nature versus science thesis examples for the birthmark

nature versus science thesis examples for the birthmark

Moodley (December 22, 1945–April 27, 2006) was a founding member of the in South Africa. The speech is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with Neville Alexander's permission.] By I In her historical novel, A Place of Greater Safety , which is played out against the backdrop of the Great French Revolution through an illuminating character analysis and synthesis of three of that revolution's most prominent personalities, viz., Maximilien Robespierre, Georges-Jacques Danton and Camile Desmoulins, Hilary Mantel imagines the following conversation between Lucile Desmoulins and Danton: So has the Revolution a philosophy, Lucile wanted to know, has it a future? "Grab what you can, and get out while the going's good" This sentiment, I make bold to say, puts in the bluntest possible way the dominant sense of disillusionment and disbelief that most middle-class South Africans have when they feel compelled to "whine" and complain about where we appear to have landed in post-apartheid South Africa. Most often, it is used to refer to a "social revolution", i.e., the displacement of the rule of one class by that of another, usually by violent means, i.e., in the course of a civil war or an armed struggle . It ought to be clear to everyone here tonight that, in South Africa, we have not, in this very precise sense, experienced a social revolution. In my view, what we have experienced in South Africa during the past two decades is precisely such a political revolution. There have been many scholarly analyses, biographies of significant actors as well as insightful journalistic articles and documentaries on the transition from apartheid to post-apartheid South Africa. Instead, I want to talk about the fact that most South Africans, certainly most oppressed and exploited South Africans, feel that they have been, if not betrayed, then certainly misled. I want to talk about what we can do to find again that vision of a different South Africa that inspired all of us in one way or another regardless of what political tendency we belonged to at the time. For, I believe that if, through discussion and practical action, we can again visualise that other South Africa, we will very soon put behind us the barbaric and vulgar universe in which we are forced to try to survive with dignity today. The success or failure, the "completeness" or otherwise of the revolution we speak of in South Africa can only be measured against the extent to which, roughly, the set of ideas and programmatic demands that have guided all sections of the national liberation movement since the axial period, 1928-1945 approximately, and which were refined and differentiated according to the ideological predispositions and class position of the different tendencies within the broad movement , were realised in the course of the 80 years that have elapsed since then. Without reducing the complexity of contemporary South African history to some simplistic formula, I believe one can say without any distortion that the discourses of the national liberation movement were characterised by the intersection of nationalist, liberal-democratic and broadly socialist paradigms and that the particularity of one or other political tendency was determined by the ways in which its exponents blended or interpreted these three discursive strategies, each of which, of course, derived from and reinforced specific class interests, whether or not the social actors involved were conscious of these. Given the decision to negotiate a deal with the apartheid regime rather than getting entangled in a 100 years war, such as that raging in Palestine , the leadership of the Congress Alliance had to make definite decisions about which of the demands of the Charter could be put on the back burner, as it were, in order to make a deal acceptable to the economic and political elites of the old regime. to extend primary health care and provide ten years of free education to all South Africans; ( Long Walk to Freedom , p. I should like to phrase this as simply and authentically as possible, since it is at this level that resentment and hostility are engendered when one criticises a movement, such as the Congress movement, that has become so powerful and hegemonic in South Africa. I do not doubt for one minute that most, if not all, members of that movement sincerely believed in the ringing trumpet tones of the Freedom Charter : The people shall govern; It is probable even that many, but certainly not the majority, of the leaders considered that the deviations from the trajectory which the Freedom Charter seemed to suggest, i.e., away from the race-based capitalism of more than 100 years towards some kind of African socialist or at least social-democratic future were no more than tactical adjustments necessitated by the realities of the political terrain at the end of the 20 century after the collapse of the Soviet Union. All I wish to stress here is that any blanket statement about "sell-out" and "betrayal" could only be made at the most general and abstract level against the background of the avowed previous ideological or programmatic positions of the individuals or groups of people concerned . I want to say as clearly as possible that apart from incorrigible revolutionary socialists, such as myself and many others who were routinely maligned as "ultra-leftists" or even more anachronistically, as "Trotskyites", the bourgeoisie and a few of the leaders of the Congress Alliance were clear that the 1993-94 agreements were in essence about stabilising the capitalist state and system in South Africa and creating the conditions for its expansion as a profitable venture. As early as April 24, 1991, almost 20 years ago, John Carlin, the South Africa correspondent of The Independent Mr. Mandela and the other "moderates" in the ANC leadership […] believed that the government and the ANC would be equal partners in the voyage to the "New South Africa", that apartheid would go and they, as the natural majority party, would glide into power … In one sense [that] trust was not misplaced. Today, thanks