OCCASIONAL PAPER NO.

3 SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2012

The Azanian Uprising:
Challenging the Hegemony of the ANC
and Completing the Azanian Revolution
Written by Kali Akuno
For the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and Malcolm X Solidarity Committee
A
zania, better known to most as South Africa, is afire with worker resistance
and social unrest. Since August, hundreds of thousands of workers, the
unemployed, and their allies have engaged in a pitched battle against the
forces of transnational capital, particularly those concentrated in the mineral ex-
traction industries, and the African National Congress (ANC) government and its
partners the Coalition of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South
African Communist Party (SACP) known at the Tripartite Alliance.
1
The work-
ers rebellion has literally brought the Azanian economy, one of the largest and
most strategic in the world, to a virtual stand still and created an unprecedented
political crisis for the ruling Tripartite Alliance and its international backers.
2
The workers uprising is rooted in the deepening of capitalist exploitation in
Azania since the end of Apartheid and the failure of the ANC government to
implement the transformative program outlined in the Freedom Charter that
promised to democratize the economy for the benefit of the majority of Azanias
peoples.
3
It must also be understood as part of the wave of global resistance
against the austerity impositions of neo-liberal capitalism stimulated by the col-
lapse of the global economy in 2007 2008. This wave has touched Algeria, Bah-
rain, Brazil, Chile, Cte dIvoire, England, France, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland,
Israel, Italy, Kenya, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Portugal, Senegal, Spain, Syria, Yemen, the
United States and beyond! However, in terms of scale, scope and impact, the up-
surge in Azania is only rivaled by the popular uprisings in Egypt, Greece, Quebec,
and Tunisia.
However, despite its scale, scope and impact, the Azanian uprising has received
very little attention by left and progressive forces in the United States. One of the
primary reasons why this is so can be directly attributed to the support of the
ANC and COSATU by the vast majority of left and progressive forces within the
US (the SACP receives less support for ideological reasons). To most, the ANC,
COSATU and SACP are the unrivaled liberators of Azania, who through decades
of protracted struggle delivered the country from the grips of Apartheid and white minority domination. The dominance of this narrative and
position has made it difficult for these forces to contextualize the Marikana massacre and understand the workers rebellion, and if and how
they should relate to it.
4
1 For more information on the Tripartite Alliance see http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=2051.
2 For more information on the economic impact of the strike see http://atlantablackstar.com/2012/10/08/south-african-strikes-crippling-country-creating-
shortages/ and http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/south-africas-ruling-party-paralyzed-as-strikes-choke-off-economy/article4595773/. For more
information on the political crisis see http://links.org.au/node/3063.
3 For a comprehensive analysis of this failure see Julian Kunnie, Is Apartheid Really Dead? Pan-Africanist Working-Class Cultural Critical Perspectives, published by
Westview Press 2000. See also http://infoburst.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/are-we-better-or-worse-than-Apartheid-the-lonmin-parallel/.
4 See the following early article by Jean Damu http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/20/behind-the-south-africa-mineworkers-strike/, which demonstrates
some of the early confusion and bias relating to the Lonmin strike and the rivalry between the Association of Mine Workers and Construction Unions
(AMCU) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Information that the NUM helped spark the Lonmin strike by killing 2 of its own members
seriously contradicts this view http://dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2012-10-12-marikana-prequel-num-and-the-murders-that-started-it-all?fb_action_
ids=10101594644082283&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=timeline_og&action_object_map=%7B%2210101594644082283%22%3A4323055334
92432%7D&action_type_map=%7B%2210101594644082283%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D. See also http://sacsis.org.za/site/
article/1456.
The crisis posed by the Marikana massacre is threatening the posi-
tion of the Tripartite Alliance. Its legitimacy is being challenged and
with it certain aspects of its power. The weakening of its legitimacy
and power is prefaced by its failure to improve the lives of the vast
majority of the people of Azania after Apartheid. This failure is rooted
in the compromise struck by the Tripartite Alliance with the South
African settler regime, US imperialism, and the forces of transnational
capital.
5
The compromise consisted of maintaining the capitalist social order,
including white settler ownership, in exchange for nominal political
control over the bourgeois state and the inclusion of Black and non-
white peoples into the capitalist class. It is this deal that produced the
likes of Cyril Ramaphosa, who transitioned from a mineworker and
COSATU leader during Apartheid to a part owner of the Lonmin
mining company and one of the richest men in post-Apartheid
Azania.
