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2010 - The ANC Scores Own Goal
25th April 2010
June 2010 - the year we witness the glorious bursting forth from the chrysalis of "democratic state" the ravenous beast of the security-centric state. A one kilometre Ring of Steel to be erected around each and every stadium where FIFA fixtures are to be played, meaning that any "unpatriotic citizens" who hope to use the hundreds of international media networks to highlight their conditions of poverty will be dealt with in the same manner that exactly 34 years ago the apartheid regime dealt with Black people on June 1976.
Far more than the first proposed R28 billion has been spent in the past two years to upgrade stadiums and airports. An estimated R20 billion was also spent on the revamping and widening of highways. R35 billion has so far been spent on the Gautrain (a single train service for the rich whose destination is the international airport and the country's capital, Pretoria, the initial budget was R13 billion, which in itself was enough to resolve all the transport problems of the country). There is also, of course, the undisclosed R100's of millions to the Local Organising Committee, certainly with such hefty expenditure to entertain the world at the expense of the poor, the ANC cannot take any chances that the "chattering masses" will behave themselves.
All their detailed planning and event co-ordination strategies of an event of this magnitude, no doubt, gives them sleepless nights, for to visualise every contingent plan requisite under almost any perceived scenario takes both insight, which they clearly do not have and billions of Rand which have yet to be paid for in blood on the backs of the Black working class over the next generation.
So, exactly why should there be discontent on the eve of a "world-class extravaganza"?
Well to start with, the empty campaign promises of 1994, 1999, 2004 and again 2009 of "Ša better life for allŠ", in the face of the reality of rising unemployment, reduced wages, growing squatter camps, lowered education outcomes and failing health systems. Given a 15 year tenure of the ANC as a 'democratically elected government', given their near-perfect track record of non-delivery, given the extent of expenditure running literally into hundreds of billions of Rand in preparation for the World Cup with almost none of it qualitatively changing the lives of the millions of citizens, given the potential for rebellion and social dissent amongst those "unpatriotic" citizens can very easily spell disaster for the best-laid plans of mice and men.
What contingency plan could the ANC possibly put in place to mitigate the righteous indignation and protestations of a people denied of the historical "land, bread and peace". Well, that's easy - thousands of police and soldiers and of course the "old" Act No: 74 of the Internal Security Act of 1982 been substituted with the "new improved" Protection of Constitutional Democracy Against Terrorist and Related Activities Bill of 2003 that will simply ban all public gatherings, and that includes the potential banning of all June 16 Commemoration Services. June 16th 1976 being the cornerstone and milestone of the liberation struggle in South Africa/Azania.
A devastatingly risky gamble, taken on the assumption that their "historical popularity" or the 'Mandela Magic' as it is commonly called, will carry them through yet again, the same dwindling popularity that has consistently returned them to power over and over again in the past 15 years, yet unwittingly squandering the last vestiges of credibility it had in its "goodwill coffers" in the hope that such a gamble could pull off an amazing "smoke and mirrors" event, both at the level of, bamboozling citizens with non-delivery while alleging lack of resources, yet pulling off a successful World Cup, at a huge expense to adulating bourgeois audiences to whom South Africa will be further be indebted post 2010.
The staggeringly disproportionate expenditure used to create "world-class facilities", when compared against the allocated budgets for social delivery programmes boggles ones' mind. Will the hard-pressed working class of this country realise how they have been short-changed by the ruling party, and if they do realise it, what is the most likely courses of action that they would engage in order to express their displeasure. Clearly something of this magnitude cannot go unnoticed and surely millions of people will not merely shrug their shoulders and declare that as 'life' and then wander on in their expected state of complacency in the face of brute oppression.
How does one reconcile the fact that every second Municipal water treatment plant has ground to a halt as a result of poor maintenance and inadequate upgrades, triggering cholera outbreaks across the country? How does one reconcile the fact that the numerous public hospitals across the country are desperately short of adequately trained staff and desperately short of sufficient medical supplies and equipment? How does one reconcile the fact that millions of children engage in an educational system that is largely dysfunctional?
