A-Infos (en) SOUTHERN AFRICAN ANARCHIST FEDERATION FOUNDED

[schmidtm@sundaytimes.co.za]

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comrades
The revolutionary anarchist movement in southern Africa is pleased to
announce the founding of a regional anarchist federation, uniting the
Bikisha Media Collective (BMC), Zabalaza Books (ZB) and the Zabalaza Action
Group (ZAG) - which are collectively members of the International
Libertarian Solidarity (ILS) anarchist network - as well as the Anarchist
Black Cross (ABC) and a range of individual anarchist militants. The
Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation, which will operate under an
interim skeleton constitution, the relevant portions of which are
reproduced below, until a full Congress is held before the end of the year,
effectively has an operational presence in the cities and townships of
Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town and an active involvement in the
200,000-strong United Social Movements (USM) in these centres. We will be
electing an acting international secretary and an acting regional secretary
as well as a working group to draw up a draft final constitution. Our
website will soon be updated to reflect our new identity. The ZACF as a
whole from now on will be the first, but hopefully not the last, ILS member
in the region. We wish to thank fellow ILS members Rebel (Auca) of
Argentina and the Gaucha Anarchist Federation (FAG) of Brazil in
particular, as well as the Workers' Solidarity Movement (WSM) of Ireland,
for their inspiring contribution towards our theoretical orientation, some
of which will be obvious from our statement of Principles.

red & black regards
- Michael Schmidt (ZACF, Johannesburg, South Africa)
http://www.zabalaza.net


ZABALAZA ANARCHIST COMMUNIST FEDERATION (ZACF), SOUTHERN AFRICA:
INTERIM SKELETON CONSTITUTION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adopted at the ZACF launch in Johannesburg, South Africa, on May Day 2003.
May Day is marked by the working class, peasantry and poor world-wide in
honour of the anarchist martyrs of Chicago, 1886, and this year, 2003,
marks a century of armed revolutionary anarchism since the Macedonian
Revolt of 1903, and the 30th anniversary of the 1973 Durban Strikes which
initiated the popular insurrection which eventually overthrew the apartheid
regime.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREAMBLE:

By Anarchism we mean:
"society organised without authority, meaning by authority the power to
impose one's own will ... authority not only is not necessary for social
organisation but, far from benefiting it, lives on it parasitically,
hampers its development, and uses its advantages for the special benefit of
a particular class which exploits and oppresses the others."
Errico Malatesta
l'Agitazione June 4, 1897

And by Communism we mean:
"a society without money, without a state, without property and without
social classes.  People come together to carry out a project or to respond
to some need of the human community but without the possibility of their
collective activity taking the form of an enterprise that involves wages
and the exchange of its products.  The circulation of goods is not
accomplished by means of exchange: quite the contrary, the by-word for this
society is 'from each according to their abilities, to each according to
their needs'."
John Gray
                                                                 For
Communism (libertarian communist website)
______________________________________________________________________

ARTICLES:
1) NAME: The name of the federation is the ZABALAZA ANARCHIST COMMUNIST
FEDERATION (ZACF), "zabalaza" being a proud indigenous word meaning
"struggle" in Zulu and Xhosa. The short name of the ZACF is the Federation.

2) PRINCIPLES: The ZACF is founded on revolutionary anarchist-communist
principles. This means:
a)    internally, direct democracy, recallable, mandated and rotatable
delegates, real, functional equality among members, and horizontal
federalism among all its structures;
b)    externally, a commitment to workers' self-management and direct
action, and to libertarian revolutionary anti-capitalism, anti-fascism,
anti-Approved: Termus1
Subject: SOUTHERN AFRICAN ANARCHIST FEDERATION FOUNDED
From: schmidtm@sundaytimes.co.za
To: a-infos-en@ainfos.ca

comrades
The revolutionary anarchist movement in southern Africa is pleased to
announce the founding of a regional anarchist federation, uniting the
Bikisha Media Collective (BMC), Zabalaza Books (ZB) and the Zabalaza Action
Group (ZAG) - which are collectively members of the International
Libertarian Solidarity (ILS) anarchist network - as well as the Anarchist
Black Cross (ABC) and a range of individual anarchist militants. The
Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation, which will operate under an
interim skeleton constitution, the relevant portions of which are
reproduced below, until a full Congress is held before the end of the year,
effectively has an operational presence in the cities and townships of
Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town and an active involvement in the
200,000-strong United Social Movements (USM) in these centres. We will be
electing an acting international secretary and an acting regional secretary
as well as a working group to draw up a draft final constitution. Our
website will soon be updated to reflect our new identity. The ZACF as a
whole from now on will be the first, but hopefully not the last, ILS member
in the region. We wish to thank fellow ILS members Rebel (Auca) of
Argentina and the Gaucha Anarchist Federation (FAG) of Brazil in
particular, as well as the Workers' Solidarity Movement (WSM) of Ireland,
for their inspiring contribution towards our theoretical orientation, some
of which will be obvious from our statement of Principles.

