Solidarity.

       That blood soaked part of the planet that goes by the name of South Africa, where millions of lives were brutally blighted, for generations, by the colonialist regime of Apartheid, may have, through a bloody and savage battle broken the chains of that particular shackle, but like the rest of us, in this capitalist system, is still struggle for justice and freedom. At present the workers there are in the midst of a general strike, fighting the usual capitalist malaise, greed, corruption, violence, state repression and corporate bosses slashing at conditions and wages. They deserve all the solidarity and support that we can muster, their struggle is our struggle. In the battle for justice and freedom from exploitation we see no borders.

The following from IndustriALL Global Union: 

       8 October, 2020Thousands of workers took to the streets of South Africa’s main cities and towns to protest corruption, gender-based violence, and to protect jobs and collective bargaining agreements from arrogant employers.
     The national strike, on 7 October, which coincided with World Day for Decent Work, was called by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) with support from the other main federations: the Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA), the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), and the National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU).
      IndustriALL Global Union’s five affiliates in South Africa belong to three of the federations. The combined membership of the federations represents millions of workers. The unions say the law should be used to deal with corruption through prosecution, and anti-corruption strategies should be put in place.
       The unions wanted an end to gender-based violence and for the government to ratify Convention 190 on curbing violence and harassment at work, and to develop an implementation plan. The gender pay gap must also be closed.
       On health and safety, unions want employers to comply with labour laws and not leave the burden on workers and their families.

 André Kriel, SACTWU general secretary said: 

“The COSATU strike is significant because it is unifying. It confirms concretely that all South African workers, irrespective of union federation affiliation, are crystal clear about common core issues which they must fight in the current conjuncture: corruption in the public and private sector, job losses, attacks on collective bargaining and gender-based violence”.

IndustriALL general secretary Valter Sanches said:

“We are in solidarity with the millions of South African workers who are fighting for jobs, against gender-based violence, and for the protection of collective bargaining. These are issues at the core of union activities, and employers should not be allowed to destroy what the union has gained through years of struggle.”

Read the full article HERE:

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Apartheid.

       Apartheid in South Africa may have, in law, said to have been abolished, but the infrastructure that was built up supporting it is still there. The poor and native population still live in mainly overcrowded shanty town dwellings while the white settlers live in the more prosperous areas. Those in the outskirts of Capetown have to make a long, tiring and some times hazardous journey to earn their daily bread. However could these crowded shanty towns with their forced living together, be the phoenix of anarchism that could spread the flames of freedom across the continent and further afield? As they say, hope springs eternal.

        Zabalaza centres on a simple part of Cape Town life: the daily commute to work. It’s something many of us have the privilege not to worry about, other than gripes about sitting in traffic while in our air-conditioned, almost-luxury cars. This is in stark contrast with the experience of the people of Khayelitsha, who are far removed from their places of work in suburbs like Newlands and the Cape Town CBD after decades of race-based spatial planning. Using simple footage of Khayelitsha residents trying to make their way to work, Zabalaza captures how truly gruelling the daily commute can be for Cape Town’s working class – and just how out of touch their places of work are when compared with their own homes.

- Michelle Solomon, City Pres

Filmed, Edited and Directed by Jenna Bass w/Soundz of the South
       Anarchist Hiphop collective, SOUNDZ OF THE SOUTH announce music video, ZABALAZA, a politically-charged, visual testimony to stark inequality in the City of Cape Town. Soundz of the South (SoS) is an anarchist collective working to build an international working-class counter-culture that is anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and anti-sexist. They seek to foster new social values and new forms of collective organising, which will become the socio-political infrastructure of the free society.
      Zabalaza’s lyrics call on workers and unemployed workers to free themselves from the bondage of capitalism, whilst also celebrating workers’ self-initiatives to resist oppression.
      The track features MC’s Karl Myx, Tsidi and Anela, and was produced by DJ Cingle. Shot in Khayelitsha Site C, Newlands and the Cape Town CBD, the video depicts the daily commute of workers between two worlds: from their extremely poor communities to their workplaces in the city centre or the wealthy suburbs before travelling back home again.
      The combination of aerial and slow-motion imagery captures the reality of township life, from endless queues for public transport or the local clinic to workers awaiting casual labour jobs on the highway, while over-loaded trains and morning traffic pass below. The cycle of poverty and wealth is both poetic and sad, a combination of structural violence and inertia.
     SoS’s tracks can be streamed via Band Camp: https://sos1.bandcamp.com/

For more information about SoS:
https://www.facebook.com/soundzofthes...
IG: soundzofthesouth
Twitter: S_OS

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Killing Machine.

