Preliminary Tremors
The following was written on 20 January 2012 in an email to a correspondent.
* * *
Last year The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry “expressed concern at the violence, damage to property and intimidation that is being experienced during the current wave of strike action in South Africa.” As I write, the world's biggest platinum mine sits paralysed by a month-long wildcat strike. All 17 000 participating miners have been fired in what the bourgeoisie is keen to turn into a spectacular power struggle between two competing unions. This is of course nonsense, as a chief executive of Impala Platinum admits that the company has never been approached by the supposed upstart union: "We've tried to get the NUM (National Union of Mineworkers, the dominant union) to get the workers to approach us with their grievances but that's proving nigh impossible at this point in time. We have no one to negotiate with, and we don't know what the grievances are in the first place... Had this been a normal wage dispute everything would have been settled a long time ago." Clearly, no aspiring union bureaucracy would miss such an opportunity to manipulate this situation to its advantage. 6000 workers have been re-hired, and the clashes between the scabs and remaining 11000 strikers and the scabs has been portrayed as an example of this supposed "inter-union rivalry". The fact that, in addition to this normal response to strike-breakers, the workers occupied the mine sabotaging equipment, buildings and other capitalist property, stoned the cops and any other vehicle attempting to break the picket lines, and generally went to town in a small insurrection which left 350 workers arrested, one worker dead, and "roads blocked, cars stoned, shops looted and a small police station torched" (AFP), goes without comment or explanation. The bureaucrats at NUM of course put it all down to "criminal elements", urging the cops to "to make decisive intervention" against the criminally uncontrollable workers. Since the bosses and the union's own verbal appeals failed to force the proletarians back into their underground holes, our merry knights of labour make no bones about their desire to beat misbehaving workers back into submission to the necessities of work and commodity production. Sensing the danger in such behaviour spreading to other workplaces, the bourgeois press has kept extremely quiet on the whole subject, only even mentioning the strike at all in the last week as it developed into a series of violent clashes. The veil of mystification that coats the media of public misinformation has made it very difficult to figure out what is really going on, but there has been one fairly reliable report by Dewald van Rensburg, and from this, along with bits and pieces from the rest of the bourgeois press, it is possible to piece together a fairly coherent, though complex, picture. 
As for non-labour related protests, you will have heard of the televised murder of Andries Tatane during one of those events last year. He is obviously not the first nor will he be the last casualty in the bitter struggle which currently takes the form of an ever growing number of violent actions against the state carried out across the country every day by those in the townships. There are moments when the two forms of protest converge, as happened recently in Nelson Mandela Bay when a wildcat strike by taxi drivers involved the barricading of roads as well as the stoning and petrol bombing of police vehicles, buses and government buildings across the city, carried out by both workers and surrounding proletarians. (Port Elizabeth Herald) In the same report, a state spokesperson stated with typically staggering insight “These violent actions do not belong in a peace-loving society.” The strike was notable for its involvement of youth and the ferocity of their attacks on state authority. In scenes reminiscent of the uprisings of the 70s & 80s, various municipal buildings, including two clinics and one of the ruling party’s (ANC) offices were burned down.
In addition to a counter-attack against a state which has for years continued a relentless assault against them, the young proletarians used the strike as an opportunity to carry out a practical critique of an urban landscape whose sole purpose was the circulation of commodities – including the commodity which creates all others, labour. This critique, born of boredom and opportunity, seems to be the most reasonable explanation of a situation where delivery trucks were petrol-bombed by youths having no connection to the taxi drivers or their immediate interests, and where “gangs of youngsters were seen… stoning cars.” (The Port Elizabeth Herald) In times of crisis illusions are dispersed like teargas in a gust of wind. State provision of public transport was thus revealed to be not a social service to a human community but an economic service to the community of capital, just as the police were revealed not as guardians of human beings but bodyguards (antibodies) of the commodity economy, its veins (roads), its blood cells (cars), and its heart (capitalist production).
This much was admitted by the provincial safety and security spokesman Bobby Stevenson when he revealed that, to the state, "safety and security" means nothing more than the provision of conditions which guarantee the free movement of the commodity. The following was all he had to say; here we see the meaning of “law and order” in this society; here is its justice, its democracy, its freedom, its morality:
‘“A situation of lawlessness cannot be tolerated in a democracy, and our economy cannot be held to ransom.” [He] said he had written to the provincial commissioner requesting that police members travel with commuters on buses equipped with radios. Police vehicles should escort buses and rapid response units [should] be located in strategic spots to ensure the free movement of buses and other vehicles that wish to convey workers to work.’
