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A Journal of Southern African Revolutionary Anarchism[BCBMB[B“From each according to ability, to each according to need!” No. 14 August 2015

CONTENTSContents Zabalaza #14 Editorial by Tina Sizovuka ........................................................................................................................................ 3Southern Africa South Africa and the DRC: Has Rhodes passed on the baton? by Shawn Hattingh (ZACF) ............................... 6 Class Rule Must Fall! More Statues, More Working Class by Leroy Maisiri ............................................................... 10 For How Long can South African Elites Keep Misleading the People? by Philip Nyalungu ............................ 12 SPEECH: Working Class Struggle, Blazing a Path to Freedom by Lucien van der Walt ....................................... 14 The General Approach of Anarchists/Syndicalists to the United Frontand NUMSA by Jakes Factoria and Tina Sizovuka .................................................................................................................... 16International In the Rubble of US Imperialism: The PKK, YPG and the Islamic State by Shawn Hattingh (ZACF) .......... 20 The State of Climate Change by Bongani Maponyane (ZACF) .......................................................................................... 23 Building a Mass Anarchist Movement: The Example of Spain’s CNT by Thabang Sefalafalaand Lucien van der Walt ..................................................................................................................................................................... 25 Imperial Wars, Imperialism and the Losers: A Critique of Certain ‘Labour Aristocracy’ Theoriesby Lucien van der Walt ........................................................................................................................................................................ 26Black Stars of Anarchism Domingos Passos: The Brazilian Bakunin by Renato Ramos and Alexandre Samis .......................................... 29Book Review REVIEW: Spanish Revolution Remembered: Peirats’ “The CNT in the Spanish Revolution”by Jakes Factoria ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 31Theory The Anarchist Road to Revolution by Bongani Maponyane (ZACF) ........................................................................... 33 Putting Politics into Practice: The Importance of Democracy and Education in Unionsby Pitso Mompe (ZACF) ..................................................................................................................................................................... 34Counter-Culture Anarchism and Counter-Culture: The Centrality of Ideas by Warren McGregor (ZACF) ...................................... 36 What does the ZACF stand for? ................................................................................................................................................. 39[BDG!DPOUBDU!EFUBJMTPost: Postnet Suite 47, Private Bag X1, Fordsburg, South Africa, 2033Email: zacf@riseup.net | Website: www.zabalaza.net | PHONE: +27 72 399 0912ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 2

ZABALAZA #14 EDITORIALEditorial: Where to, South Africa?Anarchist-Communist ReflectionsTina SizovukaIn 2013, Zabalaza/ ZACF took a decision to redirect ourenergies into certain aspects of our work that we felt weremore urgent and immediately important at the time, given thechallenges and conditions we were facing. The bad news isthat this decision took its toll on our publishing work, whichpartly explains the long gap (over two years) between issuesof our journal. The good news is that this reorientation haspaid off elsewhere: hiccups notwithstanding, over the past twoyears our militants have participated in various new initiativesin and around Johannesburg, where we have witnessed arenewed and growing interest in anarchism. The inclusion ofseveral new names in this issue is a much-welcomed relectionof these changes.Over the past two years, there have been many importantdevelopments that deserve special consideration. We havetried to include our own, anarchist, appraisals of these wherepossible, although in some respects we have fallen unavoidablyshort. It is precisely because South Africa’s burning socialand national issues remain unresolved (in fact they cannotbe resolved within the existing capitalist and political partysystems established in 1910 and 1994), that the countrycontinues to undergo social turbulence, seen in strikes, unionsplits, struggles over symbols, and sadly, anti-immigrantattacks.The expulsion in November 2014 of the metalworkers union(NUMSA) from the federation (COSATU), and the consequentformation of a new NUMSA-driven “United Front” (UF) is aninteresting turn of events in South Africa. On the one handthis is a major setback for trade union unity, but on the other,NUMSA’s pledge to work for the type of “social movementunionism” that once distinguished it, could also mean a victoryfor working class unity broadly speaking. In this, NUMSA hascut ties with the ruling ANC, and – in its defence of formergeneral secretary Zwelinzima Vavi – has been at the forefrontof a struggle against that powerful ANC-SACP group withinthe federation’s leadership, which, in NUMSA’s words, isattempting to turn COSATU into a “labour desk” of the rulingparty. However, it is yet to be seen whether the UF will signala new phase in our politics; with the launch being postponedseveral times, with inluential groups pushing for it to standindependent candidates in next year’s local elections, andwith a programme that at times seems more concerned aboutuniting the left under a NUMSA programme than about unityof the working class in struggle, the future is uncertain. Howanarchists should relate to this is the subject of an entry in the“Open Correspondence Column” by Jakes Factoria and TinaSizovuka, which argues for participation, where possible, inthe unions and the UF, to build revolutionary counter-powerand promote revolutionary ideas.It is signiicant that it is NUMSA driving these newdevelopments; its predecessor, MAWU, in the 1980s, wasone of the most vehement voices against alliances to politicalparties – warning of the dangers of embroiling unions in partypoliticalfactional battles. However, we should also not forgetthat it was Vavi that led the campaign to back one faction ofthe ANC (around Zuma) over the other (around Mbeki) inthe 2007 elections, the aftermath of which was the politicalassassination of the then COSATU president Willie Madisha,who opposed it. This decision was a watershed moment forCOSATU’s independence: as predicted by MAWU, COSATUwould soon become infected by the ANC’s factional battles– battles of which Vavi himself was later made victim. It wasalso a watershed moment for COSATU’s culture of consensusbuilding and debate, which was increasingly replaced by theculture of “disciplining” and malicious elimination of politicalopponents. Vavi’s recent birthday present to Mbeki – anapology for 2007 – is a welcome admission of guilt, althoughthe apology would best be directed at COSATU’s millions ofmembers who suffered the real consequences of the unionleadership’s embrace of political parties.Pitso Mompe’s article takes lessons from syndicalism,focussing on disunity within the trade unions – which notonly occurs horizontally (along the lines of nationality, race,ethnicity, language and so on) but also vertically, betweenworkers and the trade union bureaucracy – arguing for areturn to the type of syndicalist-leaning bottom-up, workercontrolled trade unionism of the 1970s and 1980s. This isprecisely what is missing in many COSATU unions, wrackedby internal turmoil, with bureaucracies enmeshed into thepatronage networks of the nationalist ANC state. ThabangSefalafala and Lucien van der Walt revisit the Spanish CNT insearch of lessons for building a mass anarchist organisationand union revitalisation. On this important example, we alsoinclude here a review of Jose Peirat’s account of the Spanishrevolution, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, a three volumestudy by a militant – written in exile – of the inspiring eventsof 1936-9.The formation of the UF by NUMSA is an important rupture withthe status quo, although its future is uncertain. Activists andleftists from a wide range of political orientations have pinnedtheir hopes on it, a beacon of light in a sea of darkness, andmuch ink has already lowed in attempting to understand itssigniicance. Unfortunately a serious ZACF anarchist analysisof the UF is still outstanding, but one is surely necessary. Thelessons and insights of anarchism would add a valuable voiceof apprehension that could stand up against those (many ofwhom are inluential leadership igures) pushing the ledglingstructure in the direction of a workers’ party. 1 Nonetheless therise of the UF also poses several questions to us as anarchists3 ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

ZABALAZA #14 EDITORIALabout how we relate to mass movements, addressed in the“Open Correspondence Column”. A related article by BonganiMaponyane takes a theoretical look at the role and importanceof having an organised active anarchist minority within massmovements, focusing on the role of the speciic anarchistpolitical organisation.Alongside the UF, since our last issue we have seen the riseof a new, so-called “revolutionary” political party – the“Economic Freedom Fighters” (EFF). The EFF explodedonto the political scene in mid-2013 as a splinter from theruling ANC by the faction surrounding Youth Leaguer JuliusMalema, grabbing far more media attention than its weightwarranted (it received only 6.35% of the votes in the 2014national elections). Despite its lirtations with shady businessigures like Kenny Kunene (who has now also launched a newparty, the Patriotic Alliance), authoritarian structure (initiallyaround an unelected “Central Command”), factional inightingfor access to lucrative state positions, undisclosed fundingby powerful interests, and a long string of broken promises,the EFF’s provocative – if sometimes ultra-nationalist –rhetoric has provided a pole of attraction, especially for pooryouth, who are largely excluded from the system (youthunemployment is roughly 36%, and youth account for 90% ofthe unemployed who have never had a job). 2In the midst of all this activity, the families of the 41 Marikanaminers who were brutally gunned down in August 2012while on strike, in the aftermath of major splits in the miningunions, have been shunted into the background. The “FarlamCommission” set up to investigate the incident (commissionsare the typical SA state response (delay tactic?) to popularanger) has inally, after years of proceedings, come up withnothing more than to institute another inquiry, this time into thecapability of the National Police Commissioner and ProvincialCommissioner to hold ofice after deliberately misleading theCommission. No one has been named responsible for the actualmassacre, and no compensation has been forthcoming. Ratherthan seek to address the problems, major parties like ANC andEFF have instead sought votes from the miners’ communities,seeking to ride people’s pain into lucrative state ofice withpromises.With the “Nkandlagate” scandal fresh in memory – duringwhich President Zuma refused for months to make publicthis inquiry into the misuse of billions of public funds for hisNkandla homestead – we are left with little hope. However,we would be wrong to single out the ANC (or the EFF) forexploiting its access to state resources as a means to entrenchits power (by rewarding the loyal, building patronage networksand so on); the National Party, just like the ANC, used the stateto reward voters, and built the state into an ethnic and racialiefdom, appointed their cronies and allies to all key positions,and, more speciically, used and expanded state companies,funds, legislation and pressure for a process of either Afrikaneror black economic empowerment. This will be the topic of anupcoming Zabalaza journal supplement, soon to be publishedby the collective.While the elites gorge themselves at our expense, and indoing so, continue to fan national divisions, the working classand poor, faced with desperate conditions, have turned onthemselves. Another wave of brutal xenophobic attacks brokeout in early 2015. Hundreds of foreign-owned shops werelooted, and (as some policemen joined in the looting) the armywas deployed to various areas of Johannesburg and KwaZuluNatal, which had turned into battlegrounds. The latest waveof anti-immigrant violence was triggered by the xenophobicstatements of the Zulu King, King Zwelithini (although he laterretracted his suggestion that foreigners “pack their bags”).Public condemnations and meaningless romantic talk ofAfrican unity aside, the South African state bears responsibilityfor these attacks both directly and indirectly: by deliberatelyturning a blind eye, by the fact that its policy for dealing withthe “problem” of “illegal” migration is one of clampdown andinternment, and because its imperialist incursions into therest of Africa cannot be separated from the contempt thatSouth Africans hold towards residents of dominated countries.This is the focus of another group of articles in this issue.Shawn Hattingh analyses South African political interferencein the DRC (including backing the Kabila regime), exposinghow troops stationed in the DRC (as part of “OperationMistral”) are being used to clear rebel groups so that SA bigbusiness, state-owned enterprises, and ANC-linked interests(including of the President’s nephew) can take advantage ofmineral and oil concessions in North Kivu. Philip Nyalungu alsofocusses on the state’s role in the recent xenophobic attacks(by deliberately weakening immigrant solidarity networksthrough arrests, and silencing movements critical of the ANC);at the same time, however, the article takes a tough look atthe pervasiveness of xenophobic attitudes amongst ordinarypeople in South Africa, calling for open and honest discussionas a starting point for dealing with such rampant xenophobia.Lucien van der Walt argues against the thesis of a Western“labour aristocracy”, showing that there is no basis for theclaims that Western imperialism – through wars, colonialconquest and so on – beneits the Western working class.South Africa is itself a small imperial power, and plays animportant role in popular anti-immigrant sentiment, statemilitary actions and regional politics. The argument against“labour aristocracy” also applies: the South African workingclass has no stake in its ruling class’s expansionism.The issue of the legacy of imperialism – the older, “Western,”colonial variety – has come to the fore again in South Africa, acountry deeply shaped by the British Empire. Students fromthe University of Cape Town sparked a series of symbolicactions across the country, when they attacked a statue ofCecil John Rhodes, arch-symbol of British imperialism and theformer namesake of Zimbabwe (“Rhodesia”), by covering it inhuman faeces.Our colonial past deeply shapes the lives of working classSouth Africans. In South Africa the colour of your skin stillstrongly determines your life chances and social positions, andthus this anger is justiied. However, Leroy Maisiri, a studentat Rhodes University in South Africa, questions the overlyracialised slogans (e.g. “Rhodes so white”) that have comeout of the initiative, arguing that symbolic, cosmetic actionslike removing statues fail to take account of deeper structuralproblems that link race and class, and cannot be a meaningfulsolution to the continued legacy of racism and colonialism inSouth Africa. Instead of erasing painful history, the article callsfor more symbolism and more iconography – that celebratesthe working class, and its heritage and history (which is also akey focus of a Heritage Day speech, reproduced here, by Lucienvan der Walt). Nationalism, a politics of cross-class unity andthe afirmation of narrow identities, has failed throughoutZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 4

the twentieth century to solve South Africa’sproblems: its resurgence in some of theseprotests, and through the EFF, does not take usforward, as Maisiri stresses here, and van derWalt elsewhere. Real university transformationmeans creating, not an “African university” ora “world-class university,” but a “workers andpeople’s scientiic university” and free education.Turning to the international front, the recentuprisings by the predominantly black – but alsoworking class – community of Baltimore in theUnited States, sparked by the murder of FreddieGray while in police custody, raise many similarquestions about the race-class connection inthe US. While the international press has drawnhistorical comparisons (e.g. to the Civil RightsMovement, slavery), too often these have failedto go beyond simplistic references to “whitesupremacy.” As in South Africa, class-basedexploitation, slavery and conquest are central tothe origins of racism, and capitalist and statistsocial relations play a key role in entrenchingracial and national oppression today.In terms of national liberation struggles, verylittle has raised more international interest (notonly amongst anarchists) than the impressiveight by the People’s Protection Units (YPG)and the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) in theregion of Rojava in Western Kurdistan, againstthe Islamic State. Linked to the Kurdish WorkersParty (PKK), the YPG/YPJ, like the PKK, haveincreasingly and explicitly adopted ideas withroots in the anarchist tradition, in place of theirolder Marxism-Leninism: this includes effortsat an anarchist-inluenced programme of selfgovernmentand direct democracy in Rojava inSyria, which is linked to a struggle for both genderequality and environmentalism. On the lattertheme, Bongani Maponyane’s article on climatechange takes issue with the false solutionsto climate change being promoted by thebureaucrats; the fact that elite-driven processeslike the Kyoto Protocol, COP and others havethus far failed to meaningfully address the crisis,makes the type of class-driven environmentalismbeing undertaken by the YPG/YPJ all the morerelevant. Shawn Hattingh’s article takes a bit of alonger look at the Islamic State (IS) phenomenon,analysing the role that the US ruling class hasplayed in the Middle East, and the reasons for itsrefusal to support the only forces in the region(the PKK and YPG) which have been persistentlyand effectively pushing back its expansion. ISIS,like radical Islamism and religious and nationalfundamentalisms more generally, is a reactionarymovement that poses – as the YPG/ YPJ battlesagainst ISIS show – a direct, deadly threat to theleft and popular classes.The question of national sovereignty has alsocome up within Western Europe, after the victoryof the OXI in the Greek referendum – which many5 Greeks and many on the left hoped would endGreece’s long nightmare of imposed austerity. Thecomplete capitulation of Syriza (to an agreementworse in many ways than the one rejected by thereferendum!) is not that surprising, but it hasbeen interpreted by many angry leftists either asbetrayal, or as evidence that Tspiras and Syrizawere never really “on the left” in the irst place.This totally avoids a serious analysis of the state– placing responsibility on the genuinenessor loyalty of individual leaders. At best thereferendum could have led to Syriza exiting theEurozone, and implementing a friendlier versionof capitalism – but it was never going to end it,nor bring about real social equality in Greece.Again this has exposed the limits of strategiesfocused on the state for genuine socialist change.Although this is not featured here, an analysis ofthe Greek events is on the cards for the next issue(or, more realistically, our website).Shifting our focus further south, our regularBlack Stars of Anarchism series features the life ofDomingos Passos, in an article written by RenatoRamos and Alexandre Samis, two Braziliancomrades. Passos was a black Brazilian carpenter,unionist and anarchist, and an active leader inthe Civil Construction Workers’ Union (UOCC),Rio de Janeiro Workers’ Federation (FORJ) andthe Workers’ Federation of Sao Paulo (FOSP).Passos travelled extensively, and his tirelessorganising and propaganda work was a crucialcontribution to the spread of trade unionism, andanarchist ideas and counterculture in the region.In our other regular Counterculture section,we include here a presentation by WarrenMcGregor about anarchism to the travellingAfrikan HipHop Caravan – a radical undergroundHipHop initiative linking collectives in six Africancountries – held in Johannesburg in 2013.We conclude on a positive note. Despite facingdeepening austerity, desperate poverty, grindingexploitation, frightening elite-sponsored terrorattacks and more, the working class has notresponded by lying down in submission. Also,importantly, the ight back has not only beendefensive, but has produced exciting constructiveinitiatives that are noteworthy not only for theireffectiveness, but for their form and content.The picture of militant, largely female, popularmilitias determined to protect their communitieseffectively repelling forces like Boko Haram inNigeria and ISIS in Kurdistan and elsewhere isillustrative.There are struggles everywhere that we couldnote with pride – even if space has preventedfuller explorations here. But we also knowthat much work lies ahead. “The passion fordestruction is a creative passion, too!” 3ZABALAZA #14 EDITORIAL1. http://zabalaza.net/2015/03/12/the-party-ishaunting-us-again/2. http://www.statssa.gov.za/ ?p=27463. Mikhail Bakunin, 1842.The Reaction in Germany.ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

