NDC WON’T DIE-Koku Anyidoho

Koku Anyidoho

By Ekow Biney

Mr Koku Anyidoho, Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) says emphatically that the party will not die.

He told an interviewer on Radio Gold that the NDC will rebound and win the 2020 elections.

In his first public comment on the 455 paged Kwesi Botchway report, Mr Anyidoho said the Committee did an excellent job and the party would study its recommendations for implementation.

“Everything in the report confirms my own analysis of the defeat of the party and how we can rebounce”, he said.

Mr Anyidoho was emphatic that all groups which operated outside the party’s formal framework need to be discarded.

He said it was important for the NDC to rely on party structures for organizing its election campaigns.

He was hopeful that the national leadership of the party would work hard to unite the rank and file behind the agenda of winning the 2020 elections.

According to him the reorganization of the party will start from the polling station level through the constituencies to the national level.

He cleverly refused to endorse any of the self-proclaimed presidential aspirants emphasizing the point that the most important thing now is the reorganization of the NDC.

Editorial

TROUBLE AHEAD

The warning by Russia that it would treat US and allied aircraft which fly over its bases in Syria as enemy aircraft must be taken seriously.

It could worsen the escalation which was started by the United States of America and plunge the Middle East and the Gulf into a huge global conflict.

Of course, the Russians have a point because the US has already bombed a Syria Air force base and shot down a Syrian aircraft.

It is clear that the US’s actions in Syria have been particularly reckless and in defiance of international law.

The main objective of the US in Syria is to topple the Government of President Assad.

The Insight rejects US adventurism in Syria but still urges Russia and her allies to remain calm.

A major conflagration in Syria could have serious consequences for the whole world.

Local Stories:

Army worms attack 706-acre farms

By Yussif Ibrahim

A total of 706 acres of maize and rice farms in the Asante-Akim South District have come under invasion by the fall army worms.

Dr. David Anambam, the District Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), who confirmed this to the GNA, said about 95 per cent of the affected farms had been cultivated with maize and the remaining five per cent, rice.

He complained about inadequate chemicals to fight the worms and contain the spread of invasion.

He indicated that chemicals supplied to the district could only spray 162 acres of farms, leaving a shortfall of about 544 acres.

Dr. Anambam spoke of the urgent need to send more of the chemicals to the area to save the crops from being ravaged, something that could have serious implications for food security.

He stated that the extension officers were on the field, working hard to educate and help farmers to correctly apply the chemicals to neutralize the worms.

The District MOFA Director, touched on the ‘planting for food and jobs’ programme, and said in excess of 1,200 farmers had been registered to participate in the programme.

He announced that, they had taken delivery of 186 bags of maize, 60 bags of rice and 3000 bags of fertilizer, alongside tomato and pepper seeds, for distribution to the farmers.

Dr. Anambam noted that in spite of the huge subsidies on the inputs, many of the farmers were finding it difficult to pay for these.

He said this had been the only challenge – a barrier to participation in the programme by otherwise many a farmer eager to be part of the programme.

Parliament Queries Ghana’s Readiness for Terrorist Attacks

Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa

By Benjamin Mensah

Parliament on Wednesday threw the searchlight on the threat of global terrorism, querying how prepared the nation was to deal adequately with the phenomenon should it strike in the wake of recent attacks in some neighbouring countries.

Members queried the level of the security of the House itself, the hotels, the shopping malls, the universities and the beaches among others and citing the reason for terrorist attacks in some East African countries, pointed out that the nation was not safe because it also contributed to peace-keeping missions across the world, for which some of those countries had been attacked.

The issue took centre-stage following a statement by Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, MP for North Tongu and Ranking Member on Foreign Affairs.

He said: “Right Honourable Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to make this statement which seeks to denounce terrorism, solidarise with sister nations affected in these horrific times and share some perspectives on the global fight against terror.

“Mr Speaker, depraved terrorists are determined to make 2017 another year of senseless terror.

“Only last week, the Parliament and Mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran were attacked killing 17 people and leaving 52 injured. Before this, Britain came under another attack in as many months when terrorists armed with a van and knives inflicted mindless horror on pedestrians on London Bridge and the Borough Market leaving eight dead and 48 injured.

“This happened at a time Britain and the world were yet to recover from the shock of the Manchester Arena bombing that claimed the lives of 22 persons and injuring 116 concert goers most of whom were teenagers. Preceding this was the vehicle and stabbing attack at Westminster that left five dead and 49 injured.

Earlier in April, Russia was at the mercy of a suicide bomber who blew up Saint Petersburg Metro on the day Vladimir Putin was due to visit the city, killing 16 people and injuring 64.

“Mr Speaker, other nations such as the United States of America, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, India, Australia, Colombia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Algeria, Egypt, Mali and Libya have not been spared this evil visitation.

“Indeed, thus far, in 2017 alone, Wikipedia's tracking of terrorists attacks on its Lists of Terrorist Incidents concludes as follows: January recorded a total of 156 incidents, February recorded a total of 117 incidents, March recorded a total of 106 incidents, April recorded a total of 99 incidents, May recorded a total of 152 incidents with June so far recording 47 incidents.

“In essence, 2017 has so far recorded a scaringly mind boggling 677 terrorists incidents and we are only in the middle of the year.

Without a scintilla of doubt, the global fight against terror must engage the attention and effort of all of mankind including this Parliament.

Mr Ablakwa reminded the House that “an attack on any citizen of the world and on any nation must equally be an attack on us, and “we share a common humanity and these incidents diminish humanity in its universality,” and it ought not to be lost on Ghanaians that “the effects of this terror jamboree even when we are not directly victims impacts adversely on our daily lives.”