It will be noticed how increasingly totalitarian the “freedom” of this democracy tends to become (cops on radio-equipped buses herding workers into their kraals) ...
For all this, we are still at quite a qualitatively low level of class struggle. There seems to have been no significant proletarian response at all to either the current mine crisis or the televised broadcast of Andries Tatane, either of which would be expected to trigger substantial developments.
The compatibility of neoliberal capitalism and totalitarian bureaucracy can be seen in the recent laws made regarding labour brokers:
“Labour brokers will still exist for another three years after the new act on employment services is implemented. After this, they will have to register as “private employment agencies”. They will not be allowed to act as labour brokers, but merely as placement agencies. They will also be forced to be part of a giant state-controlled employment register of all vacant posts and jobseekers.
The suggestions stipulate that in addition to other new powers, the minister will be able to regulate all kinds of contract work in any sector in the future.”
The following message was sent out on 22 February 2012 to various contacts around the world, as well as posted on social media and leftist websites, as an invitation to join the author in devising appropriate solidarity action. The two best mainstream articles on the strike are Welcome To The Age of Retail Unionism and NUM Challenged in Implats Membership Revolt
* * *
South African miners are now in the fifth week of a wildcat strike that has paralysed the Rustenburg mine of Impala Platinum, the biggest producer of platinum in the world. The last few days have seen antagonism erupt into increasingly militant action.
The entire workforce was fired in early January after the company had the strike declared illegal, but they are now re-hiring workers on the condition that they forfeit all benefits built-up over their years of work. Things are explosive there and it doesn't look like there's any way the authorities can diffuse the situation. If the workers extend the initial self-organisation of the strike towards the formation of independent worker's councils and occupy the mines things may easily escalate into a revolutionary general-strike very quickly - as has happened so many times before in the past. The chances of this happening now are, admittedly, rather small, but only marginally smaller than the chances that the miners will realise their demands (see below). Though their very livelihoods are at risk, they continue to stake everything on such slim odds.
In any case, the Impala Platinum and the media at large are keen to portray the strike as a a spectacular power struggle between two competing unions. This has been denied by both supposed rival parties, and a chief executive of Impala Platinum admits that the company has never been approached by the supposed upstart union: "We have no one to negotiate with, and we don't know what the grievances are in the first place... Had this been a normal wage dispute everything would have been settled a long time ago." The clashes between the scabs and remaining strikers has been portrayed as an example of this supposed "inter-union rivalry". The fact that, in addition to this normal response to strike-breakers, the workers occupied the mine sabotaging equipment, buildings and other property, stoned police vehicles and any other vehicle attempting to break the picket lines, and generally went on the rampage in a small riot which left 350 workers arrested, two worker dead, and "roads blocked, cars stoned, shops looted and a small police station torched" (AFP), goes without comment or explanation. The bureaucrats at NUM (National Union of Mineworkers) put it all down to "criminal elements", urging the police to "to make decisive intervention" against the criminally uncontrollable workers. In addition to the events described above, the workers have undertaken the following exemplary actions:
Against the unions (They heckled NUM officials off the stage today when they tried to persuade them back to work);
Against the state (They torched the local cop-shop on Monday);
And against the bosses (They burnt down one of the boardrooms today);
Their rapid escalation of the strike (from 5000 rock-drillers demanding an 18% bonus to the full 17000 strong workforce demanding 100 - 300% wage increases within a few days);
Their use of their free-time for implementing sabotage, barricades and pickets (which took 500 police days to suppress);
And their inspiring determination (5 weeks and counting)
-- All of which indicate a level of practical revolutionary consciousness almost unprecedented in this country's recent-history (The obvious predecessor being the 2009 strikes at the same mine, where stones hurled by angry workers rained down on NUM's deputy-president as he tried to herd them back into their holes, blinding him in the left eye). Their complete rejection of NUM is especially significant considering its close ties to the ruling party (The current Secretary-General of the ANC was formerly Secretary-General of NUM). It's uncertain how long the strikers can hold out -- 8000 have already gone back to work. The strike may end at any moment.
