A-Infos (en) South-Africa, Xenophobia, Solidarity and the Struggle for Zimbabwe by Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation

This was a speech made by a ZACF member at the "Freedom in our Lifetime" 
resistance festival in Newtown, Johannesburg, 10 December.
> How to fight for freedom in Zimbabwe? How to avoid another Mugabe 
coming into power? How to fight poverty, inequality, unemployment? How 
to create equality and decent lives for all? These are the burning 
questions we must face.
There are two main issues we have been asked to talk about today: 
xenophobia and solidarity. Let’s look at each of these, and then explore 
them, and look for answers to the burning questions.


     Xenophobia

Around the world, millions of people are moving between countries. Some 
move to find jobs and a better life. Some flee repressive, murderous 
regimes. And some just want to see more of the world: nothing wrong with 
that.
What is a problem is that the States, the governments, of the host 
countries, seek to divide the immigrants from the local working class 
and peasants. Let me be more precise. Rich immigrants are left alone. 
Their money brings them access to the charmed circles of the wealthy and 
powerful elites. The ruling class of one country recognises its fellows 
from other countries.

The elite knows the elite, and they know that they have something in 
common: their wealth, their power, are based on keeping the mass of the 
people – the working class, the peasants and the poor – in their 
“place.” And what place is that? Working for masters, earning low 
incomes, being told what to do: suffering through domination and 
exploitation from above.

But the situation is different for working class and peasant immigrants. 
The ruling elites – using the States and governments, which are their 
property, their tools – promote xenophobia. They promote hatred by local 
working class and peasant people towards the immigrants. The immigrants 
are blamed for unemployment, for crime, for everything imaginable.

The South African ruling class – which is generally happy to join its 
elite brothers and sisters from abroad – want the masses to believe that 
all their problems are caused by the immigrants – people who face 
exactly the same problems as the local working class and peasantry, like 
unemployment, exploitation, domination and crime. In short, the ruling 
classes everywhere tries to teach the masses to hate people – and blame 
people, and scapegoat people – who are exactly the same as them, their 
brothers and sisters, people with whom they should unite to fight the 
ruling classes, the ruling classes of every country.

Take South Africa. Not a day goes by when the press does not claim that 
Nigerians and Zimbabweans peddle drugs and steal. Police reports list 
their successes: capturing hijackers, rapist and murderers – and illegal 
immigrants. And if you have refugee status, or a work permit, and you 
left it at home, too bad: you’ll spend the next few weeks at prisons 
like Lindela.

To be an immigrant becomes a criminal offence. The ruling classes tell 
the local working class and peasantry that it shares more in common with 
its own exploiters and oppressors than with working class and peasant 
people who happened to be born somewhere else. Can anything be more 
ridiculous? The ruling classes welcomes foreigners with money – and 
labels foreigners without money as criminals, and tells local people 
without money to chase and oppress them.

And why do they do this? The immigrants become the scapegoat for the 
very problems of unemployment and poverty the ruling class has created. 
The immigrants are divided from the local masses, forced to live in the 
shadows, unprotected by unions, lacking human rights.

This is exactly the situation here in South Africa, where we are told to 
be “Proudly South African,” blame everything on immigrants, and cheer 
our local ruling class for persecuting the immigrants – all the while we 
are supposed to forget what that ruling class – which is now brown, 
black and white – does to the masses everyday. 1 million jobs have been 
lost in 10 years, new jobs are mostly casual jobs, old jobs are 
increasingly unprotected, industrial accidents soar, 500,000 people are 
evicted off the farms, 10 million people have electricity cut-off – all 
by the local ruling class – and yet we are supposed to think poor 
immigrants are to blame! It is a disgrace, and an insult to our 
intelligence.

And here we come to the second big reason for xenophobia: the conditions 
of the immigrants make them into cheap labour, which benefits the local 
ruling class. Then the immigrants get blamed for being cheap labour, and 
accused of stealing jobs! The working class is divided between national 
and foreigner, and unable to fight back against the elite, which 
orchestrates the whole situation. Immigrants do become cheap labour, but 
this is the result of the actions of the local elite, and believe you 
me, the ruling class benefits.

There is one final issue: nationalism. Nationalism is the ideology that 
all people born in one country – regardless of class – have something in 
common, and share a government that represents their will. This is a 
powerful weapon in the hands of the ruling class. On the one hand, it 
hides the class divisions in society, and presents the local exploiters 
and oppressors as friends of the people; their crimes against the 
working class and peasantry are hidden. On the other hand, it confuses 
people: the State and government appear as defenders of the masses, when 
the opposite is true, for these institutions are always – always – 
controlled by the ruling class.

The ruling class promotes nationalism to divide the masses, and their 
struggles, and to label popular movements as foreign-controlled. There 
are two more problems with nationalism.

First, elites use this to hijack power. We are for national liberation, 
but we know the elites try to infiltrate national liberation struggles 
to take them over, and to take State power. They then replace the old 
oppressors with new oppressors, and create new forms of national 
oppression, against other nationalities.

