{"id":970906,"date":"2023-01-27T00:47:58","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T00:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=137271"},"modified":"2023-01-27T00:47:58","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T00:47:58","slug":"it-was-the-workers-who-brought-us-democracy-and-it-will-be-the-workers-who-establish-a-deeper-democracy-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/01\/27\/it-was-the-workers-who-brought-us-democracy-and-it-will-be-the-workers-who-establish-a-deeper-democracy-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"It Was the Workers Who Brought Us Democracy, and It Will Be the Workers Who Establish a Deeper Democracy Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n

Striking Frame Group workers meet for a report back on negotiations with management in Bolton Hall in 1973.
\nCredit: David Hemson Collection, University of Cape Town Libraries<\/p>\n

Democracy has a dream-like character. It sweeps into the world, carried forward by an immense desire by humans to overcome the barriers of indignity and social suffering. When confronted by hunger or the death of their children, earlier communities might have reflexively blamed nature or divinity, and indeed those explanations remain with us today. But the ability of human beings to generate massive surpluses through social production, alongside the cruelty of the capitalist class to deny the vast majority of humankind access to that surplus, generates new kinds of ideas and new frustrations. This frustration, spurred by the awareness of plenty amidst a reality of deprivation, is the source of many movements for democracy.<\/p>\n

Habits of colonial thought mislead many to assume that democracy originated in Europe, either in ancient Greece (which gives us the word \u2018democracy\u2019 from demos<\/i>, \u2018the people\u2019, and kratos, <\/i>\u2018rule\u2019) or through the emergence of a rights tradition, from the English Petition of Right<\/i> in 1628 to the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen<\/i> in 1789. But this is partly a retrospective fantasy of colonial Europe, which appropriated ancient Greece for itself, ignoring its strong connections to North Africa and the Middle East, and used its power to inflict intellectual inferiority on large parts of the world. In doing so, colonial Europe denied these important contributions to the history of democratic change. People\u2019s often forgotten struggles to establish basic dignity against despicable hierarchies are as much the authors of democracy as those who preserved their aspirations in written texts still celebrated in our time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n
\n

Coronation Brick workers march along North Coast Road in Durban, led by a worker waving a red flag.
\nCredit: David Hemson Collection, University of Cape Town Libraries<\/p>\n

Over the course of the second half of the twentieth century, a range of struggles developed against dictatorial regimes in the Third World that had been put in place by anti-communist oligarchies and their allies in the West. These regimes were born out of coups (such as in Brazil, the Philippines, and Turkey) and given the latitude to maintain legal hierarchies (such as in South Africa). The large mass demonstrations that laid at the heart of these struggles were built up through a range of political forces, including trade unions \u2013\u00a0a side of history that is often ignored. The growing trade union movement in Turkey was, in fact, part of the reason for the military coups of 1971 and 1980. Knowing that their hold on power was vulnerable to working-class struggles, both military governments banned unions and strikes. This threat to their power had been evidenced, in particular, by a range of strikes across Anatolia developed by unions linked to the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DISK), including a massive two-day demonstration in \u0130stanbul known as the June 15\u201316 Events that drew in 100,000 workers. The confederation, established in February 1967, was more militant than the existing one (T\u00fcrk \u0130\u015f), which had become a collaborator with capital. Not only did militaries move against socialist and non-socialist governments alike that attempted to exercise sovereignty and improve the dignity of their peoples (such as in the Congo in 1961, Brazil in 1964, Indonesia in 1965, Ghana in 1966, and Chile in 1973), but they also moved out of the barracks \u2013 with the bright green light from Washington \u2013 to quell the cycle of strikes and worker protests.<\/p>\n

Once in power, these wretched regimes, dressed in their khaki uniforms and the finest silk suits, drove austerity policies and cracked down on any movements of the working class and peasantry. But they could not break the human spirit. In much of the world (as in Brazil, the Philippines, and South Africa), it was trade unions that fired the early shot against barbarism. The cry in the Philippines \u2018Tama Na! Sobra Na! Welga Na!\u2019 (\u2018We\u2019ve had enough! Things have gone too far! It\u2019s time to strike!\u2019) moved from La Tonde\u00f1a distillery workers in 1975 to protests in the streets against Ferdinand Marcos\u2019 dictatorship, eventually culminating in the People Power Revolution of 1986. In Brazil, industrial workers paralysed the country through actions in Santo Andr\u00e9, S\u00e3o Bernardo do Campo, and S\u00e3o Caetano do Sul (industrial towns in greater S\u00e3o Paulo) from 1978 to 1981, led by Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva (now Brazil\u2019s president). These actions inspired the country\u2019s workers and peasants, raising their confidence to resist the military junta, which collapsed as a result in 1985.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n
\n

