Why are we not winning?

At ZMI (Z Media Institute) this year, Michael Albert asked me a very important question that I couldn’t answer at the time. His question was (am paraphrasing it): why didn’t the African National Congress (ANC) win economically and politically as it had set out to do when it was formed in 1912?

Black people still do not own the land in South Africa. About 80 percent of arable land is still controlled by white farmers. And as things look, white farmers are not prepared to let go, even ten years after the liberation.

The South African economy benefits white people, except for the black comprador class that has been manufactured to serve as the buffer between the black majority and the white community that enjoys the standard of living only seen in the first world.

Some commentators believe that the reason the ANC did not win as much as it had set out to do, is because of the outside pressure (from the IMF and World Bank). Sure, it makes sense that if the global economy is against your goals, you would want to compromise. But compromise one’s political organization to the level of betraying one’s organization’s values? Values that are clearly articulated in the ANC Freedom Charter, and which the ANC cherished and fought for, for over 50 years.

It does not make any sense that a political organization like the ANC which had and still has a huge support of the black majority would abandon its values at the last moment. Nor does blaming outside pressure seem to be a sufficient answer to explain such a move.

Ideology? Did the ANC suddenly change its nationalistic ideology as the apartheid struggle reached a climax? Writing a year ago, President Mbeki made it clear that the ANC has never claimed to be a socialist movement. So what does that mean? Does that sufficiently explain the neoliberal policies that the ANC is implementing in this country (South Africa)?

A friend I discussed this with told me that there are a multiple of factors that one must take into consideration when trying to make sense of the evolution of the ANC. She says one has to take into consideration the ideology of the ANC, the outside pressure, the global economy, and the psychological factors. By the latter she meant the psychological strain of being in jail or in exile (as most ANC leaders were) for more than 20 years.

Fine. But do all these sufficiently explain the neoliberal ANC we see today? Maybe. Maybe not. I guess a large part of it depends on which school of thought you are coming from.

Another important question is why do South African social movements fail to reach the kind of resistance we see in Bolivia? About 70 percent of the people who voted in the last elections voted for the ANC; meaning a large majority of the poor people voted against their own interests.

Social Movements like the Anti-Privatisation Forum, Treatment Action Campaign, and Anti-Eviction Committee have been able to win very important battles; but when it comes down to putting the ANC back in government, most of the same people who make these movements do not hesitate to vote for the ANC.

One reason to explain this phenomenon is that there is no real opposition to the ANC that appeals to the black majority at the moment. Another reason is that some of the people in these social movements are still very much loyal to the ANC.

And of course the ANC manipulates the race question to mobilize the black majority. And the social movements on the other hand rarely ever address race issues. White leftist academics and leftist institutions that are also run by mostly white males constantly inform these movements that race is no longer important, rather class is the most important thing right now. Let us be clear about one thing and that is the politics of social movements in South Africa are informed by white academics who study these movements; and who, by the way, reduce reality into economics.

These white academics then quote one another when writing their papers so as to institutionalize this discourse. After a while, this oppressive discourse becomes a fact of life — unquestionable.

With the exception of Ashwin Desai, almost all the academics who write about the politics and vision of social movements in South Africa are white. Something which reinforce the old white supremacist thinking, that people of colour provide the experience, while white folks do all the intellectual work.

Interestingly enough, when one talks to radical black activists, like Andile Mngxitama, one finds that they do not echo the dominant discourse (i.e class is more important than race in South Africa).

I, too, certainly reject such a discourse.

But, white privilege works in mysterious ways. Tim Wise explains it: “… [white privilege] is the daily psychological advantage of knowing that one’s perceptions of the world are the ones that stick, that define the norm for everyone else, and that are taken seriously in the mainstream.”

That is the situation.

Judith Miller in Jail

Of all the reasons to throw Judith Miller in jail, that they had to choose one so bizarre.

Let me see if I get this straight. So, Judith Miller reproduces a bunch of Bush Administration lies about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, helping build the case for an invasion and occupation that has killed tens of thousands of people in the country’s most influential newspaper in the crucial period BEFORE the invasion.

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London Bombings

I imagined what the reaction would be had something like that happened in the US, and was moved what I saw of the actual reaction of Londoners. The same was true of the Madrid bombings in 2004. And indeed the same was true of New Yorkers in 2001, even though the media and government very quickly defiled those human feelings.

Robert Fisk’s piece in the Independent suggests how these bombings will be used to inflame racism:

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Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe

The living standards of the Zimbabweans have plummeted as the country’s gross domestic product has shrunk by more than 40 percent in the past five years, so the mainstream media tells us.

