Green Left Weekly's MARINA CARMAN travelled to South Africa in October and talked with a number of left activists about their views on the way forward for the left. DALE MCKINLEY, former chairperson of the Johannesburg Central branch of the South African Communist Party (SACP), was expelled from the party after he wrote articles critical of the ANC government's policies and the role of SACP cabinet ministers in implementing them. GEORGE DOR, from Johannesburg, is a key activist with the Alternative Information and Development Centre which campaigns against capitalist globalisation and for the cancellation of South Africa's debts that were accumulated by the apartheid regime. SALIM VALLY, from Johannesburg, is a leader of the Workers Organisation for Socialist Action (WOSA). ANNA WEEKES, from Cape Town, is media spokesperson for the South African Municipal Workers Union (her comments here represent her personal views, not those of SAMWU). MAZIBUKO K. JARA, from Johannesburg, is the SACP's media and publications officer. HEINRICH BOHMKE, from Durban, is a prominent human rights lawyer.
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What is your opinion of the direction of the African National Congress (ANC) since it came to power in 1994?
McKinley: The trajectory of the ANC government has been clear and fairly consistent since 1994. One has to look at this in the historical context of the ANC's petty bourgeois leadership. Prior to 1994, the ANC was already charting a strategic path to a de-racialised capitalist South Africa. Most of us thought that the ANC would combine this with various social democratic measures aimed at ameliorating inequality. The ANC promised to implement this combination with the RDP [Reconstruction and Development Program].
But once it was comfortably in government, the ANC shifted quickly to an overt pro-capitalist macro-economic policy with the Growth Employment and Redistribution [GEAR] program. The ANC came out of the class closet. Over the last four years, the ANC has implemented a policy which is based on fostering a new black middle and capitalist class, giving sops to the working class and the poor, but following the general framework of neo-liberalism. 
Dor: Since the election of the ANC-led government there are more social and democratic rights, but alongside this has been a shift towards neo-liberal economic policies.
The old white bureaucrats and new black bureaucrats, in collaboration with the World Bank, have been quite influential. Six months after the 1994 election, we had a World Bank-drafted water provision policy based on full cost recovery from each poor community. Right from the start, the ANC went against the people and against its mandate. GEAR is a home-grown structural adjustment program. It relies on private sector growth, a concentration on boosting exports and foreign direct investment, and cutting social spending by government. More than 500,000 jobs have been lost since 1996. In many cases people are worse off than ever.
Vally: After 1994, it could have gone another way but the left wasn't strong enough. There has always been the possibility of a coming together of the interests of the African nationalists and the Afrikaner nationalists.
GEAR is not simply an economic program but a political one. Those who benefit are the white capitalist class, a black middle class, the nascent black capitalist class and international capital.
Weekes: The main problem for the trade union movement has been GEAR. Major privatisations will go ahead after the local government elections on December 5. There is a culture of the unions not criticising the government. Meanwhile, the ANC-controlled Johannesburg council has just pushed through the worst privatisation program and union-bashing campaign that we have ever seen. 
Jara: The ANC government is the first democratic government South Africa has ever had. It represents traditions and experience of the struggle against apartheid. But the government also exists in a globalising international economy which creates pressures on those with the objective of radical transformation.
The ANC is a multi-class force, and its politics are contested. Some of its policy positions reflect this, such as GEAR. Generally, the thinking in the SACP is that this is not inevitable.
Bohmke: Things for ordinary people are worse economically than they were in 1988. There are greater political rights, for sure, but you can't enjoy those while you don't have water, electricity or have AIDS.
The ANC is now even beginning to abandon its radical rhetoric. It is also polishing its role as a sub-regional power within the grand capitalist order. There are sprawling townships which are as bad as ever, and growing.
Race is used as a cover behind which the black elite can rally and integrate the black poor, while the ANC implements policies which disproportionately affect black people. As people are becoming more restive and critical, the government is resorting again to repression — police firing on crowds and evictions of those who cannot afford to pay rents. Until recently it has almost been sacrilegious to question the ANC.
What is the people's opinion of the ANC government?
Dor: Public opinion has continued to be shaped by the ANC's historic role in ending apartheid, but people are becoming much less enthusiastic about voting for the ANC. In the December 5 municipal elections, many independent candidates in the townships are running on an anti-privatisation platform, or in defiance of the autocratic ANC approach to selecting councillors.
