[page 27]
Book Reviews Uprooting Poverty - The South African Challenge By Francis Wilson and Mamphela Ramphele Published by WW Norton, 1989, 218.95.
Reviewed by David Johnson "One of the clearest images of the natare of poverty in the country is the sight of a group of elderly black each women carrying home on her head a load of firewood weighing up to 50kg, passing underneath the high tension cables that carry the electric energy between the towns and farmsteads of the Republic". South Africa produces 60 per cent of the electricity generated in the African continent but if you are an African in South Africa there is a four to one chance that where you live has no electricity. In the luxurious suburbs of white South Africa there are 18 people to every swimming pool. In the Mhala district of Gazankulu, in the Eastern Transvaal. there are 760 people to every water tap These facts come trom the Second Carnegie Inquiry into Poverty and Derelopment in Southern Africa. Its findings were collected and written up by two academics the University of Cape from Town, Francis Wilson, a professor of economics, and Dr Mamphela Ramphele, a senior research officer, in their book Wilson and Ramphele's book is an awesome indictment of the politics of apartheid and its human costs. South Africa is a colossus of misery: even its cabinet ministers' boast that 'their blacks have the best living standards in all Africa is no longer true. The infant mortality rate for African children in South Africa is 94-124 per thousand births: considerably worse than the national average in Botswana (72), Zimbabwe and Kenya (76), Congo (77). Tunisia (78), Algeria (81 ) and Zambia (8+).
Poverty in South Africa has clear racial and geographical dimensions. The darker your skin the poorer you are likely to be and in general that poverty increases with distance from the main cities. Whites constitute less than one sixth of the population but earn two thirds of the income, whilst Africans who make up nearly three quarters of the people earn just one quarter of the income Mrs Cornelius lives in Calitzdorp. a small agricultural town about one third of the way up the railway line from Cape Town to Johannesburg. She is a widow receiving an old age pension of 83 rands per month (+ rands = approximately). She lives with her daughter and six grandchildren and is the sole breadwinner. After rent. electricity and water are paid for. each member of the household has a disposable income of seven rands per month for food and household expenses. According to the South African Tourist Board in London seven rands would purchase a Coca Cola and an evening at the cinema in Central Johannesburg In the rural reserves of the Transkei. Bophuthatswana, Ciskei and Venda. which in Kafkaesque terms the South African government have declared 'independent' states. the spectre of starvation haunts everyone. The number in destitution there has grown sixfold since 1960. Between 50 per cent and 60 per cent of the residents of the Transkei never eat meat. milk, eggs or fish. In the Ciskei researchers found "an emaciated old woman confused from her hunger crying out again and again 1 am hungry. I am hungry:" They saw an old man "bludgeoned by poverty into... vacant apathy, alive only because he was not dead; who only said when asked what was wrong, 'l am hungry'."
The authors argue that the scaffolding used to create this skyscraper of tears has three key elements in its framework: colonialism which dispossessed the indigenous inhabitants of their land; ruthless exploitation of labour through the migrant labour system; and a state machine which brutally suppresses any revolt against these injustices The 1913 Land Act restricted black ownership of land to 1+ per cent of the surface area of South Africa. 50,000 white farmers now own 1é times as much land as 10 million rural Africans. The migrant labour system, first developed on the gold and diamond mines, enforces cheap labour. Migrants live away from their families for 11 months of the year in all male hostel compounds. There are at least two million migrant workers out of the five million black workers in the South African economy Their lives have been ruthlessly exploited for generation after generation particularly through the hated pass law system, enfor ced in detail until 1986. Then the pass laws were formally abolished. But from the time when official records began in 1916 to 1980
[page 28]
17 million people were prosecuted for being somewhere without official permission. As the authors note: "This means that one person was arrested every two minutes, day and night, for the entire period from the year before the Russian Revolution until the time of President Reagan's second term of office." Poverty is a profoundly political issue. South Africa produces more than half of the world's gold and 70 per cent of its platinum. Yet over one third of its black children live in the grip of dire When the music's over - the story of political pop by Robin Denselow, published by Faber and Faber at £14.95 Reviewed by Ken Smith The relationship between pop music and politics has always been slightly ambivalent and often misrepresented. The dilemma is quite graphically seen in Robin Denselow's book.
The question of how political is pop music, provokes controversy between people who may agrée on everything else.
Denselow gives a much clearer insight into this question and shows also how much of the anger and energy of political youth is diverted through pop Being aimed at youth, pop articulates the fears and aspirations of each generation. One line in a song can unleash a whole torrent of emotions. As Country Joe McDonald says in the book, "pop music is a blank wall on which anything can be written (and probably will)."