To attribute this state of affairs solely on the Mugabe presidency without talking about external forces that contributed to the plunge of the living standards of Zimbabweans is intellectually dishonest. The introduction of structural adjustment in that country in the early 1990s can be seen as THE process which eroded the living standards of Zimbabweans. It is the introduction of structural adjustment in that country that facilitated the increase of illegal settlements that Mugabe has been tyrannically demolishing in the past weeks.

President Mugabe terms this demolition of informal settlements: “Operation drive out dirt”, and promises to build 2 million homes by 2010 to replace the informal settlements – a promise economists say he cannot afford. The main opposition, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has been reported as saying the campaign is aimed at breaking up its stronghold among the urban poor and forcing its supporters into rural areas, where Mugabe’s Zanu-PF dominates.

The South African government stance of “Quiet Diplomacy” towards Zimbabwe has been criticized as ineffective, nationally and internationally. Calls for South to intervene have increased.

Strangely, no one is making any strong demands that the African Union (AU) should intervene in Zimbabwe. If anyone has a right to intervene in that country, it should be the AU, not South Africa. We do not need an imitation of the US that goes around playing policeman and telling sovereign states what changes they should implement in their own countries. It is to guard against such moves that we have structures like the AU and the South African Development Community (SADC).

Robert Mugabe is a dictator, no doubt, and he rules by an iron fist, and has even stated in public that he intends to rule until he is 100. As for the opposition, MDC, because of the donations and funds it has received from overseas — particularly from countries like the UK and US, it has been accused of being agents of foreign powers, who are bent on fomenting discord and trying to reverse the gains of the liberation war.

The fact that the MDC is pushing for the neo-liberal agenda has not help improve its image. And its vagueness as to how to deal with land reforms in Zimbabwe does not advance its cause.

In the last elections, which were held two months ago, the MDC did not do so well. The disputed elections gave President Mugabe a two-thirds majority in Parliament. The MDC is challenging the election results in the new electoral court on the basis of compelling evidence of massive vote-rigging, according to The Sunday Independent.

Political commentators compare Mugabe to Pol Pot, and the Amnesty International claims that: “The people of Zimbabwe are being sold out – in the interest of a false ‘African Solidarity’.” Tony Blair has repeatedly called for Mugabe’s resignation, and in 2002 Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth.

In a surprising move, last month, Britain suddenly ended the two-year moratorium on returning asylum seekers to Zimbabwe. Now, the question is: “If Mugabe’s government is as bad as the [British] Foreign Office claims, why is the [British] Home Affairs sending failed asylum claimants back to Zimbabwe?”

As much as I think the Zimbabwe situation is serious, but I also believe that there are other conflict-ridden areas on the continent that urgently and desperately need the attention Zimbabwe is getting. Places like the Congo (DRC), Sudan and Eritrea come to mind.

hello

My name is Mandisi Majavu, am joining up forces with with Justin Podur. I’m based in South Africa, Durban; and predictably my blog will focus mainly on African politics. As a philosophy student, I like to practise my philosophical skills from time to time, and so tend to ramble about nothing. So please bear with me.

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Zapatistas Sixth Declaration

I just read the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacondona (in Spanish). In it the Zapatistas outline their plan for the next little while. First, they clarify what their plan is *not* – it is *not* to break their unilateral ceasefire or initiate any armed actions, nor to provide any aid to any other armed groups, overtly or covertly. They do, however, intend to send some material (corn) to Cuba, Bolivia, and Ecuador; in the first case to symbolically break the embargo on Cuba, and in the latter cases as part of exchanges with indigenous peoples of the Americas, of whom they are a part. They’ll also be launching a national campaign, sending a delegation around Mexico, to meet with people all over the country and develop a national plan of struggle against neoliberalism. I’m sure irlandesa is translating it even as I write, so you’ll have their own words on the topic before too long!

Legislating the indigenous out of existence

An announcement from the indigenous people of Northern Cauca in reaction to recent legislation working its way through the Colombian Congress. The announcement is simple: the indigenous will not obey laws against nature. By saying this, the indigenous are trying to make clear that the legislation is in effect a declaration of war against them. It will be treated as such by them. It should be understood as such by others.

In other Colombia news. Plan Colombia is up for renewal in the US Congress. While it misunderstoods who the corrupters are and what the flow of resources is between Colombia and the US, the McGovern amendment would be a positive development if passed. The proposal by Congresswoman McCollum is below the communique from the indigenous of Cauca.