Whatever happens, it's clear that nothing will be resolved. Zwelinzima Vavi, Secretary-General of Cosatu (Congress of South African Trade Unions) promised to investigate "why rock drillers are leading themselves." He also said he had faith that "the situation could be reversed". His is the blind faith of the pig that roots up the vines that would give him food. The seeds of proletarian subversion were underground all along, and are now growing strong. The stupidity of the bosses and the unions are sure to trigger further eruptions in the future. If 2009 was a rehearsal for this year, who knows what this year be the build up to...! "How are we going to topple the dominant society? Two ways:" wrote comrade Hemmingway: "Gradually at first, and then suddenly."
Love of Labour Lost correspondent Siddiq Khan
Reporting for the IWW (I Won't Work) tendency of Love Letters Journal
NOTE: I'm trying to establish contact with the workers in order to gather a better picture of what is really going on and co-ordinate support efforts. An update will be forthcoming soon. All those who might be interested in organising support for the strikers are invited to contact the author
The product of a night-time police raid on illegal beer-brewing in Cato Manor: one dead pig
* * *
The following was written at the conclusion of the above strike, on 7 March 2012. It was attached to an interesting mainstream article on The State of The Unions and the timeline included below.
The wildcat strike at Rustenberg, the biggest platinum mine in the world, has ended. Production resumed Monday the 5th. The miners have gained nothing besides bitter experience, and 2000 of them have been left unemployed. This experience, however, makes it unlikely that the bosses, through their stooges the NUM, will be able to numb workers in the platinum sector any further. I am still trying to contact comrades in the area in order to investigate more precisely the background and day-to-day details of the strike. It is hoped that I will be able to gather sufficient resources to conduct this investigation and release a report within a few months. It is certain that, considering the conditions which produced this eruption remain unchanged (and if anything have only grown more explosive), we have seen the last of such upheavals.
There has been a general tendency towards longer and more intense industrial action in South Africa, as detailed in Dewald van Rensburg's recent report, State of the Unions. The contradictions of the commodity economy, particularly glaring in this country, continue to gnaw away at the false unity conjured up by every parasitic racket in our society. The bourgeois media, for example, uniformly reports the cost of the strike as R2,4 billion. The poor employer, on whom this loss of revenue is inflicted, is implicitly portrayed as the victim. What the cost was in lost wages to the 17 000 miners is of course not worth mentioning. Some simple primary-school arithmetic reveals this figure to be, at the wages they currently recieve (reportedly averaging R3500 a month), a mere R75 million. Had they won the 300% increase they were demanding, this would become R290 million. We see then that, even if their wages were trippled, the suffering capitalists would be robbing them of more than R2 billion!
In the face of such obvious exploitation, it is therefore not surprising that the proletariat is growing increasingly militant. Last year The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry “expressed concern at the violence, damage to property and intimidation that is being experienced during the current wave of strike action in South Africa.” The desperation of the combatants in the class war are coming to the surface once more. One of the contradictions in the current rising tide is the tendency for this militancy to be contained by the unions. The security worker strike of 2006, for example, although leading to a riot in the central business district, was entirely dominated by the unions, who tried everything to prevent the riot occurring and treacherously condemned the actions of its members after the fact. The uncompromising rejection of the miners during this strike, the self-organisation of their action, and the solidarity between the masses and the most militant section (the rock-drillers) create a complex of exemplary actions from which all future struggles will be able to benefit.
Timeline of the strike:
January 12: Rock drill operators (RDOs) refuse to work at the Impala Rustenburg 14 shaft. They demand that the dispute be settled without the involvement of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
January 18: RDOs embark on a second illegal work stoppage, once again demanding a salary increase and insisting they will have nothing to do with NUM.
January 20: The RDOs go on an unprotected strike. Implats management arranges a meeting between the RDO spokespeople and the NUM branch committee. The delegation representing the RDOs walks out of the meeting. Management apply for and are given an interdict declaring the work stoppage illegal and unprotected.
January 24: The RDOs who have taken part in the illegal strike are dismissed, but are given the opportunity to reapply for their jobs on January 27.
January 30: The strike has escalated, and most of the workforce fails to report for duty. Management applies for and gets another interdict declaring this second strike to be illegal and unprotected.
February 1: All 17,000 workers are fired.
February 16: One person is killed, and a policewoman and several civilians are injured. Sometime during clashes, the local police station is torched (date uncertain).