Denselow charts the rise of political pop in its broadest form. Original popular music, the folk music of Woody Guthrie and later Pete Seeger, along with rhythm and blues, had an overtly political following. Pop music represents rather than sets the trends of any period. So few artists start off as political but many of them become politicised in reflecting the views of their generation. In the 1960s and early 1970s pop protest took the form of anti-Vietnam and civil rights marches, mainly in Amermalnutrition. As Wilson and Ramphele say, "an essential prerequisite for uprooting poverty in South Africa is a redistribution of political power."
But while they gather hope from the blossoming of self-help schemes at a local level for health care, literacy and community development, they are not ivory tower academics: theirs is a masterful presentation of reality. They acknowledge that all the efforts of literacy groups in South Africa in 1980 could only help 25,000 people out of an estimated six ica. And, as Denselow shows. from its earliest days. black pop music had to tackle the question of racism.
Denselow shows how successful the mixture of politics and pop can be and also how limited it can be because of the pressure of big business. In the early days of pop many groups were blacklisted in the USA because of their politics. Even the relatively innocuous song If I had a hammer was banned from radio stations because it was written by Pete Seeger.
Denselow portrays political pop as very naive and mainly single issue. In the 1980s. however, it started to grapple with the problems of a capitalist society, albeit unconsciously. Some stars like Paul Weller moved consciously to the left, in 1985 criticising the Labour party for 'its lack of revolutionary policies.' Denselow outlines the development of Red Wedge and how the Labour party leadership attempted to use it to try and undercut the influence of the Labour Party Young Socialists and the Youth Trades Union Rights Campaign (YTURC).
Denselow credits YTURC with forming the embryo that was to become Red Wedge.
He describes the YTURC demonstration in February 1985 as 'significant pointing out that it 'attracted a remarkable number of celebrity signatures - apart from Weller and Bragg there was Madness, Alison Moret and even the best selling sensation of the moment. Frankie Goes To Hollywood. 'Time to storm the Winter Palace' said Bragg, as his group headed up Downing Street to present the petition at No 10. It wasn't exactly a dramatic gesmillion illiterates.
More pertinent is the quote Wilson and Ramphele draw from Frantz Fanon and his book on the Algerian revolution, The Wretched of the Earth: "What counts today, the question which is looming on the horizon, is the need for a redistribution of wealth. Humanity must reply to this question or be shaken to pieces by it".
This book shows South Africa to be a political time bomb. And the time bomb is ticking. ture but it was included in that evening's television news bulletins."
Unfortunately, as Red Wedge developed, YURC, far from get ting the credit, was sidelined after pressure from Labour's lead. ers. "At a meeting on 23 October. a Labour Party official told the group (Red Wedge) that Veil Kinnock wouldn't attend the group's official media launch if a member of the YTURC was there (when in fact at least one member of YTL RC has been at most Wedge functions)." Worse was the dilemma that some Red Wedge members felt when they did a show as part of the Red Wedge tour in Liverpool. "The council (facing surcharges- KS) couldn't turn to their party to help. because Neil Kinnock not only disapproved, but was involved in a battle to rid the party of members of Militant, to which several councillors allegedly belonged... many of the more left wing Wedgers supported the Liverpool case, but as they were coming to town to urge their audience to become involved with the central Labour party, their position was not easy." Red Wedge had to moderate its politics to suit Walworth Road which eventually was to limit its effectiveness.
MIR 027 Summer 1989 Book Reviews Billy Bragg and Neil Kinnock launching Jobs for Youth Tour'
in 1985.
[page 29]
280 MIR Summer 1 Book Revi
989 sma
For Labour and Women; a history of be League of Women
1906-18 by Christine Collette.
Published by Manchester University Press at £29.95
Reviewed by a
member of the National Committee
Labour Women
The omen's Labour League (WLL), the forerunner of the present Labour Women's organisation, was set up in 1906 to support Labour's representation. It was open to women and wives and daughters of members of societies affiliated to the Labour party. Christine Collette's book is a history from its inauguration until it merged with the Labour party in 1918.
Collette regards this pre-war period as a special period of separate women's organisation superior to today's movement. But completely separate organisations emerged at that time not out of choice but because the structures of the labour and trade union movement did not allow women to become members. Women were refused entry to many craft unions and were forced to form their own unions which were not part of the Labour Representation Committee.
