A-Infos (en) anarkismo.net: Interview with ZACF by Sosyal Savas (Social Struggle) Magazine, Turkey/Kurdistan by Sosyal Savas & Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front - ZACF (tr)

Dear comrades, glad to meet and to create a transcontinental communication and solidarity 
with you. We are an anarchist magazine/website from Turkey/Kurdistan. We can not say that 
we label ourselves anarcho-communists but mostly we agree in principles of solidarity, 
mutual aid, organized struggle and a world without bosses, states, ruling classes etc. the 
most important thing is for us to be in solidarity with all anarchists, libertarians and 
social movements which seek to destroy capitalism, states and dominations of all kinds. 
Only way to achieve success in class war against capitalism and its all apparatus, is to 
organize, to stay in touch/contact and to stay strong against it together.
There are lots of documents about ZACF but mostly English. We have very few sources in 
turkish. So that we feel to inform anarchists and libertarians who are reading and 
speaking turkish about your long term struggle in South Africa. So that we have some 
questions which our comrades may wonder about you? Here are questions:

As far as we could follow, the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation is more focused on 
working class organizations such as trade unions and cooperatives. In that sense, is the 
ZACF a movement based on class war? What are the differing points from the Marxist class 
struggle ideas? Are there any trade unionist organizations within the body of the ZACF? If 
there are, how are they working?

Zabalaza: It is correct to say that the ZACF, or Zabalaza (meaning "struggle" in the Xhosa 
and Zulu languages), is focused on working class organisation(s) and class war, or what we 
call the class struggle.

However, we understand the "working class" in a broad sense, which includes peasants, 
rural and urban workers; permanent, precarious (e.g. temporary, "casual" and outsourced) 
and informal workers; blue and white collar workers; the unemployed and the families of 
all of the above. When we talk about working class organisation we mean when any of these 
sections of the working class organise themselves to fight against oppression and 
exploitation, in defence of their rights and interests and for improvements in their 
conditions and for more freedom and control over their lives.

So, by "working class" we do not just mean factory workers. We mean the oppressed and 
exploited majority of society.

Our aim is that, through daily struggles and organisation, the working class develops the 
necessary class consciousness and capacity for self-management and struggle to build a 
revolutionary working class counter-power that, through struggle, seeks to accumulate the 
social force necessary to overthrow capitalism and the state and replace it with a 
self-managed, federalist and classless society: anarchist communism.

We support - in principle - any social movements and forms of struggle that promote and 
defend the rights and interests of the broad working class - including trade unions and 
other workers' organisations (for example workers' cooperatives) - but also organisations 
of the unemployed, informal workers, working class residents' and community organisations, 
student organisations and other progressive social movements and struggles such as 
feminist and LGBTI, environmental, anti-xenophobia etc.

The struggle of the working class is the struggle against all forms of oppression: we 
definitely do not see the issues of the working class as simply the issues of exploitation 
by bosses and the state. It is in the interest of the working class to fight for as many 
rights as possible, to resist as much oppression as possible, and to play the leading role 
in the fight against all oppression. Otherwise those fights will just be hijacked by new 
elites: as we have seen, for example, decolonisation often leads to the rise of new 
postcolonial ruling classes, not real freedom for the majority.

To unite the working class, it is essential to fight against all divisions in the class. 
And this includes fighting against the special (or extra) oppression faced by those in the 
class who are also subject to racism, or national oppression, or oppression as women. It 
is also a policy of principled solidarity and unity, based on a relentless battle against 
all oppression. But at the same time, only the working class revolution can lay the basis 
for a society free of all forms of oppression, by tearing up the structures - notably 
capitalism and the state - that help generate and reproduce oppression, and by generating 
a new social order that can remove the historical legacies of oppression. And the working 
class revolution can never happen if it does not unite as many as possible, against 
oppression, domination and exploitation. So we see feminist issues, for example, as 
working class issues.

We believe that it is crucial for as many workers as possible to be organised and united 
into organisations to defend their interests as workers; that is into trade unions and 
workers' organisations (and these organisations should also take up the struggle against 
sexism, racism etc. as part of the class struggle). For us unions have a double purpose 
both to defend workers' rights and fight for their immediate interests under capitalist 
society, and through this daily struggle, to build experience and confidence and develop 
the class consciousness, organisational capacity and social force necessary to take over 
the means of production and place them under worker control and self-management through a 
revolutionary general strike. However, unlike many Marxists, we do not only see the 
traditional industrial worker as the revolutionary subject - as vital to the revolution as 
they are - but believe worker organisation should be generalised across all sectors and 
industries and include and attempt to organise and unite all categories of workers.

