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Features
A long walk from Soweto to Sandown
Mphutlane wa Bofelo
2010-03-11, Issue 473
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62919
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In the wake of media exposure of his lavish and opulent lifestyle as well as business interest mostly sustained by government tenders, South Africa’s ANC Youth League president, Julius ‘juju magic’ Malema has suddenly come out in the clear about what he and the ANC nationalists mean by nationalisation of the mines. The ANC Youth League chief recently told a press briefing that all his organisation is calling for is public-private partnerships: ‘We are saying the state must have a majority shareholding and we want the formation of a state-owned mining company… Some people call it public-private partnerships, we call it nationalisation’.
It is not a surprise that Malema’s call for nationalisation did not elicit from big capital the amount of consternation and uproar that followed Mandela’s statement on nationalisation upon his release in 1990. Then there was such a hue-cry that Mandela had to recant his pronouncement the day after he made it. Mandela was forced to reassure local and global capital by declaring that nationalisation has never been a policy of the ANC and will never be. But the ANC Youth League’s pro-nationalisation statement did not elicit the same level of anxiety from big business or any negative response from the almighty ‘markets’. There was no high-powered delegation of the captains of capital to the current president of the ANC. In the actual fact one mine owner, by the name of Patrick Motsepe, was quoted in the press saying he would have no problem if the ANC government chose to nationalise the mines.
I can only think of one explanation for the relatively muted response of big capital to the present calls for nationalisation within the ranks of the ANC. After 15 years of ANC government, the owners of capital now know that the radical leftist terminology that the ANC uses is just a rhetorical spin to sell rightwing programmes. In the past 15 years, most of the bourgeosie class and white racists in general have come to the realisation that they should in fact have backed-up and expedited the reformist negotiated settlement that saw the ANC in political office much earlier.
Elements within the ‘old’ National Party and the white liberal fraternity who called for negotiations much earlier were able to read and understand the bourgeosie nationalist undertones of the nationalisation clause and other clauses of the Freedom Charter. They had the insight and foresight to understand that white capitalist interests and global capitalist interests would be better served by capitalism without racialist fetters. They understood that the economic advancement of an African middle-class and the creation of a black bourgeosie would provide a buffer against black working class uprising, as the black governing and upper-classes would be more effective in getting the consent of the masses and in entrenching their legitimacy and hegemony.
If anyone had a problem in understanding that the Freedom Charter did not call for socialisation and public ownership of the mines but the transference of ownership from white and foreign bourgeosie to the African and local bourgeosie, Mandela’s lengthy explanation at the Rivonia Trial clarified this for them: ‘The most important political document ever adopted by the ANC is the “Freedom Charter”. It is by no means a blueprint for a socialist state. It calls for redistribution, but not nationalisation, of land; it provides for nationalisation of mines, banks, and monopoly industry, because big monopolies are owned by one race only, and without such nationalisation racial domination would be perpetuated despite the spread of political power. It would be a hollow gesture to repeal the Gold Law prohibitions against Africans when all gold mines are owned by European companies.’
Mandela made it succinctly clear that land will remain under private ownership and that nationalisation will be a tool of ‘de-racialising’ ownership of big monopolies and to give Africans and the local bourgeosie in general a stake in the mines and the banks. Mandela went on to reassure the Afrikaner that the congress movement’s version of nationalisation is akin the nationalist project pursued by the National Party to affirm and empower Afrikaner capitalists against foreign capital. ‘In this respect the ANC's policy corresponds with the old policy of the present Nationalist Party which, for many years, had as part of its programme the nationalisation of the gold mines which, at that time, were controlled by foreign capital.’ The chief architect of the current neo-apartheid, neo-colonial, neo-liberal capitalist dispensation went further to stress that ’under the Freedom Charter, nationalisation would take place in an economy based on private enterprise. The realisation of the Freedom Charter would open up fresh fields for a prosperous African population of all classes, including the middle class’.
It is very clear from Mandela’s pronouncements that the envisaged and expected outcome of the nationalisation project was not an egalitarian society, but a stratified society in which prosperity will continue to be hierarchical, albeit not along strictly racial lines. Madiba did not mince his words in asserting that the ANC stands for reform and not total overhaul of apartheid-capitalism. He ambiguously declared: ’The ANC has never at any period of its history advocated a revolutionary change in the economic structure of the country, nor has it, to the best of my recollection, ever condemned capitalist society.’
