Heinrich Bohmke
Ventriloquism, Fanon and the Social Movement Hustle
Abstract
The ANC in South Africa is the dominant political party. Its electoral dominance will
continue for some time to come. The Left inside the Alliance is reduced to “positioning”
behind one or other faction seeking to reap the rich rewards of high office.
Into this breach have stepped 'new social movements'. All kinds of leftists have gravitated
to this project and have shaped this construct. Social movements have produced a wealth of
academic pieces that, by and large, were gushing. In more recent times there is the
semblance of critique[i]. But this is critique on the edges, contestations over research
methodologies and the subtleties and nuances of what constitutes resistance.
One gets little sense of how these 'poor peoples'' movements actually operate, few pointers
as to why, in movements that are 'deeply democratic', espousing a 'living politics' rooted in
the 'everyday life' of the poor, they invariably have a long-standing, singular male who
possesses the nomenclature of white academics hovering in the background, occasionally
emerging in public in a book or to bail the leader out.
And why is it that these leaders who rely on their own voice, their own resources, who
develop their politics from their immediate living conditions, end up making strikingly
similar press statements, quoting exactly the same theorists, adopting exactly the same
political fads and pointing out their enemies in exactly the same style and words?
The recent drama around Ayanda Kota, the leader of the Unemployed Peoples' Movement
in the sleepy University town of Grahamstown, provides an opportunity to ask some
questions about the operations of these movements. Behind the bluster and pose, what is
actually revealed is a tragicomedy; one of those Shakespearean plays that, as it unfolds, it is
hard to distinguish the tears of pain and those of laughter. Once the pattern is discerned,
though, one can script the role of movement leaders with one's eyes closed.
Side Bar: One Act Movements
Scene One: The Drama. The hero is arrested; the white knights mobilize.
Scene Two: Villains are identified. They're all in league.
Scene Three: Eyewitness accounts, press statements, torture, the list-servs wait with
bated breath.
Scene Four: Vindication, photo shoots, scorn heaped on the enemy, especially those
on the left.
Scene Five: The valedictory press statement. The right mixture of folksiness and
Fanon. Promptly peacocked on the movement's wikipedia page.
Scene Six: The leader goes on an international tour; Ivy League universities; minding by Raj
Patel, Nigel Gibson.
2
If this is the living, organic, radical politics from below, then those above can sleep
peacefully.
Now read on …
Ooze
To say it erupted would be exaggeration. In January 2012, a scandal oozed out of
Grahamstown, seat of the Unemployed Peoples' Movement, temporarily the most
prominent in a long list of championable South African 'social movements'. If the Left had a
tabloid, it would be front-page stuff. A local grassroots activist took a book from a
University lecturer. She laid criminal charges. Gleeful cops snatched at the opportunity. Not
only did they arrest the working-class hero but beat him up.
Salacious details followed. On websites pa-trolled by intellectual supporters of the UPM it
was pointed out that the lecturer was a Marxist. How ironic? The taken book was the
Communist Manifesto. Unbelievable! She was white and privileged, he was Black and
wretched. Typical! Worse was to come. The real reason for the lecturer snitching was a
political disagreement with the working class hero. Name her! Shame her!
The lecturer was duly outed as Argentinean sociologist, Claudia Martinez-Mullen, an
opinionated woman with somewhat of a struggle history in her native land. She was active
also on the local political scene. The working class hero is Ayanda Kota. He is the long-term
president of the UPM and a founder member of the Democratic Left Front.
The DLF is a sort of pre-political party, made up mostly of middle-class intellectuals,
seeking to unite the groupuscles of the South African extra-parliamentary Left. More NGO
than mass movement, they wait impatiently for the masses to wake up and join them. Their
eye, long term, is on Cosatu who they regard as the pre-eminent organisation of the
working class, still misguidedly under the sway of the ANC.
For a country with South Africa's population, the DLF is painfully low on mass support. For
a country with South Africa's demographics, the DLF is painfully light on Black leadership.
It makes up for these impediments by discursively appropriating various 'grass roots'
protests that occur from time to time. The DLF also eagerly incorporates and profiles any
organic leaders the protests produce. They are cover for what is essentially a fairly elite,
ultra-left (in the nicest sense), vanguard professoriate.
Written up, the UPM and its leadership assume a character that is quintessential of South
African left knowledge production. In journals and in cyberspace, grassroots organisations
such as the UPM are pure, strong and deeply rooted while they are actually weak,
effervescent and ideologically malleable on the ground. Leaders who are brave but
compromised and limited in real life are aggrandized as saints and sages. Those who
question the incontinently romantic representation of South African movements are
pilloried as racists and authoritarian.
This then was the political scenery also in Grahamstown at the time of the unexpected
arrest of Kota. That the DLF and University white left needed to defend Kota to the hilt was
obvious. That the defense would be so intemperate was surprising. Martinez-Mullen was
waging an:
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“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”. Kota's
assault was part of a sinister, co-ordinated campaign of state repression unleashed against
DLF activists protesting against the 'pro-capitalist ANC' all over the country. It was an
attack on cherished constitutional values such as the right to protest, accompanied by
covert surveillance and intimidation of the champions of the poor.
The Book
Eventually, the lecturer responded. Martinez-Mullen participated with Kota in various
campaigns. She led a sororal organization, the Women's Social Forum. She revealed that in
May 2011 Kota felt threatened by the ANCYL. He asked to stay at her house. She took him in
for a number of days. When he left, he helped himself to a book and kept it without
permission. She tried to get it back over a period of two months but Kota ducked and dived.
Promises to restore it or account for its loss were not honoured. Eventually she went to the
police. The police phoned Kota with an ultimatum to restore or replace the book. He did
nothing of the sort.
The law took its slow course. An arrest warrant was eventually issued in January 2012 and
Kota was asked to come to the police station. He arrived with a companion and his six-year
old child. The cops sought to place him under arrest. A curious sentence in the UPM press
statement describes what happened just before the assault. “Ayanda raised his arm in an
instinctive gesture of defence following which [constable] Zulu began to assault him with
blows to the head”.
Kota's companion (we will return to him later) swears that the violence against him was
unprovoked. A Cape Times report quoted others saying Kota became 'arrogant' and
'unpleasant'. Whatever the case, the arrest seems to have been unduly forceful. In her
statement, Martinez-Mullen denied she had anything to do with Kota's assault. However,
given the turn of events, she indicated her willingness to withdraw charges.
Why, though, did she involve the police in the first place? Martinez-Mullen tried to explain
that it was no ordinary book. Prior to his death, Martinez-Mullen spent everyday at the side
of former anti-apartheid activist, Robben Islander and acclaimed poet, Dennis Brutus. She
looked after him. She loved him. Just before he passed away, he gave her some books and
inscribed them. In her words, these books were “beyond money”. It was one of these books
that Kota took and refused to restore.
With Kota thumbing his nose at her, Martinez-Mullen had either to accept the theft or take
legal steps. One gets the clear impression from her statement that Kota ceased being a
comrade to her. It was more than his conduct with the book. She questioned whether the
UPM was run on democratic grounds at all and suggested that money was not accounted
for properly.
Set-up
There is an important detail about Kota's arrest. He pitched up at the police station with a
companion in tow. The companion is prolific wikipedia sock-puppet[ii], press release
drafter and social commentator, Richard Pithouse. Pithouse is the Max Clifford of a stable of
social movements, only his clients obtain coverage in masters theses and journal articles
more than the celebrity pages. This too can be arranged.
4
Grahamstown Unemployed People's
Movement chairman
Ayanda Kota (left) and
Rhodes University politics lecturer
Richard Pithouse outside the Grahamstown Magistrate's Court where
Kota was charged.
Picture: MIKE LOEWE
Within hours of the arrest, a formidable publicity machine was in operation. As far a field as
San Francisco, organisations were issuing 'Release Ayanda Kota' petitions and decrying the
police repression of his noble organisation.
Some people in Grahamstown though smelt a set up. Rudzani Floyd Musekwa asks:
“Is Kota an authentic activist or a man who saw an opportunity for fame through
controversy? Or is he a vehicle to some who think if they went ahead and said it themselves
they won't be taken seriously? Who is Mr Ayanda Kota really? Is he someone who is being
used to further the agendas of some academics? Who are these backers of Kota who are
quick to politicise everything every time he is arrested? …”[iii]
Others, who know Kota well, possess a wider, more resigned disquiet. Condemning what
happened to him, they express astonishment at his metamorphosis into a social movement
icon. They tell of a Kota whose politics is shadowed by income pressures, about someone
constantly fund-raising, changing his pitch to adapt to the audience. They speak of the grey,
flexible area between hustling, politicking and working that one does not see in Leftie
accounts of the virtuous, grassroots leader.
A founder member of the UPM, Wycliff Mfecane, also mentions money. He left the UPM he
says because of disagreements with Kota about the latter's unaccountable use of funds,
among other concerns. One man, (we shall call him Abe), accuses Kota of fleecing him of
R14000. He says he lent Kota money for organizational work (going to conferences, for
instance) only to find that Kota had been reimbursed from other sources, using the funds
on himself. When Abe confronted Kota, he undertook to repay the money. It never
happened. Their relationship soured and Kota moved on, as it turns out, to greener
pastures in the Humanities Faculty of Rhodes University.
5
For around mid 2010, Kota was discovered by a group of white academics at Rhodes. They
had enormous experience and skill at publicizing movements. Kota and the UPM really took
off. One Grahamstown resident says, “I'd see posters saying, 'Ayanda Kota speaks on Fanon'
and say to myself, … 'really?'”
She continues, “We weren't happy with the way he was being supervised by whites, but at
the end of day we kind of decided not to interfere in a black man's hustle”. I pressed her on
this and she said the issue is not Kota's 'flexible politics'. This is being too harsh on him. ‘It
is that he is too visibly aligned with powerful whites in Grahamstown. Because his politics
is so flexible the assumption is …’
Such flexibility led to some strange happenings in Grahamstown. During the 2011 local
government elections, the UPM, along with other movements such as Abahlali, decided to
urge voters and supporters not to vote. “No Land, No House, No Vote” was their much
footnoted slogan.
Back on Rhodes campus, Students for Social Justice, (UPM partners and dedicated carriers
of UPM material on their website), endorsed a candidate for ward councilor. He was one of
their number, the affable Chris McMichael, and the SSJ ran his campaign.
McMichael's election manifesto stated that democracy must be about the people it claims to
represent and that politics belonged to the voters. If elected he would strive to do various
good things for the ward and the Grahamstown. In fact, if elected, half his salary would go
into surrounding communities 'with an eye to benefiting, in the most appropriate and
relevant manner, those who are unable to meet their basic needs with dignity'[iv]. He even
promised not to be smug or self-congratulatory about his donation to the poor; the kind of
promise it is very difficult not to break in the act of making it.
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While urging a no vote in the townships, Ayanda Kota was flexible enough to appear on
posters urging people to vote for McMichael in the ward on the Hill.
Sometimes flexibility in Kota's politics stretched a bridge too far. An academic who shared
a platform with Kota remembers him struggling through a speech on Fanon. “It was
painful”, he says, “you could see he did not write the speech”.
Side bar
What is the Students for Social Justice?
The SSJ was formed out of the Politics Department at Rhodes University in response to the
repression of the UPM and its struggle on behalf of the poor in the townships. Its most
active propagandist is Masters student, Benjamin Fogel.
Its main purpose is to develop “a partnership or living solidarity with the social
movement”. The partnership “has taken on several forms, ranging from helping UPM
activists to use the infrastructure provided to Rhodes students, to helping to arrange
transport on short notice”.
Fogel finds it necessary to say that members of the SSJ won't “seek to force its theories and
politics on existing social movements. The SSJ has attempted to take the back seat to the
UPM and work with them as the lesser partners”[v].
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Nevertheless the SSJ has played a part in bringing the UPM's struggles into public
awareness, especially some of “the more important moments”. During a UPM protest
against the bucket system, the SSJ's role “was mainly to explain the laws regarding protests
(with which UPM had complied) and how the police, commanded by the municipality, shut
it down, along with a Rhodes academic”.
A documentary of this march was also produced.
SSJ students march in solidarity with poor people, 25 October 2011,
Grahamstown.
Says Fogel, “The SSJ with the UPM further endorsed and helped organise the campaign of
an independent candidate in the recent municipal elections. Rhodes PhD student
Christopher McMichael ultimately ended up finishing a mere eight votes behind the ANC's
selected cadre”. He forgets to mention that the DA won the ward with a landslide.
Fogel goes on: “SSJ and the UPM have attempted to build the type of living solidarity in
which students can engage in a meaningful and democratic fashion with members of social
movements – a praxis we hope to see develop across other South African campuses”iv.
A praxis of “bringing struggles to public awareness” has already been used at other
campuses, notably at UKZN, from which Abahlali's fame arose.
The rhetoric of white, university based staff and students working with movements as
'lesser partners' is certain true when it comes to facing rubber bullets and arrest. When it
comes to knowledge production, it appears the Rhodies call the shots.
8
The use of the poor in Grahamstown to advance Rhodes politics was visible on Human
Rights Day, 2011. According to two persons present at the event, a group of mainly
grannies assembled to march to the police station. Their issue was to protest about rapes in
the township. A few students arrived in solidarity. Shortly thereafter stenciled posters
decrying Israel were distributed to the grannies. An SSJ member present denies he brought
the posters. The grannies were assembled holding the posters aloft. According to one
observer the grannies were under the impression the photo was about 're-enacting
Sharpeville'.
Grannies participating in a Human Rights Day march in Grahamstown bearing posters
prepared by Rhodes students
Grannies bearing posters in a student political stunt, Grahamstown, 2011
9
White students at the
University of Free State, obtaining the 'participation' of Black women workers in a student
stunt,
Bloemfontein 2008
Opened the gate
Why this level of scrutiny of Kota? The reason is that Kota's character has been made the
centrepiece of his denial of Martinez-Mullen's accusation that there is something fishy
about the UPM. He himself has opened that gate.
“I joined the struggle at the tender age of 14 years. I have never stolenfrom my comrades
and I have never stolen from anyone for that matter. I do not have a criminal record. Many
comrades have hosted me in their homes. I have never taken something that does not
belong to me.”
Besides forgetting that many tenderpreneurs joined the struggle at tender ages, Kota's
claim is that his good character is evidence enough that the UPM is accountably run.
However, if what people like Abe say is true, then Kota's assurances ring hollow. This in
turn impacts upon the sustainability of projects like the DLF, which base themselves so
heavily and uncritically on the rectitude of the politics of their grassroots subscribers.
Why do we have these long, poignant write ups of the biographies of grassroots leaders
anyway? What do they prove? Does Carl Niehaus not have a poignant early biography or
Tony Yengeni or Jacob Zuma? What wisdom and righteousness does it add to these
struggles, the bail slips of their leaders?
Dangerous and silly
I wish to be very clear. It was dangerous, silly and counter productive to report Kota to the
police. Martinez-Mullen should have taken the loss of the book on the chin. I mean she
could not muster the political capital that a local male comrade could have mustered
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to either repossess the books or get some sort of account. Those subtle plays that pit
privilege against the trump of race and which raise the spectre of violence against the
assumption of entitlement are not available to a person like Martinez-Mullen. Within the
world of the Left they both inhabited, Kota did not have to take her demands seriously.
Besides, at an interpersonal level, Martinez-Mullen comes across as a sentimental, verbose
and excitable foreigner whose obsessive pushiness about the books is repulsive. She had
the audacity of not knowing she was discursively outgunned even before she took Kota on.
All it took was for the arrest to be violent, for an arm to be raised in ‘an instinctive gesture
of self-defense’, and she was finished in the Left.
Interestingly, outside the Left, Kota is not as bereft of institutional pull as it may seem at
first glance. A remarkable feature of his arrest is that it had the Dean of Humanities at
Rhodes immediately come down to the police station to offer Kota all moral and material
support. Not only him. Hot on his gown came the Vice-Chancellor of that institution too. It is
not every day that the arrest of a leader of the unemployed brings the CEO of the biggest
employer in town, down to the jail to offer bail.
Denial
In time, Kota issued a statement denying he stole the precious book. Martinez-Mullen lent it
to him but he 'mislaid' it. He said he offered to replace it when he could not find it. He tried
to show the cops the smses he sent to Martinez-Mullen undertaking to replace the book.
However, they recognized him as a leader of a poor people's movement. That's when the
raising of his arms in an instinctive gesture of self-defense began and they pounced on him.
According to Kota, Martinez-Mullen was after him for other reasons. The book was a
pretext. She criticized him and the UPM for not being Marxist enough. She tried on several
occasions to impose her ideology on the movement and was bitter at being rejected.
An ideological contestation thus that lay at the heart of the conflict over the book. Kota was
a proud Black Consciousness man, a reader of Biko and Fanon, an activist from the age of
13. Martinez-Mullen was a white Marxist trying to impose herself on him, often
disrespectfully. In an altercation once, she called him an idiot and a lumpen.
This pattern has played out in other parts of the country before, Kota asserts. Leftists - oldstyle, vanguardist, regressive leftists - could not take the assertion of independence by
Black grassroots leaders who thought and spoke for themselves. These Leftists would stop
at nothing to destroy proud, independent grassroots men, resorting to all sorts of 'slander'
if their attempts at control failed.
That, Kota's statement said, is why he stood accused of financial irregularity and
undemocratic practice. Martinez-Mullen was simply 'slandering' him.
In a passage of Kota's statement that will, I suspect, soon be compared to Steve Biko's
words during the SASO walkout, he declares:
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We are not the first movement to suffer this kind of sectarian attack and we won't be the
last. But we are clear that she is not the real enemy. She is just distraction from the real
struggles for a just and equal society in which the dignity of all people is respected. I will
never stop reading Steve Biko and Frantz Fanon. …
Patterns
Kota's rebuttal is fantastic. First, it creates a he say- she says situation regarding the theft /
loss of the book. Next it displaces the personal conflict about a book taken by a houseguest
into a political realm in which one's sympathies must be with Kota. Kota's statement sets
up an all too familiar narrative involving rich, white ideologues forcing themselves upon
poor Black victims. This stuff happens and it has happened just as much in the Left as in the
rest of South African society. Kota's statement thus proposes a handy and probable
morality play that allows us to click our tongues at the predictable villains while avoiding
subtler but disconcerting home truths in which all in the Left have been involved.
There is a pattern of white domination, for sure. The problem is that Kota's statement is
part of it. But one can only make this case by revealing certain home truths. People
involved in social movement organizing know these things. But it is taboo to say them.
The foremost home truth is that there is an unhealthy, insidious and disfiguring
mentorship of Black 'grassroots' social movement leaders by their academic patrons, most
of them white. The enduring harm caused is not by the few, crusty critics of social
movements but by those who so zealously brand them. I have tried to describe this process
elsewhere and there is no need for repetition[vi].
A feature of the branding of movements is that they become indelibly marked by the
concerns, inclinations, animosities, political acumen and even writing styles of their
mentors. This is mainly because the definitive written tasks of the movement are almost
always assumed by – or delegated to – the academic. That is why a UPM statement reads
exactly like an Abahlali statement. They share mentors[vii].
The intellectual pronouncements of movement leaders almost always come to further the
ideas contended for by their mentors. Never in the history of social movements has a
movement leader preferred Lenin when his mentor has preferred Fanon. Never has a
leader failed in a conference paper to take a dig at the sectarian enemies of his mentor.
Indeed, as Khadija Sharife has exposed, often social movements come to prefer theorists
they have never heard of and take digs they simply cannot explain[viii].
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that, in its 'partnership' with various students and
academics, UPM hands do not hold the pen. Kota and Co. supply the raw data but the
narrative into which 'the more important' parts are inserted is supplied by an outside
mentor. It is both above and beneath individual UPM members to write what appears in
Inboxes the world over.
It sounds patronizing, I know. But everybody involved in left organizing in South Africa
knows about white intellectual mentorship of many Black organic leaders and how easy it
is for these dependencies to develop. Kota himself acknowledges this mentorship:
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One of our mentors, Professor Pedro Tabensky, a protagonist of
Black Consciousness, came to my mind. He says that UPM must resurrect hope in our
communities and collectivism. As things are at the moment people have lost hope. It is no
wonder that there is such brokenness. Reclaiming hope is the first step to action. Another
mentor by the name of Richard Pithouse would also quote Frantz Fanon: “Each generation
must discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it.” The time has come for our generation
toinvent our own politics and to take our own stand. People are struggling and thinking
and discussing all over the country. These rivers of struggle will join soon. We are already
getting a good sense of the new politics. It is a politics that is firmly in the hands of the
people. A politics that begins from our daily lives[ix].
So what?
If the politics that emerges from this mythopoetic encounter between the white left and
black poor is radical, so what? Neither side is pure or authentic but at least they spawn
some resistance to the ANC and its pro-capitalist policies. It's a hustle with the best
intentions.
Richard Pithouse (mentor),
A
Ayanda Kota (activist) and
small boy (8) in front of joint
UPM and SSJ protest,
Grahamstown, 2011.
Pic. Grocott’s Mail
Assuming that the best intentions motivate those mentoring movement leaders, the
problem is that the politics produced by this hustle is impossibly grandiose, out of touch
with reality and actually off-putting to many potential supporters. Why is the Left so weak?
Is it because it is being repressed out of existence by the ANC? Or is it also because,
believing its own hype, the Left orientates itself to material conditions that do not exist.
So for example, internecine fights within Kennedy Road, based on ethnicity, curfews and
rivalry for jobs becomes an international clarion call to protect Abahlali leaders from being
purged by ANC assassins sent in by government ministers to get rid of this powerful rival to
the ruling party.