“The downright humiliation we go through at airport checkpoints when travelling since 9/11 is a clear example. The invasion of our privacy by Governments and the global intelligence community has left all of us virtually naked in the current scheme of things.

The North Tongu Legislator cautioned against the temptation to assume that because Ghana has so far escaped unscathed, it may not be a target of terrorist organisations, which might make the nation opt for a business as usual approach.

“The reality is that modern terrorism is a messy free for all without boundaries and limitations and no country or nationality stands immuned, “Mr Ablaka said, and urged the House to ensure that it offered all the assistance Members could marshal to support all three arms of Government in protecting the nation’s territorial integrity and guaranteeing safety of all Ghanaian lives.

Rt. Hon. Mike Ocquaye Junior

“Mr Speaker, in this fight against global terror, we must begin to make some honest admissions. We must concede that we have not been that successful in this fight because we are not confronting certain hard truths.

“Though there can be no justification for terrorism, all nations must commit to building a fair and just world. We cannot continue to actively fund and resource terrorist groups to fight our enemies on our behalf in myopic suicidal proxy wars in Syria, Libya and Iraq and still expect to achieve positive results in the war against terror.

He commended the nine Arab countries who last week cut diplomatic ties with Qatar demanding that Qatar stops funding terrorist groups, and called for more of this to happen even to the greatest of nations who stand implicated in tacitly supporting terrorist organisations and their warped ideologies when it suits these nations.

He said: “When we pretend publicly we do not negotiate with terrorists but succumb to their ransom demands behind the scenes, we resource them and by so doing sustain their reign of senseless cowardice,” and “ that weapon manufacturers and the wealthy Chief Executives of Cyberspace must stop abdicating.

“We cannot continue to allow these companies to go scot-free as they enjoy their blood-stained profits. Likewise, sanctions must apply to social media owners who allow their mediums to be used to radicalise the youth and recruit terrorists,” Mr Ablakwa said.

While condemning the appalling media reportage of some terrorist attacks, Mr Ablakwa called for a total media blackout of the terrorist attacks and rather Highlight “bravery and emphasise how these attacks do not affect the foundations of our great human values.

“It also serves no useful purpose for the statements of terrorists taking responsibility after these attacks to be given media coverage.

I contend that there's no need publishing the identities of terrorist groups responsible for any attack. This information is only useful to the intelligence community and should be left with them.

“The media should aim at achieving total blackout of terrorist organisations and starve them of the cheap pleasurable publicity they currently enjoy and use as trophies. The only time the media should focus attention on them should be when they are being defeated and retreating.  The media can decide to be a more useful ally in defeating global terror and undermining the recruitment drive of these psychopaths from hell or they may decide to continue to offer pleasure.”

However, Mr Ablakwa’s commendation of Saudi Arabia and a number of Arab countries including Egypt and Bahrain for cutting ties with Qatar for funding terrorist groups drew reactions from Defence Minister Dominic Nitiwul and former chairman of Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, Patrick Yaw Boamah, who asked that Ghana stays neutral in the tussle between the Arab countries so as not to draw attention to the country.

The Defence Minister assured the nation that the Ghana Armed Forces are ready to defend the nation at all times.

Deputy Majority Leader Ms Sarah Adwoa Safo queried why some youth engaged in violent acts on the grounds of unemployment, advising that there was hope to secure a decent job one day. “Is it a decent job to go and kill people?” she queried.

Minority Chief Whip Alhaji Mubarak Muntaka, Mr Alhassan Suhyini MP for Tamale North, and Mr Alex Afenyo-Markin, MP for Efutu Constituencies stressed that Islam is a religion of peace and people should not hide behind religion to engage in terrorist attacks.

GNA

News from Africa:

How to Tackle Youth Unemployment in Africa

By Yves Niyiragira

Why do African governments seem unable to create jobs for their teeming throngs of young people, who are then forced to make dangerous journeys abroad in search of a better life?

Wrong economic models. In addition, nations waste resources through corruption and investing in huge militaries and police forces often deployed against dissidents. Crooked leaders collude with the West to steal Africa’s resources to develop Europe. So, what would stop young people from following African stolen resources to the West?

On 14 September 2016 evening, I was at Bole International Airport, Ethiopia, going back to Kenya after attending a conference on migration that was co-organised by the Centre for Citizens’ Participation on the African Union (CCP-AU) and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES)’s African Union (AU) Cooperation office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

That conference, which brought together officials from the AU, the European Union (EU), representatives of international organisations and of the African and European civil society, was an opportunity to reflect on, among other things, the status of the implementation of various commitments made at the Valletta Summit on Migration that took place in Valletta, Malta, in November 2015.

As a reminder, the EU called for the Valletta Summit after numerous tragic events of migrants dying while crossing the Mediterranean Sea including more than 800 refugees who died in a single day in April 2015 when their boat capsized. The Valletta Summit was supposed to encourage political co-operation between Europe and Africa in addressing causes of dangerous migration and to combat human smuggling and trafficking.

At that CCPAU-FES conference, participants reflected on what has been done so far almost one year after the Valletta Summit. Some of the participants deplored the fact that many policymakers, especially those in Europe, avoid addressing the root causes of migration including youth unemployment, political instability and dictatorial regimes—that might have the support of European countries—among other causes in a number of developing countries. Many migrants do not leave their countries because they just want to settle in Europe or North America; they do so because they are forced to leave or because they do not see any future for them and their families in their home countries. That absence of a promising future can be a result of many causes including those mentioned above.