particularly to Professor Terreblanche's summary of the hidden negotiations about the economic aspects of the negotiated settlement, in his A History of Inequality in South Africa 1652–2002, we know that there was no innocence on the side of the leadership of the ANC and of prominent leaders of COSATU and the SACP, in spite of disagreements on policy, which fact became evident most dramatically with the eventual imposition of the macroeconomic policy [known as the Growth, Employment and Redistribution] GEAR. At stake was not only the economic policy of a democratically elected government but also the nature of South Africa's future economic system. Given that South Africa was the most developed country in Africa, the stakes were extremely high, and the negotiations were strategically hugely important for the corporate sector. After almost 20 years of prolonged stagflation, the latter was desperate to convince the core leaders of the democratic movement what the economic ideology and economic system in a democratic South Africa should be. A History of Inequality in South Africa 1652–2002 . There ought to be no doubt in anyone's mind after a close reading of this text that, and why, the bourgeoisie, the self-same capitalist class of yesterday, is in command of all the strategic positions, no matter what the "democratic" posturing of the politicians might be. And, although it would be an oversimplification to maintain that the ANC at the beginning of the 21st century has become a party of the capitalist class, it ought to be equally clear that the bloodletting and the cruel battles that are currently tearing the organisation apart are precisely about how soon it will become such a party rather than the supposed broad church it continues to be marketed as by the bureaucratic leadership. This is very far from the almost utopian revolutionary euphoria with which most South Africans, unaware of what had been agreed upon in the devilish details of the negotiation process, had so proudly cast their votes on April 27-28, 1994. They find themselves in the tragic situation described by Friedrich Engels in the memorable paragraph in the Peasant War in Germany The worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme party is to be compelled to take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe for the domination of the class which he represents, and for the realization of the measures which that domination implies. In a word, he is compelled to represent not his party or his class, but the class for whose domination the movement is then ripe. In the interests of the movement he is compelled to advance the interests of an alien class, and to feed his own class with phrases and promises, and with the asseveration [solemn assertion] that the interests of that alien class are its own interests. Let me say it very clearly: the new South Africa has brought about fundamental changes in the form of rule and in the institutional furniture of the capitalist state. It is a class struggle "pure and simple" or, in good South African English: finish en klaar . Racial prejudice, inequalities justified on alleged cultural, linguistic, ethnic or nationality differences, all the things that defaced colonial-apartheid South Africa, persist even if in attenuated forms. To put it bluntly: for the leadership of this NDR to be an integral part of a bourgeois government while pretending to conduct a revolutionary struggle against the capitalist system is the merest political buffoonery. The real danger is that the goal, the destination, of these struggles is being described and presented in terms that necessarily limit the horizons of the class struggle to the bourgeois universe . Strategically, this can only lead to the consolidation of the social democratisation of the workers' movement in South Africa, a process that began with the tying of the main trade union federation to the goals and modalities of the Congress Alliance in the mid-1980s. Suffice it to say that the question can be formulated quite clearly in terms that Rosa Luxemburg first made famous in her essay on Reform or Revolution , published in 1900, i.e., 110 years ago. In her own words: [… People] who pronounce themselves in favor of the method of legislative reform in place of and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal . Our program becomes not the realization of socialism , but the reform of capitalism ; Non-italics in the original) Another way of putting this is the proposition that, in Gramscian terms, the class struggle gets stuck, as it were, in a war of position in the belief that these manoeuvres in themselves constitute a transformation of the capitalist state and society into a socialist society and a workers' state. 30.) This, as I see it, is the tendency of much that is put forward as the program of the NDR, quite apart from the fundamental sleight of hand perpetrated by those who are busy stabilising the capitalist system in South Africa while they pontificate at the same time about the "fundamental transformation" of our society. The final disillusionment will come, of course, when the repressive apparatuses of the state, instead of supporting the exploited classes and other oppressed strata, turn their weapons on the masses to protect the interests of the capitalist class. However, not to postulate consistently and as a matter of daily practical political education the need to end the rule of the local and international capitalist class, as eccentric as that may appear to be at present, is to disarm the working class and its allies ideologically before the decisive battles are fought . Today, because of the massive pollution of the popular consciousness by means of (mostly) US consumerist culture, this is a much more difficult task than it was for those who fashioned – in struggle – the mass social-democratic parties and workers' movements of Europe towards the end of the 19 century, or of some of the mass parties of the newly industrialising countries, including, incipiently, the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa during the 1970s and 1980s. Second , the caving in of layer after layer of former so-called socialists