Grabouw- who is the real enemy?

With reference to the various articles in The Cape Argus Tuesday 20th March 2012, such as 'Cape's day of race shame':

The Cape Argus published a series of articles deliberately inflammatory and biased on the conflict in Grabouw. With emotive phrases like ' Ready to defend against the enemy' and ‘it’s now coloured versus black’, the real enemy is lost sight of. Any amateur journalist would have posed the question as to why would 'blacks' have attacked schools, where their own children also go and who work side by side with 'coloured' workers in the same slave camps (the export apple farms in Grabouw). What we see is a Freudian slip by big capital who themselves see the black working class as their mortal enemy and would do anything to divide the working class, so that we fight and kill each other, instead of focusing on the capitalist system and the1% (the capitalist class) that is the main source of our common misery.

Was the closure by the DA of the schools in the 'coloured' area not a calculated move to incite the community against the very ones who were leading the fight against the state's failure to provide adequate schooling? For years the ANC and DA have been implementing the plans of the IMF and the World bank for cutting funds to public schools so that more of the wealth could be siphoned off by big capital. This is part of the world offensive by big capital to deliberately cut and privatize public services and resources- especially in a climate that the world economy has been stagnating. Big capital is artificially creating new areas for increasing profits, even if this means devastation for the working class, with overcrowded classes, lack of teachers and lack of adequate facilities. Trillions go to infrastructure that the vast majority of the working class will not benefit from.

The fight by the working class against the collapse of public schooling and the myth of the Mandela miracle, is what is at the heart of the real conflict between the community and the state. It is a fight against the capitalist system. The Cape Argus, the capitalist press in general and the DA deliberately create a red herring of the 'enemy' as being a section of the black working class.

Historically imperialism has always played the ‘divide and rule’ card, artificially creating conflict between Jews and Muslims in Palestine, Sunni and Shia in Iraq, Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda, etc. The theme is the same, create rumours among both sections that one group is about to attack the other. We should remember that imperialist researchers have long been posing the question as to why in a country where racism was so entrenched, was there no violence between the groups. The obvious aim was to find mechanisms to stoke conflict between different sections of the working class so that they fight each other and not the capitalist state. We should also recall that both the DA and ANC governments are using US advisors who have the backing of the imperialism with all its resources to maintain control by any means necessary, especially in the current world climate when every capitalist regime is under threat of being overthrown by the masses.

There is a coming by-election and the DA stands to gain if the community is divided on racial grounds. The DA knows that a perceived ‘coloured’ versus ‘black’ conflict in Grabouw will reverberate around the Cape, reinforcing the swart-gevaar fears they depend upon to maintain their seats in government. What had been happening is that the masses are integrating themselves, breaking down apartheid divisions, despite the deliberate policy of both the DA and ANC to build new 'housing' (brick shacks) along old apartheid group area lines. We should recall that fragments of the racist NP joined (mostly) the DA and the ANC.

What is needed is for the entire working class in Grabouw to unite across artificial colour lines, to march on central and provincial government to demand adequate, free schooling for all the masses in Grabouw, for an immediate plan to build sufficient classes, with enough staff in Grabouw and all areas that are under-resourced. In fact the entire working class should rally in support of the demands of the masses in Grabouw for free, adequate education for all. If the capitalist system cannot provide adequate housing, education and jobs for all, then let it perish.

Three trillion for capitalist infrastructure- what about us? The government is in the pocket of the 1%, of Anglo American. We need to expropriate Anglo American and other big capitalists to provide free, adequate education, health care and housing for all.

The working class has long been prepared to fight the system but the leadership within Cosatu are the main brake that prevents a united working class defence against the ongoing capitalist onslaught. We need to follow the lead of the workers at Implats who removed their entire leadership in their NUM region and replaced them with independent working class fighters. It is only by breaking with government and severing all links with capital, that the defence of the working class demands and aspirations can take any step forward. Let us advance to the Cosatu congress by sweeping clean the federation of all pro-capitalist leaders.

Workers of the world unite, we have nothing to lose but our chains!

Issued by WIVL 20.3.2012 email: workersinternational@gmail.com ph 0822020617