You have an example before your very eyes. The South African working 
class fought apartheid, but the black elite, through the ANC, hijacked 
the struggle, and took State power, which they now use to create a black 
capitalist class. This is called “Black Economic Empowerment”: the 
proper term is black elite enrichment. And this so-called empowerment 
goes hand in hand with neoliberal policies – privatising, casualising, 
union-busting, cutting spending on hospitals and schools – which hits 
the African working class hardest. It is a black empowerment for a 
minority of blacks, who now join the old white ruling class in 
oppressing all South African workers: Africans, Coloureds, Indians and 
whites.

But there is another example: Robert Mugabe. Using negotiations and the 
ZANU structures, Mugabe got into power. From 1980-1982 there was a big 
strike wave in Zimbabwe. It was the biggest strike wave since the 
strikes of 1948, and organised from below. Mugabe condemned the strikes 
as “quite inexcusable” and "nothing short of criminal", the army and 
police moved in to arrest militants, protect strike-breakers and 
installations, enabling dismissals of militants. Kumbirai Kangai, the 
new Labour Minister, insisted that workers make use of the "established 
procedures" and threatened: “I will crack my whip if they do not get 
back to work” Then Mugabe placed the unions under government control: 
the new head of the unions was his nephew, Alfred Mugabe. His crimes 
continued after that every year: the Matabeleland massacre, the arrests 
of dissident unionists, the repression of the 1990s, and finally, the 
Green Bombers and the attacks on May Day rallies.

Secondly, nationalism is used in struggles among the elite. Above we 
said that the ruling class tends to practice international solidarity 
amongst itself. This is true, in general, but we must add that the 
ruling class is also divided internally. The interests of the elite are 
basically unified in support of the class system. But divisions also arise.

The ruling classes of very powerful countries often try to dominate the 
ruling classes of weaker countries. Let us think of Iraq. In the 1980s, 
the American ruling class was very pleased indeed with the dictator, 
Saddam Hussein: they armed him with weapons, training and money, because 
they wished him to fight against regimes like that of Iran. The 
American, Iraqi and Iranian ruling classes were all agreed on one thing: 
keeping a class system in place, and keep the working class peasantry in 
their “place.”

But the American ruling class felt the Iranian regime would destabilise 
the Middle East. They did not care the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini 
had come to power through crushing the Iranian revolution of 1979-1981, 
or that it viciously oppressed workers, trade unions, women and national 
and religious minorities. They did care that it wanted to expand its own 
capitalism at the expense of American interests, and that other Arab 
ruling classes might do the same. So they backed Hussein, another 
butcher of the masses, a man who used nerve gas against the Kurdish 
minority, tortured trade unionists, repressed free speech.

In 1991, though, Hussein felt strong enough to make himself a little 
empire of his own, starting with invading Kuwait to grab its oil fields. 
Then the American ruling class got angry, invaded in 1991 and again a 
few years back, finally giving Hussein the death penalty. And here is 
where nationalism comes in: the American ruling class promoted American 
nationalism to strengthen its campaign, and mislead the American workers 
(who after all, gain nothing but more taxes, higher petrol prices, less 
democracy and death in the army from this clash between ruling classes). 
Iraq promoted variants of Arab nationalism, and spoke of freedom while 
he crushed uprisings in his country during the two Gulf Wars, and did 
his best to stay in power.

To go back to Zimbabwe, we have the same thing. There was a 
long-standing split between the African sector of the ruling class, 
based mostly in the State machinery and organised through ZANU, and the 
old white capitalist farmers. In the 1990s, three factors made this 
division deepen to the point of crisis. A section of the African elite 
began to promote a strident “indigenisation” programme, aiming to use 
the State to transfer white wealth to elite Africans. The economy went 
into a crisis with Structural Adjustment, and the State started to go 
bankrupt, and saw the farms as a resource that could be used to reward 
loyal ZANU followers. And the mass democratic movement grew into a 
powerful force. In this context, Mugabe and ZANU moved against the White 
farmers, promoting the crudest racism against Whites, while cracking 
down heavily on the democratic movement. The land could be used to 
reward his cronies; the racism could be used to discredit groups like 
the MDC.


     Solidarity

What does this mean? First, we need to recognise that we live in a class 
system. There is the ruling class – generals, politicians, directors of 
State departments and State companies, the big capitalists – on the one 
side. There are the masses on the other: the working class (by which we 
mean those who work for wages and lack control of their lives, including 
the unemployed) and peasants (small family farmers who work for 
themselves).

Between the ruling class and the lower classes, there is nothing in 
common: the ruling class exploits the masses, enriching itself at their 
expense; the ruling class dominates the lower classes, telling them 
where to live, what to do, even what to think, who to hate and who to 
persecute. The ruling class, on the one hand, and the lower classes, the 
working class, peasantry, the poor, on the other hand, are locked in 
struggle. Everything the ruling class has comes from the lower classes: 
a higher wage means less profit for the elite; insubordination means 
less power for that elite.

