Mlondi's Perspective: 2009

Mlondolozi Mkhize and Lazola Ndamase

PART 1:

(i) Where to begin?

In the build up to our postponed provincial congress, a number of negative occurrences took place, such that there was an urgent need to prepare an all inclusive document that had to deal with these issues as soon as possible. This document is an attempt at finding the theoretical basis of these issues without clumsily teasing them out in a manner that will not foster debate but resentment.

This is a discussion document; it is not – certainly not yet – a hard and fast party line. It is meant to foster, develop and guide constructive political debate within the organization.

It must be made clear from the onset that in this paper none shall be spared scrutiny. But, we know very well that in the course of fostering robust debate, it is inevitable that we will provoke a degree of irritation, with some of our cadres, especially those whose structures are at the receiving end of criticism.

We expect all cadres in the province and in the organization who must study this paper and respond to it, to avoid the temptation to be buried in mutual irritation, but rather debate the contents and the scientific validity of the paper, without subjectivism, and the usual populist posturing that accompanies ideological debates. If necessary, let us leave our -isms out of the debate.

We all prefer praise; thus, an immediate apology is made to those whose structures are criticized. The deployment of criticism here is not meant to discourage those criticized from freely participating in the discussion, but this is an attempt to make a study of the problems facing our organization, and its root causes. Neither is this an attempt to neutralize comrades in the build-up to conference. We will also not attempt to turn the screws against our critics either.

We accept that central to the renewal of any revolutionary organization is, precisely, the task of resuscitating the culture of political study, discussion, debate, comradely criticism and, of course, self-criticism.[1] So this will not be an attempt to absolve the PEC of any-wrong-doing by putting the blame squarely in the hands of others or anyone else for that matter except us.

With this paper, we will not deal with issues in isolation. This is no single-issue paper. This is a multi-purpose document that seeks to highlight all the cracks within the movement without making any substantial suggestions, therefore opening space for comrades to map out a way towards congress.

(ii) Where are we and where are we going?

As a revolutionary student movement, SASCO has demonstrated the capacity to remain relevant despite sweeping changes in the economic and political domain in South Africa, Africa and the rest of the world. Despite changes brought by the post-1994 breakthrough of progressive elements into the state, our organization has remained relevant and strong, albeit to a certain degree.

Complacency and rigidity can overtake even the wisest of student movements. In 2008, not only is our movement relevant, but popular to a certain grade. It has demonstrated its influence and popularity, in universities, through successive election victories – far surpassing any student organization in existence – and has shown that it enjoys the support and confidence of the overwhelming majority of students in Kwa-Zulu Natal.

Yet, within the Province, organizations of the same age as SASCO such as PASMA and AZASCO have collapsed or are struggling to stay alive (SADESMO is a perfect example). These remarkable achievements by our movement have not been a result of sheer luck, but have been part of a protracted process of struggle, self-interrogation and tactical awareness guided political vision which is located in our SPOT document.

Yet, despite these progressive developments, the popularity of our organization is slowly declining, not rapidly but slowly and steadily. Chances are, if the current course is not altered, the current popularity decline will soon skyrocket to unprecedented levels.

It within this environment that we will go on to ask, what are other factors than the ones detailed above that have contributed to our relevance. This will be done so as to learn from our past on how we can patch the fissures that are starting to show within the movement. This will also need us to delve deep into specifics where necessary, in analyzing what are possible dangers presented by the period, so as to find a better way of responding to them in a more organized and coherent way.

While decisive progress has certainly been made, the questions remain: have there been missed opportunities; have the constraints been fully understood and confronted; does the movement have the cadreship to carry out its objectives on all fronts?! In part, this paper will attempt to respond to these, while leaving issues open ended in order to stimulate debate from branches.

Despite some progressive developments – as noted above – the direction taken by our organization the past few years has been rather regressive than progressive. Chief among these is the increasing apathy amongst students, which is a result of and a driver of complacency and ossification within the organization.

The popularity grip that the organization enjoyed in our universities a few years back is slowly decreasing, at times gradually (as indicated by Westville and DUT-DBN), and in some cases more rapidly (ManTech is one example). Of course, electoral success or failure cannot be a yardstick with which to measure the strengths and weaknesses of our branches however, it is a major indicator of how the mass population views us.

Making this worse is that post-1994 student movements, especially SASCO, have served as recruitment grounds for organs of the state or by universities themselves, making it difficult to have cadres whose entire dedication is to the movement but instead producing cadres who seek to posture themselves for possible employment. The dangers of co-optation and posturing are among the most prominent of our problems, and are continuously reproduced on a daily basis.