6
This historic compromise should not be understood as a sellout
or betrayal of the masses by a revolutionary party. From its inception
the ANC was a liberal democratic organization that accepted the
twin monsters of capitalist social production and liberal democra-
cy.
7
Along the protracted road of struggle, the ANC adopted many
social democratic ideals, such as those in the Freedom Charter, and
even incorporated a good number of revolutionary forces within its
ranks from the communist party and various revolutionary national-
ist trends, but it never waivered or ceased being in its fundamental
character a liberal democratic organization. And as such, it never fully
intended on breaking with capitalism and imperialism.
The notion that the ANC was or is a party of national liberation is
5 For some background on this historic compromise see http://johnpilger.
com/articles/Apartheid-never-died-in-south-africa-it-inspired-a-world-
order-upheld-by-force-and-illusion, http://therealnews.com/t2/index.
php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=8818.
6 For more info on Cyril Ramaphosa and other ANC officials turned
Black capitalists see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/24/cyril-
ramaphosa-lonmin-email-reputation, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/
oct/24/lonmin-emails-anc-elder-baron, and http://www.internationalist.org/
southafricaminemassacre1208.html.
7 For some background and perspective on this see Robert J. C. Young,
Fanon and the Turn to Armed Struggle in Africa, in Wasafiri Issue 44 Spring
2005 and William Mervin Gumede, Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of
the ANC, Published by Zebra Press, 2005.
more myth than substance.
8
And it is likely that the Marikana mas-
sacre has forever shattered that myth. Marikana, like the Sharpeville
massacre of 1960 and the Soweto massacre in 1976, is clearly a game
changer. It has radicalized the consciousness of a generation and
altered its social expectations and relations. There is no going back
to the pre-Marikana status quo, no matter how much the Tripartite
Alliance and its allies utilize the repressive might of the state to try
and make it so.
9
And although this crisis most likely wont result in
the fall of the ANC, let alone a full-scale social revolution given the
still fragmented nature of the revolutionary forces in Azania, it is clear
that the hegemony of the ANC has been forever shattered.
A new era is emerging in Azania as a direct result of the Marikana
massacre and the workers uprising. The era holds both great promise
and peril. If the revolutionary left forces and radical social movements
can consolidate over the next several months and years as the capi-
talist world system continues to struggle there is a potential for these
forces to complete the Azanian revolution that was interrupted by
the negotiations and compromises of the ANC in the late 1980s and
early 90s. If these forces are unable or unwilling to complete this task,
then it is likely the ongoing national and international crisis will result
in ethnic conflict as a result of the provocation and degeneration of
the ANC.
What We Can Do: The Role of International Allies
O
ur primary task is to do whatever we can to support the radi-
cal social movements (like the emerging independent Work-
ers movement, the Landless Peoples movement, the Shack
8 Again, see Julian Kunnie, Is Apartheid Really Dead? Pan-Africanist Working-
Class Cultural Critical Perspectives, published by Westview Press 2000 and
Robert J. C. Young, Fanon and the Turn to Armed Struggle in Africa, in
Wasafiri Issue 44 Spring 2005.
9 For more information see http://links.org.au/node/3071, http://www.
thoughtleader.co.za/christivanderwesthuizen/2012/09/04/marikana-the-sign-
of-a-schizophrenic-state/, and http://www.globallabour.info/en/2012/10/
lonmin_withdrawal_of_murder_ch.html.
Dwellers movement, the Anti-Privatization movement, etc.
10
) and the
unification and consolidation of a new revolutionary force in Azania
(which this writer believes would include the revolutionary forces
from the social movements and the Black Consciousness Movement,
and more developed political forces like the Socialist Party of Azania,
Socialist Azanian Youth Revolutionary Organization, and the Demo-
cratic Left Front). This entails:
Providing resources when and where possible, particularly finan-
cial resources in support of the organizing work of the social
movements and revolutionary formations;
Challenging the hegemony of the ANC and the Tripartite Alli-
ance and providing political support in the international arena,
which entails everything from doing international education work
that shatters the myth of the Tripartite Alliance, popular agitation
in support of the demands of the new revolutionary forces, and
advocacy in venues such as the US congress and the United Na-
tions for these demands, etc.;
Fighting the interventionist politics, programs and activities of the
US government that will target the revolutionary forces, bol-
ster the Tripartite Alliance, and seek to strangulate the Azanian
economy.
Avoiding Traps
A
s the old saying goes, the best way of avoiding a trap is know-
ing of its existence. Perhaps the greatest trap in the way of
international forces wanting to engage in principled solidarity
with the uprising of the workers and the impoverished in Azania is
ideology. The Tripartite Alliance, as Patrick Bond says, is a master of
talking left, but walking right.