February 16: Implats CEO David Brown releases interim results with headline earnings up 67.8%.
February 17: Implats and NUM meet.
February 19: Re-employment appears to be on track with 7762 officially back at work. February 20: SAPS officers confront a group of 150 marching people in the early hours. A standoff ensues. Two former workers and one current worker sustain injuries while a third discharged worker is killed.
February 21:Cosatu Secretary-General Zwelinzima Vavi addresses workers telling them to go back underground; miners shout back that they will not go. About 8368 workers are re-employed, 1074 of which are RDOs.The total mine complement is now 24168.
February 22: Boardroom of Impala Platinum burnt down.
February 24: One man is killed and six others are assaulted.
March 5: 15000 miners, re-employed under old conditions of service, resume operations at the mine.
Eruption
The Marikana Massacre is more fully addressed in the poster Whiteout
* * *
The Friday before the massacre I was driving down the coast for the weekend with my endearing friend, when we got stuck in uncharacteristic traffic for a few hours. It turned out that one of the major highways out of town was blocked due to a protest. The strategy of the state to this seems to be simultaneously one of the 'de-politicisation ' of repression and the (party)-'politicisation' of resistance. On the one hand, there is an increasingly integrated response by the repressive state apparatus under the guise of 'disaster management', as you and some of our comrades have pointed out, serving to mask repression as a 'natural' response to a 'natural disaster'. For example, in one article (Cape Town protests turn deadly) it’s indicated that the protests are being handled by the city’s disaster management unit. The state spokesman in that article is either misinformed or deliberately downplaying the extent of the situation by claiming the protests only began on Sunday when they had been going on since Friday the 10th at least – the same day, by the way that things first erupted at the Marikana mine, according to this timeline.)
At the moment 19% of the strikers have
returned to work, following a deadline by the company that all those not
working by Monday will be fired. They've extended the deadline to This
morning, but as yet the majority refuse to cave-in to their threats.
Interestingly, according to this article, (We won’t fire striking miners - Lonmin)
the company is now backing down, withdrawing its ultimatum in favour of
lame threats: “We are not going to go out to actively try to fire
anyone, but also there are consequences for someone who is not coming to
work”. According to another report "One in five striking miners
reported for duty, and just over a third of the total workforce has
returned." It appears that most of the staff of the company are staying
away at the moment, either out of fear or solidarity. However, unless
there is a determined escalation of the strike , it's likely that around
three quarters of the workers will eventually be return to work,
following the pattern of the previous strike at Implats.
As Jon Soske, author of the most insightful article
on the massacre I've yet seen, the role of fatalism which surrounds such
'senseless' events is precisely to render impossible all attempts at
making sense of what happened. Just as it the 'natural' to response to
disaster is the restoration of order, so the 'natural' response to
'violent protest' is 'self defence'. From there, it remains merely a
matter of detail; the only critique permissible being the way the
restoration and self-defence were carried out:
The way in which one views a situation is a political choice,
and in the case of the Lomnin miners, the issue is not terribly
ambiguous...every “revelation” about the situation’s many and
imponderable nuances only serves to obfuscate what happened. The police
were there to break a strike; the miners refused to disperse and appear
to have tried to defend themselves when attacked; the police killed them
with government approval. (Marikana and the New Politics of Grief, Jon Soske, available here)
Just
as specialist analysis of the 'complexity' of the situation serve as 'a
way to distribute the blame', generating teary-eyed headlines such as "The web of blame in South Africa's mine tragedy"
(AFP; 21 August 2012); so too the designation of situations as
'disasters' papers over real conflicts of interest. It is, of course, no
coincidence that the declaration of 'disaster areas' also allows
governments -- and their 'emergency services' -- to get away with acts
of oppression which might otherwise appear unacceptable. As Brecht might
write: The blockade of the N2 has been declared a disaster area.
Disaster for whom? Do those for whom daily life is experienced as a
drawn-out, private, disaster, feel that the number one priority should
be to restore order? As Debord might say: there is unity in what appears
separate, there is separation in what appears united.