13
The subsequent acquittal of individual Abahlali accused on proper, if technical, criminal law
grounds then becomes vindication for the entire movement and erasure of the fact that two
people from the other side ended up dead in the fracas[x]. There is never an examination of
how its 30000 – 50000 members, deeply involved in its rigorously democratic and nonhierarchical 'living politics', disappeared with the hadedas into the haze over the Durban
city bowl. No-one accounts for the sectarian decisions it made, first siding with the World
Bank and municipality against 'racist' and 'bourgeois' environmentalists at the Clare Estate
dump[xi]. And then being the stalking horse for a silly and unsustainable boycott of the
Centre for Civil Society, where one of its mentors worked and had to leave under a cloud of
allegation by women colleagues, not political persecution, at the exact time Abahlali's
boycott began.
Similarly, ANCYL buckaroos, doubling as march marshals, objected to the unveiling of
posters critical of their man, Zuma, carried by COP17 protestors from out of town. Ripping
them down, they insulted and threw punches and kicks. It was ugly and uncalled for. Next
thing, we are told that the ANC council, nay probably city manager Mike Sutcliffe himself,
sent these 'green-bombers' to suppress the ascendant message carried by DLF
members[xii].
Naturally, the eviction of Abahlali from Kennedy Road and the assault of good people like
Rehad Desai at COP 17 are terrible events. But, in the hands of the social movement
publicists, these events are fundamentally misdescribed in order to bolster a profile of
movements that is altogether grander and more self-serving than the reality. People who
have organized in trade unions and social movements in KZN know that this is not the way
things work. You do not need a government conspiracy for violence to be used as a method
of dispute resolution. It is unfortunately a fairly mundane feature of life, not very far from
the surface of our society. COP17 was a failure of social mobilization on its own terms.
Repression was unnecessary.
Amilcar Cabral ought to have added, “Claim no easy defeats”.
It is not only Durban. Have any of the hagiographists of the Mandela Park Anti-Eviction
Campaign supplied an assessment of the decline of what was once the UPM of social
movements. Like Capt. Schettino, left-writers are only on the bridge when it is plain sailing.
When the ship hits the rocks, partly because of their inattention to obvious dangers, leftwriters have the convenient tendency to fall into the lifeboats.
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Side bar: The relationship between DLF and UPM
Since its formal incorporation in 2009, the UPM described itself as championing service
delivery. It did so by inserting itself into spontaneous protests, particularly by
Grahamstown shack dwellers or by hosting its own events. In March 2010, a protest for
service delivery and against pornography took place. Ayanda Kota 'reminded the crowd
that [the previous year] the UPM marched to the City Hall to demand a clean water supply,
employment and general service delivery'.
'Government leaders argue that they did not take part in the struggle so that they could be
poor, likewise, we were not in the struggle to enrich the elite few instead we want to also
eat with them,' he added.
Jane Duncan, a professor at Rhodes, offered moral support. She said the UPM should link up
with other movements as the “disgraceful” state of service delivery is a national struggle
and not only a concern for Grahamstown residents.
By June 2011, the vehicle for this national link up had come into being. It was the
Democratic Left Front, one of its convenors being Jane Duncan. A Grahamstown branch was
planned. In late August 2011, the town received the “launch of a new political force” with
some fanfare. At the launch, chaired by Pedro Tabenski, 'the Unemployment Peoples
Movement and Students for Social Justice (SSJ) organisations were present. The Rural
People's Movement apologised for their absence due to transport problems. The
community organisations agreed to join the movement on the basis that they maintain
independent identities …'[xiii].
As for leadership, the DLF chapter in town was to be headed by Professor Jane
Duncan and Ayanda Kota. (It was Duncan who would later phone Martinez-Mullen several
times, allegedly berating her for laying charges against Kota.) Also present at the launch
was Professor Vishwas Satgar, the former Gauteng provincial secretary of South African
Communist Party (SACP), who is on the DLF’s National Committee.
Vanguard Vacuum
Satgar said the DLF had emerged after what he termed the 'crisis of the national liberation
project'. The “working class continued to be under consistent attack from the neo-liberal
policies of the ANC-led government”. The DLF's “emergence was greatly influenced by
SACP's failure to play its historical role as the vanguard of the poor and the working class. It
is absorbed in the state and the social movements which are fragmented, divided and
weak”.
“Given this existing political vacuum, we saw the need to regroup and find a voice for the
Left in South Africa.[xiv]”
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NEW KID ON THE BLOCK... Vishwas Satgar (left, black jacket), Ayanda Kota (in the middle
of the table), members of Democratic Left Front's (DLF) National Committee with members
of Unemployment Peoples' Front from Phaphamani during the launching meeting of DFL at
Rhodes University over the weekend.
Photo:
Mabake wa-Masweneng.
Curiously a day later, both Ayanda Kota and Vishwas Satgar were back in Grocott's Mail,
doing something else altogether. The photo of the second event seems to be taken the same
day with everyone wearing the same clothes, including the unnamed people 'from the
community' hovering in the background.
This time the event was a workshop at Rhodes University to announce a proposal by the
Co-operative and Policy Alternative Centre (Copac) to the UPM to assist local township
women with co-operatives.
Business Plans
Based in Johannesburg, Copac 'assists poor township and rural communities in establishing
co-operatives'.
'It also educates these communities on the importance of co-operatives as a model of selfreliance and also as a means to improve their socio-economic conditions’[xv].
The director of the organization is none other than Professor Vishwas Satgar, a former
Gauteng provincial secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and now a
professor at Wits University. Other members of the organization include Sally Williams,
who is also a lecturer at Wits and Mazibuko Jara, a researcher at University of Cape Town.
Prof. Satgar stated: “Our role is to build a solidarity economy, register your co-operative
under the Co-operative Act of 2005, develop a business plan and equip people with
relevant management skills to run these projects sustainably.”
Grocott's Mail reported that the attendees were members of the UPM, mostly 'elderly
women from different places in the township, such as Phaphamani and Vukani, who
expressed their wish to run community projects such as crèches or soup kitchens. But they
indicated that they did not have the relevant skills’.
16
Doubling Up: Satgar and Kota co-operating on cooperatives
To close the second launch of the day, COPAC unashamedly presented an 8-point plan to
the UPM. This included:
“Conversion of UPM from being a mere social movement (oppositional) to transformative
one that will strive for a Solidarity Economy.”
The project would be piloted with the UPM in Phaphamani, to be subsequently established
throughout Makana.
On behalf of the community Copac would also “use its research capacity to strengthen the
co-operative and continuously educate its members”[xvi].
At the end of the meeting, Professor Satgar gave UPM members five pamphlets about
business and financial management and political economy.
How all of this - the DLF filling the vanguard vacuum and the Copac co-operative changing
the oppositional nature of the UPM through political education - squares with the UPM's
line about a living politics bubbling up from the lived experiences of the poor and rejecting
the tutelage of Marxists, is not clear.
What is clear is how service delivery protests in 2009, concerned with brick and mortar
measurables, morph into movements primarily for dignity and self-reliance by 2011. It is
by no means an advance, except of course if advance is measured by journal articles, well
publicized arrests and Rosa Luxembourg grants.
Arrest Me
If ever there is a movement that should serve as a warning against the fetishisation of
'getting arrested' as a mark of a good politics, it is the Mandela Park Anti-Eviction
Campaign. Indeed, no one has anything on Max and Fonky when it comes to being arrested,
detained and hurt by the police. They ended up working for the Western Cape Provincial
housing department amidst unpleasant scenes about democratic accountability within
their movement, which collapsed.
17
Clothing themselves in the spattered robes of the victim of deliberate ANC attacks gives
social movements a sense of importance they unfortunately neither no longer enjoy nor,
frankly, deserve. It also shields from view the fact that, after an initial one or two years of
struggle, aside from being repressed, they do not do very much.
The social movement theorist who has understood the importance of repression as a
validation and amplifier of his message and personal brand is Patrick Bond. During the Fifa
™ World Cup, he marched up and down the beach front handing out the most
discombobulated leaflet of demands I have ever seen, literally asking passing police officers
to arrest him. By the time he found a police officer who was vaguely interested in
repressing him, he ran out of leaflets.
From this point of view the best thing to have happened during COP17 were the ANCYL
louts. The mass march through the streets of Durban, meant to communicate DLF and
community antagonism to corporations destroying the planet, was by all accounts a 'self
liquidating' flop.
I have suggested in another piece that one of the main reasons why so few Black
intellectuals are attracted to social movement politics is that they are too busy rolling on
the floor with laughter, reading the idealized accounts of township politics and the intricate
conspiracies that inform the Left's hues and cries. They are probably too busy gagging
when reading a white guy writing what he likes for black guys while fighting other white
guys and then situating these spats within the tradition of Biko and Fanon. Even Donald
Woods turns in his grave.
It is ironic that at the very University where Blacks walked out on NUSAS paternalism,
under the cover of his name, many return.
In sum, the objection to the social movement project is not that it is a hustle but that it is a
bad hustle. It is not based on how the world really works but romantic clichés, it is offputting to thinking people and it leaves behind a string of broken movements and
demoralized communities.
More seriously, it appears that the social movement project is increasingly part of
advanced liberal governance. It functions to create discrete interlocutors for government,
lightning rods amid the seething, ill-formed storm of discontent. The substance of what
social movements say may occasionally speak to this discontent, although, often they are as
technocratic, developmentalist and legalistic as the state. However, any radical content is
betrayed by the orthodoxy of the form in which movements exercise power – set piece
protests, memos, moral lectures, court cases, conferences, leadership cults, victimologies
and the instantiation of a 'living politics' through the supposed democratic practice taking
place in the shacklands every night.
To use an analogy from the 1980s, social movements make a show of swimming on white
beaches and courting arrest – but structurally are part of an understood, containing
cameral arrangement with power. This is not to institute a dichotomy between reform and
revolution or voluntarism and abstention. It's about being a patsy and not.
18
Side Bar :
Life cycle of a community leader
An organic black man strains against the debilitating conditions of his existence. He
becomes a key organizer of a very local resistance with very particular demands. He has
admirable qualities such as bravery and intelligence but is also a product of his conditions,
with personal needs and strategies for upliftment too. An outrage occurs in his township
and he is thrown into action.
The outrage is well reported in the press. There is protest action against it. There are
arrests, rubber bullets and tear gas. This is where an (usually white) academic enters the
scene bearing solidarity in various forms, maybe legal help, and maybe bail moneyxiv. A
relationship is built that turns the activist into a leader. The leader leaves behind brute,
local demands and talks a new language: Fanon, Badiou, Biko.
The leader writes articles in magazines, newspapers, gives talks at conferences about the
new humanism. It all sounds very different from the activist work prior to his mentorship.
When people interview the leader they appreciate his obvious qualities but also know full
well that the speeches and articles are not his work. There is a dramatic disconnect
between spoken and written man[xvii]. But they cannot say this because, if they are white,
accusations of racism are sure to follow. If they are Black, they're breaking down a brother
within a feud between whites.
Besides, the leader says the right things; his gestures are radical even if we suspend
disbelief a little that they are his inner convictions.
But soon the leader is tested. He must convert his local standing and particular demand
into something greater; he must denounce the overall system. This is difficult because,
while under the supervision of the white academic, organizational matters have not gone
so well. 'Constituencies' melt, they are fickle, they wonder aloud about the new shoes, the
perpetual presidency, the sharing of resources filtered in via the leader. Repression also
bites. The leader has thrown certain stones in his conference papers and these stones cause
trickles of informal repression to come his way, in places where the academic is of no
shield.
Ironically, while Fanoning away, the demands of his community are watered down, they
become very abstract. “We want 20 more toilets by next month or we barricade again”
becomes “we want dignity, we must rebuild hope, we must demand consultations about in
situ upgrading subject to availability of funds”.
Oddly, in support of watered down demands, the political poses the leader must strike are
more daring. The time has come, you see, within the story, for the flagging fortunes of the
movement to be revived through acts of repression directed against the leader himself. It
isn't exactly planned. But the leader must insert himself into contentious engagements with
the police. The authorities need little encouragement to arrest and hand out klaps and
kicks. When someone is inevitably arrested, the websites are ready to sing.
19
The white academic will meticulously, almost lovingly, record these events, but from a
position just outside of the line of fire himself.
After the leader gets bail and his mistreatment written up as 'torture', there is a victory
tour of the States, sponsored by the rigorous Fanonian and rather less rigorous researcher,
Nigel Gibson.
The black man, a bit of a hustler, who can blame him, an activist too, thinks that he can pull
the strings. There are the airfares, the money from the NGO's, the sense of grandeur. But he
is ensnared. The strings tighten, the dependence increases, room for maneuver less so. He
must perform. Give township tours to researchers from overseas. Denounce the bad white
rival of his mentor. Keep a semblance of an organization going.
So starts the implosion of the movement. Increasingly improbable claims made about the
relevance and strength of the movement have only the wounds of victimhood to
substantiate them. Actual organizational work has ceased. The leader swans around,
detained by the insistent invitations of those who want a piece of his radical chic. There are
no longer any marches, certainly no protest action. This is not a problem for the academic,
as the sinking of a movement constitutes irrefutable proof of its repression and thus
vindication of its politics.
There will be other movements. In the meantime the glow of this picturesque movement,
and one's his mentorship of it, lingers on in cyberspace and Masters Theses.
In politics, the virtual world has its limits. The pressure is unsustainable and the leader
cracks. He becomes just another NGO worker, or law student or deracinated member of the
DLF steering committee. Or it could be that the leader overtly joins the other side.
Fast forward. Wherever these academics arrive, the same scenario unfolds. The sock
puppetry, the ventriloquism, the impossible pose and Fanon…
Heavy Criticism
Those who have criticized the social movement enterprise into which this saga also fits
have come under heavy criticism. I do not mean the indignant shrieks that come from
obvious movement hacks. Their knee-jerk defense of particular movements and leaders has
sectarian, occupational and politico-erotic underpinnings, impossible to pierce.
Vituperative attack from this quarter is expected and serves, I am told, to underscore my
argument before its true audience.
The worrying attacks come from movements themselves. Or at least, it purports to come
from them.
When Buntu Siwisa raised concerns about the romantic writing up of the CCF, an early
social movement that flourished between 1999 and 2002, (and in which I was involved),
we flatly ignored him. Largely ignored too is Sakhela Buhlungu's 'The Anti-Privatisation
Forum: A Profile of a Post-Apartheid Social Movement'.
20
Rebecca Pointer's questions about the claims of a vibrant direct democracy within the
Mandela Park Anti-Eviction Campaign were confidently dismissed. Her 'white feminism'
was a barn door.
A whole range of activists from the BC tradition drew attention to the imbalance of power
in the encounter between white academic 'supporters' and grassroots leaders. They
wondered aloud about manipulation and withdrew from this terrain. Their scorn was
never published in any SAPSE journal and could thus be safely by-passed.
Elsewhere I described the way other early eyebrow raisers, such as Prishani Naidoo and
Virginia Setshedi, called out the nefarious influence of particular academics on movements
such as Abahlali. They were attacked in conference papers and statements that have the
thumbprint of the mentors everywhere. In these writings, ironically, the movement's right
to speak for itself, was audaciously asserted.
When UKZN academic, Lubna Nadvi, argued on a listserv that movement mentors such as
Pithouse were doing a disservice to Abahlali by their style of operation, he initiated
University disciplinary procedures against her. He also sent a letter of demand threatening
to sue for defamation. Nadvi stood her ground, Pithouse's grievance collapsed but she
became persona non grata to Abahlali.
When, after eight years of activism and observation, Ashwin Desai raised niggling doubts
about Abahlali's turn to law and questioned the role of its academics such as Pithouse and
Raj Patel, Abahlali promptly issued a mentored statement in which it compared him to
Mike Sutcliffe, city manager, both wishing to destroy the movement[xviii].
Researchers from overseas, who spent much time in Kennedy Road, such as Shannon
Walsh, but who failed to tow the official line, also suffered thinly veiled denunciations.
Luke Sinwell, a critic of romanticisation and skeptic of the anti-systemic nature of
celebrated grassroots organisations is dismissed. His approach is not ethnographic enough.
He focuses only on what movements actually say or do. He misses the resistance implicit in
the 'everyday life' of communities, the infrared rebellions not visible to the naked eye. To
some extent, his fate is worst of all, buried alive in left-wing solipsism, sprinkled with
misapplied James Scott, where the only known thing about the poor is their resistance. It is
thus everywhere and thus nowhere very much[xix].
And then there's me.
A favoured word used in movement press to counter concerns raised about their conduct is
'slander'. Anything negative is slander or contempt for the poor.
A clever term has recently been coined to lump all critics together; 'the regressive Left'. The
motive behind the slander of the ‘regressive Left’ is that they, with their vanguardist
temperaments, actually wish to control social movements but have essentially lost out to
those who have ensured the autonomy of these movements and their leaders to speak for
themselves.
A dichotomy is set up. On the one hand we have the old, authoritarian Left with preordained Leninist ideological strategies rooted in parties, unions, vanguards and the grasp
for political power.
21
On the other hand we have new social movements, espousing a 'living politics' derived
from the daily democratic practices of the lumpen proletariat in the shanties. They are the
agents of a “new humanism” beyond race and class, “open to all,” and where every kind of
genius may grow.
However that works!
Side Bar: White Skin, Black Masks
The uses to which Fanon are put by a particular faction in the social movement enterprise
deserve a paper on their own. Fanon is unfortunately a half-eviscerated icon. Yes he is still
fiercely denunciatory of the national bourgeoisie and all that but, when it comes to political
action, he functions to enable liberal humanism, all talk of voice, dignity, due process and
hope; a socio-economic rights Fanon. For a painful example of this, view Sbu Zikode's
interview outside a Fanon lecture, hosted by the Church Land Programme, on “Why is
Fanon Relevant Today”[xx]. Although he treads water fairly well, Zikode is plainly out of his
depth and the platitudes about Fanon could apply any human rights activist. Contrast this
to his mentor, Pithouse's[xxi] line. When we read Abahlali statements and speeches by Sbu
Zikode it is Pithouse's take on Fanon not
Zikode's that is found, word for word.
Much as the Leninist left constantly images itself through the lens of Russia in 1917, those
who invoke Fanon seem to invoke the image of Algeria in 1955, with themselves as the
travelers, the revolutionary students of the colonial condition.
Quoting from the Wretched of the Earth, the ANC fills the role of Fanon's post-colonial
compradors, and the poor that of a Fanonian revolutionary subject, concerned not only
with toilets and taps but also "by human reciprocity and the relationships that develop
through a rigorously democratic and inclusive movement"[xxii]. It is thus not surprising
that the ANC is the grand devil, and the poors' troublesome habits in supporting that party
are dismissed, as is anything that suggests that their consciousness is not leaping from
toilets to a "new humanism" (ibid.).
The regressive Left is said to be very powerful and a force with which a living politics must
contend along with the repression of the state. While the cops arrest the living politicians,
the Left ask mischievous questions and tell lies about them. There are suggestions all the
time that the cops and regressive left are one and the same thing.
Statements like this coming directly from academics would immediately and rightly be
condemned as anti-intellectual. From social movement leaders, they gain an authenticity
that allows them to be footnoted as legitimate impressions. The profound influence of a
22
leader's intellectual mentor is shielded from public view by everything except the
linguistics. And a sort of tabooed common sense.
The truth is that the living politics stuff about social movements, put out by their mentors,
far from being under attack by a dominant 'regressive Left', is absolutely dominant. Google
will prove that. Far from contesting control of social movements, the ‘regressive Left’
seemed to have renounced mentorship. Their great sin is not ‘contempt’ for poor people
but apostasy about social movements.
I do though so wish that someone else, preferably in Grahamstown, would have raked open
this cesspit to expose the simple things everybody not involved in the hustle already
knows. The ventriloquism, the Native Board election strategy, the liberalizing of Fanon, the
renting of grannies, the embedded sociology, the manipulation and mentorships. Because,
in between the uses to which their mentors put the knowledge they create about the poor,
there are meaningful struggles occurring within and around them. There is a politics
stirring in the land and it's a shame so much is being obscured by the social movement
hustle.
If someone else had joined the factual dots, I may have sat back and tried to enter this
debate with nuance, poise and, above all cleanliness, to try to tease out the deeper more
focused meanings of all of this. Raised my gaze. I tried this in my White Revolutionary As
Missionary piece, which goes for R28[xxiii].
But without facts, dirty little meat hooks, there is no hoist to any of that analysis. Just the
cleanliness of theory. I suppose there's a kind of justice since I operated in much the same
way myself, at one time, sexing movements up.
Many of my discussants in Grahamstown, fearing the kind of labeling other people have
received, have requested anonymity. Grahamstown is a small place and the mentors are
'blue-eyed' boys and girls. I mean, think about it. After Kota’s release on bail, he is able, in a
statement put out under his name, to thank a Dean, a Head of Department, two professors
and an academic for being so ‘progressive’ all this time in providing him with resources and
strategic advice since late 2010, albeit in an undominating way[xxiv]. This may just be
flattery and name-dropping but it is remarkable the number of people at Rhodes University
or in Grahamstown who feel under some kind of threat should they openly voice their
misgivings about such a popular fellow and the relationships that sustain his operation.
I also hope that those Black intellectuals who see this issue as a fight about and between
whites in which Black bodies are positioned as pawns, will realize that, even if this is true
to
some extent, they have to intervene. It is not about taking sides against fellow Blacks (the
Kotas and Zikodes of the social movement scene) but about taking a position against the
role they play in facilitating the infusion of their mentors' ideas into struggles that could
very
well go another way.
23
ETHNOGRAPHIC MISCONDUCT
FABRICATION
(arch. Forging)
counterfeiting research
eg. size of movements
HOAX
FALSIFICATION
relying on public naivete and credulousness
eg. movements are rigorously, horizontal and democratic,
movements draw inspiration from Badiou
Adapted from Gross, Charles, “Disgrace”, The Nation,
January 9 – 16, 2012
COOKING
calculated selection of facts to prove pre-established conclusions or research results
eg. leaders' arrests proves movements are significant
Movements embodiment of anarchistic / Fanonian
/ Occupy praxis
TRIMMING
eliminating known 'outlier' facts to preserve accuracy of research results
eg. airbrushing movement involvement in intra-community violence, such as Kennedy Rd
What is Not to be Done?