According to the best recollections of the most authoritative figure within and on the ANC, the ANC has never ever condemned capitalist society. Yet the root causes of the global economic depression, the massive inequalities and injustices, rampant corruption, individualistic greed and crass materialism, gluttonous consumerism and the moral decay and rot in society lie in capitalism. The opulent lifestyle of the propertied and the governing classes is an integral part of the traditions and culture of capitalism. The sweeteners and ‘gifts’ that corporate capital give to government officials and bureaucrats as well as the proverbial ‘drink’ public servants ask from citizens are part and parcel of capitalist culture/morality.
The rent-a- black face and ‘tenderpreneur’ trend and the phenomenon of senior and influential members of the ruling party doing business with government directly or through fronts are all corrupt practices that are sure to thrive in a capitalist society where the individual is placed above the collective. As long as we operate within the framework of capitalism, nationalisation and/or state ownership will invariably mean state capitalism, leading to the fattening of a narrow black middle-class which is dominant in the state and the well-connected scrounging local bourgeoisie. In the former Soviet Union, nationalisation and state ownership resulted in state capitalism and the emergence of the nomenklatura. This replicated itself in many countries going by the label socialist/communist, people’s republic or some variant thereof. Very often, it was the case of the state/party prescribing socialism for the masses and capitalism for itself.
Already the ANC Youth League is saying there’s nothing wrong with powerful and influential members of the tripartite alliance doing business with government. The point the league misses – deliberately - is that Malema and his ilk do not get the tenders because their companies surpass other contenders in service and expertise. Once the tender committee gets wind that company X belongs to the brother/sister who has the clout and power to decide the fate of government officials (and by extension the fate of the bureaucrats), it is more than likely to use its ‘commonsense’.
In defence of the right of Malema to do business through government tenders, the ANC Youth League’s treasurer, Pule Mabe, says ‘the best way to do business is through government tenders.’ Mabe’s comment gives you the idea that the middle-class and aspirant bourgeosie within the congress movement are calling for nationalisation so that they can (ab)use the colour of their skin, struggle credentials, office-power and political connections to get a foothold on the mines, the banks and big monopolies. Once this cream of the cream from the black population has made it to the top most of the capitalist society, the logic is that they should live/play the part and live as far as possible away from the masses, geographically/physically, socially and economically. After all, their entire dream is to be the ‘Black Diamonds’. They want to shine and glitter, far away from the Black Hole… the ghetto. They want to be like white kids, drive snazzy cars in the Northern suburbs, own villas in Europe, play golf, take up fishing as a sport, go as tourists to the township or as a campaigning entourage, under heavy protection and surveillance by the army and the police. (And don’t you dare point a middle-finger at the opulence and indifference to the suffering of the poor).
Just a message to the under-class black fellow who think that having black ownership of the mines, banks and big monopolies is for the collective pride and dignity of all black people. The logic of capitalism is that once you are rich you should stay as far as possible from the poor. If anyone holds the illusion that corporate and political elites brought about by the struggles of the poor and their utilisation of public office for corporate gain will be any different, Steven Ngobeni of the Youth League has a message for them: ‘Malema cannot have the lifestyle of the poor just because he champions the poor’. This is the logic of neo-liberal capitalism. We can all be free but with different degrees of freedom.
And Malema and his friends are not breaking any party tradition by operating within the capitalist framework of crass materialism, hoarding, and keeping a safe distance from the poor. The father of the nation has said it all ‘the ANC has never ever condemned capitalist society.’ Black artists of the calibre of Hugh Masekela struggle like hell to have five minutes with Mandela. It is a walk in the park for any American to have a full sitting with Madiba.
Seasoned black artists curtain-raise for American has-beens or wannabes at gigs organised by the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Just the other day John Kani was complaining about South African/Black artist never being offered a chance to play for Nelson Mandela and Winnie Mandela. Mr Kani, there is a long distance between Soweto and Houghton. Black workers, there’s a long walk and huge chasm between Seshego and Sandown. This is just a wake-up call for those who still hope that Malema and the ANC Youth League will propose practical ways of ensuring that state control is for public ownership and that there are mechanisms for the socialisation of the mineral wealth beyond formal state control. The hiss of a hyena is not laughter though it sounds like it.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
* Mphutlane wa Bofelo is a cultural worker and social critic.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.
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