Returning
to the insurgency in Cape Town and the strategy of the state, there is
here a tendency to spin the actions of those at the bottom of society as
invariably resulting from outside 'agitators', in this case the ANC
youth league. Besides an implicit accusation that the oppressed are
incapable of thinking and acting for themselves, it serves to divert
attention from the real driving force behind their action: the real material conditions of their existence. Whenever
actually asked about their own actions, people tend to make it very
clear that they know exactly what they are doing. The most useful report
on the recent uprisings cites "Khayelitsha community leader, Morris
Sifo": “We will continue to fight for our most basic rights. [Premier]
Helen Zille and [mayor] Patricia de Lille must stop blaming the ANC for
all this. They have nothing to do with it.”
Similarly,
it is clear from reports of those who actually bothered to go and find
out first hand that the miners' actions were independent of any union.
Joseph Mathunjwahe, boss of the so-called militant upstart union, AMCU,
has already displayed just how militant he and his organisation are in a
recent work-stoppage at Impala Platinum, the same place where they
first came to attention during a major wildcat strike some months
before: "According to him, Amcu has advised the workers to return to
work. On Monday he also sent a letter to the management of Implats
requesting assistance to end the unprotected strike." (This is even worse than the already deplorable behaviour of the African Mine Worker's Union who, after being asked by the bosses to help end the 1946 wildcat miner's strike, dutifully obliged!) In a report on the
already bloody Lonmin strike, written three days before the massacre,
Amcu union bosses themselves deny having a hand in the events:
Amcu
general secretary Jeffrey Mphahlele denied his union was behind the
violence. “This thing had nothing to do with us. It was in the Marikane
[shaft] and in Marikane we are still recruiting there… The issue was not
about membership; it was about management."
Mphahlele spoke over the phone after returning from
Lonmin. “Those rock drillers went there on their own. They were not
under any union. But being Amco we had to be proactive go and meet them
at the mountain… Even we were scared at first. Those people were full on
top of those koppies – then the noise… Initially they didn’t want the
union there. Fortunately we pleaded.” (Lonmin's killing fields, 14 August 2012, available here)
It's uncertain what the pleading of the Amcu
crew accomplished, but it is certain that no amount of begging or
condemning (Solly Phetoe, provincial secretary of Cosatu North West, in a
speech that would make any capitalist proud, stated “Cosatu NW calls on
the police to arrest all those criminals [i.e. striking workers]
who gather without applying as required by the public gathering act")
by union bureacrats was going to stop the miners from doing what they
had determined to do. On the day of the massacre, Amcu's president again
begged & pleaded the miners to end their occupation, with the same
amount of success as he has displayed previously. In at least one
academic study, the causes for the miners' actions was made perfectly
clear:
"The violent
situation at Lonmin's Marikana mine was an example of exploitation by
the mines, the Bench Marks Foundation said on Friday... [It] said the
violence at the Lonmin mine had nothing to do with inter-union rivalry.
"Foundation chairman Jo Seoka, when speaking to the
striking workers yesterday, noted that they were in fact peaceful and
just wanted the company to engage them,” it said.
Seoka
said low wages along with all the social disintegration, crime, murder,
rape and prostitution, unemployment and poverty amidst the third
richest platinum mine in the world, created an incubator rife for worker
and community discontent. (Lonmin an example of exploitation, 17 August 2012, available here)
The mining sector is vital to capitalism in
this country, but its workers are also geographically seperated from the
majority of their class in the cities and the surrounding slums.
Contrariwise, the slum-dwellers, both as labourers and as members of the
unemployed pool of reserve labour, are equally vital, but
geographically separated from the main sites of production. It is these
two groups who are carrying out the fiercest, most imaginative,
independent, inspiring, and desperate forms of social contestation in
South Africa today. If they can overcome the formidable constraints
placed upon them, find themselves and each other, and take back by force
what is everyday stolen from (and will never willingly be given to)
them, this country may become the site where humanity, banished from
10000 years of pre-history, makes its glorious return. Then, and only
then, will that old rallying cry of the struggle, pregnant with all the
yearning and suffering of the dispossessed -- Mayibuye iAfrika! -- find
its realisation. There are already steps towards this union in theory
(see the recent statement of solidarity by Abahlali baseMjondolo), as
well as the first small moves towards developing it in practice (the
women of some of the miners living in the surrounding townships joined
them in the Marikana occupation); if I am not merely indulging in
wishful thinking, I foresee significant developments in this direction
in the future. Who knows, maybe the bad days really will end!