to the pressures and enticements of neoliberal bourgeois norms and aspirations, which has been one of the most melodramatic political developments of the late 20 century, has temporarily weakened the socialist forces numerically and intellectually but, in the longer term, has also laid the foundation for a much more solid political edifice built with the will and the knowledge of many dedicated men and women. Third , there is very little doubt in the mind of any serious revolutionary socialist protagonist that the form of organisation, the party, for short, that will lead or guide the struggle for socialism in the world has once again become a point of debate. Besides the ever more obvious interimperialist rivalry between North America and the European Union, we are witnessing the appearance on the world stage of the Asian capitalist giants of China, India and Indonesia, as well as of the more established capitalist regimes of Japan, South Korea, Malaysia-Singapore and an assertive Russia. Third , from the point of view of the economic South of the globe, the entrance of China and India as major investors in infrastructure and consumers of raw materials and other commodities has the potential of re-establishing a "neutral" space for the elites that is not dissimilar from that which made it possible during the Cold War for a Nehru, a Nasser, an Nkrumah and others to strut large on the world stage, whatever their nationalist and personal attributes might have contributed to their stature. It implies the manifest rejection of the new international division of labour imposed by the international financial institutions on behalf of the USA hegemon on the rest of humanity . This is the reason for the discussion about a European identity and for the ongoing discussion in South Africa of the question: Who is an African? Fourth , the increasingly coordinated strategies of the world capitalist class via entities such as the World Economic Forum as well as the yawning gaps between the rich and the poor that are the direct consequence of the neoliberal economic orthodoxy and its barbaric practical instantiations in most countries of the world, especially in the economic South, have given rise to a worldwide protest movement that has come to be associated in the main with the World Social Forum and its geographical offshoots with the catchy motto/slogan to the effect that "Another world is possible" , symphony. Any illusions individual socialists or groups of socialists may have had about the class nature of most co-opted regimes, especially in Africa, have been dispelled by the blatant and abject subordination of the South African liberation struggle to the dictates of international and domestic capital. Only South Africa itself has a sufficiently diversified economic structure to withstand to some extent the devastating consequences of essentially monocultural economies. In spite of this, of course, the sporadic and sometimes sustained protests and uprisings against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank imposed austerity regimes, most prominently in Zimbabwe in recent years, but equally so in Zambia, in Uganda, Senegal and elsewhere, are a sign of the latent force of anti-neocolonial and anti-capitalist resistance, of the potential of the second chimurenga . For this reason, as well as others, the direction that the class struggle takes in South Africa during the next few years will be crucial to the rest of the continent. It is, in my view, a misnomer to refer to these stirrings of self-organisation of the working class as an expression of "collective insubordination" , even though their immediate impulse is usually reactive rather than proactive. It is this understanding that should inform our analysis and our estimation of the prospects for a more principled socialist-orientated direction of the struggle in South Africa. Hence, they undertook community development programmes and mobilised people at the grassroots in order that they might survive in the menacing environments of apartheid South Africa. Let us try, however briefly, to sketch some of the consequences of applying the principle of sufficiency as the major moral force shaping post-apartheid South Africa, a principle that can create the kind of unifying vision, based on the paramountcy of working-class interests. Adverts like one that is currently popular in South Africa which claims that everyone wants to be a "winner" and in the "first team", rather than a "deputy chairperson" or a "benchwarmer" – or words to that effect – would become as absurd and counterproductive as they are from the point of view of a more humane social order. Besides the ongoing political and economic class struggles, in which we are willy-nilly involved and by means of which we attempt to create and to consolidate more democratic space in the short to medium term, we have to go back to the community development tasks that the Black Consciousness Movement initiated so successfully, if not always sustainably, owing to the ravages of the apartheid system. This is the difference between South Africa today and South Africa yesterday. In this way, the fabric of civil society non-government organisations that was the real matrix of the anti-apartheid movement will be refreshed and we will once again have that sense of a safety net of communities inspired by the spirit and the real practices of ubuntu , the "counter-society" I referred to earlier, that saved so many of us from being destroyed by the racist system. among other things, we shall have to find practical answers to old questions in a new context, questions such as: What kind of party or organisation should be created out of the confluence of all our political tendencies and traditions in order for the socialist alternative to be firmly rooted within this evolving social base? I think I have spoken, and speak, in the spirit of Strini Moodley and his comrades when I express the hope that we will find unity in action even as we try to find new ways of seeing the struggle for another world and another South Africa. nature versus science thesis examples for the birthmark

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