[Debate] (Fwd) DSM Statement on Grahamstown incident

[Patrick Bond]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	DSM Statment!
Date: 	Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:01:54 -0300
From: 	Claudia Martinez <claumaur at hotmail.com>
To: 	<pbond at mail.ngo.za>



Hi Patrick,

I am sending the DSM statment. Can you please put it on the debate list.

Thank you very much, Ciao,

Claudia

***

2012-01-23
Democratic Socialist Movement statement on the arrest of Ayanda Kota

The Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) condemns the police brutality 
against Unemployed People's Movement (UPM) chairperson Ayanda Kota which 
he was subjected to on January 12, 2012. We also denounce the police's 
arrest of Ayanda Kota in what appears to be an attempt to intimidate and 
discredit the UPM and other movements perceived by the state to be a 
threat to the present order.

The arrest, assault and charges of assault (which the police laid 
against Ayanda Kota) are, as the UPM and others have pointed out, in 
line with the increasing usage of the police and courts to undermine and 
effectively criminalise South Africa's growing protest movements. In 
combating this rising state repression, maximum unity of the various 
strands of the movement of working class people is needed, including 
support from the organised workers.

The DSM supports the call for an investigation into the assault of 
Ayanda Kota, which we believe should be conducted under the direct 
control of social movements such as the UPM and Ubuntu Women and 
Community Forum (UWCF). The findings of the investigation should be made 
public and its recommendations acted upon.

However, we also distance ourselves from the attacks on comrade Claudia 
Martinez-Mullen, an activist in the UWCF, which have formed part of the 
UPM's and other organisations' response to the arrest. The UPM on 
January 12 denounced Claudia as "someone known for strange and erratic 
behaviour" of having laid a "ridiculous", "bogus" charge "in order to 
intimidate an activist and the movement that he represents". These very 
serious accusations against a fellow comrade in the struggle of workers 
and poor people were unfortunately echoed by the Democratic Left Front 
(DLF), which attributed Claudia's resort to the police to "[her] almost 
sadistic individual campaign against the UPM ever since it did not agree 
with her political views regarding participation in the May local 
government elections". Also Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) accused "the 
academic in question" of being "another hidden tool" "legitimizing and 
justifying" the police attack.

On e-mail lists and other web forums, countless others have joined 
forces in what could be described as a petty-bourgeois frenzy of the 
political character assassination of a fellow comrade. None of those who 
have joined in this chorus of condemnation have bothered to uphold the 
basic principle of fairness -- hearing comrade Claudia's side of the matter.

Comrade Claudia has set out in her January 17 statement how and why she 
laid a charge of theft against comrade Ayanda in August 2011. She 
alleges comrade Ayanda had, without permission, taken books to which she 
attaches enormous personal value as they were given to her by her close 
friend and comrade, the late Dennis Brutus. She alleges moreover that he 
did so whilst enjoying her hospitality as she provided him with refuge 
at a time when he felt his life was threatened by the ANC Youth League. 
If true, this kind of behaviour is to say the least uncomradely.

Nevertheless, while respecting her sentiments for the books and her 
right to seek legal recourse, the DSM believes that reporting the matter 
to the police was an error of judgment. We would have advised her to go 
further in seeking to resolve the dispute through political 
interventions. Reporting the matter to the police carried the risk that 
it could be seized upon by the state, in the opportunist manner it has 
eventually done, to cause division by playing fellow comrades off 
against each other.

We therefore applaud comrade Claudia's recognition that the state has 
abused a private grievance for political purposes -- to inflict damage 
on the working class movement -- and that she therefore has withdrawn 
the charges.

We think it is unfortunate that the UPM has not acknowledged Comrade 
Claudia's action and, with others, has simply given uncritical support 
to comrade Ayanda's version of the circumstances surrounding the books, 
of the reporting of the issue to the police, and of comrade Claudia's 
political criticism of the UPM leadership.

We are appalled that, following comrade Claudia's announcement of her 
decision to drop the charges, the UPM, and later comrade Ayanda himself, 
have instead launched crude attacks on comrade Claudia's person and on 
Marxism which only the enemies of the working class will take pleasure in.

In concentrating their fire on comrade Claudia, the comrades appear to 
have overlooked the fact that comrade Ayanda was arrested by the police 
who would have done so under any other pretext if comrade Claudia's 
charges were not available. The impression is being created that the 
police should not be held solely responsible for their actions.

Marxism offers a set of tools which we use to understand the world (from 
toilets and rape to the World Bank and IMF) and to organise to change 
it. It is not akin to a set of instructions which academics impose on 
community- and workers movements, but a theory and method to which more 
and more workers and young people throughout the world, including in 
South Africa, are attracted because it can explain the reality we live 
in and chart a way forward to fulfil our hopes.

We believe it is incumbent upon comrade Ayanda to return comrade 
Claudia's books and/ or to apologise for taking them in the manner that 
he did and then treating her requests with apparent contempt.


Democratic Socialist Movement,
South African Affiliate of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI)

www.socialistsouthafrica.co.za
www.socialistworld.net

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