Author: Indigenous Authorities of Cauca

DECISION OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN THE FACE OF LAWS THAT GO AGAINST MOTHER EARTH

June 24, 2005

The Indigenous Regional Council of Cauca (CRIC), the Association of Indigenous Authorities of Northern Cauca (ACIN CWAB WALA KIWE), and the Environmental Economic Authority, in the face of the legislative bills on Waters, Forestry and Mountains that is being processed by the Fifth Commission of the Senate of the Republic,

Based on our customary law, Law 89 of 1890, the rights enshrined in the National Political Constitution of 1991, Articles 3, 7, 63, 67, 246, 329, 286, 330 and on Convention 169 of the ILO ratified by Law 21 of 1991 and Resolution Number 1 of May 1, 2005, emanated in the Twelfth Congress of Indigenous Peoples of Cauca,

We declare our opposition as peoples and Indigenous Authorities of Cauca to the legislative bills on Waters, Forestry, and Moors that are being processed in the Senate of the Republic. We do so because these bills have as their fundamental purpose that of making possible and legalizing the CONCESSION of the waters, forests, and moors, that is to say, of all of LIFE, to private corporate interests so that they, driven by their insatiable global egoism, may exploit them for their benefit, converting them into profits at the cost of abusing and destroying them and along with them the balance and harmony that guarantees their survival and that of us peoples and cultures who coexist with them in our lands.

Furthermore, for us indigenous peoples rooted in our cosmovision, the forest, the moor, and the springs of water are sacred spaces of life in which the spirits live, and it is, therefore, unthinkable to engage in extractive and/or intensive productive activities in them. These sacred spaces are visited by traditional doctors to learn from the spirits and to gather medicinal and/or magical plants to strengthen culture and to harmonize life. From the concept of the holism, the unity of the indigenous people involves the spirits, people, plants, animals, water, soil, and other forces such as thunder and rain, among others, as integral elements of the system of life and existence. Its purpose, therefore, is for the use and sustainable contribution to the dignified life of the communities in harmony with nature and not for the accumulation of capital.

Each being has its place and is in relationship with other beings and places in rhythms and processes that must be recognized and respected with wisdom and conscience. That relationship of wisdom with rhythm and the place of all beings that make up life is the law of origin. To violate it or do it violence for any motive is the greatest crime possible against Mother Earth, its beings, and its rhythms. The purposes and powers that are designing the current legislative bills and which respond to the interests of transnational accumulation are by principle incapable of recognizing and respecting the rhythms and places of beings and their coexistence. For this reason, they are a threat to peoples and territories and go against LIFE.

On the other hand, these legislative bills are grounded in an ignorance of the content of Article 1 of Law 99 of 1993, which in its Numbers 2, 3, and 4 proclaims the rights and duties with respect to the ecosystemic and cultural biodiversity of the country: Number 2. “The biodiversity of the country, because it is a national patrimony and of interest to humanity, must be protected as a priority and used in a sustainable way. Number 3. “Policies will take into account the rights of human beings to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.” Number 4. “The zones of moors, sub-moors, the springs of water and the areas of replenishment of the aquifers will receive special protection.” Number 5. “In the use of water resources, human consumption will have priority above any other use.”

We know that these bills are being articulated to the negotiation and signing of the Free Trade Agreement and all of the other strategies geared towards favoring the interests of transnational capital and promoted by foreign governments and multilateral entities with the purpose of privatizing the life of the planet in all corners to exploit it and transform it into a commodity and profit and destroying it in the process. For this reason, we know that these bills do not come from Colombia nor are they only for Colombia. They are global laws that respond to transnational interests and powers, which also promote war, looting, and deception and which have disguised their intentions from the time of the conquest with discourses of protection and respect through the falsehood of the propaganda of pretty words. The history of the blood and death of the conquest and concessions is not new: that is why we can recognize it behind the mask of lies and false promises of protection, welfare, development, and progress.

As a result, rooted in our Law of Origin, we demand that the Colombian people be consulted in advance about these legislative bills. We reiterate our call on international solidarity, on the peoples of the world and on organizations and people committed to the defense of life and of Mother Earth, to actively give us backing, so that our just demands be respected by the National Government and by the multinational interests who promote and represent and who come to strip us of our ancestral lands and knowledge. We do not understand, we do not accept, and we reject as criminal the concession of life to the multinationals. It is our clear duty to struggle and defend the rights of the peoples who defend life and their natural resources since they are not and will never be up for sale.