SOUTHERN AFRICASouth Africa and the DRC:Has Rhodes passed on the baton?Shawn Hattingh (ZACF)In the heat of the struggle for statueslike that of Rhodes – the arch-symbolof British imperialism – to be pulleddown, and in the midst of the horror ofthe recent xenophobic attacks in SouthAfrica, few people seemed to noticean announcement by Jacob Zuma thatSouth African troops will remain at warin the Democratic Republic of the Congo(DRC) for another year.Of course, Zuma made this announcementon behalf the South African ruling class –comprised today of white capitalists anda black elite mainly centred around thestate, Black Economic Empowerment(BEE) and ‘traditional’ royal families.In this there was a real irony that whileRhodes’s likeness was falling from itsperch at the University of Cape Town, andimmigrants from other parts of Africaand Asia were being attackedbecause of sentiments stokedup by a rehabilitated relicof apartheid (the Zulu king,Zwelithini), the South Africanruling class felt brash enoughto say they will be continuingtheir own imperialist war inthe DRC.Like in all wars, includingthose promoted by the likesof Rhodes, it is not the rulingclass that are actually doingthe ighting in the DRC, butthe sons and daughters of theworking class. Relecting onthe First World War, AlexanderBerkman noted that theworking class are not really sent towar to save the poor or workers, butto protect and further the interests ofthe rulers, governors and capitalists oftheir countries. 1 This applies equallyso today in the case of South Africantroops’ involvement in the DRC. Indeed,what South Africa’s war in the DRCshows is that the South African rulingclass don’t just exploit and oppress theworking class in South Africa, but theworking class in many other areas in therest of Africa. It also shows that both athome and abroad they will use violenceto do so, including trying to turndifferent sections of the working classon one another, by amongst of thingstapping into nationalism, racism, ethnicchauvinism and xenophobia.SOUTH AFRICA’S WARIN THE DRCSouth African troops have beenstationed, in one capacity or another,for more than a decade in the DRC. Theyhave stood guard over elections, theyhave been involved in ‘peacekeeping’,and at times they have also been involvedin directly protecting the interests of theSouth African state’s ally, Joseph Kabila.In 2013, the role of South African troopsin the DRC, however, oficially escalated.Almost 1400 new troops joined theForce Intervention Brigade (FIB). SouthAfrican troops in fact make up the bulkof the FIB, with support from Malawiand Tanzania. The FIB’s task, includingthe South African troops that makeup its rump, is to hunt down and killmembers of guerrilla organisationsin the Kivu region. To do so they havebeen launching operations with the DRCmilitary against such groups.At times the combat in this war has beenierce. In one day alone during the Battleof Kibati, in August 2013, South Africantroops – along with South African AirForce Rooivalk attack helicopters – killedover 500 members of the M23 rebelgroup. Such actions have seen the M23effectively destroyed as a force. SouthAfrican troops, along with their allies inthe form of Tanzanian and DRCtroops, are now beginning tomake plans to strike at otherrebel groups in the area.The deployment of SouthAfrican troops has not comecheap. Hundreds of millionsof Rands has been spent onthis by the South African state.Most of this has gone on stateof-the-artmilitary equipmentsuch as Rooivalk helicopters,while at the same time thetroops themselves were deniedtents for months when theywere irst deployed to NorthKivu. This oversight perhapsalso provides an insight intothe nature of South Africa’s ruling class– the health and comfort of the workingclass troops they were sending to dotheir ighting in the DRC mattered littleas long as they had the equipment to killthe enemy and stabilise the Kivu region,and North Kivu in particular.ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 6

One of the saddest parts of this – and there aremany – is that most of the South African troopsare proud of the role that they feel they areplaying in the DRC. In interviews many believethat their mission to the DRC is humanitarian.Some feel they are protecting the local populationfrom guerrilla groups.Certainly these guerrilla groups, like the M23,are no angels. Leaders of the M23 clearly stokeup nationalist sentiments amongst the footsoldiers with the goal of getting their hands onthe resources of North Kivu. War is brutal andbrutalising as theM23 have beenaccused of multipleabuses includingmass rape andmurder. The M23,however, is notthe most brutalgroup in NorthKivu: another rebelgroup that SouthAfrican troops arenow making plansto move against South African troops in the DRCincludes membersthat were allegedly involved in perpetrating thegenocide that took place in Rwanda 21 years ago.Unfortunately the allies of the South Africantroops also do not have clean hands. Generalsfrom the DRC military, alongside whom SouthAfrican troops have been ighting, have also beenaccused of being the architects of war crimes.Likewise, there have been a few incidents inwhich South African troops have been accusedof criminalities in North Kivu, including rape.Indeed, war is a messy business and it almostnever based on humanitarian ideals or onethical considerations: there are usually moreunsavoury reasons behind wars mainly centredaround the political and economic interestsof ruling classes. In the DRC the South Africantroops ighting there are indeed pawns that arebeing used by the South African ruling classand their local allies for their own political andeconomic interests – they are in fact, as will bediscussed later, being used to clear rebel groupsso that sections of the South African ruling classcan take advantage of mineral and oil concessionthat they own in North Kivu. In the process,working class soldiers are being brutalised andturned into killers.WHAT ARE THE INTERESTS OF THESOUTH AFRICAN RULING CLASS INTHE DRC?The South African ruling class view the DRCas a strategic country that has the potentialto produce vast proits not only for privatelyowned South African companies, but also stateowned ones. Already there are many SouthAfrican linked companies that have interestsin and/or have invested in the DRC, includingMTN, Barloworld, Nandos, Shoprite, AECI,African Rainbow Minerals, Famous Brands,Aveng, Standard Bank, Group Five, Metorex, PPCCement, Raubex, Grindrod, and Super Group. Aspart of these operations, South African linkedcompanies are not only involved in extracting theDRC’s natural resources, but also exploiting theDRC’s workingclass as a sourceof cheap labourand a market fortheir goods.Over and aboveprivate interestsin the DRC, theSouth Africanstate too hase c o n o m i cand strategicinterests in theDRC. The stateowned oil andgas company, PetroSA, has operations in the DRC.The South African state too views the Congo Riveras a potential source of electricity that could atone stroke deal with the short fall of electricitythat South Africa is facing. As part of this, andfor or over a decade, the South African statealong with the state owned electricity company,Eskom, have been negotiating with the DRC stateto build a series of hydro-electric dams on theCongo River that would supply South Africanindustry with up to 40 000 MW of electricity aday. In 2013 a treaty was inally signed betweenthe two states to concretely go ahead with theproject and immediately the South African stateput aside R 200 billion for the project.THE EMBRACE OF IMPERIALISTS ANDTHE LOCAL RULING CLASSDue to the fact that the South African ruling classviews the DRC as so strategic it has used variousmeans to try and get a foothold in the country,and subsequently expand that foothold. Indoing so the South African ruling class has beencompeting with other imperialist powers such asthe United States, Britain, Canada and China.The South African ruling class’s initial attemptsto get a foothold into the DRC were linked to itsbid to bring about peace talks between warringparties in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Theaim of this was to try and bring adversariestogether to end the conlict so that a stableenvironment could be achieved for investors.SOUTHERN AFRICA[T]he SouthAfrican rulingclass viewsthe DRC asso strategicit has usedvarious meansto try and geta foothold inthe country,and ... expandthat foothold.In doing sot[they have]been competingwith otherimperialistpowers suchas the UnitedStates, Britain,Canada andChina7 ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

SOUTHERN AFRICARelationsbetween theKabila regimeand theirbackers in ...(Pretoria) havebecome so closethat there areregular visitsby... Zuma andhis ministers,accompaniedby CEOs ofprivate andstate ownedSouth Africancompanies, tothe DRC.Form the point of the South African ruling classthat meant South African investors. Throughsuch talks the Second Congolese War was endedby the Sun City deal in 2003, although not allgroups laid down their weapons. An outcome ofthe Sun City deal was that it did indeed becameeasier for corporations, including South Africanones, to operate in the DRC.During the irst term Presidency of Jacob Zuma,the Minister of Defence, Lindiwe Sisulu, wasblatant about the interests of South Africa inpromoting peace agreements such the Sun Citypeace deal. She said:“Business investments began looding intothe DRC after the attainment of peace,helping the country to start rebuilding itself.South African mobile telecommunicationsnetwork companies, Vodacom and MTN,mining companies, Standard Bank andstate-owned electricity provider Eskomhave invested in the DRC. Some SouthAfrican farmers are also growing crops inthe DRC”. 2In the aftermath of the Sun City deal there havebeen further South African sponsored talksbetween the DRC state and the rebel groups thatrefused to demobilise and new one which arose.These talks have been stop-start affairs and theSouth African state has often been accused byparties opposed to Joseph Kabila’s regime ofonly being interested in promoting the interestsof South African companies in the DRC throughsuch talks. At times power sharing deals havebeen struck, but Kabila has always come out ofthese with his position at the top of the stateassured. Recently the latest round of talkswith rebel groups, such as M23, collapsed withthe South African state openly backing Kabila.Indeed, since the early 2000s a close relationshiphas developed between the Kabila regime andthe South African state.The South African state has, in fact,become a irm backer of Kabila. Ithas spent money and sent advisorsin order to build state institutionsand capacity in the DRC, and evenspent R 123 million on the DRCelections in 2011 (much of whichwent to pay companies with linksto the African National Congress(ANC) and old apartheid state toprint ballot papers). During theseelections South African troopswere deployed to also ensurestability. When accusationssurfaced that the electionshad been fraudulent,the South African stateimmediately backed Kabila.This earned the ire of sections of the population– when then Minister of Defence Lindiwe Sisuluvisited the DRC in the run up to the electionsher cavalcade was stoned by people angry at theimperialist role South Africa’s ruling class playsin the DRC and their backing of Kabila.Relations between the Kabila regime and theirbackers in Tshwane (Pretoria) have become soclose that there are regular visits by PresidentJacob Zuma and his ministers, accompanied byCEOs of private and state owned South Africancompanies, to the DRC. During these visitsnumerous trade and investment deals have beenbrokered. These have been very lucrative for theSouth African ruling class. Along with gainingmining rights, construction deals, tax breaks etc;21% of all imports into the DRC now come fromSouth Africa. In return, Kabila gets backing fromthe South African state – although like all rulingclasses in countries that face imperialism, Kabilawill often play one imperialist power off againstanother in order to get the best possible deal forhimself and the local elite that surround him.Perhaps the most lucrative deal that wasfostered during one of these visits was in 2010.Shortly after Zuma had visited Kabila in 2010,where Zuma and the ANC had been offered oilconcessions, the Kabila regime revoked the oilconcessions of a British oil company, Tullow Oil,and handed them over to two companies ownedby Zuma’s nephew, Khulubuse Zuma, and lawyer,Michael Hulley. These concessions are in NorthKivu – the same area South African troops havebeen deployed to end rebel activity.There are in fact a number of South Africancompanies, besides the ones owned by Zuma’snephew and lawyer that have mineral rightsand oil concessions in North Kivu. Another oilcompany with top ANC oficials as board members– SACoil – has also been given oil concessionsby the Kabila regime in North Kivu. The threatthat these concessions would never be exploitedstarkly arose in 2012 when M23 captured thelargest city in the Kivu region, Goma. It wasafter this that the South African state committedcombat troops to the FIB to clear this threat,and other threats posed by other groups. SouthAfrican troops are, therefore, in reality ightingin North Kivu to try and wipe out all of the rebelgroups in the area so that the oil concessions andmineral rights that the South African ruling classhave can be taken advantage of.PERHAPS RHODES WOULD BE PROUDPerhaps Rhodes, and those that ran in his circles,would actually be proud of the contemporarySouth African ruling class. The ruling classin Rhodes’ day set up the system wherebyZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 8

capitalism in South Africa became deined andbased on extremely cheap black labour. To createa source of cheap black labour, Rhodes andthe rest of the ruling class sent working classsoldiers – in the name ofnationalism - to wage warsagainst the remainingindependent blacksocieties across southernAfrica. Indeed, Rhodespersonally inanced theinvasion of what now isknown as Zimbabwe inorder to secure a pool ofcheap labour, but also theresources of the area. Tokeep all of this in place,the black population wasracially oppressed insouthern Africa. At thesame time, to prevent theKabila and Zumaworking class from uniting, racial, ethnic andnationalist tensions were stoked up by the rulingclass. Black workers on the mines, drawn fromright across southern Africa after conquest, wereseparated from one another on ethnic lines andencouraged to attack one another on the minesafter hours. Likewise, if black workers went onstrike, white workers were encouraged to scaband attack them and vice versa.Some of this system remains in place today. Thedifference, when compared to Rhodes’s day,is that a black elite centred around the ANChas joined white capitalists in the ruling class.However, this ruling class still relies on extremelycheap black labour, along with the nationaloppression of the black working class to ensurethe system remains inplace, as the main sourceof their wealth. Theytoo sometimes play intoracist, nationalist andxenophobic sentimentsto try and keep theworking class divided.Indeed, during therecent Xenophobicattacks it was twomembers of the rulingclass, king Zwelithini,and Edward Zuma(Jacob Zuma’s son w hohas business interestsacross southern Africa)that called for the attacks. But Rhodes, despitebeing a British imperialist, would perhaps bemost proud that the contemporary South Africanruling class kept up and furthered the traditionSouth Africa being an imperialist power in therest of Africa. Indeed, not even Rhodes, despitebeing the architect of genocidal wars in southernAfrica, managed to wage a war in far off DRC, bysending foot soldiers to kill and die, to get itswealth.SOUTHERN AFRICA1. Alexander Berkman.1929. War. Zabalaza Books:South Africa, p 3.2. http://www.dod.mil.za/operations/international/Mistral.htm9 ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

SOUTHERN AFRICAClass Rule Must Fall!More Statues, More Working ClassLeroy Maisiri *Slogans like “Erase Rhodes”, “Rhodesso White,” and “Rhodes must Fall,”emerging from student groups atSouth Africa’s elite universities, recentlymonopolised social media. These havetaken off, because South Africa is in needof great structural change; 20 years afterthe important 1994 transition, manyblack people remain trapped inoppressive conditions.No one would deny that duringapartheid blacks, Colouredsand Indians were raciallyoppressed, abused, and asworkers, exploited. If removingstatues and changing placenames can help solve theproblems, and form part of ameaningful redress of past andpresent injustices, then suchactions must be supported.But can such demands reallydo so?SYMBOLS AND SUBSTANCEAt a symbolic level, statue and namechanges might provide some measureof comfort to those who have suffered.But it also appears that very few in thesemovements want to address the deeperproblems, the oppression of the largelyblack working class – the majority, whosecheap labour lays the foundation for thewealth and power of the few. (By workingclass, I mean the group of people who donot have ownership or command overthe means of “administration, coercionor production,” in line with the anarchistdeinition).The exclusion of most (working class)blacks, Coloured and Indians fromexpensive, elitist universities cannotbe tackled without tackling the hostileclass structure, which is propped up bya dismal township schooling system,massive poverty and unemployment,low wages and rising prices, and thelong shadow of the apartheid past.This situation cannot be removedwith cosmetic and symbolic changes.Renaming varsities and changingcurricula in a few social science andphilosophy areas would not address thismass exclusion, and it would not changethe basically elitist nature of the system.BLACK WORKING CLASSIt is easy to assert that, for example,Rhodes University, in Grahamstown,is “so white”, or a bastion of “whiteprivilege,” focussing exclusively on racialinequality.Of course, racial prejudice anddiscrimination and the apartheid legacyare real and must be tackled. But whenthe problem is reduced to the attitudesof a few whites in the universities, orto curricula or to symbols, we end upignoring the larger class gulf in thesociety. Partly this is a factor of the classnature of these movements, which arebuilt largely on the tiny layers of studentsat elite universities – white and black –often from upper class backgrounds andschools. As a result, a blind eye has beenturned to the neo-liberal policy modelaiming to cut spending and to makeuniversities proitable.Arguing for stressing classdoes not mean ignoringrace, as some claim. It is veryevident that the race and classyou are born in still mattersin South Africa: being blackand working class opens youup, undefended, to a worldof pain, as you are forced towithstand both class andracial oppression, only tosimply reproduce yourselfin that same exact position.How can the best-paid blackrock-face miner, earning R12500 monthly after bitterstrikes, send his children to universityeducation costing R150 000 for feesalone?EMPIRE STRIKES BACKCecil John Rhodes (1853-1902) was alate 19 th century imperialist and miningcapitalist, whose policies translateddirectly into the British wars in theareas now called Malawi, Zambia andZimbabwe (formerly “Rhodesia”) andSouth Africa.The British Empire was racist, but itsactions were shaped by the capitalist andstate drive for proit and power – not anabstract drive to racial power. It crushedanyone in its way, including whites likethe Irish, using whatever forces wereavailable, including large numbers ofblack troops.ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 10