I feel that the primary task of the left intellectual, especially middle class white ones, is to
stay as far away from unfolding struggles, such as they are, as possible. We are infected by a
pox of a style of operation that, in the end, robs whatever movements may arise of any
chance (and credibility) to spread in their own idiom and in terms of their own political
language. Where there is wisdom in leadership, as there often is, it does not need tutelage
in - and ventriloquism of - the post-colonial canon to make it more so.
No matter how radical our ideological stance, (the ANC is pro-capitalist and must be
opposed to bring about revolution) we end up functioning as liberal humanists. We turn
the potential social antagonisms towards the political economy as a whole into mere
conflict about routes to march, interpretation of the Constitution or the proper use of the
rubber bullet and tear gas during crowd control (I kid you not, the DLF calls for better
training for the cops).
24
Our romance, our mentorship serves to insert these movements into a predictable and
legitimizing dance with power.
This is not to say that organs of the poor would not turn into civil society anyway. Or that
the poor are incapable of authoritarianism, myopia, puerility and cooption without
mentorship. It frequently happens. There is no good reason to assume that the more
extreme the conditions of poverty affecting a group of people lumped together in a
particular location, the more authentically revolutionary, rigorously democratic and ethical
is the politics that arises from them. Such a notion can only seriously be posed by those
whose connection to the poor is safely and homogenisingly academic.
If there is a task it is to recognize that civil society is the decanter where antagonisms
subside into conflicts. Social movements, as the quintessential elements of civil society, are
the active ingredients of that process. It is time to directly expose the idea of ‘social
movements’ as the core component of (advanced) liberal governance as its priority
becomes to turn unmanageable antagonisms with the poor into predictable conflicts
among citizens. Cosatu and Sanco are spent forces in this regard. They hold no sway with
the dangerous classes. The ‘social movement project’ tries to fill this void and must
therefore be confronted for these reasons, and not only as an avenue for white humanism
to perpetuate its discursive violence.
Sufficient time has past to make a call. Despite the dubious theoretical underpinnings in
Fanon, this business of a ‘new humanism’ being birthed by the everyday rigorous,
democratic politics of the poor is empirically not going to happen. Several cycles of rise and
fall of movements for very similar reasons show this. Social movements do not prefigure a
new society, nor does much that happens within them, unfortunately. The only way they
can be written up like this is through fabrication and falsification of what actually happens
at the ‘grassroots’.
What we now should realize is that the real vanguardists are the mentors posing as 'lesser
partners'. They say they only publicize the 'more important' moments of movements,
channel resources and arrange access to their leaders. But it is more than that. Their
attacks on critics, 'living politics' hokum, and post-colonial posturing could be ignored if
they did not try to pass this stuff off as organic. They must be confronted, lest even more
unsuspecting MA students come over to read social movements, expecting Revolutionary
Road but ending up with The Book Thief.
The lessons arising from a ten-year flirtation with social movements in South Africa are
mainly negatively prefigurative. The limits of a politics vested in the shackland, among 'the
poors', and at the point of reproduction are now clear. The cycles of rise and fall are
obvious. So too is the lack of sustained mass support. No amount of mythmaking or website
maintenance can alter the fact that people in movements are pretty much as compromised
as the rest of the society in which we live. Once they are famous, the avenues for individual
organisations and leaders to be pacified are wide open. At first this is through repression,
followed by veneration by the left, followed by various forms of cooptation, by the
academy, government, NGOs.
25
The urge for an individual revolutionary messiah is once again on the rocks. The liturgy
that direct democracy transubstantiates the wretched into revolutionaries is demonstrably
implausible.
Social Movement is Dead.
We know it is no longer this way. But which?
Heinrich Böhmke
January, 2012
NOTES
[i] In the pages of ROAPE for example one will witness Carin Runciman slug it out with
Luke Sinwell. Vol. 38, Issue 130
[ii] for an example of his work see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Sekwanele_2/Archive
[iii] http://floydscallreloaded.blogspot.com/2012/01/is-ayanda-kota-being-used-bysome-to.html
[iv] http://ssjrhodes.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html
[v] http://thinkingafricarhodesuniversity.blogspot.com/2011/11/students-and-workingclass-towards.html
[vi] The Branding of Social Movements in South Africa, dispositions,
http://dispositionsjournal.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-branding-of-social-movements-insouth.html
[vii] In this respect, Claudia Martinez-Mullen is as problematic a mentor as Pithouse or
Tabensky with her Women’s Social Forum (later Ubuntu Women and Community Forum).
A rival. The only difference is that she openly situates herself as an actual member and is
thus visible in her infusion of her own politics into the grassroots, Marxism.
[viii] Barefoot or Branded Politics, Huffington Post,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/khadija-sharife/barefoot-or-brandedpolit_b_783444.html
[ix] http://www.abahlali.org/node/8092
[x] Far from the outcome of the case being a ringing vindication of Abahlali, as their
propagandists would have it, the evidence led and submissions made in the trial, including
by Abahlali's own lawyers, completely contradicted the picture Abahlali mentors have
portrayed of this settlement. Abahlali was more a labour broker than social movement and
its collaboration with the SAPS more in the way of vigilantism than the living politics
described in journals. In her judgment the Magistrate noted that:
‘The evidence is quite clear that there was trouble brewing in Kennedy Road informal
settlement. Different groups of people were dissatisfied with other groups of people who
were ruling the roost so to speak and after meetings were called it culminated in a rampage
that took place on the night in question. Different groups of people went on the rampage,
there was public violence where people were injured extremely seriously.’ In discussing
the police bungling of the investigation she noted:
“What is extremely upsetting in this matter is that these were serious counts. People lost
their lives in a vicious attack upon their persons. It is unfortunate as well that there is so
much bad blood existing in Kennedy Road informal settlement shacks, not only between
different political affiliations, but different cultures as well, that there is so much animosity
between all the groups, that at the end of the day the Court does not know where the truth
lies”
[xi] After unrelenting hostility, couched in race, towards those opposed to the DSW dump
in Clare Estate, from which Abahlali members received employment, the leader of Abahlali,
S'bu Zikode, recently confessed that Durban municipal officials manipulated these socioracial divisions: ‘We were used. They even offered us free busses to protest in favour of this
project … to damage those who oppose this project. The promised jobs and bursaries that
justified the group's earlier support for the CDM never materialized.” [Sharife and Bond,
'South Africa's pilot CDM, fraud and environmental racism', 2012].
http://cdm.unfccc.int/public_inputs/2011/eb64_02/cfi/P2MUQY1117HGL6AH8DJLCEY7Z
D5VAX
Zikode also confessed that Abahlali virtually acted as dump security guards, dispensing
'severe warnings' to community members found pilfering from the dump site. ‘There are no
illegal picking on the site now. That was condemned and we make it clear not to do that.
We can control our people. We can have a meeting, and tell people there is cooperation. But
of course we could only do that once we negotiated. We command respect’. Interview with
Sampson, M., 2008, for groundWork report, Wasting the Nation.
[xii] Interrogating the firm belief some have that Sutcliffe played a direct and controlling
role in the thuggery of the marshals, they reason as follows:
a.) Sutcliffe was present in the Hall when the thugs attacked protestors for the second time;
b.) The Ethekwini Municipality, which Sutcliffe heads, hired these individuals to act as
marshals;
c.) The theorists speculate, most improbably, that Sutcliffe would have personally hired
them himself, as in contracting with them in his office, for this express repressive purpose.
After all, he is known to be a hands-on manager.
d.) Sutcliffe stated two days later that the protestors had received their come-uppance.
It is fortunate that the low level of proof and high level of merry inference with which the
Left ventures its accusations do not apply in court, otherwise every social movement leader
would be in jail. I did not see candid reports from COP protestors that one of their number
held a poster, on both occasions, saying, “Zuma is a rapist”. There's an explanation for the
violence that is a lot simpler if one uses common sense.
[xiii] (Grocott's Mail, 26 March 2010)
[xiv] ibid.
[xv] ibid.
[xvi] http://www.grocotts.co.za/content/co-operatives-be-launched-grahamstown-31-082011
[xvii] For a good example consider the speech on Zikode's US tour
http://www.abahlali.org/node/7504. Compare that to a radio interview on KPFA Fm.
Prompted in detail by the interviewer to comment upon whether and how neo-liberal
policies that are applied in SA and across Africa have affected ANC policies, Zikode says that
there has been a shift “you know, uhm, looking at issues at the humanistic ways where you
find money as the only dominating substance that is coming to reign our society, that have
come to steal what was to be the human justice. So we, we are concerned about the
growing trend of our country following the neoliberal policies that have no dealings about
the human agenda…”.
When asked about the Frederick Douglas quote in his paper, and whether Abahlali is
reading this stuff, he is clearly at sea and produces an irrelevant answer.
Interestingly when pressed in the interview about the murders in Kennedy Road, Zikode
says that he is not saying that Abahlali is innocent just that the people who also attacked
Abahlali on the night were not arrested,that is why it is a state set-up.
[http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/65525]
[xviii] http://www.abahlali.org/node/6403
[xix] The rhetoric of a prefigurative, demandless politics has made its way over to South
African movements first with Fanon's fans but then in earnest with the impact of the
Occupy movement in the States. Movements and their mentors now strenuously reject that
they are posing service delivery demands. It is really all about a politics rooted in ‘everyday
life’. Grahamstown itself had an Occupy event, which SSJ and UPM leaders led.
I pass no comment on the value and function of demandlessness and prefiguration in the
North, but it is present, with a slight Fanonian twist, in the notion that the rigorous practice
of direct, horizontal democracy at grass-roots level among the poor will bring about a 'new
humanism'.
The evidence for the practices occurring within SA movements prefiguring a new society
based on the ethical values claimed is dubious. It is mainly branding. However, the allure of
a prefigurative politics in SA that stays completely horizontal and pure of power, goes
beyond branding. It represents a strategic, organisational retreat from the impossible
levels of mobilization necessary to sustain the rudimentary and now disavowed service
delivery focus of earlier times. Withdrawing into prefigurative preoccupations flows from
the realization that movements become too weak to actually command delivery.
In Nietzschean terms, it functions as a sort slaves' morality; making a virtue of the fact that
all movements are eventually able to exert any power over is their own tiny little
(rigorously democratic) space. And even that is exaggeration.
[xx] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYri61ZghEo
[xxi] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVgkBVhaqcA&feature=related
[xxii] http://abahlali.org/node/5540
[xxiii] http://www.scribd.com/doc/31891005/The-White-Revolutionary-as-a-MissionaryContemporary-travels-and-researches-in-Caffraria
[xxiv] http://kaganof.com/kagablog/2012/01/23/ayanda-kotas-response-to-claudiamartinez-mullen/
http://www.zcommunications.org/i-thus-caught-that-colonial-mind-set-at-work-the-misrepresentation-of-post-apartheid-social-movements-by-mandisi-majavu
I Thus Caught That Colonial Mind-Set At Work: The Mis-Representation Of PostApartheid Social Movements
by Mandisi Majavu
Frances Piven and Richard Cloward (1977) once wrote that when poor people’s
movements go against the doctrine of those who regard themselves as the intellectual
revolutionary vanguard, the movements are often derided and dismissed. History is full of
examples in which movements were dismissed for either being too “nationalistic” or for
“lacking class consciousness”. For instance, although the Black Consciousness Movement
(BCM) is now regarded as one of the political movements that played a significant role in
the fight against the apartheid regime, it was once accused of being manipulated by the CIA.
The Unity Movement, a defunct political organisation that also fought against the apartheid
regime, characterised the BCM as an “American implantation, class-based and manipulated
by the CIA” (Chisholm 1991).
In differing degrees, post-apartheid social movements have learnt that disagreeing with
those who see themselves as the intellectual revolutionary vanguard comes at a high cost.
Owing to the legacy of the apartheid system, the intellectual revolutionary vanguard in
South Africa tends to be educated middle class white activists who research and write
about social movements for journals. In the academic/intellectual circles, it is this
intellectual revolutionary vanguard that sets the tone and the perimeters of the debate
regarding social movements in post-apartheid South Africa. Black intellectuals such as
Buntu Siwisa (2008) refer to these middle class white activists as “city-based intellectualcum-activists”. Siwisa further notes that these “city-based intellectual-cum-activists” are
characterised by the fact that they are university educated and have secure employment,
while grassroots based black activists are uneducated and are often unemployed.
Recently, poor black activists in South Africa have found themselves the target of a nasty
campaign that is led by Heinrich Bohmke---one of the “city-based intellectual-cumactivists” that Siwisa wrote about in his article, which is entitled: “Crowd Renting or
Struggling from Below? The Concerned Citizens’ Forum in Mpumalanga Township, Durban,
1999–2005”. According to Siwisa (2008), Heinrich Bohmke was once the “legal adviser”
and one of the “prominent organisers” of the now defunct Durban-based social movement,
Concerned Citizens Forum (CCF).
These days Bohmke sings a different tune however. He is of the view that “Social
Movements are Dead”. Through his blog,
Dispositions: http://dispositionsjournal.blogspot.co.nz/, Bohmke has unleashed a series of
hostile and destructive attacks on poor people’s movement. Bohmke’s contempt for black
leadership is unmatched. For example, he argues that S’bu Zikode of Abahlali baseMjondolo
(AbM) is intellectually incapable of discussing Frantz Fanon without the help of a white
mentor. In his own words Bohmke writes that:
“When we read Abahlali statements and speeches by Sbu Zikode it is Pithouse's [a white
academic] take on Fanon not Zikode's that is found, word for word.”
Bohmke continues:
“For a painful example of this, view Sbu Zikode's interview outside
a Fanon lecture, hosted by the Church Land Programme, on “Why is Fanon
Relevant Today .... Although he treads water fairly well, Zikode is plainly out of
his depth and the platitudes about Fanon could apply to any human rights
activist.”
In the same article, which is entitled “Ventriloquism, Fanon and the Social Movement
Hustle”, Bohmke attacks another poor people’s movement---the Unemployed People
Movement (UPM). He mocks and ridicules the movement saying that:
“UPM hands do not hold the pen. Kota [Ayanda Kota is the leader of the UPM] and Co.
supply the raw data but the narrative into which 'the more important' parts are inserted is
supplied by an outside mentor. It is both above and beneath individual UPM members to
write what appears in Inboxes the world over.”
Bohmke then zooms in on Ayanda Kota. Quoting an anonymous source, he writes that:
“An academic who shared a platform with Kota remembers him struggling through a
speech on Fanon. ‘It was painful’, he says, ‘you could see he did not write the speech’.”
One of the most enduring racist stereotypes is the belief that blacks are incapable of
cerebral functioning (Wright 1997). Thus Bohmke finds it easy to portray black leaders of
post-apartheid social movements as morons. As far as Bohmke is concerned, black
leadership of social movements imitate whites when they engage in intellectual debates,
and additionally, black leaders need white help to talk about Frantz Fanon.
Bohmke further accuses the black leadership of post-apartheid social movements of being
dishonest, labelling them hustlers who enjoy the benefits that come with the status of being
leaders of social movement.
“The black man, a bit of a hustler, who can blame him, an activist too, thinks that
he can pull the strings. There are the airfares, the money from the NGO's, the
sense of grandeur. But he is ensnared. The strings tighten, the dependence
increases, room for maneuver less so. He must perform. Give township tours to
researchers from overseas. Denounce the bad white rival of his mentor. Keep a
semblance of an organization going.”
When the AbM refuses to work with the Centre for Civil Society in Durban, Bohmke writes
that the poor people’s movement is used as a “stalking horse” by a certain white academic
to fight his own academic battles. I quote Bohmke:
“And then being the stalking horse for a silly and unsustainable boycott of the Centre for
Civil Society, where one of its mentors worked and had to leave under a cloud of allegation
by women colleagues, not political persecution, at the exact time Abahlali's boycott began.”
The underlying message being that poor black people are simply incapable of reaching
their own conclusions. Bohmke has an annoying tendency to portray poor black people as
lacking initiative and without agency.
Writing disparagingly about poor people’s efforts to organise themselves, Bohmke accuses
the AbM of being a brand and of being a “liberal NGO”.
“The brand representation of Abahlali is of an organization with strong anarchist
tendencies; it is resolutely democratic, militant, massive, vibrant and radically autonomous
of the state. It is an organization with chic aesthetic affinities, theoretical inclinations
towards Badiou, Fanon and Engels...”
The AbM is a movement of the poor for the poor. Contrary to Bohmke’s claims, the AbM is
neither a brand nor a liberal NGO. I quote the AbM:
“We have thought for ourselves, discussed all the important issues for ourselves
and taken decisions for ourselves on all the important issues that affect us. We
have demanded that the state includes us in society and gives us what we need to
have for a dignified and safe life. We have also done what we can to make our
communities better places for human beings. We have run crèches, organised
clean up campaigns, connected people to water and to electricity, tried to make
our communities safe and worked very hard to unite people across all divisions.
We have faced many challenges but we have always worked to ensure that in all
of this work we treat one another with respect and dignity.”
The AbM is made up of poor people; people who were impoverished by the apartheid
regime. These are people who unlike Bohmke were deprived of life opportunities simply
because they are black. These are people who have the humility to give speeches in their
second or third language (i.e. English) in order to share their experiences with the outside
world.
Blinded by his cultural chauvinism, Bohmke demeans the efforts of these poor people by
portraying them as imbeciles who go around imitating their white mentors. I quote
Bohmke: “When people interview the leader they appreciate his obvious qualities but also
know full well that the speeches and articles are not his work.”
Bohmke has also accused the AbM of having “dubious allies”. According to Bohmke,
“Abahlali is affiliated with the Informal Settlement Network launched in May
2009. The Informal Settlement Network (ISN) ‘is an alliance of settlement-level
and national-level organizations of informal settlement dwellers in South Africa’....
The ISN is supported by the Community Organisation Resource Centre (CORC)
based in Cape Town and the transnational Shack / Slum Dwellers International
(SDI) based in the United States.”
The AbM has stated on record that as a matter of fact, “we have never joined the ISN and
we are not even aware of their programmes and projects.” According to the AbM, Bohmke
is a “liar”. The UPM calls Bohmke “the notorious slanderer”.
Among other things, white privilege protects Bohmke from being seriously questioned and
exposed for what he is---a bigot on the loose. In a country like South Africa where the
colonial legacy still affects every single aspect of people’s social life, a white person’s word
carries a lot of weight. It is against this backdrop that even the most unreconstructed
colonial creature and, an out-and-out racist like R.W. Johnson can still be accorded
intellectual respect and have their racist work circulated in civil society internet forums. In
2010, over 30 academics from around the world wrote to the London Review of Books
(LRB) objecting to the continued publication of RW Johnson’s racist rants and ravings. In
their letter, these academics noted that “we find it baffling therefore that you continue to
publish work by RW Johnson that, in our opinion, is often stacked with the superficial and
the racist.”
To understand how voices such as RW Johnson are continuously given space to air their
white supremacist myths, one has to keep in mind that, among other things, the white
supremacist system gives authority and legitimacy to white voices that would be regarded
as unmitigated racist ravings in an egalitarian society. What the system aims to achieve is
to prevent understanding, while, simultaneously, reinforcing white supremacist points of
view.
That system makes it easy for poor blacks to be accused of being dishonest, corrupt and
hustlers. In such a context, “all kinds of allegations can be levelled against you without any
proof being offered to support them and many people will believe them. It can be said that
you are undemocratic, that you are corrupt, that you cannot think and speak for yourself
and worse,” according to the UPM.
The UPM also points out the dangers of simply ignoring the racist ravings of the Bohmkes
of this world who rely on the white supremacist system to give their writing credibility and
legitimacy.
“We are aware that other movements and individuals think that Bohmke’s ravings
are beneath contempt and should not be dignified with any response. It is true
that his poisonous attacks on individuals and movements are always grossly
dishonest from start to finish. ...But while we respect the views of those that have
advised us to just ignore Bohmke’s slander and to rather focus on building our
movement we feel strongly that the left must confront itself honestly and openly if
we are to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. The reality is that some of
those people in the left who think that they have a right to rule all popular
struggles have used Bohmke’s slander to try and destroy movements that they
can’t control. A lot of people are fighting ruthless turf wars in the left and some of
them have been willing to use Bohmke’s attacks for their own interests.”
Indeed, the left at large ought to come to terms with the fact that poor people’s movements
do not proceed by someone else’s rules or dogmas. As Piven and Cloward (1977) once
pointed out, poor people’s social struggles flow from historically specific circumstances, “it
is a reaction against those circumstances, and it is also limited by those circumstances.” It is
necessary to remember this insight when we discuss social movements.
References:
Bohmke, H.(2012). Ventriloquism, Fanon and the Social Movement Hustle:
http://dispositionsjournal.blogspot.co.nz/
Bohmke, H. (2010). The Branding of Social Movements in South
Africa: http://dispositionsjournal.blogspot.co.nz/
Bohmke, H. (2009). Between the Halo and the Panga: Accounts of Abahlali Base
Mjondolo.: http://dispositionsjournal.blogspot.co.nz/
Chisholm, L. (1991). Education, politics and organisation: The educational traditions and
legacies of the Non-European Unity Movement, 1943 – 1986. Transformation, 15.
Piven F. F. & Cloward, R. A. (1977). Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They
Fail. New York: Pantheon Books.
Siwisa, B. (2008). “Crowd Renting or Struggling from Below? The Concerned Citizens’
Forum in Mpumalanga Township, Durban, 1999–2005”. Journal of Southern African Studies,
Vol 34 (4).
Wright, W.D. (1997). Black Intellectuals, Black Cognition, and a Black Aesthetic. Praeger
Publishers: Connecticut.
Open Letter to the London Review of Books.