We announce to the Government, to the People of Colombia, and to the world our decision to disobey and ignore the laws that violate the right to Life and our Law of Origin, because we cannot accept orders from those who promote death.

WITH A COPY TO: PRESIDENT ALVARO URIBE VELEZ, SENATE OF THE REPUBLIC, MINISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT, HOUSING, AND TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT, MULTINATIONALS AND NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS.

CONGRESSWOMAN MCCOLLUM’S INITIATIVE REGARDING PLAN COLOMBIA

Congresswoman Betty McCollum

McGovern Amendment to Reduce Military Aid to Colombia by $100 Million

June 28, 2005

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Mr. Chair, the McGovern Amendment to cut $100 million from Plan Colombia is about accountability and sending a message that cutting deals with narcotics traffickers who pose as politicians will not be tolerated by the American tax payer.

After six years and over $4 billion dollars, Plan Colombia is not reducing the supply of cocaine on our streets, but has succeeded in making cocaine in America cheaper, more available and more potent than ever before.

The drug war in Colombia is failing – failing the people of Colombia and the American taxpayer. Spending another $735 million to stay the wrong course and continue to finance failure is irresponsible. Let us send a message to Colombia that there are no more blank checks in American taxpayers’ checkbook.

Unfortunately, Plan Colombia has not made the Colombian people any safer. More than 2 million Colombians have been forced to flee their homes, 90% of violent crimes – murders and rapes – go unpunished, and human rights abuses among Colombia’s military and law enforcement are all too common.

These are deeply disturbing trends. There is cheaper cocaine on America’s streets, millions of innocent people fleeing for their lives, and lawlessness. This is hardly what we could call “good governance.” In return for the narco-terrorism and corruption, the American taxpayers are being asked to reward the Colombian government.

Now, a law passed by Colombia’s Congress and supported by President Uribe provides immunity and protection for right-wing death squads and narco-terrorists.

For ending their participation in death squads, Colombia will be giving virtual immunity and protection from extradition to narco-traffickers, many under indictment in the United States.

One paramilitary death squad, the AUC earns 70% of its income from narcotics trafficking and the AUC is listed as an official terrorist organization by the U.S. Government. The AUC’s leader, Diego Murillo, is described as a “brutal paramilitary warlord who made a fortune in the drug trade.”

Under the plan for disarmament supported by our allies in Bogotá, Murillo and terrorists like him who have committed massacres, kidnappings, drug trafficking and the murders of elected officials receive freedom from prosecution – and keep possession of their riches.

In Colombia, if crime pays, if drug trafficking pays and if terrorism pays – let’s not have the American tax payer pay for it. Congress needs to cut funding for Plan Colombia – save the American taxpayers $100 million and send a message that Colombia cannot protect narco-terrorists with our tax dollars. I strongly urge my colleagues to support the McGovern Amendment.

People of Color Talk is Cheap

Any category or concept is going to leave important things out. It’s the nature of abstraction. Using the term ‘Black’ to describe a group of people can obscure more than it reveals. As a biological category it is meaningless, as is the concept of race generally. There is no clear biologically relevant distinction between blacks and non-blacks. There are some genetic diseases, such as sickle-cell anemia, that are more prevalent among those with African ancestry compared to those with European ancestry. Other diseases prevalent in the Black community, like hypertension, however, are related to social, not biological phenomena.

Even as a social category, it abstracts a lot of differences. Within the group of Black people, there are men and women, there are children and adults, there are wealthy and poor, there are powerful and disenfranchised, there are those with access to resources and those without, there those with legal status and those without. So a lot of detail and nuance is lost in the use of the concept.

Despite this, it is still very meaningful as a social category. Black people in the United States, for example, have less wealth, less income, suffer poorer health, and are disproportionately incarcerated compared to people who are not Black. To say that the concept of race has no biological value and that individuals are what they are, cannot be made into an argument to deny the social reality of racism. Racism is real. It is brutal. And in the system of caste that is US racism, Black people, and indigenous people, are at the bottom.

What about the concept of ‘People of Color’? That, too, obscures a great deal. It obscures differentials in political power; it obscures class differences; it obscures gender differences; it obscures questions of imperialism; it obscures the crucial distinction in this world of those who have papers and passports and can cross borders and those who do not, cannot, and are ‘illegal’.

Does it, however, have merit, like the concept of Black race or ethnicity, that countervails what it costs in abstraction? It has the merit of excluding whites, who, while they can be oppressed on gender or class lines, are at the top of the racial caste system. It can be a useful substitute for the term ‘non-white’. But it can also lead to simple-minded analysis.