No. There are no trade union organisations within the body of the ZACF. The ZACF is a 
small political organisation of "active minority", meaning an organisation of committed 
and convinced anarchists that work together to promote anarchist ideas and practices 
amongst popular movements and organisations of the working class - such as trade unions, 
township-based community organisations and progressive social movements - by working 
within and supporting them, developing analysis and disseminating propaganda, carrying out 
anarchist political education and waging the "battle of ideas" (i.e. fighting for 
anarchism to become the "leading idea" among working class organisations and struggles). 
We call our approach "Platformist," or "especifista," (the Latin American concept of 
anarchist organisation developed by the Federación Anarquista Uruguaya-FAU) but this basic 
idea - the need for a well organised anarchist formation, with clear ideas and shared 
strategy and collective responsibility - obviously goes back to the activity of Bakunin's 
"Alliance" in the 1860s and 1870s.

We do not aim to establish new purely anarchist/anarcho-syndicalist unions from scratch, 
but rather to influence existing unions and worker organisations and initiatives in a 
revolutionary direction by trying to win workers to anarchist ideas. The strength of a 
union lies in the number of its members - and their level of class consciousness and 
willingness to struggle - and unions should thus be open to all workers, regardless of 
their ideology and political affiliation. Instead of workers being divided ideologically 
into an anarchist union, a Marxist union and a social democratic union, for example, 
workers should be united into one union with all members and progressive/left political 
currents free to propagate and argue for their ideological positions and ideas, strategies 
and tactics etc. within the union; and for the members themselves to decide collectively 
on the course to be taken after analysing and discussing the different proposals. Forming 
new, pure, anarchist trade unions ends up isolating the revolutionaries: the broad masses 
do not join, because the union is too small and too pure, and the reformist and 
bureaucratic leaders of most existing unions, as well as the political parties that use 
union members as cash cows and voting cattle will be only too happy to see the 
revolutionaries giving up the fight. Because, let us be clear, we would want to 
"bore-from-within" the existing unions, and fight the battle of ideas there!

This is another difference with traditional Marxist ideas, as many Marxist political 
organisations and parties aim either to establish their own trade unions, associated with 
their party, or win or capture the leadership of existing unions, and use their influence 
to win "mass" support from the workers for the Marxist party. As Marxist parties generally 
also seek to capture state power trade unions are often used either to get votes for the 
Marxist party and install it in government by parliamentary means or, in revolutionary 
situations, to help put the party in power by force (e.g. insurrectionary general strike).

Rather than using trade unions to help put the party into state power, however, the 
anarchist political organisation sees trade unions as tools to overthrow capitalism and 
the state and put social and economic life under worker self-management and community 
control - instead of under the control of a Marxist or any other so-called workers' or 
socialist government or party.

Similarly, instead of trying to put socialists into power in order to implement laws and 
reforms that would favour workers, we believe that meaningful victories for workers and 
improvements in their conditions can only be successfully won and defended through 
combative and direct struggle; outside and against the state.

How do organization processes and decision-making work? What do you think about the 
horizontal (web type) organization and decision-making models?

Zabalaza: In terms of decision-making Zabalaza operates according to the principles of 
direct democracy and collective responsibility. We have monthly meetings where our 
activities are assessed, proposals are made and discussed and tactical and day-to-day 
decisions about our work and focus are made. These meetings are open to all our members 
(although unfortunately our members outside Gauteng can't usually attend) and all members 
have a right to make proposals, express their opinions and agreements and disagreements. 
Where possible we seek consensus but when this is not possible decisions are taken by 
majority vote, majority being 50% +1 of the members.

Members who cannot participate in meetings can add items to the agenda, make submissions 
to the meetings and cast a proxy vote via our email list. Meeting are also minuted and 
minutes circulated to all members so that everyone is aware of any decisions made, 
discussions and disagreements had as well as any tasks they might have been asked to carry 
out or mandates they might have been given.

The ZACF has two categories of membership: (full) members and supporters.

Supporters are people who are either in the process of joining the organisation and 
becoming full members; people that can not - or do not want to - commit to the 
responsibilities and requirements of full membership; or former members who have taken a 
leave of absence or temporarily reduced their activity and responsibility in the 
organisation for external reasons (e.g. personal, academic, professional). Both full 
members and supporters have a right to voice and to vote on administrative and tactical 
decisions within the organisation, made at monthly ZACF general meetings. However, when 
organisation-wide tactical decisions and decisions about the daily functioning of the 
organisation need to be made quickly, before the next general meetings is scheduled to 
take place, we can either: a) Attempt to poll the full membership telephonically, by SMS 
or WhatsApp. b) If time does not permit us to poll the whole membership we can try poll 
full members only and, if necessary, c) the elected ZACF Office Bearers (International 
Secretary, Regional Secretary and Treasurer) are empowered by the Congress that elects 
them to make executive decisions on tactical and administrative matters when urgency 
prevents them from polling other members or waiting for the next meeting.

