I was watching the News today and the item about the Birthday celebrations for Nelson Mandela. A whole lot of people seemed to have turned up with very little idea of what they were actually celebrating other than the 90th birthday of some old bloke who was a celebrity, and for whose Party a whole host of other celebrities had turned up. A bit like those "An Audience With..." programmes that are on occasionally where a bunch of celebrities of varying degrees of worthiness to the title turn up so that TV spectators can again live their lives vicariously through that of people with whom they have nothing in common, and can provide the TV companies with cheap scheduling, whilst replenishing the bank balances and ego of the celebrity who has deigned to grant us an audience.
One of the celebrities interviewed - I have absolutely no idea who she was, but she was being interviewed by a News reporter so must have been a celebrity - summed up just what as wrong with the event, and what is wrong with much of modern society. This young woman was no doubt a celebrity, but what does that term mean. It seems at every turn there are celebrities of varying degrees, just like the social ranking of society that was the characteristic feature of feudal society. It seems the main reason there has to be so many celebrities is in order to fill the pages of all the celebrity magazines, that enlighten us all with their in depth analysis of the life and times of the rich and famous, just as in the past everyone had to know what the latest developments were at Court. The system of becoming a celebrity seems very similar to feudal practices too, and shrouded in mystical practices. For many celebrities we ask, r actually most people don't ask, but should, "Why are they a celebrity?" The reason often seems to be, because we have been told they are a celebrity. By whom? Probably by the celebrities own publicist. And having become a celebrity they must be fetd as such by the celebrity magazines, and lesser celebrities. And of course, i they are treated as a celebrity it can only be because THEY ARE a celebrity can't it?
The young woman being interviewed by News 24 clearly had no idea why she was there for Mandela's birthday celebrations. Probably noone else there did either. It was rather like the other news item that followed about the Glastonbury Music Festival. Did most people really to listen to Shakin Stevens? Did some of the young people there even know who he was, did they think he was some new rising Hip Hopper? Or in a society where everyone has to give their opinion on how great the Emperor's New Clothes are were they just there because a lot of other people were reported to be there? Our interviewee said she didn't really know anything about Mandela, because she was too young, but she had grown up listening to stories from her Mother about what a great man he was, and the wonderful things he had done. It, of course, would have been interesting to have asked if she could list any of these wonderful things.
The fact is that Mandela is fanmous for essentially one thing. Rather like all those other celebrities what he is most famous for, is being Nelson Mandela. What Nelson Mandela is and was is a symbol, a symbol of a people's fight against a nasty apartheid regime. But for that reason it is the struggle of that people that should be celebrated not Nelson Mandela, to do otherwise is an insult to those people, but in another way it is an insult to Mandela too, because it reduces him from being a political fighter to being just another celebrity in a night sky of celebrities. Mandela has probably more right to that title than most of those other stars, but just as the fawning over him by politicians who previously described him as a terrorist, and who describe others engaged in the same kind of fight against opression today as terrorists, is sickening, so to is the elevation of him as a political figure into something he is not.
The fact is that Mandela was a part of the struggle against Apartheid, and a part based on inadequate, bourgeois nationalist politics. To speak as our interviewee did of the wonderful things he did is to brazenly ignore the fact that for 27 years, or the majority of his active political life, what he could do, wonderful or not, was heavily circumscribed by the fact that he was a prisoner! How meaningless is it to describe someone as having accomplished such wonderful acts when what they achieved was to be in gaol? During all that time, Mandela's main contribution was to be what it has been since, to be a symbol. That is not unimportant in itself, but stop this fawning, and begin to ask the questions that need to be asked, to avoid the mistakes made in Soputh Africa, and to deal with the situation in Zimbabwe now. Thos problems won't be solved by fawning and pop concerts, they'll be solved by real struggle on the basis of an adequate political Programme.
Showing posts with label Zimbabwe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zimbabwe. Show all posts
Saturday, 28 June 2008
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Support the Zimbabwean Workers Now
The situation in Zimbabwe has become critical for its workers, the small farmers and small traders. If Zimbabwe had oil then the US or Britain would probably already have used the situation to justify an Occupation as they did in Iraq. Some of the pacifists and Liberals in the Labour Movement are likely to propose such a "humanitarian" solution even now, or the next best thing to appeal to the imperialist club of the United Nations to intervene. But socialists should not mislead and miseducate the working class into believing that imperialism has any interest in protecting rights be it here in Britain, in the US in Zimbabwe or in Iraq. The only force capable of protecting workers, of producing progressive solutions to the world's problems and which has a vested interest in doing so in a progressive manner is the world working class. Anyone that pretends otherwise that fails to teach that lesson to workers even by omission that fails to argue that imperialism is the working class's main enemy abandons the banner of Marxism in favour of bourgeois nationalism and liberalism.
Others, more squeamish at supporting a role for old colonial powers, or the world's imperialist hegemon, in Zimbabwe might be inclined to look instead at its neighbours to the bourgeois states of Southern Africa. But, such a policy is little if any better. It is just as much a miseducation for the working class to suggest that a weak bourgeois state can or should provide a solution for workers than that a powerful one can or should be appealed to. A solution to the problem of the Zimbabwean people, just as for the Palestinian people and oppressed people everywhere lies in the international working class alone. Only through building the unity of the working class, and developing a Programme and structures by which workers throughout the world can come to the support of their comrades elsewhere can a progressive solution be found.