Colonel Graham (namesake of “Grahamstown”)used such troops in the frontier wars, just as theBritish Empire actively used African chiefs andkings for its rule. The same men, Rhodes and LSJameson, who drove the wars in “Rhodesia,” drovethe wars on the Boer republics; the Anglo-BoerWar (1899-1902) saw more than 26 000 whiteAfrikaner women and children, and around 12000 blacks, die in British concentration camps.If Rhodes’ statue at the University of Cape Town(UCT), or his name at Rhodes University, mustgo, it is surely not simply because it is a statue ofa white man; but that of an imperial master andsymbol of the capitalist system. That, I argue, isthe real enemy – in Rhodes’ time and still today.This system thrives on exploited black workers,then and now. The new South African blackpolitical elite works actively, in complicitpartnership with white capitalists, to perpetuatethe same system.COLOUR AND CLASSIn 2015 the enemy isn’t remotely “everythingwhite;” not in South Africa. Certainly, the colonialand apartheid hangover still shapes much of ourreality, in which many white people still beneitfrom the apartheid legacy, not least in terms ofapartheid investments in white education. Andit cannot be denied that poverty and inequalityin the new South Africa to an important extentfollows old apartheid lines, in that the majorityof the poor and unemployed and low-waged areblack and Coloured and Indian.But in 2015, the enemy is not some whiteuniversity kids. It is a system of class rule,where the “white master” – more correctly, the“minority in the minority,” the small capitalistsector of the white population – is joined by theequally vicious black master – an equally smallminority in the black majority.BLACK MASTERSIn today’s South Africa, the black elite is directlypart of the system of oppression, and involvedin corrupt deals with white capitalists. It isthe black-led state that, through its police andmunicipalities and departments, sees to it thatSouth African working class and poor blackpeople are mistreated and killed – mainly byother black people. Today, South Africa hasbecome a hostile environment for working classblack foreigners, whose life span is determinedby how fast they can run.South Africa should not narrowly ight againstonly racial inequalities, but broaden this intoa ight for true transformation that confrontsclass privilege, which cuts across race and puts11 a (multi-racial) ruling class in charge. This is thecomplicated reality that a stress on the historicaldifferences between blacks and whites can’treally explain.Without this working class perspective –working class irst! – campaigns of vandalisingstatues and changing institution names to blacknames becomes a well-crafted distraction to thereal problem, hiding the black elite and its guiltfrom view.MORE WORKING CLASSIndeed, talking of name changes, why evenreplace those of white political and economicelites, with those of black political and economicelites? Sol T. Plaatje, whose name is now given tothe new Northern Cape university, was a greatintellectual and ANC leader – but he was also astrong supporter of the British Empire and theBritish in the Anglo-Boer War, and had closerelations with De Beers, the company Rhodesfounded.More broadly, why should nationalists – likePlaatje – whose pro-capitalist, pro-statistpolitical agenda, which took South Africa into itsdead-end, whose agenda derailed the struggle fora radical socialist outcome in the country, keepbeing suggested as namesakes for universitiesand other institutions?A true symbolism that represents the majorityshould be leftist, and represent the workingclass – that is multi-racial. Why are revolutionaryworking class giants like Josie Mpama, ElijahBaraji, Clements Kadalie, Albert Nzula, BillAndrews, T.W. Thibedi, S.P. Bunting, AndrewDunbar, B.L.E. Sigamoney etc. forgotten, in favourthe leaders of the heroes of the failed nationalistcurrents, not just the ANC, but its Africanist andBC rivals?We need a left/ working class iconography.Statues are part of our shared heritage – goodand bad. They are also reminders of past evils.History can’t be erased. Rather than removingthe old ones, we need to build new ones: butones that are more working class, which recalla history worth celebrating. Let us rather haveworking class igures tower over the monumentsof past horrors, balancing the score, as part of thestruggle for working class power.UNIVERSITY ELITISMUniversities themselves serve as factory linesfor the perpetuation of class systems; thoseprivileged enough to study further use this tomaintain the class position that they have, or useit to break into a higher class through acquiringrare skills and higher income.SOUTHERN AFRICAUniversitiesas currentlyconstitutedare eliteinstitutions...They are fundedby the state andby fees, pushedby the state,corporationsand capitalistfoundations... toadopt certainpriorities. Everrising fees...close the doorsof learning andculture to thegreat majorityZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

SOUTHERN AFRICA* writing in hispersonal capacity.Universities as currently constituted are eliteinstitutions, regardless of the names. They arefunded by the state and by fees, pushed by thestate, corporations and capitalist foundations(including that of Rhodes), to adopt certainpriorities. Ever rising fees, including fees thatopenly discriminate against non-South Africans,and close the doors of learning and culture tothe great majority, are part of neo-liberal cuts.Labour relations and wages for most campusworkers are shocking.Really changing this situation,winning a victory for theworking class, meanstransforming institutions likeuniversities, and the largersociety, into uplifting pillars forthe working class. This requiresworking class struggle, whichrequires unity. The issues mayseem simply a race issue, butat the core, it’s both race andclass. Hence, I ask, “what aboutthe working class”?Capital and the statewin immediately whenthere is division, and sotrue transformation cannot be birthedfrom something dipped in hatred. This isunfortunately a key element within the “RhodesMust Fall” campaigning, with people from allsides engaging in the most vicious and raciallychargedattack. No substantial transformationcan come out of this if the intention is not pure.The moment you add a drop of intolerance toany movement, you have corrupted its veryroots, and begun a long journey towards failureand destruction.DEEP TRANSFORMATIONThe means and tools to bring about real socialtransformation must be carefully thoughtabout. What I am arguinghere is that the system is theproblem. Transformationinvolves a ight for: free andequal education (includinguniversity education), amassive expansion andupgrading of education,ending outsourcing oncampuses, promotinggenuinely scientiic includingsocial scientiic work, andighting for larger socialchange.So, let us think of a “workersand peoples scientiicuniversity” rather thanin terms of an “Africanuniversity” or a “world-class university” as partof a larger struggle for anarchist transformation– a radical change of society towards selfmanagement,democracy from below,participatory planning and an end to class rule,and social and economic equality.For How Long can South AfricanElites Keep Misleading the People?Philip Nyalungu *Those in power don’t want toconfront the status quo of hatredagainst immigrants, or SouthAfrica’s imperialist role in the region.They have a narrow set of interests:getting votes, accumulating wealth andpower. However, the recent wave ofattacks on immigrants and the rupturesof relations with other African countries– especially where South Africancorporations are operating – havetouched the most delicate nerves of theestablished political powers, who havevowed to advance corporate interests inmaking proits.Regardless of who you vote for, thesecorporations reign above people, alongwith big politicians and state oficials.Whether you are a South African or a“foreign” member of the working class,you remain a threat to these elites. Andif you unite, as the masses, against theelites, they get deeply worried. This isnot surprising as today South Africa isthe most unequal country in the world.When Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM)activists together with foreign nationalsmarched against xenophobia in Durban,the police blocked them, telling AbMactivists to “stay away from things thatdo not concern them.” The recent actionsby the South African National DefenceForce, in occupying areas where theanti-foreigner attacks took place, buttargeting foreigners in these raids, isalso a tactic to weaken those showingsolidarity with victims of xenophobiaand those who are critical of ANCgovernment.ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 12

SOUTHERN AFRICALikewise, government oficials warning peoplenot to share their views on the attacks and theSANDF response through social media, on theabsurd grounds that this inlames attacks, isnot simply mediocrity, but deeply disturbing. Aswhen former President Thabo Mbeki said HIVdid not cause AIDS, this is another sad day forSouth Africa.There needs to be an open process anddiscussion. The challenge of xenophobia in SouthAfrica is so serious that we need somethinglike a “Truth Commission” where everyone canbe given an opportunity to relect and speakout without fear or favour. Let us be honestabout how widespread this hatred is; let us notpretend, like state oficials, that the attacks aresimply examples of criminal violence. We, as theworking class, have to tackle this demon.I don’t know of any South African who has nevercome across vicious xenophobic sentiments byfellow South Africans, white and black. These can beheard from parents, relatives, friends, communitymembers, work colleagues, government oficialsand the public at large. It is not a matter of a fewbad apples, but a problem we need to confrontas the working class. The politicians will notdo this – they blame the problems on criminalelements and secret agendas; not one majorpolitician from the ruling party has even spokenout against the venomous words of the Zulu king,Goodwill Zwelithini, who helped spark the latestattacks with his utterances. They have insteadshamelessly and readily gone all out to defend thisman – who, since his infamous “pack their bags”speech, has gone on, with the police minister andtheir fellow brutes, to walk with self-importanceand rub salt on the wounds.But are we as the working class doing any better?The fact is that the same is happening amongstus ordinary South Africans: we don’t confrontthose who utter such vicious and venomouswords, which is a daily occurrence. There aremany unreported xenophobic incidents, notjust the big outbreaks, but do we act? Not often.About ive or six years ago, my Xhosa neighbourin his early 20s, got stabbed and killed in frontof his gate by fellow Xhosa young men merelybecause he was protecting Shangaans! The localANC leadership didn’t do anything to condemnthis cruel act. I can also tell you it was neverreported as xenophobia and such incidents arevoluminous.It is like in apartheid, when whites were taughtfrom an early age that blacks are inferior tothem: today, black South Africans are taught thatforeigners with dark skins, especially those whoare poor and from Africa are inferior humans tothem. The attacks, in this situation, target blackAfricans from elsewhere. I am also aware tha tPakistanis and other related foreign nationalsare being attacked.The violence and hate must also be seen asdeeply shaped by the current economic andpolitical situation in the country. As long as thecurrent grossly evasive ANC-led government,and party politics in general, are not successfullychallenged by something serious – a big workingclass movement and rebellion for real change –South Africa is heading towards disaster. Smallmovements on university campuses like the“#Cecil John Rhodes statue must fall” initiativefail to address these massive tasks.* Writing in hispersonal capacity13 ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

SOUTHERN AFRICASPEECH: Working Class Struggle,Blazing a Path to FreedomTalk by Lucien van der Walt at 24 Sept 2012, Heritage Day event,Joza Township, GrahamstownNOTE: Heritage Day is a post-apartheid South African national holiday; unlike most, it has no clear linkto major struggles in the past, although there are efforts to position it as a more “political” day. Thetalk below was given by Lucien van der Walt at an event organised by Sakhaluntu Cultural Group inGrahamstown, for black youth.Thank you all for coming. Thankyou, chair, for the invitation.Thank you, organisers, for theevent today. Today looks like a great day,a great day to look forward.But before we look forward, we mustlook back as well. Unless you knowwhere you come from, you will neverknow where you can go.LEARNING FROM THE PASTThis sort of relection is extremelyimportant to the working class struggle.Heritage Day provides a space tothink back, to look back at wherewe have come from, and to thinkabout where we need to go infuture. It’s an opportunity torelect on what we have achievedso far, but also on what we stillneed to achieve in order tosecure emancipation.If we look at that past from theperspective of the working classmasses, it’s clear that the past isbittersweet.It’s bitter: there are manyinjustices and horrors that wecannot avoid seeing. It’s bitter:there is a long dark night ofsuffering, dispossession and exploitationthat casts its shadow over today. It’sbitter: the past is the time of massacresof the working class, of the repression ofunions, of the pass laws, of the Land Actof 1913, of the Bantu Education system,of the imperialist wars against Africansand Afrikaners.STRUGGLES AND VICTORIESIt’s sweet also: the past saw ordinarypeople, the people on the ground – theworking class – rise up and ight forjustice, for equality, for our rights: todignity, to decency, to decide how to runthe basics of our lives.It’s sweet: the time of the mass strikesand uprisings, such as those of 1913,1918, 1922, 1946, 1960, 1973, 1976,1983, and 1993. These brought light intothe darkness, into the long, dark night ofsuffering and oppression, where bitterbattles were waged for freedom.Mine workers strike, 1946It’s sweet: when ordinary people stoodtogether, when the working classunited, when the sleeping armies of theexploited, the oppressed, the workers,the poor, woke up, the ground shook.The darkness was driven back.It’s sweet: every small victory fed thecampires of hope, fanned the lamesof resistance and rebellion, moved thepeople into more action.1913 saw massive struggles by whiteas well as black workers for basicrights. 1918 saw the first attempt ata general strike by black workers.1922 saw an armed rebellion byworkers, which led to the first lawsthat gave trade unions some legalstanding. 1946 shook the miningindustry. 1960 shook the pass laws.1973 revived the unions. 1976 rockedthe townships. 1983-1984 startedthe final dismantling of apartheid.Massive struggles in 1993 saw thetide finally turn, opening thedoor to the 1994 transition.A GLOBAL MOVEMENTThe struggles of the workingclass in South Africa do notstand alone. They are part ofthe larger struggle of ordinarypeople, the oppressed andexploited masses, worldwide.A struggle that has takenplace as long as society hasbeen divided between richand poor, rulers and ruled,masters and servants, kingsand commoners.The working class is a class forged inthe crucible of class struggle, hammeredin the ires and lames of class battles,hardened into a force that can changethe world.ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 14

TAKEN, NOT GIVENIt was the working and poor masses ofthe people that broke slavery, that madeslavery illegal worldwide. When unionswere illegal everywhere in the world, themasses made them legal, ighting factoryby factory, mine by mine, ship by ship,farm by farm, and ofice by ofice.There was a time when no commoneranywhere could even vote, but themasses of ordinary people fought. Theytook that right – just as every single rightand claim by the working classes hasbeen won from below, by struggle.As the anarchist Severino Digiovannionce said: “The right to life is notgiven. It is taken.”Whatever our backgrounds, ourculture, African or European orAsian or American, in each societyit has been the masses, the workingclass, that has stood up and said,“No. Enough is enough”…and through struggles and battles,won its demands.THE CHAINS THAT BINDNow let us look to the present. Howfar do we need to go still?Our struggles are not over. Thechains of poverty still bind us.Second class education still binds –and yes, it also blinds – the massesof the people, the working class.Unemployment, hunger, racism stillbind us.The black working class of SouthAfrica is still waiting for the dawn.The night is fading, but the newdawn has not yet come. We are stillwaiting for the sun of freedom to blazeout, burning away the long dark nightof suffering and dispossession andexploitation.Many victories have been won. Let usnever forget this. Let us never forget this.The pass laws? Broken. The NationalParty government? Broken. The LandAct? Broken. The ban on permanentAfrican homes in the cities? Broken.But look around us. Poverty, ignorance,corruption. At the Marikana mine? Themurder of men who wanted a betterwage for their families.THE POLITICIANS AND BOSSESAt the government level? Corruptionand theft by men and women in ofice.The rich get richer. The politiciansmake and break promises. Large privatecorporations ix bread and milk prices,taking food from the mouths of children.State companies fail to keep the lightson, the water running.Strong men and women spend their livesworking for a boss, and ind, at the end,when they are tired and broken, thatthey are ired, left aside like rubbish. Themen and women who built this countryare thrown away like rubbish.THE SUN MUST RISEThe working class is better off nowin many ways than it was underapartheid. Yes, a mighty victory hasbeen won.But the war is not over. The workingclass is far from free. The long darknight of suffering and dispossession andexploitation still needs to be blastedaway by the red dawn of freedom. Amighty struggle is still needed. Thearmies of the exploited, the oppressed,the workers, the poor, which are theunions, the community groups, thestudent movements – these armiescannot rest.What is needed? What is the task fornow? It is to free our minds; to break thechains of mental slavery. To question asociety where the rich and powerful few,black as well as white, rule like kings.Where the mighty stride the world likeelephants, and the masses are trampledinto the grass. To question and challengea society that is a factory of crime andmisery.ARM YOURSELF WITHKNOWLEDGESOUTHERN AFRICATo understand these truths is the irststep to lifting the darkness:Only the mass of the people – theworking class – can change society,but only by uniting, across race andlanguage, and by struggling;Only the mass of the people – theworking class – can change society,but only by understanding thatsociety can be changed, can bemade better;Only the mass of the people – theworking class – can change society,but only for the better, when it isunderstood that society must bechanged into a society based onsocial and economic equality;Only the mass of the people – theworking class – can change society,but only for the better, when it isunderstood that society must bechanged into a society based ondirect grassroots control of theeconomy, of daily life, of society asa whole.MARCH TO THE DAWNTo ind our way in the darkness now, tobe free, means to arm ourselves with thelight of knowledge, and to enlighten ourclass, the working class, to shine lightacross the battleields of darkness.Let us blaze out our light, blaze out inthe long dark night of suffering anddispossession and exploitation. Let usmarch towards the sun.For, when we are armed with the truth,we can organise and re-organise ourforces.And make the last marches to victory.15 ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