One high profile example is Trevor Ngwame, an ANC councillor who was expelled over his opposition to the Johannesburg council's privatisation plans. His constituency in Soweto appealed to him to stand as an independent. He has produced an anti-privatisation platform to try to draw together other left independents around the country. In the Eastern Cape SANCO [South African National Civics Organisation] is running separately from the ANC.
Bohmke: I'm predicting less than a 50% turn out in the municipal election. ANC branches are depleted. There is rising disaffection. Polls are showing little more than 50% support for the ANC in many regions. But there isn't another organisation that can capture the desires of people for more fundamental change yet.
Weekes: In the unions, people are still quite loyal to the ANC, but workers are seeing the contradictions more and more. In some areas, the ANC may still be the progressive choice. But whether it is the ANC or the Democratic Alliance [the alliance of New National Party and Democratic Party], there is not much difference in terms of policy.
Vally: As people's dissatisfaction rises, there is also the danger that demagogues and petty bourgeois politicians who base their support on supposed ethnic or religious differences could gain ground in the absence of a left alternative.
McKinley: Large sections of the white community are moving towards the ANC because they realise that it is the best way to protect business interests now. As far as the majority is concerned, support is already haemorrhaging.
As long as the SACP and COSATU [the Congress of South African Trade Unions] remain within the Tripartite Alliance, which is led by the ANC, people tend to still look towards the ANC. Smaller left parties pose no real competition yet. They aren't yet gathering the increasing dissatisfaction which is surfacing in community struggles. The task for the left is to harness that.
What is your opinion of role of SACP and COSATU. Are they presenting an alternative?
McKinley: Because of their historical links with the ANC, and expectations that things would move in a positive direction after 1994, COSATU and the SACP spent the first two years arguing that the RDP and other promises had to be implemented. When that didn't happen, they criticised the ANC. But it has always been reactive and never been linked to struggles on the ground to reverse the ANC government's rightward direction.
In both organisations, there has been a domination of leadership, a growing gap between rank-and-file and leadership, and a policy of pleading with the ANC. The base structures have been demobilised and disempowered. The SACP is shrinking.
In COSATU, you've had some strikes and stay-aways but they haven't been sustained and followed through. What has developed is rhetorical criticism and practical acquiescence. This isn't to say that the entire memberships of the SACP and COSATU have become useless. But they have become politically paralysed.
The leaderships have cracked down on criticism and blocked calls for mobilisation rather than trying to lead. The ANC has successfully managed its relationship with the SACP and COSATU to give the government left cover for its right-wing turns. This has prevented it from having to confront serious working-class resistance.
Dor: Once you are bracketed in the Alliance, you're in a difficult position. It is argued that if you are in there then you can influence the ANC. In truth, it is the ANC which starts to influence you.
The ANC utilises the Alliance when it needs it, like during elections. COSATU and the SACP drop everything to campaign, but the ANC will not reciprocate by even discussing alternatives to GEAR.
COSATU and the SACP have retreated to discussing parts of GEAR rather than challenging the whole policy. At the most recent COSATU conference, there was a lot of criticism of GEAR from delegates. But the leadership has been sucked into the ANC framework and simply discusses the issues at the edges. COSATU and SACP have become a stepping stone to positions in government for leaders of those organisations.
Vally: The COSATU bureaucracy is a stumbling block. They try their best to kill independent initiatives. If the COSATU leadership goes too far to the right then they lose support. It's a hard balancing act for them. They turn the tap on and off in terms of mass action — always keeping it tightly controlled as a one-day strike or one-off action. Cooption is a strong force due to high unemployment and generalised poverty.
But working people want struggles to be led. In SAMWU and NUMSA [National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa], more radical leaderships prepared to run campaigns have won elections recently.
Jara: The Alliance remains relevant. COSATU is an important social force. The role of the party is to contribute to the consolidation of working-class power through mass mobilisation. We are at our strongest and most popular. It's within this context that we launched our independent campaign against the banks and mobilised 40,000 people on October 1. We have hundreds of local government councillors, a hundred national MPs and Communists deployed in various sections of government. Not many CPs around the world have that sort of influence.
GEAR is not a question of the ANC selling out. It is more a question of the fact that the forces in the Alliance are not the way that they should be in terms of working-class power. This contributes to the difficulty that comrades Jeff Radebe [minister of public enterprises] and Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi [minister of public service and administration] face as party members implementing ANC policy. Our constitution says that if members are deployed in mass organisations, they must accept the mandate and democracy of those organisations. However, there is some debate about where their first loyalty should be.