Immediate aftershock
After the Marikana Massacre, more than 100 000 workers embarked on a wave of predominantly wildcat strikes in various industries across the country. The following notes, completed in November 2012, put only the most significant characteristics of these struggles in a more general form, primarily:
1) A tendency towards direct democracy, with a concomitant rejection of electoral politics in the townships and union politics in the workplace.
2) The growth of practices such as direct delegation from mass assemblies
3) Direct action bypassing the 'appropriate channels' set up to contain dissent
4) The continual demand for participatory decision-making with fierce resistance when this is seen to be absent seem to me ample evidence for the growing dissatisfaction with mediated representation of all sorts.
The newest factor, particular to labour struggles, has been the increasingly common demand for doubling or tripling of wages. Nowhere has this demand come close to being won, but its appearance seems to mark both a definite break from the ritualistic union-controlled strikes over wage negotiations as well as a way to shunt wages from the mundane realm of 'quantity', where ankle-cuffs shackle the players into predictable roles and the only thing to change are superficial the details of daily domination, into the tricky territory of 'quantity' where the ground underfoot is liable to break open and basic assumptions are thrown into question. Often several, if not all, above-mentioned characteristics will be expressed in a single situation, such as the February strike at Implats triggered by a unilateral decision to implement wage increases for a fraction of the workforce while excluding the rest. The enthusiastic theses expressed in my report on those events, which even I myself feared might be a bit brazen, has been verified by the tumultuous tumble of events whose extent, intensity and velocity far exceeded anything I could have predicted or hoped for at the time.
As things stand, the struggles now unfolding before our eyes bear a remarkable resemblance, in form if not yet in extent, to "the main characteristics of what can for convenience's sake be called contestation" developed during the 1960s as discussed by Richard Gombin in The Ideology and Practice of Contestation seen through Recent Events in France. Of course it would be mistaken to draw too neat parallels with the past, whether these be to analogous situations in France or in SA during the 1980s when workers made (and sometimes won) similar demands. The struggles of the 80s took place at a time when a century old system of "primitive capital accumulation", was undergoing fundamental changes; today the situation is somewhat different, though perhaps even more significant.
With that said, there is still some value in putting the glib condemnations of 'unrealistic' wage demands under closer scrutiny. Capitalists and their stooges the world over often complain about how workers are 'overpaid'; those forced into an existence of lifeless drudgery are constantly exhorted to be grateful for their 'priveledged' conditions of exploitation. A recent newspaper report stated that "South Africa ranks worst among 144 countries in terms of employer-labour relations and next to worst in terms of overpaying unproductive workers, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report."
Notwithstanding the publications of bourgeois ideologues whose opinions are under no obligation to apprehend real life, no accurate account of wages in the country can ignore the fact that each miner in South Africa directly or indirectly supports 8 - 10 other people. With half the workforce of the country out of a job, the wages of those 'overpaid & unproductive' workers are quite often the only thing standing between millions of South Africans and starvation. The sycophants of slave-owners have, of course, never let reality interfere with their ideology; our attempts to communicate simple truths in their despite has value (if it does) solely due to the ability of such unquestioned bullshit to legitimise the illegitimate.
When those such as Desmond Tutu who -- due to their saintly costumes, have some influence among the very workers and their dependants being slandered from all sides -- proceed not only to condemn miners massacred by police bullets but to spit on their graves by stuffing disgustingly insulting words in their mouths such as "When we march, we demand, we destroy and we loot. We care not whether our demands are reasonable, or what actions we take"... -- When such people can act this way completely unchallenged, continuing to pose as champions of the oppressed, it is difficult to remain silent. In this sense, getting to the bottom of things and communicating one's findings without fear can act as a form of real solidarity -- provided this is not done uncritically.
 |
| A dog-unit police-station burnt in Hawston |
Many of the four above-mentioned characteristics often manifest in a single situation: the rejection of representation in townships giving rise to election boycotts such as in the slogan ’no land no house no vote’, direct action in occupations and protests, democracy practiced through independent organisations such as Abahlali baseMjondolo, Mandela Park Backyarders and the Anti Eviction Campaign. Most significantly of all, the majority of direct action continues to be organised through the direct-democracy of mass assemblies in neighbourhoods that fly no organisational banner whatsoever.
In the workplaces the same characteristics take the form of wildcats, physical attacks on union bureaucrats (president of NUM lost an eye after being stoned by heckling workers a few years ago), and co-ordination of independent strike committees (see “Dear Friend and Comrade” email below).
