the Economic Freedom Fighters (EEF) Clarion Call We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view- Mao Tse Tung Black people stand at a crossroads twenty years after the advent of democracy. The haunting question is: will we reinvent a new glorious future or shall we mark time in this inglorious permanent state of indignity, waste and hopelessness? Victory for our vision is NOT certain but we have to start again and again with singularity of purpose and even prepare for humiliating defeats along the road. Our movements as the representatives of black desires for liberation need to always search for the maximization of opportunities for revolutionary rupture to realize our strategic vision: Black Power Pan Africanist Revolution! This vision was made concrete by Thomas Sankara and imagined and inspired by Robert Sobukwe and Steve Biko amongst others. This vision is operationalised into a minimum programme which finds expression in the demands of the Peoples Manifesto (PM). The PM is the minimum programme upon which any forward march must be based. It defines the transformation of politics to impose a peoples will upon both the social and economic spheres within a framwork of fundamentally altering politics. In these searches for openings to insert our black crow bar to increase the fissures for rupture we have to make tactical moves without compromising our strategic vision. What are the tactical compromises necessary in our conjuncture? We are called upon by our revolutionary stance to be flexible only on tactics but never on principle or strategic vision. How does our movement respond to the juncture we find ourselves in? Has the terrain shifted enough to consider different or new tactical moves and re-alignments? These reflections are aimed to assist our movements in this period and to help us take positions consisted with our strategic commitment. In general, our movements must pronounce on the coming elections (2014) and the emergent new political developments, in particular we must respond to the Clarion Call by the Economic Freedom Fighters(EFF) led by Julius Malema. The EFF has called on all to join forces with it to realize Economic Freedom In Our Life Time. It must be remembered that in the last elections movements such as the September National Imbizo (SNI) only asked the question: What Will Voting Change? We then proceeded to develop the PM as a response to the hypocrisy of bourgeois parliamentarism. This question is no longer adequate even if it is still valid. The current conjuncture in brief In concrete terms there has been three new political developments in the short period of time correlating with the two decades of ANC rule which has failed to respond positively to the demands of liberation and dignity of black people. The ANC which has come under continued pressure from our peoples through everyday service delivery protests and demands has responded with neglect, indifference and violence as in the public execution of Andries Tatane and the Marikana massacre. Politically, our nation is at an interregnum: the old is dying but not dead and the new is being born but not fully emerged yet. This is a treacherous time! We can choose to allow the situation to determine our role and fate or we can enter the fray to shape and influence the coming of the new. Every direction we take has to be thought out and based on the single criteria of whether such a move maximizes chances of achieving the strategic objective of Black Power or not. Every other consideration must be subordinated to this supreme consideration. In this endeavor we must be guided by the approach that we are participating in the drama of anti-politics-political engagement, a corollary of the same is using politics to end politics. Of course, the question of what kinds of politics are likely to lead to the desired end are key. We shall explore this later. The Players The South African neo-colonial and anti-black political sphere is dominated by parliamentary parties, in the main the African National Congress (ANC) alliance and the Democratic Alliance (DA) on the other hand. And a coterie of small but essentially indistinguishable opposition parties held together by more or less the same ideological orientation and committed to parliamentary cretinism. These parties fundamentally agree on the status qou which is anti-black. Within this milieu, there are three new entrants which we need to position ourselves against or in relations to. First is the uniting Azapo (Sopa/Azapo); next is the Agang of Dr Mamphele and finally, the Economic Freedom Fighters of Juluis Malema. From the established parties there is nothing to be said, as they have over and over again shown their policy choice which is anti-black. Of the new entrants it can be said that Agang is closest to the status qou and therefore irrelevant for the kinds of rupture our movement is committed to. The uniting BCM is ideologically closer but not identical to the SNI. These forces are essentially progressive forces that participated in the liberation struggle but have not been able to make an impact in the post 94 period. This leaves us with the EFF as the force of the now and the future. EFF brief Critique The EFF has issued a clarion call based on a set of minimum considerations for a consultative process which would culminate in a decision making meeting. At the more general level the EFF has come to the same conclusions that the SNI was grounded on with regard to the African National Congress (ANC): the ANC is essentially anti-black and is incapable of respondIng to the demands for fundamental change and liberation of the black majority. It was