When making decisions the ZACF seeks consensus between all its members and supporters. 
However, although supporters have a right to freely voice their opinions in discussions 
about the strategic direction of the organisation - as adopted at (usually) annual ZACF 
Congresses - only full members can vote on long-term strategic decisions if it comes down 
to a vote. That is to say that, although supporters can influence the decision through 
debate, only full members can formally change the strategic direction of the organisation 
or amend the https://zabalaza.net/organise/constitution-of-the-zacf/.

The ZACF Constitution - the founding document of the organisation, together with its 13 a 
https://zabalaza.net/organise/theoretical-positions-of-the-zacf/ - allows for minority 
faction rights within the organisation. This means that members (including supporters) who 
disagree with the decisions made by the majority of the organisation have a right to have 
their positions recorded, distributed and debated internally; and they can try to persuade 
the rest of the organisation of their position through caucusing, internal discussions etc.

However, all members are expected to represent, defend and work to implement majority 
positions and decisions publicly.

People know before they join the organisation that sometimes they might lose a debate and 
be part of a minority that disagrees with a majority decision, and that they will be 
expected to implement and defend that decision anyway. This is because the ZACF subscribes 
to the principle of collective responsibility, which means that each and every member is 
responsible for defending and implementing the political practice of the organisation as a 
whole and takes responsibility for the decisions made. Similarly, the organisation as a 
whole takes responsibility for the actions and conduct of each of its members.

Potential members are made to know this in advance, before joining the organisation, and 
they can decide not to join if they disagree. Similarly, because of the principle of 
freedom of association, any member who disagrees with a majority decision and does not 
want to defend it publicly or implement it is free to leave the organisation at any time 
if they feel so strongly about the disagreement. Potential members are invited to join the 
organisation - if the entire membership agrees to this (the only instance of consensus 
decision-making in the ZACF) - based on the person's commitment, understanding of 
anarchist ideas, agreement with the aims and objectives of the ZACF and its strategy and 
tactics etc.; but people join at their own discretion and can leave at any time if they 
want to. As long as they are members, however, they agree to abide by the Constitution of 
the ZACF and to uphold and promote its aims and ideas and contribute to its political 
practice.

In terms of the above Zabalaza supports horizontal organisation, what we call 
"federalism", and directly democratic methods of decision-making where everyone affected 
by a decision has a say - which means everyone in the organisation because of the 
collective responsibility described above.

However, although Zabalaza tries to reach consensus in all our decision-making we reject 
consensus as a principle because we believe that, contrary to what a lot of people in 
activist circles think, consensus decision-making can actually be very authoritarian and 
undemocratic. For example, if you have ten people in a group and all but one of them agree 
on a particular decision, nine people would have to change their position and try and find 
a compromise in order to accommodate the one person that disagrees. In this way the one 
person who disagrees exercises disproportionate power over the other nine who agree, and 
can "hold them to ransom" and force them to change or compromise their position in order 
to reach consensus. Thus, for us, consensus is desirable, where possible, but not a 
principle. Rather, we try to reach a natural consensus by developing ideological, 
strategic and tactical unity and theoretical understanding within the organisation - 
through ongoing internal political education, theoretical development and organisational 
training - so that, when it comes to making decisions, all (or almost all) members would 
generally be in agreement naturally, because they have a shared understanding of the 
theoretical, strategic and tactical justifications behind a particular proposal or decision.

Can you tell us, by starting with the movement against the evictions and privatization 
during 2000s, about your demands and experiences? How do you evaluate the squatting 
movement against the displacement policies and practices such as privatization and evictions?

Zabalaza: In the early 2000s, there was a wave of struggles against the implementation and 
effects of neoliberal policies by the African National Congress (ANC)-led government and a 
mushrooming of largely township-based community organisations fighting the associated 
privatisation and commercialisation of public services, evictions, electricity and water 
cut-offs etc. The ANC, the party of Nelson Mandela, emerged as the main force in the 
anti-apartheid struggle by the 1990s, but once in office, embraced neo-liberalism.

These struggles led to the formation of what were called the "new social movements" - the 
first real expression of new forms of organised working class resistance since the end of 
apartheid - such as the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), Anti-Eviction Campaign and 
Landless People's Movement (LPM). These mostly emerged from 2000 onwards.

Of course, the older working class formations - notably the big unions in the ANC-allied 
Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and the South African Communist Party 
(SACP), also allied to the ANC - remained very important. But their alliance with the ANC 
crippled their politics, and increasingly corrupted their leaders. The formations like APF 
were distinctive in being explicitly critical of the ANC, and proposing a left-wing 
alternative. Sometimes that alternative was not clear. But it was clear that sectors of 
the working class - especially the unemployed, and the pensioners - were willing to break 
publicly with ANC. That was an amazing achievement at the time.

