In this Labour Studies Podcast, Leroy Maisiri discusses "After Zuma: A Workers' Party for South Africa?" The podcast is provided by the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU), Rhodes University.
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Does South Africa need a socialist or a workers' party to move forward, as political scandals, inequality, mass unemployment and struggles sweep the country? The African National Congress (ANC) retains a clear majority, but faces growing challenges. The Congress of SA Trade Unions (COSATU) and the SA Communist Party have come out against the Zuma-era ANC's entanglement in "state capture." COSATU has split, the 340,000-strong National Union of Metalworkers of SA leaving to set up a Movement towards Socialism and foster a rival SA Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU). Major strike victories in the 2010s, struggles at universities, township-based rebellions, the rise of the populist Economic Freedom Fighters and efforts at a United Front and Working-Class Summits are signs of the appetite for serious change. And the stark injustices in post-apartheid society call out for alternatives.
But where to next? This paper examines the arguments on the independent left for -- and against -- the founding of a new socialist or workers' party. Engaging local Marxists, anarchists / syndicalists and radical trade unionists, it uncovers a rich set of intellectual traditions, and debates: Can elections make a difference? Or should they be boycotted? Does a better future lie in new political parties? Or in struggle outside and against the state? Can a party unite different sectors that are in struggle? Or is a united front of movements the answer? And if socialism needs to be put back on the agenda, how can it be achieved and what does it mean?
SPEAKER: Leroy Maisiri, PhD candidate, Rhodes University, hails from Zimbabwe. He has written for the "South African Labour Bulletin," "Workers World News" and "Zabalaza," and researched deindustrialisation in Bulawayo, and the politics of the independent left in South Africa. His PhD focuses on the "people's power" movement in 1980s South Africa. This talk was originally given on 4 May 2016 at Rhodes University, Makhanda. The Labour Studies Podcasts are from our popular Labour Studies Seminar Series, launched in 2015. We cover "labour studies" in the broadest sense: labour and left history, policy and political economy, unions and popular struggles. NALSU, based in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, is engaged in policy, research and workers' education. Built around a vibrant team from disciplines including Economics, History and Sociology, it has active partnerships and relations with a range of advocacy, labour and research organisations. It draws strength from its location in a province where the legacy of apartheid and the cheap labour system, and the contradictions of the post-apartheid state, are keenly felt. We are named in honour of Dr Neil Hudson Aggett, a union organiser and medical doctor who died in 1982 in an apartheid jail after enduring brutality and torture.