red & black regards
- Michael Schmidt (ZACF, Johannesburg, South Africa)
http://www.zabalaza.net


ZABALAZA ANARCHIST COMMUNIST FEDERATION (ZACF), SOUTHERN AFRICA:
INTERIM SKELETON CONSTITUTION
------------------------------------------

Adopted at the ZACF launch in Johannesburg, South Africa, on May Day 2003.
May Day is marked by the working class, peasantry and poor world-wide in
honour of the anarchist martyrs of Chicago, 1886, and this year, 2003,
marks a century of armed revolutionary anarchism since the Macedonian
Revolt of 1903, and the 30th anniversary of the 1973 Durban Strikes which
initiated the popular insurrection which eventually overthrew the apartheid
regime.
---------------------

PREAMBLE:

By Anarchism we mean:
"society organised without authority, meaning by authority the power to
impose one's own will ... authority not only is not necessary for social
organisation but, far from benefiting it, lives on it parasitically,
hampers its development, and uses its advantages for the special benefit of
a particular class which exploits and oppresses the others."
Errico Malatesta
l'Agitazione June 4, 1897

And by Communism we mean:
"a society without money, without a state, without property and without
social classes.  People come together to carry out a project or to respond
to some need of the human community but without the possibility of their
collective activity taking the form of an enterprise that involves wages
and the exchange of its products.  The circulation of goods is not
accomplished by means of exchange: quite the contrary, the by-word for this
society is 'from each according to their abilities, to each according to
their needs'."
John Gray
                                                                 For
Communism (libertarian communist website)
______________________________________________________________________

ARTICLES:
1) NAME: The name of the federation is the ZABALAZA ANARCHIST COMMUNIST
FEDERATION (ZACF), "zabalaza" being a proud indigenous word meaning
"struggle" in Zulu and Xhosa. The short name of the ZACF is the Federation.

2) PRINCIPLES: The ZACF is founded on revolutionary anarchist-communist
principles. This means:
a)    internally, direct democracy, recallable, mandated and rotatable
delegates, real, functional equality among members, and horizontal
federalism among all its structures;
b)    externally, a commitment to workers' self-management and direct
action, and to libertarian revolutionary anti-capitalism, anti-fascism,
anti-authoritarianism, anti-sexism and anti-statism. The Federation's
involvement with the progressive and radical social movements is
non-sectarian, but steeped in these principles;
c)    globally, the ZACF bases itself on the proud fighting tradition of
some 155 years of mass anarchist militancy, starting with the Pan-European
Revolt of 1848 and stretching across Africa, Latin America, Asia,
Australasia, North America and Europe. The Federation stands on the
internationalist libertarian federal tradition of the First International,
on the autonomist councilism of the Parisian and Macedonian Communes and of
the Russian, Ukrainian and German Soviets, on the mass-based
anarcho-syndicalist tradition of the International Workers' Association,
and on the armed anarchist insurrectionary tradition of the Mexican,
Russian, Ukrainian, Manchurian, Spanish and Cuban Revolutions. These
traditions continue today in the International Libertarian Solidarity
network and in the anarchist-influenced global mass anti-capitalist
struggles of the new millennium, the ultimate aim of which is an
Internationalist Social Revolution;
d)    regionally, the Federation recalls the revolutionary syndicalist
tradition of the Industrial Workers of the World's South African section,
founded in 1910, of the International Socialist League, founded in 1915, of
the Industrial Workers of Africa, founded in 1917, of the Industrial
Socialist League, founded in 1918, and of their associated unions set up
between 1917 and 1919 by anarchist militants of all "races" such as Thomas
William Thibedi, Reuben Cetiwe, Hamilton Kraai, JD Ngojo, Bernard
Sigamoney, RK Moodley, AZ Berman, Manuel Lopes, Joe Pick, Gordon Lee, Fred
Pienaar, Johnny Gomas and Andrew Dunbar. This syndicalist tradition was
revived by the likes of Rick Turner - murdered by a clandestine state
death-squad in 1978 - and played a key role in worker militancy during the
upsurge of the trade union movement in the struggle against apartheid in
the 1970s and 1980s. The Federation stands proudly in the fighting
tradition of the rank-and-file workers' networks, people's civics, street
committees, progressive popular fronts and community defence groups of this
period of struggle. But instead of the authoritarian, multi-class National
Democratic Revolution of the African National Congress and the South
African Communist Party elite vanguard, the Federation stands for a
libertarian Regional Social Revolution by a Front of Oppressed Classes,
united across regional borders, in furtherance of the Internationalist
Social Revolution; and
e)    operationally, the Federation is based on federalism, individual and
collective responsibility, and on tactical and theoretical unity, being the
core principles of the "Organisational Platform of the Anarchist
Communists" drawn up in 1927 by Nestor Makhno and other anarchist guerrilla
veterans of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine. In the terms
of the Latin American anarchist movement, the Federation defines as a
"specific" anarchist organisation.