This is not to mean that comrades must not be employed in either organs of the state nor is this to say that they cannot be employed in universities. Anyway, people study to get jobs. The concern here is with a situation wherein our cadres position themselves for employment in these structures, at the expense of our organization, its members and the masses it leads.

The opportunistic statements by Mothupi Modipa (when he was SASCO President) that earned him a job at the expense of our organization are still fresh in our minds. These are elements, which are not desirable amongst leaders of the organization. This is not to suggest that comrade Mothupi is the only comrade or the last to find himself on the wrong side of principle, many in the province, the previous year have followed in his footsteps we mention his, since he was our President.

Connected to this, is that our organization is increasingly becoming an electoral machine that dies the whole year and only finds activity during SRC elections. This is so much that, even political debate and self-criticism occurs during SRC elections. SRC elections are the time where the organization witnesses’ sheer dedication from its members, especially in terms of criticizing each other and this is where comrades suddenly realize that some of them are opportunists or are not matured enough to be deployed.

The obsession with elections is a by-product of many other things. It is has been recently exacerbated by an unhelpful deployment policy. Not only is the deployment policy giving too much power to bureaucratic structures, but it dis-empowers lower structures by concentrating too much power in the hands of PEC’s, thereby opening space for unnecessary patronage, leadership cheerleading and praise-singing.

Some members of the PEC have not helped matters either. We are talking here of situations where PEC members are found in the middle of squabbles in branches or promising their friends deployment even though they have not made it into branch lists. This has resulted in comrades who do not find joy in the deployment process, by-passing branch structures and calling provincial leaders asking for intervention, and at times finding it.

This has threatened to create a situation where deployees do not earn their deployment through hard work in the branches where they find themselves, but through connections with higher structures, thereby creating serious resentment for our leaders, even in cases where they have not had any impact in the deployment process. We believe that the deployment policy is another paper that requires rigorous analysis especially the powers it proffers on PEC’s on branch matters.

Apart from the confusion and divisions sowed by the deployment policy. Some of the most corrupt elements in Universities are our own cadres themselves. Indeed, kickbacks have become fashionable. The only thing out of fashion is incorruptibility itself. This is so much that, even the most resolute of our cadres cannot resist the temptations of accumulation except for a few some term it as PEE (Personal Economic Empowerment).

Despite the challenges that we face on a day to day basis, we cannot simply throw mud at our comrades so as to destroy them nor can we leave it like that. We cannot afford to stand in the corner and sulk either.

We need to understand very well that the society within which our organization operates is a society steeped in a culture of individual wealth and self-centeredness, such that cadres would rather buy themselves nice clothes with kickbacks of money paid by poor families, so as to appeal to the expectations of the same society.

We do not operate in a dreamland, but on earth, however, we need to appreciate and challenge the values proffered and transmitted on our society by the capitalist mode of production, which places emphasis on individual wealth and exploitation. Thus, we cannot dismissively speak of subjective weaknesses from our cadres without looking at the broader ideological environment within which we operate.

This will give us a grasp of the kind of policies we need in order to win the battle against the backward values of capital, that have high regard for wealth regardless of how you acquire it.

In the same vein, the tendency is developing within SASCO, in which positions in SRC’s are seen as platforms for acquiring resources while side-lining comrades and acquiring power. Many of our cadres make more money through tender generated kickbacks than they would make employed. Divisions based on this perspective of self-enrichment are often bitter and long-lasting, thereby producing and reproducing conflicts.

We have seen the extent to which the Branch of Westville fought to keep one of its BEC members, only to realize that this was all for future deployment. This is a major lacuna and we will return to it in the next chapter.

Our organization has not only had to contend with the dominance of bourgeois culture but has had to contend with certain fractions of capital. The PEC named these fractions of capital, the “2007 Capitalist Class project”, as a result of the united action they waged against the elected leaderships of our organization from branch to PEC level, with the assistance of some cadres within our own organization.

The organization has suffered coup d’état attempts by a small section of the black capitalist class, composed largely, but not exclusively, of formerly or present members of SASCO, who run entertainment and consultant agencies, most of whom are former leaders of the province and branches. This has included attempts to delegitimize elected structures of the organization and attempting to replace them with stooges.

Despite, the brutality of these tactics employed by capitalists, our structures have soldiered on. The main motive of capital is accumulation. Weakening structures of the movement is the main instrument with which capital can accumulate. The symbiotic relationship that most of our cadres have with capital is troubling. It is even worse when some elements of capital contest for positions in our structures and are supported by all.. Conclusively the political terrain within which the student movement is operating within is far more difficult than it has ever been. Indeed, the student movement nowadays is more likely to produce opportunists than revolutionaries. Certainly, if this congeals, the democratic revolution will remain but a distant theory that cannot be achieved.