What is, most of the times, avoided is to acknowledge the fact that some of the root causes of migration to the West might be a result of structural socio-economic and political policies that are promoted and reinforced by some of the same European countries that only focus their analysis on African migrants as the “problem” threatening the “wellbeing and security” of Europe.  That is obviously a very shallow way of looking at the complex issue of migration. It would also be a naïve assumption to say that problems that force Africans to leave their countries to the West are all a result of foreign interference. Africans and their leaders do largely contribute to forcing their fellow Africans into exile.

Going back to Bole International Airport, it was as if I were participating in a practical session of the migration conference that I was attending just a few hours earlier. I experienced firsthand one of the main causes of migration of Africans to other continents—youth unemployment. At Bole International Airport, I was queuing with hundreds of young Ethiopian women, barely 20 years old, and all looking more or less lost and in need of some helping hand to get around. Almost all of them were carrying new passports ready to be used for the first time.

I looked around and tried my luck to find out more about where those innocent young women were heading. I asked one of them, “Where are you going?” “Beirut”. She replied. “Oh, to Lebanon!” I added. “Are you going to Beirut too?” She asked me. I said I was going to Nairobi, Kenya. When I wanted to find out if all of them were going to Beirut, she was not sure about that, but I later on learnt that the whole group was going to Beirut.

I immediately reflected on the meeting I was attending a few hours earlier, especially on various proposals that were shared – and not just in that particular conference, but also in many such conferences—to deal with the crisis of African young people who risk their lives going to Europe and other continents in search for better opportunities. Finding jobs for these young people is what many commentators and analysts propose as a solution to tackling illegal migration.

However, when people say, “creating jobs for the youth” or “tackling youth unemployment in Africa”, it is not clear if everyone who says that knows what they really mean or if they know how it can be achieved. I bet it is not an easy endeavour to create jobs for all African young people using the current economic models we see in Africa.

It was not my first time to see hundreds of young Ethiopian women at the waiting hall of Bole International Airport, just a few minutes away from taking their first flights to countries such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates and Lebanon in search for employment. All these young Ethiopian women leave their country with high hopes of better living conditions and a bright future for them and their families. For a country like Ethiopia that is the second most populous in Africa, it can be a challenging endeavour to find employment for its population that some estimates place at more than 100 million people; most of them being young people as it is the case in the rest of Africa. However, I wonder if it can still be difficult to employ all African people if the whole African continent approached the issue of youth unemployment as a first priority.

One of the reasons why African countries are not able to provide employment for their young people is that they employ economic models that they neither understand nor control. Africa needs its own economic models to tackle its economic issues including the need to create jobs for its people, especially the youth. Some economic activities done in Africa are designed to satisfy needs of other continents and not to serve the wellbeing of African people.

Young people who are tempted to leave Africa to other continents are not just leaving their continent in search of employment; they are also hoping to be able to easily access, in Asia, Europe, North America and in the Middle East, basic needs such as food, education, decent shelter and housing. African countries should design their economic models in such a way that economic services are able to provide these basic needs so that “no one is left behind” in the journey to prosperity.

What is worth stressing, though, is that Asia, North America, Europe and the Middle East are not the first destination of African people leaving their own countries. Most Africans, especially young people, leave their countries to other African countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Senegal and Ghana that are perceived to offer more opportunities compared to their neighbours in their respective regions. These young African women and men moving from one African country to another could be fleeing persecution at home, running away from political environments that do not offer any hopes for the future or simply in search for better opportunities.

Another important reason that forces them to leave their countries is that in many African countries, political leaders are preoccupied with “putting in place enabling environments for investors” rather than meeting basic needs of their people. As such, ordinary African people do not feel part of that “enabling environment” and have not choice, but to leave. For Africa to be competitive at the global level, it has to channel its resources into economic activities that are able to provide food, shelter, health care and education to for all African people. Other economic models are serving the interests of other people, not ordinary Africans.

Going back to the case of those Ethiopian young women, could we say that Ethiopia is really unable to provide employment for them? Or the country has prioritised other sectors including the military and intelligence to the expense of funding sectors such as agriculture, health, education and housing? That is not a particular challenge of Ethiopia alone; many African countries put a considerable amount of their resources in sectors that do not add real value to the wellbeing of their citizens. If an African government wants to repress a certain category of its own citizens, they will invest in their military, police and intelligence rather than provide social services to respond to demands from that category of their citizens. In many cases, these demands are about opportunities to access basic needs that were mentioned early.

As such, one would argue that apart from using inadequate economic models, many African leaders also waste their countries’ resources in suppressing their own citizens through strengthening their military and police. They also collude with Western countries to steal African resources to develop Europe. As a consequence, some African young people think that the solution is to follow African resources where they are in West.

While this article acknowledges that there is no single solution to resolving youth unemployment in Africa, it argues that African leaders need to start from somewhere. They need to abandon Western economic models that do not serve their people. They need to stop wasting African resources in the so-called “defence strengthening” activities to the expense of vital sectors such as health, education, agriculture and housing. African leaders also need to strop colluding with Western countries in stealing Africa’s wealth. Finally, Western countries need to stop supporting African dictators who are only in power to serve their interests and those of their Western backers.

In other words, African young people are the ones who would create employment for themselves by saying “no” to African leaders who are unable and unwilling to put African resources in the vital sectors mentioned above. This is also where global solidarity plays its role; ordinary citizens in Europe, Africa, North America and the rest of the world should to say “no” to our leaders and their corporate clients that the 21st century is a century for humanity and not for multinational corporations. An economic model that puts humanity first is the only one that can survive the test of time. That economic model is what Africa needs to be able to employ its young people; it is what humanity needs.

