[Debate] I Thus Caught That Colonial Mind-Set At Work

Tue Apr 17 12:36:10 BST 2012

Hi Comrades

Comrades if anyone needs to know more about ILRIG  or any Left progressive
NGO's in South Africa we can have a separate debate on that. I could see
comrade Anna has never grasp what ILRIG stands for and what are its politics
and its mode of oparation. 

The issue here is the academia who romantacising movements and killing them.
Comrade Anna doesn't even come nearer to any discussion on that instead she
jumped to false insinuations about ILRIG and its relationship to social
movements and funding, out of context. We are not talking bais politics, we
are talking serious political blunders that have been made in our recent
history that we can draw lessons from in order to shape our future battles.
Dishonest politics, bias politics, defensive politics, shifting the focus
politics, hiding and running away from the truth have never help us coming
any closer to movement building in history and they won't help us now and in
future. 

I fully agree with fruitful and meaningful analysis that covers ILRIG and
its funding and movements, but we must not shift the focus of our debate. We
need to put things clear and straight forward here. When I speak of the
social movements I speak of a movement rebuilding outside of the parameters
of the old liberations movements that are currently displaying rotten
politics in the South African bourgeois Parliament. 

The revolutionary potential of the social movements should not be looked at
with a myopic eye, but should be looked at in a broader scope. What seems to
be absent in many comrades is the role of these movements in our struggles
and more importantly what do they represent in the present South African
political landscape. Having said that it is very important to state what do
these social movements represent. It is also important to state and give an
analysis of the nature and character of these movements and the nature and
character of their struggles. This will allow us to provide an analysis of
the nature and character of the Zuma Regime. In doing so we will provide
ourselves with a full picture of the state of affairs in our country.

My entry point starts with the nature and character of the Zuma Regime. The
Zuma regime is nothing else but a continuity of the 1996 class project of
the ANC. There is nothing new other than the continuing endorsement of GEAR
policies and the neo-liberal agenda. It must be clear that the ANC is no
longer the party that serves the interest of the working class, but serves
and responds to the pressures of the bourgeoisie and monopoly capital. The
ANC has completely distanced itself from the people who voted it into power,
while COSATU on the other hand continues to manage the struggles of the
working class. This means the working class is still under attack from the
ruling class and it is very weak and cannot at this stage wage any denting
battle against the bourgeoisie. 

This lead us to the social movements, which I believe represent a
regroupment of the working class movement outside of the ANC, PAC and other
old liberation movements. We all know that these movements are weak,
scattered, fragmented fighting isolated struggles and in many instances
they've won many important voctories. What remains the factor here is that
these movements represent a political regroupment of the working class in
South Africa, at an embryonic stage of their development. These movements,
by vitue of their nature and character, some will die out and new ones will
emerge and that is the nature of the movements and that is determined by the
nature and character of the present period, the political Lull. 

The nature of the period will always be reflected by the nature and
character of the struggles waged by the working class. At the moment the
working class is fighting defensive struggles from the shopfloor to the
community service delivery revolts. The social movements while they have
managed to sustain themselves for sometime they haven't consolidated their
national coordination to give their struggles a national character. The
trade Union movement haven't deal a deadly blow and come any nearer to dent
the political power of the ruling class. In our communities the political
rhythms and self activity of the masses is still too low, irrespective of
the current service delivery revolts. 

It is out of this understanding and analysis that I believe there is a need
to orientate to these social movements. Our political interventions should
be a two way process, joining and working with movements and learn with them
their struggles while on the other hand militants from the movements will
also learn from old and experienced comrades. This is how one will be able
to reflect more acturately on the practices of these movements. The old
comrades, intellectuals and the academics should work on a daily basis with
the movements and be part of their struggles to learn more of what movement
building is. Social movements shouldn't be the site for research on the part
academics, but they must join the movements and grasp their political
development and their political mood. This will do away with the creation
and establishment of artificial networks and united fronts that are
substituting the working class organisations as they are not even derived
from struggles. This creation of artificial fronts of movements is a
political impatience amongst the old Left comrades. And it came into being
simply because the movements are weak and they don't initiate anything, they
can't built a united front, therefore we can do it out of the blue.

All in all, comrades we need to learn from our mistakes and we need to
contiuously debate these issues as political activists. This will help us
debate our deferences, share our experiences shape our ideological
deferences to be able to chart a better wayforward for a socialist project
in South Africa.

Amandla

Mzi  

-----Original Message-----
From: debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org [mailto:debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org]
On Behalf Of Anna Majavu
Sent: 17 April 2012 12:35 AM
To: Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote information and analyses
ofinterest to the independent left in South and Southern Africa
Subject: Re: [Debate] I Thus Caught That Colonial Mind-Set At Work

ILRIG gets much of its funding by offering to educate social movements
through workshops. ILRIG used to work with unions but when they declined in
number and social movements started to grow, they then fell upon social
movements as a niche market. Even if their intentions were good, there are
tensions between the funded NGOs and the unfunded-movements all over the
world and so too in SA. This is only obvious and it should not be cloaked as
something else. White leftists applying for funding from donors and giving
their own bank account numbers to receive the money, which was then never
accounted for, were also a perennial problem for many years in the early
2000s. Fruitful and meaningful analysis would need to cover all those issues
too.