PART 2:

(iii) Unity or diversity?

Our organization remains tolerant to different and at times conflicting ideological currents, and as yet, there have not been any major ideological conflicts that have played themselves within the movement. This strengthens the thinking that the organization can achieve absolute unity while at the same time maintaining diversity of ideological analysis. It is therefore unhelpful to contrapose unity and diversity as if they are not dialectically interlinked; however, many cadres of the movement make this mistake.

But as a mature and revolutionary student movement we have never conflated unity with uniformity. We do allow diversity of views and political creativity. To us, unity and diversity are not diametrical opposites but are dialectical ones.[2]

However, whilst keeping space for creativity and differences of substance any political movement relies on the collective action of its adherents. Our revolutionary objectives – immediate, intermediate and long-term – must be known and understood by all protagonists so as to ensure their attainment. It is difficult, if not impossible, for any organization to move forward if this is not the case.

The more elastic the breadth of the collective, greater are the prospect of tensions and conflicts among its adherents. These conflicts and tensions need to be kept in check timeously to avoid them gaining permanence. The contestation for female cadres – and male cadres too – has proven to be one of the most divisive issues within the student movement. Especially, with leaders using their positions to get sexual favors in return.

The contestation of ideas in BEC or PEC meetings is at times another manufacturer of differences. Debates are by their nature are polemical and thus robust. At times robust debates occur within limited space and time in meetings, such that each must make his/her point in a limited way whilst at the same time ensure that his/her views are not easily contested. This often entails caricaturing other cadres’ views, which might not settle well with the recipients, thus resulting in differences.

Unfortunately, differences often shift from their current status to that of divisions. The highest levels of unity are achieved in branches where SRC power has not yet been attained, but it is not the case immediately after elections are won. While in those branches where our organization is most popular, divisions emerge during deployment processes, SRC projects or during and after tender processes. The previous year has experienced many of these.

Our organization is expected, immediately after attaining power to transform the character of SRC’s before these structures change the value system of the organization itself, but this is not usually the case.

The previous year, during SRC elections, we witnessed, especially at UKZN Howard College, a high level of disunity and political opportunism far surpassing any debates in the organization. This tended to take the form of delegitimizing fellow comrades through pamphlets whilst at Westville it took the form of the BEC appointing itself as the chief opponents of the PEC, especially the Chairperson. But this document will speak to the issues of SRC’s and how the province has ended up being dragged into the mud of Squabbles of UKZN.

We have witnessed people who do not win a seat in a SASCO BEC structure transferred to the ANCYL or YCL in the hope of winning one there, and vice-versa, so as to ensure that they are deployed through that structure. We have also seen former-PEC members who feel they do not have enough influence in their branches attempting to get elected as BEC members in other structures so as to have a hold on branch deployment. Equally we have witness a situation where people do get deployed to SRC from there they then become available for high structures of the organization with the intention of dealing with those that that object to their deployment.

The absurdity of this is that, even those members of SASCO who at some point were highly antagonistic to our alliance partners and saw themselves as exclusively SASCO, when they no longer have influence in our branches they cross over to the ANCYL or YCL and become increasingly anti-SASCO.

All these are manifestations of political careerism, which places personal ambitions and agendas of individuals above the interests of the movement, while relegating the organization to the status of an instrument whose use is simply for deployment and redeployment.

The previous year, our organization has experienced high levels of ill-discipline, which at times have tended to undermine the authority of elected structures of our organizations. However, our structures have refused the temptation of being drawn into witch-hunts.

This was not a result of the fact that the Provincial leadership was afraid of taking responsibility and disciplining certain elements. However, the PEC knew very well that, this could foster more divisions leaving the organization ill-prepared for the battles that lay ahead at the beginning of the year during registration.

We believe, that some of the negative elements that have emerged in the course of revolution are a product of political problems and believe that technocratic processes such as disciplinary action and commissions of enquiries only deal with effects rather than eradicate the causes of the issues at hand, thus recycling problems instead.

We are attempting to build a more coherent approach, thus seeks to place emphasis on dealing with causes than effects. This amongst other things includes rehabilitation of cadres through cadre development and political cleansing by teasing out the root causes of misbehavior.

(iv) What are the challenges facing us?

In the post-1994 phase of our revolution faced, a number of previous objective conditions prevail, but there are new ones which qualitatively – and at times negatively – impact on our functioning of our movement and its cadres.

The struggles we waged pre-1994 were for collective participation in all parts of the superstructure (governance structures). It must come as no surprise that the current University decision making structures are composed of diverse communities such as workers, managers, students etc. Real participatory processes.