A group of striking textile workers demand an extra R5 per day at the Consolidated Textile Mill in February 1973.
\nCredit: David Hemson Collection, University of Cape Town Libraries<\/p>\n

Fifty years ago, in January 1973, the workers of Durban, South Africa, struck for a pay rise, but also for their dignity. They woke at 3 am on 9 January and marched to a football stadium, where they chanted \u2018Ufil\u2019 umuntu, ufile usadikiza, wamthint\u2019 esweni, esweni usadikiza\u2019 (\u2018A person is dead, but their spirit lives; if you poke the iris of their eye, they still come alive\u2019). These workers led the way against entrenched forms of domination that not only exploited them, but also oppressed the people as a whole. They stood up against harsh labour conditions and reminded South Africa\u2019s apartheid government that they would not sit down again until class lines and colour lines\u00a0were broken. The strikes opened a new period of urban militancy that soon moved off the factory floors and into wider society. A year later, Sam Mhlongo, a medical doctor who had been imprisoned on Robben Island as a teenager, observed that \u2018this strike, although settled, had a detonator effect\u2019. The baton was passed to the children of Soweto in 1976.<\/p>\n

From Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and the Chris Hani Institute comes a memorable text, The 1973 Durban Strikes: Building Popular Democratic Power in South Africa<\/i><\/a> (dossier no. 60, January 2023). It is memorable in two senses: it recovers an almost lost history of the role of the working class in the fight against apartheid, in particular the Black working class, whose struggle had a \u2018detonator\u2019 effect on society. The dossier, beautifully written by our colleagues in Johannesburg, makes it hard to forget these workers and harder still to forget that the working class \u2013 still so deeply marginalised in South Africa \u2013 deserves respect and a greater share of the country\u2019s social wealth. They broke the back of apartheid but did not benefit from their own sacrifices.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Chris Hani Institute<\/a> was founded in 2003 by the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions. Chris Hani (1942\u20131993) was one of South Africa\u2019s great freedom fighters, a communist who would have made an even greater impact than he did had he not been assassinated at the end of apartheid. We are grateful to Dr Sithembiso Bhengu, the director of the Chris Hani Institute, for this collaboration and look forward to the work that lies before us.<\/p>\n

As this dossier went to press, we heard that our friend Thulani Maseko (1970\u20132023), chairperson of the Multi-Stakeholders Forum in Swaziland, was shot dead in front of his family on 21 January. He was one of the leaders of the fight to bring democracy to his country, where workers are at the forefront of the battle to end the monarchy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When I reread our latest dossier, The 1973 Durban Strikes<\/i>, to prepare for this newsletter, I was listening to Hugh Masekela\u2019s \u2018Stimela\u2019 (\u2018Coal Train\u2019), the 1974 song of migrant workers travelling on the coal train to work \u2018deep, deep, deep down in the belly of the earth\u2019 to bring up wealth for apartheid capital. I thought of the Durban industrial workers with the sound of Masekela\u2019s train whistle in my ear, remembering Mongane Wally Serote\u2019s long poem, Third World Express<\/i>, a tribute to the workers of southern Africa and their struggles to establish a humane society.<\/p>\n

\u2013 it is that wind
\nit is that voice buzzing
\nit is whispering and whistling in the wires
\nmiles upon miles upon miles
\non the wires in the wind
\nin the subway track
\nin the rolling road
\nin the not silent bush
\nit is the voice of the noise
\nhere it comes
\nthe Third World Express
\nthey must say, here we go again.<\/p>\n

\u2018Here we go again\u2019, Serote wrote, as if to say that new contradictions produce new moments for struggle. The end of one crushing order \u2013 apartheid \u2013 did not end the class struggle, which has only deepened as South Africa is propelled through crisis upon crisis. It was the workers who brought us this democracy, and it will be workers who will fight to establish a deeper democracy yet. Here we go again.<\/p>The post It Was the Workers Who Brought Us Democracy, and It Will Be the Workers Who Establish a Deeper Democracy Yet<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.\n

This post was originally published on Dissident Voice<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Striking Frame Group workers meet for a report back on negotiations with management in Bolton Hall in 1973. Credit: David Hemson Collection, University of Cape Town Libraries Democracy has a dream-like character. It sweeps into the world, carried forward by an immense desire by humans to overcome the barriers of indignity and social suffering. When [\u2026]<\/p>\n

The post It Was the Workers Who Brought Us Democracy, and It Will Be the Workers Who Establish a Deeper Democracy Yet<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56666,432,453,563,1667],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970906"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=970906"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":970907,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970906\/revisions\/970907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=970906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=970906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=970906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}