These attitudes were transformed after the First World War and probably the best part of the book deals with this period. Unfortunately Collette wrongly concludes that it was a step backwards for the WLL to merge with the Labour party, for this was precisely a time when increased class consciousness and unity were in the air. One delegate to the 1914 WLL conference, Ada Salter, reported its mood: "They noted all over the world signs of the change that was coming and women of the working classes have taken the foremost place in it. A tremendous transformation was going to take place on this earth; and the injustices of the ages, the misery of the oppressed classes and the sorrow of the poor and tyranny of the wealthy were going to be swept away forever. Nothing could stop the movement. When the trades movement fully realised that all
workers, men and women. youths and maidens, were members one of another, then they would hear more than the rumble of revolution in the distance; the revolution would be here."
That conference voted against arms expenditure, conscription and in favour of international action against war. In 1916 the WLL motion to Labour party conference opposed military service and called for agitation against it. The WLL participated in conferences in support of the Russian revolution and intended to send a delegation to the Petrograd Soviet but was refused passports by the government.
The end of the war and the impact of revolutionary movements internationally produced a shift towards socialist ideas. Women's issues did not become secondary but were integrally linked to the class struggle. The conversion of the WLL into a section of the Labour party was seen by most women as a welcome recognition of their place in the labour movement.
Collette concentrates on the WLL leaders who were mostly middle-class. She describes their individual, personal and sometimes political conflicts but gives less detail of local branch activity where working-class women predominated. Individual branches campaigned on infant mortality, producing leaflets refuting the idea that working mothers were
injury to all
the decline of American unioni:
by Kim Moody Published by Verso
£9.95
Reviewed by
Bill Hopwood
In An injury to all, Kim Moody chronicles and examines the decline in the portion of American workers organised into unions. Undoubtedly, many workers worldwide think that the USA is different from other industrialised countries. Below 20 per cent of the workforce is organised and it is the only developed capitalist country without a mass party based on the working class. it seems, superficially, that Amer ican workers are different.
to blame tor undernourished sick children. Funds were raised to set up a WIL baby clinic.
Many local WLL branches supported women trade unionists and raised funds for strikers. The biggest campaign was on school meals, urging local authorities to adopt the Education (provision of Meals) Act of 1906. By 1912 131 out of 322 authorities provided meals for school children. In Bradford the district auditor surcharged the council for providing meals in school holidays which exceeded the product of the halfpenny rate. Unfortunately, much of this rich history for women's struggles goes unwritten by Collette who tends to rely on national Labour party records rather than local source material. Now the Labour Women's organisation is in danger of being abandoned by women in the Labour Party who have been taken in by the NEC's offer of 40 per cent quotas for women. A history of the WLL could have been used a weapon to defend a Labour women's organisation which really represents working-class women, not a mere structure to be tossed aside in exchange for a few more women in leadership positions. Collette's book has some useful information, but it is not a living document of working-class struggles and at $29.95 is not likely to be read by many working-class women or men.
However. beneath the surface, the labour movement has a powerful and militant tradition. After World War II there were 15 million workers organised into unions - 35 per cent of the nonagricultural workforce. This had been achieved by heroic strugg les of millions of workers organising in industries like motor vehicles, steel, chemicals, mining and textiles. In a movement that convulsed America, new unions were built and a new structure - the Congress of Industrial Organisations (CIO) - formed.
In spite of the crucial role of militants in these battles, the union leadership remained with those who accepted the rule of capitalism. They believed in 'business unionism' a philosophy based on the view that what was good for business was good for the workers.
[page 30]
In the long years of the post-
war boom it seemd that business
unionism was a success. Organis-
ed workers won high pay levels - probably the highest in the
world and many other rights such as pensions, lay-off pay and
health insurance. Union membership grew by seven million to reach 22 million by 1975, although the percentage of workers unionised had fallen to 29 per cent.
On the surface there was a stable relationship with employers accepting the unions while the unions backed big business at home and abroad. But with a new crisis in US and world capitalism which began in the mid-1970s this cosy relationship ended Everything changed as big business began a major attack on the unions for which the ladership was totally unprepared
The onslaught of the last 15 years was made easier by a lack of a party of Labour. In other industrialised countries the capitalists proceeded with caution as any head-on clash with workers could push them into political as well as industrial means to fight back.
Big business used many tactics, including unemployment, union busting and relocation of factories to weaken union power. The union leaders relied on the legal process through ballots to win recognition rather than industrial power, which the employers were able to frustrate through complex delaying and blocking tactics. They even used ballots to decertify unions. Rather than fight the employers, the union tops offered concessions, forcing their members to accept job and pay cuts to keep union contracts.
The decisive reason for the absolute decline in union membership to 17 million and as a share to 18 per cent was the leadership's refusal to use their organised power.
In the last decade companies have moved to new regions in the USA, while manufacturing jobs have declined, even in the economic upturn since 1982. The new service jobs have low union membership - only seven per cent of the 45 million workers in wholesale, retail, financial services are unionised.