This has also ensured that through SRC’s, our organization is represented in all these structures. The representation of our organization is not merely to rubberstamp its presence, but is to safeguard, drive and monitor the transformation of Tertiary institutions. Occupation of decision making structures in universities has its own negatives, despite the progressive elements.

Apart from participating at Senate, SENEX, Council and IF – influencing academic progress – our cadres participate in tender committees too. It is at these tender committees that our comrades get corrupted, by capitalists seeking to earn themselves a tender by hook or crook. Surely, the corruptibility of our cadres cannot be just a result of subjective weaknesses on their part; it has to be part of a broader problem.

Most of our cadres sprout from very poor backgrounds and suddenly find themselves in leadership positions where students know student leaders as rich people and therefore expect the same from all student leaders. Many of our cadres cannot shrug off the expectations of students, but rather fall to the trap of wanting to be seen financially prospering, and thus lending themselves to corruption.

This usually occurs to the exclusion of many other comrades, who in turn out of anger, attack their comrades, both in public and within structures. Those who usually attack and accuse each other of corruption are usually not doing so in order to eradicate corruption but are rather angered by the fact that they have not benefited.

The awarding of tenders often occurs without the organization having had a thorough discussion about its implications, thus creating a situation where one or two cadres can posit themselves as the influential people in the eyes of the tenderists, so as to secure a bribe.

Another challenge in the organization is funding this is an important aspect because it determines the programmes of the organization and how far can the organization do with an intention to reach out to the society. SASCO has always been dependent on donors to carryout its programmes. It must be said that it very difficult to maintain this kind of relation. Its therefore important that the organization develop a vivid approach in terms of how is it going to fundraise for programmes of the organization from branches moving up to the National Executive Committee (NEC). Hence, this document thinks that it is necessity for the organization to debate and take formal resolutions about each and every tender awarding that representative of the organization are expected to participate in. Apart from deciding on who deserves a tender, the organization must ensure that it uses these tender platforms as instruments of fundraising as well, so as to ensure that no individual member benefits but our organization does.

This is particularly needed as we have seen that resource-based divisions are usually the main source of political and organizational decay leading to disunity and at times loss of popularity for our organization as highlighted earlier. Our organization, in branches, was at its best in 2005 and this explains the spate of SRC elections won all over the province that same year except UNIZULU.

The lack of funding for political education has also played its part on these shortcomings the organization faces. Now, more than before, the need arises for the organization to ceaselessly mobilize resources for political education and development of its cadres. The organization cannot be capable of mobilize because when it is cadre which are not political equipped.

The origin of all threat that faces the organization today are sub-threat, which are instigated by organizational decay. Organization crumble is caused by the deficiency of or rather low level of political education, which ensures that members of SASCO do not understand the SASCO let alone Congress traditions, which are entrenched in the theory and practice of organization discipline. The lack of political discussion and arguments is a major threat to the organization for this has ensured a process where there is demise of comprehension of what SASCO is. The 2005 Discussion document of SASCO argues, “Politics are the life blood of the organization without which the organization will die a fatal death with no hope for resurrection”.3 The removal of politics from this organization will make SASCO to be similar to normally social club and society where students will be united in action to enjoy themselves.

SASCO as student movement contest SRC election with the intention of achieving transformation that cannot be achieved outside of SRC. There are critical platforms which are only open to SRC’s which are the core of transformation. For SASCO to get access to these platforms it only make sense that SASCO that SASCO must content SRC election to achieve transformation in higher education. When SASCO resolved that its intention was to transform this critical sector in society, it had good intention which unfortunately is accompanied by negative effects.

We deem it to say that the organization must being to acknowledge that some of the reasons that it facing today is direct or indirect influenced by student governance. The division that have manifested themselves in branches are merely because of SRC’s and SASCO has been used in this process. The BEC of SASCO have been used to run SRC and nothing else. The question will then be without the SRC will SASCO still exist? The answer seems obvious, yes. However, there is a growing concerned, which generates many questions that might need answers.

REFERENCES

SACP 2005, “Is the ANC leading a national democratic revolution or managing capitalism?”
ANC NGC Discussion document, 2005 – Unity and diversity.
ANC NGC Discussion document, 2000 -
[1] “Is the ANC leading a National Democratic Revolution or managing capitalism?” (SACP – 2006)
[2] “Unity and Diversity” ANC - 2005

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Acceptance Speech of the Inauguration UKZN SRC

Monday, October 12, 2009

Where to Begin : BURNING QUESTIONS OF OUR MOVEMENT

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