Sheep magazine Archive 2: issues 10-17

50
force that is understood to have betrayed
the national struggle by entering into a
self-serving set of alliances to sustain the
enduringly colonial structure of society. The
horizon of struggle is much longer, and
often more modest. Progress is understood
to be a matter of resilience and resolve over
the long haul, with most gains taking an
incremental form.
But with a widening split within the ANC,
and trade unions and organized students
breaking from the ANC, there are new
prospects for building alliances and
solidarities outside of the ANC – alliances
that could potentially enable a greater
political reach on the part of what Abahlali
baseMjondolo have termed, with reference
to the self-organization of the oppressed,
“the strong poor”. The splits in the ruling
party have already offered some respite to
the movement and, in one neighborhood,
a tactical local alliance with Communist
Party structures has helped to secure the
– previously unimaginable – arrest of two
ANC councilors for the assassination of an
Abahlali baseMjondolo leader.
If the idea of the commune has a future
here it will have to be appropriated by the
oppressed and rethought from within their
actually existing strivings and struggles. This
would have to include the work of making
sense of a moment of political opportunity
as the collapse of the moral authority of the
ANC spreads from the shantytowns, to the
mines, factories, parliament and university
campuses.
Richard Pithouse
Richard Pithouse teaches politics at the
university currently known as Rhodes
University in Grahamstown, South Africa.
His new book is Writing the Decline:
On the Struggle for South Africa’s
Democracy (Jacana).
From 2003, about Durban’s Cato Manor
township ColdType Modern Classics
present,
‘White Man Walking’ by Denis Beckett
Free to download at www.coldtype.net
SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER ELEVEN