The ZACF was primarily involved with the Gauteng-based APF and, later, with the LPM in the 
Protea South informal settlement in Soweto.The APF - formed in mid-2000 - had a wide range 
of demands centred around the effects of, and struggle against, the ANC's neoliberal 
economic policies and the commercialisation and privatisation of public enterprises and 
services, such as electricity and water provision. This involved direct action campaigns 
to have debt scrapped by "guerrilla electricians" illegally reconnecting thousands of 
household's water and electricity after it was cut-off for non-payment, bypassing and 
resisting the installation of prepaid meters, uprooting meters in protest against 
privatisation of basic services and legalistic means like taking the state and private 
water company to the Constitutional Court for preventing people from accessing their 
constitutional right to water.

Amongst other things (anti-war, anti-xenophobia, strike solidarity etc. activities) 
community organisations affiliated to the APF were also involved in community struggles 
and protests for improved service delivery and development, against evictions, police 
brutality and corrupt or unaccountable officials etc.

The APF developed significant influence and social force and was able to win a number of 
concessions and victories. However, it also had some key weaknesses: the APF relied on 
foreign donors and local NGOs for its funding, and when the main funder decided not to 
renew its 3-year funding cycle the APF was unable to find other ways of generating the 
resources necessary to sustain the organisation and its activities, contributing to its 
decline. Coupled to this, the APF - despite good intentions - did not do a good job of 
developing new layers of militants with a radical world view, or consistently bottom-up 
democratic structures. Discussion was often reduced to the issue of privatisation; 
education rarely developed serious theory or skills; some important challenges in the 
structure were papered over.

Owing to the desperation of many of the APFs militants, as with others of the new social 
movements, it was also susceptible to cooption, careerism, burnout etc. Social movements 
struggled to build and maintain a layer of experienced and committed activist leaders 
because activists that had proven their capabilities in struggle were drawn into full-time 
positions working for NGOs, which took them away from the daily struggles of the 
grassroots and left a vacuum of leadership open to opportunists etc. Social movements like 
the APF and LPM were also victim of state repression and infiltration and some activists 
were coopted by the state into spying on the APF and its leading activists, and LPM 
activists were arrested and tortured. Many activists were simply forced to abandon the new 
social movements because of the daily pressures of survival and didn't have time for 
activism while also trying to make ends meet. The movements were often heavily built 
around immediate issues, like electricity cut-offs, so victories could lead to a halt in 
activity: there was not much of a serious engagement on the larger tasks of where the 
movements should go, beyond just opposing cut-offs, or evictions, or privatisation ...

Another factor which contributed to the decline of the APF and new social movements was 
the sometimes divisive and destructive role played by part of the Left (including left 
academics, socialist parties and political groupings etc.), which fought for control over 
the APF and other social movements. Many tended to see the APF and related movements as a 
stepping stone to building a political party to contest elections. Contesting elections 
was seen mainly as a way of making propaganda. So, the idea of building up the struggles 
and movements towards a revolutionary working class counter-power - for example, into the 
nucleus of resident-based organs of self-government and self-management that could 
supplant the state - was not entertained. For this Left, the way ahead was always a 
political party, and the new movements were just a means to an end.

Because serious political issues and debates were not really addressed, in the course of 
APF work, many ordinary members were alienated and confused. This alienated many ordinary 
members, who suddenly found a drive to push for the APF to declare itself "socialist" 
(again, a label that was not clearly discussed), and an attitude by some that ordinary APF 
work was nothing but "reformist." So actual APF community social work and capacities, and 
initiatives like income generating projects (e.g. food gardens) that could have helped 
provide for some of the militants' basic material needs, making them less susceptible to 
cooption, careerism and dropping out of activism was not taken seriously - thus 
contributing to making the APF itself more financially independent and self-reliant.

Importantly, there was a lack of clear politics and a revolutionary long-term vision of 
social transformation and how to achieve it among much of the grassroots membership - and 
disagreement among the Left. Because many of the affiliates organised around single issue 
struggles, for example against prepaid water meters or evictions, they sometimes fell into 
inactivity when that particular struggle had been won or lost, instead of looking for ways 
to maintain activity and build struggle around other issues. We must stress that as 
anarchists we did our best to fight for a better direction for APF!

In your opinion, where do the path of anti-apartheid movements cross with the path of the 
anarchist movements? What places did anarchists take in the anti-apartheid movements? What 
can we say about anarchists in struggle years against apartheid regime? And what can you 
say about relations between Communist Party of South Africa and ANC?

