Against Racial Capitalism by Neville Alexander

Author:Neville Alexander
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pluto Press

RETROSPECT

Today, 23 years after the event, with all the advantages of hindsight and of the volumes of analysis that have tried to explain the geopolitical shifts that took place in the period 1985–1989, it is easy to understand why the NF and its brave attempt at placing an overtly socialist alternative on the political agenda of the South African revolution had to fail. That is not the subject of this chapter. It is relevant, however, to conclude by referring to the contemporary analysis of the Manifesto and of the NF that I made at the second NF during the Easter weekend of 1984. In retrospect, the following judgement seems to have been as accurate as it was possible to be at the time:

The [National Party (NA)] government’s New Deal strategy, which embraces at the same time the Koornhof Acts and the relocation of the African people in Bantustan concentration camps, threatened to unleash a flood of working-class militancy and action. Since 1980, almost every significant mass action in South Africa has carried the imprint of the Black working class. Socialist solutions to the system of racial capitalism were becoming common coinage among the youth and in workers’ organisations. This development was and is feared by the petite bourgeoisie and by the liberal bourgeoisie.

Liberals of all colours and shapes thus tried to ensure that the mass movement against the New Deal would not be placed under the leadership of the working class. The instrument they chose for this purpose is the so-called United Democratic Front…[Despite] the fond illusions of some self-proclaimed leftists in the UDF, the reins of that bandwagon are firmly in the hands of middle-class leaders whose vision and practices do not extend beyond opposition to the superficial symptoms of apartheid. Men have been built up through the newspapers and by other means who can now steer the bandwagon almost in any direction they choose …13

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