* Yves Niyiragira is Executive Director of Fahamu, publisher of Pambazuka News.

Source: Pambazuka

“Zuma Must Fall” and the Left: Lessons from Zimbabwe

By Munyaradzi Gwisai

Faced with a growing crisis, President Zuma has raised the prospect of a radical reorientation of the ANC and the possibility of radical economic transformation. Alarmed, another faction of the South Africa’s capitalist class has thrown its support behind the Zuma Must Fall movement. In this article Zimbabwean socialist Munyaradzi Gwisai unpicks the situation in South Africa. He explains that the working class and poor must avoid the dangers of both Zuma’s ‘fake left-turn’ and the Zuma Must Fall protests. What are the lessons, Gwisai asks, for South Africa from the movement that rose-up against Mugabe in Zimbabwe in the late 1990s?

South Africa is at a crossroads, facing its biggest upheavals since independence in 1994. Globally, since the 2008 Great Recession there are growing explosive class and social conflicts due to the deepening crisis of capitalism.

Economic apartheid remains a stark reality today. According to OXFAM South Africa is the most unequal country in the world where a 10 per cent minority, largely white, controls 65% of the wealth; 3 white male billionaires own as much wealth as half the population, 28 million people. Blacks control only 3% of companies listed on the JSE. Over 85% of the land is owned by 20000 white farmers, or 0.03% of the population. Whilst only 4.1% of white workers earn less than the living wage of R6880, about 71% of blacks earn less than this with over 50% of black youths unemployed. According to Forbes Index, one third of Africa’s richest billionaires live in South Africa. A few blacks have been co-opted like Cyril Ramaphosa, the former trade union leader, who is worth an estimated $450million.

The central theme of South Africa in the last decade is the growing revolts of the poor and workers. From the township social service delivery protests, the great Marikana Strike, the five months’ platinum miners strike, the Cape farm strike, to the 2015-6 Fees Must Fall protests. Long before Zuma’s recent condemnation of the concentration of wealth in the country, leading figures of big white capital were raising the issue. Johann Rupert, until recently the richest person in South Africa, said ‘we cannot have 0.1 percent taking all the spoils’, and that the nightmare that kept him awake was the coming class warfare, unless the ‘glaring inequalities in this country’ were fixed. [2] Similarly, in 2014 billionaire Nick Hanauer denounced ‘the idiotic trickle-down policies’ as not working and that ‘No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out… Or an uprising… It’s not if, it’s when.’

So, the worsening poverty, an unreformed Apartheid economy, a global neoliberal offensive and the escalating revolt of the poor is the central issue in South Africa today. It is in this context that we have to view the rapid rise of Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), articulating such anger, even if opportunistically and increasingly erratically.

The ruling classes are tearing each other part. The traditional wing sees the solution as increasing the neoliberal austerity offensive against the working classes. But a growing minority is calling for a partial retreat from the neoliberal policies towards economic nationalism.  We saw this with Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe after 1997. Desperate after losing key towns in the 2016 local authority elections, Zuma is attempting the same with a threatened radical economic transformation. In early April he dismissed Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, who was supported by big white capitalists. This has touched off the Zuma Must Fall protests of tens of thousands by the opposition, supported by some of South Africa’s biggest capitalists.     

                      

This article considers the way forward and argues that the popular classes must not repeat the mistake of the Zimbabwean working class whose uprisings in 1997-2002 were eventually co-opted by their class enemies. I look briefly at the experience of Zimbabwe from the late 1990s, then examine in detail the situation in South Africa. What can South Africa’s popular movements learn from their northern neighbour?  

Revisiting Zimbabwe

In 1999 the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was formed. The MDC—initially founded as a pro-poor coalition with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU)—swore to unseat the ruling party. Activists who had participated in the mass poor and working-class struggles of the mid-1990s set up branches across the country. One leader, who later became finance minister of the discredited Government of National Unity in 2008, Tendai Biti, described the period of revolt: ‘This was a momentous occasion in the history of this country because it brought confidence—you could smell working-class power in the air.’

This was not an exaggeration. Between 1996 and 1998 Zimbabwe saw national public-private sector strikes, the first general strike since 1948, a shutdown of the national university in the capital, and a nationwide student revolt—which politicized war veterans. Ex-fighters from the 1970s liberation war supported by poor peasants seized farmland in a widening arch of protest that challenged the ruling party’s power. Yet the opposition became increasingly cautious, facing repression that claimed the lives of hundreds of activists. The MDC moved right. As the party grew in influence it attracted a markedly mixed crowd of supporters. Unreconstructed “Rhodesians”—remnants of the white settlers, who had kept their land and farms after independence—business owners, and the Zimbabwean 1 percent, all disillusioned by ZANU-PF, which they had supported for years, flocked to the new party.

President Robert Mugabe

ZANU-PF saw its opportunity. It started to champion the war veterans and encourage their occupation of white farms after it was defeated in a referendum in 2000. ZANU-PF became the representatives of land-poor Zimbabweans. In simultaneously bizarre and disheartening circumstances, the MDC— now under the influence of white interests, business owners, and the middle class— promised to return the farms to white landholders in the interest of “legality.” ZANU-PF outflanked the MDC from the left and presented itself as a party of a radical African renaissance. Zimbabwe, the party said, was undergoing its third Chimurenga (uprising).