Bohmke: The SACP is top-heavy with little grass-roots support. They are like a chimney. People sense a sell-out from the ANC. The house is beginning to fill up with smoke and people are choking. Then the CP comes in and talks left, makes veiled criticisms of the ANC, and funnels off the smoke. Then they'll propose an action, letting people vent their frustrations and then nothing comes of it.
It will come in and hit imperialism, the World Bank, the banks — to deflect criticism from the ANC. The SACP talks left and acts right, and gives the ANC permission to act right. In defence of the sacred Alliance they will often say that criticism of the ANC contributes to the threat the white right-wing poses to the government. In reality, the white right-wing is totally isolated. There are a few unreconstructed rednecks, but most others have been accommodated or are in jail.
To talk about COSATU as a monolithic entity is wrong. It is made up of affiliates, each with a leadership which makes itself a thorn in the side of the government and then gets bought off. Some even do it to the extent that it helps them to get a better position. Sam Shilowa [former general-secretary of COSATU and SACP central committee member] railed against GEAR. Now, he's ANC premier of Gauteng province and supports it. The shift of leadership into business or government is happening all the time.
What is the state of the rest of the left?
McKinley: Because of the historical domination of Alliance politics, it is almost as if the rest of the left have celebrated their marginalisation. In the last year, this has begun to change. The objective situation has provided more space for people on the left to expand their influence, hook up with local struggles and begin to work together. People struggling against evictions, water and electricity provision in urban and rural areas are beginning to identify neo-liberal policies as being responsible.
The challenge for the left is to try to coordinate these struggles and from them develop an understanding of the need for some sort of national political alternative. What you have now is a better grounded left who have mostly not come out of the various small organisations, but have been working in unions or communities or on an intellectual front. There is not so much division in this left. It revolves more around practical struggles. I see a potentially bright future for a political alternative. It is going to take a long time to develop but it is beginning.
The student movement is in crisis. The main student body SASCO [South African Student Congress] has been aligned to the ANC. This has undermined its ability to be a radical voice. The ANC Youth League has been a sycophantic ANC support group. This is just changing now. University privatisation and increased student fees are leading to struggles which have the potential to spark the movement. The SASCO branch at Wits University has just begun to debate the need for an explicitly socialist student movement, which has never existed here. So there is struggle and discussion.
Dor: The Anti-Privatisation Forum in Johannesburg is an exciting development. It brings together struggles against the Johannesburg council's iGoli 2002 project of privatisation, the struggle against restructuring at Wits University, community struggles for the provision of water, housing and electricity. A similar thing is starting in Cape Town.
In the Northern Province, the Movement for Delivery has begun to organise. We are also starting to organise as part of the global movement against neo-liberalism — on September 26 there were actions here in solidarity with the Prague protests against the World Bank and IMF.
Debt is a big issue here. Why should we pay the apartheid debt? It's another way of getting into the debate about GEAR and alternatives.
Vally: More people are beginning to understand the need for a new left, based on grass-roots work rather than a few people with a newspaper proclaiming themselves the vanguard. There are a whole range of struggles.
Not only do we have a massive AIDS problem, but now there is an outbreak of cholera which makes a mockery of the ANC's water policy. The Treatment Action Campaign is campaigning against the government's policy of restricting AZT provision. Meanwhile, armaments costs have risen now to around 40 billion Rand and may go up to 60 billion.
Jara: The SACP is the strongest left force in terms of size, organisation, history and influence. In addition to us, there are many socialists in the Alliance. Post-1990, we can no longer tolerate sectarianism. We need broad action, and not necessarily just by those who define themselves as socialists.
Our solutions are the mobilisation of domestic capital resources to push forward transformation: utilising public resources (the government budget and state-run corporations), build and consolidate what we call "social capital" (cooperatives, union investment funds) and disciplining and directing financial capital. The focus should not be on foreign direct investment but domestic resources. We need mass mobilisation to effect this transformation.
Bohmke: The left mobilise around demands for concrete action, rather than start with the demand to break the Alliance. Mobilising around real struggles creates tension in the Alliance.
The ANC's support for neo-liberalism means not just not implementing its promises but attacking existing rights. The role of the left is to provide linkages between the spontaneous struggles which are occurring everywhere. You don't have the easy binaries of the old apartheid system but people are living in terrible conditions and they have to fight.