11
The left rhetoric and (questionable)
credentials of the Alliance play a critical role in confusing international
forces.
Post-Marikana, COSATU and the SACP have taken the lead in
being the left flank of the Alliance, and played a concerted role in
not only denouncing the workers uprising, but resorted to many of
the old divide and conquer tactics of the settler Apartheid regime,
going so far as to label the striking workers scabs being manipulated
by outside agitators, and accusing them of being blinded by tribal
witchcraft. These are classic anti-communist tactics that were well
worn by the Apartheid regime, now on full display by their one-time
enemies.
12
10 For more information on several of these movements see Rita Barnard
and Grant Farred, editors, After the Thrill is Gone: A Decade of Post-Apartheid
South Africa, published by the South Atlantic Quarterly 103:4 Fall 2004 and
Ashwin Desai, We are the Poors: Community Struggles in Post-Apartheid South
Africa, published by Monthly Review Press 2002.
11 This is the title of Patrick Bonds book released in 2004 by University of
Natal Press. For a review of the book see http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v9/
v9i1a9.htm.
12 To get a sense of some of the rhetorical attacks of the SACP
The ideological attack on the workers acting autonomously in their
own interests and the alleged primitiveness of their consciousness
is not the only ideological assault being waged. The Tripartite Alliance
has also been keen to reengage in the longstanding ideological, and
often bloody, conflict with the forces of the Black Consciousness and
Afrikanist movements.
13
Both of these revolutionary nationalist ten-
dencies have been given wide expression in the recent uprising and
many partisans of the forces representing these ideological currents
have been playing critical roles in the uprising and its dramatic spread
(such as SAYRO, SOPA, and several Priests historically partial to the
BCM). The SACP has gone so far as put hit pieces out on the likes of
Lybon Mabasa, the SOPA Party President and Bishop Jo Seoka, of the
Anglican Church and head of the South African Council of Churches,
both of whom are BCM partisans and the targets of recent assassina-
tion attempts for their efforts in support of the workers uprising.
14
and COSATU see the following http://www.revleft.com/vb/sacp-and-
union-t175884/index.html?s=58caa913765638d016d3ee7999e1334d&amp
;p=2527426, http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=3760, http://www.sacp.org.
za/main.php?ID=3723, http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa/sacp-
against-miners/#, and http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=6525.
13 For some background on this ideological and political struggle see http://
www.mltranslations.org/SouthAfrica/SApamphl.htm and http://www.sahistory.
org.za/topic/black-consciousness-movement-azania-bcma.
14 For more information on this critical hit piece see https://groups.google.
com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/yclsa-eom-forum/-RdKsSPbsTk.
The BCM and the Afrikanist ideology associated with the thought
of Robert Sobukwe, are revolutionary nationalist tendencies that
offer radically different programs and strategies for the realization
of socialism in Azania than that alluded to in the Freedom Charter
and argued for by the SACP (although never universally accepted
either within the ANC or COSATU).
15
The Tripartite Alliance and its
allies are gravely concerned with the alternative these revolutionary
nationalist tendencies pose, as they are ideologically and politically a
direct threat to the governing bargain struck by the compromise of
the Tripartite Alliance under the leadership of the ANC. The revolu-
tionary tendencies of these ideologies and programs demand an end
to the settler domination of the economy and with it a break with
the forces of transnational capitalism, white supremacy and imperial-
ism.
We must also be clear ideologically and politically, of the shrewd
maneuvering of the ANC. Perhaps its most shrewd maneuvering
comes in the international circus it has built around Julius Malema.
Malema is the supposed young lion of the ANC, who has the ear of
15 See S.E.M. Pheko, The Land is Ours: The Political Legacy of Mangaliso
Sobukwe, published by S.E.M. Pheko 1994; Tom Lodge, Black Politics in South
Africa since 1945, published by Longman Group LTD 1983; Gail M. Gerhart,
Black Power in South Africa: the Evolution of an Ideology, published by University
of California Press 1978; and Anthony W. Marx, Lessons of Struggle: South
African Internal Opposition, 1960-1990, published by Oxford University Press
1992. Although the last two works are very critical of the BCM and openly
pro-ANC, they both contain some valuable information and insights.
the people, particularly the youth, who is allegedly challenging Zuma
and the ruling elite of the ANC to reform the economy for the good
of the masses by nationalizing the mining sector of the Azanian econ-
omy.
