Unemployed People’s Movement
Grahamstown
Ten
Theses on Democracy
A
contribution to the discussion at the Democratic Left Front Meeting,
Johannesburg, Friday 2 September 2011
Michael
Neocosmos recently gave a seminar at Rhodes University. We very much
enjoyed his presentation. He begins and ends with the fact that all
people think and looks closely at how this fact is denied in
contemporary South Africa. We have had our own discussion on what the
Neocosmos paper means for our understanding of the meaning of
democracy and our orientation to struggles around democracy. We have
prepared this document for the DLF meeting based on that discussion.
Thesis One:
The Discussion about Democracy Must be Rooted in the Realities of our
Struggles
If our
movements have any chance of growing into a popular force that can
win real victories against the state and capital then theory must
speak to the realities of our struggles. We have to take the
realities of our struggles very seriously because it is those
realities that will determine whether or not we succeed or fail. We
measure theory by how well it can speak to the realities of our
struggles.
These Two:
Liberal Democracy was not the Final Victory of the Struggle
We are often
told that this democracy is the final fruit of the struggle against
apartheid. That is not true. This democracy was a compromise in which
the masses of the people were expelled from active participation in
politics and returned to their allotted spaces in exchange for
allowing the state to be placed under black management. As Frantz
Fanon put it ‘the people were sent back to their caves’. This is
why Mandela told the people to stop struggling when he came out of
jail. A radical leader will always encourage the people to keep
organising and struggling even when he or she is in power.
Thesis
Three: Liberal Democracy Must be Defended
Liberal
democracy is not democracy. It is just one very narrow and limited
form of democracy that privileges elites and excludes ordinary people
from active participation. But liberal democracy is much more
democratic than the authoritarian and statist alternatives that the
ANC is trying to entrench by rolling back media freedom, undermining
the integrity of the courts and repressing social movements. Liberal
democracy does give some very valuable space for debate and organisation and so we
must defend it vigorously. However we must be very careful to avoid
elitism and the domination of NGOs in this struggle to defend liberal democracy.
Thesis
Four: Liberal Democracy Must be Extended
Communist
democracy is popular democracy. It is the democracy of the Paris
Commune, of the early Soviets, of the people’s power movement of the
1980s (which we must be careful not to celebrate uncritically due to
the attacks on BC activists by UDF activists on the East Rand and
here in Grahamstown too) and Tahrir Square. We need to push wherever
we can to deepen liberal democracy, with its dependence on a
commodified legal system and the politics of representation by
political parties and NGOs, into a politics of direct democracy where
people live, work and study. We need to continually radicalise
democracy from below.
Thesis
Four: Politics Comes Before Economics
There is a
strong tendency in the left to put economics before politics. This is
a mistake. It’s all very well for people to propose alternative
economic arrangements but without the force to implement them they
are just ideas. Ideas can only be made a reality when people have the
power to force progress forward. This is why politics (the political
empowerment of the people) must come before economics (the creation
of a just economy). We need to keep discussions about alternative
economic models open at all times but our main task is the political
empowerment of the people.
Thesis
Five: We are not Struggling for Service Delivery
The struggles
of the people are relentlessly described as ‘service delivery
protests.’ Even many people on the left impose this meaning on our
struggles. We reject this. Of course we do struggle for better
services sometimes but this is always nested in a deeper struggle for
control over our own lives, our own communities and development
processes. We are struggling for the political empowerment of the
people that can lead to a democratisation of decision making which
will lead to a more equal society.
Thesis Six:
The State is Sometimes a Threat to Democracy
The state
poses a serious threat to democracy. The attacks on the media, the
judiciary, social movements and popular protest are all well known.
At this point it is grossly irresponsible to see the ANC or the state
as democratising forces. They are both actively trying to roll back
the limited democratic gains that were made in 1994. We all need to
be clear about this. We need to be clear that there can be no
progressive resolution of our social crisis from within the ANC and
that it is essential to build political alternatives outside of the
ANC and the alliance. We should take note of the different way that
protests by organisations inside the alliance (e.g. SAMWU, ANC YL,
TAC etc) are treated by the police compared to how protests by
organisations outside of the alliance (e.g. UPM, AbM, AEC, LPM etc)
are treated by the police.
Thesis
Seven: Civil Society is Sometimes a Threat to Democracy
It is a myth
that civil society is always a democratic space. Civil society
organisations are usually hierarchical, professional organisations
which are not run democratically, have no democratic mandate and are
often threatened by popular membership based organisations. They are
often white dominated and always dominated by the middle class. They
are often threatened by a politics that organises outside of the
realm of professional civil society (the courts, conferences etc).
There have been many cases of civil society organisations being as
hostile to popular politics as the state and maliciously and
dishonestly presenting popular organisations as criminal, violent and
irrational. This is as true of liberal civil society as it has been
true of some people in NGOs on the left (e.g. those that tried to
criminalise AEC and AbM in the mass media and on email listserves).
Thesis
Eight: The Criminalisation of our Movements is a Major Threat to
Democracy
While we
support the campaigns to protect media freedom and the independence
of the courts they are often very elitist in how they are organised
and in the way that they express their concerns. They usually leave
out a major threat to our democracy which is the rampant
criminalisation of popular movements. Both the state and the ANC on
one side, and elements in NGO based civil society on the other,
(including its liberal and left streams), have a record of trying to
misrepresent popular struggles as violent, irrational and criminal.
It is essential for all genuinely progressively forces to unite
against this criminalisation of popular protest and popular
organisation.
Thesis
Nine: We Need to Think Democracy Together with Dignity
The indignity
with which our people have to live every day is truly horrific. Today
the brother of one of our comrades, a man who is 36 and has no job,
is walking around Grahamstown with the body of his baby in his arms
looking for someone to take the body. The hospital has turned him
away. He is feeling useless and desperate. Democracy must not only be
something technical. The way that we practice democracy must also
contribute to defending and building the dignity of our people.
Thesis Ten:
We Must All Practice What We Preach
All our
organisations need to be rigorously democratic both internally and in
how they relate to each other in forums like the DLF, Right2Know and
so on. This means that people must be elected to all positions,
accountable and recallable. It means that there must be equal
representation of men and women. It also means that comrades from
NGOs and Universities cannot assume an automatic right to leadership
and that if a democratic process does not elect them or accept their
views they must accept this process rather than trying to retain
power by manipulating budgets behind the scenes or making wild
allegations of criminality, conspiracy and so on.
