United Front takes baby steps to redefine SA politics
Most commentators have got the idea of the United Front
wrong, and many important points from the national congress in December were
overlooked.
Since its December 2013 special national congress’ call
for trade union federation Cosatu to sever its ties with the ANC, the
decisions of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) have
received poor analysis. Most misrepresented has been the union’s resolution for
Numsa to lead in the establishment of a United Front.
Despite numerous statements that explained that the
envisaged front was a movement whose primary objective is to strengthen and
co-ordinate union and community struggles, commentators and analysts continued
to describe the United Front as “a party-in-the-making” for electoral contests
in 2016 and 2019.
Unfortunately, it is through these jaundiced eyes that
the same commentators have analysed the outcomes of the Preparatory Assembly
for the United Front that was held in December last year.
Now that the assembly reiterated the view that the United
Front was not an electoral political party but a movement that intends to
struggle for a “democratic and egalitarian society”, those fixated to the
position that the coalition was a party are characterising the whole initiative
as riddled with contradictions and united only by antagonism towards to the
ruling party.
Days after the assembly, more than one editorial opined
that the danger for the front “lies in the fact that the new movement continues
to define itself largely in terms of what it is not, rather than what it is”
and will therefore disappear into political oblivion like Bantu Holomisa’s
United Democratic Movement or the Congress of the People (Cope).
For anyone who was at the preparatory assembly nothing
could be further from the truth. While there were intense debates among the 348
delegates that represented 71 organisations, there was convergence on key areas
on the agenda. For an example, there was unanimity about building united front
whose vision is a democratic society “without huge inequalities; disparities;
poverty; legacies of colonialism and apartheid; corruption and unaccountable
government”.
There was also convergence on building solidarity;
collective needs and interests trumping profits and other elite interests;
protection of the environment; opposition to anti-poor and pro-rich economic
policies; extending democracy in both political and economic spheres; and
campaigns against corruption, failing service delivery, increasingly
unaccountable governance, police brutality, violence against women, children,
gay and lesbian people.
No single organisation or delegate disagreed with
principles such as feminism, accountability, transparency, anti-racism,
non-sexism, anti-xenophobic, non-sectarianism, opposition to oppression,
exploitation, tribalism and ethnicity.
As it is to be expected, with organisations and movement
that come from different backgrounds and that have varied experiences; areas of
disagreements are bound to emerge.
As the meeting in December was a preparatory gathering,
areas where there was no convergence were referred for democratic discussions
in provinces and within constituent organisations of the front. What those who
pooh-pooh the outcomes of the assembly miss is that in more than one way, small
steps were taken through discussions to build a different kind of politics to
the ones who have become accustomed to.
First, the assembly asserted the principles of democratic
plurality, diversity, political tolerance and respect for different views
within the front. Participants committed themselves to politics of mutual
listening and learning where participating organisations and individuals
influence each other.
The adopted resolutions warn against any know-all
pretences and reliance on trans-historical blueprints. Referring areas on which
different organisations did not see eye to eye on back to constituencies was
therefore no train smash.
The assembly agreed that the front must be a learning
space where organisations travel together, discover solutions jointly and
unlearn oppressive, undemocratic and sexist methods of organisation and
struggle.
The second way in which the united front hopes to
inculcate different politics is to call on all those who associate with the
coalition to acknowledge their own weaknesses and adopt politics of consistency
that call on all, to actively reflect on and address their own racism, sexism,
homophobia, xenophobia and privilege. The personal is political and there is no
room within the front for talking left and walking right.
Third, the organisations that were at the assembly
committed themselves to confidence-building struggles where they fight for
winnable demands while also democratically re-imagining and building their long-term
vision of an egalitarian society.
Although there are no guarantees of success, the United
Front hopes to build a mass movement in this country through galvanising the
tributaries of ongoing struggles into a torrent.
Those who define politics as a game within the purview of
parliamentarians, political parties or paid politicians will remain blind to
attempts by delegates at the meeting in December to put actions of ordinary
people to determine their destiny as the real politics.
Equally, for those who equate politics with contests that
we hold every five years, mass campaigns involving millions of people acting
directly through their movements will not easily fit into their narrow
political boxes.
They will fail to appreciate the steps that ordinary are
taking to reclaim mass politics and through their actions transform themselves
from being political subjects into being political agents.
Dinga Sikwebu is Numsa’s United Front co-ordinator
and member of its National Working Committee.
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