This decline is not because unions are unpopular. In opinion polls 60 per cent approved of
ATLE
PRICES AG CLEO
unions and 53 per cent of non-
union service workers wanted
unionisation. This is no surprise
as unionised workers continue to
enjoy 30 per cent better pay on average.
However, to build unions in the face of determined employer resistance, takes more than opinion polls. It requires the same energetic mass action that characterised the battles of the 1930s. Yet the union leaders spend less per unorganised workers on recruitment that they did in the
1950s and 1960s.
Kim Moody provides many examples of workers fighting back against the twin obstacles of big business and a conservative bureaucratic leadership. But he has illusions in other, less effective, methods of struggle than industrial action. He believes in consumer burcotts. public lobbying, leatletting and publicity aimed at suppliers customers and bankers of employers in disputes. But these tactics can only be a useful auxiliary but never an alternative to union organisation and industrial action
The reality is that despite the policies of its leaders, unions are not in terminal decline. In key industrial states of California, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio and Michigan where 40 per cent of the American people live, there is 30 per cent union membership. This is a powerful force. And the 17 million membership overall is still higher than in the 1930s where in during the Great Depression it fell as low as three million. The traditions of American workers are for militant struggle and explosive union action. In the years after 1933 in
the face of brutal repression, through mass strike waves, sitdown occupations and regional general strikes, workers built up organised labour. All the forces exist today for a similar transformation. Most workers are discontented after a decade of declining real incomes. women, now a major part of the workforce, are a major growth area for unionisation, as are black and latino minorities who make up 20 per cent of the population.
Rather than being in decline, for organised labour the best days are yet to come
MIR Summer Book Re
•29 1989 riews
American Unions in political action ove prices in 1983.
Car workr demonstr on health care.
[page 31]
Have you a comment about this issue of MIR? Let's hear from you.
300 MIR Letters Dear Comrades, The recent murder of 'Chico' Mendes, the leader of the Amazon rubbertappers union, by right-wing landlords has highlighted even more the plight of the rainforests. Mendes was murdered because he led a fight against their wanton destruction for profit. An area roughly the size of Belgium is destroyed every year as huge multinationals cut down millions of acres for timber, cash crops, minerals. raising for or cheap cattle hamburger chains like McDonalds. This is the anarchy of capitalist 'development' and a crime against the future.
It is unbalancing the delicate scales of nature with potentially catastrophic results for the whole planet.
The burning of tropical forests and fossil fuels is contributing to the 'greenhouse' effect which is raising global temperatures high enough to melt polar icecaps and threaten to flood majot food producing areas. Chico Mendes had seen this direct link between poverty Dear Comrades, I found the brilliant analysis of British society in the article Can Labour Win? in MIR Spring 1989 very relevant when dealing with the latently explosive conditions in the 'soft South of England. I was unable to attend the anti-poll tax demo in Glasgow last March. That day I was in the butcher's when the national anthem was being played on the radio before Dear Comrades.
I was sad to see that Alan Woods' series of articles on the history of Bolshevism has ended, to be continued in a book. While I understand that with the launch of Fortress Books, there is no longer any need to serialise longer articles in the MIR. I feel that The funeral of 'Chico' Mendes. for local people and ecological destruction. Only the labour movement has the power to defeat the destructive role of capitalism and 'save the environment. It is an international problem that requires an international solution provided by the labour movement.
The Labour Party and the TUC should show the way the Wales-England rugby match. One of the women in the shop burst out that she would never stand for the anthem because all the Royal family and the government did was take money away from her. On the same day. one of my workmates told me that one of the worst things the IRA did was miss Thatcher when they tried to blow her hotel up in Brighton, although I don't they can still play a role. Firstly, they provide continuity. Many readers look forward to the next copy of MIR partly to read the next episode of the history of Bolshevism. I am sure that this has helped sales.
Secondly, and most importantly, being short of forward by calling a conterence on the environment to draw up i labour movement plan of action. and show that ecology is linked indissolubly with the socialist transformation of society. Chico Mendes showed the way, other must follow. Yours, Guy Baker Walthamstow, London support it.
The majority of workers and their families in the South hate Thatcher but they see no alternative in the Labour Party because it does nothing. But if we get involved in campaigns on the poll tax and other issues, the base for socialist ideas can grow here as well as in other parts of the country.
Yours, Jimmy Haddow Ramsgate, Kent time, most of my reading comes from papers, magazines and pamphlets. Had Alan Woods' series appeared simply as a book then more than likely it would still be unread on the bookshelf.
Yours, Russell Dawson Newcastle-upon-Tyne
[page 32]