16
According to the current ruling faction of the ANC, Malema
is an opportunist rogue fanning the flames of racial hatred by calling
for nationalization of the mines and land redistribution, which would
threaten the predominance of white ownership in these sectors.
17

Malema is also being accused of being a criminal opportunist involved
in numerous fraudulent activities.
In the context of understanding the overall strategy and program
of the ANC, it is clear that these allegations and charges against
Malema amount to nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Although
there are real factional differences within the ANC, and left leaning
and right leaning forces as well, the anti-Malema and pro-Malema
forces within it are all aligned on the core program of the ANC that
is centered on upholding the agreements emerging from the com-
promises made with the Apartheid regime. And the core program of
the ANC has produced from top to bottom, a party full of opportun-
ists, careerists, poverty pimps and cronies who line up and sometimes
16 For more background on Julius Malema see the following http://www.
bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19536522, and http://www.citypress.co.za/
SouthAfrica/News/Malemas-secret-fund-20110723.
17 For more information see http://allafrica.com/stories/201209120444.
html.
compete viciously to feed at the trough of the ANC government
provided by its corporate masters in the form of gracious insider
contracts (called Tenders) awarded through various Black Economic
Empowerment (BEE) programs that have strategically benefitted
a small number of petit-bourgeois Afrikans. So, although the ANC
has presented a compelling case of fraud and opportunism against
Malema, it is not one they want to press too hard, as Malema could
just as easily expose many in the leadership of the ANC who set him
up with his opportunities, contacts, and contracts in the first place.
18
The real shrewdness of the ANC comes into play in how it, or at
least a faction of it, are using and deploying Malema to channel and
contain the rage of the rebelling workers. In making his appeals to
the workers after the Marikana massacre, Malema was always keen
to inform everyone that he was still with the ANC (despite pres-
ent legal formalities regarding his expulsion) and that the problem
being confronted by the workers was one of sell-out and misguided
leadership on behalf of the party.
19
The clear implication here was
18 For more information see http://za.news.yahoo.com/news-analysis-
malema-claim-manipulation-could-weaken-zuma-050218671--finance.html,
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/becomes+disease+cure/7402381/story.
html, and http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/corruption-violence-and-
divisions-tears-at-anc-of-south-africa-a-852365.html.
19 For more information see http://www.citypress.co.za/Politics/
News/I-wont-form-new-party-Malema-20120514 and http://www.
citypress.co.za/Politics/News/Malema-not-calling-for-wholesale-blanket-
nationalisation-20120919.
that if he were to replace Jacob Zuma as the Chairman of the ANC,
then there would be no more massacres, low wages, or poor working
conditions as his leadership would resolve these problems, in part
through nationalization. In this game, the ANC hits the workers on
both ends: the stick on the one side and the carrot on the other.
Malema, by his own admittance, is not serious about really national-
izing the mines,
20
nor is he serious about breaking with the neo-
liberal polices and programs of the ANC. However, the character of
Malema provides the ANC with several strategic options. To appease
transnational capital, Malema and the forces he represents within the
ANC can be blamed, disciplined, and ultimately sacrificed for various
failures that yield themselves to low profit margins. And to appease
the material demands of the base, the Malema forces can be used
both as instigators and agitators to try and force various concessions
from transnational capital. So, in effect, the ANC can and does have it
both ways.
21
Marikana reveals that the ANC is a spent force. In following its lead,
COSATU and the SACP have not been able to orient it towards a
social democratic, let alone a revolutionary path. The Marikana mas-
sacre provided the SACP and COSATU, which have both threatened
to leave the Alliance in the past due to the corruption and pro-capi-
talist orientation of the ANC, with enough reason and political cover
to make good on its promises to act independently and legitimately
break with the ANC. That both have gone out of their way to not
only defend the ANC, but to serve as its left cover speaks volumes!
It is past time that a new revolutionary force, rooted amongst the
workers and the millions of unemployed and impoverished, emerge
to complete the Azanian revolution.
Revolutionary forces throughout the world have a concrete role
to play in the development of this new force in Azania. The only way
international forces can avoid the trap of providing the ANC and the
Tripartite Alliance with aid and solidarity that is not warranted, is to
be as ideologically clear as possible on who these forces are, what is
their history, what it is that they fundamentally represent, and what is
their concrete historical practice.
20 Again see http://www.citypress.co.za/Politics/News/Malema-not-calling-
for-wholesale-blanket-nationalisation-20120919.
21 For more perspective and background see https://www.facebook.com/
groups/AzanianWorkerSolidarity/?fref=ts.