Mugabe presented himself as the champion of a renewed fight against colonialism. He was often taken at his word—his redistribution of land as well as his promises to nationalize businesses and introduce price controls on basic foodstuffs seemed to testify to his sincerity. But the reality was dramatically different. As the Zimbabwean socialist, Tafadzwa Choto, has recently commented: ‘For all of its black empowerment bombast, [ZANU has failed] to make any serious efforts at controlling the country’s riches for itself. Zimbabwe is endowed with vast mineral wealth with only a minority, approximately 1 percent, enjoying access to enormous wealth in kick-backs from deals with multinational corporations. At the same time more than 90 percent of the population struggle to afford to send their children to school.’

Having briefly inspired the struggle against the ZANU-PF state—the high point of popular resistance across the continent—the opposition entered a protracted period of meltdown. It fractured into different groups led by various politicians and NGOs, which funneled activists in other directions. Ultimately the political opposition, now operating in non-profits or mobilized by contaminated political parties, disarmed the movement from below and shifted the public’s attention from the actual struggle to other arenas—paid workshops, foreign scholarships, and political stunts.

What is happening in South Africa, and how can its radical movements and parties learn from Zimbabwe?

Radical economic transformation

The radical socialist trade union, NUMSA, is correct to point out that both elements of the capitalist class, those pushing for further and deeper neoliberalism, and those wanting a partial retreat, are the enemies of the working classes and should not be supported. But the working classes must strategically intervene in the unfolding struggles and debates, to take advantage of the splits amongst our rulers and push a radical agenda.  

The popular classes should strategically support the call for radical economic transformation, even if called by a corrupt and desperate Zuma. Yet they must not join the opposition-led and big capital supported Zuma Must Fall marches and instead accelerate the struggles for the immediate implementation of anti-neoliberal and pro-poor policies to end the apartheid economy.

Such a radical reformist narrative goes to the root of the unfinished business of 1994, where the ANC–SACP (South African Communist Party) elites, in return for a few crumbs, betrayed the Freedom Charter demand of nationalization of the mines, banks and redistribution of land. Instead they agreed to a rotten deal which ended political apartheid but left the economy in the hands of a tiny elite of white and international capitalists who grow fatter on the super-exploitation of the black working classes.

The Zuma Must Fall campaign seeks to change the central narrative in society, from the rising struggles against the unreformed apartheid economy, to that of Zuma’s corruption. While important, this is not the central issue, instead it seeks to disguise, co-opt and neutralize the rising struggles.

General Secretary, Jim Irvin of NUMSA, noted on 5 April that it would not join the anti-Zuma marches for ‘NUMSA cannot allow the working class to be used for advancing the interests of its enemy classes once again, to endorse a narrow neoliberal agenda.’

As an alternative, NUMSA called for mass protests for the implementation of the Freedom Charter and radical demands, including full employment, a national minimum living wage, fully paid maternity leave, universal medical cover, decent housing for all, expropriation of land without compensation, industrialization, free quality and decolonized education, and that the mines, banks and monopoly industry be placed under democratic worker control. After some hesitation and confusion, the leadership of COSATU, likely under pressure from its rank and file, took the same position, declaring, ‘We will never march with the agents of monopoly capital to remove a democratically elected government… our strategic enemy is still monopoly capital and white monopoly capital in particular… We refuse to be useful idiots of those who want to … protect their ill-gotten wealth and inherited privileges.’

Marching with the Democratic Alliance and Big Capital

Joining the Zuma Must Fall campaigns, as done by ex-COSATU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and much of the left, is very dangerous. The forces that have coalesced around these campaigns are huge, with the biggest war chest of any movement on this continent, desperate to avoid another ‘Zimbabwe situation’ in South Africa.

Comparison with what the left did in Zimbabwe in 1997- 2002, joining the MDC, is wrong. Zimbabwe is a highly authoritarian regime, unlike South Africa which has the most advanced bourgeois democracy in Africa. The left was tiny in Zimbabwe. Yet as we have seen there was a rising working class movement, and the MDC was contested terrain. This is not the case with the anti-Zuma campaign, which is entirely submerged under big neoliberal white capital, whilst organized labour has stayed away. Participation of the left merely gives legitimacy to a campaign whose essential objective is to defend the status quo of the apartheid neoliberal economy and co-opt and roll back the rising revolts.

The focus must be regroupement of the small, fragmented left groups, and the hundreds of thousands of cadres in radical unions and youths, into an ideologically, organizationally and politically independent united front of the left. The launch of a radical labour federation, the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) provides a huge impetus. Especially with the growing exposure of the SACP leaders. In December 2016, the SACP called for unity against ‘the imperialist supported regime change agenda of the Zuma Must Fall agenda.’ Barely four months later the SACP supported the same marches, likely in defense of their fat ministerial salaries, which they felt threatened after the firing of Gordhan.  

Analyzing Mugabe’s landslide victory in 2013, former South African President Thabo Mbeki argued that after Mugabe had, in the face of the Southern African Development Corporation (SADC) and western resistance, delivered land to 300,000 peasants, quite simply the MDC couldn’t win the rural vote, 70% of the voters: ‘they couldn’t …because they were identified by that rural population to have opposed land reform.’ MDC had dismissed Mugabe’s land reform as fake.

Mbeki said this was why Zimbabwe, an otherwise small and unimportant country, became of ‘such enormous, global, geo-strategic importance,’ and hammered by an imperialist onslaught. He said Africa must defy this onslaught because ‘it’s about the future of our continent (and) Zimbabweans have been in the frontline in terms of defending our right as Africans to determine our future, and are paying a price for it… it is our responsibility as African intellectuals to join them, the Zimbabweans, to say, No!’

