Alternative Information & Development Centre Board Statement
Board Members: MP Giyose, Phelisa Nkomo, Mercia Andrews, Vonani Bila, Roy Chetty, Mazibuko Jara, Michelle Pressend, Jeff Rudin, Dave Sanders, Mike Louw, William Kerfoot
AIDC Its not "white" foreigners but 70 000 workers that are transforming wage negotiations on SA's mines
The Board of the Alternative Information & Development Centre (AIDC) is alarmed by the statements of Gwede Mantashe, the ANC's Secretary-General, attributing the on-going strike by platinum miners to ‘white foreigners' representing foreign interests (see here).
Regardless of who these un-named people might be (although it is most likely prompted by AIDC's technical support to AMCU) Mr Manatshe owes it to the people of South Africa to: (1) name these foreign interests; (2) demonstrate the nature of their interference and (3) explain the relevance of these individual's whiteness. Unless he is able to meet all three of these requirements, he stands condemned for his opportunistic use of blatant racism and xenophobia in the 20th year of post-apartheid South Africa.
During the communist witch-hunt in the US during the 1950s and early 60s, many non-communists responded to accusations of being ‘left-leaning' by disputing the allegations. Implicit in this response was that it was unlawful or ‘un-American' to be a communist. The AIDC will therefore not respond to the accuracy of our Director being a foreigner, lest it gives credence to the idea that there is something untoward with the mere fact of being a foreigner. (Mr Mantashe, however, is well-advised to question the intelligence of the Intelligence Service he relies on that makes our Director a foreigner.)
It is now time for the ANC to say that the liberation of South Africa from apartheid does not mean the substitution of apartheid's ‘swaart gevaar' by the ANC's ‘white foreign rooi gevaar'
This is the umpteenth occasion that the ANC's Secretary-General has sought mischievously and mistakenly to blame some ‘white foreigners' for the manifestly most deep-seated economic and social factors behind the longest strike in South Africa's mining history by no less than 70,000 workers. In so doing he turns his back on what once was a key component of the ANC's constituency.
More alarming is the extreme hostility the ANC has taken to one of the most important working class struggles of the 21st century. In the context of a globalising capital and the consequent pressure this has put on wages world-wide, the struggle for a living wage represents an important fight back. R12 500 is no ordinary demand. It represents an attempt to win back the wage share that has been falling rapidly in mining and across the economy as a whole.
AIDC stands for a wage-led sustainable development path. It is in the context of research we have done on strategies for realising such a path, that AMCU engaged our services - free of charge. We provide technical support in the negotiations, helping to do number crunching and interpreting the various offers made by the employers. Basic principles of solidarity formed part of our decision to assist. It is these principles of solidarity for social justice that provided massive international support for the struggle against Apartheid and for the labour movement specifically. Internationalists of all hues joined this struggle and continue to do so, whether it is for platinum mineworkers, farmworkers or those struggling for land.
Moreover, it is government policy towards attracting foreign investment and their reinforcing of foreign ownership of the mining industry that should be of major concern to the ruling party. The repatriation of profits and dividends along with a host of investor friendly policies has destabilised and undermined our national and popular sovereignty.
International solidarity and empathy for peoples struggles and their movements will continue in post-Apartheid South Africa, precisely because of continuing inequality, mass unemployment and dispossession.
Statement issued by MP Giyose, Chairperson of the AIDC, June 14 2014
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