Why have things gone wrong?, Brecker asks. "Why is it that a government which contains leading members of the Communist Party the COSATU trade union federation is not able to satisfy the elementary needs of the masses, like decent housing and education?"
Brecker places the blame for the failure of the ANC-led revolution on the compromise with the former whites-only government and other bourgeois parties, including Buthelezi's Inkatha Freedom Party. This compromise was brokered principally by the late SACP leader Joe Slovo.
The SACP's strategy, Brecker argues, flows from its subservience to the idea that the national democratic revolution was a necessary first step which could not be stepped over but, if enforced by a revolutionary subject, could create a "revolutionary democracy" somewhere between a bourgeois state and a more egalitarian society. In reality, the "non-capitalist" monster in southern Africa looks suspiciously like... unbridled capitalism.
Brecker re-states the revolutionary left argument for "permanent revolution." "Although the struggle would begin on the terrain of democratic revolution it would, of necessity, in order to achieve its democratic goals against an intransigent bourgeoisie transform into socialist revolution. Given the underdevelopment character of Apartheid capitalism, and the urgent social needs of the black majority, the mass demand for immediate solutions to their urgent problems (land, health, housing, jobs, etc.) could not be met without dispossessing the bourgeoisie. This would be a combined and uninterrupted revolution." The struggle for socialism was, in this sense, very much on the agenda at the moment of "transition."
[CvG, JD] Cost: £2.50 (plus 10% postage and packing for orders of less than five copies.) fromC. Van Gelderen, 40 St. Vincent's Close, Girton, Cambridge CB3 OPE, Britain.
Networking
i personal selection of
Internet services, from the editors of International
Diewpoint and our German sister magazine Inprekorr Web addresses
Campaign to Abolish Third World Debt (COCAD). In English, French & Spanish //www.linkline.be/users/cadtm
EZLN (Zapatista) texts (in Spanish). //www.peak.org/~justin/ezln/ezin.org Pioneer bi-monthly (in Chinese) produced by Fourth International Supporters in Hong Kong //w3.globalnet.com.tw/~hkt International Viewpoint list server This service enables you to receive International Viewpoint articles as they are translated into English. Several weeks earlier than they are available in paper form! As well as announcements and updates from our sister organisations around the world. We also have lists in French, German and lo add your name to our English, French, German and/or Spanish listservs (electronic mailing list), send a message to: <100666.1443@compuserve.com>. For a trial period only, this service is free of charge. International Viewpoint is at <188666.1443@compuserve.com›
Challenge
Published by Solidarity, the Australian supporters of the Fourth International. Issue one covers the Workplace Relations Bill, the budget deficit, structural adjustment, and the left regroupment needed to fight the Liberal offensive. ($1/copy) Solidarity are also the Australian sales agent for International Viewpoint. Subscription costs $33 per year, or $50 for a solidarity subscription, which allows a third world readers' group or political prisoner to receive a free sub. As Solidarity, PO Box 454, Kensington, Vic. 3031 or PO Box A105 Sydney South 2000. © (03) 9313 0559 or (02) 331 1837
Churches
Firebombed
Over 50 African American churches have been firebombed since late 1989. Some suspects openly boasted of their membership in the Ku Klux Klan and other racist terror organizations. Yet on May 21, the Clinton administration's assistant attorney general for civil rights told a House Judiciary Committee hearing the arsons were "isolated incidents."
The National Council of
Churches has revealed very different findings, with far fewer resources at its disposal. "25 firebombings targeted Black churches that have a history of struggle against racism. Ten attacks in 1995 and 1996 were timed around Martin Luther King Day," Bishop Melvin Talbert told reporters. He also reported that local police and other authorities reported firebombings as electrical fires and quickly painted over racist epithets without church consent. They even accused Black pastors of burning their own churches.
"Without exception," Talbert concluded, "the victims of these hate crimes said they felt intimidated by the very forces they had hoped would provide them with protection and would alleviate their anxieties." *
Source: Workers World Abortion threat
On 26 May the European Parliament voted to cut aid to countries and organisations which "encourage infanticide, forced sterilisation, or abortion as a means of birth control". This machiavelian amalgam was the work of Carlos Casini, member of the fundamentalist Opus Dei society, and Pope John-Paul II's Special Counsellor at the UN Cairo Conference on population. The motion was introduced into the Brussels Parliament by the European Peoples Party (EPP), the grouping of conservative and hristian Democratic parties
Source: CADAC, Franc July 1996 #279 35