In the coming 2018 elections in Zimbabwe, after the most successful agricultural season since 2000 and with thousands of artisanal miners gold panning in previous no-go white farms plus thousands of people given stands in the towns, together with a still regimented and intimidated rural populace from the 2008 horrors, the MDC and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai, whether alone or in grand coalition with the other neoliberal opposition, face certain annihilation. Even a fractured ZANU-PF, whether under a doddering 94 years old Mugabe or whoever is his heir, will likely emerge a landslide winner.

Similarly, if the working class and left in South Africa join the regime change agenda and Zuma delivers on radical economic transformation, the poor will not forget who stood for them and who betrayed them. It will allow Zuma, like Mugabe with the MDC, to outflank them on the left, and create the basis for the long-term renewal of the bourgeois anti-poor ANC and set back by decades the building of a radical, socialist agenda in South Africa.

Dangerous to underestimate Zuma and the black capitalists

It is equally dangerous to underestimate how far Zuma and the black capitalists may go, as the NUMSA statement seems to, dismissing them as con-men ‘fighting for their own personal radical economic transformation’ and that of their families and friends.

The deepening crisis of capitalism is radicalizing sections of the beleaguered black capitalists, which desperately need state tenders and protection for survival. Cornered, this class is being pushed to play its last card – abandon its previous role as defenders for the neoliberal economy moving swiftly to economic nationalism.

Their objectives are not just personal. One objective is to wring concessions from frightened white capital. As well as win back their historical leadership of the black masses, ahead of both the ANC 2017 presidential elections and the 2019 national general elections. The 2016 local authority elections were a wake-up call just as Mugabe’s defeat in the February 2000 referendum made him take a radical shift to the left.

With their backs to the wall, especially Zuma who faces possible jail time if he loses, the black capitalists, supported by the Gupta family [wealthy South African businessmen who had banked-rolled Zuma in exchange for government tenders and contracts], may go far. They have shown serious intent by breaking the unwritten rule of 1994, that the Finance Ministry/Reserve Bank are controlled by a person approved by big capital. Zuma fired big capital’s man at the Finance Ministry in April this year, and is threatening to open the doors of the dining room to the hungry, black hordes outside. The leadership of the ANC have looked down and scorned on the junk down-grades by the global rating agencies. Internally they have dared the neoliberal wing to fight an open civil war, heckling its leaders at the Chris Hani rally. Desperate, they sense radical economic transformation as their only hope of survival, learning not only from Mugabe but they have been emboldened by renewed economic nationalism in the west. Bolstered with the resources of the Guptas and ideologically radical left Africanists led by Andile Mngxitama, they are feeling confident.

Without serious concessions to the working class, the black nationalists will not survive the unfolding tsunami from big white capital, imperialism and the pro-Ramaphosa wing of the COSATU labour bureaucracy. Preventing Zuma from addressing the COSATU May Day rally after booing from the crowd foretells this. Ironically it is Thabo Mbeki, ousted from power by Zuma who is the philosophical father of the turn to radical economic transformation by the black nationalists of South Africa, as reflected in his seminal lecture on Zimbabwe.

The junk down-grades, the mini-run on the Rand and the unprecedented demonstrations in Cape Town, Tshwane, Johannesburg, and the splits in the ANC Alliance show that big white capital is taking the threat of radical Black Nationalism seriously. It had long seen this coming.

Don’t trust Zuma and the black capitalists

It would be a mistake to dismiss the threatened radical economic transformation by Zuma as a mere con trick. Instead the central strategy must be to put Zuma to the test through mass united demonstrations and strikes in support of the demands put forward by NUMSA and COSATU, adding a strong anti-xenophobic stance to unite the multi-national South African working class. Key is a massive campaign for the state to drop Ramaphosa’s R3500 minimum wage for a minimum equivalent to a living wage. Other important campaigns being for an increase of social grants; free university education; expropriation of land without compensation, with a mass house building project from funds taken from the big banks.

The key strategy for achieving this is mass action. No less than Mbeki has vindicated this as the right strategy. He said when the farm occupations started in Zimbabwe, the leaders of SADC tried very hard to discourage Mugabe ‘from the manner in which they were handling the issue of land reform. We were saying to them, ‘Yes indeed we agree, the land reform is necessary, but the way in which you are handling it is wrong.’ We tried very hard, ‘No, no you see all of these things about the occupation of the farms by the war veterans, this and that and the other, all of this is wrong”… But fortunately, the Zimbabweans didn’t listen to us, they went ahead.’

Zuma and the black capitalists must not be trusted. If they refuse or fail to deliver, they must be exposed to the masses as fakes and liars and put to the cross, but by a working-class sword.

On their own the black capitalists are incapable of real radical economic transformation. The key reason why the Zimbabwe land reform went so far, eventually taking 13 of 15 million hectares of white land, when Mugabe had initially aimed for only 5 million, is that there was a class of radicalizing peasants led by war veterans pushing for the redistribution. But when it came to indigenization of the banks, mines, and factories, there was no such radical class, as the working class had been co-opted, or simply ‘declassed’ by deindustrialization. Not surprisingly, Mugabe faltered, and indigenization was frozen, and after 2013 agreed to a new Constitution which has the most conservative provisions on the protection of private property in the region. Big capital now seeks to turn the 30,000 new black capitalist farmers into capitalism’s long-term bedrock in Zimbabwe. Today the dominant faction in ZANU-PF and the state is an IMF-British supported neo-liberal cabal around Vice-President Mnangagwa, Finance Minister Chinamasa and the generals.