Zabalaza: Unfortunately, for most of the struggle against apartheid anarchism was not 
present and was almost or completely unknown and non-existent in South Africa.

By the 1930s, the small but very significant anarchist and syndicalist movement of the 
first part of the century had disappeared and anarchism only began to reemerge in the late 
1980s and early 1990s in the largely white and Indian punk sub-cultural scene, and also 
some anti-apartheid university student activists etc. The big traditions of South African 
radicalism remain black nationalism and Marxism-Leninism.

However, there are experiences of struggle where the black working class adopted practices 
of self-organisation and resistance with anarchistic characteristics -- although it would 
not have been influenced by or exposed to anarchist ideas at the time.

One example is a group in the 1950s called Movement for a Democracy of Content that, 
although not anarchist, is said to have been influenced by the ideas of Murray Bookchin 
and his group of the same name. This group had a somewhat libertarian socialist character 
- remember, Bookchin was still developing his ideas then -and was involved in organising 
large-scale bus boycotts against the apartheid state-contracted bus company PUTCO in 
Alexandra township, Johannesburg, in 1957.

Another example is the organisation of community self-defence units that defended black 
communities from political attacks in the 1980s, but also dealt with crime and other 
anti-social behaviour in the community instead of relying on or deferring to the apartheid 
state or black local authorities. People in black townships sometimes also organised 
"civics" (community organisations) in a sort of bottom-up or federalist manner whereby 
street committees comprising local residents were federated with street committees from 
surrounding streets to form block committees, which then federated with committees from 
surrounding blocks to form ward committees and so on to coordinate activities on a wider 
scale etc. Again, these initiatives, part of the insurrectionary "people's power" movement 
of the time all had limits - for example, many were captured by the ANC, and sometimes 
became quote intolerant of non-ANC positions - but showed the libertarian tendencies.

In the first half of the 1980s, there was also the quasi syndicalist, or "workerist", 
Federation of South African Trade Unions (Fosatu) which, influenced by the New Left, and 
at times, indirectly by anarcho-syndicalist ideas, had a number of principles similar to 
those of anarchist trade unionism/syndicalism, such as worker control, worker independence 
from party politics, internationalism, non-racialism and strong grassroots organisation 
and democracy. Like anarchists Fosatu's "workerists" also opposed the two phase "National 
Democratic Revolution" promoted by the SACP (first, the struggle for liberal democracy and 
a black majority government and then, only once that was consolidated, the struggle for 
socialism) in favour of a "one stage" revolution simultaneously against apartheid and 
capitalism in pursuit of socialism. It also spoke in terms of "workers control" of 
production and society. However, the "workerists" did not have a clear understanding of 
what that socialist society would look like and how it would function, nor a coherent 
strategy on how to get there.

It was only in the late 1980s and early 1990s that anarchism began to re-emerge in South 
Africa, as stated above, but it did not play any significant role in the struggle against 
apartheid. It emerged against the backdrop of titanic struggles and victories, but was 
marginal to them, and was battling to find its own direction. The early 1990s saw the 
first organized groups, and study circles, and these led directly to the formation, in 
1995, of the Workers Solidarity Federation (WSF), from which ZACF is, in important ways, 
descended. *** For most of its early existence the ANC was not a mass movement, but a 
relatively small organisation of professional blacks that aspired to create a black 
bourgeoisie by opening up "fresh fields for the development of a prosperous Non-European 
bourgeois class", in the words of Mandela in the 1950s. "For the first time in the history 
of this country the Non-European bourgeoisie will have the opportunity to own in their own 
name and right mills and factories, and trade and private enterprise will boom and 
flourish as never before". Because it was an organisation that represented the interests 
of a small more privileged - but frustrated - class of blacks, it needed to ally itself 
with the SACP to get the support of "the masses". For the nationalist black elite of the 
ANC they just had to adopt a little bit of socialist rhetoric and their alliance with the 
SACP could win them mass support and help put them into power once apartheid was ended. 
For the SACP an alliance with the ANC and adherence to its two phase NDR conformed with 
the Communist International's position that the immediate task in the colonial and 
semi-colonial world was national independence and cooperation with nationalists - 
socialism coming later, somehow.