The strikes at Impala platinum, Toyota and the factories subcontracted to supply automotive parts, Goldfields, etc were all triggered by decisions made by management (with tacit or explicit approval of unions) to give selective increases to sections of the workforce in short supply; the refusal of such moves based on egalitarian impulse in both the content (for uniform increases) and form (for participation in decision making) by the workers involved.
This rejection arises precisely because the ‘appropriate channels’ designed to contain dissent have after two decades of stagnation and regression finally proven their uselessness to growing numbers of people. More importantly the existing structures of recuperation have proven an active (often violent) impediment to those who are making moves beyond their confines and, as increasingly intolerable conditions drive more and more to independent action, social contestation is bound to increase until a crisis is reached leading either to a revolutionary resolution or the establishment of a new more effective system of containment.
The recent riots against police in the Western Cape town of Hawston are a welcome signal that people are beginning to fight back against the increasing repression resorted to by a bourgeois order whose more diffuse spectacle has increasingly failed to enforce submission. Similarly, current the farm-worker uprising in De Doorns* and surrounding areas by one of the most vulnerable sections of the proletariat (many of whom live on their bosses property and stand to lose their homes when fired, and many more of which are undocumented migrants threatened by deportation) indicate that the contagion of rebellion, though it may temporarily die down in one sector, must needs flare up somewhere else even more fiercely than before.
Often several, if not all, above-mentioned characteristics will be expressed in a single situation, such as the February strike at Implats triggered by a unilateral decision to implement wage increases for a fraction of the workforce while excluding the rest.
We are still a long ways-off from our revolution but recent events have made the possibility more
palpably real than any time since I was born.
* For mainstream news sources which sketch the outlines of this outburst, see De Doorns Farmer Protests Spread and Violence Erupts In W-Cape Farming Town; for leftist sources which try to get to grips with the heart of the matter, with varying degrees of success, see Worker Organising During the Farmworker Strike and Reaping What You Sow
Dear Friend and Comrade
We have formed independent workers committees on a number of mines in South Africa. At the moment there is a strong effort to crush this independent movement. Thus we approach you for solidarity:
1. Publicise the struggles of the independent workers committees
2. try to raise fund for the committees ( we are busy opening up an account but it is possible to send us in the meantime)
3. Promote workers actions in solidarity with us.
Note our struggle is not just for mineworkers but for the whole masses in Africa. We need to travel to various mines, we have people who are searching the hospitals (those injured at Amplats on Tuesday 30 Oct are scattered in hospitals over a wide area; those injured on Sat 27 Oct are taken far from their homes, hidden); the mine committees need to meet; we need resources to travel to other parts of Africa.
We are committed to raise our own funds, but now, after 2 and a half months, our pockets are more than empty, there are holes in them.
any solidarity is welcome. can someone help us with a website?
we salute you
there is no force on earth that can divide us.
yours in struggle
BS
for the mineworkers committees
We are still a long ways-off from our revolution but recent events have made the possibility more
palpably real than any time since I was born.
De Doorns during the farm-worker strike
* For mainstream news sources which sketch the outlines of this outburst, see De Doorns Farmer Protests Spread and Violence Erupts In W-Cape Farming Town; for leftist sources which try to get to grips with the heart of the matter, with varying degrees of success, see Worker Organising During the Farmworker Strike and Reaping What You Sow
* * *
We have formed independent workers committees on a number of mines in South Africa. At the moment there is a strong effort to crush this independent movement. Thus we approach you for solidarity:
1. Publicise the struggles of the independent workers committees
2. try to raise fund for the committees ( we are busy opening up an account but it is possible to send us in the meantime)
3. Promote workers actions in solidarity with us.
Note our struggle is not just for mineworkers but for the whole masses in Africa. We need to travel to various mines, we have people who are searching the hospitals (those injured at Amplats on Tuesday 30 Oct are scattered in hospitals over a wide area; those injured on Sat 27 Oct are taken far from their homes, hidden); the mine committees need to meet; we need resources to travel to other parts of Africa.
We are committed to raise our own funds, but now, after 2 and a half months, our pockets are more than empty, there are holes in them.
any solidarity is welcome. can someone help us with a website?
we salute you
there is no force on earth that can divide us.
yours in struggle
BS
for the mineworkers committees
Microscopic photograph of a teardrop placed in the class 'tears of change'
