Back To Roots

I believe the SACP (South African Communist Party) shall in the coming years look at its recent 12th National Conference as a missed opportunity to bring the party forward to principled direction that match the political aspirations of the 21st century. I didn’t think it’d have the nerve to break off from the TA (Tripartite Alliance), but I expected it to clearly table it’s principles down so as to attract, or repel, a typical 21st century voter. Instead it chose to shrink to pragmatism of its own impotence, when it clearly had a moral high ground boosted by the recent public strike.

The first error of the SACP is in its leadership that has chosen to moor the party’s aspirations too close to the fortunes of the present ANC deputy president, JZ (Jacob Zuma). Granted, JZ, is a fissure within TA rock whose deeper springs have long been penned underground the organisation. But to see a saviour in JZ rip-roaring sabre-rattling baguette and foutté is, in my opinion, ill-advised. What’s more, JZ has not given any indication that he has fresh ideas to take our country forward.

I suppose the SACP’s argument is that one has to build the house with the bricks one has at hand, especially coming so recently from the damping effect at the ANC policy conference. When president Thabo Mbeki threw the gauntlet against the SACP in his opening statement, I thought the SACP would chose the standard of honour, give up its Sisyphean task of thinking it can influence the ANC leadership into adopting socialist principles. The resolution coming out of the SACP conference has disabused that idea in my mind.

What I thought the SACP would do was, at the least, come up with ideas of revolutionizing the moral landscape of our capitalist beyond reinforcing the progressive critique of laissez-faire economic policies. I’m assuming that we are all agreed that capitalism, as mode of economic production, is still ideal. The problem is in distribution of resources. I thought the SACP would seek to promote economic restructuring, through civil legislation, to the natural welfare of the community; by means not necessary pleasing to the Washington Consensus if necessary. Unlike the present leadership of the ANC that has reduced us back to being lackeys of the Occidental means of development through our own resources. Because they fear the so called repercussions of globalisation.

We thought the SACP was going to make the nation aware the system embarked on by the present government at present encourages selfishness, cynicism, and undercuts efforts to confront the hard facts of poverty and greed. That the government obsession with fiscal books and fostering of rapid economic growth raises expectations that it is unable to fulfil by fair distribution.

We thought the SACP was going to point out that giving lip service to democratic aspirations without following it with just economic means is what has given birth to growing economic contradictions, which are expanding the population of the disenchanted and the frustrated, often making them vulnerable to populist politicians with short term radical solutions. The SACP conference was in an opportune position of coming with a clear strategy of coming with ways of restoring political leadership of our country back to its communal roots.

The SACP is in an opportune position to find a middle road to take between radical policies and the Washington Consensus. To come with strategies that’ll move us away from the present failing Development Politburo ideology, where expects from outside are brought in to design solutions for our markets according to comprehensive technical plans that suites their vested interests.

People are tired of leaders who condescend to them; who don’t trust them enough to be masters of their own our fates by allowing space to seek domestically raised solutions. They are tired of experts who see their poverty only as a purely technological problem, to be solved by social engineering, while ignoring their unique political and social situation.

They are seek and tired of hearing abstract terms like “market-friendly policies” and “globalisation” used as if they were sacred Holly Grails that cannot be interfered with but must be looked up to for specious deliverance that never comes. What our present government does not seem to understand is the revolutionary deceptions of the “creative chaos” of capitalism for the greater care of those with capital in the expense of alienating the rest.

The tide has turned. The march of history has reached a stage where the masses see through superficially appraised sophisticated shams and deceptions. If Karl Marx, in his much neglected Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, teaches us anything is that, men are producers of their own conceptions and ideas. That changing circumstances requires that the educators be educated. And that historical change is due to productive forces, with objectively given conditions, and social organisation.

In my book, the recent SACP National Conference failed Marx; perhaps even more grievously, failed its own objectives. I doubt if there’ll ever be an opportune moment like the one they’ve just missed.