Once in power the ANC government carried out widespread privatisation and implemented 
extensive neoliberal reforms that led to massive retrenchments and unemployment, cuts in 
social spending at the same time as increases in the cost of basic services, evictions and 
water and electricity cut-offs etc. Twenty years into the ANC's privatisation and 
neoliberal restructuring and the SACP, whose General Secretary is the Minister for Higher 
Education and Training, still defends the ANC and its policies and conducts election 
campaigns on its behalf. Either because they have become part of the bourgeoisie and their 
class interests have changed and they no longer desire socialism, or because they blindly 
follow Marx's teleological logic that socialism is not possible until the forces of 
production have been fully developed under capitalism. Consequently, the SACP defends the 
very policies that are devastating the South African working class as "developmental" and 
necessary to developing the forces of production in order to prepare the ground for the 
second stage of the NDR: the struggle for socialism, which, by the way, the SACP sees in 
terms of state socialism. What this has meant is that the SACP leadership has become 
completely enmeshed in the ANC-led capitalist state, and the SACP has withered as a mass 
formation.

However, the more entrenched and consolidated neoliberalism and the incumbent ANC-SACP 
alliance become the further socialism recedes into the distance.

What do you think about the social movements and forms of struggle such as feminist, 
LGBTI, ecologist movements?

Zabalaza: As stated previously the ZACF supports, in principle, all progressive social 
movements; including feminist, LGBTI and ecological movements. However, class struggle is 
absolutely central for the ZACF and the class character and interests of a particular 
social movement would determine our practical support for it.

We believe that all forms of oppression intersect at the point of class, are complemented 
and compounded by it, and are reproduced and maintained to divide the working class, 
facilitate exploitation and maintain class domination to the benefit of the ruling class - 
both private capitalists and top state officials etc. Non-class oppressions, such as 
sexism and racism, help uphold the capitalist and state system, but are also reinforced by 
it. In order to destroy capitalism and the state it is necessary therefore to destroy all 
the other oppressions that hold them up; and in order to destroy non-class oppressions it 
is also necessary to destroy capitalism and the state - or the class divisions created by 
capitalism and the state, if left intact, will either lead to the reemergence of the same 
non-class oppressions or produce new social hierarchies and oppressive relations.

We therefore believe that progressive social movements should be based on a class struggle 
programme that puts class struggle against capitalism and the state at the centre, and 
links struggles against non-class oppressions to a working class programme of independent 
and autonomous resistance and organisation to overthrow capitalism and the state and end 
the class system - while also recognising that the struggle against such non-class 
oppressions is fundamental to and inseparable from this programme. Progressive movements 
that do not have a class struggle approach - that do not seek to abolish capitalism and 
the state at the same time as ending other oppressions - can at best treat the symptoms of 
the problem, but will always fail to win far-reaching, substantial and sustainable changes 
and gains because they fail to confront the problem at its core.

The ZACF rejects the idea that all women, regardless of their class background and status, 
have the same interests and share a common struggle, or that all blacks or LGBTI people, 
rich or poor, have the same interests and share a common struggle.

Because racism and sexism help to maintain capitalism and class rule, ruling class women, 
for example, benefit from patriarchy - even if they are sometimes victims of sexism - 
because it helps protect their class interests and position in the ruling class. 
Similarly, while a black capitalist might experience some racism in the corporate 
boardrooms he still benefits from racism, in terms of his class interests, because of its 
effect in keeping the working class divided.

As we said, non-class forms of oppression such as sexism and racism are central to 
maintaining the capitalist and state system by weakening and dividing the working class 
(in the broad terms described earlier) and, at the same time, these forms of oppression 
can only be ended by overthrowing the system of state and capitalism. Therefore, a class 
struggle approach - one that seeks to end these non-class oppressions as well as overthrow 
capitalism and the state - to fighting these forms of oppression is central. As such, the 
ZACF would be dismissive of a feminist or LGBTI movement that struggled, for example, to 
have female/homosexual/queer presidents and CEOs of corporations but did not challenge the 
role, nature and structure of these institutions themselves.

What about the Marikana massacre in 2012? What really happened there? Did anarchist's have 
interventions in strikes? Was there any role of anarchists (or ZACF) in strikes, and any 
injurings, arrestees from anarchists? And after the massacre was there any changes like 
retreats or suppression in class struggle in South Africa or in contrast did the rage 
against the rulling class grow?

Zabalaza: What happened at Marikana is that the South African state, under the ANC, 
colluded with the British-owned Lonmin mine owners to kill 34 striking mine workers in 
order to end a strike that was affecting capitalists' profits and threatening to scare off 
foreign investment. Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was a shareholder in the Lonim 
mine at the time, was exposed as having exerted political pressure on the police to deal 
decisively with the strike the day before 34 striking miners were killed by the police on 
16 August 2012. It is clear from video footage of the massacre that the miners were led 
into an ambush, and evidence later emerged that police hunted down and executed some 
miners at a second scene - the existence of which they tried to conceal - and prevented 
ambulances and first aid from accessing the scenes to treat injured workers.