Presently there is no similar anchor for the Zuma programme, other than the black capitalists.  But as Zimbabwe shows, the national bourgeoisie are not a reliable fighter against big capital. They are petty, individualistic, notoriously timorous, inconsistent, and half-hearted.  As a component of capitalism they will compromise and back down before big capital, once political survival is assured. Ultimately their fear of the potential of the working classes revolt is much greater than their fear of their rival capitalist bedmates, big white capital. It will thus ultimately seek accommodation rather than the overthrow of capitalism.

For now, South Africa is not yet at the decisive Zimbabwe moment of 2000. Rather it is similar to November 1997 when Mugabe conceded to the demand for pensions and land by war veterans and designated over 1400 white farms for acquisition. Big capital’s warning shot was a run on the Zimbabwe dollar, 72% of whose value was wiped off on Black Friday. Mugabe held back and only decisively moved after February 2000, after losing the referendum.

South Africa is at a crossroads and can go either way. Either Zuma and the black capitalists are frightened into a retreat by the robust response of big capital, the middle-class demonstrations and the ANC right-wing, or they radicalize. Whether Zuma will indeed proceed to appropriate  Malema and the EFF’s radical rhetoric as he threatened to when calling on the ANC MPs to back the motion for expropriation of land without compensation; whether Malusi Gigaba, the new finance minister, will be what Mugabe called “amadhoda sibili” (a real man) remains to be seen. What will be critical is the working class and if it moves to take advantage of the space opened-up by Zuma’s opportunistic call for radical economic transformation. Independent mass actions in the workplace, communities and rural areas must be accelerated. Unlike Zimbabwe, peasants in South Africa are only 35%, meaning it is only the working class that can provide a sustained basis for the above radical action.

Without such mass action from the working class, Zuma and the black capitalists will likely try and give as little as possible, and minimize the backlash from big white capital and imperialism. Their fundamental objective is to buy breathing space, and political survival and not a full scale radical transformation programme that could either go beyond their control or provoke an offensive of capital and imperialism.

The fundamental contradiction of capitalism today remains the advanced and globalised productive forces and relations of production imprisoned in private ownership and the nation-state for private gain and profit instead of human need. This is shown in the obscene fact that nine male capitalists own more wealth than half of the world, or 3.5 billion people!

This contradiction can only be resolved by the socialization of the means of production at the global level under the democratic control of the main producing class, the working class – that is what we understand by socialism. A process that was pioneered a hundred years ago by the workers and peasants of Russia. Today we must continue in the path they pioneered. To succeed the fundamental lesson from the Bolsheviks, the party who led the 1917 Russian revolution, is the urgent need to build mass socialist parties to spearhead the struggles of the working classes and the poor. Today it is the turn of the South African working class to pick-up the baton! They have much to learn from the failures of the popular and working class struggles in Zimbabwe.

* Munyaradzi Gwisai, a former Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) parliamentarian, is a law lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe and coordinator of the International Socialist Organisation of Zimbabwe.

News from the Left:

Prostitution, Cuts and the Bourgeois Feministsr.

Jeremy Corbyn

By Niklas Albin Svensson

Jeremy Corbyn’s statement in favour of decriminalisation of prostitution once brought the wrath of the Parliamentary Labour Party against him. The right-wing majority amongst female Labour MPs saw their opportunity to hypocritically strike a blow against Corbyn. The evidence is clear that these MPs have supported and continue to support policies directly in contradiction with the interests of working class women.

The issue itself gives rises to a lot of heated statements, but amounts to little in practice. It is clear that the issue of prostitution will not be resolved either by decriminalisation or by banning. It is an issue that stems from inequality, poverty and deprivation, not from this or that government policy. Prostitution stems from class society, and will only be abolished with the overthrow of capitalist society.

Bourgeois politicians, always pretending to be the paragons of virtue and morality, are some of the best customers of sex workers. Male and female, adult and child, all kinds of prostitution is practiced semi-openly in Parliaments. The scandals surrounding paedophilia in the Tory Party is hardly an exception. The Jeffrey Epstein scandal included both Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew, the son of the British Queen. Chancellor George Osborn has been pictured taking cocaine with a sex worker and the Swedish King has been involved in multiple scandals involving prostitutes, including one where the Swedish Foreign Office complained about being tasked with supplying prostitutes for his trips. Strasbourg has become known as a hub of prostitution because of the presence of the European Parliament in the city, the same Parliament that recently voted overwhelmingly in favour of criminalising the buying of sex. The pious speeches of politicians against prostitution and the social ills therefrom are nothing but rank hypocrisy meant to rally votes. These politicians know full well that they will never be subject to the laws they introduce.

Similarly, the so-called “Swedish model”, which made buying of sex illegal, as opposed to selling sex, only served to get rid of “curb-crawling”. Although the change in the law undoubtedly has reduced publicly visible prostitution and reduced the number of men admitting to having seen prostitutes (who would expect otherwise), there is no reliable evidence that it has actually had any significant impact on the level of prostitution in general.

Corbyn’s critics were led by a group of right-wing female MPs, including the former Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman, who supports the “Swedish” or “Nordic model”. These women are always very keen to put themselves forward as champions of women and even claim to be wanting to help sex workers. But in reality the policies they advocate drive women into prostitution, not the other way around.

