Organise for a decent, democratic future
Vie
IN SPEAKING engagements across the US this week, I realised South Africa was losing the special place it once held in the imagination of people around the world.
From Chicago to Oregon and Seattle, I’ve been asked about the decline in our politics and the resurgence of populism. This was also the focus of my public lecture at the University of Oregon.
Our country was a symbol of the triumph of the human spirit. Today the story of the struggle against apartheid continues to inspire, but the fundamental rot in our national politics has turned us into what Neville Alexander famously called “an ordinary country”.
Although our problems are serious, and the country is in the hands of a dangerous predatory elite, we are not alone. The US also confronts a dangerous president and a serious social and political crisis.
Perhaps racism, xenophobia and police violence top the list of the key features of that crisis right now. The old manufacturing economy is gone. The city of Detroit has been more or less abandoned. It is only the cities connected to the new knowledge economy, like Seattle and San Francisco, that are booming.
The de-industrialisation of the US has left much of the country looking far more Third World than some parts of South Africa.
Millions are either out of work or have to work two or even three lowpaying and insecure jobs to survive. For some, it seems that this new America, in which young white men can no longer look forward to the unionised factory jobs held by their fathers and grandfathers, has been poisoned by immigration.
Trump has pandered to people’s worst fears by suggesting that turning on immigrants in general, and Mexicans and Muslims in particular, will somehow restore jobs and reopen factories.
Of course it is neo-liberal capitalism, sometimes called hypercapitalism, that has destroyed the manufacturing economy in the US. Attacks on immigrants are a way of distracting people’s anger from its rightful target – out-of-control capitalism.
Trump’s deliberate attempt to stoke xenophobic hostility is a classic move in fascist politics. We saw something similar with antiSemitism in Europe in the 1930s, the anti-muslim politics of the Hindu right in contemporary India and xenophobia in contemporary South Africa.
All of my talks stress that South Africa and the US face profound problems and real risks. In both societies, toxic politics carries real risks for democracy.
My talks also stress the need for a credible and genuinely popular progressive vision, and the social formations that can take it forward.
In the US, the Occupy Movement and Black Lives Matter generated real optimism for a moment. But neither was able to build formal organisation and sustain itself in the long term.
A reliance on social media,
NGO capture, toxic sectarianism and a lack of formal democratic structures resulted in these moments of real political excitement quickly dissipating.
We saw something similar with the student movement which made a huge splash in 2015 but then rapidly collapsed, often with real acrimony.
NGO and party political capture was part of the problem, as was an over-reliance on social media.
But it is arguable that, as with Occupy and Black Lives Matter, the failure to set up formal democratic structures through which leaders can be held accountable, and recalled if necessary, was the fundamental reason for the movement’s rapid collapse.
Having formal structures offers no certainties. The ANC has these and they have often been distorted by predatory machinations.
But the salient point is that the ANC still exists. An organisation that can sustain its existence can be contested. A movement that rises and then quickly dissipates can’t achieve anything once it has faded away.
What we really need, if we are to steer a course through the crises in both countries, is formal mass-based organisation in which the base can exercise effective control over the leadership.
In the old days this was called “worker control” in the unions and “community control” in the community organisations.
There are still remnants of these ideas in some trade unions and grassroots movements. This is a legacy of the anti-apartheid Struggle, which still offers vital lessons for the crises of today.
There is a deep and growing pessimism in South Africa. It often seems that ordinary people are simply helpless in the face of the predatory state, and the gangster state they have built.
There is also a deep pessimism across much of the US. In both societies, serious problems need to be faced clearly and bravely. But in both it is vital that we not collapse into defeatism.
This is a time for truth, and the courage to tell it. This is a time for serious political work, and the humility and dedication to undertake it. This is a time to find and affirm all the good things in our society.
In South Africa and the US there are real legacies of political courage, often translating into powerful mass movements.
This is a time to dig deep, connect to these legacies and organise for a decent and democratic future in both countries.
Buccus is a senior research associate at ASRI, research fellow at UKZN’S School of Social Sciences and academic director of a university study abroad programme on political transformation. Buccus promotes #Reading Revolution via Books@antique at Antique Café in Morningside.