Thursday, February 14, 2013

Who Rules South Africa?

Click here to access article by Lucien van der Walt from anarkismo.net
This paper argues that the ANC is a bourgeois-bureaucratic black nationalist party; that is, that it represents primarily the interests of both the emergent black capitalists and of the (largely black) state managerial elite: top officials and politicians, judges and military leaders.
This is not exclusively "An Anarchist/Syndicalist Analysis" as the subtitle suggests. It is a class analysis of the history of the ANC and South Africa. As such, it is very valuable in that it pierces the many veils of obscurantist views propagated by capitalist propagandists lodged everywhere in the indoctrination agencies here in the US. 

The author seems to suggest that there was an inherent class nature in the ANC opposition to the former apartheid regime prior to its transformation. I think that this is a misleading interpretation. Although I'm not prepared to support such a view, I think that a more thorough examination of anti-apartheid struggles against the former white capitalist rule would indicate that the black leadership was mostly co-opted by the white bourgeoisie. 

In any case, this piece offers a clear view of the present class character of the people now ruling South Africa: a white-black capitalist class that ironically still uses racist themes to continue its rule.
...if the ANC before 1994 was basically progressive, from 1994 it has become a force for reaction, as has been shown above. To continue to use nationalist politics is disempowering, confusing and positively harmful. It ignores class, creates illusions in the ANC and disguises the true nature of the black elite.
And most dangerously, it easily translates itself into direct racism against the minorities – Coloureds, Indians, whites and immigrant blacks – who make up at least 25% of the population [21], especially when it is used to deflect blame or promote factional agendas.
Once again we see the continuation of the old tried and true formula for all ruling classes: divide and rule.