For further information, or to link up with us for future
actions, events, campaigns or organizing, please visit our
websites:
MXGM.org
NavigatingTheStorm.blogspot.com
The Azanian Workers Solidarity Committee
O
ne emerging force struggling to advance the ideological perspective
advanced in this work is the Azanian Workers Solidarity Commit-
tee (AWSC).
22
AWSC was initiated by the Malcolm X Grassroots
Movement (MXGM) and Malcolm X Solidarity Committee (MXSC) in
solidarity with the Socialist Azanian Youth Revolutionary Organization
(SAYRO), to pursue the following:
[The] creation of a Black-led coalition of organizations and individu-
als committed to educating and mobilizing the international com-
munity in solidarity with the struggles of Azanian workers to end
exploitation and to nationalize the resources of the country.
We explicitly support the working class of Azania in its struggle to
overcome the oppression of neoliberal privatization and auster-
ity policies of the ANC government, which ultimately only serve
Western corporate capitalist interests and impoverish and enslave
the Black masses on their own land. Accordingly, we support the
call for the nationalization of all privately-controlled financial institu-
tions, industrial infrastructure, and natural resources fundamental
to the economy and well being of the people for their sole benefit,
the expropriation without compensation and redistribution on an
equitable basis of all the land of the nation, and the unconditional
cancellation of the Apartheid debt.
The August 16, 2012 Marikana Massacre, a mass murder of strik-
ing workers by the police of the South African ANC regimelike
the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre and the 1976 Soweto Massacre
before itwill represent a new birth of the struggle for a Black
Workers Republic. We stand shoulder to shoulder in common pur-
pose with the struggling workers and people of Occupied Azania.
The immediate program of the AWSC is to provide tangible inter-
national solidarity to the Azanian working class that will help it advance
towards revolution and at the same time cut off a vital supply line of
rare earth commodities (gold, diamonds, platinum, etc.) to transnational
corporations and shut down imperialisms southern conveyor belt for the
recolonization of the Afrikan Continent. To achieve this program, we are
initiating the following:
1. INTERNATIONAL LABOR AND HUMAN RIGHTS DELEGA-
TIONS OR COMMISSIONS OF INQUIRY to investigate the Mari-
kana Massacre and subsequent human rights atrocities and violations
of international labor standards and conventions. We believe the
South African Labour Relations Act on its face violates the interna-
tionally recognized Right to Strike (a union or group of workers in
South Africa must get government permission before striking) and
Freedom of Association (from our reading, the SA LRA makes it
virtually illegal for workers to seek representation outside official
ANC-approved/COSATUi.e. company-/government-dominated
channels).

22 For more on the AWSC see https://www.facebook.com/groups/Azanian
WorkerSolidarity/?fref=ts.
2. BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS ACTIONS/
CAMPAIGNS. South African cargo should be picketed. Transport
unions in all countries should block shipments of companies who
do significant business in South Africa. Corporate offices and retail
outlets of South African mineral resource end-user products, such
as DeBeers boutiques, etc., should be militantly picketed. Unions
pension funds must divest from South African investments. Same for
public universities, etc.
3. FUNDRAISING TO SUSTAIN OUR COMRADES WORK ON
THE GROUND. The SOPA/SAYRO national head office in Jo-
hannesburg was nearly evicted recently, in the midst of the most
important and widespread mass class struggle in Azania since the
end of Apartheid. The SOPA comrades have been able to maintain
their own office without any assistance for 14 years of the partys
existence. But these are extraordinary times in Azania, and with
them come extraordinary responsibilities. Our comradeswho in
the midst of 60% or greater Black unemployment in normal times
struggle valiantly just to keep things runningdeserve and have a
right to expect our financial support in a pre-revolutionary crisis.
These tasks should be considered specific to the AWSC, and support-
ive of the larger tasks suggested earlier that were and are intended for
the construction of broad movement.
Forward!
T
he Marikana Massacre and the workers uprising is reinvigorating and
rekindling the popular spirit of revolutionary resistance in Azania.
To support its advancement and make sure it is not isolated and
crushed, a new international solidarity movement like the anti-Apartheid
movement of a generation ago must be built that will ensure the peoples
victory in this new phase of revolutionary struggle!
We call upon all those committed and willing to help build this move-
ment to rise to the occasion, meet these challenges, and carry out these
initiatives of solidarity in support of the revolutionary social movements
and political forces in Azania in support of the completion of the Azanian
national liberation struggle and social revolution.
*This article was heavily informed by discussions with comrades in
the Socialist Azanian Youth Revolutionary Organization (SAYRO).