South Africa

Here we are publishing a letter from a sympathiser in South Africa which gives his impressions of the massive hype surrounding the World Cup

Before the World Cup there was all the usual hype about how it would benefit the country. Yet, for all the more than six billion dollars worth of investment in stadiums, roads, airports and other projects, there has been very little that will benefit the vast majority of the population.

There's been some media cynicism over recent strikes and protests in South Africa. But chatter about a so-called winter ‘strike season' can not detract from the scale of recent struggles. When Jacob Zuma was campaigning in elections earlier this year he put the ANC forward as a party that would improve things after the Thabo Mebeki era. Workers have yet to see any differences.

The word ‘pogrom' was most often used to describe mob attacks on Jews in mediaeval times, often fomented by the state authorities as a means of deflecting popular anger away from them and onto an easily recognisable scapegoat. The persistence of anti-Semitic pogroms in Czarist Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century was often pointed to as an example of the extremely backward nature of that regime.

This article has already been published on this site here:

http://en.internationalism.org/wr/306/struggles-in-SA

In June a four week strike in South Africa involving between 600,000 and a million workers closed most schools, reduced hospitals to a skeleton run by army medics and had an impact on much public transport and many offices...

Over the summer South Africa has been rocked by the largest wave of strikes since the ANC took power in 1994. With economic growth stagnant at 0.6%, unemployment running at 30%, and inflation at 7.3%, the new ANC administration led by Thabo Mbeki have committed themselves to "fiscal discipline", which can only mean attacks on the living and working conditions of the proletariat.

In May the media was full of stories about the success of 10 years of 'democracy' in South Africa. The pictures of tens of thousands of workers queuing up to vote for the first time in May 1994 were dragged out the vaults to remind us of what a benefit democracy is for humanity. The reality for the working class has been worsening living and working conditions: 76% of households in South Africa live below the poverty line, an increase of 15% since 1996; unemployment has doubled since 1994; income in black households fell by 19% between 1995 and 2000 (Insights, issue 46). All of this presided over by the 'liberators' of the African National Congress.