not an accident that Sobukwe and others left the ANC to form the PAC, nor was it out of mistake that Biko and others walked out of the ANC aligned NUSAS to form SASO and the broader Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). We welcome the arrival of EFF to our historical conclusions with regards to the ANC. The ANC is currently the body-guard of white capital and the force against which all progressive forces are pitted as the first buffer towards ending the 350 years of white settler colonialism. The EFF has essentially been spawned by internal ANC alliance struggles for power and accumulation. What is clear is that the ANC has reached a point where it cant even sponsor the further expansion of a new layer of state linked black capitalist class. Objectively, the ANC can only now give charity from the established black capitalism like Motsepe to the masses whilst the state violently defends white capital and the post 1994 black capitalist class. Within this reality, the forces of accumulation that emerged from the defeat of the Mbeki layer in Polokwane found the space for economic expansion too narrow on the one hand and on the other a state not willing to expand more room for accumulation by the new entrants. The objective result of this was the intensification of lumpen like accumulation and consumption epitomized by the Zuma Nkandla compound on the one hand and the Kenny Kunene vulgarity on the other. These moves are the two sides of the same lumpen accumulation process, under-pinned by an ideology we can characterise as ‘stupidity. The Presidents multiple blunders point to this reality. Essentially, the lumpen is involved with vulgar corruption but its not deep like the first phase of serious accumulation under Mbeki that yielded a fully formed black bourgeoisie within a decade. Calls for radical change in the economy within the ANC must be understood within this context of these contestation and limitations. However such calls have no chance of realization and only threatens the stability of the status qou. Moreover these calls would have to be punished within the context of the ANC political and economic process (which is about the preservation of the white status qou) and the calls of ANCYL under the leadership of Malema with all the elements of leadership battles as the manifestation of the underlying struggle for accumulation via the state What does EFF then represent or how should it be characterised? Whilst the clarion call has what can be called socialist rhetoric, in reality its a force that can be seen as a radical nationalism like Zanu_pf: it is radical to the extent that it wants to end white monopoly over the economy and society, but reactionary inso far as it does not foreground social change and radical new state form and a socialist reorganization of the economy. The key criticism of radical nationalism is its failure to take an anti capitalist position that at once seeks to change the property and social relations of production and exchange. In other words a clean break with the capitalist mode. Often, such radical nationalism morphs into state capitalism, where the capitalist accumulators are not private capital but those who control and run the state. This form of capitalism is not worse or better that private capital; the laboring classes and the excluded will suffer as they do under private ownership of the means of production. EFF, whilst it emerged from the instestines of internal ANC battle, it assumes a progressive role by virtue of having turned against the ANC(this point is elaborated later). Whilst the EFF clarion call shows a clear break with the ANC is has some important weakneses and silences. We will now deal with some of these. The critique provided by the EFF of the ANC shows some affinity with the politics that has emerged since 1994 and this is demonstrated by the tendency to blaming individual ANC leaders instead of understanding that the problem is not who is the leader of the ANC; the problem is the ANC itself! The ANC manages an anti black state, and that is the fundamental problem. We have already charactersed the EFF as part of the continuum of radical naitionalism. From here, black movements need to be clear that although radical nationalism ala Chavez, Mugabe and now EFF are progressive and must be defended, however, it does not by itself satisfy our vision for liberation. Tactically, it means the black movements must support radical nationalism, without being seduced by its progressive albeit limited agenda; we must press on with its demands and struggle for a Sankarist future. We must enter into an ideological struggle with radical nationalism in a common front like politics. Right now our enemy is not radical nationalism but the ANC which defends white capital and white supremacy. Therefore any formation fighting the ANC from a black nationalism point of view, makes such a fighter formation tactically an ally of the SNI. Thats why EFF is objectively an ally but the DA, Agang and most oppositions parties not. This is because they are not driven by black nationalism in their opposition to the ANC. Because the drafters of the EFF clarion call accept 1994 as a point of political liberation, they see the current struggle as one which is purely economic. This shows a conceptual weakness and distortion created by accepting the false premise that 1994 signified a rupture with the colonial and apartheid past. From the perspective of the SNI and most black radical movements such as Blackwash, 94 changed fokol!. Therefore, for us the struggle is still for the totality of liberation of blacks: political, economic, social, cultural and