When whites in movements argue that everyone needs to get over race, transcend it, and work on common issues of class, against capitalism and the ruling elite, antiracists are unimpressed because such an approach enables the most privileged and powerful groups to impose their agenda on the rest. Such an approach denies problems of privilege and differentials of power within movements and organizations for social change. Denial is no basis for solidarity. As a substitute for denial, antiracists ask white activists to think about privilege, to be attuned to hierarchies and exclusion that can happen in organizations, and to work to overcome them. Pretending equality is already here is a recipe for maintaining inequality. Addressing and attempting to make structural redress for inequality can make a group, or a movement, stronger.

The way to fight racism is not to deny differences and hierarchies of privilege but to bring them out in the open and try to change them. But if that is the case, the ‘People of Color’ label is often not helpful, for several reasons.

First, because it leads to the same kinds of denial as comes from denying race altogether. There is a hierarchy of privilege within the group ‘People of Color’. At the bottom are poor African Americans, indigenous people, and Latinos. At the top are an elite of people from different ethnicities selected and adopted into the ruling class. In between are groups of immigrants, some of whom have historically had a degree of upward mobility and are used against those below them as rhetorical devices: ‘model minorities’ who are supposed to have ‘made it’, proving that racism does not hold ‘People of Color’ back and thus that African Americans (as an example) have not ‘made it’ through their own fault. There are also groups of brutally exploited and oppressed immigrants and refugees, who work at low wages to try to remit money to support their families in poor countries under constant threat of deportation. These groups are treated differently within the racial system. They are subject to different stereotypes. They have different, and sometimes opposed, interests. Black people, for example, have an interest in a tighter labor market, while immigrants have an interest in the chance to go to the US to work. Many institutions, and often the law, think affirmative action obligations to Blacks to redress centuries of slavery and Jim Crow segregation and violence are met when an upper class Asian is hired.

Collapsing all of these groups under the rubric of ‘People of Color’ does exclude those at the top of the hierarchy (white people) but it leaves the rest of the hierarchy intact. As a result, people at the top of the new hierarchy – in movement organizations these are often drawn from the ranks of class-privileged academics from the least oppressed racial groups – can claim the oppression of everyone below them as their own. Rather than trying to understand and addressing our own privilege and hierarchy, we can posture and be righteous. This does not help those we ought to be most concerned about – those who are most oppressed, those who are at the bottom of the hierarchy.

If addressing privilege and working against it within social movements and organizations is onerous, then why should whites shoulder the burden alone, since they are not the only ones with privilege? If, conversely, as antiracists claim, addressing privilege and working against it is a positive personal growth experience, then why should whites monopolize such a wonderful thing? We could all benefit from understanding how privilege and hierarchy work, and taking an honest look at where we stand. Perhaps we could start by being a little more specific about the racial system and its impacts, which do not come down on everyone equally. Using a better set of categories might help. The categories I use for North America, with their own flaws and problems, are: European or white, South Asian, East Asian, West Asian, Latino, African or Black, and Indigenous; always with the question of citizenship and status (immigrant, refugee, status/non-status).

Recognizing these differences is particularly important when ‘People of Color’ groups, caucuses, and organizations are formed. A ‘People of Color’ caucus in a community antiwar group is an example. The idea here is good: to create an autonomous space where an oppressed group can work and develop without constantly negotiating boundaries and issues of privilege. So long as the creation of such a space does not come at the expense of representation of the oppressed in larger, integrated groups (in the antiwar example, the existence of a caucus should not prevent people of color from being represented in the leadership of the larger antiwar organization or coalition). But if the autonomous space is a ‘people of color’ space where highly privileged people of color interact with much less privileged people of color, the most oppressed still have no space, and can now be denied a voice, of their own.

It’s true that no set of categories or concepts is perfect, and it would be easy to come up with arguments against the set I’ve chosen. But starting with a concept like ‘People of Color’, which obscures privilege and hierarchy within the racial system itself, can often make work harder for antiracists.

Justin Podur is a writer and activist based in Toronto.

Crash and Race

I watched the movie ‘Crash’ (Don Cheadle, Thandie Newton, Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Esposito, Ryan Philippe, Mat Dillon, Brendan Fraser, Ludacris, lots of others). It was fascinating. I’m not sure what to make of it, still, but I would recommend it. If I were putting together a film festival of recent mainstream fiction movies ‘Crash’ would be in it (So would ‘Dirty Pretty Things’ and ‘Red Dust’, and even ‘The Interpreter’, but we’ll leave those for another time).

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