        Most of the world's decent people are shocked and outraged at the public murder by the police of George Floyd, and the continuous killing of African Americans by the police on an almost daily basis, all strength to their righteous anger. However what doesn't seem to have yet entered the public consciousness is that in South Africa the police kill more than three times the number of people that are killed by the police in the United States per capita. Killing and violence are part and parcel of the state malaise. State killings and brutality are on an unimaginable magnitude during their many and continuous wars, these killings are of people in another country, usually under the pretext of bring peace and democracy, though the ordinary people of the invading country also pay a price. However the state doesn't stop its violence and killings in times of so called "Peace", in country after country ordinary people are brutalised and killed by the enforcers of their own government. The state and violence are inseparable. They kill to enrich their resources and markets, they kill to stop other states from gaining resources and markets, they brutalise and kill at home to preserve their festering system of greed and power.
 

     Killing and violence are the basis of their system, how else could they exploit, rob and plunder year in year out, how else could the garner the wealth created by the many, into the hands of the few. The killing will only stop when we finally accept that it is our responsibility to bring to an end this cancerous economic system. This is not just a fight against the police brutality and racism, it is a fight against a system that to survive it requires the back up of its many violent and killing agencies.

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The Empire Game.

       At the moment every avenue in the mainstream media is shouting VE. This is always portrayed as the gallant British fighting to destroy fascism, when in fact it was the British empire trying to stop the rising German empire, which had been muzzled since the end of WW1 and was now reasserting itself. The British empire couldn't tolerate this threat to its power, and resources. Soon all the other power mongers took sides and engulfed the world in a monumental orgy of slaughter, for power, markets and resources.
 

    Yes I know about the concentration camps, the mass killings and the slave labour by the German establishment. I also know about the British empire's concentration camps in South Africa, its mass slaughter, cruelty and brutality in India, and its fencing in of villages and savagery in Malaya, and the unimaginable savagery of the British in Kenya, and, and, and---. That's what empires do, and for centuries, the British empire was a pass-master at that brutal game.

     We should all know by now, that states don't wage war to save people, to free people from what every despotic regime it encounters. They do it for power, markets and resources, people are the cannon fodder to feed their greed driven orgy. WW2 was no different nor was the Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria imperialist ventures. Their so called saving the people from despots has lead to millions fleeing their homes, millions maimed and dead countries in turmoil, poverty and deprivation for the "freed people".

Enjoy:

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The World Is Ours For The Taking.

           The world is one big corporate market place, where deals for profit for the few, shape the lives of the entire population. The quality of our lives depends on the decisions taken in the various boardrooms of the multi-billionaires. Needs of the people are not on their balance sheets. In most of the world's countries, charades are played out, called elections, where, if you fall for the illusion, you are lost in the fog of fantasy promises and pie-in-the-sky. The onslaught of mind-numbing propaganda leads you to believe that your "X" on a piece of paper will sort out your day to day problems.

          However, across the world, the charade is looking shabby, the smoke and mirrors of illusion is fading fast. Pick your country, and there are thousands on the streets, from the affluent West to the ultra-deprived, people are showing their anger at a system that syphons all our wealth up to a small cabal of parasites. As the numbers and the anger grows, the various so called "democratic" states show their raw brutality against their own people by savage repression. The states are punishing the people for the heinous crime of demanding change.

         If you can't see this as class war, you're living with your eyes closed, and your fingers in your ears. This growing anger can and will change this world for the better, but only if we link hands across those imaginary state created borders. A struggle against capitalism in some far flung corner of this planet, is our struggle, a student uprising in the East, is our struggle, a workers protest in the South, is our struggle. We are one people, the world is ours for the taking. The one thing that stops us enjoying all the fruits of our labour, the one thing that is the greatest attack on our conditions and our very survival, comes from this insane economic system called capitalism.

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One World, One Struggle.

     Pick your country and you find the people in conflict with the system. From East to West, from North to South, the system is in turmoil, people no longer accept what is thrown at them.

      The Middle East is explosive, Kiev is a battle zone, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Indonesia, Greece, all have the people on the streets demanding change. Though apartheid in South Africa, has gone as an accepted system, the people still suffer inequality, and injustice, as they still sweat under the capitalist system. In South Africa 80,000 platinum miners have been on strike for two weeks, despite their grinding poverty and the state's brutality. The strikers have turned down a 7% increase, but the strike is about more than money, it is about dreadful working conditions, injustice and inequality. The usual symptoms of a system that doesn't fit the people's world. One day we will surely pull all these battles together, after all it is one struggle, and with one massive movement, rid this world of the greatest crime against humanity, capitalism.