The British Parliamentary Labour Party has over the past few decades increased the number of women in its ranks significantly. The percentage of Labour MPs that are women has risen from 9% in the late 80s to 29% today. However, this was done partly on the basis of all-women shortlists, imposing right-wing female careerists on constituencies. The New Labour clique co-opted the right-wing of the women’s movement with promises of careers and positions in the party. This top-down candidate selection created a situation in which the female Labour MPs were significantly to the right of their male counterparts.

One of the first, and most controversial, measures that the Blair government introduced was a cut in single parent benefit, which obviously disproportionately affects women. This policy was fronted by no other than Harriet Harman, ironically as the first ever “Minister for Women”. In the vote, only 9 female Labour MPs voted against, which was 9% of the total, whereas among the male labour MPs 38, or 12%, voted against.

Once the policy was passed, Harman was sacked, although she returned to the government in 2001. In government, she supported the introduction of tuition fees, the war in Iraq, privatisation programmes etc. As acting leader of the Labour Party, she attempted to cajole the party into supporting the draconian Welfare Reform Bill in June 2015. She was defeated and had to settle for an abstention. Corbyn and his supporters voted against.

In the same mould was Labour MP Jess Philips, who openly declares that she only became a local councillor in order to become an MP, and makes no secret of the fact that she’s aiming for the top. She’s an unashamedly careerist politician, who has been part of carrying out some of the most draconian local government cuts in Britain, reducing the Birmingham Council workforce from 20,000 to 7,000. Here is another fine champion of women. Like Harman, she abstained on the Welfare Reform Bill.

The outcome of the all-women shortlist was a Labour group in Parliament where women were more likely to vote for attacks on women than men were. No wonder that the past decades has seen a fall of 18% in women’s participation in general elections (1992-2010), particularly among young women.

One can only wonder what these so-called feminists would have said to the mother on the BBC’s “Question Time” who tearfully demanded answers from the Tory minister Amber Rudd, another “feminist”, about the cuts to her tax credits.

A large number of women in prostitution are either single mothers or students (1 in 20 students), precisely the groups that have been driven into poverty by successive attacks, first from New Labour and then the Tories and LibDems. If one was serious about fighting prostitution, this is where one would start: social housing, cheap student accommodation, scrapping tuition fees and reversing privatisation and cuts in the public sector. In the last analysis, however, as long as class society remains, so will prostitution, only a socialist transformation of society can remove finally resolve the situation for working class women.

The so-called feminism of these politicians amounts to nothing more than simply more jobs for their female peers. Their demands are for more (right-wing) women MPs, more women local councillors, more women in business, more women in boardrooms etc. These MPs faithfully represent a layer of bourgeois women, but have nothing but scorn for working class women.

In the Labour leadership election, women, and particularly young women, were far more likely to support Corbyn than any of the women candidates. Clearly, they understand that working class women are best served by socialist policies, not bourgeois careerism.

Jeremy Corbyn: Empty homes owned by rich should be 'requisitioned' for Grenfell Tower residents

Greenfell tower on fire

By Steven Swinford, deputy political editor

Jeremy Corbyn has called for the empty homes of rich people in Kensington to be seized for Grenfell Tower residents who have been made homeless by the fire.

The Labour leader said that the London Borough was a "tale of two cities" between a wealthy south and a rich north.

He suggested that "requisitioning" expensive vacant properties could help ensure that residents are housed locally.

The Government has committed to rehousing all those who lost their homes in the fire in the local area.

However Mr Corbyn said: “Kensington is a tale of two cities. The south part of Kensington is incredibly wealthy, it’s the wealthiest part of the whole country.

Sadiq Khan confronted by residents at Grenfell Tower

 “The ward where this fire took place is, I think, the poorest ward in the whole country and properties must be found - requisitioned if necessary - to make sure those residents do get re-housed locally.

“It can’t be acceptable that in London we have luxury buildings and luxury flats left empty as land banking for the future while the homeless and the poor look for somewhere to live. We have to address these issues.”

It came as Theresa May announced a public inquiry into the blaze but faced questions over why she did not meet with residents, in contrast with Mr Cobryn.

Asked why she had not met survivors and those who lost loved ones, Mrs May replied: "Well, I visited the scene of this terrible fire this morning.

"I wanted a briefing from the emergency services. They've been working tirelessly in horrific conditions and I have been overwhelmed by their professionalism and their bravery.

"I heard stories of firefighters running into the building being protected from the falling debris by police officers using their riot shields. And we thank all our emergency services for the incredible work that they have done."

Sadiq Khan, the Labour Mayor of London, faced an angry crowd as he visited the scene of the fire.

He was confronted by a young boy who asked "how many children have died?" as he talked to an angry crowd at Grenfell Tower today.

The boy added: "What are you going to do about it?" The Mayor replied: "People are justifiably angry and I share their anger and I share their demand for answers."

He was also heckled by a supporter of Mr Corbyn about his failure to back the Labour leader and there were suggestions that a bottle was thrown at him. More than 20 police officers rushed in to calm the crowd. 

Nick Hurd, the fire minister, said that the fire was a "national tragedy" and no moment for "cool plodding democracy" as he vowed to leave "no stone unturned".

It came as a new poll found that Theresa May's poll ratings are now lower than Jeremy Corbyn's were before the General Election.

A survey by Yougov found that the Prime Minister's "favourability score" has fallen from plus 10 to minus 34. In the meantime Mr Corbyn's popularity rating has climbed by 42 points.

It came as John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, urged the unions to mobilise more than a million people to protest in London on July 1 in a bid to pressure Mrs May into standing down.