(2010). http://jhbwtc.blogspot.co.nz/2010/07/open-letter-to-london-review-ofbooks.html
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On 4/10/2012 12:30 PM, Neville Adams wrote:
Even the ’great’ man himself, KM, could say of his Black son-in-law, Paul Lafargue, that he
“has the blemish customarily found in the negro tribe – no sense of shame, by which I mean
shame about making a fool of oneself.” Whilst Engels says of the same person, Lafargue,
that he is “in his quality as a nigger a degree nearer to the rest of the animal kingdom than
the rest of us.” Plus ca change, and all that.
On 4/13/2012 4:33 PM, Heinrich Bohmke wrote:
Mandisi Majavu completely misses the point of my articles on South
African social movements. He would have me write purely to satisfy an
urge to ridicule these movements and their leaders, poor Blacks. He
baits his trap with the fact that I am white. But he does so poorly.
Majavu can only skin me by misconstruing the authority he cites and by
withholding inconvenient information from his readers.
I write to criticize, (although I am happy with ‘ridicule’), the
*misrepresentation* of South Africa’s new social movements by a
coterie of mainly white academics. These include Nigel Gibson,
Michael Neocosmos, Richard Pithouse, and Raj Patel. They are by far
not alone in this enterprise but these individuals truly do
distinguish themselves in the unashamed level of hype they supply and
in some cases the base peddling of lies.
For some of them, it goes beyond the hagiographic articles. It
includes assuming PR functions, fund-raising and ghost-writing
speeches and press statements for movements. It reaches its acme in
the Abahlali website administered by Richard Pithouse and Raj Patel
which, far from being a voice of the voiceless, self-servingly carries
the aesthetic, political and sectarian stamp of these spin-sters.
With this activity comes power. The power is exercised in two ways;
*internally*, as resource people, servicing financial, technological
and ‘intellectual’ dependencies in exchange for influence and, as
gatekeepers, policing ‘researcher’ access to movements, delivering
‘the’ leader to conferences and picking fights with supposed enemies
on the movement’s behalf.
This feeds into the *external* power; the way movements and their
academics are branded to the outside world, through unremitting behind
the scenes work such as on websites, Wikipedia, blogs and through the
skilful cultivation of ‘respected’ academics who are given insider
information. One sees this in the way academics who never actually
speak to shackdwellers always thank Richard Pithouse, for example,
when writing about Abahlali.
Most of what I have written relates to the external power that
movement-aligned academics exercise. Majavu is unable to challenge my
central point that their writing is riddled with romanticisation,
spilling into falsification. Movement size, sustainability, internal
‘radically democratic’ practices, ideological orientation, clever
strategic gambits, level of support and popularity within the areas
they exist – all these dramatic claims by academics have proven to be,
at best, wishful thinking. This is now widely accepted as a problem
and a failing.
Recently, a dispute about an allegedly stolen book erupted between a
movement-aligned academic and a movement leader. This incident gave
me the opportunity to examine also the role of the internal power that
academics exercise over movement leaders. If I were to shy away from
this it would only be because there is a taboo within left politics to
speak about this aspect which silenced me.
What I laid bare does not amount to saying that poor Blacks are
“morons”, the level to which Majavu either reduces my argument or the
level at which he understands it. Nor, in tracing the relationship
between movement academics and two particular leaders, do I portray
Black people in general, or the two leaders involved in the equation,
as lacking agency. Far from it.
While criticizing the academics, I have noted the canny use to which
they are also sometimes put by movement leaders; some of it wise and
principled, but some, I contend, also self-serving, survivalist and
power-hungry. I reject the patronizing and simplistic role assigned to
Black agents in (white) social movement writing in terms of which they
are either the long-suffering victim of structural violence or the
pure embodiment of truth. No. They are as able to be self-interested
individuals navigating their way across a complex social and political
landscape for their own benefit as anyone else. In this regard
ceding the written tasks of movement-building to enthusiastic white
postgraduates may be a mutually beneficial arrangement.
But this is not the kind of agency with which left writing on
movements is comfortable. The organized Black poor must either be
pure victims or pure saints. Their leaders are incapable of error or
offence. When something goes wrong for a halo-encrusted leader, they
are instantly recast as blood-spattered victim, with their faculty fan
club lavishing rescue upon them. For me, the perch upon the pedestals
of utter virtue and utter weakness deprives movement leaders of the
full spectrum of their humanity just as effectively as straightforward
bigotry.
I stand by my view that there are indeed instances in which (black)
movement leaders have *allowed* themselves to be politically and
intellectually mentored by their (white) academics. At times,
mentorship has slipped into manipulation. I am not the first person
to note this tendency. Incidentally, other writers who have spoken
out about this problem are seasoned Black activists.
This problem predates social movements by a few centuries. No-one
thinks it racist to suggest that white missionaries ideologically
bamboozled at least some poor black people, including *inkosi*? Or to
note the unhealthy dominance of white trade union intellectuals over
black organiser canon fodder in the early days of Fosatu?
In Mahmood Mamdani’s excellent *Citizen and Subject*, he writes about
FOSATU in the 1970s and 80s:
‘The division of labour between the black organizer and the white
intellectual leader had a truly Leninist ring to it: the organizer
worked full time, openly inside the union, and was subject to worker
pressure and criticism; the intellectual operated from outside the
union, in a structure not only external but also secret, remote from
worker pressure.’
He goes on to quote a white intellectual, Mike Morris, allied to the
union movement:
“Whites had the idea whites should not be dominant in the union … but
it led to the worst manipulation, most vanguardist. Black full time
organizers received directions from the outside. But whites were not
paid, not controllable, couldn’t be hired or fired … Whites had a
backup of whites, it was a secret to everyone except the front line.’
(Mamdani, 1996: 241).
The parallels with Fosatu are truly remarkable and the problem for
people like Pithouse and Patel is that there are people from the
‘front line’ who know the ‘secret’ and think it should be revealed.
And then there is the term *askari*, which was applied often to a poor
Black person ‘turned’ to serve the system for financial reward. For
Majavu turning is an impossible phenomenon, racist to even imagine.
How can a poor, Black person be used by whites?
One wonders how Majavu accounts for BEE fronting? I very much doubt
Parliament is racist in suggesting, in anti-fronting legislation, that
poor Black individuals and communities who find themselves in unequal
relations of power and wealth with well-resourced whites can be
manipulated into lending their name to fraudulent schemes. The fact
that someone is poor and Black is no magic charm against their being
influenced, just as it is no guarantor of that result either.
Indeed, in a much earlier paper, ‘The White Revolutionary as
Missionary’, published in *New Frank Talk*, I argue that historical
method and style by which white activists relate to Black distress has
not changed very much over the centuries. This very often includes
manipulation, containment and cooption under the guise of help.
Whether this is successful depends on various factors; chief among
them whether the people are in such distress that there is no
alternative to accepting this help.
It all depends on the facts. I have supplied facts and instances of
manipulation and ventriloquism, in some cases echoing what others have
noticed before. I know S’bu Zikode and have insight into how he
operates. I have spent some time talking to him. I have been in
meetings with him. I have seen him on camera. I have read his
original work. I can draw inferences.
Besides, it takes years of rigourous, academic application and a
bursary or cushy job to wade through a wide and mediocre literature,
in order to learn how to author such pompous and specious nonsense
about Fanon; as Majavu himself must know.
As for Ayanda Kota, I did not simply blurt out my own impressions of
the relationship between him and his academics. Before publishing I
asked people in Grahamstown who have knowledge of the people and
issues. They have shaped and added to my understanding. Indeed the
idea that some movement leaders, among their laudable attributes, also
have a broad stroke of the ‘hustler’ to them was an insight I gained
from Black discussants, some of them former members of the UPM, as my
paper makes perfectly clear.
In his rant against me for suggesting that Kota is mentored by white
academics, Majavu neglects to inform his reader of something very
important. This is that my source is Kota himself. A Prof Tabensky
is a ‘mentor’ who told Kota that the UPM must resurrect the black
consciousness notion of collectivism and hope in the townships as the
first step to action. Pithouse is another ‘mentor’ who liked to quote
Fanon at Kota and Kota now likes to quote the same ringing passage to
others.
A Grahamstown resident and blogger, Rudzani Musekwa, whom I also
quoted in my piece asks pretty much the same question about Kota’s
independence:
‘Who is Mr Ayanda Kota really? Is he someone who is being used to
further the agendas of some academics? Who are these backers of Kota
who are quick to politicise everything every time he is arrested?’
I am not going to repeat the arguments that trace the unhealthy
relationship between movement-aligned academics and UPM leaders here.
I believe that while the complex and often calculating interchange
between academic and leader can often serve both their interests, (a
case of one hand raising the other up), the movement at large usually
ends up suffering. This situation deserves a little ridicule and I
see no reason to spare Kota because he is Black. Indeed, Kota and
Zikode have left the ranks of being mere local township politicians.
If the hype is to believed, they are men of national and international
significance quite capable of defending themselves; with a bit of
Frederick Douglas and Alaine Badiou thrown in. John Holloway will
follow soon, mark my words.
Surely, upon reflection, Majavu must see that the vulnerability of
leaders and movements I point out is not genetic but is a function of
an imbalance of power and resources. This is not about ascribing
inferiority on the basis of race. It is about the power and
dependency relations at play when well-resourced academics, able to
talk a certain lingo, the lingo of funding proposals, legal aid,
conference papers, international solidarity and the op. ed. section,
use that power in their dealings with people who lack that capital.
I note that Majavu does not actually dispute that white academics
write for Black social movement leaders or perform the role of their
political mentors. It is for him, a priori, racist to ever say so,
which cannot be the case and is not borne out by either historical or
contemporaneous facts.
I turn now to the work of Buntu Siwisa. Majavu cites him approvingly
as authority for the fact that city-based, academic-cum-activists like
me are a problem. Apart from the fact that Majavu correctly notes
that I am city-based, he gets it all embarrassingly wrong from there
on in. The entire point of Siwisa’s article is that academics and
other professionals *inside* social movements have a disproportionate
influence on how those movements operate over that of ordinary
members. It can get so bad, Siwisa suggests, that these city-based,
movement-aligned professionals are able, even, to rent a crowd; that
is, to bring poor black people into motion for reasons that suit the
academic’s own agendas which are not endogenous to those of ‘the
masses’.
Back in 2001, Siwisa was doing exactly what I am doing now. He was
asking very pointed questions about how academics aligned to early
social movements were operating, what were their interests, what was
their influence upon movements? It is very hard to understand how
Majavu could hope to pass off Siwisa’s critique as having any bearing
on my writing whatsoever. It is abundantly clear that I am not a
supporter of these movements, nor am I an activist inside them. Siwisa
is actually authority against Majavu’s mates, listed above. Siwisa is
the lone, outside critic of social movements, sceptical of all the
hype, generated by the Gibsons, Majavus, Patels and Pithouses of
yesteryear. The extend of Majavu’s muddle-headedness is even more
visible when one considers that the writer he tries to use against me
went so far as to suggest that poor, Black people are capable of being
‘rented’ by middle-class professionals. He should be condemning us
both as racists and bigots.
Perhaps it is not muddle-headedness. Maybe it is just a desperate
rant by someone who is very much part of this group of praise-singing
academics, someone noticing the demise of these movements and
anticipating with bitterness the reduction in his reputation, such as
it is, that will surely follow. For, while Majavu stands out starkly
in some ways from the other academics, it is not on account of his
applause being any less wholehearted.
Why is any of this interesting?
It is not really very interesting. It is part of the usual left
ya-da-ya-da-ya. There are only negative lessons to be drawn.
Abahlali is now practically defunct. So are many other movements.
There is no joy in this. It is a time to reflect on whether the
social movement project was well served by the contributions of
academic-cum-activists.
It is also time to reflect on the way white people in particular,
inside movements, conduct themselves. I have already made the point
that they tend to assume the missionary position over movements.
I did play a role in the first social movements to arise, around 1999,
injected with a generous amount of mythopoesis. I was still around in
the early days of Abahlali. But the distance between the stories told
about movements and the reality was just too great to be sustained or
stomached. It was also disconcerting the way radical discursive
gestures made by social movements were increasingly incorporated into
liberal governance. It was amazing how the ‘right to the city’ became
*in situ* upgrading of shackland infrastructure. How eloquent talk of
dignity and voice prepared the way for a retreat from the social
antagonism initially articulated by movements in their protest mode
infancy. How the turn to law and the ‘victories’ it supplied
unraveled in unenforceable court orders, reverses on appeal and
repression. How liberal discourses of social change entered movement
spaces and came from movement mouths.
The most difficult to stomach of all was how social movements became
an industry, where website form replaced street-level content, and
Manichean dramas of repression were constructed from events that were
far more complex and implicated movements in events at odds with their
publicized values. Until all that remained to validate movements
were the spectacles of repression themselves, ones that became as
strained and ridiculous as the book theft arrest of Ayanda Kota
(charge withdrawn).
Until it seemed that the instinct, if not conscious role, of left
civil society in movements had all along been to nudge them into a
position where, at best, they contained and profited from the social
emergency in our society, rather than exacerbated it.
Why does any of this matter?
Social movements never attracted the numbers of people who could mount
a challenge to the ANC and its anti-poor policies, either at the
ballot box or in the streets. Partly as a strategic recognition of
its weakness at these levels, but partly also to experiment with new
ways of doing politics, social movements were held out to be
prefigurative of the life and values the left would want to live in a
world not ruled by global finance capital and the governments that
serve it. In other words, we did not need to have numbers, we simply
needed to demonstrate, in the way communities ran their own movements
and struggles, that a ‘new humanism’ was possible.
Unfortunately prefiguration has failed. It failed for reasons that no
one in the left has deeply reflected upon. South African society
seems ripe for protest and disaffection. Indeed there is plenty of
protest and disaffection to go around. Yet why have social movements,
as such, not ripened with any of it. How is it that a Malema, with
all his obvious contradictions with respect to the poor, can sponsor
so popular a discourse in support of taking back the land and
redistributing wealth when the best and most principled minds, rooted
in social movements, could and dared not to put the social contract
itself at issue?
When positing the joys of a prefigurative politics, what assumptions
were made about the poor, about shack dwellers, about rural women, the
unemployed that did not pan out? What assumptions were made about
South African society in general? What organisational forms were
adopted? What turns were made that ended in these doldrums? Who were
turned off by the way movements were presented? Who let themselves
in? What unnecessary sectarian fights were picked? What alliances
were not forged? How did Siwisa’s academic-cum-activist types regulate
their conduct within movements? And finally, would whatever struggles
and community organisations that arise in future, not be better off
without the hapless left.
Heinrich Bohmke
On 4/13/2012 5:24 PM, Ran Greenstein wrote:
This is not an intervention in the direct issue here (not knowing the
individuals and the movements involved), but the example below
demonstrates the opposite of what it intends to: it was a productive
encounter that strengthened both sides, and enabled them to confront
the apartheid regime more effectively than if they has been working
alone, whatever kinds of criticisms can be directed at them in
retrospect. The historical context is very different though between
then and now.
On 4/13/2012 5:35 PM, peter waterman wrote:
Ran:
No doubt about the positive role of radical white academics in relation to, for example, the
new trade union movement, as from around 1972. If it had not been for them I would never
have myself recognised the significance of a movement not beholden to the ANC, the SACP
and the SACTU!
Even under Apartheid, however, I began to recognise a problem. Writing (possibly on some
anniversary of the Labour Bulletin), I commented on the welcome presence of Black
authors. My South African interlocuteur said, 'we would rather you didn't mention that,
Peter'. I said, 'it was meant to be a compliment'. He said, 'I know, but we would still rather
you didn't say it'.
I assumed from this little exchange, that the white academics primarily responsible for the
Labour Bulletin, had problems dealing with what would today be called their 'subject
position' in relation to the Black trade union movement.
The matter still calls for a dialogue rather than a polemic. I am not sure whether such
already exists.
Best,
PeterW
On 4/13/2012 5:52 PM, Ran Greenstein wrote:
A prominent white labour academic said, in retrospect, that the role
he and his colleagues played in resurrecting class analysis and
working with the unions in the 1970s, transformed them from being part
of the problem (under the prevailing black consciousness) into
becoming part of the solution. There is a self-serving element here,
for sure, but seen against the big contribution they made, it pales
(no pun intended) into insignificance.
On 4/13/2012 6:03 PM, Neville Adams wrote:
Whichever way you put it - and you do put it loquaciously - this still reads
like an accusation that the leading Black activists in the Abahlali movement
are no more than ill-educated dupes of Svengali like white academics. And
the supporting claim that other Black people have said similar things, is a
variation on 'some-of-my-best-friend -are...' Where is your evidence,
apart from the assertions you make?
On 4/13/2012 6:06 PM, Neville Adams wrote:
By black consciousness do you mean BCM? And - this is one for the white
labour academic - how does creating a hegemony of a class reductionist
analysis transform itself into one of becoming part of the solution?
On 4/13/2012 6:16 PM, Ran Greenstein wrote:
From the perspective of Marxist academics, the focus on race and
identity brought about by the rise of black consciousness (not a
formal organisation), was a dangerous distraction from the real needs
of the masses and of the struggle. Helping steer the struggle away
from that into a focus on class issues was the right thing to do in
their eyes. Needless to say, the notion that this created 'a hegemony
of class reductionist analysis' was completely alien to them. They saw
themselves as breaking through the prevailing liberal orthodoxy, which
was limited and limiting in its analysis, and raising a whole lot of
new innovative concepts that transformed the way South African history
had been analysed and understood until then.
On 4/13/2012 6:22 PM, Riaz K Tayob wrote:
On 2012/04/13 06:35 PM, peter waterman wrote:
The matter still calls for a dialogue rather than a polemic. I am not sure whether such
already exists.
I find myself with the feeling that this is a (oft repeated "dialogue") where I have elements
in common with both sides.
Perhaps we could tease out some of the issues? And perhaps others can trace some of the
elements that need focus, as we are back here again at Kamikaze politics, which may
enamour the players, but which also can be instructive for us all if there is not a polemic. So
here goes in my amateur way...
What is important for me in this is (and I am paraphrasing, and most likely getting wrong
in the abstraction):
1. The claim by Majavu of a "Black Consciousness" perspective - I miss the clarity of the
Fanon's, Sobukwe's & Biko's... and this window on the world is something I value in
Majavu, who is consistent... Whites/Middle Class handle movements sometimes/often and
movements also handle whites/middle class... in the past, we knew each other, so we could
better handle things... how can this be operationalised in a context where we often do
disagree...
2. The claims by Bohmke on the romanticisation of social movements and people as agents; real boats rock, and it is not really something new that he is saying... but it is not very
constructive, event though I agree on some of the claims... yet in grave circumstances at a
non-revolutionary time, the consciousness of choices and agency (to create) are not simple
matters, and mala fides is not where I would base my critique...
On 4/13/2012 6:26 PM, Riaz K Tayob wrote:
Neville
See my other post, which is an invitation...
For arguments sake, and arguments sake alone, can we entertain some of
the issues Bohmke is raising, as well as Majavu's?
These are surface ripples of very deep currents and both of our brothers
are piqued at something, without polemics as Pw says, that can give some
idea into these currents...
On 4/13/2012 6:27 PM, Riaz K Tayob wrote:
Yes BCM, but also as an (Utopian) idea and in current permutations like
Mngxitama and Majavu as modern day emblematic equivalents...
On 4/13/2012 7:06 PM, Neville Adams wrote:
Riaz
I have no problems dealing with the substantive issues. However, the manner
of Bohmke's disparagement crosses over too much with a long racialised
trope.
Perhaps there is some way of getting those he names to contribute as well.
On 4/13/2012 9:56 PM, Anna Majavu wrote:
According to Bohmke - "Besides, it takes years of rigourous, academic
application and a
bursary or cushy job to wade through a wide and mediocre literature,
in order to learn how to author such pompous and specious nonsense
about Fanon" - what a surprising, and revealing, argument to attempt
in South Africa of all places! Bohmke would clearly like to pretend
that the thousands of Black working class shopstewards, union members
and other people who started reading Fanon and many others from an
early age, and whose houses are filled with such books, do not exist.
Amazing that he still makes this argument after accusing Ayanda Kota
of stealing Claudia Marthinez' books. What would Ayanda even want with
those books if he couldn't read them, or was not keen on reading them?
At the risk of bringing on a troll who will no doubt attempt to phone
around making complaints to my bosses, I am reminded of the time
Bohmke visited Cape Town in 2002 and was amazed to find actual
struggle going on. I asked him why he was so amazed because surely he
had read about it on Debate, and he said he thought I personally was
making all of that up!
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=29
2324&sn=Detail&pid=71616
An unproven smear, without a shred of proof
Paul Trewhela
12 April 2012
Paul Trewhela responds to Mandisi Majavu's attack on RW Johnson
A disgraceful libel on the academic, author and journalist RW Johnson
has been published on the blog ZNet by Mandisi Majavu, the book
reviews editor of the online journal, Interface, and subsequently
circulated as an official statement by the Unemployed People's
Movement (UPM). Not a shred of evidence is produced by Majavu to
support his slander, which is reproduced below.
A masterpiece of misrepresentation, Majavu's smear appears in an
article headed "I thus caught that colonial mind-set at work: The
mis-representation of post-apartheid social movements." (ZNet, 9
April)
In his article, Majavu does not bother to cite one word, or phrase, or
sentence by Johnson - who has published ten books, most of them on
South Africa - in order to smear him. Initially posted on ZNet, his
article was circulated by email the next day (10 April) by UPM Media,
under the official heading "UPM Statement."
The passage relating to Johnson is as follows. Readers will judge its
quality of moral or literary integrity (or lack of it) for themselves.
"...In a country like South Africa where the colonial legacy still
affects every single aspect of people's social life, a white person's
word carries a lot of weight. It is against this backdrop that even
the most unreconstructed colonial creature and, an out-and-out racist
like R.W. Johnson can still be accorded intellectual respect and have
their racist work circulated in civil society internet forums. In
2010, over 30 academics from around the world wrote to the London
Review of Books (LRB) objecting to the continued publication of RW
Johnson's racist rants and ravings. In their letter, these academics
noted that 'we find it baffling therefore that you continue to publish
work by RW Johnson that, in our opinion, is often stacked with the
superficial and the racist.'