spiritual. There is no separating political liberation from economic liberation, there is no real democracy outside the totality of liberation. To the extent that the EFF emphases one element, albeit fundamental, this is progressive, but to the extent that it accepts 1994 as a watershed, its reactionary. The underlying product of this is race denialism or silence on the race question. From a black perspective the condition of the black majority is the determining factor and the basis for judgment of progress. The state of the black majority is evidence enough to dispel notions of political liberation. Political liberation must not be understood in the narrow sense of extension of the franchise, outside of the transformed state. All Marxists know for instance that bourgeois democracy is a lie and oppressive, despite its game of regular elections and declaration of equality for all. We are driven solely by the black condition and from there we call for BLACKS FIRST! A related silence precisely because of the lack of social critique of the post 1994 state and politics is the gender question. These silences needs to be accentuated into a loud noise that must foreground the new politics we must struggle for. Patriarchy is the enemy of black liberation and central to the construction of life overdermined by White Supremacy! The EFF is silent on the charectarisation of the post 1994 state, and pays undue focus on the subjective forces now concentrated in the Zuma-ANC. Black movements must insist that central to a new future is the question of the state. The current state has been built for white supremacy; established since 1652 with the arrival of white settlers. For real progress to happen, this state form has to be obliterated by any means necessary. The central point of struggle must be for the realization of a Sankarist state form. Having arrived at that determination, then the forms of struggle open to our people must not be limited to using existing spaces such as parliament. In fact parliamentarianism is a poison that is best described as parliamentary cretinism. The politics of limiting change to elections and not using parliament to expose the hypocrisy of bourgeoisie democracy and as a space to fuel and legitimize the struggles of the people outside parliament, must be rejected. The EFF call undermines or even discounts mass insurrection as a key tool of liberation as it positions parliament as the arena for change. The fact that the ANC would use the state to fight and repress an Egypt like moment should not discount such mass process, but rather should provide a challenge to think through ways to overcome such a revolutionary difficulty. Building of a mass radical politics outside parliament are key for the realization of the vision of total change. Parliament is just one arena of battle and not a decisive one at this juncture. We dont expect revolutionaries to be politicians, but must use politics to end politics! The two lines of struggle must be developed, legal(parliament) and illegal(mass action, defiance and insurrection). For instance, we shall not wait for the state to legislate for expropriation of land without compensation. It is expected that the new force will mobilize and lead land occupations NOW!, led by all including parliamentarians. It is expected that parliament will be rendered ungovernable in support of the demands of the people outside parliament! Why should Black Movements support the EFF ? From the above brief analysis of some of the key weakness of the EFF move we can see that any engagement would require further ideological struggle with the EFF forces. But we also have to ask what are the minimums that must be met to get involved in such a process to make sure the strategic vision is not compromised? The main reason for an engagement with the EFF is that it represents a radical nationalism ala Mugabe and Zanu-PF. Increasingly in the past few years the spokespersons of the EFF have been assimilating the discourse of black radicalism of the SNI and Blackwash etc. But they were making these calls within the ANC and therefore presenting a real problem in subverting the content of the calls such as nationalization, expropriation without compensation, and even the discourse that land in white hands is stolen property. This radical discourse only gains revolutionary currency when it becomes a force opposed to the ANC, not one that seeks to rescue the ANC, such as the calls by NUMSA currently to swell the ranks of the ANC. Objectively the forces of EFF have now been rendered a force opposed to the ANC, that objectively makes them an ally of black radical politics. Will they fight for these changes to the end? Such a question can only be settled in the concrete crucible of struggle. What has been settled is the question that there is no fighting for change within the ANC; all those who want change have to realize that the ANC is the force that must be defeated together with its master white capital. What does the black movements stand to gain from an engagement with the EFF? When our movements join such a call, they position themselves within the mainstream of politics and give themselves a chance to imbue EFF politics with its radical content. As a revolutionary movement we seek ways to maximize the politics and bring to larger audiences its message to raise radical consciousness to make revolution. An engagement with EFF also is a school of doing politics under the pressure of real forces that may at once be working in the same direction and against each other at the same time on certain other questions. That is the dynamism of political and revolutionary life