The Enduring Horror of South Africa

by Richard Pithouse, SACSIS

In her recently republished autobiography Emma Mashinini, the grand old lady of the trade union movement, ascribes the deep roots of her steadfast political commitment to a desire to assert that: “I am human. I exist. I am a complete person.”

This may strike some people as naïve in a country where many of the discourses contending for influence in the elite public sphere are frequently weighed down with the dead hand of stolid jargon, mediated through everything from Stalinism, to the language of the World Bank or human rights. But the constant mobilisation of all this jargon - 'deepening and advancing the national democratic revolution',  'achieving labour market flexibility', 'building social cohesion', 'extending participatory developmental instruments', 'gender mainstreaming' -  is not just about establishing and sustaining a distance between contending experts and the people with a view to legitimating the power of experts over the people. And it’s not just about the dark art of saying nothing of consequence while trying to sound informed and intelligent. In some cases, like the recent claim by the SACP and COSATU in KwaZulu-Natal that 'renewed imperialist aggression' aims, with the support of various local allies, to have Zuma removed from the Presidency in order to 'recolonise this country', we are dealing with language that is paranoid, fantastical, grossly authoritarian and plainly Orwellian.

Dialogues Webcast: Vavi, Mashinini, Pithouse

Video streaming by Ustream Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi will join trade union stalwart and gender activist Emma Mashinini, whose book Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life has just been republished, to talk about trade unions, democracy and justice. They will be in conversation with Richard Pithouse, commentator, academic and activist.

Zwelinzima Vavi`s input to the Daily Dispatch/Fort Hare Dialogues, 5 September 2012

Thank you very much to the Daily Dispatch and University of Fort Hare for inviting me to speak at this dialogue.

It is a particular honour to be able, for the second time this year, to join my comrade of so many years, Emma Mashinini, one of the living legends of our revolutionary workers' movement, and to have the opportunity once again to urge everyone to read her excellent book - Strikes have followed me all my Life.

Let me also greet Richard Pithouse, one of our most progressive academics who has never shied away from confronting some of the harsh realities of capitalism in South Africa.

Discussion with Emma Mashinini in East London, 5 September 2012

Emma Mashinini

Memory is power, and mandatory reading

Emma Mashini interviewed by Eugene Goddard, Business Day, 5 June 2012

EMMA Mashinini, grand dame of labour activism, is a femme fatale, très formidable in more ways than one. Just read her memoir, Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life (Pan Macmillan).

Published originally in 1989 in the UK but for the first time in South Africa this year, it’s a blaze of a book; a galloping read of one woman’s spirited triumph over the ordeals she endured as a wife, mother, pioneering shop steward and torture victim.

Forward to the New Edition of Emma Mashinini's 'Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life'

by Jay Naidoo, 2012

I clearly remember my first encounter with Emma Mashinini. The indomitable Ma Emma was standing in the hall at Khotso House, the headquarters of the South African Council of Churches – one of the few places we were able to meet – surrounded and dwarfed by workers. She spotted Jayendra Naidoo first, who was then working as an organiser in the Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers’ Union of South Africa (CCAWUSA), and she embraced him warmly. She turned to hug me, too, and as she did, I felt her intense compassion and warmth as she whispered, ‘Welcome my son. Welcome to our family.’ It was, and has remained ever since, an intense and powerful connection.