CAPITALISTS IN SOCIALIST MASKS?  

One of the poorest countries in the world, Haiti, was recently struck by a 7.0 strong earthquake. More than 200 thousand lives are reported to have lost. Dead bodies lying all over the place was a common sight. Even mass graves could not cope, thereby forcing the survivors to burn the corpses in the open streets. The air was thick with the stench of decomposing human flesh. All this took place at the doorstep of a superrich superpower called the US. Instead of sending food, water, medicine and health professionals, they opted to prioritise flooding the bleeding and life-losing country with hundreds of soldiers and guns in order to colonise the airport and “keep law and order”.
 
 That is capitalism and imperialism at their best. Capitalists are never interested in saving lives. They are preoccupied with maximising their profits. Hence to them this dilapidated Haiti is a raw market waiting to exhale. Their calculation is that super profits will be extracted during the reconstruction phase wherein the US would send in their construction companies and materials, engineers, business people and many more soldiers to finish off the plundering of the bleeding and decomposing material resources of Haiti. These vampires or leeches if you like, suck blood even from a dead bone. Meanwhile, hundreds of children are orphaned, families are wiped out, and the surviving relatives are mutilated and amputated.
 
 What is shocking is the painful fact that the catastrophe that befell Haiti could have been avoided. In a socialist order that invests in the wellbeing of humanity through harnessing the social benefits of science and technology, the earthquake could have been detected beforehand and the people evacuated or relocated to safer areas. By milking the economy dry, capitalism ensured that Haiti did not develop this capacity. All the profits were hastily shipped out of the country. The small portions that were left were used to grease the palms of the soulless and unpatriotic comprador bourgeoisie.
 
 But what lessons can we learn from Haiti?
 
 Heartbreaking as it were, what happened in Haiti is nothing new for black people in neo-liberal South Africa. The only difference is that in Haiti it occurred in one day, whereas in South Africa it takes place over a relatively extended period of time. What we mean is that starvation, joblessness, homelessness, street kids, orphans, mass killings, mass graves and social displacement are all second nature to black people. The shipping out of profits beyond our shores under the baasboyish nose of the bootlicking comprador bourgeoisie is a familiar occurrence. Out of its slavish zeal our managerial class of local capitalists has developed capacity to “keep law and order” so that the natives are brutally groomed to be as obedient and submissive as possible. This is the dubious role played by the comprador bourgeoisie in the ruling party.
 
 The ruling party has mastered speaking with forked tongues and hoodwinking the poor. Like a chameleon, it changes its colour in accordance with its surroundings. It has assumed a character of a three-headed beast. One head is the “broad church”, another is trade unionism and the last is the SACP brand of communism. These three heads are planted in a capitalist body. The implication of this is that the political space is closed and suffocated by the beast. You will depend on the beast in the form of the ruling party for service delivery, and if it delivers it becomes a hero. When it does not deliver as is usually the case, the beast changes its form into COSATU or SACP and usurps the role of leading the masses against itself. In other words, the beast is both the ruling party and opposition at the very same time.
 
 That is why we have in this country “communist” and trade union leaders that live a stinking capitalist lifestyle. Some of these “communists” are cabinet ministers who oversee the privatisation of public enterprises. Others are given law and order ministries to unleash trigger-happy police and dogs on striking workers. During the hard times of economic recession they call on the poor to tighten their belts, while they buy R1 million luxury cars, sleep in five star hotels and drink expensive whiskies, wines and cigars. All this is done in favour of capitalists and against the very same workers that are supposed to wage a socialist revolution.
 
 To AZAPO socialism is not just a label. It is a way of life. We practise what we preach. We mean it when we say our struggle is nationalist in character and socialist in content. The name of our organisation does not have to be a “Socialist This” or “Socialist That” for us to be true socialists and wage a socialist revolution. Our real political and ideological character is determined not so much by the name of our party, but our principles and our actions. It is for this reason that Karl Marx warned that we must differentiate between what a man thinks of himself and what he really is. It is about time that the true socialists in this country close ranks and free the concept of socialism from being an empty slogan used by greedy and corrupt leaders to enrich themselves from the public purse.

¨ It is your social practice that counts, not what you mouth loudly - Ed

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