SOUTHERN AFRICAOPEN CORRESPONDENCE COLUMNThe General Approach ofAnarchists/Syndicalists to theUnited Front and NUMSAIn this section we address questions that have been posed to ZACF militants. We are sharing thesediscussions because we think these are important and pertinent issues in Southern Africa. If you havequestions you would us to address in our next issue, please get in touch!In this column, comrade Themba Kotane,a union militant, asks:?Will the United Front (UF)address the crises we arecurrently facing in SouthAfrica? I am concernedabout how the UF worksand who leads it. In my own view wedon’t need a leader, we need to all haveequal voice. How can we build the UFas a basis for a stateless, socialist,South Africa?Jakes Factoria and TinaSizovuka respond:What the UF will do,will depend on whichperspectives win out init. Our general anarchist/syndicalist perspective isthat the UF (as well as theunions, like the Nationalunion of Metalworkers ofSA, NUMSA) should be (re)built, as far as possible, intoa movement of counterpower,outside and againstthe state and capital.This means UF structuresand afiliates should be developed intoradical, democratic structures (in theworkplaces and in communities) thatcan ight now against the ruling class,and that can eventually take power,directly. The UF should be (re)built intoa direct action-based, direct democraticstructuredmovement for anarchistrevolution. That means buildingstructures in communities (street andward committees and assemblies)that can replace municipalities, anddeveloping the unions in the workplaces(through shopstewards committees andassemblies) into structures that can takeover and run workplaces. This is notsuch a foreign concept in recent SouthAfrican history: NUMSA’s predecessor,MAWU, was involved in the movementfor “people’s power”, which took manysteps in this direction during the antiapartheidstruggle in the 1980s.For this to happen, a second step isneeded: mass movements like UFand unions must be infused with arevolutionary counter-culture. Thismeans the masses are won over throughanarchist political education, which ispartly about building up the conidenceand ability of workers and poor people torun society, including the understandingamongst the majority, that the tasksahead are bigger than simply voting inelections or campaigning for reformsto the system. When we talk about themasses, we mean the broad workingclass, including the unemployed andpoor, and working class people of allraces, South African and immigrant.The tasks are to build for anarchistrevolution, using the strategicperspectives of counter-power andcounter-culture. This means ighting fora self-managed society from below, wonthrough revolution. Thecorrupt and oppressivepolitical system (the state)and the exploiting andauthoritarian economicsystem (capitalism) arecompletely and obviouslyunable to create a decentsociety, real democracy oreradicate the apartheidlegacy. Radical changeis needed, involving theoverthrow of the (multiracial)ruling class bythe broad workingclass, collectivization,self-management andparticipatory planning,and a reign of economicand social equality and direct democracy.Therefore, all our activities mustultimately be structured around thegoals of winning larger mass movementslike the UF and the unions to theserevolutionary, anti-party, anarchistperspectives. We, as the working class,have to stop making the same mistakes,of putting power in elite hands, ofmisleading people into electoralZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 16

participation, and of limiting ourselves toreformism (i.e. to small, legal changes).We, frankly, do not have the forces to win theUF over at this stage. A discussion of the besttactics to use in this situation belongs to anotherdiscussion. However, we must by all means atleast raise the anarchist/ syndicalist perspectivesof anarchism/ syndicalism in the UF and NUMSAwhere possible, as a basis of building a largerred-and-black anarchist/ syndicalist network.SOME LIMITS OF THE NUMSAPROJECTWe do think, however, that it is just not enough tosee the problem as lying solely in neo-liberalismor the ANC, as NUMSA seems to do. Neoliberalismis thelatest phase ofcapitalism; it doesnot arise from badpolicy advisors orundue World Bankinluence, but fromthe deep structureof the globalpolitical economy.Therefore it isabsurd to thinkneo-liberalism canbe gotten rid ofsimply by gettingrid of the ANC.Any party in oficewould be under huge pressure to adopt much ofthe neo-liberal programme.Since reformed forms of capitalism like theKeynesian Welfare State are no longer feasible (ifthey ever were in South Africa, but that is anotherstory), it is problematic to pose the solution askeeping capitalism, but dumping neo-liberalism.This, however, is the direction in which bothCOSATU and NUMSA lean: despite their Marxist-Leninist rhetoric, their actual policy proposals –active industrial policy, protectionism, demandstimulation etc. – really amount to a programmeof social democratic reform that is impossible toimplement.Second, while the ANC is part of the problem,it is not the whole problem. The whole politicalsystem is rotten. Parliament is a place whereelites connive against the poor: the state itselfis an apparatus of ruling class power, as bad asany capitalist corporation, which means that anyparty would end up as disappointing as the ANC.Both of these points mean that it is completelypointless to blame the ANC.Given the power of the ANC in the minds of largeparts of the working class, steps to discredit it17 are welcome. However, the idea that the solutionis to replace the ANC with a better party shouldbe irmly opposed. These ideas are very currentin a sector of the NUMSA leadership, as well as ina certain sector of the UF, particularly amongstthe Marxists. We oppose them, because we haveno faith in the project of forming a “mass workersparty” (MWP).ANOTHER ERROR: THE PROTESTPOLITICS OF “DOING STUFF”We also disagree with the many activists in SAwho see the task in movements like APF and UFas simply building protests and ighting aroundimmediate campaigns. From this perspective,the main aim of these comrades is to get as manypeople involved in actions as possible.A key problemwith thisapproach is thatit is very shorttermin outlook.There is noreal discussionof how theprotests can laythe basis forradical change;in fact, theaims are quitemodest, andinvolve mostlyighting aroundsome of the most immediate evils in our society,like electricity cut-offs. Politics becomes a matterof running from one event to the next; there is noreal plan to build and expand mass movements;political debate and education is always keptat the level of issues like the problems ofprivatization; bigger issues like the ANC, theneed to abolish the state and capitalism, and soon, are left out.The problems people face have deep roots: whileit is vital to ight around problems like cut-offs,these are rooted in major problems in the powerindustry, in the way the state runs, in the crisisof the capitalist economy. Therefore, to reallysolve the problem, you need radical changes,including a massive reallocation of resources toabolish poverty and inequality – and this means,revolution.But for the protest politics people, this does notmatter. So long as there is a big demonstration,these comrades are satisied. This means thatpolitics becomes reduced to the problem ofgetting the maximum turn-out at events. Thisoften translates into recruiting “leaders,” eachclaiming to represent a “community,” who canSOUTHERN AFRICA[w]hile the ANCis part of theproblem, it isnot the wholeproblem. Thewhole politicalsystem is rotten.Parliament isa place whereelites conniveagainst thepoor: the stateitself is anapparatus ofruling classpower, asbad as anycapitalistcorporation,which meansthat any partywould end up asdisappointingas the ANC.ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

SOUTHERN AFRICAthe MWPstrategy cannotwork... thereis little doubtthat any radicalparty going intoparliament willbe corrupted,paralyzed orco-opted. Asexperiences likeCuba and theSoviet Unionshow, puttinga party incharge of a new“revolutionary”state createsa situation atleast as bad aswhat we have –where an eliteruns the showwhile the themasses are leftoutside.then deliver masses on the days of action. No realcare is taken to build multiple layers of activiststo ensure the construction of strong democraticstructures based on mandates and delegates.The protest agenda is also normally set here,by a small group, which also writes the pressstatements and discussion documents, and setsthe slogans. Mass participation often involveslittle more than the masses being bussed toevents, where it’s really rent-a-crowd.From the anarchist / syndicalist perspective,that does not take us anywhere, since our aim isto build working class movements that can resisttoday… but also take control in the future.AGAIN, AGAINST THE PARTYBUILDING AGENDAIt is precisely because of the short-sighted natureof the politics of “doing stuff” that many comradesargue for an MWP as a means of breaking peoplefrom the ANC, of deepening political education,of uniting people. The idea is also that the MWPcan somehow get control of the state, and useit to undertake massive reforms, perhaps evenrevolution.In this sense, the MWP approach is a stepforward from the protest politics approach, inthat it recognizes that a focus on short-termissues and low levels of political education, areserious problems – that imply that real changeis needed.But the problem is that the MWP strategycannot work. The existing situation does notallow a radical shift from neo-liberal policies viathe state: there is little doubt that any radicalparty going into parliament will be corrupted,paralyzed or coopted. As experiences like Cubaand the Soviet Union show, putting a party incharge of a new “revolutionary” state creates asituation at least as bad as whatwe have – where an elite runsthe show while the the massesare left outside.A further problem is thatthe “party builders” seemass movements as a wayof achieving somethingelse, a means to anend. They do not seethese movements asthemselves the potentialbasis of a new society.The political perspectivehere is to get movementsto endorse a party. Theparty is seen as the realand best way of struggle– and this almostalways translates into running in elections.“Party builders” are often less concerned withbuilding educated, bottom-up and democraticmovements, than with pushing the party ideathrough. Often this programme is pushedthrough the unions and community structuresby all sorts of questionable, top-down methodsthat are unable to bring the masses along. Thisis completely pointless, even damaging.OUR LINE OF MARCHWhere do we differ? The difference is thatanarchists/ syndicalists want to build a freesociety through class struggle. Concretely, theperspective is to build movements – includingunions, community organizations, UF-typestructures – in a way that leads to this goal. Formand method become central: leader-dominated,uneducated, “stepping-stone” movements thatdo not transcend protest, cannot generate a freesociety.Counter-power requires more than a few leaderscalling protests according to their own whims,and then arranging transport for everyone else toattend; it means active participation in decisionmaking,masses that run the organisations andset the agenda, clued-up, critical and questioningmembers that can avoid the trap of elections andcontrol by parties or by a few leaders.Mass movements like the UF need to betransformed in two ways in order to make themcapable of such a task. They need to becomeorgans of counter-power, and they need to beinfused with revolutionary counter-culture. TheCNT in 1930s Spain is a good example, where insome areas of Spain, the trade union itself tookover the running of industry, transport, anddistribution of goods – under direct control ofunion members.WORKING WITHIN, ORGANISINGHow can we go about this? Clearly anarchistideas won’t spontaneously appear out of thinair. Although its insights have been derivedthrough struggle, it has taken years of debate,discussion and active involvement by millionsof people for anarchism to crystalize into acoherent ideology. Within that, we argue thata speciic political organisation is necessaryin order to ight for anarchism within thebattle of ideas, to work within and alongsidemass movements like the UF for democraticstructures, participatory practices, and an antiparty,anti-state (anarchist) consciousness. Thepurpose is not to rally the masses under our“leadership” (like political parties, includingso-called workers’ parties do), but to rally theZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 18

SOUTHERN AFRICABut why the UF?Of course, this begs the question of why should aim to work in the UF. First, consider the roots: the UF is an initiative of therecently expelled Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) afiliate, NUMSA. It is meant to unite unions, socialand township movements, and student, women and youth organisations.Although the UF programme is a bit vague (it is not clear how it is meant to align to NUMSA’s project of a “movementfor socialism”), the UF is openly against neo-liberalism and the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The ANC is acapitalist party, rotten with corruption, in bed with chiefs, heading an imperialist government and committed to neoliberalpolicies like privatisation.Therefore, the UF is at least identifying openly some – but not all – the problems and coming up with some good – butincomplete – solutions. The UF is also part of NUMSA’s ight for an end to the Tripartite Alliance between COSATU unions,the ANC and South African Communist Party (SACP). This Alliance has crippled the working class, putting it under theANC/ SACP thumb.This is linked to the UF aim of uniting the working class and poor, by returning to the politics of linking the unions –which are still by far the biggest, strategically most powerful, and best funded working class movements – and the dailystruggles in the townships. This politics really died out from 1994: since most township ights were against ANC-runmunicipalities, the ANC, hostile to these struggles, used its control of the Alliance to keep COSATU out them – a majorreason why COSATU unions withdrew from the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) formed in 2000. But, having rejected theAlliance in 2013, NUMSA has no such constraints.Bringing the biggest union into open alignment with other working class sectors, on an openly anti-ANC platform, and byraising the political temperature of the activist layers, the UF represents a qualitative step forward from earlier coalitionslike the APF. The APF did not involve unions, the UF does; the APF was short of funds, the UF can draw on deep NUMSApockets; the APF was mainly in Gauteng, the UF is countrywide; the APF had loose local structures, whereas the UF candraw on NUMSA’s proven record of worker-controlled mass organizing. Further, the UF has also been closer to the nonracialpolitics of the 1980s, bringing together radicals from a range of backgrounds, and avoiding the crude nationalismof the ANC and other parties – this, too, is to be welcomed.None of these points require us to place false hopes in the NUMSA leadership, or adopt a naïve and starry-eyed view of thesituation of the other unions, which are crippled by inept and sometimes crooked leaders, failing to mount an adequatedefense; they are simply to point out the objective possibilities that the “NUMSA Moment” raises.masses around the leadership of a speciic set of ideas andpractices (counter-power and counter-culture).“Boring-from-within” mass movements requires nonsectarianism,and we do not object to working with otherorganisations of the left in committees or on campaigns wherenecessary. But we are not convinced by the calls for buildingunity within the left, since that is not our goal. Our orientationis not towards the left, but towards the masses – in theirorganisations in workplaces and communities – and our projectsare often vastly different and require very different strategiesthat are often incompatible with much of the left’s. By workingin movements, we aim to retain our political independence,and operate by a clear plan, which means avoiding both “dostufism”(actions which do not tie into a clearly thought-throughprogramme), and “liquidationism” (dissolving your own politicsinto that of another group).We would also argue for raising speciic slogans and ideas,like anti-electionism, collectivisation (over nationalisation/privatization), self-management. The UF would also need to focusits work at the base, and not on committee work, while opposingthe culture of demagogy that has affected many movements inSA. Related to this, there is a strong need to combat the traditionof political manipulation that currently grips much of the labourmovement, and return it to a politics of openness, debate andpolitical pluralism.19 ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

INTERNATIONALIn the Rubble of US Imperialism:The PKK, YPG and the Islamic StateShawn Hattingh (ZACF)The mainstream news has beenilled with stories about thehorrors being committed by theIslamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq, andhow the United States (US) ruling classand their state supposedly want to stopthis for humanitarian reasons. What hasnot been widely covered in the corporateand state controlled media, however,is why the IS came to exist; the realreasons for the US state’s new round ofintervention in the Middle East; and howthe US state wants to isolate and likelydestroy the only two forces that havebeen effective in ighting against the IS:the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) andthe People’s Protection Units (YPG).This article highlights how the US statecreated the conditions in the Middle Eastin which a right-wing reactionary forcelike the Islamic State (formerly knownas the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham)could emerge. Along with this– and central to the article –it discusses how the US stateis refusing to back the onlytwo effective forces that areighting the Islamic State: theKurdish Workers’ Party andthe People’s Protection Units.Indeed, this article is alsowritten to express solidaritywith the People’s ProtectionUnits that are currentlyighting a key battle againstthe Islamic State to hold ontothe city of Kobani in Syria.HOW THE ISLAMICSTATE AROSEThe IS’s rise from an obscure group toa force within the Middle East can betraced back to the US military’s invasionand occupation of Iraq in 2003. Duringthe invasion the US military killed 1.4million people and as an occupyingforce it brutalised the population. Thisnaturally fuelled anti-US sentimentsthroughout the country.In fact, the US occupation of Iraq wasbased on the tactics of divide and rule.To weaken the possibility of unitedresistance to its occupation, the US statesupported autonomy for sections of theKurdish people in northern Iraq underthe Kurdish Regional Government (KRG),which is headed by a corrupt pro-USruling class. It also promoted sectarianviolence in Iraq to make it hard forpeople to unify against the occupation.This included backing a puppet regime– despite the fact it came to be led byhard-line Shia politicians that were closeto the Iranian regime – that suppressedlarge sections of the Sunni population.Women fighters of the YPJ (Women’s Protection Units)(Kurdish: Yekîneyên Parastina Jin)It is in this context that the IS (formerlyknown by various other names includingIslamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) beganto grow as a force under the leadershipof Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Many people,especially from the Sunni population,joined the IS because it looked like theonly organisation that was capable ofdefending Sunni people and resistingthe US’s occupation and its puppetregime. Thus, the IS gained a supportbase despite being a brutal authoritarianorganisation.Indeed, the IS is an anti-imperialistand anti-US organisation, but from thebasis of an extremely reactionary rightwingstance. It has long had the goal ofestablishing a totalitarian state underits dictatorship that incorporates largeparts of the Middle East. To further itspolitical aims and ambitions throughoutits history it has committed atrocities,such as mass murder against opponents,including Muslims and even membersof rival jihadist groups. To be sure,anyone identiied as an opponent hasbeen harshly dealt with especially thoseidentiied as waivers ornon-believers in terms of itsextremist ideology. Centralto its policies too has beenthe entrenchment of thesystemic oppression ofwomen. Such misogynisticviews have even translatedinto the IS using capturedwomen as sex-slaves.Initially, when the IS wasstarting to become aforce in Iraq, the US statedeliberately turned a blindeye to it, even though ithad already committedatrocities, because itwanted Iraq’s populationto remain divided. By the time the USwithdrew from Iraq in 2011, the ISalready controlled some parts of thecountry.ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 20