"To understand how voices such as RW Johnson are continuously given
space to air their white supremacist myths, one has to keep in mind
that, among other things, the white supremacist system gives authority
and legitimacy to white voices that would be regarded as unmitigated
racist ravings in an egalitarian society. What the system aims to
achieve is to prevent understanding, while, simultaneously,
reinforcing white supremacist points of view."
This is the methodology of the witch-hunt. It is as unsupported,
unproven and unjust as if I had published an article on an online
website such as Politicsweb, or ZNet, saying completely falsely that
"X is a drug-dealer", or "Y is a molester of little children", or "Z
is a witch", without a shred of factual proof, for all the world to
read.
Not far from the blood libel - by which Jews were once accused of the
murder of Christian children so as to acquire blood for the making of
matzos for the Passover Seder - this base methodology should be noted
by the "post-apartheid social movements", which Majavu imagines
himself to be defending. Anyone who uses this methodology claiming to
do so on behalf of any social movement, or any individual, tarnishes
them too. Slander of this kind was the method of nazism, and Stalin in
his show trials. People were necklaced in previous decades, or
murdered as "enemy agents", with the same lack of evidence.
The citation below contains my response on the blog of the London
Review of Books to an act of censorship carried out by the LRB against
Johnson in July 2010, following a smear circulated by his political
and academic opponents. That smear, reproduced by Majavu in his
article on ZNet, was as shamefully unproven as Majavu's, and set a bad
precedent.
I might add that I was one of the first to rush to the defence of the
"Kennedy 12" when they were unjustly arrested and charged with murder
after an organised assault upon the members of Abahlali baseMjondolo,
a post-apartheid social movement separate from UPM, at Kennedy Road in
Durban/eThekwini on the night of 26/27 September 2009. My article
"Pogrom murders in the Durban area" was published on Politicsweb on 1
October 2009, within days of the attack.
RW Johnson was one of the first recipients of emails from me
containing this article, and I received firm support from him.
This was followed by an article by me, "AmaMpondo under siege in
KZN?", in the Daily Dispatch, East London (16 November 2009).
The difference between my articles and Mandisi Majavu's smear on
Johnson is that...I provided factual evidence to support my argument,
whereas Majavu provides not one shred. The Kennedy 12 were finally
acquitted after a very long trial in July last year. An article on
Wikipedia, "Attack on Kennedy Road", contains my statement in another
article on Politicsweb - shortly after the acquittal of the Kennedy 12
- that their arrest, prosecution and trial had taken place "without a
shred of reliable evidence" - the same methodology used now by Majavu
against Johnson.
This is not the way forward, whether for unemployed people, or
politics, or journalism, or academic writing in South Africa. For the
Unemployed People's Movement to have further circulated this smear as
an official "UPM Statement" is a further backward step.
Shame on Mandisi Majavu, shame on ZNet and shame on the UPM.
A public retraction, and an apology to Johnson, is called for from each.
On 4/14/2012 6:11 AM, Mandisi wrote:
An imaginary trip to the land of the Anthropoid Apes: RW Johnson’s racist outburst,
apartheid nostalgia and other hysterics
by Mandisi Majavu
"The basic question in attacking is not how to kill the enemy group---that is usually
impossible---but what direction to attack from."-- Go proverb.
In 2010, RW Johnson wrote:
“We are being besieged by baboons again. This happens quite often here on the
Constantiaberg mountains (an extension of the Table Mountain range). Baboons are
common in the Cape and they are a great deal larger than the vervet monkeys I was used
to dealing with in KwaZulu-Natal. They jump onto roofs, overturn dustbins and generally
make a nuisance of themselves; since their teeth are very dirty, their bite can be
poisonous. They seem to have lots of baby baboons – it’s been a very mild winter and so
spring is coming early – and they’re looking for food. The local dogs don’t like them but
appear to have learned their lesson from the last baboon visit: then, a large rottweiler
attacked the apes, who calmly tore it limb from limb.
“Meanwhile in the squatter camps, there is rising tension as the threat mounts of
murderous violence against foreign migrants once the World Cup finishes on 11 July.
These migrants – Zimbabweans, Malawians, Congolese, Angolans, Somalis and others –
are often refugees and they too are here essentially searching for food. The Somalis are
the most enterprising and have set up successful little shops in the townships and
squatter camps, but several dozen Somali shopkeepers have already been murdered,
clearly at the instigation of local black shopkeepers who don’t appreciate the
competition. The ANC is embarrassed by it all and has roundly declared that there will be
no such violence. The truth is that no one knows. The place worst hit by violence in the
last xenophobic riots here was De Doorns and the army moved into that settlement last
week, clearly anticipating trouble. The tension is ominous and makes for a rather
schizoid atmosphere as the Cup itself mounts towards its climax.”
The comparison and the contrast between baboons that are looking for food and the
African migrants who “flood” Cape Town in search of food too is the straw that broke
camel’s back. [RW Johnson had actually wrote in a different article: “more and more of
Africa floods towards Cape Town...”[i]] Seventy three 73 academics and writers from across
the globe wrote to the London Review of Books (LRB) stating that RW Johnson is “peddling
highly offensive, age-old racist stereotypes”. They further pointed out that “we find it
baffling therefore that you continue to publish work by RW Johnson that, in our opinion, is
often stacked with the superficial and the racist.”
The LRB was forced to apologise for publishing RW Johnson’s racist rant. The LRB claimed
that it was “an error of judgment on our part to publish it. We’re sorry. We have since taken
the post down.” The editor of the LRB, Mary Kay-Wilmers, admitted in an article that
appeared in the Guardian that “we didn't read it [RW Johnson’s racist rant] carefully
enough, we didn't see it, we didn't imagine it."
What is it that Mary Kay-Wilmers and her cohorts didn’t see and imagine? What they didn’t
see is the historical context and the racist colonial canon from which RW Johnson draws
from in his article. For a very long time, white colonisers viewed blacks as the "missing
link" between the anthropoid apes and civilized (white) mankind (Brantlinger 1985).
Hence, French anthropologists like Julian-Joseph Virey could write in 1837: “The skull of a
negro is thick, and sutures very closely united. ... their propensity to sensations and
nervous excitements, is excessive. All these signs indicate a greater animal disposition than
in the white” (Virey: 167).
A logical historical reading of RW Johnson’s article would take this into account. However, a
self-serving ahistorical and irrational reading would read like Paul Trewhela’s response to
my article. Perhaps thinking that he is the only person who can read English and critically
analyse arguments, Paul Trewhela writes that the LRB censored RW Johnson.
“The citation below contains my response on the blog of the London Review of Books to
an act of censorship carried out by the LRB against Johnson in July 2010, following a
smear circulated by his political and academic opponents. That smear, reproduced by
Majavu in his article on ZNet, was as shamefully unproven as Majavu's, and set a bad
precedent.”
Seventy three writers and academics from across the globe did not find it hard to locate RW
Johnson’s racist outburst within a racist colonial canon that has always likened blacks to
apes, monkeys and baboons. Arrogant and irrational, Paul Trewhela writes that the 73
writers and academics who signed the letter gave “no citation from Johnson’s offending
text, bar three words.” It does not astonish me that this kind of denial and self-serving
illusion comes from one of the liberal dinosaurs from the old days. In fact I expect it.
Apartheid nostalgia and other hysterics
Although RW Johnson manages to tone down his rants and ravings in his other writings,
however he does make it clear that he writes from the point of view that reinforces white
supremacist perspectives. For instance, writing about transformation in South African
universities, RW Johnson argues that transformation in reality means that “university
entrance criteria would be ratcheted down so as to make it easier for black students from
lousy schools to gain entry but the pretence was that standards has been maintained.”
RW Johnson continues:
“...black academics who were often clearly rather weak would be appointed in preference
to whites who were often stronger on the pretence that these blacks were at least equally
good or better; and finally, as the research output of these new appointees was often
derisory, all manner of strategems would be adopted to disguise the resultant
deterioration in the university's research profile - retired, honorary or supernumerary
faculty would have their research counted as part of the university's output, and so on.”
RW Johnson is of the view that black Vice Chancellors are intellectually inferior to Vice
Chancellors who oversaw universities during the apartheid heydays.
“You just had to look at the modern breed of vice-chancellor and compare them to the old
breed - Duminy, Malherbe, Bozzoli - who had fought for academic freedom against
apartheid, to understand how much had been lost. Not just in courage and intellectual
gravitas, but in intellectual depth and, indeed, in truthfulness.”
Extolling the virtues of apartheid, RW Johnson points out that:
“African nationalism entirely lacks the institution-building skills of the earlier waves.
English-speaking whites bequeathed the country its major liberal universities, a network
of private schools, key public corporations and a series of Anglo-churches. Afrikaners left
behind them Afrikaans financial institutions, the DRC, the Afrikaans universities and
hoerskools. African nationalism has built no distinctive institutions of its own outside the
party itself.”
What’s next? An eulogy of the Nationalsozialismus’s military might, engineering and
scientific breakthroughs?
References:
Brantlinger , P. (1985). Victorians and Africans: The Genealogy of the Myth of the Dark
Continent. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 12 (1).
Danso, R. & MacDonald, D. A. (2000). Writing xenophobia: Immigration and the press in
post-apartheid South Africa. The Southern African Migration Project:
http://www.idasa.org/media/uploads/outputs/files/SAMP%2017.pdf
Johnson, RW. (2011). The rise and decline of ANC hegemony. PoliticsWeb:
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=272165
&sn=Marketingweb+detail
Virey, J.J. (1996). Natural history of the negro species particularly. In H.F. Augstein, Race”
The origins of an idea, 1760 – 1850. Thoemmes Press: Bristol.
Younge, G. (2010). Writers and academics protest over ‘racist’ LRB blogpost. The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/21/protest-lrb-blogpost
[i] Writing about xenophobia in South African media, Danso and MacDonald (2000) point
out that headlines are particularly bad in this respect, with bold titles like, ‘Illegals in SA
add to decay of cities’, ‘6 million migrants headed our way’, ‘Africa floods into Cape Town’,
and ‘francophone invasion’ being common examples. “In total, 25% of the articles surveyed
used sensational headlines and 9% used sensational metaphors in the text of the report.”
On 4/14/2012 6:29 AM, bohmke@gmail.com wrote:
Oh dear, Anna
Your sense of irony has not improved.
I am sure shopstewards who read the original texts, understand and apply Fanon quite
well.
However, to apply Fanon as *badly* as he is applied in the Abahlali canon - now that feat
takes years and years of academic practise. This includes imbibing tracts of nonsense from
the Journal of African and Asian Studies.
I explained this point more fully in the piece that triggered this exchange.
I'll use emoticons next time ;)
HB
On 4/14/2012 9:13 AM, Anna Majavu wrote:
Heinrich, one of the reasons you are sure that the leftists you fell
out with 5 years ago are writing "romanticised" press statements for
the movements is because this is exactly what you used to do in the
CCF 10 yrs ago. Hence your surprise when you came to Cape Town in 2002
and found actual activity going on as per the press statements.
Your whole crusade against the coterie of white academics you complain
about only arose after the ABM in 2006 refused to give over control to
your group of white+Black academics and careerists. Raj and Richard
sided with the ABM and not you/CCS, hence the breakup of your
friendship and this long feud which played itself out at that time on
this and other lists.
It is a pity that you have let this very old personal feud remain so
present in your life, to the extent that you only ever write critical
pieces about Black social movements if they have some kind of link
with Richard/Raj/anyone who knows Richard and Raj. It is mainly a pity
for you because you are now typecasting yourself as an over-privileged
white South African who frequently writes very demeaning things about
Black people in the guise of your self-appointed role as the
'de-romanticiser' of Black movements. Yes there are a few people who
buy your arguments, but they are very few and if you reflect on their
motives, you will surely notice that they too are people who are not
content to let Black township folks run their own movements.
On 4/14/2012 9:42 AM, Mandisi wrote:
Following in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s footsteps
by Mandisi Majavu
I discovered that... I should need to do battle with a certain phantom. And the phantom was
a woman...she was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly
unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there
was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draught, she sat in it---in short she was so
constituted that she never had a mind or wish of her own, but preferred to sympathise
always with the minds and wishes of others. Above all---I need not say it---she was
pure...And when I came to write I encountered her with the very first words. The shadow of
her wings fell on my page; I heard the rustling of her skirts in the room...she slipped behind
me and whispered: ‘...Be sympathetic, be tender; flatter, deceive; use all the arts and wiles
of your sex. Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own. Above all, be pure.’
And she made as if to guide my pen. I now record the one act for which I take some credit to
myself...I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. My excuse,
if I were to be had up in court of law, would be that I acted in self-defence. Had I not killed
her, she would have killed me. ---Virginia Woolf
Bohmke writes that “Mandisi Majavu completely misses the point of my articles on South
African social movements. He would have me write purely to satisfy an urge to ridicule
these movements and their leaders, poor Blacks.”
Well, the point I am making is that whatever point you are trying to make you use antiblack racist stereotypes to illustrate your point. You ridicule and disrespect poor people’s
movement and then you claim that your critics miss the point. The fact of the matter is that
you wrote:
“The brand representation of Abahlali is of an organization with strong anarchist
tendencies; it is resolutely democratic, militant, massive, vibrant and radically autonomous
of the state. It is an organization with chic aesthetic affinities, theoretical inclinations
towards Badiou, Fanon and Engels...”
This is what the AbM have to say about their movement:
“We have thought for ourselves, discussed all the important issues for ourselves and taken
decisions for ourselves on all the important issues that affect us. We have demanded that
the state includes us in society and gives us what we need to have for a dignified and safe
life. We have also done what we can to make our communities better places for human
beings. We have run crèches, organised clean up campaigns, connected people to water and
to electricity, tried to make our communities safe and worked very hard to unite people
across all divisions. We have faced many challenges but we have always worked to ensure
that in all of this work we treat one another with respect and dignity.”
You write that the leader of this movement is intellectually incapable of discussing Fanon.
“For a painful example of this, view Sbu Zikode's interview outside
a Fanon lecture, hosted by the Church Land Programme, on “Why is Fanon
Relevant Today .... Although he treads water fairly well, Zikode is plainly out of
his depth and the platitudes about Fanon could apply to any human rights activist.”
You further claim that the members of the Unemployment People’s Movement (UPM) are
incapable of writing their press statements. In your own words, you write that:
“It is both above and beneath individual UPM members to write what appears in Inboxes
the world over.”
Responding to your vitriol, the UPM released a press statement saying that when you are
poor and black “all kinds of allegations can be levelled against you without any proof being
offered to support them and many people will believe them. It can be said that you are
undemocratic, that you are corrupt, that you cannot think and speak for yourself and
worse.”
Now you want to stand there and claim that I have missed an important point in your
destructive narrative. Disregarding the evidence that I presented to reach my conclusion
about your writing, you argue that “he baits his trap with the fact that I am white.” This is
all, presumably, written with a straight face.
You write that:
“I know S’bu Zikode and have insight into how he operates. I have spent some time talking
to him. I have been in meetings with him. I have seen him on camera. I have read his
original work. I can draw inferences.”
Well, I would not claim that I know S’bu, but I have certainly interacted with him. I have
talked with him in his mother tongue about politics in general, post-apartheid social
movements, and yes I have talked to him about you too. I find S’bu insightful and articulate.
I saw him presenting a paper at a conference last year without notes and his delivery was
very powerful.
Similarly, I have interacted with Ayanda and spoke with him in IsiXhosa. He has never
come across to me as a “hustler” or someone who does not know what he is talking about.
I have no problems with the idea of mentorship per ser. We have all had them at one point
in our lives. However, you write that “at times, mentorship has slipped into manipulation. I
am not the first person to note this tendency.”
Indeed, you are not the first person to raise these questions. The same people you attack
have also raised these points. For example, Nigel Gibson (2004) wrote of post-apartheid
South movements:
“...do and can these new mass-based organizations constitute counter hegemonic
movements that are capable of articulating their own content and developing alternative
social, political and economic programs? And if so, what role is played by ‘outsiders’ (both
intellectuals and activists)?”
The difference between you and the other researchers who write about social movements
is that you bolster your arguments by portraying black leadership as incapable of thinking
for themselves. You want us to believe that your portrayal of black leaders as people who
are incapable of thinking is the evidence that everyone else has been looking for. You will
have us believe that you in possession of absolute truth.
It should be noted that the leaders of the movements you attack are on record denying your
ravings as lies and slander. Embolden by your contempt for black leadership you insist that
rational people should take your word for it and ignore these black leaders because after all
they can not even understand Fanon.
And, when these black leaders refuse to be intimidated by your attacks on them, you
behave like the Grand Inquisitor, basically charging them “... with disagreeing with me. How
do you plead?” (Medialens 2011)
You write that :
“I turn now to the work of Buntu Siwisa. Majavu cites him approvingly as authority for the
fact that city-based, academic-cum-activists like me are a problem. Apart from the fact that
Majavu correctly notes that I am city-based, he gets it all embarrassingly wrong from there
on in. The entire point of Siwisa’s article is that academics and other professionals “inside”
social movements have a disproportionate influence on how those movements operate
over that of ordinary members.”
You propensity to exaggerate weakens your argument every time. I wonder why your
mentor (s) has not / have not pointed this out to you. I quoted Siwisa describing you and
your cohorts as “city-based intellectual-cum-activists”. I then quoted him describing you as
the “legal adviser” and one of the “prominent organisers” of the Concerned Citizens Forum
(CCF). For the rest of the article I do not mention Siwisa’s article. So what is it that I get “all
embarrassingly wrong from there on in”? I cited Siwisa to give readers a bit of Bohmke’s
biographical background. Yes, as I have pointed it out numerous times in this space,
researchers like Buntu Siwisa (2008) and Sakhele Buhlungu (2004) have raised questions
about middle class white activists in movements. However the point of my article is not this
issue, but your annoying habit of utilising anti-black racist stereotypes to argue your case.
You write that: “the extend of Majavu’s muddle-headedness is even more visible when one
considers that the writer he tries to use against me went so far as to suggest that poor,
Black people are capable of being ‘rented’ by middle-class professionals. He should be
condemning us both as racists and bigots.”
Well, if you insist on bringing Siwisa (2008) into this debate, that’s fine. Now, let me repeat
this in case I have not made myself clear to you. However since I write in simple sentences I
doubt you will find my argument incomprehensible.
The difference between you and Siwisa is that Siwisa gives black activists voice and a sense
of political agency. I quote Siwisa (2008):
“A further issue raised by the youth activists related to their sense of being exploited. They
have condemned the CCF intellectuals-cum-activists of using them to organise people for
marches and other activities without proper political education of township residents and
without adequately informing them of the purpose behind the marches.”
In Siwisa’s article we see blacks who see through the middle white activists. In your article,
black leadership is no better than Uncle Tom. Now that I think of it, your writing ought to
be categorised in the same genre as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book. An imaginary world
where blacks are subservient to whites, playing social roles assigned to them by wellintentioned whites.
The way that Siwisa talks about the issue of ‘crowd-renting’ is different to what you have in
mind. You and Siwisa are in two different planets. I quote Siwisa:
“Hlongwane and Mchunu further emphasised their concerns over what they felt was
‘crowd renting’:
“Hlongwane: We want to know and be involved. Ma uyi ally, uyabona iCCF iba nama allies
[if you are an ally, you see, the CCF has allies]. Ama allies kufuneka abe involved kwama
particular activities azakwenzeka [allies have to be involved in particular activities that are
going to take place]. But Ashwin Desai won’t involve [us], and Heinrich Bohmke won’t
involve [us]. They’ll come up with a plan, and then they’ll need the support of the masses.
They even call us troops.
“B.S: Call you what?
“Hlongwane: Troops. I’m telling you! They even say that we have to organise troops. And
then Ashwin Desai even said that Stalin was accusing, I don’t know what’s the name, saying,
‘why you are inviting [ ]? Do you have troops? If you don’t have troops, you can’t say you’re
in the struggle.’ They even call us troops. That is why we are having a conflict with them,
Buntu. That’s a true story.”
In Siwisa’s article black activists are portrayed as resisting the Bohmkes of this world. That
is the difference between Bohmke and other researchers who write about post-apartheid
social movements.
When poor people’s movement like the AbM are critical of the Centre for Civil Society in
Durban, we are told they are being used. Apart from speculation, Bohmke has no evidence
to back up this claim. He expects us to take his word for it.
You write that: “
“I note that Majavu does not actually dispute that white academics write for Black social
movement leaders or perform the role of their political mentors. It is for him, a priori, racist
to ever say so, which cannot be the case and is not borne out by either historical or
contemporaneous facts.”
I documented evidence which shows that you draw on anti-black racist stereotypes to
make your argument. You portray black leaders as hustlers, and you inaccurately write that
poor people’s movements have “dubious allies”. In response to that evidence, you wrote
that: “I stand by my view that there are indeed instances in which (black) movement
leaders have ‘allowed’ themselves to be politically and intellectually mentored by their
(white) academics.”
You have moved from your over-kill claims (about time too) to muted criticism. I don’t
know if I should call that progress or deception.
The movements call you a liar; as far as they are concerned your claims are unfounded.
You write that “Majavu can only skin me by misconstruing the authority he cites and by
withholding inconvenient information from his readers.”
I wonder what you are referring to when you say I misconstrue my sources and “by
withholding inconvenient information from his readers.” Can you actually spell it out for
me?!
I would like to conclude this article by reflecting on what Chomsky (2003) refers to as some
sort of a “ secular priesthood, whose task” is to delineate the perimeters of debate. Hence
one constantly hears about polemics etc. When establishment intellectuals want to put
down Chomky’s work, it is described as polemic (Herring & Robinson 2003). According to
Herring & Robinson, this charge is made “not in the sense that all scholarship is polemical
(that is, aimed at implicit or explicit refutation of a particular position) but in a pejorative
sense (that is, making an argument in a way which disregards the rules of scholarship).”
