[DEBATE] : Re: white/left race matters

[eharvey]

Very interesting to watch this debate between Mandisi, Patrick and now,
below, Muna. A quick response:

1. Mandisi: any close observation and analysis of post-1994 situation will
show conclusively the ascendance of class over race, especially in the most
crucial socioeconomic materialist sense: worsening black poverty and
unemployment despite the political vote, alongside a
super-rich black elite.  But this trajectory - because of the almost
symbiotic historical racism-capitalist intersection and reinscribed more
deeply by the EFFECTS of post-apartheid neo-liberalism on the black working
class - has not diminished the significance of race and racism. It has only
reflected and refracted it more obliquely and removed it formally as a
factor of oppression and exploitation. But not even the official
'non-racialist' 'democracy' that provides the political-ideological cover
for neo-liberalism (hence oblique reflection of racial matters)can conceal
the fact that the increase in poverty and unemployment is most
overwhelmingly a BLACK working class phenomenon. This blows the formal
'non-racialist and democratic cover' wide open and lays bear the class
materialists essence of 'race' (poverty, etc). Hence the over 900 township
upsurges recently. However, what makes this possible is NOT racial matters
per se - because the official apartheid system is over - but indisputably
CLASS factors rapidly and often brutally on the rise since 1994. You can
just see how the ANC has become enmeshed in the black capitalist scene.
Strategically, politically and economically the small black capitalist class
during apartheid cannot even begin to be compared to what we have today.    

Race matters today - depending on the perspective you approach it with - can

serve various interests, but increasingly largely CLASS interests. You see
how my earlier comrades (Cyril Rampahosa, Jay Naidoo, Marcel Golding and so
many more) have exploited it in their own new/evolving class interests, made
possible by the class compromises the ANC made in the absence of any serious
left alternative. So when you say that Bond and other white lefties
peripheralise race YOU need to explain your own perspective, in which you
locate the ongoing saliency of race matters within the political economy of
neo-liberalism - otherwise your argument gets woolly and abstract. This you
DON'T do, at least not clearly.  

Let me give you another example of how 'race' is being used to serve narrow 
'African' petit bourgeoisie interests. The paper, 'City Press' is
'distinctly African'.
You will not find any leftist-Marxist analyses or commentary. It is NOT
allowed. I have personal experience with this paper. Even their big coverage
of 'Africanism' is largely of a African petit bourgeois character, with
often a lot of theoretically weak and ideologically obscure stuff, in the
name of 'Africanism'. Here you have again a cruder version of 'Africanism'
merging with class factors. These guys are well paid these days, because
they perform a big job!, part of which is to keep the left out of its
pages!!  They are close to the presidency. 

So emphasising race can serve many different, often class, purposes. You
need to focus much more on how this trajectory has unfolded since 1994. So,
I would rather be found in the company of white lefties like Patrick and
others than my black comrades of yesterday. This orientation is largely
based on class-political considerations, correctly, and not superficially on
'race'. I would, in other words, with all the criticism of Patrick I may
have and what is or may be happening at the CCS, be much closer to him than
I could ever be to my erstwhile black comrades, who have unashamedly joined
capitalism big time. They today exploit, discipline and fire black workers
as white capitalists do. In fact it is the black former socialist unionists
who are the worse, can you believe this?  But it is undeniable that white
academics/intellectuals, whether at home or abroad, are where they are today
because of the privileges they enjoyed, compared to black people and at
their expense, the world over. However, many of them do important work in
various places and it is as important to work with them wherever possible.
Despite all the justifiable criticism of the white left - in so far as 
dealing with race and racism is concerned - class has become the
overwhelmingly 
dominant factor is SA politics. This is INDISPUTABLE. 

Patrick: I think it was real lousy how you tried, quite desperately it
seemed, to placate and deflect Mandisi's concerns by referring to the
situation at the UKZN: Ashwin, the strikes, etc.
I think even Ashwin will find this odd. Really, what has that got to do with
the matters raised by Mandisi? Nothing. There is nothing so special about
what is going on there that precludes Mandisi or anyone else raising ANY
matters when they deem it fit. In fact what you had to say and the tone of
it suggested that there was some wicked agenda at work, trying,
suggestively, to deflect attention from what was going on.  

Muna: the matters Mandisi raises has equally nothing to do with Patrick
being a nice guy and questioning his commitment to a just South Africa. In
fact it did not appear that it was a personal attack against Patrick. Often,
I find, the variegated left, though they regularly dish out criticisms of
the ANC and its allies, do not themselves take kindly to criticisms, when in
fact there is so much justifiable criticisms to make. And just like the ANC
and its allies they 
can, and do, take steps, behind-the-scenes obviously, to isolate and
marginalise critics. This
goes on all the time, but imperceptibly. 

Regards   
E 

-----Original Message-----
From: muna at iafrica.com [mailto:muna at iafrica.com] 
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2006 11:40 AM
To: debate at lists.kabissa.org
Subject: [DEBATE] : Re: white/;eft race matters

Dear Mandisi

good to hear you challenge words...

from where I sit, I do not see a disjuncture between reality and what
Patrick asserts - 
all understand that race underpins, and will continue to underpin, our
society for the 
foreseeable future - only the stupid do not...but is it not true that a
relatively large 
segment of Black people have indeed joined the "upper classes" in more ways
than 
one? Those Sandton dinners where Black people compalin about their domestics
is 
real!