The only way out of this situation is to unite the working class and 
peasantry to fight back, whether through unions or through community 
struggles or through movements in the schools and army. Only a mass 
movement from below can start to change the situation, fighting for 
better living conditions, higher wages, lower rents, lower charges, more 
rights, more freedom, more space to live our lives as people, as human 
beings.

And only such a movement can start to make fundamental changes in 
society: not just improving our lives in the here and now, but 
challenging the whole inequitable class system. Only through a mass 
movement from below can the masses start to build organs of 
counter-power that can defeat the instruments of the ruling class – the 
State, the companies – and create a new society, based on equality and 
freedom. Such a society we call libertarian socialism, or anarchism: a 
society based on distribution by need, grassroots control 
(self-management) of the community and the workplace, with an economy 
planned from below to meet human needs rather than satisfy the lust for 
wealth and power. It would be a universal human community, not a world 
divided into different States, with endless war and oppression.

And when we say a mass movement from below of the working class and 
peasants, we do not mean a movement in one country only, or of one 
nationality, or of one race, or of one gender. We mean a movement that 
refuses to recognise the divisions imposed from above by the ruling 
class, a movement that opposes all States, a movement that really stands 
for the principle “Workers of the World – Unite!”

So, we are for class struggle, not for race struggle. We are for the 
masses everywhere, whether African, Asian, or white, whether black, 
yellow or brown, whether South African, Zimbabwe, Brazilian, Yemenese, 
Russian or British. We do not hate a man because he is Chinese, or 
Indian, or Zulu, or Afrikaner, or Arab or a Jew. We fight the ruling 
class because it is a ruling class, because it exploits and oppresses, 
not because of what it looks like- and we know the ruling class is also 
international and drawn from all peoples. There are European politicians 
and capitalists, as there are also American politicians and capitalists, 
also Arab politicians and capitalists, also African politicians and 
capitalists.

We stand for a movement of the masses of all countries, against the 
elites of all countries. And nationalism is poison to such a struggle, 
an international class struggle. Let’s take two examples. One is 
xenophobia: dividing working classes and peasantries between locals and 
foreigners, which often also means pitting ordinary people against each 
other because of their culture, or their race, or even their religion.

Another is racial hatred: you have seen how Robert Mugabe used the issue 
of white land ownership in Zimbabwe to label the democratic movement as 
the tool of the British, and to hide his own crimes. Above we said So 
Mugabe said the MDC was the tool of Tony Blair, and that anyone who 
opposed him wanted Ian Smith back! What nonsense. The people were 
struggling for justice, in their own interests.


     Conclusion

To sum up this talk on xenophobia and solidarity, we suggest the following:

We live in a class system – we must wage a class struggle
The working class and peasantry of all countries have common interests 
in fighting the ruling class: we are for international solidarity:
We are against xenophobia and nationalism, and we are for the principle, 
“Workers of the World – Unite!”
There must be a mass movement from below to fight immediate struggles 
and move towards creating a new type of society by building institutions 
of counter-power through the daily struggle. Therefore, we say, 
“Tomorrow is Built Today.”
Such a mass movement must be driven by struggles on the ground, and 
through the self-activity and grassroots democratic movements of the 
masses: “Only the Workers can Free the Workers.”

Now, in terms of the Zimbabwe struggle, we suggest:

There must be support from the South African working class for the 
struggles in Zimbabwe and other countries suffering from terrible 
regimes. COSATU has taken this position: what is needed is action, not 
just words.
What is also needed is to challenge xenophobia and divisions between the 
South African masses and the ordinary Zimbabwean people in exile in 
South Africa.
The key task in Zimbabwe is to overthrow Mugabe. This can only be done 
through struggle from below: through general strikes, struggles around 
food and housing, struggles against evictions, against cut-offs, against 
retrenchments.
Even an MDC government would be better than Mugabe’s regime: there must 
be no illusions that ZANU-PF can become a better, nicer, kinder party. 
We can work with any forces opposed to Mugabe, so long as we do not 
compromise our principles, or sacrifice our objectives.
Even so, we must be revolutionary watchdogs against the emergence of new 
elites in these struggles, elites that aim only to replace Mugabe’s 
regime, with their own. As Mugabe’s regime shows, the new bosses are as 
bad as the old bosses: the forms of oppression have changed, but the old 
evils – inequality, oppression, and suffering – remain.
So, the key tasks are to fight neoliberalism and dictatorship – but this 
is not enough. There must be a struggle for a new world: a world of 
solidarity, equality, grassroots democracy, a world freed of capitalism 
There are those who say there is no alternative to globalisation and 
neoliberalism: we say a “New World is Possible.” There are those who say 
the choice is between Mugabe and Blair: we say we don’t want either of 
them. The masses deserve better than an endless parade of tyrants. The 
African masses, like the masses elsewhere, want a better world, and they 
deserve it.
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