References:
Chomsky, N. (2003). Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky. Vintage Books:
London.
Gibson, N. (2004). Poor People's Movements in South Africa - The Anti-Eviction Campaign
in Mandela Park : A Critical Discussion. Journal of Asian and African Studies.
Herring, E. & Robinson, P. (2003). Too polemical or too critical? Chomsky on the study of
the news media and US foreign policy. Review of International Studies, 29.
Medialens. (2011). A 'Malign Intellectual Subculture' - George Monbiot Smears Chomsky,
Herman, Peterson, Pilger And Media Lens. Medialens Website:
http://www.medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=637:a-
malign-intellectual-subculture-george-monbiot-smears-chomsky-herman-peterson-pilgerand-media-lens&catid=24:alerts-2011&Itemid=68
Siwisa, B. (2008). “Crowd Renting or Struggling from Below? The Concerned Citizens’
Forum in Mpumalanga Township, Durban, 1999–2005”. Journal of Southern African Studies,
Vol 34 (4).
On 4/14/2012 11:57 AM, Benjamin Fogel wrote:
I don't understand why anyone would bother to defend R.W. he's such a pompous bougy
dick in everything especially his prose. His anti-apartheid cred is also suspect, a quick trip
to the LRB archives reveals he seems to have spent the 80s painting the ANC as the
antichrist and praising the IFP for possessing a semblance of liberal social democratic
values.
On 4/14/2012 3:14 PM, Khadija Sharife wrote:
Dear Anna
I have great admiration for your journalism and know of you through several friends and
colleagues.
I support movements like ABM as a real force, authentic social justice movements
......especially as I grew up in the Clare Estate area and witnessed first hand the gross
dispossession and brutal deprivation that characterises it...In such a case, it is derisory to
talk about freedom and justice because such constitutes a theory more than a reality....
Some brief thoughts on the below ...
Majavu writes a very interesting piece and it provides much food for thought...But relevant
statement (of poor peoples movements being dismissed and derided when they confront
the intellectual vanguard) is fundamentally off the mark as it relates to the brands (not the
actuality) of UPM, ABM etc.
In this instance while the rank and file are genuine in their activism and expressions of
resistance, and their fight against injustice (specific and general), the leadership
(interpretation, substance and representation of the social movement brand) is sculpted
and produced by the same intellectual vanguard, rather than opposed by them. This is the
real colonial mind at work - the academics that arrogantly hijack the platform, seizing the
right of narrative, claiming authority...This leadership, narrated by their academic
'discoverers' constitutes part of the fiction that undermines the social movement from
naturally and organically strengthening and developing, through their own struggles and
stories....I use the word 'discoverer' because it does tap into the real subversive and
manipulative forces at work: like Columbus etc, the real is structured, broken, plastered
into the shape desired by the finder. The real is of no consequence to chaps seeking to
present themselves as nobly aligned with, the trusted academic speaking on behalf the
people etc...
This is not to say ABM as a movement doesn't exist and isn't an active movement where
people are fighting for change. But what certain academics have created/sustained and the
process/how (the ABM academic 'discoverer' was even kicked off Wikipedia for
creating multiple identities promoting his own career and undermining those who opposed
him) is rather remote from reality, and is managed remote control for activists, donors etc
who then buy into it...
It is ventriloquism, a rather dangerous sort....I appreciate the ABM discoverer's wonderful
writing even as I acknowledge that quite a bit of it is fiction...This is not because 'the poor'
cannot speak for themselves but just because they are not given the opportunity to do
so...So deeply has ABM become embedded that they can no longer speak for themselves on
the record (the leadership refusing interviews).....At the time of being commissioned to
write about ABM, I hoped, truly, that it was the simplistic clear cut case of one privileged
white chap dismissing the virtuous poor, especially as that chap was quite abrasive... It
wasn't.
Bohmke was quite on the mark as regards the substance branded social movements
constructed on the basis on certain models that dislocate and dispossess the very real
constituencies of these movements...Those who have something to say are shut out as the
mic is hijacked by those academics who specialise in ivory tower activism....The leadership
of such movements either come on board or lose the opportunity to be recognised and
valorised in such circles (lending to media access etc)...
Journalists peering into UPM will note that there are at least two UPM founders who will
state on the record re: manufactured state of UPM leadership's narrative by a few
academics, the lack of democracy in the leadership structures (ie - people removed if they
question funding accountability etc). The same applied to the 'branded' politics (as
marketed by Prof Pithouse etc) of ABM.
The social movement model where the academic is central to the narration of the struggle
as an activist, rather than an observer, is very disturbing...Particularly as, where people
want for bread and food, very often, intellectual gods from Fanon to Marx as imposed as the
source of inspiration. Is it not enough for people to demand and fight for their rights or
must Badiou as a justifying force? I asked the leadership of a particular social movement
how Badiou inspired them (as was oft times reported and they responded they had never
heard of the man)...
It should be noted that Pithouse was not removed from CCS because he sided with ABM (as
noble as this sounds) - he negotiated a quiet removal with the director after his harassing
several female professors (who served legal papers on him) got out of hand... Mr Patel
moved overseas. Mr Ballard moved to a better position. There was no conspiratorial coup though ABM was innocently lead to believe this.
My limited experience of the development industry, for the most part, seems like a
manufactured world run by careerists cashing in via several different means...They create
solutions that fit selectively diagnosed problems...This was evident during during the
COP17, where the opposition collapsed like a cheap souffle because the activities of social
justice movements manufactured by such discoverers were located and concentrated in
their individual selves...It had no real grassroots basis even if the grassroots identifies and
sympathises with it. It (COP opposition) was largely an internet click-a-thon constituency...
I write briefly about my experiences trying to interview ABM
here. http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=21
1486&sn=Detail&pid=71619
It is true, to my understanding, that Bohmke etc did create the very model they now oppose
and so have first hand knowledge of how such fiction corrupts the reality. I think he pulled
out when he saw the impacts of crude ventriloquism...That it destroys rather than protects
the people it claims to represent.
On 4/14/2012 6:04 PM, Riaz K Tayob wrote:
This debate is quite charged.
At a more general level of abstraction, for the movement as a whole, can we look to see
what grains of truth are in what Majavu and Heinrich are alluding to. For this purpose, I am
distilling what is important to me, to explore perhaps with others some key themes.
On Majavu, there is a strident, and much needed, call regarding the Black Consciousness
perspective. While addressing the particular cases of UPM etc, instances of reproduction of
race relations, he asserts the capability of black people to lead their own campaigns.
Simultaneously he has to deal with and struggle with defining the terms (ontology) in
which the problem is defined, and here he is not in an enviable place however necessary his
task is, and I am glad that he is taking it up. As Ran pointed out, the 'enemy within' is a key
issue. Race is a valid category, but how it coexists with other categories, gender, class, etc, is
as usual not easy to navigate. But his insistence on agency and capacity (which is both an
indicator of current capabilities as well as potential capabilities) is a key point that cannot
be dismissed. It is not about an authentic BCM, but a BCM that starts with African
person/people as the central feature. And, the situation is grave, and the radical positions
he puts forth as well as claims to legitimacy are guided by this perspicacious perception of
need, priority and action. If any find him prickly, this is precisely what we need from his
vantage...
The issue I see lacking is how Majavu's BC can come together with other social forces
(people, social movements, intellectuals) to enhance their power (in quest for
emancipation, pedagogy, service needs, etc).
Part of how Majavu defines the problems seems to make the primary problem in terms of
the race relations, well meaning whites/liberals/academics etc.
Heinrich on the hand, arguably, sees the issue not in terms of race. He raises issues about
the quality of social movements. As does Johnson. While I would put them in different
categories, there may well be gems of truth in what they both say. Johnson's take on
universities and the bureaucracy has been echoed even by others with more credibility for
the left (eg Vally) than him (one can just look at the piling up of debt by institutions that
shows that like the Arms Deal universities are also ATMs for massive withdrawals). In this
vein, Heinrich's points about activists lacking depth may or may not be true. But can we
afford to ignore the warning irrespective of the source? Does it matter if Fanon is the
inspiration or not, or if social justice is framed in local terms, with Fanon bastardised in a
convenient form?
Is there something about the way we frame the legitimacy debates in SA discourse that
prevents us from more targeted and unified concerted action? If legitimacy of position
must be backed up by people support then is it any wonder there is an "imposition" by left
academics on social movements? Likewise, do social movements supplement (strategically,
unstrategically or opportunistically) their shortcomings (perceived or real) by relying on
others?
If these debates are so fraught, why is it that we lack the ability to put in place processes or
people that can at least ensure that these conflicts are understood within the broader
conception of the left as a movement of servants of the people? This is not some romantic
notion about no conflict, these can be healthy, but we cannot presume that this issue is
being handled best in this way, particularly if it has implications and lessons for the
movement as a whole. Perhaps this is an issue that perhaps more debaters can weigh in on,
as we come to these types of issues time and time again, and it is hard to resist the
polemic...myself especially
When collective action and solidarity are hemmed in by "unspoken" (i.e. not dealt with
properly) conversations, then perhaps some discourse analysis rather than navel gazing
may be in order...
I hope we can open this topic up, at a general level, and deal with the very important
themes... Majavu, Heinrich this is not just your issue... so you both are not alone...
On 4/14/2012 8:08 PM, Neville Adams wrote:
Riaz
Just a few points.
Admirable as it is that you should wish to play the honest broker, truth outcomes should
result from a dialogous process, and in that process we should not try to sanitise or
depolemicise the debate. It never has been, or is about race relations - the other of nonracialism- a very liberal notion, it is about racism. But there is a wider issue which, from
what I have been able to glean from the Debate contributions, and that is the elephant in
the left public sphere in SA , one with a vest packed with timer controlled explosives: and
that is the inabilty to reconcile race other than that as something epiphenomenal. Bohmke
and Johnson's criticisms might have some validity and might even warrant taking on board
if the way in which they do it was not so heavily mired in racial differentiation.
There are other issues, but I think I would prefer to hear first from those directly involved
in the frontline of the SM. Are white academics colonising the representation?
Neville
On 4/14/2012 9:58 PM, Riaz K Tayob wrote:
Thanks Nevile.
Mine is a personal inquisition, because I see a pattern in lots of the discourse for ages - on
the reform/radical spectrum, and issues of legitimacy, other may have others - and it is
rather circular - with the contradictions often not being seen. (with my limited engagement
on economic justice issues, North of the Limpopo - issues are no less fraught, but these
kinds of issues are handled in a more sophisticated way in much more trying
circumstances.
So this is not about doing away with the dialogue, which must occur, but it is about getting
to some of the general notions that arise = so that the debate has relevance for us all,
beyond the particularisms.
Race is certainly an issue. And white colonisation of representation, just like Party-Paid
goons (ala Zuma at COP), are eminent topics of dialogue. Hence the questions to Mandisi. I
hope people weigh in. But Heinrich asks us also to read his piece without the race issue
(however else we may feel about its casting). Separating the wheat (substance, of his point,
and he intended it to be read) from the chaff (racism or racially construed ones, or as it
comes across). This is not about endorsing these views, but if a conservative/racist etc says
something sensible, then should we shoot the messenger, or should we deny them the
monopoly on the legitimacy to make those claims? In other words, even if all of what
Mandisi says its true, objectively we have to assess whether the quality of social
movements is adequate to the tasks they seek to do - and this need not be paternalistic, it
can be in solidarity, with those terms mediated in a way that is emancipatory. This may
point to work that needs to be done, before what is next, iow.
So to supplement your question with one in Heinrich's vein, are the movements that we see
emerging demanding services etc. operating with a strategic agenda that fits in with
broader conceptions of emancipation? And relatedly, what is the quality of these
movements with regard to sustaining longer term agendas (irrespective of where it
"originates" or is represented to originate)? This is quite a serious question, writ large, but
with the failure of mass mobilisation on alternate platforms (i.e. the constant success of the
Alliance, elections, factionalism that is not on economic policy as suchetc) it may be that
there is something in the polity that we are missing. And this is serious. In no way does this
issue, so abstracted from Heinrich's note, from the agency of the movements.
Riaz
On 4/15/2012 4:19 PM, Heinrich Bohmke wrote:
Hi Anna
Almost everyone who critcizes the Abahlali canon has been viciously smeared.
The line is either that they are jealous at being thwarted from
exercising vanguardist control over the movement, or that they are
somehow associated with the Centre for Civil Society in Durban, which
Abahlali at one stage denounced and ‘boycotted’.
You repeat this line and it is totally false, you were not around at
the time and thus are, by definition, relying on reports. I may take
the time to set the record straight later.
For those whose critique of social movement writing is deepest, are
reserved the deeper smears; they are working for the ANC state or are
somehow mentally touched.
The same UPM statement which Mandisi Majavu uses to establish that I
am a ‘slanderer’ is a deplorable example of this anti-intellectualism.
It is not just me. There are other examples in which other writers
have been accused of exactly the same thing: their jealousy at being
denied a role in this plum of a social movement, Abahlali/UPM, has
turned nasty. Or worse.
The real authors of the UPM statement go on in that statement to
suggest that I work for the SAPS as some sort of agent. In addition,
I am mentally ill. I’m thus a jealous, mentally-ill agent.
Nice piece of work, which I predicted in my original article, (p21).
I want to show how this smearing works. I don't think many people
realize how vicious these guys get.
The SAPS thing, they get directly from an article I wrote and
diseminated among activists a while before the Ayanda Kota arrest
happened. (Anyone wants it, drop me a line).
Man, do I have *a lot* to learn about slander. They have taken a
single fact, left out all the detail and laid scurrilous insinuations
thick and fast. I don't really care. They prove my case. But it is
useful to see these great, principled social movements in operation.
I know a thing or two about labour law. I lecture it. I consult.
That’s my job. I’ve just finished a gig for NUMSA assisting in
running a strike and dodging interdicts at Apollo tyres (old Dunlop).
Back in December 2011, I taught a special Human Resources unit with
the SAPS how to fire corrupt cops within their ranks, cops who are
alleged to have violated regulation 20 (z) of the SAPS Disciplinary
Code.
It’s a difficult business running these hearings, given the nature of
the crimes. My role is to workshop presiding officers, union and
employer representatives how to deal with these tricky and factually
complex matters. In particular how to obtain and lead evidence from
witnesses who have been raped or assaulted by SAPS members, ‘illegal’
immigrants from whom money has been extorted, or members of the public
who have evidence of the workings of criminal syndicates and who are
reluctant to testify.
I referenced this specific work in my piece and the nature of my
'consultancy' was clear as daylight. After UPM-aligned slanderers had
hold of this, the insinuations, all in the name of anonymous ‘some
people’, sounded like this:
“Some people are wondering if Bohmke is working for the state. There
have been warnings from within the ANC to this effect and the fact
that he has admitted that he is a consultant to the SAPS has
strengthened this view. The fact that the people and movements that he
attacks are the same people and movements under pressure from state
intelligence, and that he often makes the same arguments that are made
in the propaganda of the ruling party, have also made some comrades
suspicious.”
The Majavus are on the delicate side: with his discourse analysis of
my ‘racism’ and her 'jealousy makes you nasty'. The kind of stuff
above is what one has to look forward to from the less-restrained side
of what is beginning to resemble a Sect.
Since you, Anna, have seen fit to publicly echo the
jealousy-makes-you-nasty explanation of my writing, I might in due
course take the time to explain exactly what motivated my break from
the social movement industry and, separately, what motivated me to
re-enter the terrain from time to time as an occasional critic, poker
of fun and, in my own way, seeker of answers for a new way forward.
I don’t wish to bore the rest of the list or foist upon them the
unwanted role of voyeur.
I pause to note however that this business of ascribing private
motives for why people write as opposed to addressing the substance of
what they say, again distinguishes those who rush to the Abahlali
canon’s defense.
It’s a tricky horse to ride. Trotsky was peeved at Stalin taking the
shine and excluding him. His post 1926 work must thus be read as a
convenient theoretical ruse in which to grind his personal axe? Less
grandly, may we ignore the warning about the dangers of a pyramid
scheme because the person pointing out that the figures don’t add up
is a disappointed investor?
Where do we stop? Anna Majavu writes in defense of Mandisi Majavu, her husband?
As you can see, it’s not a productive line of argument nor does it
explain away the substance of what you or I might both have to say.
I do note that, once again, the substance of my criticisms are ducked.
This is that writing by a group of academics on South African social
movements is highly problematic for the following reasons.
- they falsify knowledge about movements, (everything from size,
political orientation, intellectual tradition, organizational
practices (check my articles);
- they act as gatekeepers to movements and ‘brother leader’ (check my articles);
- the subjectivities of ordinary shackdwellers are flattened out to be
pure agent, always and onward, resisting the state. Being black and
poor simultaneously is essentialised.
- they impose their own sectarian and intellectual issues on these
movements through the peculiar relationships and dependencies they
forge with movement leaders (I’ve given examples and will happily
supply more.);
- they smear those who question their work instead of engaging on the substance.
Until these points are rebutted, what Mandisi and Anna's attacks
amount to is a case of attacking the messenger.
Regards
HB
On 4/16/2012 7:54 AM, David Everatt wrote:
I don’t know any of the personalities or your sub-currents of who-said-what so forgive me
for not being able to grasp all that, which seems to be pertinent if bitchy (and thus
enormously readable). What I am wondering is, what is a ‘Black social movement’, which all
of you (I think) have referred to? Sometime they are just social movements; then they
appear as South African social movements; and then they appear again as Black (your
upper case) social movements. I get the point that white
domination/manipulation/whatever is being battled over, but are these movements being
defined, or defining themselves, in racial terms? Are we really heading down that path?
de
On 4/16/2012 12:03 PM, Mandisi wrote:
“White talk” reconstructs whiteness as victimised personality
by Mandisi Majavu
“Liberties are sometimes more important than shape in question of life and death.
Frequently a group lives or dies only because one side cannot make some connection, or
occupy some crucial point, owing to a shortage of liberties.”—Go Proverb
I borrowed the title of this article from Melisa Steyn’s essay which was published in a book
entitled “Postcolonial whiteness: A critical reader on race and empire”. Steyn, a Professor at
Wits, writes that whiteness in South Africa constructs itself as the victimised in the new
dispensation. Bohmke’s claim that I bait my trap “with the fact that I am white”, should be
understood within this context. He simply cannot respond to the evidence put in front of
him. He disregards all the evidence I’ve presented to argue that his writing belongs in the
same genre as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novels. My critique which Bohmke finds difficult to
respond to is that he uses anti-black racist stereotypes to argue his point.
In his latest empty rejoinder, Bohmke writes that “the substance of my criticisms are
ducked.” He further points out that I am “on the delicate side: his discourse analysis of my
‘racism’...”
Imagine if one of the French writers that Said discusses in Orientalism were still around
today and responded to Said’s criticism in this manner, we would all be in stitches right
now. In Orientalism, Said argues that the Orientals or Arabs are portrayed in the work of
these French writers as “inveterate liars”, “suspicious”, “devoid of energy and initiative”,
and “much given to... intrigue, cunning...” (Said 2003).
Compare and contrast what Bohmke has to say about post-apartheid social movements and
Said’s definition of Orientalism.
Here is a quote from Bohmke:
“The black man, a bit of a hustler, who can blame him, an activist too, thinks that
he can pull the strings. There are the airfares, the money from the NGO's, the
sense of grandeur. But he is ensnared. The strings tighten, the dependence
increases, room for maneuver less so. He must perform. Give township tours to
researchers from overseas. Denounce the bad white rival of his mentor. Keep a
semblance of an organization going.”
Here is another quote from Bohmke:
“UPM hands do not hold the pen. Kota [Ayanda Kota is the leader of the UPM] and Co.
supply the raw data but the narrative into which 'the more important' parts are inserted
is supplied by an outside mentor. It is both above and beneath individual UPM members
to write what appears in Inboxes the world over.”
Instead of engaging with my criticism of his work, Bohmke introduces a new argument. He
writes that social movements are anti-intellectual. In my last post I talked a bit about
secular priesthood whose task is to “uphold the doctrinal truths” of how to organise
movements and basically how to interpret social reality (Chomsky 2003). Although these
people are normally called intellectuals, they are in reality a secular priesthood that wants
to impose its ideas and thoughts onto movements. The movements are right to oppose this
secular priesthood.
Although Bohmke likes to presents himself as a reasonable person searching for truth, his
work reveals that he is the kind of person who thrives on conflict. What he calls criticism is
nothing but pure vitriol. He is destructive and mean spirited. Based on his writing, which
uses anti-black racist stereotypes to illustrate Bohmke’s point, Bohmke is neither
interested in the truth nor in movement building. According to Professor Jeff Guy---one of
the leading historians in South Africa, Bohmke is a lawyer:
“but he is without a lawyer's strengths (an awareness of the broader context, the ability
to grasp evidence in its entirety) and has too many of a lawyer's weaknesses (to attack
and denigrate by whatever means the capacity and integrity of those with whom he
differs).”
Professor Guy puts his remarks in context.
“On May 13, I published a short article titled ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’. Its aim
was to draw attention to the fact that over eight months 12 men accused of the violent
crimes at the Kennedy Road shack settlement had appeared in court 10 times, only to
have the case postponed because the State had not provided evidence for the charges
against them. The delay seemed to indicate a lack of concern for the accused and their
families, to breach the constitution, and deny the public its right to discover just what
happened at Kennedy Road that Saturday night in September last year. But nobody
reading Böhmke's piece would realise that the point and thrust of my article was that the
Kennedy Road accused should be brought to trial without further delay. Instead my
name is used to mount a broad-ranging attack on academics whom Böhmke wants to
present as complicit in a worldwide conspiracy to misrepresent Abahlali baseMjondolo's
part in the violence.
“In my article I wrote that ‘as long as answers to such questions are kept from us, the
tensions, misery and injustice with which the violence of the night of September 26 is
surrounded, grows and spreads, poisoning the lives of all touched by it’. Böhmke's article,
which fails to present a comprehensive view and uses innuendo to attack the character
and integrity of those with whom he disagrees, is an example of just this as it poisons and
distracts from what is truly significant in this debate - how to provide all South Africans
with a place to live and work in security.”
