THE 4 APRIL edition of Socialist Action carried the adopted by this year's AGM of the Labour Party Black Section on South Africa. Here we print a comment on the black section's position, by MIKE WONGSAM, Manchester delegate to the black section national committee.
THE struggle unfolding in Africa has presented movement, the organisations in the black nd the sociali menes and most vital points of aebare in years. It is certainly un this be So.
Africa is like no other African country — indeed it is like no other country.
In order to arrive at a correct conclusion as to how to proceed in the situation, proached from ture. Firstly, what the struggle is about. and to achine ye masses to achieve leadershion These politicisation leadership. two departure analysed in their concrete etail will throw light upon and revea he tasks which face the revolution i Southern Africa.
In order to correctly assemble th rgument, it first has to be sufficiently. high theoretical Firstly one has to thoroughly undersand the nature not only of apartheid theid state in soute Arch siaists in its state constructed and organised from top to bottom on institutional racism.
Therefore, the nation that the apartheid state is based upon is one in which black people are excluded from the most elementary civil and political rights. For black people to be able to Jave access to these most elementary rights requires the construction not merely of a new legal framework but the construction of a new nation state which guarantees to everybody rights now enjoyed exclusively by the white minority population. nothing short of the construction of a new nation.
This is different from the anti-colonial revolutions which took place in countries subjected to colonial position South the solidarity of the Southern be ap the terms of momentous points of advanced imperialist countries. these particular insotar directed against a foreign aised to a administrators and policemen. level.
the ment Africanism. The masses level of political theo some 30 years.
of Africa despite their liberation from tatorship in Ihat 1s.
Africa remain dominated by imperialism.
masses worldwide.
The Licky. revolution, throughout Africa perialist countries This consummated in history. of the national liberation struggle than The masses were subject to the most general experiences fected much more generalised than the ex periences of the working classes in the experiences nevertheless were the as they WELC imperial power represented by a few colonia working trast to organisation was ruled out in the majority of these countries because of stunted economic development, was the achieverevolutionary achieved a and culture that was equal to the task of liberating almost a whole continent from colonial subjugation within the space of The result is of course the picture as it is seen today. The the legacy of the inability of the working classes to take the Jeadership of these colonial revolutions is precisely that direct colonial rule, sometimes having major effects in the imperialist countries with the Caetano dicPortugal, they remain under the yoke of neo-colonialism.
despite the political cultural renewal inaugurated by the the countries of economically That is not to say that the African revolution hasn't had a tremendous effect upon the struggle of the black Quite the conLIC African of revolutionary PanAfricanism has produced a great leap forward in black consciousness both and in the imuse yes. Indeed, revolutionary Pan-Africanism Cransformation in the USA started by social the civil rights movement, and led to the greatest explosion of black culture TA no longer fighting restaurants tionary State are the ANC which will struggles being which has the national liberation of white of how to the inan The newly fight for COSATU has taken and as such represents the representation democratic, working quate.
society its lICW that they are the supreme defenders of the rights of all workers in South Africa. Moreover, as institution after institution begins to see the ANC a the legitimate spokespeople of the struggle to create a new nation and the oniv force in society that aspires to guarantee the rights of all members of society, this further to reinforce the weakness of the Pretoria The truth of the matter is that the hegemony of the Afrikaaner ruling class is crumbling, and the hegemony of the national liberation movement is being steadily and relentlessly built. The national liberation movement Is for better oppositional force concludIs • T01 blacks, for more access to exclusive all-white public beaches, but poses itself as an alternative government with a nationa po This is different from a policy of . appeasement, which would have te convince whites that while the colour of the faces of the personnel in the government would change, nothing else of substance would change. Suc a policy of appeasement could no lead to a truly non-racial society. For a truly non-racial society to exist i South Africa there would have to be government elected by the majorit ie a black government. But also, ther would have to be a genuinely revolu transformation South Africa itself. For instance, the cities would have to. be desegregated; the land would have to be owned by thom that work it, there would have to bet universal education system, etc.
The only forces existing in South Africa at the moment that have a policy even remotely approaching thri and the independent non-racial trade unions. The independent non-racial trade unions have be the social basis on which the ANC comes to power, and therefore, wher the new nation state is constructed it will have to be a workers state.
From these considerations it can be seen that the singular judgement that black people are engaged in a struggle against racism and therefore must organise as black people, ie attain political race consciousness is only a superficial and narrow judgement proceed in the concrete situation of Southern Africa. black sections movement in Britain, black self-organisation is an absolute. ly correct course of action since the struggle revolves vitally around the the right to adequate democratic representation inside the Labour Party. If it wasn't on the basis of black self-organisation then black wouldn't be , and without the struggle it also couldn't conceivably be ade
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Discussion on the black section • position on