INTERVENTION IN SYRIA ADDSFUEL TO THE FIRENot content with destabilising Iraq, in 2011 theUS state used the mass protests and ensuingcivil war in Syria to try and destabilise andweaken the al-Assad regime. It was, however,not supporting these protests, and subsequentlysections ighting the al-Assad regime in the civilwar, because it wanted to support those peoplecalling for democracy in Syria, but rather theUS state was doing it for its own imperialistinterests. It was clear the US felt that the Syrianregime was too close to the Russian and Iranianstates. In fact, the US did not want to destabilisethe Syrian regime because it was brutal – whichit was and is – but because the ruling class thatcontrolled it were not fully compliant (for theirown reasons) with the agenda of US imperialismin the region.When mass popular protests erupted againstthe Syrian regime in 2011, which were partof the spread of the Arab Spring and based onthe real desire to end the al-Assad dictatorshipin order to createa better society inSyria, the US statemoved to turn eventsto its beneit. As suchthe mass protestsin Syria were notfermented by the USstate, but it used thecircumstances to tryand further its ownagenda and that iswhy it rhetoricallysupported them.When the al-Assadregime brutallyrepressed theprotests, a civil warensued. Variousarmed groupsemerged during the civil war. Some were jihadist,others were more secular. Some sections of themilitary, headed by corrupt generals, also splitfrom the regime and as the civil war emergedthey were also key in setting up the Free SyrianArmy (FSA). The US state soon began supplyingarms to the FSA.The US state, however, also armed the variousIslamic extremist and jihadist groups (despitetheir anti-US positions) who had entered theight against the Syrian regime. Soon manymembers of these extremist groups beganjoining the IS (which at irst was looselyafiliated to al-Qaeda, but later broke with itaround political and tactical differences). Someof the most important ighting forces that joinedIS were experienced jihadist ighters fromChechnya who were supplied arms by the USwhen they joined the war in Syria. As an outcomeof this in parts of Syria the IS became one of themost potent military forces – capturing massiveamounts of weapons including T-55 and T-72main battle tanks and Scud missiles from theother forces it had been engaging along withgaining supplies and equipment of US originfrom other jihadists who joined it – and by 2013it had taken over parts of Syria, notably the cityof Raqqa.In Syrian cities and areas it controls, like Raqqa,the IS established its harsh dictatorship. Anyoneseen as being an opponent was dealt with, whichincluded mass executions. But the IS’s controlis not only based on fear, it is also based onproviding welfare. IS has effectively nationalisedsome industries, including the banking sector,while allowing other industries to remain inprivate hands. Central to its policies it has alsoimposed higher taxes on the rich. Using suchfunds it has rolled out greater welfare. Despite,therefore, beingan ultra-rightwingforce, through suchwelfare measures ithas gained supportamongst sectionsof the populationin the areas it hascome to control inSyria.In 2014 the ISused the platformthey have in Syriato launch newmilitary operationsin Iraq. Duringthis new phase ofits war in Iraq itrouted the Iraqimilitary in parts ofthe country: capturing large amounts of the latestUS weaponry that had been supplied to the Iraqiarmy. When the IS seized gas and oil-ields inIraq that were important for the US ruling class,along with starting to militarily threaten key USallies in the form of the KRG and Iraqi state, the ISbecame a problem for the US state.BACKING THE KRG AND THEIRAQI STATETo ensure the gas and oil-ields captured by theIS are returned to its sphere and to try and stopthe IS’s territorial advance in Iraq, the US statehas been supplying intelligence and weaponsto the KRG and the Iraqi state to ight the IS. Ithas also conducted airstrikes against the IS inINTERNATIONALIS is an antiimperialistand anti-USorganisation,but from thebasis of anextremelyreactionaryright-wingstance. Ithas long hadthe goal ofestablishinga totalitarianstate under itsdictatorshipthatincorporateslarge parts ofthe Middle East.21 ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

INTERNATIONALIraq and recently in areas such as Raqqain Syria. The reality though is that theIraqi military and the KRG have beenineffective against the IS. This has ledthe US state to deploy special forcesto Iraq, supposedly in support of theKRG and Iraqi military, but in realitythey have been engaging the IS directlytoo. Indeed, if the Iraqi state and KRGcontinue to prove ineffective against theIS going forward, the US may be forced tocommit far greater numbers of its owncombat troops to try and stop the IS.PROGRESSIVE FORCESThere are, however, progressive forces –the PKK and YPG – in Iraq and Syria thathave proved effective, despite being illarmed, in combating the IS. The US state,nonetheless, is refusing to back the PKKand YPG against the IS: based ultimatelyon the progressive politics of these twogroups.The PKK has a long history of ighting anational liberation struggle against theUS’s ally, Turkey, and is considered aterrorist organisation by the US. Duringthis war, the PKK cadre gained vitalmilitary experience.Recently, the PKK has been ighting theIS to stop it expanding into the northernparts of Iraq and committing atrocitiesagainst people in these areas. The PKKmoved into Iraq from Turkey in Augustto stop the mass murder of Kurdishrefugees by the IS. They have continuedto hold key positions in northern IraqDespite initially being inluenced byMaoism, the PKK, and especially itsfounder Abdullah Ocalan, have cometo be heavily inluenced by some of theideas – although not all – of the libertariansocialist Murray Bookchin. Bookchinhimself started out his political life as aStalinist, but moved to anarchism beforeadopting a form of libertarian socialismbased on communalism and libertarianmunicipalism. Hence, while the PKK wasfounded as a Marx-Leninist guerrillaoutit, by the early 2000s it was adoptingleft-leaning libertarian ideas inspired bykey writings of Bookchin.As part of its move towards a form ofleft-libertarianism, the PKK has becomecritical of the state as a structure, whichit sees as oppressive, based on hierarchy,and as being the ultimate defender ofminority class rule and capitalism. Theaim of PKK, and the goal of its struggles, isfor a revolution in the Middle East, whichis why the US state deeply mistrusts it.As part of this revolution, and in linewith its left libertarian orientation, ithas explicitly stated that it does not aimto create a state, but rather a system ofdirect democracy that would be deinedby people setting up assemblies, councilsand communes that are confederatedtogether. It has called this “democraticconfederalism”. Although it is anti-stateand sees the state as a key barrier tofreedom and equality, and has a visionof a system of self-governance based ondirect democracy, it however remainstactically ambiguous on whether thestate should be explicitly smashed aspart of such a revolution (as advocatedby anarchists) or whether the statecould simply be rolled back as part ofan expanding direct democracy withoutnecessarily smashing it.Along with a libertarian form of selfgovernance,the PKK is anti-capitalistand aims to try and build an economythat is run with the aim of meetingpeople’s needs. Hence it aims to create amore egalitarian economy, but it has notstated whether such an economy wouldbe based on workerself-managementand the socialisationof the means ofproduction andwealth. Thus, whileheavily inluencedby left-libertarian ideas andbeing a progressive movement(and having a very strong feministcurrent) it can’t beseen as fullyanarchist.The US stateand ruling class,however, obviously donot take kindly to the progressivepolitics of the PKK because if arevolution based on the ideasof the PKK did take hold andspread in the Middle East, theUS’s imperialist interests in theregion would be completelyundermined.Inluenced by some of the PKK’sideas, but seemingly not all, people innorthern Syria – in an area known asRojava – began setting up councils andassemblies in 2011 in the aftermathof the uprisings against the Syrianregime. The assemblies and councils– sometimes referred to as communes– are confederated together withthe Kurdish Supreme Committeeacting as a co-ordinating body. Whilethese structures are based on directdemocracy, it is unclear whether theeconomy has been transformed in amore egalitarian direction. Indeed itis not clear whether or not the directdemocracy in the political sphere hasbeen extended to the economic sphere.Along with this, it is unclear – and notmentioned in reports – whether therehas been any move to socialise orcollectivise the means of production andwealth in Rojava (although there hasreportedly been land redistribution).Nonetheless, the experiments withcouncils and assemblies in Rojavahave been progressive (although alsoit seems under threat internally fromthe leadership of parties that wish toset up a state structure). What has alsobeen progressive is that the liberation ofwomen too has been at the forefront ofinitiatives in Rojava.To defend the territory of Rojava amilitia-based structure, the YPG, wasestablished in 2011. Within the militia,ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 22

women play a leading role. It has beenthe YPG that has been the most effectiveforce in terms of engaging the IS in Syria.Indeed, the YPG militia have becomeexperienced ighters within a shortspace of time as prior to defendingthe territory against the IS the YPGwas engaged in defending it againstelements of the FSA (although it now isin an alliance with the FSA against theIS), other jihadist groups and the Syrianstate.Throughout 2013 and early 2014,the YPG rolled back the IS andextended the territory of Rojava. Inlate September 2014, however, theIS launched another major offensiveagainst the Rojava region. Duringthe offensive the IS has unleashed asmany as 40 main battle tanks againstthe YPG, who do not have significantnumbers of heavy weapons. Currentlythe YPG is fighting a major battleagainst the IS to hold onto one ofthe key cities, Kobani, that is part ofRojava. With the recent US airstrikesagainst the IS in Rojava, the IS has alsoshifted more of its forces to Kobani.For the US state, however, the YPG alongwith the PKK are seen as much of a threatas the IS. The reason is that, despitesome limitations, they demonstrate thatsociety could be organised by peoplein a more democratic way and theyshow how it could be possible to endcapitalism, the state, patriarchy andclass rule through mass movements andstruggle. Hence the US state has refusedto supply assistance to the YPG and PKK.As a matter of fact, the US state andTurkey have been allowing IS ightersto freely cross the border from Turkeyto engage the PKK and the YPG. Alongwith this, the Turkish state has forcefullyblocked people, mainly Kurds, wantingto cross from Turkey to join the ightagainst IS, especially now that Kobani isthreatened. Along with this the US statenow appears to be beginning to push theKRG to launch a war against the PKK andpossibly even the YPG, despite the threatof the IS.CONCLUSIONINTERNATIONALIt is clear that the IS is a reactionary forcethat holds little hope for a better futurefor the Middle East. It wants to establisha dictatorship and is completelyintolerant to anyone that differs from itspolitics. From the actions of the US state,however, it is also clear that it careslittle about democracy or the atrocitiescommitted by the IS. It too is notinterested in a peaceful, free and equalMiddle East and the only thing it offersis more misery for the working class ofthe region. In fact, for the working classin the Middle East it is only the politicsand initiatives taking place through thePKK and YPG that offers any prospect– for the moment – for a better future.Perversely, this is also why the US statewants to destroy them.The State of Climate ChangeBongani Maponyane (ZACF)The planet is warming. This is notnew to the earth’s history, whichis billions of years old. But whythe controversy regarding thisfact? Does it lie in theassociation betweenclimate changeand the manma d econtributing factors to this change? Isit because of the reality of the impact ofthe industrial age; the very foundationson which modern capitalism andempire has been built? Many withinthese industries spend billions onpromoting the idea that climate changeis a naturally-occurring phenomenon.But scientists around the world showconvincingly that man-made fossil-fueleconomies (economies built on the useof oil and coal, which release massiveamounts of pollution and carbon dioxideinto the atmosphere, creating thegreenhouse effect and global warming)have contributed, over a short period oftime, to rapidly accelerating the usualnaturally-occurring effect. The impacthas been, amongst other things,rising sea levels, increased droughtand destructive weather patterns.However, this knowledge has beenmet by a strong response fromcapitalists – and the politicians theyfund – to throw doubt on the roleand culpability of the industries thatare causing the most damage (and havemade them very rich and powerful.)They continue to fund “alternative”research and media propaganda to doso.MONITORING THE PROBLEMIn the early 1980s the internationalIntergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC) created a scientiic teamto accumulate accurate geological andmeteorological evidence on weatherand air-quality patterns. Their studiesshowed that the oceans were warming,ice caps vital to regulating the earth’sclimate were shrinking and sea levelswere rising as a result. In fact in theperiod 1961-2003 saw the average sealevel rise of between 0.5-1.8m annually.In conjunction, they also reported therapid deforestation of the Amazonrainforests in South America and a23 ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

INTERNATIONALMuch of thefacts of humancreatedglobalwarming andthe threatsit poses to usall cannot beignored forever.Sections of theinternationalruling classhave openedtheir eyes andproit-makingminds to it1. from a report byProfessor Steven Thomasof the University ofGreenwich in TheEconomist, July 2014.dramatic increase in greenhouse gas emissions,particularly by highly industrialised andindustrializing countries, causing accelerated andunnatural warming of the planet. Some of thesehazardous materials include methane (CH4),carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (NO2).Thus, what was occurring was not natural, butcaused human activity for the beneit of thewealthy and powerful who controlled theseindustries. However, these are not the peoplewho experience the worst effects of globalwarming. Their sole focus is how to proit evenmore from the labour of others, and how tocontinue to exploit the earth’s resources for theirown, private beneit. They continue to do sothrough industries such as mining, oil, chemicals,timber and farming.THE GLOBAL IMPACT OFCLIMATE CHANGEThe IPCC’s 5 th assessment report detailing theextent of industrial impact paints a damningpicture of how human-created industries havecontributed to climate change. Much of thedamage is traced to the biggest companies,e.g. Shell, BP, and the richest nations like (butnot only) the US and China, all controlled bya very powerful ruling class in business andthe state. South Africa, relative to the size of itseconomies, is a serious polluter and contributorto the problems our ecology faces, in particularits nationalized industries like Eskom and itstremendous need for coal-burning to run itsoperations.Melting ice caps and rising sea levels continueto endanger, or push certain land and aquaticspecies to extinction, e.g. the polar bear. Also,alterations to the global climate have seenincreased occurrences of tropical cyclonessince the 1970s. These will also cause, overtime, the migration of millions of people frommany cities and islands affected by these risinglevels and changing weather patterns. This willcreate crises of historical proportion, a problemexacerbated by negative and violent attitudestowards immigrants and economies not createdto dealing with people’s needs.A NEWCLEAR SOLUTION, OR ANUCLEAR PROBLEM?There is much debate about nuclear energyinternationally, with those opposed to it pointingthe tragedies of Chernobyl and the more recentFukushima plant disaster. and the potentiallycataclysmic effect on global ecology it could have.Proponents speak to nuclear’s ability to allow theworld’s economy to shed fossil fuel dependenceand the longevity of nuclear power provision tohumankind.We cannot divorce the debate from a class analysis,regardless of its good or bad points. Nuclearprojects are facing the risk of lack of funding frominternational donors. Banks seem unwilling tobear the risk of inancing such projects. As such,policy-makers are devising schemes to extract thenecessary funds from tax-payers via “cost passthrough”or loans guarantees by offering nuclearvendors ixed price terms.1 What this meanstoday is that nuclear energy development is nota viable option for developingcountries increasing theneed for fossil fuels in thesecountries for their industrialprojects.CONCLUSIONMuch of the facts of humancreatedglobal warming andthe threats it poses to us allcannot be ignored forever.Sections of the internationalruling class have openedtheir eyes and proit-makingminds to it. However,their solutions amount tonothing more than a “greencapitalism” that will not fundamentally alter theconditions of poverty and oppression that mostpeople face globally. It will also take a long timebefore the owners of fossil fuel industries (bothprivate and state owners) steer away fromthese historic industries, particularly whenthese industries are cornerstones of economiesaround the world. It seems there is just toomuch money to be made now to worry aboutthe future 50 years from now.ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 24

INTERNATIONALBuilding a Mass AnarchistMovement:The Example of Spain’s CNTThabang Sefalafala * and Lucien van der WaltThe ideas of anarchism have oftenbeen misunderstood, or sidelined.A proliferation of studies, suchas Knowles’ Political Economy fromBelow, Peirats’ Anarchists in the SpanishRevolution, and others, have aimed toaddress this problem – and also to showthat anarchism can never be limited toan ideology merely to keep professorsand students busy in debating societies.Anarchists have been labeled “utopians”or regarded as catalysts of chaos andviolence, as at the protestsin Seattle, 1999, against theWorld Trade Organization.However, anarchism has aconstructive core and animportant history as a massmovement – includingin its syndicalist (tradeunion) form. It rejectsthe authoritarianismand totalitarianism oftenassociated with Marxistregimes, and seeks topresent a living alternativeto classical Marxism,social democracy andthe current neo-liberalhegemonic order. Itrejects both the versionsof Marxism that havejustiied massive repression, and themore cautious versions, like that of Desaiin his book Marx’s Revenge, which claimthat a prolonged capitalist stage – withall its horrors – remains essential beforesocialism can be attempted. It rejects theideas that exploitation and oppressionare “historical necessities” for historicalprogress.The history of anarchism andsyndicalism shows that the contraryis true. One of the crucial themeshighlighted by recent works in thistradition is that the constructionof a mass anarchist and syndicalistmovement based on anarchist principlesof anti-authoritarianism, equality,freedom, liberty, justice, and democracyis possible – and is something of whichordinary working class and poor peopleare perfectly capable.This is wonderfully demonstratedby the anarcho-syndicalist CNT (theNational Confederation of Labour)of Spain. It was formed in 1910 inBarcelona, in the Catalonia provinceof Spain – the country’s industrial hub.The CNT emerged out of dificult social,political and economic conditionsthat characterised Spain, and grew,despite severe repression, into the1930s. Embodying the central anarchistprinciples of individual freedom,cooperation, and democracy, the CNTbecame the most powerful union – andmass – movement in the country.Spain was marked by high level ofinequality, and a social system thatfavored the elite; a rightwing Churchoften operated as an institution ofoppression, as did the state. Theactivities by the CNT were heavilyrepressed through armed force. Statepower was continually used to smashworking class and peasant resistance;this was essential for the ruling class tomaintain their privileges.Despite these conditions – and incontradistinction to the notion thatrepression, authority, exploitation,crippling poverty, hunger and misery,as well as wealth and power for peoplenumbering no morethan the ingers on onehand, are necessaryevils – the CNT provideda practical exampleof ordinary humanbeings possessingprofound capacities andintelligence. It built amass union movementthat defended andadvanced workers’conditions, thateducated millions ofpeople in an alternativeworldview, that workedalongside communitiesagainst evictions andfor lower rents, andthat allied with workingclass, the peasant youth and womenighting for the anarchist cause.Through its structures, its militancy,its education and its alliances, theCNT helped develop and nurture, on amass scale, the capacities and innateintelligence of the masses – capacitiesand intelligence that nulliied the needfor mastery of the many by an elite. Thiswas demonstrated most dramaticallyin the 1930s, when the CNT (and theallied Anarchist Federation of Iberia, theFAI, an anarchist political organizationlinked to it) launched or supported a25 ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