Bishop Rubin, a person of integrity, was also personally attacked by Bohmke. Referring to
an article written by Bohmke, Bishop Rubin writes that
“I too come under sustained and dishonest attack. We have had meetings with counsel as
well as leaders of Abahlali baseMjondolo about the matter. We have considered the
attacks from Böhmke and rejected them.”
As an aside, I have to say that I find it amusing that Bohmke seems to think I need to be
defended from him---of all people! Who actually is on the retreat here? Although it appears
that Bohmke has lost his calmness, there is still a bit of sense of humour left in him, I
reckon.
To sum up, I would like to reiterate that Bohmke’s “intellectual work” is questionable to say
the very least. His work is characterised by disrespect for evidence and utter disdain for
logical thinking. He speculates and slanders his critics. When the movements respond by
speculating about Bohmke’s real reason for attacking poor people’s movements in the way
that he has done, he is quick to portray himself as a victim of slander.
I agree with the view that :
“it is unfair to inquire into an adversary’s motives before addressing the content of his or
her argument. But after analysing an argument and finding it grossly wanting, it is
legitimate to ask how an intelligent person could have advanced such an argument in the
first place” (Sokal 2008).
Perhaps it is true that Bohmke ought to be ignored. After all, by his own account, Bohmke
ran out of political steam years ago. These days he is of the view that “social movements are
dead”. He promises to
“take the time to explain exactly what motivated my break from the social movement
industry and, separately, what motivated me to re-enter the terrain from time to time as
an occasional critic, poker of fun and, in my own way, seeker of answers for a new way
forward.”
I wait with bated breath.
References:
Chomsky, N. (2003). Understanding Power: The indispensible Chomsky. Vintage
Books:London.
Steyn, M. (2005). “White Talk”: White South Africans and the Management of Diasporic
Whiteness. In A. J. Lopez (Ed.), Postcolonial whiteness: A critical reader on race and empire.
University of New York Press: New York.
Said, E. Orientalism. Penguin Books: London.
Sokal, A. (2008). Beyond the hoax: Science, phiolosophy and culture. Oxford University
Press: Oxford.
On 4/16/2012 12:10 PM, Mandisi wrote:
hello
are you talking to me?
if you are, am not sure how you expect me to take you seriously when you seem to
insinuation that the four articles I've submitted here are 'bitchy'. how is the critical review
I've done on Bohmke's work different to what you do for a living?
Mandisi
On 4/16/2012 1:13 PM, David Everatt wrote:
I was sending a note to those who felt they might wish to actually answer the question I
asked, but if you feel disinclined to do so, that's fine.
On 4/16/2012 1:49 PM, Mzimasi wrote:
Hi Comrades
Just in the level of following certain political debates, especially debates relating to social
movements and their mode of oparations in connection with the role of academia and Left
intellectuals. I find it strange that a lot of academics and intellectuals are still romanticising
social movements. As an activist in the social movements in Cape Town and working
together with other movements around the country, I came across what I would call a
political deaseas. This political deaseas has been taking place in the relationship between
some of the social movements and academics in South Africa. Academics who popularise
certain movements while doing gatekeeping for certain movements, romanticising some
movements while downplaying some movements. This is an unhealthy political situation
and a political jem for the building of an alternative revolutionary movement in South
Africa.
I fully agree with Bomke in a number of things that he has articulated about the
relationship between academics and social movements leaders. I mean I talk out of my own
experience, irrespective of what Bomke is saying. Comrades turn to lye about their
membership numbers, they mention big numbers when speaking about their
constituencies. Comrades turn to mention 30 to 40 community organisations who are their
constituencies, but in reality it is only six communities. Comrades turn to speak of
thousands to attend a particular march from 30 communities only to find out that the
attendance is 30 people from 8 communities.
Comrades there is no point in hiding our shrinking number in communities and
memberships. We don't have to hide our internal problems, financial or otherwise, but if
our organisations are weak we must pretend as if they are still strong. Our role as activists
and militants including academics is to tell the truth to the world about the state of affairs
in our organisations. If our organisations are rotten we must't be shy to say they are rotten
and if they in coma or they are dead we must say it. There is no room for romanticising the
movements whiel they are incompl,ete decline otherwise we won';t be in postion to say
what is the state of our movements so that we can derive correct strategies and tactics for
our wayforward. If we continue to romanticise our movements we will always apply wrong
strategies and tactics and we won't ever know as at what stage our the development our
movements is, and that is a recipe for dissaster.
I think those who write about the movements should reflect the truth if we are to build an
alternative revolutionary mass movements in South Africa. In conclussion, it is clear that all
of our movements are in a complete decline, shrinking in numbers, no proper
organisational structures to sustain our movements, they are very sectarian, unable to
build a national character of their struggles. This is irrespective of the current service
delivery revolts tat engulf the country at the moment, but even the current revolts have not
come at any nearer to building a national character of their struggles, let
alone coordination. What we currently see id the building of artificial networks and united
fronts built by the Left that I regard them as substitute for the working class organisations
as these are not derived in struggles.
Lastly, my interest in these debates is to get fruitful and meaningful analysis that begins to
reflect the true nature of our movements to be able to chart a better wayfoward for
socialist project. It is also unhealthy for the academia to just defend an unjust, unhealthy
situation in our movements and the academia should learn to take part in the actual
struggles to be able to reflect correctly about the community struggles.
Revolutionary Greetings.
Mzi (ILRIG/SMI)
On 4/16/2012 2:05 PM, Mandi Smallhorne wrote:
I tend to agree with you, Mzi. We need to look at our situation/s with clear eyes and be bold
about our failings and flaws. I would love to see some ‘fruitful and meaningful’ analysis that
would enable us to understand what exactly would make for more powerful, broader
movements (or a movement) that could effect change that improves lives, reduces
inequality, takes us forward instead of backward.
M
On 4/16/2012 4:11 PM, Khadija Sharife wrote:
Hi Mandisi
If we take things literally and strip it of context (as you have done below) are we not
engaging in a dangerous and delusional way of thinking (very thin on intellect and thick on
divisive controversial language)? Why limit this vast discourse to specific personalities and
use those (either/or) as ammunition, while dismissing the context and content of the
argument? It muddies any potential for unpacking fundamental issues. Is this the
intention?
When Bohmke speaks of the 'black man as a hustler', is he not speaking of a specific type of
black man produced by a specific system for a specific goal...This appears obvious to
anyone who reads the whole text. Have we not seen many of those black men today, in
governments/corporations etc? Was Mbeki representative of people's aspirations simply
because of his skin color? Did he not hustle in just such a way?
You (considerably) transform it into an issue of race while eliding the most critical issues
those they stand at the forefront of your argument - example, black consciousness....Did
Biko not intend that the mandate for representation must come from the constituencies? Is
this the not exact opposite of what these ivory tower chaps (and their willingly or
unwillingly compliant branded leaders) are doing? and is this not the primary cause why
the rank and file are marginalised and deprived of their own right to the microphone?
Given this, are you perhaps undermining the issues and people you claim to speaking in
defense of? If not, why is your language largely avoiding substance in favor of character
assassination?
Khadija
On 4/16/2012 6:41 PM, Shannon Walsh wrote:
Hi all,
This is all too familiar.
As I have direct experience of the branding and gate-keeping in
Durban, I feel I must also weigh in.
When I raised pretty mild and comradely concerns about Abahlali’s
academic gatekeepers and the negative effects they were having on the
movement in Durban, I was derided and undercut through vicious slander
and whisper campaigns.
In my case, I was deemed a woman unable to think for herself, and
therefor under the sway of men with the ‘real’ opinions that mattered.
Or, I was attempting to ‘destroy movements’. The pack of lies that
were spread about me personally to people inside and outside the
movement still boggles my mind.
You can read my criticisms in the article I wrote for ROAPE in 2007,
and circulated to S’bu Zikode and many of the core members of Abahlali
at the time. In that article, I also raised issues about the unequal
power balances between people from the ‘city’ and the ‘shacks’, the
way poor people were being used to assert legitimacy for academics,
and the ways that activists were still able to find agency in such
mired relationships. (http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/WALSH_Bond_Desai.pdf)
At that time, the desire by white intellectuals such as Richard
Pithouse to keep tight control of a black poor people’s movement was
very disturbing. I don’t understand how Majavu can simultaneously
point the finger at Bohmke and pretend like Pithouse doesn’t exist. Or
is it just the case of the ‘good’ white and the ‘bad’ white?
The romanticisation of poor black people is not pro-Black. Nor is it
anti-Racist. Far from. At the time, I quoted Bertrand Russell’s sharp
analysis about how “idealising the oppressed is useful to the
hegemonic classes, both to assuage guilt, but also to refuse the
oppressed real power since it is their very subjection that makes them
virtuous.”
It is liberal at best, patronizing and oppressive at worst.
Why is it absolutely impossible to actually have a discussion on the
role that intellectuals and academics have had on movements? Why can
there be no self-reflection at a time when South African movements
barely exist, and much of the rest of the world is in uprisings? At
the very least, there is certainly some self-analysis to be done
around the role that (mostly white) academics and the current
“revolutionary vanguard” have played in black people’s movements.
What is at stake, and what always has been, is the fact that there is
a very ill vanguardist political tradition in this country that breeds
the kind of manipulation and gate-keeping we saw in Durban. It is a
tendency that Bohmke identifies well, probably because, as he admits,
he was once part of it.
It is ironic that Bohmke is raising the issue that these (mostly
white) academics are destructive to movements and Majavu is basically
saying the same thing, but twisting Bohmke’s words around to construe
Bohmke as the source problem.
The ‘philosopher and his poor’ is hardly a new issue.
Shannon
On 4/16/2012 7:18 PM, Peter Dwyer (LFC Scally) wrote:
Comrades,
I think Mzimasi makes a very telling and honest contribution that is very welcomed despite
it being a sad indictment of the social movements. Indeed, I have long argued that the social
movements have been in decline since January 2003 when I first moved to South Africa
(until mid 2007). This much was evident from my research on the CCF and from many of
our discussions at the CCS research project that spurned the book Social Movements book
edited by Richard Ballard and events across the country I was party to and from speaking
with others also involved or once involved. I made the point in my article that the CCF was
one of the newest (and by then oldest) organisations and so was turning old (and some of
us recognised it was already dead) much earlier and thus I implied and argued expressly it
held many of the best and worst lessons for the Left. But it was still a time of euphoria and
these points were not popular with some (I distinctly recall such arguments with Andile of
the LPM and some in the AEC). It was certainly never easy to argue that COSATU was still a
very important player on the Left and would continue to be. Perhaps I was partly to blame
for some of the euphoria as in some public forums I was not prepared to provide
ammunition to ANC and other less progressive critics of the social movements. Perhaps I
should have spoken more openly in all forums. Meanwhile many in and around the CCF,
APF and AIDC/ILRIG et al were well aware of my and other peoples similar arguments that
were very similar to the ones painted more starkly by Mzimasi and by Heinrich Bohmke.
Much of this was relayed to me by people in and around the CCF and other organisations I
interacted with-including some of those seen as 'the city-based leadership'.
Based on my experiences in this period, and linked to this debate, I would say that 2
fundamental issues encapsulate much of what is being discussed here:
1. the issues of political openess (not just about numbers at meetings-as important as that
is -but about money and funding)
2. Democratic accountability (both linked to the issue of political honesty)
These two issues came up in many guises but are what frustrated and angered many and
this is certainly something that was argued consistently by comrades in the Right to Work
campaign set up by AIDC but who did not work for the NGO-indeed my experiences in that
process were some of the most telling.
I think unless these issues are dealt with more satisfactorily than they have often been (and
what I heard about COPT/Durban events in late 2011 did not fill me with confidence) then
those of us critical of the Alliance will not be able to make links with the urban protests
Peter Alexander has been documenting of late and we will all remain stuck at the level of
'artificial networks' (as Mzimasi so eloquently put it) that not only do little for the building
of the Left but set it backwards and continue to sow suspicions about some peoples
motives.
Peter
On 4/16/2012 8:43 PM, Riaz K Tayob wrote:
Mzi, Walsh & Sharife have shaped the issue, which is captured very, very well in the context
of dire/grave circumstances (Zizek - just to provoke Neville :P - : the situation is
catastrophic but not serious...).
Walsh: "At the very least, there is certainly some self-analysis to be done around the role
that (mostly white) academics and the current “revolutionary vanguard” have played in
black people’s movements." And that the kaleidoscope views of Heinrich and Mandisi on
"reality" of our peoples predicament is rather complementary despite the filibuster.
Mzi on the role of intellectuals as well as the good work, potential and extreme difficulty of
working with social movements. (To which I would add the question of legitimacy in
general , as well as the issue of "agency" of the people when faced with "technical"
onslaughts, like IFIs, WTO, etc.)
Sharife on the importance of stepping back and abstracting somewhat to that ephemeral
Archimedean point from which we can depersonalise these issues, at least for non-players
(as the players in the game can read how all this applies to them and perhaps push to aim
to be more convincing, perhaps we may even manage cordial disagreement - as this issue is
bigger than the symptoms we see in the present case).
My view on issues of legitimacy (my favourise bugbear on civic action South of the
Limpopo) there are multiple grounds for legitimacy, even from armchair anarchists.
Whatever it is that allows us to come together, we do need to figure it out as there are too
few of us and the problems enormous. It is not about whether there is or is not a
vanguardist movement, but about us not being alone in this - communities or intellectuals.
We do need to move out of this "wisdom of the people" versus "intellectual" dichotomy.
Either can be wrong as much as right. Concrete issues as well as ideas move people, as
history attests...
Regarding Mandisi, his situation is unenviable. BCM certainly has a defining role to play,
just as it did in the past. Class, race, gender etc issues are complex matters in of themselves,
and how they relate makes it even more complex. As Sharife points out the issue of
blackness poses its particular challenges - particularly when the State is following
degeneration with almost Fanonian precision - but this merely makes the urgency of BCM
revival more important, rather than less. The position of BCM in SA at this time is critical
particular since the Social Question (w its economic race intersection) is neglected by the
State; and intellectuals as well as the people are, as Mzi points out, not quite up to the task
at present... and then there is the thorny issue of how to give credence to views of
intellectuals that are technical/reformist/ and hard to place in social movements concrete
struggles... it cannot simply be that these are irrelevant (which may be relevant for COP17
reviews).
Perhaps at the risk of being simplistic, race is one of those over-determining factors in SA.
But its general relevance cannot be dogmatically affirmed in all circumstances, and like in
economic policy may defer to other progressive analysis like class. Its uses can be
opportunistic, and this list discussion is testament at least to our collective rigour. But the
importance of BCM in reviving the spirit of the people and garnering their ideas in the
context of the when the proverbial 'last white policeman has left' is decidedly more
complex than in the immediate poco periods - and some deference needs to be shown for
the general sentiment, even if some cannot agree on the particular instance. The further
development of a cultural pride (in the widest sense, transcending tribalism as well - dare I
say it for the wider context) as well as a distinguishing definition that BC means an
oppositional stance to neoliberalism, or reformist wise even economic nationalism, would
be more than welcome. But we hardly get through the cross fire of poeisis so we do have to
look at some of the relationship issues.... as well as how we express solidarity (generosity of
spirit)...
It is edifying that the question/fact of blackness can be opened up this way, and that all folk
can weigh in. There are always personal inflections in politics, and we are seeing some of
that here.
To abstract from the particular. There are many instances where the race issue is not dealt
with appropriately.It cannot simply be my race/class right or wrong, but neither is is that
simple as the equations are larger for those with a strategic programme. Here constant
vigilence, like the Debate community, would be appropriate, but not if we are just
interested in being right, and not open to at least entertain ideas/analysis...
Not even the centre can hold - but one would not get this from the shenanigans in most of
the state and party politics... the centre cannot hold...
On 4/16/2012 8:48 PM, Riaz K Tayob wrote:
To make an addition to this listwhich may be a nice way to capture some
of the dialectical issues, so we can get to some laws of motion (sic).
On 2012/04/16 08:18 PM, LFC Scally wrote:
1. the issues of political openess (not just about numbers at
meetings-as important as that is -but about money and funding)
2. Democratic accountability (both linked to the issue of political
honesty)
3. Issues reformist reform, radical reform vs radical positions
4. Leadership and Bottom Up
On 4/17/2012 12:35 AM, Anna Majavu wrote:
ILRIG gets much of its funding by offering to educate social movements
through workshops. ILRIG used to work with unions but when they
declined in number and social movements started to grow, they then
fell upon social movements as a niche market. Even if their intentions
were good, there are tensions between the funded NGOs and the
unfunded-movements all over the world and so too in SA. This is only
obvious and it should not be cloaked as something else. White leftists
applying for funding from donors and giving their own bank account
numbers to receive the money, which was then never accounted for, were
also a perennial problem for many years in the early 2000s. Fruitful
and meaningful analysis would need to cover all those issues too.
On 4/17/2012 2:07 AM, Khadija Sharife wrote:
Dear Anna
This is a very good point: " White leftists applying for funding from donors and giving their
own bank account numbers to receive the money, which was then never accounted for,
were also a perennial problem for many years in the early 2000s.."
Interestingly, you don't seem to have mentioned some names of the 'leftists' that perfectly
fit the bill of the 'colonial mind' or those that are happy to be colonised - some of the former
motivating for funds from organizations like Rosa Luxembourg granted to such people who
don't have (or want) auditors, don't disclose funds to their members, remove founding
members when they question accountability/ use of funding, facilitate flow of funds to their
family accounts, rarely inquire as to what members would like to invest such funding in
etc.
You are a great journalist, so I'm sure you are distinctly aware of the structural nature (and
inner workings) of the upper hierarchy of movements you claim are unfairly targeted?
Members of these types of organizations are often exploited and used, even as they are the
most marginalised, dispossessed.
More interestingly, Bohmke is not part of the 'leftists' (whatever their color) that are
cashing in on the fallacy of the development industry (a wonderful reform cushion for
capitalism)...
So why is he a target? He has no financial, academic, reputational etc interest, except to
speak of his experiences in hindsight, as regards a model of branding that he and others,
helped to cultivate about a decade ago (in which ventriloquism was central, and they
thought, necessary)....
The real questions should be, in my view - what are the innate fault lines with the way in
which social movement models are constructed and financed, where funds are channeled
through certain types of specialists creating narratives rather than documenting such?
Does the development industry of which social movements (as they are largely and
currently constructed) constitute part of the problem, instead of the solution, if they
attempt to negotiate within a system where the power that is challenged is also the same
power that is affirmed? Where collective will is expressed through self-defeating means
(we will vote for the capitalist ANC if they give us more bread, pushing boundaries within
boundaries)? Has the development industry depoliticised social movements preventing
scrutinisation of power imbalances (as those writing the speeches, informing the leaders,
often depend on this system of power for their own)?
One much defended social movement, admits, sadly, to previously being rented out by the
City of Durban for some 100 jobs in exchange for legitimising and lobbying for Africa's
largest dump (Bisasar) - the jobs never materialised but the desperation of people, as
evidenced, can be easily tapped into...Its not possible to fault them as life is so harsh, yet
one can clearly see that awareness can be maneuvered to serve the biggest most powerful
god, depending on how sympathy and need is spoken too...while consciousness prevents
that.
But can consciousness be cultivated in such a disingenuous and false atmosphere, where
prestige, career, cash etc is the goal of the academic branders, who place (willing or
unwilling) leaders in positions where they must accept the imposed narrative and shape
themselves accordingly, or be left out? And does not this shape an environment of
opportunism, where the most inspiring leader, won't make the cut, but the busy
idiots/charlatans etc can and do?
I'm speaking at a very general level of many organizations, institutions, movements etc
because this is a global climate that has been corrupted by the 'development' industry, not
something specific to SA, though it can be identified here quite easily..
The problem is that personalities have remained the focus of this critical dialogue, rather
than the issue. The chap who has brought it up is being crucified even though we should be
grateful, like him or not, that he is putting such issues on the table. The movements and
leaders that can stand up to scrutiny and questioning can only become stronger, not
weaker.
Khadija
On 4/17/2012 6:30 AM, Benjamin Fogel wrote:
Out of curiosity (as well as having some personal stake in the matter), when referring to
the personal/academic/career benefit of these so-called 'mentors' in social movements,
does anybody know of one academic paper authored on the movement which started this
recent fracas? Namely the UPM? Has anybody written anything of tangible financial
academic repute?
Furthermore we seem to be diverging into academic narcissism here, do the same rules
apply to students? Particularly students like myself with
no discernible research interests involving working with movements? Do we have to play
by the same rules as the old people in Bohmke's case, namely whitey get out? Or are there
other political factors at play such as age? Is it not possible to build alliances between
working class youth and student movements along completely different lines to the
relationships detailed above?
I ask this, because from where I am sitting, I see this entire debate nullifying or ignoring
what should be the primary goal of any so-called 'Independent Left' in South Africa right
now. Which should be to build some sort of mass movement, but this Left can't even bother
to really communicate to anybody under a certain age, instead somebody attempting to get
involved particularly from a student perspective has to wade through frankly what is a
whole bunch of other people's shit stemming from debates/fights etc... which had nothing
to do with us, but yet limit our ability to get involved. From what I gather at least from
Bohmke's perspective we should in effect be sitting on our asses signing avaaz petitions,
rather then trying to find at least some political gig to get into. In essence does age play a
role, should I as a privileged white student be placed in the same camp (although I'm not
denying the political implications of whiteness) as the privileged white academic?
On 4/17/2012 10:02 AM, Mandla Sishi wrote:
Comrade Dwyer is putting it mildly "indeed my experiences in that process were some of
the most telling". As a matter of fact these experiences already reached proportions akin to
COMPLETE reactionary nightmare.