How does one reconcile the fact that millions of children attend school on a daily basis hungry and tired, also the fact that there are still children learning to read and write under trees or an open sky? How does one reconcile the fact that some 22 million of our people live in the worst kind of squatter conditions imaginable? How does one reconcile the fact that some 22 million of our people do not have access to clean and potable water? How does one reconcile the fact that some 14 million of people are still unemployed when we are fed the lie that our economy is stable and will weather the storms of the now evident global depression? What about the fact that 42.9% of our people live at less than U$2 a day, below the poverty datum line?
We consistently hear the ANC using the term "Šour young democracy", purely in reference to voting and elections, as if the notion of democracy has absolutely nothing to do with the resolution of hunger, resolution of all homelessness, resolution of faulty education, resolution of landlessness, resolution of unemployment, etc. It appears that the ANC through its rapacious expropriation of the wealth of this country from the workers in order to benefit the few elites has by their own actions set in motion a series of events that do not bode well for the outcome of the 2010 World Cup. The ANC does not need clever "first world" risk analysis strategies and complex disaster management scenario to be painted for them in order for them to understand or forestall the inevitable consequences of an empty stomach. Unfortunately, for its card carrying membership, there is no "battle for the soul of the ANC" its soul is already owned lock stock and barrel by the IMF, World Bank overlords and they do not have the requisite authority to deliver on their "promises" in order to negate those very likely consequences and outcomes of popular dissent and the rising tide of rebellion.
It is no credit to the government as it finds itself in a situation where it has to quell angry dissent of its own citizens, (using revised laws originally created by the apartheid apparatchik) citizens who simply demand what is due to them in the context of their understanding of democracy. In a nutshell the ANC is an event management team put together for the sole purpose of expediting the will of Global Capitalism, yet, foolishly have come to believe that their authority and function transcends the rather narrow boundaries prescribed by the dictates of both the World Bank and the IMF and the specific requirements of their global economic strategies, and much like the former regime, it could well be the defining month wherein the dissent you seek to suppress, will swamp the embankments of your sophistry.
Given the above "scenarios", what we should be focusing on is as the Socialist Party of Azania is, how best to ride out the gathering storm. But then again, the workers and the Black majority should in all fairness be assisted to become the arbiters of their own destiny. The past sixteen years have clearly confirmed what we have known and believed about the crisis of humanity being that of leadership, the need for revolutionary leadership.
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SOCIALIST PARTY OF AZANIA (SOPA)
Consolidate the Gains * Defend the Workers * Build Socialism!
Johannesburg, So. Africa/Azania
Email: lybonmabasa@mweb.co.za
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South Africa to Kick Homeless Off Streets before World Cup by Gary Anderson
03/31/2010
Thousands of homeless people are being forced off the streets of South Africa to hide the scale of poverty there from World Cup fans.
More than 800 tramps, beggars and street children have already been removed from Johannesburg and sent to remote settlements hundreds of miles away.
And in Cape Town, where England face Algeria on June 18, up to 300 have been moved to Blikkiesdorp camp where 1,450 families are crammed in a settlement of tin huts designed for just 650 people.
Johannesburg councillor Sipho Masigo was unrepentant. "Homelessness and begging are big problems in the city," he said. "You have to clean your house before you have guests. There is nothing wrong with that.
"The numbers of homeless are in the hundreds, leading up to thousands." Other host cities - like Rustenburg where England kick off their campaign against the USA on June 12 - are believed to be drawing up similar plans to move homeless people away from tourist areas near town centres and stadiums. South Africans are desperate to cast their country in a positive light despite soaring crime, drug use and the HIV crisis. Campaigners have slammed the removals policy as a sham and a temporary solution.
Bill Rogers, who works with the homeless in Johannesburg, said: "Rather than help people permanently, the government's obvious intention is to release them back on the streets after the World Cup."
Warren Whitfield, of homeless charity Addiction Action, added: "It's a cosmetic fix to create an impression of South Africa for football fans which is not real.
"We have huge problems with homelessness and that is what the world should see."
Top Guns' guard on the teams ENGLAND'S football stars will be escorted by two fighter jets every time they fly during the World Cup.
Defence chiefs in South Africa have drawn up the plan to protect Fabio Capello's squad from terror atrocities.
The 31 other competing nations will also be protected by the same airborne "ring of steel" amid fears extremists could target high-profile players as they fly between matches.
A source said: "FIFA and the South Africans are taking no chances with the security."
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