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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