Jeremy Cronin argues that the ANC should be leading the anti-neo-liberal coalition.
Nationally and internationally, neo-liberal dominated globalisation is having a terrible impact on a wide range of strata, societies, regions and continents.
A wide range of forces from the World Bank through to the craziest anarcho-syndicalists and even the Taliban, in their vastly different ways, are reacting to the injustices and to the non-sustainability of the current global trajectory. That does not make all of them part of some global anti-neo-liberal coalition. Indeed, one of the major features of the current reality is that responses, including diverse left responses, to neo-liberal globalisation are extremely fragmented. This should be taken up as a positive challenge for, not as a negative conspiracy against the African National Congress.
Through Nepad and through a wide range of other multilateral forums the ANC and the government have been playing a leading role in redefining global priorities. In doing so they have been challenging the core assumptions of neo-liberalism. Why accord to Jubilee 2000 or the Anti-Privatisation Forum the mantle of leading the anti-neo-liberal coalition?
Moreover, if this Policy Education Unit (PEU) paper is to avoid the allegation that it is fuelling factionalism in our movement, then it must point to one single quote from any South African Communist Party or Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) programme, congress resolution, or press statement where it is said (or implied) that in ”their immediate tactical struggle, the ANC and our government are their most important enemies”.
For the past 20 years, and more, there has been a small ultra-left that has argued like this. This ultra-left now has positions of strength within the Anti-Privatisation Forum, to some extent within Jubilee 2000, and it has a minority voice within some Cosatu affiliates. But it is precisely this ultra-left that also identifies the (pro-alliance) policies of the SACP as critical to blocking their anti-ANC agenda.
Instead of entrenching itself defensively in the face of this improbable global anti-neo-liberal ”coalition”, instead of speaking xenophobically about ”foreigners” in our midst the ANC must lead the broadest range of progressive forces domestically, regionally and internationally.
Having portrayed virtually all debate and even mildly critical engagement coming from the left as part of a ”global anti-neo-liberal” coalition, the PEU document then sets about disproving the ”allegations” that the ANC and the government are pursuing neo-liberal policies. The first move it makes in this regard is entirely unhelpful; the second is more pertinent and valuable.
In other words, ”by definition”, ”from its foundation”, and ”intrinsically”, the ANC, or its leaders, are incapable of accepting or even, perhaps, of being influenced by any policy (like neo-liberalism) that is unfavourable to the black masses. Case closed.
Unfortunately the case is not closed. The ANC’s leadership role was not automatically accepted by ”the black masses” on January 8 1912. It took hard organisational work, active campaigns, and many ideological debates to put it on to the map. There were significant stretches in the ANC’s history in which it was moribund. After the mid-1960s strategic defeat, the ANC’s pre-eminent role had, again, to be struggled for.
Moreover, the ANC (like the SACP or Cosatu) is not vacuum-packed. It is going to be influenced by many ideological and other currents.
You cannot, on the one hand, argue that the ANC encourages dynamic internal debate, and yet assert that the ANC leadership is and has ”always been right”. This ”declarative” infallibility kills debate and obscures the need for continuous ideological discussion, self-assessment and vigilance.
I agree that, by and large, the ANC and the government have maintained consistent anti-neo-liberal positions on all of the key issues of the day, but that does not mean that any of us is inherently and by definition immune to neo-liberal influences. Unfortunately the PEU paper counterattacks with blanket allegations: ”international conspiracy”, ”foreigners in our midst”, ”counter-revolutionary”, ”targeted at the ANC and ANC-led government”.
Dale McKinley may well have an agenda that identifies the ANC as the principal ”subjective enemy” of the revolution. But he has been expelled from the SACP (by all ”factions”, the ”important” and the ”less important”) for that reason. Andile Nkuhlu appears to have had a personal accumulation agenda while restructuring state-owned enterprises. He has been suspended.
There may be sell-outs and there may be ultra-leftists, but surely the real debates that we need to have within the ANC and across the alliance cannot be reduced to these terms?
This is an edited version of Jeremy Cronin’s response to Unholy coalition will not win