Karl Marx in the Critique of the Gotha Programme responded harshly to those who responded to the weakness of workers by proposing that anything useful could be provided on the workers behalf by the bourgeois state. He said that such appeals demonstrated not just that the working class and its leaders were weak, but that they were "unripe for ruling." Only by maintaining a strict opposition to that bourgeois state, and instead relying on, and building the workers own strength could that weakness be overcome.
In Spain, during the 1930's, workers from all over the world rallied to the call of the International Brigade to go to the support of the Spanish workers in their fight against fascism. That is the model we need today, be it in Zimbabwe or in Iraq, or anywhere else where workers are under the cosh from powerful, and reactionary military forces, be those forces that of an occupying power, or of a fascistic state, or of fascistic military forces within that state. At the moment such a proposal looks far-fetched because the workers movement is weak, such ideas have long since disappeared from the workers tool-box. But, in the 1960's and early 1970's faced with increasing opposition and better organisation by the bosses, workers returned to tools they had not used for many years or decades, tools such as the flying picket. The job of Marxists is to act as the memory of the class, and to remind workers of such tools, to propagandise for their use at the appropriate moments. Faced with powerful, well armed foes now is the time for the working class to relearn some of those lessons, and to dig those tools out from its box.
When Angola faced attack from the imperialist forces of South Africa Cuba sent forces to oppose the South Africans. Trotsky argued for Stalin's USSR to come to the aid of Chinese workers and peasants, in the face of the invasion by Japanese imperialism. Such support from a Workers State even a badly deformed one such as Cuba or the USSR is not the same as an imperialist occupation. But, such support has to be clearly under the control of the workers it is intended to support, otherwise the Stalinists will use it for their own bureaucratic purposes, will use it in the event of victory to then subdue the workers. The best guarantee against that is the development of a democratic workers aid organisation. WE should demand that the remaining deformed workers states offer immediate aid to the Zimbabwean workers, we should build a democratic workers aid organisation.
IN the first instance a great responsibility fall on the South African Labour Movement, because of its immediate proximity and its strength. It is a duty of COSATU and other Labour Movement organisations immediately to organise support for Zimbabwean workers, including the provision of food, and other necessities, continued action such as the recent blacking of arms shipments to the regime, and instead the organisation and provision of arms to the Zimbabwean workers to defend themselves. But, Mugabe's militaristic regime has considerable muscle. The South African workers themselves must be prepared to arm themselves and intervene to defend Zimbabwe's workers. IN doing so they will learn invaluable lessons for the time when they are ready and have to take on their own bourgeois state.
Others, more squeamish at supporting a role for old colonial powers, or the world's imperialist hegemon, in Zimbabwe might be inclined to look instead at its neighbours to the bourgeois states of Southern Africa. But, such a policy is little if any better. It is just as much a miseducation for the working class to suggest that a weak bourgeois state can or should provide a solution for workers than that a powerful one can or should be appealed to. A solution to the problem of the Zimbabwean people, just as for the Palestinian people and oppressed people everywhere lies in the international working class alone. Only through building the unity of the working class, and developing a Programme and structures by which workers throughout the world can come to the support of their comrades elsewhere can a progressive solution be found.
Karl Marx in the Critique of the Gotha Programme responded harshly to those who responded to the weakness of workers by proposing that anything useful could be provided on the workers behalf by the bourgeois state. He said that such appeals demonstrated not just that the working class and its leaders were weak, but that they were "unripe for ruling." Only by maintaining a strict opposition to that bourgeois state, and instead relying on, and building the workers own strength could that weakness be overcome.
In Spain, during the 1930's, workers from all over the world rallied to the call of the International Brigade to go to the support of the Spanish workers in their fight against fascism. That is the model we need today, be it in Zimbabwe or in Iraq, or anywhere else where workers are under the cosh from powerful, and reactionary military forces, be those forces that of an occupying power, or of a fascistic state, or of fascistic military forces within that state. At the moment such a proposal looks far-fetched because the workers movement is weak, such ideas have long since disappeared from the workers tool-box. But, in the 1960's and early 1970's faced with increasing opposition and better organisation by the bosses, workers returned to tools they had not used for many years or decades, tools such as the flying picket. The job of Marxists is to act as the memory of the class, and to remind workers of such tools, to propagandise for their use at the appropriate moments. Faced with powerful, well armed foes now is the time for the working class to relearn some of those lessons, and to dig those tools out from its box.
When Angola faced attack from the imperialist forces of South Africa Cuba sent forces to oppose the South Africans. Trotsky argued for Stalin's USSR to come to the aid of Chinese workers and peasants, in the face of the invasion by Japanese imperialism. Such support from a Workers State even a badly deformed one such as Cuba or the USSR is not the same as an imperialist occupation. But, such support has to be clearly under the control of the workers it is intended to support, otherwise the Stalinists will use it for their own bureaucratic purposes, will use it in the event of victory to then subdue the workers. The best guarantee against that is the development of a democratic workers aid organisation. WE should demand that the remaining deformed workers states offer immediate aid to the Zimbabwean workers, we should build a democratic workers aid organisation.
IN the first instance a great responsibility fall on the South African Labour Movement, because of its immediate proximity and its strength. It is a duty of COSATU and other Labour Movement organisations immediately to organise support for Zimbabwean workers, including the provision of food, and other necessities, continued action such as the recent blacking of arms shipments to the regime, and instead the organisation and provision of arms to the Zimbabwean workers to defend themselves. But, Mugabe's militaristic regime has considerable muscle. The South African workers themselves must be prepared to arm themselves and intervene to defend Zimbabwe's workers. IN doing so they will learn invaluable lessons for the time when they are ready and have to take on their own bourgeois state.
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