Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life
Greetings from the desk of theTricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
Over the past several weeks, groups of angry people in some of South Africa’s cover samsung core prime marmo poorest areas have been attacking cover samsung galaxy a 7 2018 the smallspaza,or convenience stores, in their own neighbourhoods. iphone 8 plus hoesjes The mood of the attacks has been utterly xenophobic, since the owners or workers at these spaza stores are mainly seen as foreigners. The workers and cover iphone 6s ballerina owners come from as far off as Bangladesh and as close by as Zimbabwe. It took South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa weeks to respond to the violence. ‘There can be no excuse for the attacks on the homes and businesses of foreign nationals, just as there can be no excuse for xenophobia or any other form of intolerance’, he said on 5 September.
Such xenophobic attacks are not new. There is a living memory that traces them back to 1994. But this current cycle began in 2008 when the shock waves of the global credit crisis hit the end of the African continent with significant force. cover custodia case iphone 11 W7032 goku wallpaper 24lS0 A million jobs were lost, and the unemployment rate went above 25% (it is now at 29%). There has been no recovery since that time, with these xenophobic attacks emerging every once in a cover unicorn iphone 5 while, such as last year, as an indicator of the economic and social malaise. To get the full context for this violence, pleasereadSisonke Msimang’s ‘Belonging’ from 2014.
Bhayiza Miya of the Thembelihle Crisis CommitteetoldJan Bornman ofNew Framethat the key factors at play are unemployment, poverty, and political toxicity. Custodia Cover iphone 11 pro max Art Godzilla King Of The Monster Z4858 Case ‘Our brothers and sisters from other countries aren’t responsible for that’, he said of these custodia cover huawei p9 three factors. passer iphone 6 cover til iphone 7 ‘They are living with us in our community’. Bhayiza explained that it is not migrants who have been elected to exercise power over the communities; rather, the fault lies with those who ‘[w]e have voted people into power, those who are stealing from us today. cover samsung galaxy j5 2017 panda So whatever frustration or whatever anger we want to vent, we vent it to cover samsung galaxy tab a 10.1 them because they are the ones holding whatever we want’. Bhayiza’s comments go against the tidal wave of racism, a replication of older racism as the University of Cape Town student Ivan Katserewrites’which has been made possible by the inability to dismantle the structure that was created during apartheid’. Harsh police raids in early August against traders in counterfeit goods many of them vulnerable migrants sets thetonefor the xenophobic attacks. cover iphone 11 mine The murder of a taxi driver in South Africa’s capital Pretoria led toaccusationsagainst drug dealers, who were once more characterised as foreign nationals.
The xenophobic violence comes as part of a chain of violence, and protests against the violence. Every three hours (according to South cover dragon ball iphone 6 African police numbers), a woman is killed in South Africa. Recently, a student from the University of Cape Town Uyinene Mrwetyana was raped and murdered. From students tomine workers, women took to the streets to protest the violence against them. It is no surprise that in the midst of all this churning, it is women such as Celeste Cameron and Nathalie van Rooyen that form groups to protect the spaza shops. We aregatvolfed upsaidCameron. The idea of ‘enough is enough’ resonates against the xenophobic violence and the patriarchal violence.
In his last State of the Union Address, President Ramaphosa accepted that South Africa needs ‘radical economic transformation’. But there is none on the horizon. His Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni, who was once a Labour Minister, has drifted into the world of IMFundamentalism. Statements of ‘fiscal custodia cover samsung s6 edge plus prudence’ do not offer any hope of ‘radical transformation’. This is classic IMF stuff budgets that shield the wealthy from taxation and that carve away social welfare cover iphone 6 jack daniels projects for the poor. As Michael Nassen Smith of the Institute for African Alternativesputs it, ‘we will enter into a depressing annual cyclical loop: the economy slows, the fiscal belt tightens, the economy slows further, and the belt tightens, and so on, with the poor and the vulnerable shouldering the costs’. fundas iphone 11 In other words, the costs are shouldered by one part of the vulnerable who get poorer and poorer, and then angrily turn on another part of the vulnerable, namely the spaza shop workers.
Bhayiza Miya’s comment about theft is appropriate here. AReport of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa(2018)foundthat at a minimum $50 billion left the continent per year. This included trade mis pricing and base erosion, false invoicing, and hawala transactions. fundas huawei p30 The panel, chaired by South Africa’s former President Thabo Mbeki, said that the actual amount lost is ‘likely to exceed $50 billion by a significant amount’. A large part of this money leaks out from South Africa. Both this kind of fraud and the quotidian extraction of surplus value from workers produce the harsh inequality in South Africa. Fingers are not pointed in that direction. They are misdirected towards vulnerable spaza shop workers. It is these shops that are burnt down, while the quiet theft of capitalism proceeds unchallenged.