within the reality of coalitions or fronts. This kind of education cannot be read and learnt from books, one must experience it. If we cant sustain our position within a broad progressive movement, then the question is; where are we expecting to do this? After the revolution? When we look carefully at the Greek experience, within the context of broad left politics, we learn that we must strike as one without suspending our criticism of those we are in coalition with and we must fight for the politics we hold dearly within the coalition itself! The response to the call suggests a possibility for a principled unity in action. We must not underestimate the political investments made to build a layer of black radical forces, which remains ineffectual, disoriented and divided. This process may be the cement needed to re-articulate a new politics of black radicalism. It must always be remembered politics matter only when millions are involved. What are the minimums? Any engagement with the EFF must be based on the acceptance of the Peoples Manifesto(PM). The minimum condition required to guard against the selling out of our strategic vision is the PM. From this point of view, the engagement with the EFF must be seen as part of popularizing the PM. Irrespective of what happens in the relationship between black movements and EFF the important development would have been the entrance of the PM into the consciousness of the majority and its internalization to demand a Sankarist future, with or without the EFF. Therefore, an engagement with the EFF on the basis of the PM can only lead to a win win situation in the political sense. If the EFF rejects the PM then it invites a confrontation on its politics and open debate on why is would refuse to support such a reasonable call. In this way the debate on the manifesto is continued and the nation becomes aware and learns. Also a rejection of the manifesto would expose the EFF as nothing but another ANC outside the ANC. This would give the Black movements reasonable grounds to oppose and expose the EFF. We must impress upon the EFF forces for an experimentation with the Sankarist politics of the PM to provide a point of reference for our people. Here thought must be given to post national elections to how local politics can be charged into a Sankara model. Our people need to see to believe! Also in this connection the SNI must fight for its programme for a peoples democracy through the use of cellphone technology. The third condition must be the end to tenders NOW! Not after the state has built capacity as suggested by the EFF. Whilst the SNI supports nationalization, it has always said, yes to nationalization, but not under the ANC. This means an awareness of the need to transform the state before it can take the national assets and turn them into a collective property of the political class. Nationalization must be for the socialization(ownership) by the people, directly, with the peoples state a mere manager to ensure efficiency and equitable redistribution. Nothing more or less. Will our movements Dissolve into EFF? This question is key and we need to learn from the fall-out from the Blackwash/SNI process. Taking into account the criticism provided above more so the challenges of parliamentary cretinism and need to build a revolutionary movement to end the current state form, it would be suicidal for the our movements to dissolve into the EFF. We must use the advantage of a relationship with EFF to build a mass extra parliamentary fighting movement, whilst working with progressive parliamentarians from the Sankarist influenced ticked of the EFF. The rhythm, posture and temperament of the in and outside would determine how the identity and character of the SNI is shaped moving forward. It must be made clear from the beginning that the black movements go into the partnership/front/coalition to fight for a Sankarist politics! It has to fight for its positions, it has to struggle to win its ideological positions and must have capacity to carry through its programme within the broader front/coalition/partnership. Right now that battle can only be waged with some results within the EFF-Front. This is what our current reality demands from us. Thinking is required around what forms actual participation would take. Here a minute detail has to be paid to the learning from the SNI/Blackwash and many other unity ventures before. What must be avoided at all costs is the emergence of break away factopms that would snipe from the rear. It must be expected in this process that some members would not agree and may even leave the movement. This is the painful process of movement building. At this stage The main objections to a coalition with the EFF are likely to be moralistic not political. Process moving forward 1. All black/Africanist and social movements to be invited to discuss and adopt this discussion document. 2. That all movements take dual membership in the EFF forthwith 3. That a black block within the EFF be guided by this document and operate as a tendency within 4. That the black block defends and promotes the EFF, also ensure and safe guards its unity and deepen its progressive direction. 5. The black block must operate in an exemplary fashion to win the hearts and minds of fellow EFF members towards the radical politics we hold. 6. The black block is NOT an internal opposition of the EFF but a force to develop radical politics and defend a revolutionary practice and perspective guided by the PM and Thomas Sankara. We are the ones!
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 05:58:20 +0000
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