Mandela's passing leaves unfinished business

The death of Nelson Mandela marks the closure of an era of independence struggles in Africa which ended colonial rule and brought political freedom. But despite Mandela’s heroic and self-sacrificing struggle, his vision of a just and equal society eludes the vast majority.

The African National Congress which Mandela came to lead was formed in 1912 in response to the South African Land Act (rubber-stamped by the British) which banned black people from buying or renting land in 93% of the country. By the 1940s, the ANC was deeply under the influence of the South African Communist Party (SACP).

The malign influence of Stalinism had already taken its toll on the party. The SACP, which did not believe in the armed struggle, proposed a cautious, non-revolutionary two-stage approach to the South Africa situation. First, it was necessary to achieve a Western-style democracy. Only then could you reform the state and make progress towards socialist ownership and so on. In other words, stage two was postponed to the indefinite future.

In 1961 the country’s Afrikaans whites outvoted the English-speaking whites in a referendum to leave the British Commonwealth and establish the Republic of South Africa. The new republic's government pushed ahead with the formation of the racist apartheid state, which deprived the black majority of all human, political and economic rights. A mass strike called by the ANC was met with brute force. 

The new republic's government pushed ahead with the formation of the racist apartheid state, which deprived the black majority of all human, political and economic rights. A mass strike called by the ANC was met with brute force. The time for talking was over.

As Nelson Mandela said in his famous speech from the dock at the Rivonia freedom trial in 1964: "What were we, the leaders of our people, to do? Were we to give in to the show of force and the implied threat against future action, or were we to fight it out and, if so, how?"

It was at this point the ANC reluctantly agreed to form Umkhonto we Sizwe, an armed struggle organisation designed to bring young people already planning insurrection under its control.

Mandela quoted the Umkhonto we Sizwe manifesto: "The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices – submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means in our power in defence of our people, our future, and our freedom".

Mandela and seven other leaders of Umkhonto we Sizwe were sentenced to life imprisonment. His amazing courage and resilience inspired the heroic resistance of two generations of black South Africans.

This, combined with sanctions and a growing economic crisis, forced the white government led by F. W. de Clerk to release Mandela and concede black people the right to vote. As a result, on a momentous day in 1994 Mandela became the first black president of South Africa.

However, the new constitution may have dismantled apartheid laws but it left the South African state itself – its army, police force and bureaucracy, its education institutions and most crucially its forms of ownership of land and natural resources – largely untouched.

Mandela's ANC successors have co-opted themselves into this state, and trampled his vision of a just South Africa into the dust. Its lowest point so far came in August 2012 when they sent armed police in to repress striking miners. They opened fire and 34 workers at the Marikana platinum mine were massacred, mostly shot in the back.

Black people remain largely landless and many are homeless in their own country. Gold and other minerals remain in the hands of the global corporations and the majority of black people have no say whatsoever. The ANC elite has grabbed hold of political power, and the ruling group’s main role is to maintain the status quo and enrich themselves. As we say goodbye to an amazing leader in the shape of Mandela, these are facts that can't be ignored.

Throughout his life Mandela was committed to peace, and today it is hard to stomach the hypocrisy of Obama and Cameron praising him for this quality whilst they themselves are the worst kind of warmongers engaged in drone wars and reckless armed interventions. And with their anti-terror laws, torture, imprisonment without trial and mass surveillance of their own populations, the US and UK secret services put apartheid's notorious BOSS in the shade.

Africa is facing a new kind of recolonisation, with global agri-business seizing billions of acres of land, and the corporations totally in control of mineral wealth, aided by corrupt and complaisant governments. Half mast flags, statues and public displays of mourning are of no use to Mandela's people. Revitalising and finding new approaches to achieving his vision of an equal society would be his best memorial, and the only one worth having.

Penny Cole

Coal leads the way as fossil fuels burn up the planet

The rapid expansion of fossil fuel burning which is frying the planet’s atmosphere faster than ever is entirely unnecessary and economically unjustifiable. And that’s official.

According to the International Energy Authority’s 2012 annual assessment, simple, economically-useful, energy efficiency measures could cut the growth in global energy demand by half and as a result, the demand for oil would peak before 2020.

The reduction in demand would be equivalent to the current combined production of Russian and Norway.

There would be greater energy security for countries worried about having to import their fuel and there would be huge economic growth as buildings and infrastructure were made more energy efficient. Hundreds of thousands could be employed and fuel bills cut by 20% on average.