4) SYMBOL: The symbol of the ZACF is a silhouette of Africa divided
diagonally into the anarchist black & red, with a black star in the lower
red half over southern Africa and a raised fist straining against its
chains, encircled by the name ZABALAZA ANARCHIST COMMUNIST FEDERATION.
authoritarianism, anti-sexism and anti-statism. The Federation's
involvement with the progressive and radical social movements is
non-sectarian, but steeped in these principles;
c)    globally, the ZACF bases itself on the proud fighting tradition of
some 155 years of mass anarchist militancy, starting with the Pan-European
Revolt of 1848 and stretching across Africa, Latin America, Asia,
Australasia, North America and Europe. The Federation stands on the
internationalist libertarian federal tradition of the First International,
on the autonomist councilism of the Parisian and Macedonian Communes and of
the Russian, Ukrainian and German Soviets, on the mass-based
anarcho-syndicalist tradition of the International Workers' Association,
and on the armed anarchist insurrectionary tradition of the Mexican,
Russian, Ukrainian, Manchurian, Spanish and Cuban Revolutions. These
traditions continue today in the International Libertarian Solidarity
network and in the anarchist-influenced global mass anti-capitalist
struggles of the new millennium, the ultimate aim of which is an
Internationalist Social Revolution;
d)    regionally, the Federation recalls the revolutionary syndicalist
tradition of the Industrial Workers of the World's South African section,
founded in 1910, of the International Socialist League, founded in 1915, of
the Industrial Workers of Africa, founded in 1917, of the Industrial
Socialist League, founded in 1918, and of their associated unions set up
between 1917 and 1919 by anarchist militants of all "races" such as Thomas
William Thibedi, Reuben Cetiwe, Hamilton Kraai, JD Ngojo, Bernard
Sigamoney, RK Moodley, AZ Berman, Manuel Lopes, Joe Pick, Gordon Lee, Fred
Pienaar, Johnny Gomas and Andrew Dunbar. This syndicalist tradition was
revived by the likes of Rick Turner - murdered by a clandestine state
death-squad in 1978 - and played a key role in worker militancy during the
upsurge of the trade union movement in the struggle against apartheid in
the 1970s and 1980s. The Federation stands proudly in the fighting
tradition of the rank-and-file workers' networks, people's civics, street
committees, progressive popular fronts and community defence groups of this
period of struggle. But instead of the authoritarian, multi-class National
Democratic Revolution of the African National Congress and the South
African Communist Party elite vanguard, the Federation stands for a
libertarian Regional Social Revolution by a Front of Oppressed Classes,
united across regional borders, in furtherance of the Internationalist
Social Revolution; and
e)    operationally, the Federation is based on federalism, individual and
collective responsibility, and on tactical and theoretical unity, being the
core principles of the "Organisational Platform of the Anarchist
Communists" drawn up in 1927 by Nestor Makhno and other anarchist guerrilla
veterans of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine. In the terms
of the Latin American anarchist movement, the Federation defines as a
"specific" anarchist organisation.

4) SYMBOL: The symbol of the ZACF is a silhouette of Africa divided
diagonally into the anarchist black & red, with a black star in the lower
red half over southern Africa and a raised fist straining against its
chains, encircled by the name ZABALAZA ANARCHIST COMMUNIST FEDERATION.


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