Left+to+themselves,+BDay

Business Day, Johannesburg, 01 August 2005
=Speaking truth to SA’s ‘real’ left=


 * Ebrahim Harvey**

THE South African “left” consists of a variety of positions, perspectives and strategies on both an analysis of our history and the way forward. That there is no homogenous left, in theory and practice, is obvious, but it is important to stress this because of a disturbing trend among the left outside the ruling African National Congress (ANC)-led alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party.

When we criticised the ANC and its allies in the media over the years we were saluted, but whenever we subjected this left to critical scrutiny we were castigated. Leftist discourse outside the ANC alliance, centred on a critique of the damaging and discredited neoliberal socioeconomic policies of the ruling party, is overwhelmingly dominated by an understandable rejection of the ANC and the role played by its allies to maintain it in power. But the growing danger is that such critical discourse appears to revolve solely around critique of the alliance, when there are many serious problems and weaknesses facing the left outside it, which should become the focus.

Some of the issues that divide this left are whether or not to engage the state in local struggles, and how to do so; whether or not to participate in parliamentary and local government elections; whether to transform social movements into a political party; and how we conceptualise the intersection between race and class in our struggles and society more generally.

This left tends to overestimate its gains and underestimate its failings. But, no matter what compromises the ANC has made, it cannot take responsibility for the failings of this left or even for the left in the alliance. The left must take responsibility for itself. Attributing everything negative to the ANC and its allies and nothing to itself has run its course. So has the right of self-appointed custodians of our struggles to simplistically decide who is doing “good work” and “bad work”, in which anything to do with social movements is good, and anything to do with the ANC and its allies is bad.

Though quick to criticise the ANC alliance, the left is slow and reluctant to turn its critical gaze inwards, distrusting and even trying to isolate those of us who have no holy cows before which we uncritically bow. Such is the rigorous essence a vibrant democracy demands.

Besides, self-criticism is an essential and basic tenet of Marxism, which the left appears to embrace.

“Speaking truth to power” must go beyond a critique of the state and capital and include the critics themselves and the very struggle for fundamental social transformation. There are many truths to be spoken and confronted outside of the labour-capital polarity and within social movements.

A disconcerting manifestation is the left’s failure or refusal to acknowledge anything positive that the ANC or its allies may say or do, especially when the hard fact is that the left has failed to provide SA with a radical alternative — before and after 1994.

Rather than compromise its socialist goals, such acknowledgements would enhance its integrity, restore the balance between criticism and acknowledgement, and raise its stature to that of a small but credible alternative in the making. To deny, ignore or belittle significant, progressive positions or policies the ANC or its allies may adopt is hardly the stuff that will strengthen its own struggles and organisation.

The “real” left urgently requires a soul-searching change in attitude, both to the ANC’s allies and itself. If this does not happen, the huge socially transformative potential the left possesses will dissipate — at a critical time in SA’s development.

The best prospect for the left to grow is in building a mass base in the vital areas of everyday life — such as in the provision of water, sanitation, electricity and housing, which, judging from recent mass protests, is the critical intersection between reproduction, consumption and the constitutionally enshrined rights of citizenry. It is these problems, alongside unemployment, that matter most to the black majority and it is in unison with trade unions that the left needs to focus on this key strategic task, and in the process build an alternative political party.

These fundamental problems are untenable and will have to be grappled with if this left is to grow into a powerful force on the political stage.


 * Harvey is an independent political writer, former Cosatu unionist, and now a doctoral candidate in sociology at Wits University.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A75182**