The contemporary anarchist movement in South Africa is small and marginal and there was no 
anarchist involvement or intervention in the Marikana and platinum strikes themselves, 
although anarchists were involved in demonstrations and campaigns for justice for the 
Marikana workers after the massacre, in solidarity activities and campaigns during the 
strike and also did limited political work in Marikana after the massacre but did not make 
inroads.

The Marikana massacre certainly exposed the ANC government and dispelled the illusions 
that many black working class people still had in the ANC, eroding its legitimacy. The 
events of Marikana and clarifying and radicalising effect they had on platinum miners 
certainly influenced the 70 000 strong five month long platinum strike - the longest and 
most costly strike in South Africa's history - in 2014.

Since Marikana, almost daily community protests and revolts have continued unabated across 
the country and, in late 2015, tertiary student struggles against financial exclusion and 
racism erupted at universities across the country; soon followed by significant struggles 
against outsourcing by workers working at universities. For many of the students involved, 
as with protesting communities and striking workers, Marikana would have helped to expose 
the real character of the ANC government and to dispelled their illusions in it.

However, the tertiary student uprising faced severe state and private repression, and 
there are countless instances of criminalisation of community protest across the country 
all the time. When protesters are arrested for participating in community protests where 
they blockade roads, burn tyres etc. they are charged with public violence, which is 
treated as a criminal act.

Because the ANC government lost a lot of legitimacy in the eyes of the people because of 
what it did at Marikana it will increasingly have to rely on repression to maintain its rule.

Can you give some information about anarchist movement in South Africa? And how the people 
reacts anarchist ideas and activities? Are there any other libertarian/anarchist 
groups/collectives like minded or from different tendencies? And how are relations? Are 
there any strict seperations between anarchists?

Zabalaza: Historically, the early anarchist and syndicalist movement in South Africa was a 
small but influential current within the broader socialist and labour movement. The first 
trade unions for blacks in South Africa were established by anarchists and syndicalists in 
the early twentieth century.

However, for a variety of reasons (the growing influence of Bolshevism after the Russian 
Revolution, state repression etc.) the anarchist and syndicalist movement had virtually 
disappeared by the 1930s and didn't begin to resurface until the late 1980s or early 1990s.

Nowadays, the anarchist movement in South Africa is very small and does not have a lot of 
influence in the struggles that are raging across the country, although it is slowly 
growing and a few more people are starting to be exposed to - and influenced by - 
anarchist ideas. Generally, most people in progressive social movements and on the 
socialist left agree with a lot of anarchist ideas when they are introduced to them. 
However, because of the recent struggle for the right of blacks to vote, and because of 
nationalist and Marxist fixations with state power, many people find it very difficult to 
accept the anarchist position that social movements and socialist groups should not engage 
in elections or voting, and that we should build movements outside and against the state. 
Statism is a massive influence on South African political culture, and many people think 
that elections can solve everything. And the political parties hype this all the time.

Because of the dismal failure of the ANC government to implement any changes, however, 
more people are slowly starting to feel that change can not come from engaging in the 
electoral circus; but this is still a small minority and, because of the influence of the 
many small Marxist groupings, many people are still under the illusion that radical change 
can come through the electoral system and the state if independent candidates or a "mass 
workers party" can be voted into power.

The ZACF is the longest established anarchist group in southern Africa, and has an 
extensive record of publishing and organising. We wish there were more groups, but there 
are not. Small groups emerge now and then, but few last. One important formation worth 
mentioning, however, is a hip-hop collective from Cape Town called Soundz of the South 
(SoS). Although it is not a strictly anarchist collective (it has members who are 
influenced by black nationalism, for example) the anarchist members of the collective 
share the same class struggle analysis as the ZACF and we have a lot in common. Perhaps 
the only reason that we don't work more closely together is because Zabalaza is mostly 
based in Gauteng, whereas SOS is in Cape Town.

We are not sectarian: we will and do work with a wide range of progressive forces. This 
was shown by our role in, for example, the APF and LPM. The key is that we work on the 
terrain of working class struggle, which means, in practice, we work in, and with, black 
working class neighbourhoods and organisations. We do not believe that everyone who calls 
themselves anarchist must work together, just because of a common label. The label is not 
a basis for unity: we really can't see much point in working with people that call 
themselves anarchist, but reject basic principles of anarchism, like class struggle, or 
who are not involved in, or do not support, working class movements and struggles. We 
would rather have relations and cooperate, tactically, with the non-anarchist Left and 
social movements and unions, involved in class struggle. Of course, we have disagreements 
on many issues with these others, and fight to win the battle of ideas. But what counts is 
that we go to the masses of the people, because that is where that battle is waged. We are 
not interested in being part of an isolated or purist radical science.

We know about an ABCN publication: Black Alert. Is network still working? Is there any 
reppression against anarchists or libertarian/anarchist prisoners exist in prisons? What 
about prisons in South Africa?

