Against the backdrop of Workers’ Day (1 May), alleged acts of vigilantism aimed at suspected foreign nationals were being teleported in high definition from the streets of downtown Johannesburg into international media outlets like Sky News.
What ought to have been a day of remembrance of the struggles of the working class, and celebrating its gains – particularly its role in the fight against white minority rule — was largely overtaken by the preoccupations of the present. And with the gradual erosion and fragmentation of labour unions in recent years, gone – it seemed – were the days where if COSATU spoke, the machines stopped and the masses came out.
Instead, South Africans found themselves revisiting the EFF’s founding manifesto, particularly its vow to ‘take up all struggles of all immigrants (most of whom are economic migrants and asylum seekers in South Africa) whether they are in the country legally or illegally’.
Safe to say that, in these tense times, the party would have a difficult time explaining this, as well as the subsequent utterances by party leader Julius Malema at a Worker’s Day EFF rally at Marikana.
‘Zimbabweans,’ said the Commander-in-chief, ‘perform jobs you don’t want, because those are slave’s jobs. They don’t pay anything. You want proper jobs, you want jodbs with a payslip, an appointment letter with a pension and a medical aid and you deserve it.’
Meanwhile, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was also trending, a deluge of responses seeping through social media and raising all sorts of unanswered questions, new and old. This follows the release of a Netflix docuseries titled The Trials of Winnie Mandela that has met with mixed reviews.
The series has brought Mama Winnie back into the public discourse, with questions around whether or not she had indeed been dealt a bad hand in the chaotic power struggles during the political transition, and how the fortunes of the working class might have changed if her more radical views had been considered.
The series contains a lot of nostalgic material – including footage of that sunny afternoon in Paarl on 11 February 1990 when Nelson Mandela walked out of Victor Verster Prison, accompanied by a smiling Winnie. This historic moment was mentioned by Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), in a Workers’ Day interview conducted by Brutus Malada for the Sunday World Podcast.
Strikingly, Vavi — one of few remaining honest voices of the working class — comments on the subsequent actions of the people who surrounded Mama Winnie and Mandela that afternoon, noting, to his dismay, that some of them would go on to betray the working class.
Vavi’s unwavering stance, his courage in saying what can nowadays lead to one being pushed out, both economically and politically, makes him a rare vessel of conscience and truth in an arena where honest reflection is often secondary to self-advancement. Today, the working class struggle appears confined to industrial and labour issues, and is all but dead when it comes to deeper political issues. Vavi ascribes much of this to the gradual cooption of labour leaders into government, which, he says, fatally weakened COSATU.
Those who call out the grotesque materialism of our current ruling class, and the shifts towards policies that no longer do justice to the workers and the poor, have long been weeded out of the echelons of power, and those who still remain know better than to bite the hand that feeds them. Once strident figures in the union movement are now cosily in bed with the very government that they are meant to hold accountable.
Amid this series of often depressing events, one question kept gnawing away at me: where was Terry Bell when we needed him? Bell, a prototypical example of a working class activist, had the credentials: he protested when it was dangerous to do so, got thrown into prison for it before accepting that exile was perhaps the place to go if you wanted to tell the world of the atrocities that were taking place in South Africa and live to write about it.
Sporting the sailor cap and other attire favoured by some leftists, he sure looked the part. But more importantly, when — following the transition — the labour movement began to founder in the neoliberal excess, he still had the institutional memory to remind everybody of what the initial sensibilities had been.
Bell passed away in March this year, leaving behind a trove of writings, much of it a Sunday afternoon staple for township lefties, who regarded him as a true compatriot who had laid it all down for the cause. In his writings, and those of the few others cut from the same cloth, the principles underpinning the labour movement continue to resonate. Most members of the ruling elite may look the other way, but true soldiers like Vavi keep the message alive.
And when some peacetime 40-hour-week beneficiaries question whether a country with as much unemployment as South Africa even has the right to celebrate Worker’s Day, Vavi is unequivocal. Yes, indeed, it does, precisely to recall the gains made by the labour movement worldwide, and specifically what it took to establish the South African labour movement – the struggles and the sacrifices, and the memory of those who made them. Much of this at a time when, despite the active repression of the labour movement, ideas and idealism flourished.
As reflected by the general disinterest shown this past week in yet another important day of celebration, the working class hero is a dying breed. In Vavi’s case, he says, a concerted effort was made to remove him from his position as general secretary of COSATU. But, like Bell, he is fighting on when it would have been far easier to take the money – or the job – and shut up.
Featured image: The late Terry Bell and his wife, Barbara.