A hundred years ago, workers across South Africa joined together to form the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU). Soon, tens of thousands of workers flocked to the ICU for its militancy and its steadiness. Custodia Cover iphone 11 pro max the trio harry potter L0552a Case The workers appreciated the internationalism of the union, which spread outside the boundaries of South custodia cover samsung j5 Africa into neighbouring African catalyst cover iphone states. cover custodia case iphone 11 B8351 wallpaper avengers endgame 72qB6 J. fundas huawei y5 2018 T. Gumede visited the USSR and was taken as we write in our latestdossier’with the Soviet custodia cover iphone xr attempt to transcend ethnic nationalism’. The revolutionary motion of the ICU is not to turn the strife in the country into race war. ‘Today the amazon cover iphone 5c disney Black man and the poor White man are oppressed’, Gumede told an ICU gathering in Durban. ‘The money goes to the Capitalists. Work together for the National Independence of this country’.
The title of our Dossier no. 20 isWhen You Ill Treat the African People, I See You: A Brief History of South Africa’s Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (1919 1931). The first part of the title comes from an interview given by ICU leader Jason Jingoes in 1927. He takes the initials of the union ICU and gives it a fuller meaning if the workers are not paid, then I see you (ICU); if the workers are mistreated in public spaces, then I see you.
The second part of the title indicates the importance of histories of workers and their organisations. These histories have been largely erased or neutered, forgotten completely or treated as a benign part of the past. There is little comprehension of how the fights of these workers produced a historical dynamic that led to the end of apartheid in South Africa, and how they produced traditions of dignity that last till this day. It is these cover iphone 7 plus gocase organisations such as the ICU that fought hard to create a socialist consciousness against the cheap trap of ethnic nationalism. There would be no victory for the South African people against apartheid if not for their hard struggle which includes the struggle of ethnic minorities and of the neighbouring states which provided the South African fighters with bases and logistical support. To now reduce the imagination in South Africa to xenophobia is a tragedy against history.
South Africa’s anti apartheid movement was profoundly shaped by its working class and its trade unions. Amongst the many hundreds of thousands of workers and unionists is Emma Mashinini, whose autobiography gives us the title of this newsletter. coque iphone xr At fourteen, Emma cover samsung galaxy tab2 went to work at a garment factory, where she quickly become a union organiser. She was in the leadership of the National Union of Clothing Workers and of the South African Commercial, Catering, and Allied Workers. When she realised that her garment factory was making police uniforms ‘for the slaughter of my people, I felt horrified’. fundas samsung galaxy s4 Union organising, she argued, had to be cover samsung galaxy j3-6 broadly political. Emma was in the tradition of the ICU, a political union with a broad horizon for social transformation.
Last week, IinterviewedElizabeth Gmez Alcorta, the lawyer of Milagro Sala. Sala, an indigenous Argentinian woman, was arrested in 2013, spent time in prison under pre trial detention, and is now under house arrest. She is the leader of the Tpac Amaru Neighbourhood Association and is a major political figure in Argentina’s left. Gmez Alcorta told me that, ever since Sala’s arrest, there has been no real militant activity from her association. The chilling power of State repression should not be underestimated. It is what Emma worried about, and it is what Sala experiences. The attack on the indigenous whether the Mapuche in Patagonia or Sala in Jujuy Gmez Alcorta said, is a ‘war against those who do not exist’.
Gmez Alcorta says that Sala remains an emblem of struggle for four reasons. First, she has been moved from pre trial detention in the prison to her home. Second, she remains alive not an inconsequential cover custodia iphone 1 matter when you consider the assassinations of so many militants (from Santiago Maldonado to Rafael Nahuel). Third, the government went after the Tpac Amaru association and its members, destroying eight thousand houses, three schools, and a health centre. custodia cover iphone This level of repression has not dented the feeling amongst the community in Jujuy that Sala is their leader. cover samsung s9 plus fiori Fourth, the case has not disappeared. Posters and drawings of Sala can be seen across Argentina. fundas iphone 11 pro cover samsung s8 samsung Free Milagro (Liberen a Milagro) say the signs.
‘The story of Milagro Sala is not finished’, says Gmez Alcorta. When she is released, Milagro Sala will emerge once more as the leader of her region and now because of the case as a symbol of the fight against the old order. It would be a tremendous thing if Milagro Sala an indigenous woman could ascend from her prison to the heights of Argentina’s political world.
Strikes have followed Sala all her life, as they followed Emma Mashinini. These are militants who understand that social divisions favour the wealthy, while social unity favours the poor. fundas iphone xs max Those fires in the South Africanspazasmirror the attacks on the houses, schools, and health centres in Milagro Sala’s Jujuy province. Tears are not enough to put these fires out.
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