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| Photo Sourced from Al Jazeera: Some of the 400 white South Africans march with a cross and red balloons in Pretoria on October 10, 2013 |
"The
ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class
which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling
intellectual force." The German Ideology, Karl Marx, 1845
Twenty
years since the 1994 illusion, White South African are beginning to cry
'racism' and declaring their own 'Red October' by throwing red balloons in the
air. This popular movement has become a centre of discussion in South Africa
with capitalist media overemphasizing the impact of this narrow action. It is
on the basis of this outcry that we decided to provide our analysis on the
question of racism.
The
Red Balloon Movement, known as Red October on social media, has come out to
oppose Black Economic Empowerment Policy and Affirmative Action as racially
skewed policies that advocate for poverty amongst white South Africans. When
the ANC came into power with the artificial Rainbow Nation, many people saw a
new hope and an end to poverty but to their shock Apartheid still exist
although not along racial lines but class Apartheid has become an order of the
day. This has exposed the character of the ANC that has always been trying to
emulate the former regime and continued to serve the interests of the England
Queen and Imperialists.
It
is worth remembering that Mandela has once indicated that the Freedom Charter
advocates for black capitalism not socialism, in his words he said: "it
shall open … fields for … a prosperous non-European bourgeois" where
"for the first time … non-European bourgeoisie will have the opportunity
to own in their own name … mills and factories … and private enterprise will
boom and flourish as never before". When the working class celebrated the
1994 illusion little did they know was that he actually stands for competition
between black and whites. This was not only a submission to imperial rule but a
time-ticking racist bomb.
We
must take the oppressed people to the historic developments of racism which
begins with the development of capitalist society. The use of 'Nationhood' in
the development of capital during the last period of European Feudalism,
fostered by the emerging capitalist class, played a fundamental role.
Populations were organized along 'ethnic' lines to create national armies which
didn't exist in Europe until post-Napoleonic wars. When the working class
realized the overthrow of feudalism was only a coup d'état by the new rich,
nationalism emerged as a reactionary movement, by becoming a way of maintaining
the loyalty of the rural and urban lower classes through patriotism. The power
of the rich was strengthened and loyalty was sustained by creating the illusion
of people united under one goal of 'our Nation'.
As
primary resources such minerals were depleted, competition between these
nation-states began and later culminated into a new era of imperialism and
colonialism affected to gain more primary capital. In the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries Africa and Asia were brought increasingly into the ambit
of capitalist power. In the Americas, vast plantation systems were set up.
Based on slavery, they were capitalist enterprises exporting agricultural
goods. It was in the system of slavery that the genesis of racism is to be
found. In the words of Caribbean scholar, Eric Williams, “Slavery was not born
of racism: rather, racism was the consequence of slavery”. For this process to
run smoothly, Xenophobic and religious bigotry were used to justify the long
and terrible wars for wealth.
Racism
has always benefited the Rich not the poor. The power to discriminate lies not
in the hands of the working class and poor but entirely in the hands of upper
class and their spear, the State. The white 'Red Balloon' working class does
not have the power to discriminate but plays a part in justifying by doing such
foolish things as intimidating certain 'ethnic' group within white dominated
communities such as Orania, South Africa. Racism doesn't benefit any
worker/poor. Although others may not be directly oppressed by racism but they
lose out from racism because it divides the working class. For instance, a
white South African worker in no way benefit from the existence of an impoverished
and oppressed majority of black South African workers who can be used to
undercut wages, and working and living conditions. Racism has always been used
to break the unity and power of the working class, as racist attitudes makes it
very challenging to unite workers against capitalism. The lower class whites
have been used to by the Mine Bosses and Farmers to carry guns and defend
'their farms and cities' but in reality they own nothing except that they have
become full time security guards of Johannesburg Stock Exchange owners.
Today
a call for 'Red Balloons' in defence of whites has left poor white workers
throwing balloons in the sky when Ivan Glassenberg, Glencore International:
CEO, is drinking whiskey with Patrice Motsepe.
It
is becoming clear by day that racism is a product of capitalism and precisely a
tool against the interests of the working class. The question black workers
should ask is: Are black capitalists reliable in the struggle against racism?
An answer is a very big NO! The effects of racism are fundamentally mediated by
class position. Cyril Ramaphosa, Robert Gumede, Patrice Motsepe and other black
bourgeois may still face racism but their wealth and power as capitalists
guards them from worst effects of racism. Private Hospitals, Lawyers, Private
Jets and their Net Worth cannot be ignored. More importantly, their class
interests tie them into supporting the system itself.
Our
argument doesn't deny the possibility of temporary benefits for minorities of
the working class. To maintain their system, capitalists need workers and
therefore will not mind lifting 10 biscuits in front of 2000 hungry people as
long as the lucky 10 will carry the blame over the misery and poverty of the
remaining 1990. This is the case in South Africa where those who work in the bakery
fight over one slice of bread while one man has the whole factory for himself.
The benefits received by white South African workers between 1920s and 1980s
where, of course, not oppression but where also not privileges. It is oppressive
to be subjected to lower wages but it is not a privilege to get a living wage.
The
only reason poor white people support nonsensical and irrational ideas of
racism is informed by the existence of various material forces in a capitalist
society which operate to foster support for the ideas. Capitalists control
media, world-view, education and almost all global campaigns and therefore they
dictate the consciousness of people. The Red Balloons are but one of the direct
translations of the capitalist ideas and hence the statements expressed in
racist terms: 'our farms and cities'. A poor white person owning nothing is
bought a balloon just have that little pride of 'My ethnic group' and sense of
belonging but the price of bread will not change when he goes to the Shoprite
(owned by a white capitalist).
Our position:
- A war against racism is war against capitalism! There is no contradiction between the class struggle and the struggle against racism.
- Genuine white revolutionaries must commit class-suicide and hand their farms and other means of production to workers.
- We condemn any attack against ordinary white workers by blacks, in as much as we condemn the deliberate confusion of black farmers with baboons by White farmers.
- We call for a better housing for all; jobs for all and say No to segregation and Capitalist propaganda.
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