 

This from Popular Resistance:

     In South Africa, miners have rejected a 9 percent wage increase offer from the platinum industry as their strike enters its second week. Tens of thousands of members of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, or AMCU, walked off the job last week to protest harsh working conditions. They are also asking for a living wage that will double their current wages. Tensions have been high between the sides, with the media reporting several acts of violence in mining towns.

Read the full article HERE:

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19 Years In Dispute!!

      This must rank as one of the longest running employee/employer disputes in modern times. 19 years battling for a response to your claim and still fighting. This dispute cries out for world solidarity, their determination deserves our support.

This from The International Journal of Socialist Renewal:

       For 19 years, they have met every Sunday in Ivory Park/Tembisa “in significant numbers, and often in excess of 120, to hear progress in their dispute, and to share whatever meagre resources they have”.

For many years, they did so with no help from outside, relying entirely on their own resources, which were meagre but treated collectively. In 2009, SAMWU assumed a more active role. With the full support of the 283 remaining ex-Midrand strikers, the union resolved to launch a “political intervention” to secure a just resolution.

Read the full article HERE:

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SHACK DWELLERS MOVEMENT.

Friday 2nd November. 7-9pm Glasgow Social Centre, 
Basement, Garnethill Multicultural Centre,
21 Rose St, Glasgow. G3 6RE
 

This inspiring and extremely democratic and grass-roots controlled movement is at the forefront of resistance to the pro-capitalist policies of the ANC government. This is a rare chance to hear Lindela Figlan, vice president of Abahlali Basemjondolo, the shack dwellers movement. Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) began in Durban in 2005. Lindela will speak about his experiences, ways of organising and other community based issues. In terms of people mobilised, it’s the largest militant poor organisation in post-apartheid South Africa. Social movements like AbM, the Landless People’s Movement in Johannesburg and the Anti-eviction Campaign in Cape Town pose serious challenges to the ruling party because of their refusal to vote. AbM’s key demand is ‘Land & Housing in the City’ and has successfully politicised and fought to end forced removals and for access to education and the provision of water, electricity, sanitation, health care and refuse removal as well as bottom up popular democracy. Lindela Figlan will join us as part of a speaking tour around the UK – details other meetings here http://www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk/ http://glasgowanarchists.wordpress.com/2012/11/01/south-african-shack-dwellers-movement-speaker-in-glasgow/

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A SHACK IN THE MIDST OF WEALTH.

          South Africa accounts for 24% GDP of all African Countries, according to the World Bank it is classed as an "upper-middle economy" It abounds in natural resources and is a very rich country. This is a table of the percentage of the world's production of these particular  substances: platinum, 77%; kyanite and other materials, 55%; chromium, 45%; palladium, 39%; vermiculite, 39%; vanadium, 38%; zirconium, 30%; manganese, 21%; rutile, 20%; ilmenite, 19%; gold, 11%; fluorspar, 6%; aluminium, 2%; antimony, 2%; iron ore, 2%; nickel, 2%; and phosphate rock, 1%. South Africa also accounted for nearly 5% of the world’s polished diamond production by value. The country’s estimated share of world reserves of platinum group metals amounted to 89%; hafnium, 46%; zirconium, 27%; vanadium, 23%; manganese, 19%; rutile, 18%; fluorspar, 18%; gold, 13%; phosphate rock, 10%; ilmenite, 9%; and nickel, 5%. It is also the world's third largest coal exporter. 

        It is also a very diverse economy with mining, fishery, agriculture, vehicle manufacture and assembly, finance, energy, textiles etc. In spite of this, 25% are unemployed, and more than 25% live on less than US$1.25 a day.

     All that adds up to it being a country of massive wealth and extensive poverty. As this film shows, like all capitalist countries, it doesn't go anywhere near fulfilling the needs of its people, and can be honestly stated to treat millions of its citizens as if it were an extremely poor country. Then again, that's the system, it is called corporate greed.

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GUNNED DOWN FOR ASKING FOR BETTER CONDITIONS.

        As workers' struggle intensifies, so the state repression brutalises, and no where is that brutal repression more open than the recent attack on striking miners in South Africa, where the police opened fire and killed an estimated 40 demonstrators.

This is from an article in The New York Times: 

MARIKANA, South Africa — The police fired on machete-wielding workers engaged in a wildcat strike at a platinum mine here on Thursday, leaving a field strewed with bodies and a deepening fault line between the governing African National Congress and a nation that, 18 years after the end of apartheid, is increasingly impatient with deep poverty, rampant unemployment and yawning inequality.

Continue READING:

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