ANC national conference
It is with a mixture of amusement and irritation that I have just read Oupa Lehulere's story on the ANC's 50th National Conference, held in Mafikeng in mid-December (Green Left Weekly, #302).
Lehulere was clearly nowhere near the conference. He is hoping perhaps that he can get away with sloppy journalism because he is writing for a largely Australian readership, a readership that was even further away from Mafikeng than he was.
As you might imagine, my amusement began to turn to irritation when I read that I was supposed to have been the chairperson of the conference's economic policy commission. In that capacity I am supposed to have turned down COSATU's request to table its opposition to the government's macro-economic policy framework, GEAR. Partly as a result of this, GEAR, we are told, was adopted by the Conference without a murmur. Wrong, wrong and wrong again!
I was not chairperson of the economic policy commission, but convener of the overall resolutions committee. COSATU delegates participated actively in all commissions, including the economic policy commission. Along with many other ANC delegates, including some who are cabinet ministers, COSATU participants forcefully raised their concerns around the macro-economic policy framework. The Conference did not endorse GEAR (on this Lehulere can perhaps be forgiven; some of the local commercial media also got it wrong).
There are numerous other factual errors and short cuts in Lehulere's article. He appears to present the electoral dynamics within the Conference as being a struggle between a centrist, new elite leadership on the one hand, and a grassroots opposition personified by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela on the other. Norm Dixon, in some of his own pre-Conference coverage, written from much further away, nonetheless has a much better understanding of some of this.
Just before the Conference, Madikizela-Mandela and her close political associates, ran a high-profile campaign on (in my judgement) a relatively demagogic, right-wing and Africanist platform — calling for the return of the death penalty, dismissing feminism as a European and "reactionary" fad that was undermining "traditional African family values", calling for the expulsion of communists from the ANC, and generally arguing that the key strategic task of the present was the fostering of a black capitalist class.
Madikizela-Mandela was contesting for the deputy presidency of the ANC, and Lehulere is a little skimpy with the facts when he implies that she graciously retired from the contest and was still elected to the national executive committee with a high vote. She declined to contest the deputy presidency when it was clear that she could only secure a little over 100 endorsers in a Conference of 3000 delegates.
As you can see, I am fairly harsh on the political positions advanced by Madikizela-Mandela and others close to her. The ANC is, however, a broad national front, and it is not surprising that such views should exist within it.
If there are those in the ANC who wish to expel SACP members, for our part, the SACP is not trying to expel other ideological currents within the ANC. We shall contest them, but we think that preserving the broad character of the ANC is essential for the political challenges we are confronting.
Lehulere is also wrong in his calculations on how many SACP members were elected into the ANC leadership. He fails to mention that the new Secretary General, Kgalema Motlanthe, is an SACP central committee member, and the new Deputy Secretary General, Thenjiwe Mthintso is an SACP political bureau member. As for the remaining 60 national executive additional members, 18, and not 9, are SACP members.
That there are intense and complex policy debates within the ANC is, of course, correct. That the new situation has seen the rapid development of new and upwardly mobile black strata is also unquestionably correct. These latter developments will, of course, have an impact upon the policy debates within the ANC.
Lehulere has been arguing for years that national liberation movements like the ANC are inevitably captured by a new bourgeoisie. He reads the ANC Conference, like everything else about the ANC, from the standpoint of this doomsday, "I-told-you-so" metaphysics.
Of course, in reality, this sad outcome may well eventuate. But hundreds of thousands of South African ANC members, communists and trade unionists are determined that it should not. It is a question of militant but intelligent struggle, organisation and comradely engagement inside of the ANC itself — if we all confine ourselves to aloof metaphysics then, of course, the doomsday prophecies will be self-fulfilling.
SACP deputy general secretary
and ANC national executive committee member
South Africa
Maritime union
James Vassilopoulos's article on waterfront "reform" was timely. The New Right have to destroy the MUA in order to pick off the rest of the union movement. This they will proceed to do once the most influential and powerful union has been destroyed.
Already Howard's promise that no worker will be worse off under a Coalition Government is looking very transparent.
Mareeba Qld
Vegetarianism 1
Graham Mathews letter on vegetarianism (GLW #302) misses the point. The goal of socialism is human liberation, not the abolition of the profit system per se. Genuine socialism will remain a distant dream unless as individuals, we cease collaborating in the abuse of other beings.