Zabalaza: The Anarchist Black Cross-South Africa was a small ZACF-linked collective that 
did anti-repression and solidarity work and prisoner support. It published only three 
issues of the newsletter Black Alert, was involved in establishing a short-lived 
Anti-Repression Network with other progressive organisations in response to the escalation 
of state repression and targeting and criminalisation of social movements. ABC-SA also 
established and, for a while, maintained contact with anti-apartheid political prisoners 
that were still in prison; leading to the establishment of a clandestine study group on 
anarchism at one prison. The group stopped with the death of the main figure in organising 
it, Abel Ramarope, apartheid political prisoner turned anarchist. The ABC stopped its 
activities not long after.

The South African state does not specifically target anarchists for repression because we 
are not that significant yet, but township-based anarchists and members of ZACF sometimes 
experience intimidation and threats from the local elite and ruling party supporters who 
might see their ideas and activities within the community as a threat to their dominance.

Do you have anarchist/libertarian contacts with other countries in Africa?

Zabalaza: Currently, we only have anarchist contacts in Zimbabwe. We used to have contact 
with some anarchists in Swaziland, two of whom were originally members of ZACF when they 
lived in Soweto, but we have lost contact and are not sure about their status.

We also used to have contact with the anarcho-syndicalist Awareness League in Nigeria, 
which was affiliated to the IWA, but it hasn't existed for some years and its leading 
militant, Sam Mbah, with whom we previously had contact, died in 2014.

In the wake of the Arab Spring we established contact with an anarchist group in Egypt 
called Libertarian Socialist Movement but again we have not had contact with them lately 
and are not sure of their status or activities.

And what can you say about the character Mandela who were flattered like Gandhi and Martin 
Luther King by global capitalists? You know, ruling classes mostly prefer some 
parliamentarist, pasicist or reformist oppositions or "revolutions". Can we make any 
comparision between Mandela and Gandhi or Martin Luther King? Or The Guardian Journal 
wrote some similarities between Mandela and Abdullah Öcalan (prisoned PKK Leader). What do 
you think about it?

Zabalaza: On Mandela, we need to be very clear about dispelling the myth that has been 
created that he was a pacifist in the vein of Gandhi. Mandela was jailed for armed 
struggle aimed at the violent overthrow of the apartheid state. These days, he is 
presented as a sort of gentle saint, which is not true.

We can respect and do Mandela's struggle against apartheid racism, and his refusal to turn 
his back on armed struggle. Obviously in the fight against apartheid, he was on the right 
side, the side of the oppressed. But that does not mean we do not criticise him or his 
legacy. As a leader of the ANC, he was always committed to the view that a post-apartheid 
South Africa would be capitalist. It would be deeply changed, to uproot white supremacy 
and "monopoly capitalism," but would also enable "fresh fields for the development of a 
prosperous Non-European bourgeois class" in a society where "private enterprise will boom 
and flourish as never before". So he was a reformist, in that his aims were narrow. So, 
while Mandela was closer to Öcalan, in embracing armed struggle, the ANC was always a far 
less radical party than the PKK, in its Marxist-Leninist days, or in its present period of 
being more influenced by libertarian ideas.

Even though Mandela was, in fact, briefly in the leadership of the SACP, this did not 
change matters: recall that the aim of the SACP itself was not socialism, but the NDR. So, 
the ANC/ SACP armed struggle was militant, but it was not revolutionary. By the mid-1980s, 
a large part of the ANC and SACP leadership, as well as the leaders of the apartheid 
state, were at an impasse, a deadlock: neither side could win. So plans were put in place 
to start a process of negotiated transition.

At one level, that transition was a great achievement: for the first time in 350 years, 
the territories that became South Africa had a bourgeois parliamentary system; the 
authoritarian, racist apartheid system of rule was abolished, along with its segregation, 
terror and suppression; but at the same time, all the limits of bourgeois "democracy" were 
and are evident. Capitalism remained, the state remained, class rule remained. The 
horrific legacy of apartheid, expressed in everything from miserable living conditions for 
the black working class, and a situation where 70% of young African men and women are 
unemployed, remained. How can this be removed without a radical redistibution of wealth 
and power? It cannot, and that requires revolution. But what we have is a capitalism 
system where, while the black elite has expanded massively, the bedrock of society remains 
a racially divided working class, and a system of cheap black labour. And the ANC, and 
Mandela, with their limited vision, with their reformism, with their miserable compromises 
with capitalism and the old white ruling class, are partly to blame.

This interview was done for and published by Sosyal Savas (Social Struggle) Magazine, 
Turkey/Kurdistan

Related Link: http://zabalaza.net

http://www.anarkismo.net/article/29635
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