But there are in my view other very key problems I mean key to the possibility of an
upright - organizationally strategically and ideologically - movement that have not been put
to test and that I think leftist continue to be at large about.
These are IDEOLOGICAL CUM THEORETICAL EXPERIMENTS AND ADVENTURES of all
sorts- that leftist visit upon ( as in laboratories) social movements. These are sneaked
behind into becoming the logic of development of the movements. But they are given a
pretence , lest one notice the plan - SPONTENIETY.
It is well known that Abahlali 's political world outlook have a close affinity and imprints of
Pithouse's world outlook and attitude about a number of strategic issues ranging from :
organization, structure, theory ideology and orientation towards mainstream alliance
politics.
The same is true of the then CCF in Durban and the key left people such as Desai, Meer,
Bohmke , Sishi, Guy, Gwala and others. Actually in that situation it cost a sad split inside
Youth For Work, a leading and active component of the CCF , a split over the approach to
the movement's strategic and political direction again on key issues relating to leadership,
cadre development, organization and structure.
There was a point when Tony Negri et al's Empire almost became something of a
catechism. A script that provided key arguments that apparently thoroughly debunked
Marxism, Lenin and Trotsky and which activists had to be oriented towards. This
subterranean campaign meant very decisive and brutal rebuts of anything resembling
sturdy proletarian education of the township activists.
Until now no one has accounted for what happened and the activists still do not have the
possibility of judging what are and what are not the correct or disastrous approaches
strategies and tactics in given situations. That very rich , albeit sad experience must still be
politically accounted.
The same is very true about the sad fate of Right To Work Campaign that died in the hands
of a bureaucratized relationship between the activists and the NGO.
You can go on and on. Dale Mckinley Apolis, Ngwane, Prichani Naidoo , even Bond and
many others have important questions to answer. Not just for the sake of it but as the basis
for renewed health of the movement now and in the future.
Is the left a source of principled unity or of disintegration? For me this question has already
been answered by experience.
Mandla Sishi
4/17/2012 10:53 AM, Khadija Sharife wrote:
"should I as a privileged white student be placed in the same camp (although I'm not
denying the political implications of whiteness) as the privileged white academic?"
those wanting to get involved, in my view, must ask themselves the question of what they
really have to offer and how they choose to present themselves..(as students of the social
movement, learning and observing, or do they come in as a specialist to help)? if they are
shaped and funded by the same systems, can they actually avoid replicating the same
problems innate to the rot of the development industry? if the social movement is
constructed on that corrupting model (a marxist or social democrat academic with funding
shapes the narrative and barters access etc for mass) how can it be something of value
given the fiction of it? if they have no real taste of brutal poverty, of closed doors, of
marginalisation, can they speak on behalf of it?
what i evidenced, at the COP17, were masses of 'privileged' youth parachuting in to the
'alien' poverty of "africa" expecting that their developed country identity and nice
education would magically make the difference....their enthusiasm, if located in the context
of their own environments, which they can change, would be useful. but because in so
many ways the wealth of the wealthy is constructed on the poverty of the poor (and the
development industry that saves a handful, charitably, is intertwined with the same
structural system that kills millions)..... it is too inconvenient for them to think about their
own place and role...and the issues of race and class (agency, power, access etc) that are
elided also form the foundation for the ways in which they are usually integrated into
'development'...funded organizations etc
tom goldtooth did a brilliant interview on this theme of poverty tourism, manufactured
narratives and privileged specialists etc...
Youth from all over the world have flown in – yet many lack understanding of the
political economy of pollution, both problem and solution. Why is this?
"Look at the role of the WWF-type organisations. These are educators. Al Gore – pushing
for the carbon market, he is an educator on the environment and climate. They are
slumming it out in Durban, it is fashionable for a young white kid from the US or UK to be
concerned about a global poverty issue, not the reality in their own backyards, but
somewhere where they can be special, become heroes. We challenged the big organisations
with environmental racism – the top ten movements, including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club,
to bring our voices to the board, to the way in these campaigns are shaped. They resisted
us. Even when they do appoint a person of colour, it is usually from within the mentality of
surburbia, so that they are never questioned or taken out of the comfort zone where 'white
is right.' And these organisations and their narratives are so popular – you have young kids
coming, getting their hands dirty. They leave, feeling vindicated, slumming around – as if
they have done their share. But this is our life, and that parachuting in and out of
communities, the ruckus society, is destructive and presents the distorted reality. We have
challenged, and become very unpopular, for raising the issue of classism which is source of
the problem and requires an economic analysis if the environmental and climate narrative
is to be truthful.."
Do you have representation through large green political muscles – and if so, how, if
not, why not?
"When indigenous peoples started to call into question the false solutions, we were
attacked by large environmental organisations, saying that we were not looking at the
bigger picture, at the benefit of REDD. We saw a campaign mounted to disrupt us, and to
marginalise what we're saying. But indigenous people no longer are able to stand back and
let the 'good intentioned' voices speak on our behalf. In 1999, it used to be five or six
people, at most, holding the line. Only when REDD became part of the picture, did
indigenous peoples begin to stand up and actively resist. Corporations that fund some of
the green organisations know how to play the game, and the organisations play back, to
stay in business. The corporations know there is money to be made from investing in
privatised trees, and that it looks good in paper. If you look at the NGOs, these are
European 'white' NGOs, and there is tremendous racism and classism woven into that.
When an ethnic person speaks up, they get offended they don't want a solution from the
marginalised. They want to devise the solution they feel is best for the whole system – and
we have to ask ourselves what the system they actually represent, entails."
http://www.theafricareport.com/index.php/news-analysis/climate-change-the-bigcorrupt-business-50176874.html
On 4/17/2012 11:18 AM, Neville Adams wrote:
Just to add Riaz that there also appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding about what
SM’s are and are not; they cannot be coopted to, and conflated with, a reimagined class
revolution in which the ‘Poor’ play the part of the new collective historical agents. This is
the new metaphysics.
Neville
On 4/17/2012 12:07 PM, Riaz K Tayob wrote:
Thanks for that. Actually it is more important than your brief note makes out. I think here
you actually touch upon something in SMs that needs to be looked at, they are often "new"
or approach issues without the fetters of the old in their circumstances as they find them.
On 4/17/2012 12:59 PM, grinker@mweb.co.za wrote:
What are these SMs and where do they come from? Some points drawn from Mike Davis’
City of Slums might be relevant to this discussion.
Davis argues that social theorists have been proved wrong:
• They associated economic and population growth with industrialisation and an
increase in job opportunities
• But modern slums are not products of industrial revolutions
• The size of a city’s economy often bears little relation to its population size
• European colonialism, Asian Stalinism and Latin American dictatorships (and South
African apartheid) prevented the twin urbanising criteria of entry and citizenship
• This resulted in retarded growth of cities in the period from 1900 to 1950
• Since 1950s public and state-assisted housing in the Third World has primarily
benefited the urban middle classes and elites, through both high levels of municipal
services and clientelist politics
• Slums are created in gaps between housing provision and formal employment
opportunities.
Slums are a consequence of urbanisation without industrialization:
• Are the legacy of a global political conjuncture
• IMF and the World Bank Structural Adjustment Programmes drove the creation of
modern slums:
– Rapid urban growth happened in the context of structural adjustment,
currency devaluations, state retrenchments, and little or no housing
provision.
– State as a ‘market enabler’ led to the privatisation of utilities and services, and
massive decreases in provision
– Ideas of the magic power of people’s capitalism providing land titles simply
accelerated social differentiation in the slums, and did nothing to aid renters,
the actual majority of the poor in many cities
– Individuals’ needs - affordable commodities, accommodation close to jobs,
security, and the possibility of owning property - were simply ignored by the
imposition of ill-suited neoliberal ‘boot-strap capitalism’.
The key question is: Do slums [and social movements that develop there], ‘however deadly
and insecure, have a brilliant future’ (There will be two billion slum-dwellers by 2030 or
2040)?
Davis says on future prospects:
“…[t]hus, the cities of the future, rather than being made out of glass and steel as
envisioned by earlier generations of urbanists, are instead largely constructed out of crude
brick, straw, recycled plastic, cement blocks, and scrap wood. Instead of cities of light
soaring toward heaven, much of the twenty-first century urban world squats in squalor,
surrounded by pollution, excrement, and decay.”
Future prospects
• Will be determined by the political processes on the ground, rather than by
uncontrollable economic developments
• Will depend on future slum based resistance to global capitalism
• A central factor that will determine the future of the slum will be the relation of its
shifting, informal economy to political mobilisation behind radical causes
• The informal sector (where ‘urban involution’ has led to the sub-dividing of existing
jobs rather than job creation) is crucial to the prevention of any active
‘proletarianisation’ of slum dwellers in line with historical precedent
• Whether these vast informal proletariats possess ‘historical agency’ is incredibly
difficult to assess except through case studies
The future:
• Is left open
• Slum populations are growing at a rate of 25 million a year without really large-scale
migration to the rich countries
• Slum dwellers are potentially the fastest growing class in the history of the world
Are the slums volcanoes waiting to erupt? Or will ruthless, state-endorsed competition lead
to increased involution and ‘self-annihilating communal violence’ ?
There is a wide range of responses:
• charismatic churches
• returns to witchcraft and superstition
• street gangs
• neoliberal NGOs
• ethnic militias
and we might add: movements with inputs from radical academics
He argues that it is no exaggeration to say that the future of the whole of human solidarity
depends on the nature of the response of the ‘victims of the metropolis’ to the marginality
that late capitalism has attempted to assign to them.
On 4/17/2012 1:10 PM, Neville Adams wrote:
Have not read Planet of Slums, but can see similar argument being constructed in relation
to deindustrialisation of urban areas that grew out of previous industrialisation, racially
marginalised communities, and privatisation based scaling back of public housing in ‘1st
world’ metropoles.
On 4/17/2012 1:36 PM, Mzimasi wrote:
Hi Comrades
Comrades if anyone needs to know more about ILRIG or any Left progressive
NGO's in South Africa we can have a separate debate on that. I could see
comrade Anna has never grasp what ILRIG stands for and what are its politics
and its mode of oparation.
The issue here is the academia who romantacising movements and killing them.
Comrade Anna doesn't even come nearer to any discussion on that instead she
jumped to false insinuations about ILRIG and its relationship to social
movements and funding, out of context. We are not talking bais politics, we
are talking serious political blunders that have been made in our recent
history that we can draw lessons from in order to shape our future battles.
Dishonest politics, bias politics, defensive politics, shifting the focus
politics, hiding and running away from the truth have never help us coming
any closer to movement building in history and they won't help us now and in
future.
I fully agree with fruitful and meaningful analysis that covers ILRIG and
its funding and movements, but we must not shift the focus of our debate. We
need to put things clear and straight forward here. When I speak of the
social movements I speak of a movement rebuilding outside of the parameters
of the old liberations movements that are currently displaying rotten
politics in the South African bourgeois Parliament.
The revolutionary potential of the social movements should not be looked at
with a myopic eye, but should be looked at in a broader scope. What seems to
be absent in many comrades is the role of these movements in our struggles
and more importantly what do they represent in the present South African
political landscape. Having said that it is very important to state what do
these social movements represent. It is also important to state and give an
analysis of the nature and character of these movements and the nature and
character of their struggles. This will allow us to provide an analysis of
the nature and character of the Zuma Regime. In doing so we will provide
ourselves with a full picture of the state of affairs in our country.
My entry point starts with the nature and character of the Zuma Regime. The
Zuma regime is nothing else but a continuity of the 1996 class project of
the ANC. There is nothing new other than the continuing endorsement of GEAR
policies and the neo-liberal agenda. It must be clear that the ANC is no
longer the party that serves the interest of the working class, but serves
and responds to the pressures of the bourgeoisie and monopoly capital. The
ANC has completely distanced itself from the people who voted it into power,
while COSATU on the other hand continues to manage the struggles of the
working class. This means the working class is still under attack from the
ruling class and it is very weak and cannot at this stage wage any denting
battle against the bourgeoisie.
This lead us to the social movements, which I believe represent a
regroupment of the working class movement outside of the ANC, PAC and other
old liberation movements. We all know that these movements are weak,
scattered, fragmented fighting isolated struggles and in many instances
they've won many important voctories. What remains the factor here is that
these movements represent a political regroupment of the working class in
South Africa, at an embryonic stage of their development. These movements,
by vitue of their nature and character, some will die out and new ones will
emerge and that is the nature of the movements and that is determined by the
nature and character of the present period, the political Lull.
The nature of the period will always be reflected by the nature and
character of the struggles waged by the working class. At the moment the
working class is fighting defensive struggles from the shopfloor to the
community service delivery revolts. The social movements while they have
managed to sustain themselves for sometime they haven't consolidated their
national coordination to give their struggles a national character. The
trade Union movement haven't deal a deadly blow and come any nearer to dent
the political power of the ruling class. In our communities the political
rhythms and self activity of the masses is still too low, irrespective of
the current service delivery revolts.
It is out of this understanding and analysis that I believe there is a need
to orientate to these social movements. Our political interventions should
be a two way process, joining and working with movements and learn with them
their struggles while on the other hand militants from the movements will
also learn from old and experienced comrades. This is how one will be able
to reflect more acturately on the practices of these movements. The old
comrades, intellectuals and the academics should work on a daily basis with
the movements and be part of their struggles to learn more of what movement
building is. Social movements shouldn't be the site for research on the part
academics, but they must join the movements and grasp their political
development and their political mood. This will do away with the creation
and establishment of artificial networks and united fronts that are
substituting the working class organisations as they are not even derived
from struggles. This creation of artificial fronts of movements is a
political impatience amongst the old Left comrades. And it came into being
simply because the movements are weak and they don't initiate anything, they
can't built a united front, therefore we can do it out of the blue.
All in all, comrades we need to learn from our mistakes and we need to
contiuously debate these issues as political activists. This will help us
debate our deferences, share our experiences shape our ideological
deferences to be able to chart a better wayforward for a socialist project
in South Africa.
Amandla
Mzi
On 4/17/2012 1:42 PM, Riaz Tayob wrote:
Mandla
May I tease this out as you raise an important issue from a perspective that we need...issues
below
On 17 April 2012 11:02, Mandla Sishi <Mandla@ditsela.org.za> wrote:
Comrade Dwyer is putting it mildly "indeed my experiences in that process were some of
the most telling". As a matter of fact these experiences already reached proportions akin to
COMPLETE reactionary nightmare.
So is the role of intellectuals so problematic as to warrant their exclusion? If not, are there
processes that can be put in place to regulate the role or mitigate its harms?
But there are in my view other very key problems I mean key to the possibility of an
upright - organizationally strategically and ideologically - movement that have not been put
to test and that I think leftist continue to be at large about.
These are IDEOLOGICAL CUM THEORETICAL EXPERIMENTS AND ADVENTURES of all
sorts- that leftist visit upon ( as in laboratories) social movements. These are sneaked
behind into becoming the logic of development of the movements. But they are given a
pretence , lest one notice the plan - SPONTENIETY.
Are these people acting in bad faith or is it that they are not sensitive to context? How is it
that these forces win out? Are there no antagonisms that come about, or is it that these
antagonisms are stifled? It is one thing to say things do not work out, as outcomes in CSOs
are hard to judge. But if movements end up dying, then we do have a problem of even
greater proportions - that is, these movements are not able to claim the space once retreat
is made by the intellectuals, or what?
It is well known that Abahlali 's political world outlook have a close affinity and imprints of
Pithouse's world outlook and attitude about a number of strategic issues ranging from :
organization, structure, theory ideology and orientation towards mainstream alliance
politics.
And what does this say about agency of the people in movements? This is a dynamic that
interests me, because we need to have autonomous movements that do self-define and act,
and if necessary relate to others, BUT on their terms...
The same is true of the then CCF in Durban and the key left people such as Desai, Meer,
Bohmke , Sishi, Guy, Gwala and others. Actually in that situation it cost a sad split inside
Youth For Work, a leading and active component of the CCF , a split over the approach to
the movement's strategic and political direction again on key issues relating to leadership,
cadre development, organization and structure.
Splits can be good and bad. So this does not say much. But if strategic issues caused
problems in particular what was the nature of the antagonisms?
There was a point when Tony Negri et al's Empire almost became something of a
catechism. A script that provided key arguments that apparently thoroughly debunked
Marxism, Lenin and Trotsky and which activists had to be oriented towards. This
subterranean campaign meant very decisive and brutal rebuts of anything resembling
sturdy proletarian education of the township activists.
I do not know what this means. There were theoretical differences, and these caused splits?
Was there no room for convergence on issues. Negri can be divisive, particularly on the
amorphous concept of multitude, where every struggle is against imperialism (almost by
definition, so not useful) and where the reference to the Third World is rather paltry.But
how did this play out?
Until now no one has accounted for what happened and the activists still do not have the
possibility of judging what are and what are not the correct or disastrous approaches
strategies and tactics in given situations. That very rich , albeit sad experience must still be
politically accounted.
Glad that you are raising these issues.
The same is very true about the sad fate of Right To Work Campaign that died in the hands
of a bureaucratized relationship between the activists and the NGO.
was there no sense of common purpose? after all resources help move issues forward, but
there is paperwork etc that needs to be dealt with. Is it a case of disproportionate power
being exercised by some or that there was not buy in?
You can go on and on. Dale Mckinley Apolis, Ngwane, Prichani Naidoo , even Bond and
many others have important questions to answer.
While not going into the particulars, I think this is a fair comment. The issue is we do need
to use the particular to get to some general intimations of the problems dialectically. Our
people must be accountable and open to the movement. And this needs to be balanced by
the role of activists and social movements - which in some instances can be also be less
than savoury.
Not just for the sake of it but as the basis for renewed health of the movement now and in
the future.
This is a common point of reference, the movement as a whole!
Is the left a source of principled unity or of disintegration?
Perhaps we can add this to Dwyers list of questions as it sums up the issue brilliantly.
Perhaps some causality and dialectics may be put in as well:
Does the quest for unity lead to disintegration?
How can disintegration be avoided when principled unity is elusive?
For me this question has already been answered by experience.
And the implication of this is?
On 4/17/2012 2:44 PM, peter waterman wrote:
Thanks for that, Russell, now I don't feel so bad about not having read the book. Makes
sense also.
In any case neither the Proletariat, the Precariat, the Slumdwellers, the Information
Proletariat, the Women, the Gays, the Blacks or the Whites are or are going to be the
privileged bearers of social emancipation. Emancipation (which I favour as a concept over
R/Evolution), in any case requires self-activity by all those alienated categories, on all the
'questions' (gender, sex, ecology, culture).
Pw
On 4/17/2012 2:49 PM, mhlobo gunguluzi wrote:
Hi Comrades
I just want to add one thing again on this argument that these academics, left intellectuals
and gate keepers have an agenda on the social movements i.e. to make these emerging
social movements counter revolutionary. For many decades in our liberation struggles in
South Africa we the involvement of NGOs however limited but most activists learned a lot.
Today these gatekeepers just want the struggles of social movements to end in tiny revolts
against local government lack of service delivery. As soon as other activists come with
education for revolution in social movements then those activists will face real obstacles.
All what these academics and intellectuals brings to the social movements is corruption
and pseudo socialism. Now the leaders of social movements have become corrupt gate
keepers who do not want the movements to come together because they feel that being
united will make them loose opportunities like money laundering, etc.
These academics make activists look like celebrities. In fact the activists who have been
trained by these academics take leadership for granted and equate it with celebrity and get
very furious when the media does not capture them during the actions. All what they want
is just to be popular for nothing important. You can see how these individuals pose for
cameras while they do not pose for their constituency. I have noted that these academia
supported activists just want to be leaders even if they don't have a base as long as they
will have access to the resources of their social movements for their narrow selfenrichment drive. In Cape Town we have discovered one of these gate keepers to be
corrupt. All what they are trained to do is to taint the image of NGOs so that they can get
direct access to donor funds. I have heard one activists quoted as saying that if she goes
down, she goes down with another one who abused funds to buy plasma TV.
One thing that must be said is that as emerging social movements we must not support any
of the political parties that support "white" monopoly capital and tenderpreneurs. We must
build socialism now and expose the role of Stalinists in our era.
Mhlobo
Revolution continues
On 4/17/2012 3:33 PM, Mzimasi wrote:
Hi Comrades
In the course of our debate on social movements I just came across to some few important
issue or terms. Comrades are speaking of the "Current Revolutionary Vanguard" and the
'Vanguardist Movement" and the 'Left".I'm not sure who is the Current Revolutionary
Vanguard and the where is the Vanguardist Movement in South Africa today. I don't want
to assume that these names refer to certain things whilst they not. Can comrades briefly
unpack who the Vanguardist movement is ? Furthermore, when we speak of the Left who
are we refering to? I know there is SACP who claims to be the Vanguard while I regard the
SACP as the Stalinist Left including those inthe Tripartite alliance. There is general Left or
the Old Left that still holds old formulas and the Hard Left tat still holds and embraces the
Bolshevik traditions.. Could anyone please unpackso that I can also share my views on this
subject.
Mzi
On 4/18/2012 3:26 AM, Anna Majavu wrote:
Khadija, the statement that Bohmke is a "target" is a myth. He has
written several articles attacking a number of personalities, and now
some of us are responding. If he didn't want responses, or if he
expected people to respond to him without mentioning his name, that is
most unrealistic. Clearly then he shouldn't have written any articles
in the first place. Note that when he doesn't write anything, most of
us just ignore him, hence his claim that he is a "target" is way off.
On 4/18/2012 11:48 AM, kalebron@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Anna, thank you for the email. It is the nature of the response (character assassination
rather than engaging substance of arguments) that was, and remains, the problem. The
landscape of this is vast and limiting it to personalities is extremely destructive. There does
appear to be a concerted effort to elide or dumb down critical issues as well as manipulate
discourses. Shannon Walsh, who was similarly targeted, spoke to many interesting points,
particularly that of the good/bad 'white'... But I further cannot understand why, of all the
questions posed and narratives questioned, you chose to respond to just this point? Khadija