On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 12:05 AM, Mandi Smallhorne <mandiwrite at icon.co.za>
wrote:
> I tend to agree with you, Mzi. We need to look at our situation/s with 
> clear eyes and be bold about our failings and flaws. I would love to 
> see some ‘fruitful and meaningful’ analysis that would enable us to 
> understand what exactly would make for more powerful, broader 
> movements (or a movement) that could effect change that improves 
> lives, reduces inequality, takes us forward instead of backward.
>
> M
>
>
>
> From: debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org 
> [mailto:debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org]
> On Behalf Of Mzimasi
> Sent: 16 April 2012 01:50 PM
> To: 'Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote information 
> andanalyses of interest to the independent left in South andSouthern
Africa'
>
>
> Subject: Re: [Debate] I Thus Caught That Colonial Mind-Set At Work
>
>
>
> Hi Comrades
>
>
>
> Just in the level of following certain political debates, especially 
> debates relating to social movements and their mode of oparations in 
> connection with the role of academia and Left intellectuals. I find it 
> strange that a lot of academics and intellectuals are still 
> romanticising social movements. As an activist in the social movements 
> in Cape Town and working together with other movements around the 
> country, I came across what I would call a political deaseas. This 
> political deaseas has been taking place in the relationship between 
> some of the social movements and academics in South Africa. Academics 
> who popularise certain movements while doing gatekeeping for certain 
> movements, romanticising some movements while downplaying some 
> movements. This is an unhealthy political situation and a political jem
for the building of an alternative revolutionary movement in South Africa.
>
>
>
> I fully agree with Bomke in a number of things that he has articulated 
> about the relationship between academics and social movements leaders. 
> I mean I talk out of my own experience, irrespective of what Bomke is
saying.
> Comrades turn to lye about their membership numbers, they mention big 
> numbers when speaking about their constituencies.  Comrades turn to 
> mention 30 to 40 community organisations who are their constituencies, 
> but in reality it is only six communities. Comrades turn to speak of 
> thousands to attend a particular march from 30 communities only to 
> find out that the attendance is 30 people from 8 communities.
>
>
>
> Comrades there is no point in hiding our shrinking number in 
> communities and memberships. We don't have to hide our internal 
> problems, financial or otherwise, but if our organisations are weak we 
> must pretend as if they are still strong. Our role as activists and 
> militants including academics is to tell the truth to the world about the
state of affairs in our organisations.
> If our organisations are rotten we must't be shy to say they are 
> rotten and if they in coma or they are dead we must say it. There is 
> no room for romanticising the movements whiel they are incompl,ete 
> decline otherwise we won';t be in postion to say what is the state of 
> our movements so that we can derive correct strategies and tactics for 
> our wayforward. If we continue to romanticise our movements we will 
> always apply wrong strategies and tactics and we won't ever know as at 
> what stage our the development our movements is, and that is a recipe for
dissaster.
>
>
>
> I think those who write about the movements should reflect the truth 
> if we are to build an alternative revolutionary mass movements in 
> South Africa. In conclussion, it is clear that all of our movements 
> are in a complete decline, shrinking in numbers, no proper 
> organisational structures to sustain our movements, they are very 
> sectarian, unable to build a national character of their struggles. 
> This is irrespective of the current service delivery revolts tat 
> engulf the country at the moment, but even the current revolts have 
> not come at any nearer to building a national character of their 
> struggles, let alone coordination. What we currently see id the 
> building of artificial networks and united fronts built by the Left 
> that I regard them as substitute for the working class organisations as
these are not derived in struggles.
>
>
>
> Lastly, my interest in these debates is to get fruitful and meaningful 
> analysis that begins to reflect the true nature of our movements to be 
> able to chart a better wayfoward for socialist project. It is also 
> unhealthy for the academia to just defend an unjust, unhealthy 
> situation in our movements and the academia should learn to take part 
> in the actual struggles to be able to reflect correctly about the
community struggles.
>
>
>
> Revolutionary Greetings.
>
> Mzi (ILRIG/SMI)
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
>  From: debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org
> [mailto:debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org] On Behalf Of Mandisi
> Sent: 16 April 2012 12:11 PM
> To: debate-list at fahamu.org
>
>
> Subject: Re: [Debate] I Thus Caught That Colonial Mind-Set At Work
>
> hello
>
> are you talking to me?
>
> if you are, am not sure how you expect me to take you seriously when 
> you seem to insinuation that the four articles I've submitted here are
'bitchy'.
> how is the critical review I've done on Bohmke's work different to 
> what you do for a living?
>
> Mandisi
>
>
>
>
> On 16 April 2012 17:54, David Everatt <David at everatt.co.za> wrote:
>
> I don’t know any of the personalities or your sub-currents of 
> who-said-what so forgive me for not being able to grasp all that, 
> which seems to be pertinent if bitchy (and thus enormously readable). 
> What I am wondering is, what is a ‘Black social movement’, which all 
> of you (I think) have referred to? Sometime they are just social 
> movements; then they appear as South African social movements; and 
> then they appear again as Black (your upper
> case) social movements. I get the point that white 
> domination/manipulation/whatever is being battled over, but are these 
> movements being defined, or defining themselves, in racial terms? Are 
> we really heading down that path?
>
> de
>
>
>
> From: Heinrich Bohmke <bohmke at gmail.com>
>
>
> Reply-To: Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote information 
> and analyses of interest to the independent left in South and Southern 
> Africa <debate-list at fahamu.org>
>
> Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2012 15:19:13 +0100
> To: Anna Majavu <annamajavu at gmail.com>
> Cc: Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote information and 
> analyses of interest to the independent left in South and Southern 
> Africa <debate-list at fahamu.org>
>
>
> Subject: Re: [Debate] I Thus Caught That Colonial Mind-Set At Work
>
>  It is mainly a pity
>> for you because you are now typecasting yourself as an 
>> over-privileged white South African who frequently writes very 
>> demeaning things about Black people in the guise of your 
>> self-appointed role as the 'de-romanticiser' of Black movements. Yes 
>> there are a few people who buy your arguments, but they are very few 
>> and if you reflect on their motives, you will surely notice that they 
>> too are people who are not content to let Black township folks run their
own movements.
>
>
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