The Witness: What Communism?

http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=26147

What communism?
05 Aug 2009
Blessing Karumbidza

WHEN Thabo Mbeki criticised the wave of violence by poor people in 2004
and 2005, related to unsatisfactory service delivery in their areas,
some of us ignored it as consistent with his class project that sought
to empower a few black people.

However, when Blade Nzimande, the general secretary of the South African
Communist Party (SACP), condemns the current spate of strikes around the
country and recent looting of shops in Durban, and blames it on a third
force, this is very worrying. The concern here is not the condemnation
of violence but its link to a third force by someone who leads a party
that claims to represent the interests of the poor.

This begs for answers to a number of questions. Why is Nzimand­e singing
a different tune? In just a short time as a cabinet minister, has the
power alread­y gone to his head? Does he have a different agenda for the
Communist Party? Could this exp­lain why he chose to hang on to the
leadership of the party even when top members such as Jerem­y Cronin,
Gwede Mantashe and others, himself included, had been roped into
President Jacob Zuma’s administration? Is the futur­e of the SACP safe
in this country?

The poor have already been marginalised by the recent global crisis that
has deepened Africa’s woes. Sbu Zikode, the leader of the Abahlali
Basemjondolo (shack dwellers) Movement, articulated these concerns and
accepted the title of “third force”, saying the material existence of
the poor is responsible for turning them into such a force. Until the
government deals with their suffering by delivering services, these
actions will remain with us for some time. It is interesting that
government can find billions to spend towards meeting Soccer World Cup
facility require­ments on the basis of assume­d spin-offs, yet it cannot
inves­t the same kind of money in improving the lives of the masses,
which has definite potenti­al to bring the poor into the mainstream
economy and thus improve demand-led economic growth.

For Nzimande to link the actions of the masses to a third force is
highly pejorative, assuming their lack of ability to understand their
own material existence and react to it without the involvement of
outside forces. It is unfortunate that the government only understands
the language of violence. The apartheid state was an embod­iment of
management by violence. In coming to power, the new government took over
the state and has sought to monopolise that violence. Under Mbeki, the
attempts at land invasions in South Africa were crushed with military
displays through private security companies — the Red Ants.

In the worst of cases, third force pronouncements became excuses for
declaring a state of emergency and therefore a ban on any form of
protest or political activism. Ironically for Mbeki, like all the
liberals of the non-violence school of thought that included Nelson
Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, a new social orde­r could be achieved with
minima­l social friction. One would assume that as a leader of the SACP,
Nzimande would acknowledge Karl Marx’s counsel that “force is the
midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one”. However, it is
clear that coming into 1994, the SACP had eithe­r given up or changed
its mind on harnessing the real force of a revolutionary movement with
the ultimate aim of setting up new administrative organs that would
replace the old regime.

The transition from apartheid under the ANC did not push for complete
change. It was compromised from the beginning, and the SACP should have
known better. The fissures in the SACP today are about the rift in the
interpretation of what is to be done. The old guard has bec­ome
comfortable in the creature comforts of life and would rather be
associated with the ANC’s continuous compromise on the masses’ needs
while benefiting a few. On the other side is a radical youth element
that seeks to put the revolution back on its course and which has the
belief that this is not only necessary but possible. Nzimande and his
ilk in the party have become an abomination and hindrance to the
revolution, which they do not believe in any more.

The least Nzimande could have done was to educate the masses that
destroying the one clinic they have is not a clever way of getting the
seven they need and have a right to. But to equate the expressions of
frustration by the poor working and unemployed masses as a product of
forces outside the suffering of this group, is to belittle, undermine
and insult them.

In all fairness, I am in no way suggesting that violence for the sake of
violence is something we should celebrate. I am just concerned that a
leader of a party that identifies itself with communism fails to address
the issue of the excesses of capitalism gone wrong, and attend to issues
of discipline among the workers and their leaders. Instead it belittles
their action.