We must understand that life for non-human animals "is an eternal Auschwitz". No one who has been inside an intensive piggery or battery hen shed, as I have, will doubt this for one moment. What kind of socialist would I be, if knowing this, I were to refrain from doing something about it until such time as we achieve the abolition of the profit system?
Some male comrades used to argue that the "woman question" could not be settled until "after the revolution". Luckily for women, they declined to wait and began organising anyway. The same is true of animal rights and vegetarianism. Not everyone has to become an activist, but by boycotting the products of cruelty, we can all play a part in ending this vicious system of abuse and exploitation.
It is true that the adoption of vegetarianism and an ethical lifestyle are insufficient of themselves to achieve socialism. Nevertheless, they are necessary elements in remaking ourselves in preparation for a new more humane society.
Miller NSW
Vegetarianism 2
Instead of advancing the debate, Graham Mathews (GLW #301) chooses to run the same narrow hackneyed line — abolition of capitalism.
This has never been in doubt and would be imperative in building a new society in which vegetarianism could play an integral part. Whilst the current practices of agriculture do not present benign alternatives for vegetarianism, there is definitely a strong shift towards non-chemical agricultural farming practices that represent models for vegetarianism, e.g. permaculture.
The purpose of the article "why eat meat" was to promote the virtues of vegetarianism amongst people who hold progressive views. To dismiss the social, ethical and nutritional tenets of vegetarianism is to ignore some of the same principles that permeate the socialist ideal towards the development of a new society. The urgency of enlisting support from all progressive forces in overthrowing the status quo is of the utmost importance as we spiral further into social and ecological crises.
Newrybar NSW
Freedom of information
A society that suppresses the information available to its members is a sick society. Two recent events indicate Australia is heading down that path.
The Federal Government's stated intention to deal only with "accredited" journalists is an attempt to build up a coterie of "reliable" people who will not report anything that the government does not want to be public knowledge.
Another example of suppression of information was the confiscation in Darwin of photographs of East Timorese being tortured by Indonesian soldiers. They were removed because they were alleged to be obscene, but, as one of the informants was a well-known member of the anti-abortion "god-squad" and the other was a senior police officer, there must be a reasonable suspicion of involvement by the Northern Territory Government, probably because the Indonesian Government found them offensive.
It is a shame on those members of the human race who found the photographs obscene, but found the obscenities against humanity that were depicted not even worthy of comment.
Alawa NT
Constitutional convention
The issue of human rights in relation to our Constitution and system of government will be an important question at the Convention.
Certain basic elements are required for life. They include air, water, land and sunlight. Access to air, water and sunlight is largely assured. In Australia, everyone has access to land through freehold and leasehold title. Even those who are unemployed have access to land by being able to pay rent from their welfare benefits.
Entitlement to welfare, however, is conditional. If someone does not fulfil the conditions for welfare, they are not entitled to welfare money. Without money, access to land is denied. The other elements of our natural heritage are still available, but without access to land on which to build shelter and grow food, life cannot be sustained.
It is reasonable to set conditions on receiving welfare, and on the way we relate to our heritage, but regulations should ensure that it is always an option for a person to work directly with their natural heritage, if that is what they choose.
If people had access to public land they could take responsibility in providing for many of their own needs. On two suburban acres of public land, a community of this size can build housing for itself, grow much of its food, and earn its keep through promoting essential skills for sustainable suburban communities.
We will follow the Convention with particular interest in discussions around land and human rights.
Secretary, Human Rights Advocacy Service
Wentworth Falls NSW
[Abridged.]
Brandon Astor Jones
I would like to thank all of the wonderful people who have written letters of support to and for, me. Thank you so much.
Those of you who have written to me and had your letters returned, please know that those who want to execute me are daily devising new initiatives to limit and thwart your support.
For example, if your entire name and address and my entire name and address are not clearly written on the envelope your letter will go into a "dead letter" collection at the local post office and will not even be returned to you. From now on, please write me at the following address, using capital block letters on the envelope designating the addressee [as follows] and return addressee. Again, thank you all.
G3-77 GEORGIA DIAGNOSTIC AND CLASSIFICATION PRISON
POST OFFICE BOX 3877
JACKSON GEORGIA 30233 USA