Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
A spectre unfolded in Namibia’s southern neighbour, South Africa. A spectre not in terms of a calamity, as some may conclude and/or guess and jump to conclusions, nor in terms of a jamboree, as yet others may hasten to think. But a historic and revolutionary one.
One which Namibia, particularly the union movement, if in this day and era there’s any union movement in Namibia to speak of. Let alone any revolutionaries in Namibia, likewise, if there are any today in Namibia to speak of.
This was the 105th anniversary of the Communist Party of South Africa (SACP), coinciding with the launch of the party’s local elections manifesto. Paving the way for the SACP, after a long time, to make a significant move in severing ties with its alliance with the African National Congress (ANC).
It is not so much a severance of ties with the ANC, but more a case of placing the revolution on a different pedestal, in view of the risk of the revolution in South Africa being betrayed.
Because all indications have all along been there, since the days before South Africa’s internal settlement to the internal strife that had been going on, on the day of CODESA, when various stakeholders met to discuss the way forward to a solution which eventually heralded the dismantlement of Apartheid South Africa in 1994.
The Southern African Communist Party (SACP), in deciding to go it alone, is by no means breaking ties with the alliance, for it was the embodiment of the very alliance which goes back a long time in the South African Revolution.
If indeed there is any of the parties deserving of the accolade of a vanguard party, beginning with the South African Revolution, it is none other than the SACP.
Indeed, the mastermind behind the alliance that agitated for the country’s transformation, beginning with the change in the political guard from Apartheid architects into a democratic South Africa as it has come to be today since 1994, with the lowering of the flag of Apartheid South Africa and the assumption of the reins of power by the ANC.
First under the pretext of a transitional government of national unity to yet another formation that defies definition of what it exactly is.
Whatever has been transpiring since 1994, there is one undeniable truth: there has been no change in the relationship between the various forces of production. Essentially, between the working class and the propertied class, namely the bourgeoisie.
This is despite the alliance that has been in existence, coming all the way from the days of struggle for change, which, for that matter, was and has been for transformation from one form of exploitation of the working class to one of equality and egalitarianism, and eventually one where the working class owns the means of production.
This has not been happening. The alliance between what one would have thought were progressive forces, including the SACP and ANC, has not delivered this transformation.
On the contrary, if anything has been apparent, it has been the continued exploitation of the working class and a deterioration in working conditions, as well as the sharpening of contradictions between the working class and the propertied class.
It is this realisation that must have brought the SACP to where it is today in terms of its relationship with especially the ruling ANC, compelling it to now contest the upcoming local elections in South Africa in November on its own ticket and that of the workers.
Like in Namibia, one issue of concern in South Africa has been the high unemployment rate. A problem that has been made by political spin doctors of the ruling political elite, indeed, with the connivance of the business and/or economic elite and/or class, to be inherent to itself.
Never put in its right context of unemployment being inherent to capitalism and exploitation, a function and factor of the maximisation of profits.
But still rationalised as a result of a lack of investment and growth. As if whenever investments are realised, there shall never be profit maximisation resulting in continued unemployment.
Excepting the SACP, in South Africa, few, if any, of the political parties and/or formations have been able to highlight the problem in South Africa from its core, which is the pertaining economic system.
Marked by the continued extraction and exploitation of the country’s natural resources in the best interests of the masses, including the working class.
This is very much the case in Namibia, where all that one is and has been hearing is a lack of investment and/or slow/sluggish economic growth.
This is as if one day, when the economy is booming, even in full bloom like with oil, there shall never be inequality and poverty.
Inequality and poverty cannot and shall never, whether in Namibia or South Africa, automatically be, let alone be eradicated, by a boom in the pertaining capitalist relations of production.
But by a conscious ideological disposition informing a political decision and/or implementation, as the SACP is bidding to do by its decision to go it alone in the forthcoming local elections in South Africa.
As the alliance with the ANC has proven, and been proving, in terms of bringing radical transformation impacting the material conditions of especially the working class, it has not been workable.
What the SACP is doing is simply living up to its historic mission as a vanguard party.
Certainly, Namibia can take a leaf from its neighbouring country and the SACP. The only question in Namibia is: which formation can assume, provide and fulfil this critical vanguard vision and mission?