But the direction of travel of global capitalism is the exact opposite. Subsidies are instead being poured into fossil fuel production – six times more than those available to renewables, amounting to $523 billion in 2011, up almost 30% on 2010.

As a result emissions of greenhouse gases reached their highest-ever level in 2011. Current energy plans of governments across the world will lock in a long-term average global temperature increase of 3.6 °C, not the 2.0°C governments claim they are committed to.

Renewables are the fastest growing form of energy, but that is starting from a very low level. Coal, which is responsible for 40% of greenhouse gas emissions from fuel, is going through a massive global expansion. Production is up 6% on 2010.

The rejection of nuclear by some governments in the wake of the Fukushima disaster did not lead to an expansion of renewables but to an expansion in coal burning. For example, Germany announced it would get out of nuclear within a decade, but this year it increased the amount of electricity generated from coal by 12% over 2011.

China is investing hugely in renewables, but coal-fired output grew as much there in the last decade as nuclear, wind and hydro combined.

In the US rapid expansion of “fracking”, plus new offshore finds have fuelled a dash for gas. But coal production is on the increase, licensed by the Obama administration and so the US is now exporting cheap coal all over the world.

The IEA says  that “the world is still failing to put the global energy system onto a more sustainable path” and despite an increase in low-carbon sources of energy “fossil fuels remain dominant in the global energy mix”.

The big question is why? Why are we pouring tax subsidies into fossil fuels, instead of renewables or energy efficiency? Why is a country like South Africa, an ideal test bed for solar power, pouring government funding into coal? In its post-crash-printing-money phase, the Obama administration funded excellent solar projects, which have brought major advances. Why is that not the US’s new export, instead of dirty old coal?

The “whys” are endless and exhausting but the answer is quite straightforward – it’s the bottom line that counts. Corporations use their power over governments to keep their priorities sweet. Six of the richest 100 mining billionaires are Chinese, five are Indian. The richest of them all is Brazilian Eike Batista whose personal net worth is $32 billion.

And at number 42 is Patrice Motsepe, South Africa’s first black billionaire, who bought up failing mineral businesses and made them profitable by cutting costs and increasing exploitation. You can be sure he is not pressing his friends in the ANC government to shift funding into renewables.

There’s a lot of money to be made from destroying the planet’s climate and eco-system. Only a transfer of political power to popular democracies acting in the interests of the majority and not the oligarchs and corporations, can halt the process.

Penny Cole

Environment editor

ANC gets rich while miners live in poverty

When police gunned down striking Marikana platinum miners, killing at least 34 and wounding many more, they also blew apart the façade of post-apartheid politics in South Africa.

Despite 18 years of black majority rule, the country remains among the most unequal in terms of wealth in the world alongside Brazil. Nearly 40% of the population lives on less than $3 a day.

The elite in the ruling African National Congress have, by contrast, enriched themselves beyond their wildest dreams. Khulubuse Zuma, the president’s nephew and Zondwa Mandela, the former president’s grandchild, and many others with close family ties to politicians have become mining tycoons overnight.

So too have the present and former leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers who went from fighting the employers under apartheid to siding with the state against the workers after the ANC came to power.

Mine owners Lonmin, whose shares trade on the London stock exchange, felt confident enough yesterday to issue an ultimatum to the 3,000 striking workers to return to work today or face the sack. A former NUM general secretary sits on the corporation’s board.

The present secretary Frans Baleni is close to the Chamber of Mines and is a strident opponent of nationalisation. Baleni, was awarded a salary increase of more than 40% last year and his total salary package is over £8,000 a month.  

Platinum sells for about $1,440 an ounce but a worker drilling underground at tonnes of rock face to extract it makes less than $500 a month. With the NUM refusing to fight for proper wage rises, workers at Marikana formed the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union to represent them. The demand for a substantial wage rise won massive support for the AMCU.  

Throughout South Africa, the ANC regime unashamedly deploys state force to enforce its political rule. Critics like Ayanda Kota, chair of the Unemployed Peoples' Movement in Grahamstown, are arrested on trumped up charges, beaten and detained for months.

Commenting on the Marikana Massacre, he insisted: “South Africa is the most unequal country in the world. The amount of poverty is excessive. In every township there are shacks with no sanitation and electricity. Unemployment is hovering around 40%. Economic inequality is matched with political inequality. Everywhere activists are facing serious repression from the police and from local party structures.