INTERNATIONAL* Writing in hispersonal capacityseries of popular rebellions. In 1936, the CNTand FAI helped stop a military coup, unleashing amassive andprofounds o c i a lrevolutionthat sawmillions ofhectares ofland, andvast partsof industryand servicesp l a c e du n d e rworker andcommunitycontrol.Often governed through CNT structures, the“collectives” were self-managed, highly eficient,and rejected the logic of production for proit;they moved towards the implementation of themaximum programme of anarchist communism.Unfortunately, failures by the CNT and FAI stalledthis programme, and opened the door to itsdefeat.That said, the CNT’s experience from the 1910sto the 1930s highlights the reality that we are, atthis current conjuncture, in fact settling for farless than human beings are capable of creating. Itis in the hands of ordinary people to remake theworld. This should be remembered in movementbuilding: the CNT model that, following in thefootsteps of anarchist luminary Mikhail Bakunin,insisted crisply that “Future social organizationmust be made solely from the bottom upwards,by the free association or federation of workers,”irst local, then inally, “in a great federation,international and universal,” embracing allsuffering humanity, and capable of re-making theworld into one based on social justice, equalityand freedom.Imperial Wars, Imperialismand the Losers:A Critique of Certain ‘Labour Aristocracy’ TheoriesLucien van der WaltAs the 100th anniversary of theoutbreak in August 1914 of WorldWar One fades, let us rememberthat imperialism harms all working classpeople – including those in imperialistand Western countries, and the whiteworking class.It is often said that Western workersbeneit from imperialism, or imperialistproits, or that welfare in the West isfunded by imperialism – but all of theseclaims fall in the face of realities likeWorld War One (1914-1918). This war –between Germany and Britain and theirrespective allies – was, at least in part,fought for a re-division of the Europeanruledcolonies.NOT THEIR CAUSESThe ighting, of course, was largelydone by the working class – againstthe working class. Those who insistthat Western workers beneit fromimperialism should remember the 37million who died: the 10 million-plussoldiers, 7 million civilians, and 23million wounded were heavily drawnfrom the Western working class; theothers were drafted in from colonieslike Senegal, South Africa and India. Thisfollowed a string of wars, including inSouthern Africa, from the late 1800s,like the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, and theAnglo-Boer War (or South African War)of 1899-1902.It was ordinary people who formedthe armies and the victims in all theseconlicts; they fought in wars they didnot create, driven by mighty empires thatruling classes controlled. The conqueredpeoples, like the Zulu and Afrikaners,fought for national independenceand lost. Their ruling elites, however,made peace with the empires: theZulu monarchy becoming part of thecolonial apartheid system, the Afrikanergenerals becoming local allies of Britishimperialism. The elites that controlledthe early African National Congress(ANC) in South Africa were Empireloyalists, too, routinely supportingBritain’s wars.This is not to so say such elites weremere collaborators or ‘compradors’:they acted in such ways in pursuit oftheir own class interests and agendas,changing allegiances as situationschanged.WARS AND WESTERN LABOURNo one would deny that imperialismharms ordinary people in the colonialand postcolonial world. But what ofthe ordinary people in the imperialistZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 26

countries of the West? They never ruled, norcontrolled, those countries. At the time of thethree wars listed above, they did not even haveuniversal voting rights, and were still battling forbasic union rights.‘LABOUR ARISTOCRACY’ MYTHSDid they, and do they still, beneit from theimperial wars or imperialist economic activities,like Structural Adjustment or unfair terms oftrade? No. The notion that Western workersbeneit from imperialism – a version of ‘labouraristocracy’ and ‘privilege’ theories – remainsa widespread myth. If the mass deaths in thesewars – borne largely by the working class andpoor – are not enough evidence, consider alsothe crippling injuries that hundreds of thousandsfaced, or the future they looked forward to aftermilitary demobilization – of low-wage jobs andunemployment.BEYOND THE TV SCREENThe image we see today on TV and in ilms of lifein the West is a myth. Whereas on TV, even fastfood workers and sex workers live in large lats,drive their own latestmodelcars, and sit downto giant screen TVs, thereality is different. InBritain at the start of the1980s – that is, beforethe neo-liberal offensivereally got started – 10%of the population owned80% of personal wealth,while the bottom 80%owned only 10%; 32%lived in poverty, evenusing the dubiousmeasures of the time. 1It was from these massesthat the cannon fodderof the war was and arerecruited; so appalling were their living conditionsthat the state found that hundreds of thousandsfell below the required health standards forrecruitment as soldiers in 1899 and 1914.HISTORICAL CORRELATIONOf course, some sectors of the Western workingclass live relatively well, but there is no clearevidence that this is due to some sort of atransfer of wealth from the non-Western world,to Western workers by imperialism. Before theneo-liberal period starting in the 1970s, the bestliving conditions were in the Nordic countries,none of which had much in the way of anyimperial history. Living conditions in Westerncountries improved dramatically from the1940s – after the ruin of World War Two – whichcoincided precisely the period in which empiresthat had lasted centuries collapsed.By contrast, the points of greatest direct Westernimperial rule – like the ‘Victorian’ period of thelate 19th and early 20th centuries – remainnotorious as periods of massive repression andpoverty in the West. The modern Keynesianwelfare state (KWS) in the West, the basis ofwelfare, arose precisely when the Europeanempires fell. Similarly, as imperialist warsincreased from the late 1980s, working classconditions deteriorated severely, in large partdue to neo-liberalism; again, the soldiers of theUSA and other major powers were primarilyrecruited from workers looking for jobs.WAGES AND CAPITAL STRUCTUREUnequal wages exist within and betweencountries, including between and withinthose with a colonial history, but this relects arange of factors. Western countries have moreindustrialised economies: by current igures,the GDP of Germanyalone is almost twicethat of the entire regionof sub-Saharan Africa,South Africa included. 2Such economies, whichhave moved decisivelyto the production ofrelative surplus value,involve much higherproductivity per worker– this, in turn, allowmuch higher wages, aswell as higher (!) rates ofexploitation, inasmuchas the gap betweenoutput and income isproportionately worse.To illustrate: in South Africa, an autoworker ina big foreign-owned plant, with a permanentand semi-skilled job, is paid far better than aworker on a labour-intensive wine farm. Heror his output is much higher, due to technicalconditions. Let us say the output, measured interms of value added to the commodity, is (tokeep it simple) R50,000: then capital can pay awage of R10, 000 easily, and still pocket R40,000‘surplus’ value. Let us say the farmworker adds(again, simplifying) R3,000 value and gets paidR2,000. In this case, the autoworker is actuallymore exploited than the farmworker, as R40,000is extracted, as compared to R1,000.INTERNATIONALThe image wesee today on TV... of life in theWest is a myth.Whereas on TV,even fast foodworkers andsex workers livein large lats,drive their ownlatest-modelcars, and sitdown to giantscreen TVs,the reality isdifferent. InBritain at thestart of the1980s ... 10% ofthe populationowned 80%of personalwealth, whilethe bottom 80%owned only10%; 32% livedin poverty...27 ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

INTERNATIONALConcentration camp during the Anglo-Boer War1. UK igures: RobertLekachman and Borin vanLoon, (1981), Capitalismfor Beginners, PantheonBooks, New York, pp.44- 5, 67, 70; CWF,(1992),Uninished Business:The Politics Of Class War,AK Press / CWF, p. 77. Forthe USA: M. Lind, cited in“Stringing up the Yuppies”,24 September 1995,Sunday Times, p14; NewYork Times, 25 September1992.2. Germany: 2014 GDP(current US$) $3.853trillion, population 80.89million; Sub-SaharanAfrica (46 countries):2014 GDP (current US$)$1.712 trillion, population961.5 million. SOURCE:http://data.worldbank.org/country/germany andhttp://data.worldbank.org/region/SSA, accessed15 June 2015.3. Shawn Hattingh, 2012,“South Africa’s role inAfrica: An anarchistperspective,” South AfricanLabour Bulletin, volume 36,number 2, June/July 2012,pp. 51-53./SOUTH AFRICAN IMPERIALISMThis is the general principle allowing sectorsof the Western working class to be both betterpaid than many workers elsewhere, yet at thesame time, to be more ‘exploited.’ It is the samesituation that allows South African workers tobe paid far higher than workers in neighbouringcountries: Regardless of South Africa’s semiindustrialcharacter,with its higherproductivityand capitalistdevelopment,SA workersare notbeneiciariesof SA’sregionalimperialism 3in southernAfrica.There is noreal mechanism that supports of the idea thatWestern or South African workers benefitfrom ‘imperialist’ profits or wars: a simplewage disparity (higher relative wages) provesnothing of the sort, since the disparity lieselsewhere. It could, of course, be arguedthat the higher technological level seen inmany Western countries was itself due toimperialism. But, while there is no doubtthat major capitalists benefited from systemslike the slave trade and colonialism abroad, itwas a pre-existing level of advancement thatallowed Western domination of such tradesand territories in the first place. The cause andeffect are getting mixed up.POWER AND CLASS STRUGGLEThe potential for higher wages and more statewelfare arising from a more technologicallyadvanced, industrialised, economy is just that: apotential. What matters, above all, is the powerand organization of the popular classes. TheKWS was, in part, inanced by the economicboom of the ‘Golden Age’ of capitalism from the1940s-1970s, but would never have happenedunless working class movements were able toterrify the upper classes into major reforms.As World War One showed, it is actually moreaccurate to say that the interests of workingclass and poor people in the West are harmedby imperialism. The same military machinesthat are built for wars abroad, are unleashedat ‘home’ against unrest – classically, the use ofthe Army of Africa by General Franco againstthe Spanish anarchist revolution of 1936-1939. The reactionary ideas and arrogancepromoted by ruling classes in their imperialactivities confuse and divide people, deflectingtheir struggles into dead-ends like racism andxenophobia. A simple example is providedby the on-going hatred of black and Asianforeigners in South Africa; the same can beseen across Western Europe.THE CHINA SYNDROMEAnd we can also see, especially in the periodof neo-liberalism, how the historic division ofthe world between the Great Powers (the bigimperialists) and the colonial/ postcolonialworld actively harms Western workers. Jobs andindustries have been gutted across the West asfactories are moved by the giant companies topoorer regions like China, where labour is cheapand unions are banned. Even the worst unionrepresents a bulwark of working class resistance,which is why these repressive states crush unionsand run fake ‘oficial’ unions.The very existence of repressive regimes likeChina is in direct contradiction to the interestsof Western workers, as this drive wages,welfare spending, unionization rates and jobsecurity through the floor. The syndromes of‘runaway industry’ and ‘give-back bargaining’which have crippled labour across the Westare due to imperialism: workers are forced toaccept worse conditions and/or de-unioniseand/ or ever-higher productivity standards,under threat their jobs will move to cheaplabour sites. In other words, a global market iscreated, where wages are levelled downwards,as investments threaten to move abroad.Meanwhile, low wage regimes, like that ofChina, fuel its elites’ own wealth and drive forpower – including a growing imperialism oftheir own.CONCLUSIONImperialism, on the grand-scale of the Westernpowers, or on the scale of rising powers likeChina or Russia, or even of small regionalpowers like South Africa, does not benefitthe majority of their own people. It also,obviously, does not benefit the interests of theordinary people subjected to imperialism –although local ruling classes often find ways toaccommodate to the system. This means thatthe struggle against imperialism is not a battlebetween unified nations or regions, like the‘North’ or the ‘South’, but a fight to be led bythe popular classes, worldwide, against rulingelites, worldwide.ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 28

BLACK STARS OF ANARCHISMDomingos Passos:The Brazilian BakuninBLACK STARS OF ANARCHISMRenato Ramos and Alexandre Samis, Rio de Janeiro, 2001.Translated by Paul Sharkey‘I woke at 5.00 am. Passos, who had been up and about for hours, was sitting on his bed readingDeterminism and Responsibility by Hamon. I grabbed a towel and went downstairs to wash my face.When I came back from the yard, after drying off, I saw two individuals. It was a moment or two beforeI realised who they were. With revolvers drawn they spoke to me and asked me harshly: “Where’sDomingos Passos?”Anticipating another of the attacks that our comrade had been through so oftenbefore, I was keen to cover for him and said that he was not around. I told them: “There’s no DomingosPassos living here!”’This brief extract from a 16 March 1923declaration by the workman OrlandoSimoneck, carried in the newspaper APatria, clearly relects a few features of thesituation sampled by the black youngster,carpenter by trade, anarchist and active memberof the Civil Construction Workers’ Union (UOCC):by 1923 ‘Comrade Passos’ had become a specialtarget for the Rio police as well as one of the bestloved and respected worker militants in the (then)Federal District. Another feature of this comrade,rightly identiied by Simoneck, was his relentlessself-educational drive, his thirst for learning andculture, which found him spending his morningsporing over books in the little collection belongingto Florentino de Carvalho who lived in the samehouse in the Rua Barão in São Félix, only a coupleof paces from the union local.We do not know the precise year of Passos’sbirth (it was probably towards the end of the19th century), but, from the books of EdgarRodrigues, we know that he was born in Rio deJaneiro state. We ind his irst appearance insocial struggles of the time as a UOCC delegateat the 3rd Brazilian Workers’ Congress (1920) atwhich he was elected as travel secretary for theBrazilian Workers’ Confederation (COB). Passoshad been selected for that post because he stoodout in the ranks of the organised proletariaton account of his intellect and oratorical giftswhich he had honed in the day to day strugglesof his trade. In 1920 Passos worked with the Riode Janeiro Workers’ Federation (FORJ) whichhad a daily newspaper in A Voz do Povo. Underthe Epitácio Pessoa government, there was asevere crackdown with countless anarchistmilitants being jailed, tortured and murdered,trades unions shut down and labour newspaperspulped. In October 1920, the police dispersed aworkers’ parade down the Avenida Rio Brancowith gunire and, not content with that, stormedthe UOCC headquarters, wounding 5 workersand rounding up a further 30.Domingos PassosThe labour movement was reeling from theonslaught and went into a decline from 1921 on.The ‘yellow’ unions expanded rapidly and cameto contest hegemony in several trades with therevolutionary unions. Among anarchists, thehigh hopes vested in the Russian revolution wereevaporating as news percolated through of theBolsheviks’ repressiveness.On 16 March 1922, nine days ahead of thelaunching of the Communist Party of Brazil, theUOCC carried a document entitled ‘RefutingOriginally published bythe Kate Sharpley Library:www.katesharpleylibrary.net/34tn5b29 ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

BLACK STARS OF ANARCHISMPassos [was]selected ...because hestood out inthe ranks ofthe organisedproletariaton account ofhis intellectand oratoricalgifts which hehad honed inthe day to daystruggles of histrade.the False Claims of the Communist Group’ anddeclaring its repudiation of the state communists,the ‘Bolshevists’. It was assuredly written byDomingos Passos. Throughout the 1920s, CivilConstruction workerswere the steeliest andleast compromisingopponents of theBolshevist doctrine.They were the veryembodiment of criticalawareness and in anumber of regardstook their toll of thecommunist cadres.In July 1922, in the wakeof the failure of therevolt by the lieutenantsfrom the CopacabanaFort, the repressionslapped a ban on theUOCC paper O Trabalho,to which Passos was aregular contributor. Anew anarchist bastionin the press was underthe charge of another UOCC militant, Marquesda Costa, editor of the Labour Section with thenewspaper A Patria.In 1923, with the police crackdown hot on hisheels, Domingos Passos stepped down from theUOCC Executive Commission and turned hisattention to propaganda and union organising,travelling twice to Paraná to assist the localorganisations. Like the intellectuals José Oiticica,Carlos Dias and Fabio Luz, Passos was frequentlyinvited to give talks at union locals. He was alsoactively involved with workers’ festivals, actingin plays, giving poetry-readings and talks onsocial themes. Such events certainly accountedfor some of the few moments of pleasure thatPassos enjoyed during his life as a labourer andpolitical activist.During the irst half of 1923 he was one of thedriving forces behind the relaunching of the Riode Janeiro Workers’ Federation (FORJ), the rivalFTRJ organisation having been set up undercommunist control. When the FORJ resurfacedon 19 August 1923, Passos was elected on toits Federal Committee. Reloated by 6 unions(civil construction, the shoemakers, the coopers,the ships’ carpenters, the ‘gastronomics’and the Marechal Hermes General TradesUnion) by mid-1924 the FORJ had recruited afurther 5 signiicant trades: foundry-workers,brickworkers, ironworkers, steelworkers andstone-workers. In spite of state repression andunderhanded communist tricks, revolutionarysyndicalism grew in strength under the auspicesof the FORJ which was at that time working onthe organisation of an inter-union conferencein Rio and planning the 4th Brazilian Workers’Congress. In July 1924, all of this organisationeffort was wiped out by the crackdown followinga junior oficers’ revolt, in São Paulo this time.Union locals were attacked and shut down, andhundreds of anarchists were jailed. DomingosPassos was one of the irst to be arrested andafter 20 days of suffering at Police Headquartershe was held in the prison ship ‘Campos’ inGuanabara Bay. The months that he served onboard were characterised by severe privation andrestrictions. With other anarchists and hundredsof ‘outlaws’, he was to be moved to the ‘Green Hell’of Oiapoque, the ‘Siberia of the Tropics,’ where illtreatmentand disease claimed over a thousandlives. Passos managed to escape to Saint-Georgesin French Guyana. Meanwhile, fever drove himto seek medical treatment in Cayenne where hereceived a warm welcome from a Creole whohelped him regain his strength. From Guyana hemoved on to Belém where he remained for a timeas a guest of the organised proletariat in the city.Domingos Passos was one of those who returnedto the Federal District after the state of siegeenforced by the Artur Bernardes government fornearly four full years (1922-1926). On reachingRio de Janeiro at the start of 1927, he returnedto union activity, but he was dogged by theafter-effects of malaria. That year he moved toSão Paulo, where he helped reorganise the localWorkers’ Federation (FOSP). He took part in the4th Rio Grande do Sul Workers’ Congress held inPorto Alegre. He was to the fore in the organisingof several pro-Sacco and Vanzetti meetings andrallies organised by the FOSP and its afiliates.In August he was jailed in the feared ‘CambuciBastille’ where he spent three months, subject toall manner of ill-treatment.According to Pedro Catallo, his cell-mate, Passosleft prison with his body covered in ulcers andhalf-naked and was sent to the jungles of Sengésin the still untamed interior of São Paulo state,to die. A short while later he managed to writeto some comrades, asking for money, which hereceived through a go-between. So ended thecareer of a man who had been one of the mostinluential and respected of the anarchist andrevolutionary syndicalist activists of his day.Nothing more was ever heard of him, asidefrom the occasional, unconirmed rumour. Notfor nothing was Domingos Passos known to hiscontemporaries as the ‘Brazilian Bakunin.’ Fewwere as committed as he was to his ideals andsuffered so much as a result. He put his all intothe ight to emancipate men and women. Hespent nearly a decade in prison and in tropicaljungle conditions. Passos became a great beaconfor libertarian and social activists in his day andin our own!ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 30

BOOK REVIEWREVIEW: Spanish RevolutionRemembered:Peirats’ “The CNT in the Spanish Revolution”Jakes FactoriaAlmost 80 years ago the peasantryand working class of Spain,inspired by anarchism andsyndicalism, rose up to change the world.The Spanish Revolution of 1936-1939involved millions creating, from below,a new society of freedom based uponequality and participatory democracy.Had the revolution succeeded andspread, the world would have changedforever. Rather than being trapped indecades of oppression and crisis andfutility, humanity could have invested thelast three generations into a universalhuman community of libertariancommunism and scientiic advance.Remarkably, the Spanish Revolutionhas received very little attention. Therepublication in English of volume 1 ofJosé Peirats’ masterwork The CNT inthe Spanish Revolution by Merlin Pressand PM Press should go some wayto addressing the problem. The bookoriginally appeared in 1951 in Spanish,inally appeared in English in 2001 butsoon went out of print, and is now, inally,readily available (see contact detailsat end). (A much-abridged versionappeared in one volume in English in1990, called the Anarchists in the SpanishRevolution). 1REVOLUTIONPeirats, himself a militant, passed awayin 1989. A man of the working class, hespent his last decades in exile, during31 José Peiratswhich he produced his three-volumestudy of the anarchist revolution. Thistrilogy is an indispensable chronicle ofinspiring, astonishing events: popularmilitias, self-managed collectives in thecities and the countryside, the masses inpower, and a desperate struggle againstcounter-revolution.Peirats’ account gives insights, fromthe inside, into the power of the CNT(Confederación Nacional del Trabajo orNational Confederation of Labour) –the massive anarchist syndicalist tradeunion that was the centre of gravity forSpain’s vast anarchist movement. Hetraces the accumulation of power bythe CNT and its allied forces, includingevents such as the CNT’s leading (butoften ignored) role in the miners’ revoltat Asturias in 1934.The account is a passionate one, as mightbe expected of a man who participateddirectly in the Spanish Revolution, andwho was at one stage the editor of theCNT’s mass circulation daily, SolidaridadObrera (“Workers Solidarity”).His study is also, however, a learned andrigorous account of these revolutionaryevents, using primary sources, many ofwhich are quoted at great length – a realtreasure. He chronicles the triumphsand tragedies of the Revolution, and itsterrible defeat. The defeat was followedby a long midnight of terror under thesemi-fascist regime of General FranciscoFranco; hundreds of thousands led thecountry, and the dictatorship lasted intothe mid-1970s.COUNTERPOWER,COUNTERCULTUREThe Spanish anarchist/ syndicalistmovement, centred on the CNT, builta revolutionary counter-power andcounter-culture in the forms of people’sschools, of mass media, of women’sand youth groups, of communityactivism, and of revolutionarytrade unionism. It also included theanarchist political organisation, theFAI (Federación Anarquista Ibérica,or Anarchist Federation of Iberia),which was in the Bakuninist/ dualorganisationalist tradition (massmovement complemented by speciicanarchist-only political group, the latterto push anarchism), dating back toBakunin’s “Alliance” of the 1860s. Thesewere all built through engagementwith immediate issues: wages,rents, discrimination, and militaryconscription.It was this mass movement that fosteredthe capacities, skills, structures andideological understanding that made theSpanish Revolution possible. (Peiratswas himself, for example, part of the FAI,and received much of his schooling fromthe anarchist people’s schools.)Decades of militant mass work, plusthe development of proletarian andpeasant anarchist cadre, were essentialfoundations for the events of 1936-1939. As Mikhail Bakunin, leadinganarchist, always stressed: withouta widespread popular embrace of arevolutionary theory and practice (a“new social philosophy”), a constructivesocial revolution from-the-bottom-up isnot possible. 2LESSONS: DEFENCE, POWERThe reader may not agree with allof Peirats’ positions, or draw thesame lessons. However, he honestlycatalogues the ierce debates withinthe CNT/ FAI over tactics and strategy,including issues like alliances with non-ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

BOOK REVIEW1. José Peirats, [1964]1990, Anarchists in theSpanish Revolution,Freedom Press, London.2. M. Bakunin, 1871] 1971,“The Programme of theAlliance,” in S. Dolgoff(ed.), Bakunin on Anarchy,George Allen& Unwin. pp.249-2513. For a Marxist example,P. Blackledge, 2010,“Marxism and Anarchism,”International Socialism, no.125, p, 1394. e.g. A. Guillamón, 1996,The Friends of DurrutiGroup, 1937-1939, AKPress, pp. 99, 108, 1115. Friends of Durruti,1938, 1978, Towards aFresh Revolution, ZabalazaBooks, p. 25anarchists, and the best means to militarilydefend revolution.The CNT/ FAI made crucial mistakes in 1936, Iwould argue, not least of which was joining thePopular Front government in a common blocagainst Franco – the man, backed by a section ofthe ruling class, who was behind a military coupattempt in 1936, and who subsequently led acounter-revolutionary invasion of Spain.The idea of joining the Popular Front was tomaximise the anti-Franco alliance. But joiningthe Popular Front effectively meant sharingpower with a wing of the bourgeoisie – as well asworking with hostile parties. The price of unitywas a retreat from the revolution; the paymentfor the retreat was betrayal and treachery by thesupposed allies in the Popular Front.Joining the Popular Front meant, above all, aretreat from the CNT/ FAI programme of placingall power in the hands of the popular classes, as acounter-power that replaces ruling class power.The anarchism of the CNT/ FAI recognisedpower: it was not against power, but argued forplacing power in the hands of all.This was incompatible with the Popular Front,which required concession after concession,involved betrayal after betrayal, and meantcontaining the revolution within Spanishborders, until the Revolution unravelled. By thetime Franco’s forces marched into Barcelona in1939, ending the Revolution and inauguratingthe semi-fascist dictatorship, the collectives,militias, land reforms and popular energieshad been dissipated – although not completelydestroyed – by the Popular Front.Although the CNT/FAI withdrew from thePopular Front in November 1938, it was too late.The “internal” war against the Revolution by thePopular Front helped open the door to Franco’s“external” war for power. The organisational andpolitical havoc wreaked on the CNT/ FAI, causedby a period of participation in the state, can alsonot be understated.REAFFIRMATION: BAKUNIN’S ROADThese mistakes were not inevitable. They didnot arise from a failure to take military defenceand co-ordination seriously, 3 as some Marxistsand others have claimed. Participation in thePopular Front did not arise from the absenceof an anarchist/ syndicalist plan to makeand defend and spread a social revolutioninternationally; it involved the conscioussuspension of that plan, justiied on the groundsof adverse circumstances.The CNT/ FAI had repeatedly afirmed themainstream anarchist position of defendingrevolution with force, based on popular militiaswith a co-ordinated military effort, but subjectalways to direct popular control, notably in 1917,1932, 1933 and twice in 1936. It is simply untruethat the CNT / FAI had “no idea what to do withpower,” a “theoretical inability to face up to theproblems posed by the war and the revolution,”or that they were “reformist” etc. 4Mistakes on the military question arose fromcontingent factors, like the decision to uselawed tactics (the Popular Front), rather thanan inherent law in anarchist doctrine; from atendency at times to simplify issues (notably,underestimating the resilience of counterrevolutionaryforces, and to underestimate thechallenges of transition); and, tragically, also froman unprincipled revision of existing positions by awing of the CNT/ FAI.They did not arise from a lack of a strategy, butfrom the effective abandonment of that strategy.The classic CNT/ FAI position was subsequentlyreafirmed by the Friends of Durruti (a dissidentCNT faction), which called in 1937 for withdrawalfrom the Popular Front and for a RevolutionaryCouncil (“junta”). 5However, the warning came too late.CONCLUSIONS: DRAW LESSONSThe CNT/ FAI experience remains proof of thepossibility of mass anarchism, based on buildingmovements of, by, and for the popular classesto struggle today and change tomorrow. A newworld is possible, but only through workingclass-peasant revolution, based on deep, strongcounter-power and counter-culture.The CNT/ FAI experience illustrates this,providing a rich reservoir of experiences fromwhich lessons must be drawn, irmly andunlinchingly.All too often, anarchist and syndicalisthistoriography is based on a chronicle ofsuccesses, and a silence on failures; far toomany accounts of the defeat of the CNTblame Franco and the Popular Front, withoutexplaining why Franco won, or how the PopularFront survived.That will not do. Unless anarchists learn hardlessons from the failures of the past, as well asfrom the triumphs, the movement will not moveforward.* Copies may be obtained for a reasonablerate by contacting Tony Zurbrugg atglobalbook@btconnect.comZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 32

THEORYThe Anarchist Road to RevolutionBongani Maponyane (ZACF)We, anarchists, are committedto building a society basedon self-management andequality. We identify with the analysesand experiences of Mikhail Bakunin,who stated the need for freedom beyondthe limited conines of “democracy” –where you are only free to vote on whois next to govern you. Bakunin arguedthat freedom comes responsibility: thisincluded responsibility to others in themaintenance of this freedom. We needa society based on these principles; ananarchist society which expects fromeach according to their ability, andprovides to each according to their needs.How do we achieve this? Theanarchist society is achieved through arevolutionary strategy based on massorganization to overthrow systems andrelationships of hierarchical (or topdown)political, economic and socialpower. These organisations – tradeunions and community movements– we refer to as counter-power. Weneed to build syndicalist trade unions– revolutionary anarchist trade unions– which ight alongside working classand poor community organisations.These syndicalist movements willbe the battering ram which smashesdown capitalism. In South Africa thatwould mean a speciic focus on blackorganisation, but in time this wouldbe broadened to the entire workingclass population regardless of race,ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality,etc. Along with counter-power, we needto build a revolutionary working classconsciousness – or counter-culture –based on emancipatory education.However, these institutions of peoples’power do not just arise out of nothing.People need to be presented with33 the ideas ofanarchism, andthe inluence ofanarchism needsto be maintainedwithin theseorganisations.This is one ofthe primary responsibilities, we argue,of an anarchist political organization.This kind of organization does not seekpower on behalf of, or over movements,but acts within these movements toinluence opinions in an open, honest,democratic way.We aim to build counter-power andcounter-culture as the nucleus of thefuture society based on community andworker councils that control production,distribution, education and decisionmaking.Anarchism, therefore, is apreigurative socialist political ideologyand practice that seeks to build the newworld of freedom within the shell of thisdecaying world of capitalist and stateoppression and domination.Many decisions will be based onscientiic research and debate and theirimplementation coordinated by thesefuture councils. Therefore, life will beorganized by the very people who workand contribute to society for their ownbeneit and the beneit of others aroundthem. When decisions affecting largergroups of people need to be coordinated,delegates can be chosen on speciicmandates to represent the decisions oftheir councils. These delegates, however,will have no power to alter the decisions oftheir communities without the approvalof those they are representing. This isthe major difference between anarchistdirect democracy and the current systemof representative democracy – a systemthat centralizes the power of decisionmakingin the hands of a small group, theruling class. We seek to make decisionswith people, not over people! Grassrootsdecision-making and peoples’ powercan only exist if the power of politicaland economic systems is situated ingrassroots structures. We hold councildelegates to account through a systemof mandates, report-backs and theprinciple of immediate recall: if adelegate does not fulill a mandate andacts outside the wishes of the council,that individual is immediately replacedwith someone who will.Industry will be controlled by workersand land equitably shared for the beneitof all to meet social and individualneed. To achieve this, our revolutionarycounter-culture must also take intoaccount the inluence and impact ofother, competing, ideas inluencingthe working class and poor, such asnationalism, patriotism and Marxism.We need to educate ourselves awayfrom these authoritarian ideologiesthat, when put into practice, have onlyreplicated hierarchical domination,despite the good intentions of someof those exclaiming their ideas. Theseideologies promote the necessity ofpolitical parties and the need to capturethe state for the implementation ofprogrammes. But the state can never beused to create an equal and free society– as it is itself a hierarchical institutionpromoting power over people.Building counter-power and counterculturerequires an new, alternativeworking class political education,one that assists to build peoples’understandings of the world aroundthem and that provides a way-forwardfor organization building. The anarchistpolitical organization, then, must play acentral role to this end. Unlike the Marxist“vanguard” party that claims to speak onbehalf of all working class people, or thenationalist “Peoples” party that claimsto speak for all the people of a particularnation, the anarchist organization actsas educators, agitators and organiserswithin the working and poor class, notabove it. Insofar as we are leaders it isbecause we aim at a leadership of ideas,not individuals nor political parties,and not a leadership over the masses.With anarchism as the leading idea, wecan build our strength towards victoryagainst oppression and domination.ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

THEORYPutting Politics into Practice:The Importance of Democracy and Education in UnionsPitso Mompe (ZACF)Trade unionshave playeda major rolein defendingworkers’rights... Thisis why, eventoday, workersare still loyalto their unions.However, thereare obstacleswithin theunions – onebeing the unionbureaucracy...This candevelop itsown interests,underminingthe unions.Trade unions have played a major role indefending workers’ rights against thebosses and politicians, also in advancingworkers’ interests. This is why, even today,workers are still loyal totheir unions. However,there are obstacles withinthe unions – one beingthe union bureaucracy, ofpaid and full-time oficials.This can develop its owninterests, undermining theunions.This is a challenge facedby many unions. Thisbureaucracy is at timesunable to representworkers’ grievanceseffectively: they oftenspend more time ightingamongst themselves forcertain positions withinthe union instead of forworkers’ rights. Due tothis bureaucracy, which isstructured hierarchically,higher positions holdmore power, including in terms of decisionmaking.Those in leadership are often full-timeand recieve much higher salaries than those ofthe workers they represent. This means theyoften want to prevent union actions that threatentheir own positions, like long strikes.Another lurking danger is that of suchleaderships’ interests shifting towardsprotecting those of bosses. By spending moreand more time in cosy ofices in discussion withthese bosses instead of in workplaces checkingthe working conditions of their union’smembers, oficials can easily drift – becomingincreasingly accommodating and conservative.Where they sell out completely, or become verycorrupt, the union collapses or splits – to theharm of the workers. In South Africa, there isthe further problem that the union bureaucratsalso get involved in the state.If this is so, why do workers not defend theirown rights and advance their own intereststhemselves?This is a challenge faced by workers. Workerstend to be disorganised and divided, for a numberof reasons, such as job or sector, race, tribe,language, gender, area etc. As such, those fromthe same area, those thatshare the same culture,race, language, or beliefsand so on, separatethemselves from others,often feeling superior toothers. This separatesone worker fromanother and fostersdivision in the workingclass where unity needsto exist. History hastaught us that tradeunions are capable oforganising those ofdifferent cultures andbackgrounds as workersdespite these and otherdifferences – even ifnot all have historicallyachieved, or evenattempted, this.So what is the solution?Looking at the question of what is to be done,clearly working class politics in the trade unionsplays a major role. Not empty slogans andrhetoric, but a genuine politics of practice. Racial,ethnic, sectoral, geographical etc. divisionsbetween workers can only be overcome in theprocess of building class-consciousness, whichrequires a central role for trade union education,based on clear politics.Education can also help combatbureaucratisation – by providing workers withthe conidence to trust themselves and challengetheir leaders. However, education doesn’t onlymean classrooms (although this is crucial);class conidennce is also built in practice, inthe process of workers acting for themselvestogether. This fact carves out a central rolefor trade union democracy and participatorypolitics. Workers in South Africa, especially inthe 1970s and 1980s, built a strong traditionof workers’ democracy and workers’ control intheir trade unions. They also cultivated a strongZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 34

sense of working class identity and pride. It isthis that we need to go back to.We as anarchists, or syndicalists (anarchist tradeunionists), say that workers’ democracy is not thesame as capitalist “democracy”. The same appliesto the notion of workers’ politics – which is not thesame as the politics of the state and government.Here we are talking about a democracy whereunions will be restructured and rebuilt on a solidfoundation of democratic discussion, consensusbuilding (where possible), and decision-makingthrough-out all its structures.One where worker-members would electshopstewards who are recallable and who onlyact on the basis of mandates from these workersat their workplaces and in the union – neveron their own and never for the bosses. Thoseelected would also report back to workers aftermeetings to keep workers informed, and/ or toget fresh mandates. This model, of democraticdiscussion and decision-making, of mandatesand report backs, should be applied to all unionstructures: from the workplace or local branch tonational executive committees.What we mean by workers’ control is, irstly,workers directly controlling the union themselves– not via union oficials. Secondly, workers haveto ensure their control by encouraging, nurturingand insisting on democratic involvement of themembership in the life of the union. Thirdly,workers should outnumber oficials in thevarious union structures, to ensure that ordinaryworkers’ voices remain dominant.These are the basic principles of anarchisttrade unionism – of syndicalism – and anarchistorganisation. In these ways, workers could maketheir unions work for them, not for the interestsof a handful of oficials. Through workersdemocracy and workers control the rank-and-ile membership develop a sense of controlover their lives. This is done via a workingclass politics in the trade unions that allows theworker to develop a type of class consciousnessthat is needed in the struggle against capitalism,the state – against all forms of domination andoppression.Using these practices and experiences, workerscan also prepare themselves to take over, andrun, the workplaces themselves, includingmines, farms, factories and ofices. Democraticunion structures can play the key role in this newsystem of bottom-up control. That is syndicalism.THEORY / COUNTER-CULTUREWhat we meanby workers’control is...workersdirectlycontrollingthe unionthemselves –not via unionoficials.Anarchism and Counter-Culture:The Centrality of IdeasA Presentation at the Johannesburg leg of the Afrikan HipHop Caravan,Goethe Institute, 20 February 2013, by the ZACF’s Warren McGregorINTRODUCTIONOne may ask what a presentationon anarchism has to do with hiphop.I contend that within thesetwo movements exist shared ideasand sentiments, building blocks ofa deeply critical and self-consciouspolitical culture. Both share a deepanti-establishment ethos; a mistrust ofestablished institutions of social andpolitical control. Both come from andare based amongst the oppressed. 1 Atits core, hip-hop shares with anarchismits desire for political and social changevia people’s movements and expression.A fuller discussion and appreciationof anarchist culture, however, and itsmessage of grassroots communityand individual empowerment, can, I35 think, serve to broaden the alreadyrich tapestry of hip-hop culture and itsimpact on those it serves to educate.DRAWING A SKETCHAll forms of society, or social organisation,have their own ideological cultural sets:the main ideas that build and maintainthe structure of that society. In themodern age of neo-liberal capitalist andstate control, some key ideas dominate;you might have heard these before: Margaret Thatcher’s “there is noalternative” (as regards neo-liberalsocial spending cuts and privatisation) Francis Fukuyama’s – “the end ofhistory;” that with the collapse of theZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

COUNTER-CULTUREWe exist in aworld that isfundamentallyunjust andunequal. Thedominanteconomicideology iscapitalism...and thedominantideologies ofsocial andpoliticalorganisationin many partsof the worldare the nationstate andrepresentativedemocracyrespectively.These systemsestablish classrule of thefew over themajority.Soviet Union in the early 1990s, capitalism haddefeated socialism That democracy equates to voting into powerthose who rule you Men bring home the bacon; boys will be boys;women look after the kids and clean the house Black people can’t govern themselves All whites are oppressors God is forgiving and solves all problems if youpray The ANC’s slogan “A Better Life For All” Africa Unite! (which presupposes a singularAfrican identity)I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE ROLE OFIDEAS…In a variety of areas and in many people’s minds,these are some of the dominant social ideas. Infact, many people accept these not as ideas butsocial realities set in stone. However, they arejust that: ideas that we make and remake. Ideasdetermine how we think and how we act. Ideasdetermine how we socialise and how we relateto societal organisation – political and economic.THE WORLD TODAYWe exist in a world that is fundamentallyunjust and unequal. The dominant economicideology is capitalism in its neo-liberal form,and the dominantideologies ofsocial and politicalorganisation inmany parts ofthe world are thenation state andrepresentativedemocracyrespectively.These systemsestablish class ruleof the few over themajority.Class rulep r o m o t e scompetition,greed, individualism; only those with money andpower are counted as people of value. If you’repoor, well that’s your fault – you’re lazy. Get a job,contribute!In southern Africa, our shared histories have alsomeant rampant racism, sexism, homophobia,xenophobia and other such forms of oppression.HUMAN NATUREBoth ideologies of capitalism and the state arepromoted as either inevitable, part of humannature, or the best we have. However, we exist in aworld with massive poverty and huge disparitiesin terms of access to power and wealth. Rampantpolitical and economic corruption, waste,ineficiency and ecological destruction are justsome other terrible features of this particularglobal society. However, if the state and capitalismare inevitable and immovable, this then mustmean that suffering, poverty and domination arenatural to the human condition.I DISAGREE!Human nature (and the way we organiseourselves) is neither ixed nor inevitable. Weare born into societies and all societies havedominant ideas. These ideas and the alternativesoffered from within those societies are whatdetermine who we are and how we think. Ifwe are born into a society that valorises greed,surely we should expect many to be greedy. Whatabout promoting social values that are entirelydifferent?PROTEST AND THE POVERTY OFALTERNATIVESThese last few decades have seen tremendousupsurges of protest against inequality andpowerlessness. All these have risen withinlocal contextseither of failedstatist projects( M a r x i s tCommunism,the KeynesianWelfare Stateand SocialDemocracy,African Socialism,etc.) or in thecontext of postindependencestructuraladjustmentprogrammesand neo-liberalcapitalism. From Latin American indigenousstruggles, to the community struggles anduprisings in southern and northern Africa,to austerity protests in Europe and workerstruggles in East Asia, many seek not onlyslow, piecemeal reform, but also substantialsocial change.Many ideas inluence these struggles, but do manyof them actually question the dominant formsZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 36

of economic and social organisation:capitalism and the state?Here, within a global context ofperpetual protest with little reward,the ideas of anarchism and its culture ofdirect democracy, can exist as vital toolsof analysis of past and current struggles.Anarchists imagine a new world – it’seasy if you try – and seek to organise forthat vision.So, if ideas are central to the way theworld is structured now, the only way tochange the world is to mobilise others todo so using different ideas.WHAT IS ANARCHISM?It is often misunderstood – by opponentsand by those claiming the title – as chaos,disorder, lawlessness, etc. Also manyassociate it with veganism, dumpsterdiving,white punk-rockers, animalrights activists, etc.Anarchism is not a matterof self-identity – althoughmany claim the title, buthave divergent ideas forunderstanding societyand social change. It is aclear, coherent politicalideology born out of thestruggles of workers andtheir organisations andcommunities in the mid-tolate1800s, even if many don’trealise this. It is revolutionarylibertarian socialism thatseeks mass working classand peasant organisationto revolutionise social andeconomic control by dismantling thestate and capitalism; to run societyvia federations of directly democraticwork and community councils and theeconomy to meet people’s needs.Anarchism is against: economic exploitation, i.e. bosses andlandlords domination between classes andbetween individuals (sex/genderoppression, ageism, racism, etc.) political subordination, particularlyin the form of the state and othersuch hierarchical institutions whichcentralise power in the hands of a fewby affording them control over themeans of administration and coercion37 Anarchism is for: a world of individual freedom –an organised emancipation fromexploitation and domination societies and economies based onself-management by worker andcommunity councils federatedinternationally.This individual freedom can only berealised within a context of socialfreedom – this social freedom canonly be realised through mass-basedworking class revolution. We see massorganisations of counter-power –revolutionary syndicalist trade unionslinked to revolutionary communityorganisations – as the lever of revolutionand reconstruction. Anarchists workwith and in working class communitiesand organisations, spreading the ideasand principles of anarchism, to achieve aleadership of ideas, not individuals.Anarchism insists on building tomorrowtoday. These organisations of counterpower,built within the shell of thisrotten world, will function as theworker and community councils ofthe future society. Anarchism, thus, isa preigurative politics. This politicsdetermines anarchist practice today fortomorrow. It argues that the counterpowerwe build must relect and have asits principles those of the future society.ANARCHIST COUNTERCULTUREWe seek to foster a counter-culture – aculture of ideas, debate and discussion– opposed to the dominant ideas ofcapitalism, the state and hierarchy. WeCOUNTER-CULTUREbuild a counter-culture that promotesworking class pride and rejects theculture of the ruling class.As such, these organisations of counterpowermust be based on and continueto develop a counter-culture that meetsemancipatory desires.ANARCHIST PRINCIPLES 2 Direct democracyDecisions in movements should be madeto ensure everyone has an equal say andthat power is located with all members,not a few oficials. This empowerspeople; it enables them to have a voiceand builds people’s conidence; and onlya conident working class can end allforms of oppression. Direct actionThese include protests, strikes,occupations, etc. againstcapitalist and state bosses.The reforms won throughsuch actions build counterpowerand the workingclass’s conidence – in itselfand its organisations. Self-managementWe ight for true workercontrol and people’s powerover their organisations. Ifbased on direct democracyand with the conidence ofdirect action, workers andpeople control their ownorganisations and are notbeholden to a middle class,more educated stratumthat dominates people’s struggles anddetermine their campaigns.We aim for respect, mutual aid andsolidarity as the basis of organisation.We should also ight oppression withinour organisations and in the workingclass to build relations of solidarity inour movements today.HISTORY AND EXAMPLESOF ANARCHIST COUNTERCULTUREAnarchist working class organisationshave used a variety of cultural toolssuch as music, poetry, art, selfeducation,organising and drama toZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14

COUNTER-CULTUREThe 1970sand 80s...offer us clearlessons to bestudied. Massorganisationalcounter-powerto capitalismand apartheidwas built andproduced amass workingclass counterculture.Thisspread throughnot just protest,but pamphlets,newsletters,struggle songs,plays andmagniicentposters.build this counter-culture. These promoted notonly anarchism and struggle, but importantphilosophical and social questions relatedto their communities. They used a variety ofmeans, like radio stations, plays, spoken andwritten word, to build a revolutionary countercultureamongst the working poor. They builtcultural centres, schools and took over urbanspaces that regularly hosted counter-culturalpicnics, discussion sessions, parades, carnivalseven! Counter-culture laid the basis foranarchist revolutions in Spain, Manchuria andUkraine which were built over many decadesof education, direct action and organisation.Anarchist slogans and songs persist even today:e.g. the popular Cosatu slogan, “An Injury To OneIs An Injury To All” is the original slogan of thesyndicalist (anarchist trade union) IndustrialWorkers of the World (IWW). Migrant workers,exiles and publications helped spread anarchistand syndicalist ideas globally.RECENT COUNTERCULTURE IN SAThe 1970s and 80s particularly offer us clearlessons to be studied. Mass organisationalcounter-power to capitalism and apartheid wasbuilt and produced a mass working class counterculture.This spread through not just protest, butpamphlets, newsletters, struggle songs, playsand magniicent posters.ART, COUNTERCULTUREAND CHANGEArt continues to play a vital role in spreadingideas, whether progressive or not. A consumeristpop and rap culture exists as a strong pole ofattraction to many young people globally. Itinluences the way we talk, what we wear, whatwe want to do with our lives and how we viewthe world.However, a revolutionary counter-culture on itsown does not make revolution. Ideas must beapplied and these ideas need to serve to empowerpeople to contribute to creating change withothers. If artists really want to change the world,this desire and their art must be linked with andto working class struggles and organisations (inSA this means the black and African workingclass in particular).With that, we also need to move from relectionto active contribution.Not only could our artists and the culture theypromote relect society, it could contribute toan understanding of the issues that affect themajority of human kind and offer a coherent wayforward out of misery and domination.We need a large scale working class counterculturebased on principles of direct democracy,self-management and revolution; history hasshown this as the only ways to ight against theimpact of dominant ideas on all our lives. Our artneeds to inspire, relect and direct. To show thatnot only is there an alternative and what that is,but also that we are building and mobilising, withsong and dance, word and movement, towardscreating that future now!Anarchism has the tools for this.Ideas can empower!Ideas can emancipate!Forward to the anarchistsocial revolution!1. This is not to say that anuncritical, often sexist andracist Hip Hop culture hasemerged and lourishedwithin the mainstreammedia. It is merely tosuggest that the roots ofHip Hop are far from this,in the lives of ordinarypeople struggling undersexist, racist oppression,exploitation and poverty.2. Thanks to ShawnHattingh and hisPowerPoint presentation“Anarchism and aRevolutionary Counterculture.”ZABALAZA: A JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM - No. 14 38

What does the ZACFstand for?Zabalaza means struggle, the connual struggle of theworking class to access real freedom. We mean freedomfrom the repression of the state, and oppression by mulnaonalas well as local companies. Too long has a small elitebeen in control. Workers and their communies have risenup many mes in the past but have always been crushed bythe police forces of the state. In the past the working class– including the poor and unemployed –has protested butoen lost: social movements have burnt out and trade unionleaders have made bad deals with the bosses.We advocate workers’ self-management over the mines,factories – and all other workplaces. Also, self-managementin our communies to make our own decisions on theAnarchist ideas, made real through polical educaon andmass organising, will confirm the power within the workingclass to organise and smash the state and company system.Anarchist ideas are not as widespread within southern Africaas in other parts of the world.To build for anarchism, we all need to be in agreementabout our strategic plan and our polical ideas. So, we needto reflect on the past mistakes and successes in order toregroup. Mass movements will be stronger if we are all clearon one vision. Once we are all clear on the same posion wecan proceed to the revoluon to overturn the state, and livein a true communist society not run by polical or “worker”pares, or vanguards.This new (anarchist) society will be self-controlled. It willbe based on working class power from below, grassrootsdemocracy, producon for need not profit or elite power,and a democrac milia (army) under the control of theworking class.resources we need to run ourlives, to have access to water,electricity, jobs, housing and toreceive decent educaon.We cannot achieve this under thesystem of the state and policalpares, because these only serve thesmall ruling class elite. This rulingclass enjoys the lion’s share of wealthand power, and uses the resourcesof society to benefit itself, first. So,there is not enough public transport,but there are factories making BMWsfor the elite few; there is not enoughfood for the people, but rich peoplespending millions of Rands on pares,billions are spent on arms deals whilethe poor die in run-down governmenthospitals.We want a revoluonary front of the oppressed classes. Wewant to organise in the southern part of Africa from SouthAfrica to Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia,Mozambique, Malawi. In all these regions the vast majorityof the working class is black. Most of these countries foughtfor liberaon from imperialist powers and local colonialism,but today we, the working class, are sll oppressed in ourwork environment, and sll have to connually struggle forequal access to land, water and electricity. This can onlyend by revoluon from below. It cannot change throughelecons, which betray the people, or policians, who cheatthe people, or capitalists, who exploit the people.Anarchist specific organisaons in Southern Africa and therest of the world need to keep comrades in check to not behijacked by polical pares. Because ulmately the state isthe enemy, it will not solve the class struggle – it serves theruling class, not the people. So, we must organise outsideof elecons, outside of the system, from below, in massorganisaons that are democrac and that have a clearpolical (anarchist) line.- Contact for more informaon -Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front+27 72 442 1256 | www.zabalaza.net | zacf@riseup.netPostnet Suite 47, Private Bag X1, Fordsburg, South Africa, 2033

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