“Mining has been central to the history of repression in South Africa. Mining made Sandton [wealthy area of Johannesburg] to be Sandton and the Bantustans of the Eastern Cape to be the desolate places that they still are. Mining in South Africa also made the elites in England rich by exploiting workers in South Africa. You cannot understand why the rural Eastern Cape is poor without understanding why Sandton and the City of London are rich.”

Kota described South African society as one “based on each according to his political connections with the elite that has captured the ANC and its alliance partners”.  

As the global crisis hits firms like Lonmin – demand for platinum is falling, along with the price of the metal – so the crackdown on workers intensifies. The South African state machine remains the same as it was before apartheid. It serves capital, with the only difference that the majority of its personnel are black.

Justice Malala, journalist turned political analyst, noted that the AMCU is also organising among poor workers and their shack dwellings. “For these settlements, this is a strike against the state and the haves, not just a union matter.” President Jacob Zuma’s reaction bears him out. He tried to reassure investors their money would be safe, saying at a tour of the Marikana mine on Friday: "We remain committed to ensuring that this country remains a peaceful, stable, productive and thriving nation."

His words, and the actions of the police, surely indicate that it is time to renew the South African revolution, giving it the social and economic dimension that was blocked by the ANC.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

The real cost of the World Cup

With the opening match of the 2010 World Cup just a week away, hopes that the huge cost of staging the tournament would “showcase” South Africa, encourage inward investment and boost living standards seems misplaced.

Instead, hosting the tournament has drawn accusations that the £4 billion would have been better spent on housing and education. These sit alongside claims of inflated ticket prices, draconian security measures, a wave of evictions around the host cities, empty hotel rooms and a clampdown on local businesses by football’s governing body, Fifa.

While South Africa is the richest country on the continent, phenomenal levels of poverty still exist. There is a global record HIV/AIDS population of 5.7 million out of 49 million; some 50% live below the poverty line and one in three people are out of work after 15 years of ANC government rule.

In 2004, when Fifa awarded the tournament to South Africa, consultants Grant Thornton predicted costs of just £200m on stadiums and infrastructure and a boost to gross domestic product of £2 billion. The total bill has risen tenfold, when you take the upgrading of transport and telecommunications infrastructure into account, as well as running costs.

The World Cup organisers had expected 750,000 foreign fans but it is now estimated that only 200,000 visitors are heading to South Africa. Fifa put 160,000 tickets up for sale on Thursday morning after sponsors returned thousands of unwanted seats. Many tickets were allocated to corporate packages which have not been taken up.

The South African government has allocated £122 million to ensure maximum security for the month-long world Cup tournament. Some £60 million has been spent on equipment, which - in addition to armoured vehicles and helicopters - includes sniper rifles, surveillance cameras, advanced bomb-disabling equipment and water cannons. One of the tasks of the 40,000 police and 20,000 soldiers on duty is to enforce Fifa’s ruling that only approved merchandise is on sale on match days within a one-mile radius.

Anti-poverty campaigners in South Africa are blaming the World Cup for a wave of evictions around some of the host cities. They say the poorest are being swept from the streets. Outside Cape Town, some 1,500 corrugated iron shacks laid out in rows have appeared over the last two years. "It's because of the World Cup, they never did this to us before," Marietta Monagee said. "They want to clean the city and they put us here so people don't see how we struggle."

Nicholas Tucker, publicity secretary of the Socialist Party of Azania, believes that hosting the World Cup was a mistake and that the billions of rands “have yet to be paid for in blood on the backs of the black working class over the next generation.” Tucker warns of discontent “in the face of the reality of rising unemployment, reduced wages, growing squatter camps, lowered education outcomes and failing health systems.” He accuses the ANC of being “owned lock stock and barrel by the IMF and World Bank overlords” and of scoring an “own goal” in staging the World Cup and asks:

“How does one reconcile the fact that some 28 million of our people live in the worst kind of squatter conditions imaginable? How does one reconcile the fact that some 28 million of our people do not have access to clean drinking water? How does one reconcile the fact that some 19 million of our people are still unemployed when we are fed the lie that our economy is stable and will weather the storms of the now evident global economic depression?”

One thing is certain, whoever picks up the final bill – including those for subsequently underused stadiums and facilities – it won’t be Fifa. The sport’s governing body is in practice a transnational corporation. It will pocket the vast majority of the money raised by the sale of media rights and global sponsorship deals as well as some of the income from ticket sales.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor